Misc. thoughts and reports

Todd made an excellent comment to the 'berry picking' posting that I wouldn't want anyone to miss. Perspective is everything.

He is coming to visit this weekend. We are SO excited. It has been a long time (since Thanksgiving!) since we have seen him and even though he'll only be here 2 days we have a lot of fun stuff planned which hopefully will also allow us to visit mostly. He'll be moving to Portland in January for his new job, which we are also thrilled about - we'll actually have a cat sitter again, among other things!

I am just a month and a bit short of the year that was my goal for blogging. If anyone has a topic that hasn't been addressed - ask about it now or forever hold your peace! This might continue, but then again, it might not...

Red Poppies

Red poppies were planted in a road construction reclamation project along Hwy 18 southeast of here. I took a drive today to see them - and so I could spend the rest of the afternoon in my air conditioned car. Don't believe the weather reports! It is still terrifically hot here - at least in our little 3rd floor apartment. (What WERE we thinking?)

Heat, again

Wrong age, wrong temperament, wrong circumstances (wrong weight, for heaven sake) – I’m having a lot of trouble dealing with another Seattle heat wave. Being miserable is not my forte. I don’t DO ‘uncomfortable.’ (I know, I’ve said this before. But doesn’t misery just want to be spread around?)

Let’s face it – I’m soft. I wouldn’t be happy on safari, or exploring the rain forest. The Peace Corp would never have been a satisfying volunteer choice for me. I need my uninterrupted 9 hours of sleep with a good bed, an accommodating pillow, and a quiet, cool room. I have a very narrow comfort range, temperature-wise, of about 70 degrees, plus or minus 3 at the most. I can’t stand to be sweaty, to have dirty hands, or to not be able to wash my hair every morning. I get pissy and irritable when I’m hot and can’t do anything about it. (Come to think of it, I can’t say that I like to be cold either.)

Mostly I don’t like the part about not being able to do something about it all!

Not really at my best here in the heat.

An odd ‘hit’ on the internet

I used to have a lot of trouble searching the internet for odd things – somehow every time I tried, I’d go through pages and pages of irrelevant stuff and then finally give up. I guess I wasn’t using the right key words or understanding how the search engine worked, but it just seemed so easy when Mark did it…

Anyway, I was thinking about a movie the other day – one I’d seen snatches of a few years ago and never caught again. It was on TV and I was, as usual, flipping through channels and lacking concentration. The movie was set, mid-century, on an ocean liner and had some guy playing a grand piano in an empty ballroom during a storm. He had let the piano loose from its moorings and was gliding around the ballroom on wheels as the ship tossed from side to side; in time, naturally, to the music he was playing. (Yes, I know… the bench had to be attached somehow and they aren’t usually, but that’s part of the magic of cinema…) That’s the only scene I saw. But I entered ‘movie ship piano’ into Google and, sure enough, the third listing was for the movie “The Legend of 1900” – and evidently that scene figured prominently and was described, so sure enough, it was THAT movie.

There is something magical about living in a time when such answers are at our fingertips, just for the asking. (When I was in college we had to take special training in using the research library – and it didn’t do a fraction of the job that Google can do for you!) For years important questions have gone unanswered in my life, but now I can find out anything I want to know – i.e. whatever happened to Molly Ringwald; what is a bindlestiff; where can we get New Balance cross-trainers; how much are Mariners baseball tickets; where does Bill Gates live; which Dick Francis books don’t I have… Every day, dozens of questions and instant answers.

There was a Katherine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy move (Desk Set, 1957 – see how easy it is?) about the head of a TV research department – Hepburn – pitted against a computer (designed by Tracy) that comes out badly for the computer (of course) but in MY world, the internet is king.

Which is all fine if the computer works. But 2 days ago ours crashed. All we had was the “blue screen of death.” It wouldn’t boot up at all. Resident genius Mark rolled it back and got it working again of course, but for a while there I was having a bit of a panic thinking that my next important question might go unanswered.

Pennies from Heaven

One of the side effects of moving is that you keep getting refunds from all those services that you pre-pay – the garbage collection, cable TV, your monthly phone bill. Eight months after leaving Kentucky and three months after closing down the house there, I think I finally received the last refund yesterday. Amazing.

(That’s actually a record in quick processing, believe it or not. In January, we received a credit on one of our credit cards for the over-collection of service fees from ADT for home security protection in California. Two years after we moved. Yes, we really should keep better track!)

