Goodbye Summer?

Today is cloudy and cool. That was fine by me. Lately it has been hot. I had to be inside today. Of course, I had to be inside on the hot days also. I wonder if this means a farewell to summer. Maybe it is only temporary. It is challenging to predict the weather here. Mostly it tends to get hot after school starts. For us that will be on Monday, August 30th. It seems early. Definitely earlier than last year. Much earlier than the year before when our school district was on strike. I have mixed feelings about the start of school. No more sleeping in on weekdays. Not like we sleep in on that many of them. However, a lazy weekday will be unheard of once school begins. I will very likely be working full-time in the near future. The start of school will then mean less time at home for me. Activities start and the kids go here and there and everywhere. I am trying to keep up on my writing project. My friend that I am doing it with/for is counting on me. I like the project. It has been hard to fit it in during the summer. The school year has more structure. Will is be easier then? That remains to be seen? The weather is cooler...the leaves are not yet changing...I saw a strange sight today, I was driving in an older neighborhood in the city and all of the leaves from last Fall were still all over the sidewalks. It was an eerie sight, almost like the seeing a ghost of Falls past. I bet that we will still see sunny weather. I bet that the kids will start the school year in shorts. I bet that I will get organized, come this Fall.

Deep Thoughts on this, The Last Day of May

May has been quite a month. Here I sit on the last day of it, the end of a long holiday weekend to boot, recovering from illness. Although this has been a holiday weekend, the weather has been quite rainy. I remember camping in relatively fair weather at this time last year, I am glad that we didn't make similar plans for this year as we would have been rained-sicked out.

In reviewing my month, I must admit that my time spent writing has been almost non-existent. I have wanted to write, I just haven't quite figured out how to piece bouts of writing into a schedule that has me running here, there, and everywhere. That will change in June, I am keeping my fingers crossed!

On the upside, I have started the hiking season early. A huge thanks and much love to Megs, her much welcome visit from Oz helped to launch me into a series of early albeit short hikes. Hopefully the weather will clear and there is the promise of the upcoming summer for longer hiking adventures.

During May and despite the rather exhausting schedule of my three offspring, I have managed to read three books, "East of the Sun" by Julia Gregson, "The Sorrows of an American" by Siri Hustvedt, and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by, Stieg Larsson. I have also managed to see a few films and get regularly intoxicated with close friends. June needs to be a more serious month in terms of gym attendance, although part of me thinks that must have been how I acquired this nasty bug.

Another May is gone. I am not a big lover of Spring, Fall is my preferred season, but May is just so beautiful with the flowers and blossoms and sometimes warmer weather. June around these parts seems to always start out rainy, it might be a good time to head out of state once the kids are done with school. I should probably get started with planning that, but first I have to rest and get 100% of my sapped energy back.

In Praise of a Civic Minded Chef

Earlier today I had planned to post a rant. If I had blogged in the morning, my post would have been negative and critical. As the day went on, I decided that I didn't want to be negative and critical. May has been an extraordinarily busy month, thus the lack of posts, and this praise has been floating around in the old brain pan for a while now. The praise is in honor of local chef, Tom Douglas and his latest plans to enhance the city of Seattle.

Pike Place Market is a staple tourist attraction in Seattle. Most tourists make at least one trip to the market. Now that the Lusty Lady has closed it's doors, the market area is lacking in smut, but what it lacks for in the porn department, it makes up for in homelessness and panhandling in Victor Steinbruck Park. As people finish or begin (depending on which end you start) their tour of the market, they are treated to an informal "tent city" as the front drop for an otherwise beautiful view of Puget Sound. If they are really lucky, they will be approached and asked if they have "any spare change."

Those of us native to this city have somewhat gotten used to the homeless camp that is Victor Steinbrueck Park, but Tom Douglas has plans to change all of this. He wants to offer up Salmon Nights at $12.00 per plate with the proceeds going to hire additional security for the park. Now all that he has to do is convince the Seattle City Council and naysayers like Tim Harris, Executive Director of a newspaper sold by homeless on the streets of Seattle called "Real Change." Mr. Harris seems to like the status quo. While "Real Change" is a great plan, it would be nice to see some of the proceeds in action now and then. Mr. Harris seems to also think that Chef Douglas' proposal would somehow be unfair to the Native American homeless who frequent the park, huh? Why? Because they are serving salmon?

In short, Chef Douglas is a doer and I support his efforts. I am hoping that the Seattle City Council sees the genius in this proposal and gives a go to the permit. It is time for a change, real change at Seattle's main attraction.

