Seattle Nat

One Year Later...

2010-06-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

I'm also maintaining a strictly-me blog at

Please enjoy it!

Closing Sale

2009-06-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

During these tough economic times, this blog has been forced to close its doors. But not to despair, it's only because Grayson and Natasha have moved 3,034.19 miles away from Seattle to Boston.

Move along with us to our new, shared blog, where all of our adventures everywhere will be piled into one action-packed, thrill-a-minute über-blog!

The Bunny and Tiger

West Seattle

2009-06-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

We've now been in Boston for just shy of two months. I have to say, I miss Seattle like crazy, and have often thought, if we ever move back to Seattle, where would I want to put roots down? And I have to say, my mind keeps drifting to West Seattle.

The entire year we were in Seattle, I had really wanted to make it to Alki Beach and West Seattle, but for one reason or another it just never happened, until one of the last few weeks we were in town at all. My mom had come to visit for the weekend, and among a crazy whirlwind through the city that we embarked on, we took the water taxi across Elliot Bay to West Seattle. Originally, it was to kayak around the West Seattle peninsula, but a kayak proved a bit too...intense...for my claustrophobia, so we opted instead to rent bicycles from the place. My mother, Grayson and I hopped on beach cruisers and rode our bicycles the entire parameter of the West Seattle peninsula, from where the water taxi drops you off, past Alki Beach, and to the Alki lighthouse. Unfortunately the lighthouse was closed, but we stopped by anyway. From there, we cut through the middle of the peninsula and went down to the farmer's market, checked out the main drag and indulged in delicious cupcakes. From there we rode our bikes the rest of the way across and back to our original starting point. It was an intense ride, but TONS of fun. Below are some photographic highlights. I surprised mom for her birthday with a harbor cruise and went through the Locks, after which she saw boats from her favorite show "The Deadliest Catch," we palled around Pike Market and Pioneer Square, and of course, at the end of the weekend, we tried some cupcakes! This time from a new shop I hadn't tried before, Yellow Leaf in Belltown. I had the Tomato Soup cupcake, which just tasted like pumpkin pie. But it was yummy!

Anyway, there are captions galore:

Can't wait for my next whirlwind in the city...

Back in Action!

2009-05-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

We've been back in town for just shy of a couple of weeks now. It was difficult to board the plane and leave Europe, there were a handful of towns and cities I could have easily made my home in, but I will admit it was nice to come home to Seattle. The weather was beautiful and sunny when we arrived as well.

Coming home was really strange. Riding the bus, which I've done at least twice daily for the last year was different having navigated public transit systems all over the European continent. It made me miss the Paris metro and Prague trams especially. A couple of new annoyances about the US now that I'm stateside again: (this is actually an old annoyance made fervent by Europe), in the States, people just stand wherever they want on the escalators, and no one really asks them to move aside to move up, if two dorks are standing abreast in front of you up the slowly crawling and ascending escalator and you maybe don't necessarily *need* a robot to climb the stairs for you, you just simply appreciate the robot's help in getting you up the stairs faster, it's almost rude to excuse yourself to pass people on the escalator here. But in *most*, not all, places in Europe, there's an unspoken rule where you stand on the right side of the escalator, and the left remains open to allow people to walk past. People will even cram their huge pieces of luggage in front of them rather than occupy the small aisle on the left-hand side of the escalator. We first noticed this phenomenon in Vancouver, BC, where again the right side of the escalator was for standing, and the left for walking. This is an amazing, revolutionary model for etiquette and efficiency, and Grayson and I are single-handedly doing our part to bring it to the States. Even if we're not in a rush, we're going to excuse ourselves all up and down the elevator on the left-hand side until the nation catches on!!! :)

Annoyance number two: trains. Oh my goodness how I love trains. And there aren't hardly any around here. Nothing like Europe. There is Amtrak, but it doesn't go anywhere, and there are a couple of commuter trains in Seattle, but they, also are not everywhere. Nor do they hardly go anywhere. We could take a train from the airport to the city, or from Prague to Munich. Rome to Paris! They were everywhere, comfortable and super-punctual (except sometimes in Germany of all places!) I wish trains were as prevalent and amazing as they are in Europe.