Why is it that we are so thrilled with ‘found’ money? People look in coin return slots, ever hopeful for a little gift. We’re thrilled with promotional give-aways, rebate coupons, and coins in parking lots. I once found $16 in single dollar bills in a wad on a sidewalk – and obviously still remember it today! And Mark gets quite a thrill from taking collected loose change in to the coin machine – usually $40+ worth by the time we get around to it.

So what am I going to do with this great windfall of $40.64 from refunded garbage collection fees? Surely this calls for something wonderful.

Berry picking

I used to have my own berry patch. At the house in Alaska, there were salmonberry bushes right outside my kitchen door and I had only to go out with my berry bucket every morning to pick whatever was ripe. I would wash them and put them in a baggie in the freezer until I had enough to make a batch of salmonberry jelly – my favorite. (Of course I’d have to get there before Father Jerry, the priest in the Catholic Church that was just downhill from my house and my bushes. He liked to pick them for his morning cereal. Not that he didn’t appreciate the jelly I made as well!)

But here in Washington, I don’t have a garden yet, or even a patch of ground. I see a lot of berries on public lots and along trails – are THOSE berries OK to pick on a large scale? I don’t know, so I don’t. (Besides, my grandmother’s berry bucket is in a box in storage somewhere and it just wouldn’t be the same without it.)

Anyway, I’ve been seeing salmonberries along the trails we’ve hiked on recently and it got me to thinking about berry picking times. When we first moved to Alaska, we lived ‘out the road’ on Wrangell Island. (There was only ‘in town’ and ‘out the road’ as possibilities of where to be on an island with only 10 miles of paved road!) Behind the house we were renting (when we first moved there) were blueberry bushes. I’d put Todd in the baby carrier on my back and out we’d go with a bucket to collect blueberries. He’d sit in his little seat and peer carefully into the bushes and then point his little finger. “I see a blueberry” he’d say until I found and picked exactly the one he was pointing to among the hundreds of possibilities. Then he’d look for another one.

We found out pretty quickly that all those berries were likely to have worms in them. We were surprised – appalled, really – but the old-timers knew that was inevitable and just soaked the berries in salted water to bring out the worms before they ate them The lesson there was – don’t eat while you pick! (Unless you don’t mind a little extra protein.)

Friends of ours used to take their dog with them when they picked blueberries, hoping that the dog would act as an early warning system for bears which, of course, were also out there picking berries. This only works if you actually pay attention to the dog, but our friends would invariably yell at him to stop barking or whining, forgetting why he was there as they concentrated on particularly productive berry bushes. The dog would finally beat his own hasty retreat back home to let his ‘people’ work out the division of berries with the bear on their own. Idiots, he’d think, I’m sure. HE wasn’t taking the chance!

We spent more happy hours in Alaska poking around old ‘clear-cut’ areas picking berries than I could have counted. We were always on the lookout for bears, and saw a lot of ‘stump bears’ – but not many of the real thing. (Stump bears, for the uninitiated, are tree stumps that stick up in a clear-cut area and look like they might be bears to those of us who are timid about bumping noses with a bear and who have an active imagination.) Berry bushes are among the first things to fill in a clear-cut so they were popular with all berry seekers, two- and four-legged varieties.

My dad was a champion berry picker, mostly because he never met a blueberry pie he didn’t love. Motivation! He and my mother would be out there with Todd and I and we’d all have to hold up our buckets to compare results every so often – neither he nor Todd wanted to fall short of the average. Many were the times my mother or I would have to give up some of our own to even things out - or catch up.

There is something lacking about just buying berries at the store. So if we ever do manage to get a house here, I think berries would be a great thing to plant. I can’t wait!

Gretchen

Mark’s parents lost their dog yesterday – to a hormonal problem that suddenly blinded her and would have caused more problems than would have been humane to expose her to. So Gretchen is gone and she leaves a big hole in the heart of anyone who knew her. She was quite a character; a lovable, funny, giving and caring ‘character.’ Friend, entertainer and exercise companion, she had a big place in their home and family.

She had a bazillion toys to play with and seemed to love every one. As with most dogs, ‘Enthusiasm’ should have been her middle name. A somewhat plump little Schnauzer with a beard, she was especially cute in her little sweater that had to go on before she went out in the winter. She was so patient and helpful about getting it on, despite her obvious excitement about going outside. And then the door would open and off she’d go, sure that there was a bunny or a bird or something invading HER yard that she needed to run off. Duties dispatched, she’d come bounding back in and jump up to her place on the sofa and wait to be covered up with a towel so she could get warm again. (Maybe it was Mark’s parents who were the ‘characters’ here?)

