The summer that wasn't

This year started with a cool spring that coasted into a summer of meh. If wanted to be completely accurate, I would call this the summer that came late, but I wanted a title that also referenced how little I've blogged this summer. I could blame the lack of sun, but the real culprits were grad school induced lassitude and sheer laziness for the first month and a half and the 12th Avenue Neighborhood Festival for the month after that. In August and September summer finally arrived, so I was busy rejoicing with the rest of the city and enjoying the late start of circus folk season in Cal Anderson Park.

I will try to make up for my lack of blogging with a flurry of slideshow updates before school starts. After that, it is up to the will of the professors, but I live in hope.

Belated snOMG 2010 slideshow: views from North Broadway

All photos courtesy of me (see above, in fuzzy hat) on 11.23.10, taken with Metrix Create: Space's amazing shopcam.

Sledding Mayhem on E Denny Way or An Ambulance Arrives at the Sledding Party

This evening I repaired to the spontaneous Son of Snowpocalypse sledding party down on Denny and Bellevue with Mark Atwood. I went down the hill twice - once in a turned-over recycling bin with two other fellows (one of whom was Rob, a frequenter of Gamma Ray Games) and another time on a borrowed baking tin. The first run went very quickly and very well. The second time was fine until I got hit in the back by two goths on a table. It hurt, but I stuck around awhile longer until the ambulance showed up.

Maybe ten minutes after my 2nd run, two groups of sledders in recycling/trash bins went drag racing down Denny. They were doing fine all the way down, no tip-overs or collisions, just one successful dismount off the back of the right-hand bin (I was very impressed).

Then a four-door sedan came cruising up the obviously closed E Denny Way. One of the sledder-filled bins hit the car and made it spin. I heard from another onlooker soon after that in the collision/spin, the car rolled over a sledder's leg. The ambulance came to pick up said sledder soon after.

Recent Events: SteamCon II and Son of Snowpocalypse

It has been an exciting fortnight. I got to spend a week home sick, got well enough thanks to modern medicine to work at SteamCon II, and now it's snowing like mad in our fine city of hills.

At SteamCon the 2nd, I mostly admired other people's costumes and helped them accessorize further with the wares of Realms of Regalia. RoR mostly sells the extra fiddly bits - pins, feathers, ribbons, lace, cords, applique, jewelry. You can imagine our booth was extraordinarily popular at a steampunk convention. I'll have another post with pictures and stories to follow.

As for snow...wow, what a fitting start to the beginning of steampunk season: the more layers the better! I was delighted to wake up this morning to a fine view of our winter wonderland. I only have to commute to UW and back (Evans School, whatwhat!) so when evening classes were cancelled, it only took me two hours to get home. Steve, the driver of bus #2384/ the #48 this evening is to be commended for his commitment, skill and dedication to duty. Even though we crawled along more slowly than an arthritic hamster, Steve got bus #2384 up the back of Capitol Hill. This is way more than the drivers of the 10 or so cars we passed on the way up can say, that's for sure.

After a couple of hours of excited tweeting and Desert Bus viewing, I made my way down to the inevitable sledding party on E Denny Way. See next post for details.

(sledding picture courtesy of David Lichterman)

Blackberry Picking at Magnuson Park

One of the things I resolved to do before I start grad school at the end of September was to go berry-picking. My friend Anne agreed to be my berry buddy, so we set a date (yesterday) and figured we try out picking at Magnuson Park.

Despite general sogginess, Anne and I persevered and went a-berrying in spite of the weather. As far as large parks go, Magnuson isn't too far away from my usual haunts - 43 or 49 to the U District, and then take the 30 or the 75 to Sand Point Way and the park's entrance. From there we trekked in toward the lakeshore, having heard on the internets that that was the best place to find blackberry bushes.

The internets were right (hurray internets!). We found a bunch of brambles all along the paths near the lake, though not all of them had many ripe berries. I was worried it'd be too late to find many blackberries, but it looks like we're right in the middle of the season. The berries were in all stages of ripeness, including too-dried-up-to-be-edible. The dried up berries kind of weirded me out - aren't birds supposed to eat those before that happens?

Anne and I ended up off-roading and finding a couple of clearings in the middle of some really great blackberry thickets. We were drenched and tired, but we kept feeling compelled to stop and pick because there we just so damned many berries. When we finally left after about 2 or 3 hours of picking, I think we both made off with 2 or 3 pounds of blackberries (1lb/hr, woot). We're totally going back in a couple of days - even with that haul, we're going to need more berries if Anne's going to make wine or I'm going to make jam.

R.I.P. Mold, or, Seattle Household Tips

I hate mold. A lot. I come from Southern California, so when I was growing up mold was something you had to take of the bathroom from time to time. Now that I live in a janky apartment in Seattle, it's something I have to address on a weekly basis during the winter in the bathroom, in every windowsill, and occasionally on things that lean against outside walls. So I really fucking hate mold.