Back in the Swing of Things

I am by no means an expert golfer. But I do like the sport, the walking, the smell of the fresh grass, being out in the sun...of course springtime in the Northwest is hardly a sunny time, being out in the showers is more like it. I haven't golfed much since having kids. It is a rather time consuming activity. Ages ago I golfed in a women's golf league, my parents live off of the second hole of a country club, I come from a family of golfers. In the last decade I have had to pick and choose free time activities and golfing just hasn't been one of them. I have decided to dust off the old clubs and give it a go again because I want to and because I have found a couple of other friends who are also interested in getting back into golfing. The great thing...there is a pretty great course less than 15 minutes from my house and they offer kids lessons at a reasonable rate, this may become a family activity after all.

The Panama Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Today I toured the Panama Hotel, the hotel that is featured in the book "On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet." The hotel owner, since 1985, gave us the personal touch. She is kind of like a walking history book and has procured an amazing amount of artifacts about the Japanese internment on the West Coast, many of which she shared today. The Panama Hotel is still in operation. It boasts a tea room/cafe, 101 rooms with bathrooms and showers down the hall, a basement in which many of the trunks left by Japanese families during the interment still reside, and best of all the ONLY fully intact old-style Japanese bath house in Northern America. The bath house was the best part. It has not been renovated or updated in any way and was fully functioning until 1963. Apparently, following internment, many Japanese families moved out of the city and relocated to homes with land. The small block near the Panama Hotel that housed over 8,000 Japanese before the war was changed forever. With bathrooms in their own homes, they no longer needed to come to the public bath house. If you ever come to Seattle for a visit and have an inkling for times gone by, The Panama Hotel would be a great place to spend a night or two.

Feeling Grown Up

Although I am chronologically an adult, often I feel like an older adolescent or very young adult at heart. When I look in the mirror I realize that this is not true. Sometimes after pausing to look at myself closely, I have to ask myself the inevitable, self-examining question that I am sure most adults ask of themselves at least once in a lifetime, "What have I done with my life?'

Today I did a very grown up thing and bought a ticket to a rather large fundraising luncheon to take place here in my small home city next month. The organization, PACE, is raising funds to build a large performing arts center here where I live. Initially I decided to purchase a ticket and go because a friend of mine is hosting a table and invited me.

Then I had another one of those moments in the mirror and realized that maybe I should find out more about this organization and see if I might want to get involved. It turns out that I could really get behind this organization. When I was younger, I always thought that I would be more of a hands-on person, doing the labor with the people so to speak. Now I am thinking that maybe I might be a bit more interested in getting involved from the fundraising end and getting experience in a more adult role. Maybe...at some point I might actually even join a board.

It's that Time of Year Again!

It's that time of year again and with two Girl Scouts in the house, I am slowly, or maybe quickly, eating my way up that scale! Forget ordering in bulk and freezing to have all year long, if I ordered in bulk I would probably eat in bulk right now!

What is food and what isn't?

I heard this question proposed on the radio the other day while driving to work. It is part of a new government program that would tax non-food items. One of the defining features of "food" is that it contains flour. Therefore some candies will be taxed and others will not, funny huh? The guys on the radio really got into it. They said that the deli food at grocery stores must surely be taxed as deli food is a "luxury food" item and is prepared and served by others, almost like a resturaunt. They thought for sure that a whole chicken sold in the deli would be taxed. An employee from a local grocery store deli called into the show and informed them that whole deli chickens were not taxed, but fast food items such as corndogs, Chinese food, jojos and such were indeed taxed. The DJ's thought this in consistency was humorous and they concluded the following:

"If you can't eat it with your hands while driving and texting then it isn't taxed."

Growing Old Gracefully

As much as I have tried to avoid the bustling crowds this Christmas, I have found myself in crowds on several occasions. Usually when I am being pushed and bumped along in the midst of a calm crowd I just try and go with it. If I happen to have children in tow, I try to hang on to them and have them hang on to me and hope that none of us gets separated. Here in our neck of the woods we have a nightly event called "Snowflake Lane." It takes place on the main thoroughfare that runs through the small city in which I live. My kids love it and each year it has grown in musical variety and characters in costume. First the costumed characters, drummers on stilts, and snow princesses make their rounds through the crowd. Then the bands of drummers come out and take their places on miniature stages to belt out some holiday tunes. The whole event ends with a glorious fake snowfall.