What joy we get from our pets. Why can’t they just live longer? How do we manage when they don't?

American Goldfinch

Just tidying up loose ends here...

In our wanderings at the Nature Preserve on Saturday, we discovered that the birds frequenting our feeder are American Goldfinches. Washington’s State Bird. They are frequently spotted in the summer; less so in the spring, which may account for the slow start we got a few months ago with our feeder. Evidently they like Thistles – and I have no idea whether our seed is similar but it seems to fit the bill, so to speak.

The cats are cackling at them like mad. Even Maddie, who has always had vocalization problems, is learning, from Frik, how to produce the ‘birdy’ noise. And all that fuss inside the screen doesn’t bother these Goldfinches in the least. They are still chowing down, blissfully unaware that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

From BOMBAY to MUMBAI

Somehow the name change slipped by me. Bombay is now Mumbai – did you know that? In 1997, fifty years after the British left India, the government decided to ‘delete colonial rule from public memory’ and changed the name back to Mumbai, a legendary ‘divine’ protectress, and the original name from way back when. I guess I was paying too much attention to the millennium crisis to notice the name change when it happened?

It was in 1935 that the Shah changed Persia into Iran. Siam became Thailand (land of the free in the Thai language) in 1939 but went back to Siam after its embarrassing alliance with Japan during the war. It changed back to ‘Thailand’ again in 1949 though. Ceylon became Sri Lanka, Belgian Congo became Zaire, British Honduras became Belize, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Southwest Africa became Namibia and the dissolution of the USSR created a myriad of hither-to unrecognized –ias and –stans: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan…

Good grief. Really makes you wonder why Todd’s 7th grade geography teacher was so hot on having his classes memorize all the countries and their capitals.

Tough to keep up. Evidently the stamp collectors are having as much trouble as the historians and geographers. One has to wonder if it is really national pride or a heck of a sales job on the part of the people who make the stationery and maps.

I don’t really have a point here. Just kept running across ‘Mumbai’ and wondering how that happened and why I didn’t notice it and one thing led to another. You know how it is. With the internet available one can find answers to all perplexing questions in a bat of the eye – or a few letters typed into Google.

And now that I’ve done this… Would this be an appropriate time to say “Have a nice day?” Or maybe add a smiley face? (Good grief - am I really losing it here?)

Twin Falls

With another non-rainy day yesterday, we did a little more hiking - this time into the mountains to explore the trail at Twin Falls. And it was wonderful. We just had a bit of an issue with the author of our guidebook, who said this was a trail for hikers 'of all abilities.' It was uphill both ways. (Then again, maybe we ARE at the bottom end of the 'ability' scale? I wouldn't like to think so, as often as we are 'out there.') Despite the considerable elevation gain (and loss, and gain, and loss...) we had a great hike.

Perhaps because it was Father's Day, there were SO many other people on the trail. But curiously, almost all of them had along a golden retriever. We were beginning to feel like we hadn't gotten the memo.

I still haven't gotten the knack of taking pictures in the dark forest. I ended up with a lot of out-of-focus or just hard-to-identify-a-subject sort of pictures. I really need some help there! But between the two hikes, I did update the "Recent Excursions" page on my website. Take a look if you are interested!

And for whatever reason, Mark got a bee in his bonnet about having to find a Dairy Queen afterwards. He used to hike with someone who always wanted to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home and it just came back to him, I guess.

We couldn't find one. Alas.

P.S. Usually being, as you know, without a plan, I have a new one of sorts. I am starting a new job today, part time, in a small office... I'm so excited!

Mark is home!

Hooray! It was a long week. Frik is doing much better now. So is his mom.

And to celebrate, we went hiking (of course) to Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge where we saw beautiful views of a marsh and the lower Puget Sound tidal flats. There were birds galore, but no sign of the river otters we really wanted to see. But the flowers were wonderful, including my very favorite from Alaska, fireweed. There were salmonberries too!

Professional eating

There was a video of a grilled cheese sandwich eating contest on the internet that I watched inadvertently, thinking it was going to be something about the Virgin Mary’s visage or something. Oh well. But it got me to wondering. Who comes up with this stuff? And why? Remember, I have a little too much time on my hands this week? So I'm off and running, so to speak, about Professional Eating...

