Birthdays and Cherries

For my birthday, which was a very weird day but was also very good, I did a couple of things, including crossing something off my Bucket List. Incidentally, earlier in the week a friend had convinced me to get an iphone 4s so now I am in the world of smartypants phones which aren't really smart. But I have to say I adore the talk to text feature. Good thing I have unlimited texting - I think my volume has at least quadrupled since I got The Thing. Anyway, I treated myself to taking pictures on the way to work. Hence why the Japanese maple above, left.

I also chose the restaurant for my birthday lunch...I was treated by my coworkers. It was: Pink Door, in Pike Place Market.
The door really is pink.

Rating: 3.75 stars. Three of us got the Bolognese. It was pretty good. I thought, holy cow, that is a bird-sized portion. And I wished there was a little more sausage. The flavor was not overbearing, or bland...it was...flavorful. The dried cherry on the chocolate sampler we got was my favorite part of the meal though. The dark chocolate cake was good too (ordered for my coworkers, who love chocolate.) There was construction (not their fault) but it was really noisy, and the server took awhile to come to our table to take our order, and again to take the check. The birthday candle was a nice touch though. :)

Here is a hodgepodge of birthday-week photos. The photo bug has really bitten me - apologies for those of you who don't like so many pixels in blog posts.
Here are the aforementioned flowers my coworkers sent me for my birthday. The place they always order them from always puts so many green flowers in their arrangements - it's beautiful, but strikes me as a little odd sometimes. I guess when you arrange flowers all the time you don't want everything to be vibrant all the time.

Anyway, my birthday was excellent in a lot of ways. I gave myself lots of presents and received some presents, too - and the promise of future presents as well, to extend the general holiday feeling for those who weren't quite on time with the mailing process. Awesome. (No sarcasm - I really mean it!) I got off at 3 for Good Friday and went home and cleaned my apartment. It was like I thought I was going to have a party, when in fact by the time I got done with everything I was exhausted and it was late. Two friends who were going to dinner invited me to go and so we went to a teriyaki place on The Ave, which I can't remember the name of otherwise I would rate it. It wasn't the best teriyaki ever but it wasn't the worst I've had either. And then we went to Tango for dessert because M especially adores chocolate. Every once in awhile I just walk into Tango and as soon as we sit down I just say, "We'll have a Diablo. Thanks."

Rating: Tango. 4.5 stars. It's been almost 2 yrs since I had their tapas, so I don't feel qualified, though the bbq pork taco-ish things were really good. What I really love is the Diablo, which is like extra thick supreme mousse with a marshmallow melted lovely thing (it really is lovely and I usually don't even like marshmallows) with almonds dipped in cayenne pepper and a to-die-for tequila caramel sauce. The restaurant is really dark and can get really loud. Also, since it's a popular place sometimes the wait time can be a bit longer than desired.

 Then for Easter Dinner there was ham sauteed with pineapple, asparagus, raw milk and gatorade. And let us not forget Easter Jello, which has kind of a sad background but is a happy thing, as it reminds me of Special Occasions when I was a kid.

Easter Jello is raspberry jello with frozen raspberries and nonfrozen bananas in it with cool whip on the top. My mom's usually turned out as jello soup. I think I honestly like it better that way. Last year the jello turned out perfect but this year there was a slight hiccup. It turned out okay anyway.

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Also on my bucket list is to see the cherry blossoms on UW campus. I had heard they were beautiful and wanted to go see them but didn't know when they would be out. My cousin, D, showed me some pictures on his phone but they a. didn't do it quite justice and b. whetted my appetite.

I have honestly never liked fresh cherries. I used to love it when my grandma would give my mom home-canned jars of cherries for us to eat. My dad really loved them. I loved their sugar-sogged used-to-be-fruit, but I liked even more playing with them in my mouth and then spitting the seeds out. I can still hear the small "ping" of the pit hitting the bowl as I "p-tooeyed" into it. Ah, memory.