Though most of all, I just kind of enjoyed the feel of Europe, the people, the general way in which they do things and believe things ought to be done. The smaller portion sizes, the huge prevalence of bicycles (and bicycle lanes on the sidewalk!), the huge parks everywhere (like Seattle!), Muji stores!!!, and mostly, just the amazing culture and buildings that is everywhere around modern day real life. It's just nuts to see businessmen in expensive suits riding their bicycles to the ultra modern and high tech buildings next door to centuries-old buildings.

I did, however, miss a couple of things: more than two pairs of clothes. Free laundry in the comfort of my own home. Paper towels. Coffee the way I'm used to it. Ice cubes in every drink and free refills (though this is something that would be best gotten used to live without). Nail clippers-I never dared buying them because we always had to get on a plane in a couple of days and it would have been a waste of money. Perhaps.

Coming home to our apartment was really weird. I couldn't begin to explain it but it just felt so strange, pleasant, but totally foreign. A place with all our stuff where we could stay...it was so *weird*, even the size of it seemed strange, not like it was super tiny compared to everywhere we stayed, or super large, just ... different. As soon as we dropped our bags, I drank a diet coke which was still in the fridge, laundry was started, I took a loooong shower and put on my NORMAL clothes. Since then we've been taking it as easy as possible and I've been super lazy and not fixing up any photos or doing much of anything Europe-related. I went right back to work and have been getting back in the routine, and now this weekend we'll be in Boise, and the following weekend my mommy is visiting, so we'll be kept on our toes.

Last weekend we went out and about. Friday night we went to an art opening at Roq La Rue, a hip local gallery that specializes in pop surrealism art. The show was called "Lush Life," and featured a lot of multimedia images that attempts to bring "together painters in both the alt-art world as well as contemporary art scene, who all work within a guideline of tight technical craftsmanship as well the use of opulent and decadent imagery to convey higher inner truths and emotions. This take on 'Neo-Symbolism' is different from it's predecessor in that while it still mines the unconscious for a sense of mythic gravitas, it incorporates American culture's pervasive pop culture-flavored and cartoony aesthetic." I like that the paintings were modern but so many reminded me of the tons of paintings I saw in Europe, with high technical skill and attention to realistic detail, yet imbued with modern, symbolic elements, technologies or techniques. I even found one I adored so much I'd consider paying $3200 for...if I ever had that to burn on a painting...Mia Araujo's 'Across the Nile.' Check out more images from the show here.

I spent Saturday slumming around the downtown library, and the rest of the weekend doing some errands and chores. The weather was favorable, especially after a work week of grey, windy rain. And now it's sort of been the same this week, mostly grey and windy and rainy, and then the sun pokes out for a bit.

We're off to Europe!

2009-04-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Peace out, Seattle!

Clearly, there won't be any Seattle-related posts for a while. Do follow Grayson and I on our April in Europe blog!

Brother Visit!

2009-04-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

My little brother came up to visit for a few days, and he got a whirlwind tour of Seattle while he was here. We went to the Seattle Center, the Sculpture Park, Pike Market, took a harbor cruise around Elliott Bay, went to Safeco Field and Qwest Arena (just the outside), through Pioneer Square, then off to Ballard to see the Locks and Archie McPhee's, Wallingford for Dick's, Fremont to the Troll, a few glorious, sunny moments at Gasworks Park in an otherwise grey, rainy week, then milled around the U-District, and even went up to Northgate. It's left me exhausted just in time to leave for Europe!

Here are some scenes:

Dismantling the Space Needle...

Sculpture Park

Harbor Cruise

Pike Market

International District

Safeco Field, Home of the Mariners

Welcome Back, Ken Griffey, Jr! Woohoo!

Qwest Arena, Home of the Seahawks, and our new Euro football team, the Seattle Sounders!

Ballard Locks - we got to watch a yacht move through!

Gasworks Park during the five minutes of perfect sunlight!

Troll!

Vernal Equinox

2009-03-20T18:04:00.001-07:00

Grayson and I celebrated the first day of spring with yummy food and sangria!

And then I got Easter presents early, since we'll be far away for my favorite holiday (bunnies!) I got cupcake dental floss (ahh yeah, Archie McPhee's) bunny paper clips, and a hopping mechanical bunny who is also fuzzy:

The city was also celebrating springtime with some fun sidewalk chalk!

Needle!

Radioactive bunny!