We’ve followed with great interest the career of the indisputable top-of-his-game-best professional eater, Takeru Kobayashi. He is the guy who wins the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest – 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes last time – every year on the 4th of July. Kobayashi weighs only 113 pounds (before the contest) and there is some speculation about him having 2 stomachs, but so far the International Federation of Competitive Eating (yes – the IFOCE - every professional sport has to have its governing body!) has so far refused to consider drug or DNA testing regulations so it’s all just a maddening mystery to his competition, the closest of whom manages only 26 hot dogs.

Like other sports, the competitors have nicknames: Kobayashi is “The Tsunami”, and there is also the “Locust,” “Badlands,” “El Wingador” (no, I don’t really know how that relates) and, of course, “Hungry” Charles Hardy.

There are also techniques that have been 'named,' to facilitate further discussion maybe... or, well, actually I can’t imagine why they would need to be ‘named’ but there you have it. There is the “Solomon” method (split the dogs in half to put both pieces in the mouth at the same time) and "The Double Japanese" (putting two hot dogs in at once, then dipping two buns in water and putting them in at the same time.) For that matter, suffering a “roman-method incident” will disqualify you – according to IFOCE rules.

And we all know what THAT means.

Internet gamblers even put odds on these contests – Kobayashi was favored to win by 20 dogs.

Of course there are other venues besides ‘Nathan’s Famous’ on Coney Island. (There is more than Augusta in golf, isn’t there?) There are eating contests for cow brains (17.8 pounds in 15 minutes), jalapenos (152 in 15 minutes), chicken wings (137 in 30 minutes), burritos (15 in 8 minutes), hard-boiled eggs (38 in 10 minutes), oysters (168 in 10 minutes), jars of mayonnaise (four 32-oz jars in 8 minutes) and even butter (Don Lerman ate seven quarter-pound sticks of butter in five minutes.) Presumably for the glory of it?

Actually, it isn’t just the glory. Kobayashi ate his way to $150,000 last year.

I just wouldn’t want to be around for the aftermath.

Oh yeah – the grilled cheese guys? 47 in 10 minutes. And a week of intestinal agony, no doubt. Maybe there’s a ‘Virgin Mary’ visage in there somewhere after all?

It could be from The Onion

But it isn’t. We should be worried about this.

The Onion is, of course, the very funny collection of made-up news stories celebrating the mundane and ridiculous in life as if it was news. Onion headlines usually tell a non-story like “Man disappointed that crackers are stale” and then elaborates with the typical ‘stuff’ of a news article; the ‘who, what, where, why and how’ of it all. Quotes are given, neighbors are interviewed… the whole thing is a hilarious parody of mainstream news sources.

Or so we think. But recently, looking at the articles/headlines that actually ARE mainstream news, I’m not so sure one hasn’t been mixed with the other. For example, and I quote from MSNBC’s main news page from June 15th:

• Wade says knee is feeling ‘a lot better’
• Cuban is lucky and good
• Don’t get too excited, Heat fans
• Heroin users dying for a high across US
• Why we sneeze in the sun
• Tips for a great backside
• Bigfoot alive in Minnesota? (at least they had the decency to put a question mark at the end of this one!)
• Bush apologizes for glasses faux pas
• Big Ben vows to wear helmet while riding cycle

This is important stuff?

I get off on this theme every once in a while, I know. But a couple of days ago there was an article about how investors have lost some $3 trillion over the last 2 weeks because things the new Fed chairman said threw the market into a tailspin. (I'm one of those investors, and it wasn't pretty.) I can't find that article today at all. Today all is rosy on Wall Street and the Fed guy is whistling a slightly different tune. Those were headlines too.

So what is real? What is important? What should I be attending to? It is ALL from The Onion.

Slang

I ran across a Glossary of Hard Boiled Slang the other day on the internet. Quite fun – but under copyright, so you’ll have to look at it yourself. It follows all the old 'gumshoe' novels and their colorful substitutions for dire consequences... 'swimming with the fishes' and so on.

Just a suggestion for your amusement.

That ‘radio’ voice

I don’t usually listen to the radio. Hate all the commercials, hate the music transitions, usually don’t like the music. But for the past few days I’ve spent some time in waiting rooms where the radio was playing, and now I am wondering: Why do all DJs sound alike? And the corollary question: Which came first, The Voice or the job?

Who decided what the norm should be? Who decided there should be a ‘norm’ in the first place? How did this get started, and why does it continue?

