This House of Sky

There's nothing like the beautiful sky of the Pacific Northwest.

Recently I took a trip northwester in the northwest. The sky was low, and the clouds were heavy, but it didn't rain all day.

There were two ferry rides and two pieces of pizza and two kids and two galleries and two museums.

There was also a a sketch artist and a Victorian costume festival and and five adults and one lighting museum and three galleries.

Furthermore, there were wet plants, gun batteries more than a hundred years old, pitch-black tunnels to wander in.

I even saw a whale on the ferry ride home. The thing about whale watching is that your eyes think that the whale is going to come up exactly in the same place that it did before. Even if your eyes track the direction it's going, depending on how fast the vehicle you're in is going, your eyes will never be able to accurately predict where the blowhole plume will appear next.

Green rocks and a thousand seagulls jabbering at each other as they floated along the swiftly moving current were also highlights. The light is beautiful. The old houses of the Port towns are beautiful. The northwest sky is just amazingly gorgeous. No filters. It fills me with such contentment to walk by the water. I hope you feel even a little of the joy I felt as you look at the pictures.

Pianos in the Park

I went on a piano safari on Saturday. A few friends and I traipsed through Seattle. It made me almost hurt to walk through all the places I used to frequent, knowing that I wasn't just a few minutes from home, but that I had to go back across the lake. There are lots of good things about where I live now, but I definitely miss my time in the city.

 

We started at the Seattle Center, and I think this was my favorite of the lot. With the cityscape and Mt. Rainier, as well as the moon in the sky exactly how it might be, it's a beautiful work of art. 

Next we went to Denny park, where we saw the KEXP piano. It looked a little like it came from Venus.  -->


<-- Then we went to Westlake Park, which has nothing green in it except perhaps 420, and saw the most underwhelming painted piano ever (painted as a piece of art, anyway). I felt like a five year old could have been more inspired. Also, the person sleeping behind me could have been more inspired in his (or her? it was a little hard to tell) choice of equilibration location.

We also made a stop at AllSaints. I'd never been in, but the sewing machines are pretty cool. Bucket list item crossed off! Another bucket list item is to see the traveling goats in action. People in Seattle rent out goats and then the goats eat all the blackberries and brambles and stuff and then the people who had stuff they wanted gone are happy because the goats do their job.

Then we went down to the pier (we had an adventure; we went the wrong way). I got fun of because I said the restaurant name it was by "eye-vahrs" instead of "eye-vers." Not funny, especially since one of the people I was with called the market "Pike's place." It is NOT Pike's place. The market is at Pike. It is not possessive!
The piano there looked like it might fit better in South Lake Union, what with all the computer parts it had on the side of it. I thought they were supposed to be a map -- it almost looked like a map of the city...but I was assured that it was "just a tree." We investigated the piano more and then it started to really pour. It actually hailed in some places. It was weird, because I heard the thunder, but I thought it was the Blue Angels (since they were in town), and then thought, "But it's too early for the Blue Angels to be flying." Yep, I was right. Just really beastly thunder even though it was really sunny outside. In fact, see to the left how sunny it actually was. Those white specks are actually raindrops. falling. Big, cold ones. They made a line, like paint, along the overpass we were walking under. (See above.)



While at the waterfront we investigated the boats that were in town for Seafair. The gun on the deck holds 5" shells. That's about what I thought it could, but it doesn't really seem like something in a 5" could really do that much damage. Except it occurred to me that due to physics, having a ginormous gun doesn't really do anything for you except in close proximity anyway, so in that respect, perhaps 5" is best. They had a line to take a tour of the boat, but I wasn't willing to wait in it, as it was about an hour and a half long at that point, and some times of the day, the Navy guy on the pier told us, had waits of up to 3 hours. I informed my companions that the ships looked like alients. They actually kind of do...robots. Look at all that equipment on them. I wonder how old they are. Each ship holds about 300-400 people on a regular basis, and it doesn't seem like they're that big. I wonder how many feet below water their plimsoll marks are.

Then we went to City Hall (the piano is, in fact, at City Hall, and not at City Hall park. It actually made me sad to walk through that part of Seattle..Pioneer Square is really dilapidated. It could be so vibrant! But it's overrun by homeless people and it really doesn't feel safe at all. I actually thought the figure on the side of the piano was a unicorn and not a man, at first glance. Maybe I just had unicorns on the brain...