Greenlake

2009-03-20T18:03:00.001-07:00

In order to prepare for our upcoming trip to Europe, we're hitting the many streets of Seattle testing out our new walkin' shoes and my new, tiny, travel-ly camera. We started last Saturday in Fremont, walking around from the Fremont Rummage Sale (which raises money for the totally Fremont-y Solstice Parade) through the rest of Fremont in the rain:

Fremont: Center of the Universe

Lenin looks on...

...and finds Fremont to be good...

...by the hairs on his Commie-chinny-chin-chin.

Fremont knows that gelato deserves an exclamation point

On Sunday, we walked all the way from our place to the Greenlake library. It mostly rained, and then was intermittently blue and pretty, just in time for nice views and decent photos:

Wedgwood

2009-03-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

Grayson's out of town on a field trip to a potential graduate school, so I'm all on my lonesome!

So, I took the opportunity to mill around Wedgwood, a neighborhood in North Seattle that we haven't explored yet.

Wedgwood in pink

It's mostly families and from what I could tell a lot of senior homes, so some old people to boot. BUT, there were some awesome things in Wedgwood:

Novelty-sized donut-shaped signs? Check.

Yiddish at the bus shelter? Check.

I also went to a boutique-Coop market, and spent the rest of the day planning our trip.

As I was trying to reserve a hotel in Rome (ah, me, not realizing that one of the very few days we are in Rome is EASTER FRIGGIN SUNDAY. Who's up for seein' the Pope?), kitty decided he likes venti whatevers from Sbux:

Europa

2009-02-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, Natasha and I are now committed to spend the entire month of April in Europe. Our current itinerary is:

1) Fly into Frankfurt, Germany, stay the night to recover from jet lag.
2) Prague, Czech Republic and stay for 2-3 days.
3) Munich, Germany, day trips to Füssen and Dachau.
4) Night train to Florence, Italy, staying for most of the day
5) Rome for 4 days
6) Night train to Paris for 6 days
7) Fly to Nottingham, England, stay the night, hang out for a day
8) Go to London for 6 days
9) Fly to Oslo, Norway for 3 days
10) Fly to Frankfurt for the flight home (May 1st)

Of course, none of this comes on the cheap. If anyone wants to pitch in for supplies, we have a wishlist for equipment here. If you are so kind as to buy clothing, the sizes required are indicated in the notes on the right hand side of the wishlist. Thanks in advance for your generous donations! Special attention may be given to donors when it comes to keepsakes and such :)

We've already purchased the plane tickets to Europe - we found an insanely cheap direct flight from Seattle to Frankfurt, which is what inspired us to go in the first place. We bought our railpass already:
This pass allows us to use the train any 5 days we want for 2 months, and go through 5 countries indicated on the pass. When we bought the pass we got a sweet discount at the Rick Steves travel store, so we stocked up on goods:

Pictured here from left to right: railpass, travel towels, free maps, hostel sheets, toiletries bag (front row) money belts, inflatable neck pillows. If you don't know, Rick Steves is a guy who does travel shows for PBS, and his hometown is Edmonds, WA (13 miles north of Seattle) and he runs a store there which hosts free classes on travel and language skills, has an extensive free library of travel books, a collection of DVDs of his show. He is basically a suburban middle class white guy who helps other suburbanites travel through Europe - and is also fighting for your right to smoke pot.

We also paid a hefty fee to a consultant to look over our itinerary and give us some advice - she saved us three times her cost on the railpass, so I highly recommend this if you plan your own trip sometime (if you happen to be near Edmonds. They will do this over the phone but it costs extra).

Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day, surprised Grayson by having a Valentine to him printed in Seattle's alternative newsweekly, The Stranger.

Here's the cover:

Printed on his birthday! Some were especially dirty...

We were in Canada when it printed, so I had to grab an issue all nonchalantly on Valentine's Day while we were out having coffee and point it out to him.

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

Canadialand

2009-02-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

For my 27th birthday we visited...Canada! It was the first sojourn out of the US for both of us. Money was tight, but we will be leaving the area soon and this will be one of our last opportunities to visit Vancouver for many years.
We rode the train up north along the sound, at times right beside the Pacific:

When we arrived, we were questioned by a polite but curt Canadian border guard, who gave us a battery of questions about our plans, and let us go unmolested.