Anyway, I wanted words to cleanse your eye palate. Although pineapple ham is moderately interesting in the best of circumstances when it is in picture form and not about to be in your mouth, this is truly eye candy, and I didn't want it to be sullied. I thought about maybe just creating an entirely new post just for these pictures but then decided that it wasn't going to be worth it since I already have so many posts going up anyway.


 Here are more:

The white thing in the air is definitely a frisbee.

 The bottom two are panoramic pics taken with my iphone.

Deception Pass Trip/Bucket List Cross-Off Mania, Part II

Bucket List Cross-off #3.1: La Conner

First glimpse. My friend and colleague, Mary, told me about this place - said it was a little town on the water. She loves the water, and so do I. I love the boats.

Here's what I referred to as the "Rainbow Bridge." I just wondered why they chose orange. Maybe it used to be red, and it's just faded? Anyway, I like the unusual color of it and it makes a very pretty picture from the car window. (We had to do some exploring in the car to get to a spot where I could get this angle.)

For the third time in one day, I walked across a bridge for the sole purpose of taking pictures in the middle.

Left: It was a bit glare-y, but you get the point. More pretty pictures!!!

Right: This is the other side - much better photo opp, in terms of composition.

While we were driving through town, we saw a sign for an art show at the Pickle Barn. Those of you who know me know I could write sonnets about pickles. I'll refrain here, and save it for another post, but we decided to do our road trip thing and just go with the flow and check it out.

But we got sidetracked by our own selves, because we saw this:

 And then we saw signs for the Tulip Route. Curious! Especially since all we could see for what seemed like acres and acres were only daffodils! Curiouser! We decided to investigate...so we never actually made it to the Pickle Barn Art Show, which was probably a good thing, because it would have been closed by the time we got there anyway. We returned to La Conner for dinner to finish Bucket List Item: Eat on the water at sunset in La Conner, but first, I will go into excruciating detail about:

 

 Bucket List Cross-Off #4:
Tulip Festival/  Roozengaarde

 I had heard awesome things about the Tulip Festival, but I had never been and it was on my bucket list. So we went!  It was totally awesome. I loved especially that it was spur of the moment.

Above, right: Here is a windmill. Don't worry, there is no Don Quixote in sight who might accidentally run me through with a lance while jousting. I'm not sure that the windmill has any functional purpose except for to make people feel like they're fakey in Holland, but it would be cool if it actually did what windmills are supposed to.

The Roozengaarde, for your information, has been a family-owned business since 1928 or some long time ago like that. They've not parceled it off or anything - instead they've tried to make the best of what they chose to do. And it's clear they love flowers - the grounds are immaculate, even after several hundred people had trompled through that day.

Above: In fine Holland tradition: TULIPS!!!

Right: And also some non-tulips. These didn't really smell a lot but they were really pretty. Plus I thought the picture was kind of cute. :)



For the next part: numbers go L-R, row by row...)


1. Look at the round buds. I don't think I've ever seen buds so round on a tulip!

2. Residence. Makes it sound like an old large English countryside home in H-----shire.

3. Mm. What a lovely peachy lavendery color. I don't know what the real color is called but it was all by itself, surrounded by cream colored ones...made it seem that much more special.


4. White Lion daffodils. I easily resisted buying these. They do look a bit ferocious, but their 'manes' are so heavy that they droop and you can't see the full effect of their glory/brilliance because their heads are too heavy. Basically, these bulbs need some genetic layering in their haircut before I would buy them. They are kind of cute looking anyway though.

5. Next, Double Price (purple) and Monte Carlo. (yellow). Who could resist buying tulip bulbs with names like that? I did. Mostly because I don't have anywhere to plant them

Impromptu sillier than necessary ditty:

oh, how the glare the sun provides maketh me to squint

reflecting off the water in an intense near-white tint*

I look upon the flowers here, in all their springtime splendor

if plucked and given to a love, they are a good fight mender. 

