Rachel K. Rachel

Gasp! There has been murder done at the Pike Place Market! Well, attempted murder. Of a PIGGY BANK.

Rachel the Piggy Bank at the Pike Place Market

The story is best explained in an article by Maureen O'Hagan in today's Seattle Times.

Market pig vs. Prius: And the winner is?

Maureen O'Hagan

Pig VS Prius

The time: the wee hours, Saturday.

The place: Pike Place Market.

The matchup: pig-versus-Prius.

The pig weighed in at about 550 pounds. The Prius a whole lot more.

And the winner? The pig, by a squeal.

According to James Haydu, a spokesman for the market, the battle was over in seconds.

The way the police told Haydu the story, a taxicab was waiting for the light to change at the corner of First Avenue and Pike Street when it was rear-ended by another vehicle. The force sent the taxi careening.

"The driver of the cab panicked and, for whatever reason, turned left into Pike Place Market," Haydu said. The taxi, a Prius, hit the pig.

The Prius was pretty beat up. The pig, known as Rachel, survived. She was down but not out.

The force pulled Rachel's feet from the cement that held her.

After the accident, two construction workers came by, hoisted her onto a dolly, and wheeled her into storage.

"She'll be up and running once we can pour new cement," Haydu said. Well, maybe not running, exactly, but you get the drift. She'll be back in her spot as the Market mascot soon.

And the cabbie? According to Haydu, he was taken to the hospital, treated and released.

Yes, it's true. Rachel the piggy bank in the Pike Place Market survived her attempted assassination by an ill-tempered Prius cab. (Yes, Seattle has hybrid cabs. ) Kevin and I discovered this while brunching at the Pike Place Grill, which has a great view of Rachel usually. We took these photos following our feast of eggs benedict and chili cheese omelette. 

"Taking a sick day -- Will be back to help the market's seniors and kids. Th-Oinks."

"We miss you, Rachel! Get well soon."

I have doubt over the events of this Prius accident. The distance from the traffic intersection at 1st Ave & Pike St. is at least 60 feet away from the brass pig. How fast was this alleged rear ender going? Do Prius breaks actually cause the vehicle to accelerate in ridiculous directions? I call shennanigans on the whole thing. Perhaps it is all a conspiracy, wrought with mystery and secret sausage. Secrets sausage? Yes. 

THE MOST SECRET SAUSAGE.

Rachel K. FAFSA

I went to visit my family's home in Virginia after University of Washington classes were finished and my math course at Seattle Central was completed. I got straight As! This is equally exciting as it has been in the past. I wear my Hermione Granger badge proudly.

While home, I talked to my parents about the troubles I was having making a decision over which school to attend. My parents told me that I should choose the school with the better reputation. But they BOTH have great reputations! Finally, after sleeping on it for the maximum time allotted, I decided to join the ranks of the Redhawks and send $500 to Seattle University.

The decision felt right enough, although I almost always have "buyer's regret," as some call it. In the end, I liked the idea of being in and out of a program quickly and getting out into the job market. I'm ready to DO things, and I don't want to waste any more time.

I returned to Seattle with a decision made, and promptly canceled all of the classes I had worked so hard to enroll in. The refunds of thousands of dollars made me feel better and better about my SU decision.

Now that I am all signed up for SU and they have received my generous and non-refundable donation of a few hundred smack-a-roos, it is time to get busy for an ACTUAL program, rather than getting busy on preparations for an actual program. I feel like I've leveled up!

Paperwork came and was filled out, an online portal account was registered for, and the last thing to do before starting classes in March was to apply for financial aid and get some money wired into my account (like magic.)

Of course, I had no idea how to go about getting money in my account. I knew that the money would appear and that they would expect me to pay it all back at some point, but I wasn't certain of any of those important application steps. So, I spent most of January looking into finances, which are my least favorite things to look into.

1. Head to www.fafasa.gov -- NOT -- fafsa.com, which is the same thing, except they ask you to pay $60 instead of $0. Shame on you, fafsa.com. In fact, FAFSA stands for the "FREE application for federal student aid." 
2. Start filling out the 2011-2012 FAFSA. 
3. Panic when the webpage prompts me for my 2010 tax information, which I do not have. 
4. Head to Seattle University's student services center and talk to a nice man who knows many things about FAFSA.
5. Become informed that I need to fill out the 2010-2011 FAFSA, not the 2011-2012 FAFSA. 
6. Panic because I do not have my tax records for 2009, which I now need. 
7. Contact IRS and have free 1040 transcripts sent to my house (it is extremely easy and I will link to it here in case anyone else has this issue.)
8. Receive 2009 tax transcripts and do a dance for joy.
9. Get back on fafsa.gov to fill out my 2010-2011 FAFSA. 
10. Realize that by entering my SSN and TIN that the FAFSA.gov website already has my tax information from 2009 and I didn't need to request a transcript in the first place. 
11. Face palm.
12. Fill out FAFSA. 

I imagine these 12 steps would be abridged to 3 simple steps if one is good at reading directions, which I am clearly not.

In any case, I am now able to borrow thousands of dollars from Uncle Sam for my first quarter of school, and will be able to borrow thousands more for the 2011-2012 school year soon.

And that is how I learned how to set myself up to owe thousands of dollars in 12 simple steps!

Rachel K. Arabic Culture

I slept last night! In fact, I slept for about fifteen hours and woke up around 1 in the afternoon. Oops!

Soon after, Zaydeh and I set out for the Seattle Center to see the Arab Culture Festival. We hopped on the Mighty Monorail from Westlake Center and got off at its only stop, Seattle Center.

It was another hot, sunny day today and people were pretty hot and sweaty at the festival. A few kids and some teenagers jumped around in the big, outdoor fountain facing the Space Needle. There were three stages at the festival, two indoors and one outside. We saw bits of belly dancing, 'hip hop' freestyling, and one blonde woman who did a seductive sort of dance with a lit candelabra on her head. Odd.

Still, we were doused in culture and it felt very good after being suffocated in "Japanese Culture" and other mayonnaise-soaked things for two years straight. There were some protesters, claiming that being at an Arab Festival would besmirch our names on Judgment Day. Such protesting evokes the name of Jesus Christ, who similarly used to preach the word of God while crashing someone else's party. Oh wait, he didn't. That was just those three jerk-hats.

Bigotry aside, we visited a Starbucks and sipped on some iced drinks and talked about what buses I should take to get to the apartment in winter when the sun sets at 4pm. The consensus is that Alaskan way is a great place to be, but it's better to be indoors after dark. The piers attract a lot of 'transients', so it can get a little sketchy. Fortunately there are a great many buses, and one such bus even dips down onto Alaskan Way (just for me!)

We came home with a bag full of pita, hummus and baba ghanoush -- a success in my book.

Zaydeh then told a long story about his 'rabid socialist' parents and their days spent owning a co-op in the Bronx. He even said, "I took the subway, which in those days cost a nickel." No onion on his belt, but maybe he left out some details. The story continued on to describe how he had gotten into genius school against his will by taking an examination with a 104º fever and writing about killing chickens. He misread the prompt, "killing time" as "KILLING-time" and the rest, as they say, is history.