We left the train station and immediately found the SkyTrain. This is probably the best form of public transportation I've ever seen. It is what the Monorail in Seattle was trying to be. Best of all, you use the same tickets to ride it as you do the buses there. It basically runs in a circle on a track around the city, going super fast and stopping at each station every few minutes. It makes the craziest noises running along the track, which I couldn't even describe. It also plays strange jingles when it stops and starts to let you know when the doors will be closing or opening (which happens automatically at each stop).
We made it to our hotel - by showing up before our room was ready, the hotel was forced to upgrade our room for free in order to accommodate us, which was super nice. The complimentary breakfast included DIY waffles, which were awesome.

Vancouver is huge, and in very large parts of downtown seems to have been built overnight. The skyline is vast, and most of the buildings are of fairly recent architectural style (read: made almost entirely out of glass and designed with modern geometric styles).

Some of the best buildings we saw:

The city library, in a colosseum/modern style:
Canada Place, which is home to the Vancouver IMAX theater, which is a fairly prominent feature of the waterfront due to this strange design:

The Lookout (Vancouver's ghetto version of the Space Needle):
As you probably know, Canada features two official languages, English and French, and laws require that most signs and labels carry both languages. We found some otherwise familiar items around that had both languages on them:

We also found some other peculiarities. Note how they like to spell "center" (in all cases, not just this one):
Their street crossing signs are all brand new, and feature LED lighting, and most have a hollow figure instead of a filled one to save power (although the only good picture we got was this exception):
Vancouver is scheduled to host the Olympics in 2010, so the whole city was hopping with construction and paraphernalia in preparation for this event. They had a big rock sign with a digital countdown timer in the park next to the art museum.

Some other things we did:
Visited the Space Centre, saw this vintage rocket engine and this 1/5th size model of the Hubble telescope, and the creepy crab water fountain/statue they have out in front):
Caught some nice shots of the skyline from multiple vantage points:
Visited a small part of the enormous park they have sitting at the northwestern corner of the city (which is almost as big as the city itself), and ate a delicious candy bar unique to Canada:
Tried a strange local favorite, called Poutine, which is basically cheese curds and gravy on fries. I didn't love it, but it wasn't bad:
And last but not least, celebrated my birthday in a humble way with delicious cupcakes:
A million other shots of random stuff we saw on the way:
The ride home was a bit more difficult than our arrival. The Canadian border guards hand searched both of our bags and ran past us with the drug dogs, and thoroughly questioned us with that deadly seriousness that clearly conveys the message of "I'm willing to shoot you if you make a wrong move." The American agents that boarded the train and questioned us at the border had the same attitude. It is interesting to watch the tools of the state doing their business.

We made it home to our lonely kitty, who missed us very much.

So what was great about Canada and what wasn't?

Great: infrastructure, especially transportation. The buses weren't as spacious but they were much more technologically advanced, having computerized voices and displays inside showing the next stop. They also had digitial "next arriving" signs at some of the busier stops. The SkyTrain is awesome, and unlike Seattle's Monorail, is actually used by local commuters.

Not so great: the bus system is paperless, so you have no idea what routes go where unless you have access to the Web, which we weren't willing to pay roaming data charges to access, never mind someone who doesn't have a phone with a full Internet browser.

Great: people were all very friendly (except some homeless person who hassled us with Bible verses).

Great: the money is very convenient - there are no $1 bills, only $1 and $2 coins (called loonies and toonies, wtf) which work in all vending machines.
Great: the buses are really polite - instead of the OUT OF SERVICE our buses display, the Canadian buses have a very nice "Sorry...Out of Service." Nice touch.

Great: there is a public discipline on escalators, where people who don't feel like walking up the moving steps stay to the right, and allow fast climbers to move on the left. Maybe there are some American cities where this happens, but I've never been to one.

These are only the benefits given to a traveler; the citizen of Canada also has access to their free healthcare and social services. So all in all...
We couldn't agree more.

Even yet still more Ballard

2009-01-31T17:33:00.001-08:00

Big news! Grayson got his first letter back from one of his graduate schools, and it was a FULL-RIDE! Into a doctorate program! This made us both massively happy, as it means a looot of hard work has paid off. It's bittersweet though, because this basically seals the deal that I won't be "Seattle" Nat anymore by fall. At least for the next five years...