This year, my oldest daughter was quite taken with the costumed Rudolf and she really wanted to have her picture taken with him. When we first saw Rudolf I did not have my camera ready and he was gone before I had a chance to get it out. We had staked a place near the front along the crowd-lined street when she spied Rudlolf again. We quickly darted through the few people behind us to snap a picture, leaving my younger two children in our "spot." This only took a moment, but somehow in this short span of time, the area between my daughter and I and my younger two children had some how filled up with people. I felt the panic of a crowd closing in between myself and my kids, they were near a rather busy street and even though they know how to stay safe, I still wanted to get back to them.

I politely began to edge my way through people. For those of you who don't know me, I will take this time to mention that I enjoy seeing live music. I always wear tennis shoes to shows and I can often get to the front of the floor in a general admission show by moving through the crowd in a manner that would not be considered "polite." So this polite edging was quite a feat for me, I was trying to set a good example. Well, the first somewhat elderly gentleman was having none of that. He wasn't going to move. Fortunately, he was rather large and my daughter and I squeezed by him with some ease. Then there was the woman in front of me, probably in her early sixties, and I said quite politely three times, "excuse me" and she just stood there in front of me refusing to move. We really had no choice, I had to move around her and as I did she exclaimed, "What do you think you are doing!" "Well, uh, I don't know trying to get to my kids," I said with a sarcastic smile. I wanted to say more, but decided to drop it.

This is something that I have noticed of late, women in a certain age group who seem to feel that politeness and public consideration of others is no longer something that they need to do. I have a few theories about why this is so floating around in the old brain pan, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that many women spend too much of their lives giving to others and not enough giving to themselves. By the time they reach late middle age/early old age, they have had it and they are going to look out for number one the rest of you be damned. Maybe other people don't notice this, but I have and I know why, it is because I do not want to be like that. So from this day forth, I am going to practice being polite and I am going to remember to take good care of myself so that I have the emotional bandwidth to carry out this resolution.

Letter to Governor Huckabee

Dear Governor Huckabee,

What in the world were you thinking when you pardoned that fiend of a man to ruthlessly roam the streets of Washington state. I guess that you must have been thankful that he was leaving Arkansas after your generous gift. How could you be so inept as to have not noticed the psychopathic nature of this particular criminal (I refuse to honor him by using his name, you know who I am talking about).

In all of the time he has spent in prison, I find it difficult to believe that his hatred of police was hidden. Certainly there were written records attesting to this passionate hate. They must have been "swept under the rug" so that the devil could make his bargain. I find it hard to believe that there weren't other criminals more deserving. I am not a psychiatrist, but as a member of the general public, I could probably recognize a psychopath as deeply disturbed as this individual without much difficulty.

Our streets are clean of him. He was shot by law enforcement officers today. I will have you know that the generous freedom that you gave him led to the massacre of four police officers, all of whom left families behind that will now be missing a parent. It makes me wonder how you ever got elected or if this man had a rich relative or friend somewhere ready to make a bribe. I may be a Northwesterner, but I have travelled enough to know that Southerners are typically insulted when out-of-towners make fun of their intelligence. You have no excuse, I am an out-of-towner and I am insulting yours.

I hope that you think long and hard about the foolish decision that you made to pardon this man and set him free to commit heinous crimes. You deserve to lose sleep over this decision and pay attention next time, some criminals are beyond rehabilitation.

Sincerely,

A Concernc Citizen in Washington

Thankful for my Life

Last week I went to see the movie "Precious." Fortunately, or not, I had read the book beforehand so I knew what I was in for and the movie was far easier to take than the book. For those of you who are not familiar with the story of "Precious," it is about the saddest version of life one could have in this country. Precious is a sixteen-year-old African-American girl living in Harlem in 1987. She is pregnant with her second child, by her father. The first child was born with Down Syndrome when Precious was twelve. Precious is sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by both of her parents, although her father does not live in the home. She gets kicked out of school for being pregnant and is offered the chance to enroll in the "Each One, Teach One" program which turns out to save her from being a victim of her life.

People who know me know that I am easily traumatized by movies and books about child molestation. The book was terribly hard for me to read and I cried. This made the movie easier to watch and the acting was amazing. What I like about this particular story, is that it brings to light the problems faced by children and women in our culture here in America. As an American, it is sometimes easier for me to think about the kind of life that Precious faced as something that "just doesn't happen here." We all know that it does, but this often gets swept under the carpet and our attention goes to other parts of the world and how we can help there and we end up ignoring the social problems faced by our own country.