*I know 'tint' doesn't really go here, but hey, it's poetry. Bad poetry, but poetry nonetheless.

6. For some unknown reason, I like this picture of myself. So I decided to share it with you. The purple color in the second "row" behind me is called Woodstock.


7. I have no idea what kind of bush/tree thing this is, but its flowers were super pretty.

Side note: Wish I had a DSLR for moments like this one!








8. This is the Aladdin, as you can see. I've never seen a tulip that opened like this one. Maybe because I'd never seen a tulip that had spiky petals before. Ridj called them "fire tulips." He likes red and multicolored tulips are his favorite, so these were tied for first place in his Tulip Book.

9. Patch of Aladdins. 






10. Like I said before, Ridj likes multi-colored tulips. He proclaimed these his most favorite, tied with Aladdins.


11. More multi-colored tulips. Zurel by name. I think they have too much white in them.

Also, as a side note, I have never seen a blue tulip. There are plenty of blue flowers - why not tulips?!?



12. Princess Irene. So cute! My coworkers sent me a flower arrangement for my birthday, and there were some blue things that are by the Princesses in the bouquet. A week and a half later, I can tell you they have a beautiful drying pattern.

13. More daffodil fields!

14. Me and Ridj in front of some tulips. Classic coloration. Names not known.

15. The thing I think is so awesome about these is that the stems are reddish. I am not sure it shows up in the actual photo, but they were so lovely and delicate - blushing, almost.

16. Green and purple college! This one's for you, Dad. Also, I didn't know that tulips could be so short and squatty...or have such purple tones to their foliage. 

17. Pheasant Eye. I have never actually been close enough to a pheasant to know if this is what its eye looks like. You know how I feel about birds, so I'm not even sure that I want to even be close enough to a pheasant eye to figure it out. Maybe not even in a picture. (Okay, that's a bit extreme...) I really do like the bright 'pop' of the centre though.

I must admit that I kept half-expecting it (the flower) to start making bird-like eeping and rustling noises. But it's a flower, so it didn't satisfy my brain's overactive desire to integrate flora and fauna on this occasion. Phew.

(It would have been a bit awkward if it had. Maybe that's a great fantasy kid book - the princess pheasant that turns into a flower and has to wait for the prince to look past the thornless roses to appreciate her, but it's hard because her season is early and all the princes in her country start their proverbial princess-hunting late in the season.)




18. If this photograph were in an art show, I would dub it, "Study of Blurry Upside Down Flowers, Blue, #1". It did seem weird that all the flowers were facing ground-ward--a little self-defeating. How would the bees and everything else pollenate? Maybe that job is left to the ants? I don't know of any ants that purposefully pollenate. Please, by all means, fix my ignorance if you know of some ant species that I do not.

Bucket List Cross-off #3.2: La Conner

We decided to go to dinner along the water. We drove down the one main street in La Conner (it really is an uber touristy place, and it was so strange that at six o'clock on a Saturday night there were only two or three places open), and parked, which would be totally uninteresting except there was a helicopter randomly sitting about fifty feet from us. It started up, and you can see that its propeller is definitely in motion.


Here, you can see that the back half thingie is definitely spinning too. Made for  an awesome picture, but also made me think of Indiana Jones. Only the yellow of this helicopter is more friendly than a Nazi twin-prop.

Then it took off. I admit I didn't actually see it leave the ground because it flung dust in my eye (what I thought of in my Sting* blog post earlier) and so I had to squint. So this is as fast as I could react, and it was already winging its way back to Seattle. It was tiny! It fit maybe three people.

This is me with a really really red tree. The color of it was so striking that I asked Ridj to stop so I could have a photo op.

We had dinner on the water. There were a few choices, but most of them were super seafood-y, which Ridj was fine with, but I was not.