I finally got around to looking up how to kill this stuff right the other day. The CDC says that a 1:16 solution of bleach and water, sprayed onto and left on the affected surface, should do the trick. I wiped down everything first and then sprayed it with the milquetoast bleach solution just for good measure. I really hope it works.

Talking about the weather

Spine and Crown says that August was nutty, but the crazy really began in late July with The Heat Wave of Epic and Historical Proportions. And now it's raining like it's November already...and there was the Snowpocalypse this last winter....OMFGBBQ Global Warming!? Cliff Mass says "not exactly".

The unanswered question - Why didn't we come up with a witty name for THWEHP?

The answer - It was too damn hot.

(image courtesy of Dawn42)

Orcas Island Vacation Slides, Part I

My S.O. and I went to Orcas Island last week for some R&R, and as it turned out, to beat the heat. Because this is my blog, I can inflict vacation slides on you, my faithful readers.

So, shuttle up to Anacorts, ferry to over to the San Juans til we get to Orcas Island and Orcas Village, where the ferry lands and where our B&B was located. The view from the ferry of Orcas Village looks something like this:


Picturesque, adorable, and you're seeing all of it. Deer Harbor, Olga - all the little people settlements are about this size. The only thing that can be properly called a town is West Sound. Little villages make me think little spaces. The thing is, Orcas Island is about the size of the Seattle Metro area, and it's in the shape of a horseshoe (see map below), which made it really big as the car drives.



This much space, that few people, this close to Seattle (less than an hour by Kenmore Air). Weird. Good. And a whole lot of gorgeous.



Yup, that was the view every morning - green cliffs, sparkling water, bright blue sky, adorable boyfriend. And it just gets prettier.

Next slide!

High Summer

It is too goddamned hot again, and I'll be locked out of my apartment all tomorrow afternoon. So I'm trying to think cool. After hearing about that weird event at the Fountain tonight, this is what comes to mind:

(Thanks to Wesa for the pic)

A good old-fashioned Rubber Ducky Regatta sounds just my style right about now. Unfortunately, I haven't heard about this event happening again this year. Maybe I missed it. Maybe Mr. Corprew Reed isn't planning to host it again. I hope this is not the case. Let the duckies sail again!

I am so done with showering twice a day

Cliff Mass says that temperatures will drop TONIGHT, winds will rise, and life will be considerably less sweaty for the next few days. Oh thank God. I'm crossing my fingers for some decent precipitation tonight - all this sun has been great, but after enough dry days I have to start hauling water to my super-secret guerilla gardening locations. In this heat I had to haul water. Come on weather gods, make with the rain!

Blog of the Day: Goths in Hot Weather

Very amusing on long hot summer afternoons when one is hiding out in relative coolness with iced beverages. One can think, "Ah look, some poor fellow who's a great deal hotter than I am. I feel cooler already!"

PS This post is a nice contrast to the one directly before it. Subliminal marketing?

It's hard to believe, but...

The National Weather Service may be more excited about the Seattle heat wave than we are.

A Walk in the Park

It was nice and clear and not rainy Monday afternoon, so me and the S.O. decided to walk through Cal Anderson and try some of the much vaunted Molly Moon ice cream.





Between the two of us, we tried the Salted Caramel, Balsamic Strawberry, Pomegranate Curry and the Scout Mint. The mint tasted just like you'd think it would, and the Pomegranate Curry was ... pomegranate with curry. Kind of weird.

The Salted Caramel was a little too salty, though we thought it would go well on pie. I thought the Balsamic Strawberry was delicious - the tangy sweet depth of the balsamic reduction kept the strawberry from getting boring and insipid. My partner in ice cream said he'd prefer just plain strawberry.




A business after my own heart - not only do they sell tasty ice cream, everything you can't eat is compostable.












I really like what they've done with the place. A clean classic interior...

With whimsical attention to detail.

After deciding on merely two flavors of ice cream that we had to bring home (Vivace Coffee and Balsamic Strawberry), we swung back through the park. And what should we happen upon but...

WANDERING WEINERS!

My partner in ice cream is less than impressed - if he had a hot dog stand, he'd call it "Walk the Dog".



On the way out of the park, I was struck by the change in scenery. The absence of buildings looks devastating from Broadway, but in Cal Anderson it just seems to open up the horizon.

Pine Street on a Saturday Afternoon

I rose out of my rhinovirus-induced stupor this afternoon to accomplish a very important task - getting rid of our extraneous footwear. After two years in this apartment, the closet has collected a lot of shoes, and it was time to send some of them off to a place where someone would actually get some use out of them. Lucky for me, Z-Coil (on Pine right by the dogpark) has a Soles 4 Souls drop bin, so I could get rid of the shoes and do a good deed at the same time.