Since the concept of "education saves from poverty" was introduced in the 1970's, people have been critical, claiming that is does no such thing. This movie brought to light that education in general does not "save," but the right kind of education can do wonders. The program that Precious was enrolled in was not traditional in any sense of the word and I would be surprised if funding for such a unique and valuable educational opportunity would even be available in today's oppressed educational environment.

So that is it. A sad young girl, given a sad life and making the most of it because of a great teacher. All in all, very inspiring and a wake up call to me for social justice (injustice) in America.

Why Hurry Christmas?

It's that time of year again, Halloween is barely over, Thanksgiving isn't even here, and the decorations and Christmas music are in full force all over town. Why does Thanksgiving have to be rushed every year? Can't we take even a moment in our hurried and harried society to pause and give thanks? This year, as with every other, it seems as though Thanksgiving is a mere stopping place, a touch point really, on the way to the full scale mania of materialism at Christmas.

As I went about my errands today, I tried to stop my ears against the Christmas songs blaring in all of the stores, I tried to ignore the shelves upon shelves of Christmas decorations and advertising for Christmas gifts, and I even attempted to shut out Christmas items that were already ON SALE! How's that for effort? I do hate to hurry Thanksgiving. I love Halloween, all of that candy and no relatives, and I love Christmas-just not so soon. I will continue to "shut out" the Christmas frenzy and not get wrapped up in it the best that I can until Thanksgiving weekend is over. It is going to be awfully hard to do though if I go out in public at all.

One Bad Apple Ruins the Whole Bunch

I will be the first to admit that I haven't read much about the problems that Children's Hospital of Seattle has faced in regards to their much needed expansion. On Friday evening I attended a Symphony Guild fundraiser for Children's Hospital, I listened to a report about this issue on NPR, and I talked to a friend of mine who is a web designer for Children's Hospital at a party last night. These are my sources.

The fact is that Children's Hospital needs to expand. They currently have 250 beds and approximately 247 of them are filled. Children are sometimes not able to be placed in the area of the hospital that would best meet their needs because specialty areas are filled to the brim. Sometimes, children are turned away for services. The Children's Hospital of Seattle is located on a fairly nice piece of property near Lake Washington. In order to expand, they must build up. There are a handful of wealthy, aged, and influential people who have made their homes on the hill above the hospital and are actively thwarting expansion because they don't want their view blocked.

Needless to say, many of the businesses in the vicinity of the hospital are kept going by the employees and visitors at Children's. I am guessing that hundreds of employees live in the area. If the hospital is forced to move, it would be to the east side of the lake. There are two bridges that provide access to the east side from Seattle and they are both hugely congested many times during the day and evening as it is. Adding Children's Hospital traffic (assuming that most people don't want to or are unable to sell and buy in this economy) is going to make a large traffic problem that much worse. I would also like to mention that Harborview is the emergency hospital in Seattle, the one that a helicopter would land at if one were to need such services. Helicopters also land at Children's. Families who have been in accidents can get pediatric and adult care on the same side of the bridge and not be separated by a lake.

But, some people just don't want to lose their view. Is a view really more important than displacing and inconveniencing hundreds of employees and patients, No. I support keeping Seattle Children's Hospital in Seattle and wish the city council and government the best of luck in overriding some seriously self-centered individuals on this important issue.

Act of God

I saw the documentary film, "Act of God" last night. I actually had a difficult time following the sequence of stories in the film. Although there were some pretty spectacular images of lightening, I did not like the music used to narrate the film, it reminded me of fingernails on the blackboard. What brings me to write about this film viewing today is, it got me thinking about the randomness of life. Some may call this randomness "acts of God," others may refer to it simply as "chance." I consider myself to be somewhere in between. Yes, I believe in God, but contrary to the views expressed by some of the people interviewed in the film, I don't think of disaster (natural or otherwise) as a blessing or something to be considered good in any way. I also think it is somewhat dangerous to view a lightening strike that kills people as something considered to be "good," because it keeps the people still alive from going through the grief process. The film focused on stories about lightening strikes in South America, Cuba, France, and the United States. The participants in South America definitely had a more "this is God's will" view of lightening induced family deaths. I think of these lightening strikes more as chance rather than acts of God.

In the South American deaths, the young people who died had climbed to the top of an unsheltered hill knowing a storm was going to strike. In doing so, there was definitely a chance that they would be struck by lightening. In two of the American stories the participants were in areas of the country where thunder and lightening storms are not uncommon and were also outside in fairly unsheltered areas. If we take these examples away from lightening and look at the randomness of life in general, I think much of it leads to chance based on choices (knowing or not) and behavior that affects the outcome. I don't think of God necessarily as a puppeteer controlling our lives minutely from above.