Rating: 4 stars. We had dinner at the pub/bar/whatever place--anyone who has been to La Conner knows which one I'm talking about...the one with the pool tables on the right as you walk in. Anyway, the waitress was so nice. We got the clam chowder as an appetizer, and I had lemon chicken.  He got the Saturday Night Specal - ribeye with garlic bread, a salad, and baked potato for $13.99. Everything was flavorful, the salad was real, the dressings were house-made, and it was just all-around yum. It's one of those places that the locals all go and hang out - which makes for interesting people-watching.

(He didn't know he was going to be in the picture - he thought the picture was only going to be the food, which is why he isn't looking and me and smiling his "I'm about to eat!" smile.)

Here I am, smiling my cheesy "I'm really tired and hungry" smile. Complete with half-raised eyebrow. So my style. And with that, you have now come to:

THE END

...of this post.

Three Trueisms

Angel: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
Devil: Side of snark, anyone? (accompanied by sardonic smile)
Me: One long sigh.
Mime: <zipping lips, rolling eyebrows expressively>

Angel: If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
Devil: Filter, anyone?  (after the damage has already been done)
Me: (wailing) But I thought I really wanted to know!!
Mime: <word vomit> - (reference to "Mean Girls")

Angel: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Devil: Roast turkey, anyone? (points to overly crisp bird)
Interjection by Me: Especially in the job or true friend categories. not that true friends are jobs, or that jobs are true friends...or that either are turkeys...
Mime: <eats crow>

Deception Pass Trip/Bucket List Cross-Off Mania, Part I

For my birthday weekend, I went to Deception Pass. If  had planned the weather, it couldn't have turned out any better. I managed to keep my camera in the bag until just north of Everett, when I took a name of some unnamed peaks. (That is to say, I just don't know the names of the peaks...they do have names though. And I know they're part of the Cascades.)

Then we saw some trees that reminded me of the Seahorse trees that I saw on the way from CA  when I moved here two years ago. This photo was taken when going 62 mph. I am continually impressed by the quality of photos taken (a) through the car window (b) speeding down the highway.

This is the first of several bridges and "fields" of snow that we saw as we trundled along at a moderate clip along the highway. Gorgeous!

Twin Bridges was next. The view was awesome, and after several unsuccessful attempts through the window at full speed, with guard rails that were throwing off my photo groove, Ridj was very accommodating and pulled over so we could traverse the walkway and get a picture of the beautiful view. It was about half a mile from the car to the middle of the bridge. We had to jump over a little ditch to get to the walkway and the grass was springtime soggy.

Here I am leaning against one of the rails that was so offensive at 60 mph from the car. Let me tell you, I was glad to have them when I was on foot!

The bridge kept going forever - I think I thought at least five times, "Just ten more steps and I'll be in the middle of the bridge and I can take my picture!" and I was in such a good mood that in the end I just broke into a run to get there because I was so excited about the view. We watched a speedboat go through the opening. 

I have no idea what the other side of the two bridges. There really are two, one for each direction of traffic, with about a 20 foot gap in between. It didn't seem like a good idea to see what was on the other side of the bridges, seeing that I would have to dodge cars, make a flying leap, and dodge more cars immediately after in order to get a good view. (We didn't end up taking the same route on the way home, else I would have shown you both views.) This view is the one that made walking a mile worth it:

Left: Me trying to take a picture of myself with the dry bridge in the background. The zoom was off, so it didn't work. So here, I have shown you myself and the dry bridge (right). Just not  in the same picture, as originally planned.

Left: On the walk back to the car, we saw Industry. So I took a picture.

Right: I think this might be Mount Baker, but I'm not sure. I seriously spent several minutes on the internet trying to figure it out, but to no avail. Maybe my Google skills just aren't up to par anymore?!? Hope that's not the case...but anyway, if I'd had a map, I would know what the peak was. Sigh. Maps are useful!! Instead, I had to resort to Google Images, which is much more hunt and peck.

Regardless of interwebz skill, the mountain is beautiful.
   