Is it that you don’t get a chance if you don’t sound like that in the first place? Or maybe everyone who aspires to a DJ position practices sounding like DJs are ‘supposed to’ sound before they even apply for the job? It is a ‘voice’ I can’t duplicate myself – something about the production of it, and the projection of it…

(All women sports announcers sound alike too – same accent, same tone, same ‘hardness’ in their delivery. Like they are all trying to sound like men. An equal but, I realize, irrelevant mystery.)

I don’t get it. DJs have sounded like that for as long as I can remember. And for the life of me I can’t figure out what could be so appealing, so compelling, so irrefutable, so… perpetual about ‘that radio voice’.

Cats in frustration

I had to leave for a bit yesterday morning for a haircut appointment. When I got back to the apartment, the cats had collected all their toys and deposited them by the front door. There were the beloved ‘mittens’, their string, the fluffy ball, two little plastic ‘toss’ toys …

Do you think they are moving out? ‘Wherever Dad went, we’re going too’ sort of thing? We’re bored? We’re lonely?

We’re psychotic?

Lesson on Slugs

I think I’ve mentioned the difficulty we’ve had lately on our walks trying to avoid slugs on the sidewalk. They have diminished some because the rain has diminished, but now there are silvery slime trails left behind everywhere on the sidewalks to remind me that I wanted to know more about them. So here is Slugs 101:



They are “Gastropods” – from the Greek word gastros (stomach) and podos (foot) in the “mollusk" phylum, classified along with octopuses, squids, clams, oysters and snails. They have no visible means of propulsion and seem to just glide, although they are actually using muscle contractions to move forward.

But the most interesting thing about them is their slime. They produce enough of it to build a 'slime road' to travel on – basically so they don’t dry up as they go. The slime also protects their fleshy underparts from any sharp objects that they might move across - they can actually ooze their way over razor blades without injury. (Putting me in mind of the line from My Fair Lady: "Oozing charm from every pore, he oiled his way across the floor.") But the slime is also their defense against predators – they are just plain unappetizing to toads and other eaters because they clog everything up with their sticky, gooey slime. Yuck.

Just a couple of other tidbits of information – if you get slime on you, white vinegar helps to get it off. And chopsticks are the best tools to use to remove slugs from your plants – makes it less disgusting.

And they are REALLY disgusting!

(My sister was hoping we'd get pictures of them while she was here, but they are sort of low to the ground and not easy to take pictures of... so I swiped these off the internet.)

Happy Birthday Todd!

Today is my son's 25th birthday. He is, of course, miles away (traveling to Canada today to give a presentation, actually) and I'm just hating the distance that age has put between us. What a rotten trick it all is - we strive to raise our kids to be responsible, independent, accomplished adults and then they actually turn out that way! And leave us! I know that was my 'intent' but did he have to take it so seriously?

He's been 'launched' since he went off to college at 18. I was so proud then. Still am, of course, but somehow the fact that he'd never really live with us again didn't seem like part of the bargain.

When he was little we used to pour through books of house plans, dreaming of future luxuries, and he would always look first for which would be HIS bedroom. I guess little kids always think they will live with their moms. I had him convinced of that for years, until a friend’s sons went off to college and didn’t take ‘mom’ with them. That’s when he started getting suspicious. That’s when the downhill started. Oh well.

Twenty five years. What an amazing time it’s been.

What to do with an empty week?

Mark has had to go out of town on business for a week. Bad enough that he had to leave early on a Saturday morning, worse that he won’t be home until sometime next Friday.

So the cats and I have to manage a week without him – our primary source of entertainment. It’s probably worse for the cats. Since he is the one who feeds them (Frik has to have an asthma pill with his meals and that can get pretty hairy, no pun intended) they get peevish and concerned when he doesn’t come home. I feed them then instead, but they don’t seem to think that ‘counts’ somehow. By the time he is several hours overdue they are both glaring at me like they think it is my fault. We’re going to have to come to some kind of understanding here.

So, what can we do with an empty week? Uh oh, I need a plan here...

People in pictures

My photography efforts have sometimes been criticized for their lack of human subjects, which many consider to bring life and interest to pictures.

Actually, my husband is a frequent subject in my photos, however reluctantly he poses. Since he is usually the only one around, he ends up in front of my lens rather often, poor guy. He’s even usually nice about it – which is more than I deserve since I have quite a knack for catching people with their eyes closed and their mouths open – forever frozen in time as they really don’t mean to be.

I have to say, though, that there seems to me to be some justified ‘symmetry’ to the world in this. The images that have captured me throughout my life have always been hilarious. In a not very flattering way, of course. I have a ridiculous smile in the first place and subtlety has never been my strong suit when it comes to facial expressions. I cannot look mysterious or aloof or pouty or sexy or even, possibly, just friendly in a picture. Instead I always look slightly crazed.