The last park we went to was Hing Hay park. Someone playing the erhu had handwritten a sign saying "Piano closed between noon and 2pm." We honored the sign, but I thought it was really lame and not very well done.

All in all, it was a good excursion. And we even helped some lost teachers find their way to the Seattle Center on the way back, and I got to cross something else off my list: riding the monorail!

Golden Gardens

Tonight I went to Golden Gardens, at the suggestion of The Conrad, who sadly wasn't actually there with me. The weather was beautiful, and although it was a little late by the time we actually got there, it was still gorgeous. I didn't even need a jacket until 8:15!

Even though The Conrad was stuck at work, Ronnster and RoJo and others were there with me. I burned my accounting book in effigy. It took a long time to burn. That class took a long way to burn itself out of my system, too.

We sat on the beach, and made some s'mores. (I had 0.5, which was 0.5 too much.) We talked and laughed and sang. And there were hugs. And trains in the background. And the whooshing of the tide as it crept in. And a ukelele. And I wore my sweatshirt, my "bonfire" sweatshirt...the one I never wear  unless it's a bonfire. I wash it every time, afterwards, but I'm sure it still has bonfire smell embedded in it.

It was lovely, and I loved seeing my friends, getting hugs, and laughing so much.

Cheers to friends. Cheers to summer. Cheers to no more accounting book.

Gingerbread Fairytales

I went to the lobby of the Sheraton hotel with The Conrad to check out the annual gingerbread "house" show. Every year, the architectural firms in Seattle team up with the chefs at the Sheraton and each firm designs a structure ("house" is too loose a term, here) with the help of a child who has diabetes (or whatever the chosen charity of the year is) to create blueprints for the pastry peeps at the hotel to construct.

This year's theme was "Nursery Rhymes."

There was Jack & the Beanstalk, complete with a green-dyed rice krispy stalk. Of course there weren't any beans in the display (there were Boston Baked Beans in there, too, but I don't think those count). Nothing even remotely healthy! The closest were Cheezits and pretzels. Best thing about this was all the Lego sweet-tart bricks used to make the wall.

There were some kinds of candy I had never seen before. Mostly they were pearlescent cake decorating gadgets that they'd sell at the "decorette" shop by my house. (See Christmas tree decorations on "Hickory Dickory Dock." Yes, those big yellow lumps are not a beehive, but rounds of cheese for the mice rushing up the clock.)

Prize for Most Traditional Looking is "London Bridge is Falling Down." I was tickled by the ingenuity of using gum for bricks for the turrets, but a little dismayed by the lack of originality of using candy rocks as the stonework for the towers.



Prize for Best Use of Nerds was the shoelaces of "The Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe". Candy wallpaper...hmmm....seems like something an Oompa Loompa would enjoy. I think I liked the use of texture in this the best.




Prize for Most Ingenious goes to the "Owl and the Pussycat." Look at those sails. I wish I had been able to get a better picture. It was truly awesome. 


Prize for Most Incredible of the Traditional Style goes to this one, where the dish ran away with the spoon. (at least, I assume that's what's happening. I got so lost in the real "stained glass" windows and all the fancy schmancy decorations that I forgot to note which rhyme this depicted. Does anybody know the name of the candy used on the roof? The stuff that comes in sheets that has sugar on it but is sour like Sour Patch Kids? (Far right, middle of the picture.)





And now, for my favorite of the whole exhibit: the mini marshmallow sheep. Baaa, they're so cute! I wanted to immediately go home and make myself a field full of them.

Captions

Recently KS and I went on an adventure. It was the end of a long and somewhat disappointing workweek, and we needed a break. I had no idea what was in store for me. We were driving along, and had an uninspired lunch at a Mexican restaurant. (Rather, the food was uninspired.)

Then the fun started.

View this as a slideshow. Remember that old projector in Biology that made a "beep" whenever Doc was supposed to change the slide? Take each picture by itself, imagine the narration, and then hear the "beep" before you move on.
 

Fields, rocks, sprinklers, clouds.

Bovine, sheds, trees, fields, Sisters (three)

                                      

Sagebrush, juniper, rocks.

Smallish oxbow, sheer rock face, long trail, green short stuff.

Shade, trees, mountain, rock.

A few of my favorite things: river (Crooked) bridge, canyon, mountains, greenery.

Peter Pan's bridge; proof that water means life.