Bucket List Cross-Off #1: Anacortes

This is downtown Anacortes. We meant to go here, but because we didn't have a map like last time, we took a "wrong" turn (which wasn't wrong at all, just wasn't what we were anticipating, but it all turned out better than good) and went to Anacortes before Deception Pass, when I hard originally intended to go to the Pass first. It's a bigger town than Sequim, but still feels plenty touristy. I had never seen a purple crochet wrap covering a lightpole and a (payphone?) together before.  Apparently it does its job pretty well.

We were hungry so we decided to eat at Mary Ann's Kitchen.

Rating: 4.0 stars. Because it's so small, if you hit it at just the wrong time, it's easy for you to wait awhile for your food. It appears it's one of those places that a whole bunch of friends decided to open one day. It's in a house (as you can see) and you had to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom (odd, in a commercial establishment). There was a ficas tree in the bathtub (even more odd; bathtubs and the tree). They even provided reading material (odder still!). It was good food though. I got biscuits and gravy and Ridj got the breakfast burrito. Both were delicious. 

Then we got back on the road to go to:

Bucket List Cross-Off #2: Deception Pass

 Deception Pass is one of the most photographed places in Washington. and on a day like we had on Saturday, I can see why. The bridge was made in 1935, for a cost of $450,000. Last year, it cost more than that just to paint the bridge!

We got out of the car and this is one of the first glimpses I had. the sky was so blue - not a shred of cloud was to be seen - and the wind was just cool enough to feel good without being biting.

This one *almost* reminds me of a postcard picture.

Now that I'm looking through these, I'm thinking of all the other awesome shots I could have done with this setting - more playful, etc. I have actually taken to just toting my camera with me almost everywhere just because I want to be ready to document something if I feel like it.

One of my best friends lost her hat here.  So that's why in some of the pictures I have a hat on and some of them I didn't - I had Ridj put my hat in his pocket so it wouldn't blow away because I was paranoid about losing it. There were only a few gusts that I think would have taken it, but better to be safe than sorry - especially since this is my new favorite hat.






Here are a couple gorgeous views that do not need any of my narrative chatter to enhance/dilute their awesomeness.

We "hiked" down a little bit so we were sitting really close to the edge of the water. If I were a mountain goat I could have gotten all the way down to the edge, but it would have been quite the puzzler to get back up again without some heavy duty gear. It was nice to sit in the dappled sunshine and just relax - no talking, just breathing. There were people close, but not so close we could hear them, so it was really relaxing to just...be.

Here's a close-up of the bridge (which is awesome, btw) and another of me. The play of the water over the rocks behind me was really cool to watch.

That was on the "sound" side. On the other side there were some really cool small islands (see behind me) and there were also some gorgeous houses. On days like that day, it would be totally awesome to live there. For the other 92% of the time, it wouldn't be so much fun - especially when the wind whipped through. I can only imagine how bitterly cold it can get - the cold wind, accentuated by the artic current...brrr. Good thing it wasn't cold!! :) It was so beautiful.


While we were there we also saw an eagle that was super huge, no butterflies, and one really big fat seal. He was drifting along and I said to Ridj, "Oh, look, it's a giant log." And then I followed the eddy/current pattern with my eye and thought, "There's no way that could be a log!" about the same time the seal extended its flippers and came to the surface. I tried really hard to capture him on camera but all you can see is the flat of the water right where he went under. (It's right in the middle of the photo. I'm not super tech savvy or I would just draw an arrow pointing right to it.

Ridj, with islands in background

From up on the bridge, the seal looked like it was at least 8 feet long, and was very fat. I was ooh-ing and aah-ing over seeing a seal in its natural habitat and saying how awesome it was. I was wondering if aloud if it were a seal or maybe a walrus because it was so big, and Ridj immediately shot down the walrus idea. I was curious: how did he know it wasn't a walrus, from 300 feet up in the air?

A good reminder...

Then Ridj told me about the "crappy walruses." I immediately was indignant for two reasons:
A. He had seen walruses in the wild (lounging on a submarine) and he hadn't ever told me! The naturalist in me was super jealous.
B. How dare he call them crappy!!!