Now that the weather is better (or at least not crappy), Pine is getting pretty lively again. Pedestrians are out and about, people are sitting outside again, and all the haunts are full - Traveller's, Stumptown, Bauhaus, etc. Crocuses and daffodils are blooming, all the little birdies are chirping...there's even a Sidewalk Vintage sale on Bellevue and Pine.

Crowds, flowers, garage sales- ah, the Hill in Spring.

So damned happy I can walk to work

Have we been magically transported to Minnesota? I thought spring was coming!!

I work in an office where folks bus in from all over - they could drive, but parking is expensive so why not just take public transit? The repeated snow days have been screwing with this strategy. They look out the window and have to decide whether their bus is going to come this morning or not, I look out the window and decide I should wear a different pair of shoes. Heh heh heh.

P.S. Me and my boyfriend's guess was right - it did snow two inches last night.

Again with the snowglobe

Why do I have this feeling of deja vu? Oh yes, now I remember - it's because I feel like I'm trapped in a giant snowglobe.

Argh, I thought we were done with this! At least it's not sticking...for now.

{Dun dun dun!}

Snowpocalypse Crosses the Pond

Just heard about this today. I think they're on day 5 of the English version of the icy end of days...The Telegraph is calling it "Snow Britain".

The headlines:

Meteorological vacation - Hey, this happened in Seattle too!

The Snow Britain Forecast

Snow thaws Londoner's icy dispositions - Hey, this also happened in Seattle too!

Tut tut

If I had written this yesterday, I could have titled it "Deluge". Ah, the pain of regret.

I can still talk about how cool everything looked yesterday - I was reminded of the outdoor city scenes in Bladerunner. Sci-fi film noir chic. Wait...does that mean that Seattle is LA from the future?

Per usual, Seattle didn't get the worst of it. Although I think we may have acquired a moat...
I feel terrible for everyone who is being flooded or is about be. I hope this is a clue-in to policymakers that we need a better flood prevention strategy, especially since deluges during the winter are only going to become more common due to climate change. Less development on the floodplain, perhaps?

In the two weeks before Christmas

It was no one's fault it snowed, and the City can't be expected to be fully prepared for such a ridiculous (1861!) meteorological event. But Mayor Nickels did do a fairly wretched job of dealing with Snowmegeddon...and then proceeded to give himself a passing grade on his handling of the situation.

I think it's time for some satire.

Below is a poem that was posted up in the Seattle PI blog: it showed up in Councilmember Rasmussen's office, no author named.

Twas the night before Christmas, and next to the Sound, not a creature was stirring for all were snowbound.
Greyhound buses quit running, no matter the fare, and mailmen and garbagemen said they just couldn't get there!
The children were sliding Queen Anne Hill on their sleds.
While roofs were collapsing on old peoples' heads.
And Mama in her boots and I in my cap, were stuck in the snow and ice and such crap.
When at the Home Depot there arose such a clatter, I trudged from my car to see what was the matter.
A group of sad souls were waving their cash. They couldn't buy shovels, they sold in a flash!
Tires were spinning and just wouldn't go, and chains lay broken in the dirty old snow.
Then, what to my surprise did my eyes look over and see?
Eight representatives of SDOT,
With a politician so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it was Mayor "Salt Nick."
More rapid than gun bans, his excuses they came, "To save our environment the roads stay the same!"
On Broadway! On Boren! On Yesler and Denny! To clear off these roads would cost such a penny!
Sliding down Thomas and onto a wall.
The buses hung over I-5, ready to fall.
Still, he insisted it wasn't his fault, as the world's greenest mayor he wouldn't use salt.
That stuff's corrosive, could hurt the fish.
But Puget Sound is salt water, you ignorant kish! So snowy Seattle continued to stew, but Mayor "Salt Nick" just hadn't a clue.
While I stood there astonished, on nearby TV sets, I saw the airport was packed, no de-icer for jets.
Since others could get down the roads to the ferry, the city decided to close Denny and Cherry.
An accident closed the I-90 bridge.
And people couldn't drive down Phinney Ridge.
Shovels, and salt had just flown off the shelf. And I laughed when I heard Mayor "Salt Nick", in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, he tried to convey we had nothing to dread.
Then thumbing his nose at his citizens' plight, he turned to the crowd and exclaimed, "We've done alright."
And then to his SUV refusing to yield, he left to get solar panels installed on Qwest Field.
But I heard him exclaim, as he skidded past me, "Happy Christmas to all. Heck, I give myself a 'B.'"

1861

The ice age we just braved was the longest period of freezing temperatures and snow in Seattle since 1861. Holy crap.