Some years ago my family put together a video collection of family pictures for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Fortunately we were a family of 6 (by then expanded to 25 maybe, give or take a few of the younger ones) so no one person bore a burden of overexposure on the video. But certainly every time my picture showed up it was cause for laughter. There was my oldest sister in her elegant ballet costume with her arms ‘en couronne’ – gracefully curved upward, in ballet-speak. And my second sister in a fetching hula garb with appropriate and equally graceful gestures. And me, also in a tutu (not wanting to be left out but too young for summer recreation opportunities) standing there with my arms on my hips, flat-footed, my short, always rod-straight hair hanging over my funny little face with that silly grin.

But it was the group photos in the collection that really showed the aberration – everyone else looking appropriately at the puppy or Christmas tree or whatever, but me with my head at a slightly weird angle, straining (obviously, for what else could be the origin of that look?) to be seen by the camera as appropriately posed and happy but, also obviously, translating that intent into something not quite what it should be…

School pictures, however, were the best (worst?) Not always the most flattering to even the most photogenic, school pictures do at least end up showing the progression of growth and maturity – except for me. The best that can be said of my collection of school pictures is that they all – and there is no question about this – look like me. My mother’s attempts at putting some curls into my straight hair resulted in corkscrew knobs over each ear that Pippi Longstocking would have been proud of. And that ridiculous grin is present in each and every picture.



(I am, of course, publishing the picture for my mother’s benefit. "Only a mother could love...")

To my sister – and this was the original point I was going to make and never actually got around to – the picture I took of you in front of the lighthouse when you were here? You’re probably not going to like it. Your eyes are closed and you are in the middle of saying something…

Didn’t really have it together there…

I think I ran around all day yesterday with one of those dryer sheets / fabric softener thingies sticking out of my pant leg. Or possibly just wadded up inside, making a suspicious looking lump somewhere there shouldn’t have been a lump at all (suspicious or otherwise.) I suspect this because today, as I was doing the laundry, I saw it peeking out of my jeans just before I dumped them in the washer.

Now you’d think that my sister, a class act herself of course, would have brought it to my attention as we tooled around posh shops in Winslow and Poulsbo yesterday. Or that someone in our dinner party would have noticed and saved me the embarrassment. But no. I have to see it myself, long after any possibility of saving face. (OK – those of you who are more literate in their thinking – Mark – I will have to say that I realize it wasn’t my ‘face’ that was at risk.)

No wonder people were so friendly. I got a lot of smiles, a few waves… People love to know that someone else didn’t really have it together when they left their house in the morning. It makes us all feel better somehow.

So I was just doing my part to make the world a happier place.

I had a great time with Janet and Render while they were visiting!

His name was Crapper

“In a perfect world” she said, “His name would have been John Crapper. John P. Crapper. But this is not a perfect world and his name was, in fact, Thomas A. Crapper. I don’t know what the A. stands for – feel free to make your own assumptions there.”

We were listening to the tour guide on the Seattle Underground Tour and she was, of course, talking about the inventor of the modern flush toilet, a device which figures prominently in the history of a place that is build on tidal flats. That Seattle residents were surprised, when they bought thousands of them off a boat from England many years ago, that they needed to connect them to a city sewer system (“what’s that?”) was just one indication that this city had a long way to go toward becoming the jewel of the Northwest that it is today.

Yesterday we did Seattle – the market, the waterfront and the Underground Tour. We even did the ‘fantasy’ thing in the market – shopped for fish, vegetables, crusty bread and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Great fun - great day.





A Seattle sidewalk, from the dark and seemy underside.

Allergies

There is something out there that doesn’t like me.

I was sneezing at the alarming rate of one every 5 seconds for most of the afternoon yesterday; a horrible attack, lasting several minutes, followed by a period of itchy throat and pressure in the sinuses. Then back to sneezing. It’s been a bit of a show stopper.

And it is just this sort of thing that puts the skids to dreams of gardening here in the Northwest. We worked with a landscape designer when we lived in Oregon a few years back – to design a beautiful back garden and patio that could be enjoyed mostly from inside the house in the air conditioning with the HEPA filter. She thought we were nuts. Or a sad case, perhaps.

Looks like we might have to do the same thing here, which brings us around to ‘freeway plants.’ These are right up our alley – plants that can be planted on freeway interchanges or medians and pretty much left alone. I am trying to catalog them as they come into bloom this spring so I know what to try when (if?) we get our own place. Freeway plants. Great.