Are these deaths sad, yes, all death by any means I think of as sad. One thing that we have to come to grips with in our humaneness is that we all have a finite time on this earth and this is something we can't change or control. Sometimes death comes early and sometimes late. I guess, overall, that I just didn't really see the "act of God" connection to the stories presented in this film. I would have gotten much more out of it viewing lightening scenes and actions narrated by beautiful music.

La Traviata Opening Night

I have a friend who is a real opera fanatic and she usually manages to get me to a couple of shows per year. Last night we saw La Traviata. I seem to remember seeing this opera ages ago in Portland. The sets for the one last night were incredible and Violetta was at her finest. My friend used her upgrade option for our seats, they were probably some of the best seats that I had ever had. All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Football Fever

I went to a University of Washington football game last night with my family. It was quite fun. I am not a huge football fan, but I do like watching it live, especially college games. When I went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, I went to all of the Badger home games and last night helped me to remember how fun it can be. The last half, more specifically, the last quarter was amazing! The Huskies had a couple of extremely lucky/great plays and won the game. I felt bad for people who left at half time thinking that they would lose for sure. Oh, and the pre-game tailgate party was fun as well!

Humane Society Walk

My oldest daughter, two of her friends, and two parents participated in this walk today and it was a fun event all the way around and for such a good cause! We don't own a dog, but our neighbors were nice enough to share theirs with us during the walk. Only later did I find out that we could have registered to walk a shelter dog, maybe next year. Terrific weather, terrific day, and terrific turn-out. When I last looked the Humane Society had raised over $90,000.00 from this event.

My Poker Face

I learned how to play poker on Saturday night. My dad is a poker aficionado of sorts. He and his friends still get together to play. Instead of meeting at 8:00pm on a Saturday night, they now meet at about 4:00pm on a weeknight, some of them toting walkers and quad canes to the event. I have always associated poker with my dad and time that he spent with his friends and have thus been a bit slow in learning how to play.

Last Saturday marked the end of my lethargy in learning the game of poker. While battling what has now turned into a miserable head cold, I dragged myself from my prone position a few blocks to my neighbors house, the site of the event. Thinking that I would only socialize a bit and then head home, I surprised myself by saying, "yes, " when asked to join a beginners game. This was great, the beginners game was perfect, nobody knew what they were doing and thus I did not slow anyone down with my steep learning curve. I started having so much fun that I even forgot how sick I had felt earlier in the evening.

At any rate, I eventually was lured away by the social aspects of the evening. My friend, who took over my place at the table, came in second. I like to think that I helped to boost her level of success, not bad for beginners luck.

Drinking Our Way Through Seattle

Last night I went out, spur of the moment, after a very long day, for both of us, with a friend in order to celebrate her birthday. We were talking about blogs, the Julie Powell blog specifically, and we wondered what kind of blog we could create and decide to add our idea to my existing blog. The idea being to drink our way around town. Now, this does present a few challenges as we really don't get out all that often. But, it has been decided that when we do and we enjoy the product, I will blog about it.

Stir Martini Bar was where we found ourselves last night. In addition to a wonderful food menu, Stir also serves up some pretty fantastic drinks. They use excellent vodkas which, needless to say, go down more smoothly than many other vodkas out there and makes it easier for one to get up and go to work the next day. Here is a list of the drinks that we sampled:

Bellevue Blue: Belevedere vodka, Bombay Sapphire gin, and Blue Curaco
Baby Shea: Titos vodka, Lillet, Orchard Apricot and lemon juice
Purple Flower: Sapphire gin, St. Germain, Creme de Violette, and Lavender soda
Sake 75: Pearl Plum vodka, Sake, sparkling wine, and lemon sour
Pink Fizz: rum, Triple Sec, muddled orange, lemon and cherry, Grenadine, and Sprite

For Dessert:
Drinking Chocolate served with a homemade marshmallow (I am going to have to try this at home. Last night's marshmallow really helped me see the value of going homemade)
Chocolate Martini-standard mix

Pretty luscious fare I know, but it was her birthday after all!
The other great thing about the evening is that most of it was spent during after-hours Happy Hour and the drinks were less than half-price.

What I did Last Night

Part of the evening involved watching this man perform shirtless, yummy! I love girls night!