I would love feedback on what your favorite shots are. Thanks in advance!

Solstice

I went to the beach on the solstice.

It was beautiful.

When I was picking my way through the brush path, I got to the top and came down, this is what I saw. It immediately reminded me of Anne of Green Gables.

I was talking to a friend of mine who lives on the east coast, and shot over a few pictures. He commented that it now seemed odd to him to see the sun set over the water...as for him, when at the beach, the beautiful thing is to see the sun rising. I had never even thought about that before. Sunsets on the beach just seem so natural.

It occurred to me that almost my whole life, I have had easy access to seeing the sun set over the water. You can see the sun set on the water from the front porch of the house I grew up in. I have lived within a few miles of water for most of my life after leaving home, and so I could easily make the effort to see the sun set over the water if I wanted to. There's nothing like it. (Now, I'm kind of curious to see what the sunrise over water looks like...but chances are I won't be curious enough to actually get up in time to see the black to grey to pink to yellow of the dawn. At least, I assume the sunrise pinks. (Horrors, what if there is no pink?!?!)

I feel the urge to note that these have not been photo-shopped at all, seeing as how I don't have the software, because, as we have mentioned before, I am a little too much like Scrooge for the Bob Cratchets in my life.

Here I am, looking at the beach, sitting on my newly-finished quilt. Now it has sand all over in it. I suppose it was a good maiden voyage. Now I won't worry about whatever else gets on it in the future because I took it out, and it survived the Sandy Beach test. So bring it on! Many more adventures will be had on this quilt, I'm sure.

My favorite part of the night was talking to my friend Peeks. It was her birthday party, and her car, like many others, got stuck in the sand. (Why they ever decided to drive on the beach, I will never be quite sure, but there were at least 20 cars on the sand. It doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to either the beach or the cars, but hey, whatever...) In fact, while we were walking toward the party, we saw a car drive by and splash itself in the water....seemingly just for the fun of it. My car and salt water don't really like each other, but I guess this is like the cat that likes to go swimming.

We were talking about silly boy stuff and then I said, "there's no need to sully this sunset with such nonsense" and she just looked at me and proclaimed that I had been speaking Shakespearean not-sonnets to her and laughed. As we watched, the sky turned an almost steel blue, and a line of six pelicans came and were swooping up and down over the water in a delicate, almost mathematical curve. Up and down, never diving...skimming close to the water, rising about ten feet above it. Pelicans are big birds. Even the brown ones (which I'm pretty sure these were), that are the smallest of all pelicans, have a wingspan averaging seven feet. It was a treat to see them, wings unfurled, undulating up and down on the air currents I could feel, but couldn't see.

Aside: I think I'd have to be very trusting to be a bird. After all, you're being kept aloft by something that you assume will keep going, that you can't see, that's unpredictable, that you have zero control over. So while you're learning to fly, trust is a big deal. It's not like you can hold it against your mommy bird that the doldrums suddenly decided to appear and that you plummeted headfirst tens of feet toward a flat hard surface before wildly squawking and somehow finding purchase (or not, with my luck).

The moon was so bright and beautiful. The stars were small and, though visible, seemed far away because of all the light. It was gorgeous...no flashlights required. :) Though with my little point-and-shoot you can't see the details of the moon, they were there...it wasn't just a ball of reflected light upon which no life can be sustained. It was an embellishment to good times with good friends.

Rolling

So...last night I had A Cultural Experience: I went to Roller Derby.

It was loud. The speakers were like to blow my ears out. I felt sorry for the teeny tiny baby five rows in front of me. Her mother's bangs were in a doubled-over ponytail. I also felt bad for the girl in the charteuse plastic pants, mostly because they didn't fit well and because her top was something a six year old should never wear. I saw all sorts of characters. I'm just glad Derby ended when it did so we missed the naked bike parade that P-town experiences every year.

It took me one "bout" to figure out what in the heck was going on and how it was scored. Both teams saw wild comebacks. There were some mean girls! I am telling you, I would not want to be a jammer for love or money. Some of the names were slightly risque, but I was actually rather impressed at the cleverness of some...especially the ones that looked one way on paper, but when you said them out loud, you "got" it. There were a lot of animals featured...Scald Eagle and Blast Unicorn were just two.