Following that bit of awesomeness, we finished our taxes this morning! Whoo! But then, the weather was too amazing to ignore again this weekend - although a bit cold - and we hit the pavement in search of burgers, camera repairs (Yes, the lens I broke all those months ago at Gasworks, I did not take it to the repair shop until today. L-A-Z-Y.) and cupcakes, but what we found dear readers, was so much more:

As the link above indicates, this was not our first sojourn into Ballard, we've been a couple of times, mostly for cupcakes, and it's a neighborhood that's grown on us. It's mostly known for its history of Scandinavian immigration, evidence of which pops up intermittently, but as we were walking from a newly discovered, HUGE book store in a converted library, we found these awesome relics...behold Leif Eriksson Hall:

Complete with bitchin' longship reliefs and a massive bust of Leif Eriksson, the head of which was the size of my entire body. Mostly.

But that's not all, right next door, observe Viking Bank!
How rad is that? I guess I'd like it more if it was shaped like a huge longship with trunks of gold all around.

And FLAGS:

Left to right: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, America

After that we made it to Cupcakes Royale, whose January-February special is Salted Caramel Cupcakes. Oh yeah. (Come on, it has been a while since I posted a cupcake...) The flavor was inspired by President Obama's favorite treat, salted caramels. The cake was dark chocolate heaven, and the top was coated in gooey icing that tasted like home made caramel. SOOOO GOOOOD. Oh my goodness.

A cupcake so good, it melted the color away from everything else...

Then we wandered around in artsy shops and record stores and came home. My lens should be ready in just a few days. Yay!

Happy Year of the Ox!

2009-01-25T17:49:00.000-08:00

On Friday night Grayson and I went to our very first Vegan restaurant, Araya's which is very close to our place. They specialize in Vegan Thai food. It was huge inside, and very pretty, and the food was really good. I got their specialty, pineapple fried rice, which comes complete with a pineapple plate!

Today we went to St. Mark's Cathedral on Capitol Hill. This is a huge Episcopalian cathedral that sits atop Capitol Hill, and can be seen from Lake Union, or just about any part of the city that looks over to Capitol Hill from West of it. Here is a view from Eastlake (or East of Lake Union):
It's a huge, stunning building, and I've always wanted to go inside it, so I was really excited to find out that they were having an event this weekend to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The new year is the Year of the Ox, which is my Chinese astrology symbol...
...Ox power!

So, despite the fact that it had started lightly snowing outside, though not sticking, we hopped on a bus to the Cathedral and listened to some great Chinese music, performed by an amazing ensemble. Many of the musicians could play several instruments individually, from drums to very ornate and complex stringed instruments.

Watching them play the drums was my favorite part. And, it was TOTALLY FREE. w00t economy prices!

The sun does also rise!

2009-01-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

2 HUGE developments in the land of milk and coffee this weekend:

Number 1: HOLY CRAP, IT'S THE FRIGGIN APOCALYPSE!!! Oh, wait, it's not a wall of flames descending from the heavens, it's the SUN!

I tried counting the number of days it had been since I had seen the sun for more than two minutes, and I lost count somewhere in December. Grayson and I were at first perplexed, then intrigued, and scampered out to see if it was real. No joke, our eyes hurt, it had been so long. (Hence Grayson's unsure grimace above). We spent a little of yesterday and a good deal of today out and about walking to bask in as much as we could before it parted. We're both BIG overcast/rainy/grey day people, but long enough without the sun and it was actually kind of nice to see!

Number 2:

Seattle passed an ordinance that mandated that fast food establishments have their caloric content on their menus. It's actually county wide. It is supposed to be in effect as of the beginning of the year, but it was still a surprise to start seeing it crop up. Not all places have them readily visible, but one day, we saw it at Starbucks:

And, before you ask (as I did), bask in the market research Grayson and I walked 2 miles to obtain:

Yes, even McDonald's. Even McDonald's displays that a Quarter Pounder with Cheese containeth 1100-some-odd calories, right there, glowing for all to see.

Startling!

Seattle New Year

2009-01-16T21:47:00.001-08:00

5 Lists of 5 Things

2009-01-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

5 excuses for not updating:
1. Lazy
2. In the past two-three weeks, I haven't been in Seattle entirely.
3. Thinking about my new blog.
4. Too busy, what with travel and work and reading lots of books and petting lots of kitty.
5. Lazy

In honor of visiting ye Olde hometowne of Boise over the Xmas holiday, here are 5 things that I missed about the City of Trees:
1. Family.
2. Friends.
3. Flying Pie Pizza.
4. Grayson missed knowing his way around town.
5. Riding my bike.