Unless, of course, they are exactly what is out there that doesn’t like me!

Overkill

OK – I got over my indecision and am now into ‘overkill.’ I have a written plan of action, destinations mapped out for efficiency and timing, and meals accounted for. I have written directions to our apartment – including maps with highlights and arrows – printed up from my word processing program onto which I cut and pasted some Yahoo map details. I have shopping lists. The apartment is cleaned (except for the plants and bird feeder inside because they are still power-washing the building) and the cats are informed of arriving guests to the extent to which I can inform them. I have a map and directions to the hotel in Everett and am armed with the latest weather report.

(A side note about the power washing – they were doing the door and outside landing and I was peeping through the peephole and got splashed! Not through the peephole, but from around the outside of the door, which obviously fits loosely in its frame. Frik was nearby. He was not happy.)

So I am ready. And really going to have a great week.

Indecision

My sister and her husband are going to be in Seattle on business this week and I get to play tour guide for her for a couple of days. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks – but suddenly I am wracked with indecision!

What to do? Where to go? During the weekend I am fairly confident about going to downtown Seattle – but what about parking on weekdays? What about traffic on I-5 and on the ferries? How to manage the distance between where they will be in Everett and where I am in Redmond? How long DID it take us to get to Leavenworth or Bellingham or any of the other wonderful places we’ve been. Good grief! It shouldn’t be this hard.

And of course it isn’t.

I just finished reading a book called Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel. It’s about a young man named Dwight who seemed to have perpetual ‘Dwightness,’ seeming to everyone to just be the same old guy they went to high school with, unchanged by the years, basically because he couldn’t decide on any ‘next steps’ to take in life. Finally he decided (an oxymoron, you’ll see) that he had Abulia.

Abulia: Loss or impairment of the ability to make decisions or act
independently

So now I’m wondering if I have Abulia too. This would explain a lot. And maybe there would be medication to offset the symptoms? I could really use a treatment plan about now.

I’m sure this is yet another symptom of the lack of stability in my life at the moment. I’m sure I’ll get back to where I have some confidence in deciding some of the simple things at least. But for now…

I'm going to research Abulia. Maybe. Or maybe I won't bother. I can't decide.

Seattle

We had to escape from noise yesterday. More power washing, more equipment running, more annoyance at the apartment… so we fled west to the city once again. And I think we must have walked 10 miles – from one end to the other and back. There is a park at the end of the waterfront district that goes north way past Queen Anne Hill which we walked through, and then we went south, back to Pioneer Square – on the other end of the city – to Smith Tower. Quite a trip.

(And yes, we stopped for lunch, and found Stikine River King Salmon from Wrangell, Alaska on the menu and had to have some, of course. Yum!)

Smith Tower is quite the place. For many years the tallest building west of the Mississippi, it is still the best vantage point in Seattle – including a straight view back to the Space Needle. Just to give you some perspective, this picture was taken about halfway through the park at the north end of the city, with a view back to the Needle and the Seattle Skyline. If you can pick out the tiny spire that is the very last building you can see of the 'big' city – that is Smith Tower. (And yes, there is a grain elevator in front of the city - oh well. They wouldn't move it for the picture. But if you can make out the cruise ship at the pier, Smith Tower is the pointy building just to the left of it.)

Alternatively, here is the view from Smith Tower, back toward the Needle:

Pretty impressive, huh? Yes, we walked the whole way. (And, of course, back to the car again!) We were beat. But what a day!

(More pictures and description on my website if you are interested.)

Comfort Zones

As I was putting away some laundry yesterday I came across Frik, in the closet, sleeping on a pile of jeans on a shelf. He likes to be there – it is quiet, warm, dark and ‘unsurprising’ (i.e. Maddie can’t sneak up and pounce on him.) He was definitely in his comfort zone.

I have a bunch of ‘comfort zones’ – regarding such things as personal space, possessions, food, money in my checkbook… The list goes on and on. I am, evidently, a very ‘comfortable’ person. Or maybe I am a very ‘comfort-seeking’ person.

Maybe I’m just nuts.

When someone brushes close by me to pass on a trail or sidewalk without any warning – that’s a Big Time violation of my comfort zone. I startle easily and get that ‘pins shooting through my skin’ feeling when my personal space is violated like that. (And the inconsiderate boobs who do that usually just laugh when I am obviously having a heart attack on the sidewalk and near tears with the panic –what is WRONG with these people? You just don’t sneak up on a woman like that!)