He went on to tell me that because the submarines generate so much electricity, the water near the base is always warmer than elsewhere. And in this case, where there is warmth, there is food. And walruses follow the food, and they like to bask in the sun (or icky, dreary, overcast wet, as is more often the case), and in the midst of their basking, since they are not toilet trained, they leave their droppings (which are large, since walruses are large) on the submarine, and therefore it smells and they are also very territorial so it's hard to keep the submarine in tip top shape. Hence why they're "crappy walruses."

I wouldn't mess with a walrus glaring me in the eye who weighed at least eight times as much as I do. Just saying. Especially not since he probably has been in more fights than I've ever been in. Sure, I've got hands, but experience, extreme testosterone, and tusks count for something.

The walkways along the bridge are very narrow - two people can't walk abreast. They have walkways on both sides of the bridge, and since the bridge is in two pieces, at the midpoint you can walk underneath the bridge (which is what we did when we were "hiking" and cross to the other side. Crossing in the middle of the street is verboten. (For good reason - otherwise no traffic would get through all day!) It was a little crowded, and if there was a stroller-wielder or a dog companion that wanted to pass it made it a little difficult - not to mention people like me who held up traffic because they wanted photo ops. I'm glad it wasn't any busier! 

The set-up also made it difficult to take pictures. As it was sometimes I think Ridj was a little worried I was going to lean back too far and get clipped by a car.

Right: I particularly like this picture because of something that wasn't planned - it looks like the bridge is an extension of me, due to the way the shadow is situated. So now you can see what I was standing on, and me standing on it, all in the same picture. To use Ridj's catchphrase: Awesome.



Here are two small bays. Pretty as a picture, so I took one. :) The color of the water was so vibrant.


Then we drove into the park and went to the beach. I use "beach" lightly...once you've been to Dana Point, all other beaches just don't quite match up. (Then again, I haven't been to lots of beaches...so far DP gets the nod for best all-around though.)







There, I took more photos. There is one sequence that kind of made me laugh. (This story is entirely in my head, by the way...he had no idea what I was thinking, or even that I was taking any of the photos...except the first in the bunch.)

1. R: I'm so awesome. I can do whatever I want!          

2. R: I think I'll go be Captain Explorer.          

 3. Me: He's part mountain goat! Wonder what he'll find?

4. Me: Down he goes! 

5. Me: What?!?!?! I can't see him any more!
What if he fell in? Will I have to go try to drag him out?
What if I get all wet? I don't want to get all wet.
Help! 

6. Me: Safe and sound! Phew.
I don't have to go drag him out.
Wonder if he found anything interesting?

Turns out, the reason why he climbed down there in the first place was because he saw a large red something in the water. The tide had brought it closer and closer and he was curious and decided to go investigate. It ended up being a really big plastic kite. Of course, he had to investigate, because it was red. 


Right: Who's the Rabbit?
As an aside, I am reading Watership Down for the first time. So I when I saw this little guy, I literally yelled, "El-ahrairah!!" in which definitely made Ridj blink. "Stop, please!" I yelled, so I could take this picture. He braked and backed up, in an excellent recovery to my odd outburst.

I had never seen a wild rabbit before, much less a rabbit on the beach.

Totes cool, as my coworker would say.

Here is Cranberry Lake at thirty mph. We were so close to the water. Some people had just parked along the side of the road and gotten out camp chairs and read in the sun all day. Rockin' idea. 

What is not so rockin' is the idea to call it Cranberry Lake. The eight year old in me (the know-it-all one) wanted to cry out, "Anybody who knows anything about cranberries knows that they grow in bogs, not in lakes!" Maybe they named it because it looks like a cranberry from the air? I'm going with that option -- benefit of the doubt and all that, you know.

* INTERMISSION * ENTRE-ACT * THE THING IN THE MIDDLE * BREATH*