Also, in honor of our visit, here are 5 things I have come to ... not appreciate entirely ... about Seattle:
1. Graffiti.
2. Panhandlers/homeless. Yes, it's tragic and all, but I have a wicked strong sense of smell.
3. Grayson hates the hipsters, whereas I am indifferent. I, more than Grayson, feel kind of claustrophobic sometimes in this city, where everything is squished in so much.
4. AveRats (like mall rats, but on the Ave, decidedly more dishevelled and older, they scream at each other, hang out with sad looking dogs, drink 40s and spit a lot, they take up half the sidewalk and stare at you as you pass).
5. How much stuff costs.

Looking Back List, or, we've had 5 Anniversaries, what did we do for them?
1. Visited Seattle (2003).
2. We were staying at my mom's with plans to save money to buy a house, so I made spaceship pasta with artichoke sauce, and we had a quiet night in.
3. Dinner and a movie. This year it was "Babel" and P. F. Chang's.
4. Grayson had graduated that day from college, so we spent the day celebrating with laser tag and pizza and beer and friends and family after the ceremony, all of which was a surprise to Grayson, and then I sprung on him the biggest surprise that night: I booked us this crazy suite at Hotel 43 downtown. It had a jacuzzi, and a living room. It was awesome. The next day we went to dinner at On the Border and saw the Golden Compass.
5. Our crazy, downtown Seattle adventure.

Looking Forward List, or 5 things I definitely want to do in the next 6 months, in Seattle:
1. Visit Alki Beach and West Seattle.
2. Check out Georgetown.
3. Go to Tacoma on the train, and eat a cupcake from Look cupcakes. Also go to the Museum of Glass.
4. Ikea store (still haven't actually physically been there).
5. TIE: Seward Park OR Sculpture Park OR Kobuta Gardens.

5 Year Anniversary

2008-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

Natasha and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on Sunday. Technically we were married on the 22nd of December, but we deliberately chose that date as it was the winter solstice that year. Since we are both iconoclasts, we celebrate our anniversary on the solstice, whatever date it happens to be, rather than the 22nd.

This year it was Sunday the 21st. This, magically, happened to be one of the greatest snow days that Seattle has seen in years. Since it rarely if ever snows here, the entire city shuts down when the first flake hits the ground. Entire bus routes are canceled, businesses (even lucrative chain retailers) shut down as early as 6pm, and taxi cabs become impossibly rare.

Almost since we got here, Natasha and I were planning for a dinner at the Sky City restaurant, the one in the Space Needle. Kitschy, and touristy, I know, but we thought the view was going to be worth it. Plus, they sell Kobe beef, which I wouldn't mind trying.

We managed to find a bus downtown, where we mulled around bookstores, the mall, anywhere and everywhere. We had a snowball fight outside the mall (everyone cheered when Natasha hit me, why am I the bad guy?) and slid around in the snow. The streets were almost completely empty, so you could jaywalk at will.

Because the buses were mostly out of operation, we had planned on taking the monorail, also a kitschy tourist attraction, which runs from the Westlake Mall to the Seattle Center (where the Needle is). With our 7:30 dinner reservations approaching, we went up to the monorail to find that it had shut off at 6 due to the weather. Why a monorail is dependent on the weather is beyond me.

Our reservations were in 30 minutes, we were a mile and a half from the Needle, and buses were running maybe 25% of the time. With time running out, we barely managed to squeeze into a shared cab with a family of tourists - they filled the back seat, and Natasha sat in my lap in shotgun as we cruised through the icy streets of Seattle.

We arrived at the Space Needle at 7:22, just in time. We marched through the snow up toward the Needle, feeling relieved.

Alas:

We took advantage of our situation to get some nice pictures:

Now we were in an awkward position. Nothing around was open, we called and called taxi dispatches, and got busy signals and outright refusals - no cabs downtown, they said. We found a sports bar that overcharged for drinks, warmed back up, and began the long trek back downtown to a place where buses were still operating.

After marching in the snow for 30 minutes, we arrived at a bus stop only to find that people had been waiting there for a bus for over an hour. We decided to try a few more stops, and luckily hit on a bus that was supposed to be canceled but was still running. We hopped it and made it home.