Readers Digest Roller Derby 101: (skip if you are not interested)
There are two teams of girls wearing roller skates and protective gear. Each team fields five players...1 "jammer" (basically like a running back in a run-only offense), one "pivot" (the relay anchor), and three blockers.

The jammers have stars upon thars -- that is, they have little shower cap looking things on their heads with big stars on them -- so the blockers know who to block. All the blockers start together in a "pack." The jammers start about ten feet behind. Whichever jammer bullies her way through the pack and passes all players first is the "lead jammer."

The whole time, everybody is skating forward. The jammers skate around the rink and catch up to the pack again (since they're a pack, they move more slowly) and they score 1 point for each person they legally pass after they make it through the pack the second time. (Going outside the lines isn't legal. Shoving someone down and stepping over her isn't legal. A host of other things, including use of elbows and kicking legs out from under bodies, are not legal.)

Each Jammer has her own ref who skates around and around in the innermost circle, counting the points the jammer racks up. Every jam session is 2 minutes or until the lead jammer calls it off by putting her hands on her waist. (Strategy tip: If you make three points and someone else is about to make five, you call it off first.) Then you line up and do it all again. "Bouts" consist of two thirty-minute halves. There are 30 seconds between each jam (mandatory) while the players line up. There are also time-outs and "official reviews" and lots of other nonsense.

One minute minors are served in the penalty box for each illegal block. Yes, jammers can get put in the box, too. When jammers are put in the box, it's a power jam, since the other team doesn't have any way to score any points. But both jammers can't be in the box at the same time (or else the blockers are out blocking nobody) so if both jammers get minors, the penalty is over for the jammer who is already in the box. Even if you only have two blockers skating in the rink, every time the jammer passes you, they get five points.

After, I had a pulled pork sandwich with cherry cole slaw on it and a fresh strawberry shake. Yum. And then we had a discussion about possessives and "'s," and the significance of "ye olde" and j and i and other linguistic historical factoids. Basically, it was a crazy evening! But at the end, when I actually had figured it out, and there was a major upset about to happen, it was really actually fun to watch. Not sure I'd do it again, but it was definitely a Cultural Experience.

Journey in a Truck

Four weeks ago I went for a road trip. With my boss. In a truck.

(Waits for those of you who actually know me to recover from your boggled brains.)

My boss told me he bought said truck with the idea to buy the smallest truck possible to haul the maximum amount of cargo he'd ever need to haul at one time. When he said "truck," I was thinking something like a Toyota Tacoma. Then he told me that he was going to pick me up in the truck for the weeklong road trip. I was, admittedly, not very excited about the prospect of riding in a tiny cab. It became obvious to me as soon as I saw him standing next to his vehicle that he is not from the South or from Texas or from anywhere else but New York. I say this because in New York, "quarter" is qwah-tah and water is wah-tah. His truck was a Honda CR-V.




These scenes remind me of the "Hanover Winter Song," wherein the ice-gnomes from "long - forgotten Norways" march. It was a bit late in the season, but the way the snow fell on these trees made me think of thousands of arboreous (yes, that is now a word) soldiers were marching in their Norways, the snow elegantly sticking to their backs as they crested one ridge and resolutely marched down the other side. No undignified windmilling of arms or galloping down the hill for these chaps. Nope. None at all.

We drove hither and yon: over hill, bridge, and dale. Through mountain passes and fertile valleys, we wended our way. We chatted and schmoozed and did our road show approximately twelve times.

I can now do it in my sleep.

Here's our arrival to our second resting place, and the sun setting over it:

Here's the view from my hotel room (below).

Then on the way back, I saw something beautiful: what looked like it was a former river bed. I also ate a fresh strawberry shake at a place that was right across the street from this sign: I wonder if you read it the way I did. I kind of hope so. My boss thought I was kind of lunatic because I laughed so hard and insisted on taking a picture of it with my camera.

Clearly, he didn't read the sign the way I did.

Then, we drove and drove and drove some more.
Basically, the whole day was about eating and driving. We got caught in a microburst and pulled off the side of the road. I really wanted to get home as soon as possible, but under the circumstances, it was probably safer to pull off the road for a few minutes.

It just so happened to be our luck that the nearest pull-off was Multnomah Falls. So I looked at the falls through the windshield, and then, ten minutes later, after the rain had abated somewhat, I rolled down the window and took a picture that was clear...that is, so the waterfall looked like a waterfall and not like spilt milk.