But there are other instances too, of course. Down to only one roll of toilet paper? Yikes! That's a very uncomfortable feeling. Too hot at night for covers? Sorry – at least a sheet is absolutely necessary. Functioning email access – critical! I’d have to say that, for me, serenity means having pretzels filling my pretzel jar, having access to at least a small pile of yet-unread books, and at least one special event or plan to look forward to...

Of course, gooey casseroles, fried chicken or pot roast put me decidedly IN a comfort zone. So do my Pendelton wool blankets – to lie on the sofa under – in the winter. Having a couple of blog topics in mind, knowing there is money in our savings account, having easy access to my son through his cell phone, a pint of chocolate ice cream in the freezer, an email message from Mark… all very comforting things.

Another very comforting thing – a call from the new realtor. Things have suddenly really picked up and there is all kinds of activity on our house. Maybe????

I’m not really comfortable getting my hopes up…

The Mountain

Living so close to majestic Mt. Rainier; catching glimpses of it on the horizon; hearing on the news when it is particularly visible or spectacular; seeing pictures, paintings, coffee cups, t-shirts, and all other manner of souvenirs featuring it… very enticing!

But it turns out that you can’t really GO there.

Snow loads are such that roads are only open, basically, in June, July, August and early September, although some of them are listed as ‘scheduled opening, June 29th’ (not much of June left there) and still others as not likely to open this season at all. Snow loads have also been a big problem at Paradise Lodge – the main entrance point to the best views, maybe? – which is literally falling down under the pressure and now being rebuilt. But the big problem is parking.

With construction, the already pathetically meager parking situation is down to 3 spaces and a cliff. The website suggests that you ‘carpool’ to the mountain. (Does this sound familiar? Unlike the zoo, there is no bus.) Even without the construction complications, evidently you need to go during the week and avoid holidays or even week days close to holidays in order to get a parking place – which fill up ‘by noon’ according to our sources. (The park is, of course, 3-4 hours drive from our place.)

I suppose one person could hang out of the car window as you drive by and take pictures so that you can see it when you get home.

Of course there don’t seem to be any plans to increase parking; that would, no doubt, spoil the esthetics of the thing for the only people who seem to be able to actually enjoy it up close – the Park Service employees. The ones who are doing the planning for all this. Looking into this, I find that the annual budget for the park is some $9,052,000 and includes 125 permanent positions, several term positions and 165 seasonal positions. All of whom, presumably, need a parking place first.

I looked further, for: Annual Performance Goals: Curiously, the first stated goal in their ‘plan’ is “for the enjoyment of the people.” They just don’t specify which people. Visitation is declining, they say, with evident remorse, in their “Annual Plan.” This is due to the parking problem, they also admit. But nowhere in the plan are ‘plans’ for increasing parking. There is a comment about “because there have been no restrictions on the number of vehicles entering the park…” so I would guess that is their preferred solution instead.

I’m sorry to be missing it all. The pictures are lovely. Wish I had some of my own. But I guess that won’t be happening. We’ll just keep on paying the taxes to support it all. That should be enjoyment enough.

Juan Valdez

I was perusing business news last night and came across the story that Colombia’s coffee ambassador to the world – Juan Valdez – is retiring after 4 decades of posing in a poncho, straw hat and bushy mustache next to a mule (Conchita, we are informed.) Amazing. The guy is 71 years old. He was described as one of the most famous Colombians of all time albeit fictional.

Gee. They are looking for a ‘new’ Juan Valdez. Qualifications? He must have a mustache.

Noise; constant noise

I should be tired of this topic by now – probably everyone else is – but need to reassert that NO ONE over 25 years of age should EVER have to live in an apartment complex.

Our ‘place’ is in the middle of renovations sparked by new ownership. They are repairing the parking lot, cleaning and repainting the buildings, bringing in a new sign for the entryway and sprucing up the landscaping. Great huh? Sounds good, does it? (And for this they are also increasing the rent by some 20%, but we should all just be happy to live in this great place.)

Last week the parking lot repairs meant that someone was right outside my building with a jackhammer all day. Two days ago – ALL day – it was a compressor and pressure washer – that went on until after 8pm. Yesterday it was weed whackers and lawn mowers and blowers – and the air compressor again. I can't wait to see what today brings.

Frik has developed a nervous twitch. Maddie is living under the bed. I should have stock in whoever makes Excedrin.

I thought the Pope reconsidered, years ago, and did away with Purgatory. What am I in then?