We perused the Ave looking for a restaurant at which to have an anniversary dinner, but everything was closed. Undaunted, Natasha and I went to Safeway and bought a bottle of champagne (luckily, the same brand we had at our wedding party) and a truly modern miracle, a cake batter that becomes cake in the microwave.

So take that, elements! And the King County Metro! And the Monorail people! And the people of Sky City who didn't bother to call us! And the lazy cab drivers! We had a fine time devouring chocolate cake and a whole bottle of champagne. It was a well deserved happy ending.

The frostbitten slopes of doom mountain (or Seattle in winter)

2008-12-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

Natasha:
On Monday, I was hired officially, thereby dissolving my "temp" status. This coincided with more money and benefits!, In which I have enrolled promptly and am soon to be able to utilize them. Yay dental cleaning! It will be almost a whole year when I finally get an appointment. Also this week was my final French class. I will not be going next semester, as Grayson has elected to utilize the budget in order to take Ancient Greek, to prepare for graduate school. I enjoyed the class, and made friends, and have a good start on French for travel, and for eventually learning it better if I want to use it academically. Yay French! It was fun, but hard to balance with 40 hours of work. It's amazing how little energy I have after sitting on my butt for 8 hours.

Saturday we went to Bellevue for our final three Christmas presents. Bellevue is crazy: in one block, nay on one STREET on the length of one block there is a McCormick's, Cheesecake Factory, P. F. Chang's and the mall, which has Nordstrom's, Crate and Barrell, Thomasville and The Container Store just in view on this street. I am also told that the mall "snows" every night during the season before Christmas. We missed that lil chestnut. The movie theater there is pretty swank, too. They have like twenty screens that are all huge, and the seats are these huge, cushy, faux leathery things that rock and feel like thrones. We went to see "Milk." Tickets were TEN DOLLARS. I remember when ten dollars could buy... ah, whatever. The movie was good, though.

Grayson:
It snowed most of Saturday, and actually managed to stick to the ground. This is the first time it's ever snowed in Seattle while we've been here. A view from our apartment window:

The snow was still around Sunday as we trekked through Wallingford. We needed to get a few last xmas gifts, and to check out this place called Kidd Valley, a burger chain confined to western Washington. Mostly standard fare, except for...sweet potato fries!

Hard to tell from the picture, but they are much darker in color than regular fries. They don't taste too different, but you can certainly detect that extra sweetness in them. Highly recommended, if you ever come here.

Finally, it is imperative that you see our glorious monument to xmas tradition, the fiber optic spectral colored celebration tower (i.e. xmas tree):

Again, hard to see from the picture, but it has acquired the standard ornament-per-year. The star on the top is supposed to glow or something, but its energy source has failed over the years. This year's ornament is a Hello Kitty Lucky Cat from our good friends at SANRIO CO., LTD.

Novelists!

2008-11-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

Grayson and I won National Novel Writing Month this morning! We are both official novelists, with 50,000 word novels under our belts! Finally, it's all over! :D

In other news, Grayson officially submitted his last applications to Graduate school yesterday. He sent four in total, and now we play the waiting game until March. If he does not get in, we are postponing our trip to Europe to the low season (and thereby allowing ourselves more time to save money), and we will both be engaging in research projects and undergraduate classes so that Grayson can present some papers at conferences to bolster his C. V., and to improve his GPA, and so that I can also present at conferences in order to bolster my own C. V., and hopefully finish my Literature degree, with plans of going on to graduate school myself.

If Grayson is accepted, we will be off to Europe in June, followed by a move to either South Bend, IN., East Lansing, MI., Boston or Chicago. And I will go into a post-baccalaureate program in Literature. Either way, it will be exciting times.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2008-11-30T14:37:00.001-08:00

This year's Thanksgiving was a unique one. For both Grayson and I, it marked the first Thanksgiving away from family. We designed a menu for only two people, and I got to shop for ingredients at Pike Market!

Total cost for ingredients and supplies: $84.76*
Total cost for Hobbes' dinner: $0.69

Observe the slideshow:

Full slideshow, with captions

*the port cost more than the turkey.

Like most great things in modern times, the success of the cupcakes was due to efficient division of labor. Natasha and I pooled our efforts on this one, with great happy success.

The sweet potato cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese icing were a compromise dessert between pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows.

Observe the slideshow:

Full slideshow here, with captions.

Dinner was comprised of:

Salad/vegetable: Frisée Salad with red bartlett pears, pomegranate seeds and manchego cheese, with a vinaigrette. High-fallutin' eh?

Main course: Spiral-stuffed turkey breast with apple cider gravy and mashed potatoes.

Dessert: Sweet potato cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting.

We made the cupcakes the night before, and started dinner at 4:30 p.m. Grayson had to work until 7 p.m. (he works from home), so we were aiming to eat at 8 p.m. Everything went swimmingly, the only mishaps were the lack of a dutch oven, which caused the turkey's cooking time to exceed plans by half an hour. Also, I sliced my finger when I meant to slice a pear for our salad. Hobbes enjoyed turkey and giblets kitten food while we ate our dinner. We both tried port for the first time with dinner. It was really good, but definitely packs a punch. Hyah! All in all, a small, super-delicious dinner. And, we were really good and did our dishes as we went, so there was no clean up afterward (except for two plates). Awesome!

Observe the slidesow:

Full slideshow with captions here.

\m/ also: tea, novels and sammiches!

2008-11-23T12:34:00.001-08:00

Actual In Flames

Perceived In Flames

Grayson:
For those of you who don't know but somehow still care, In Flames is a band from Gothenburg, Sweden (same place Dark Tranquillity (sic) is from), who started out in the 90's and put out several albums with a relatively low following until the last few years, when their popularity has spiked with the mainstream metal community. On the short list of bands that I need to see before I die, this one has been elusive - I've missed them several times (the first time being too young to go to the bar they were playing at - and this was when they were small-time enough to be playing in bars). We finally got to see them, at the Showbox Sodo, which is a huge place (Big Easy times four, easily) near Safeco field. While we stayed in the beer garden for the show, it was *awesome* - the band didn't play my favorite songs, but they have so many good ones that they did play it didn't matter much. They also had some really cool stage lighting, which is unfortunately beyond the humble powers of my cellphone camera. Still on the bands-to-see-before-death list: Lacuna Coil and Rammstein, who are probably going to break up before we catch them :(

In other news...

Natasha:
Grayson and I fell a little behind on our writing this week, what with the concert and some flagging energy afterward. We tried to mix up the writing a bit this weekend for catching up on our word count (I am currently 4,000 words behind, and Grayson is currently 2,000 words behind. That will change today). We went to Shinka Tea, a tea shop on the Ave and had some nummy black tea and exotic Pocky-esque sticks:

and hand wrote our writing for the day, to give a change of pace.

Grayson was also excited that there is now yet another food establishment on the Ave that allows you to hyper-customize your food order without speaking to a person, as, for example, this new sandwich shop:
There is also a burger joint down the street that does it the same way. You check the boxes for what you want, hand it off, and get your food back, exactly as you want it without any errors, all while remaining in the comfortable cocoon in spite of social anxiety. And the Montecristo ain't half bad either! (They include grape jelly and the powdered sugar, but it doesn't get grilled french toast style)

Rallying together

2008-11-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, Grayson and I headed downtown. We made a stop over at REI to pick up my awesome new urban-ready messenger bag (thanks mom!) I am now the proud owner of a bag that I do not have to remove or struggle to hold on to when I get on the bus, a bag that will hold all my usual crap, plus a huge book, a whole lunch and French textbook and binder, or my laptop for writing. I am also the proud owner of a bag that is waterproof, and will no longer saturate my books, notebooks and papers when I am out and about in the rainy city. Yay! We then headed downtown, I got a couple new shirts for work (totally sweet couponage!) And then we wandered through Pike Market, which still, after living here for five months, is an awesome thing to be able to do whenever we want. Yay! We then took the bus through Pioneer Square, past the Underground Tour office, and checked out FOUR bookstores in a row. Woohoo!

We then made our way back to Westlake to the Anti-Proposition 8 rally, observe our shaky cell phone videos of the awesome signs and huge crowds:

The weather was favorable to the cause, and the mayor dubbed November 15 as "Marriage Equality Day" for the city. Much of the vitriol in Seattle was against the LDS church, which contributed a great deal of money towards defeating Proposition 8 in California. This made for an interesting time for me, especially being from Idaho, and seeing how Seattleites reacted against the Church. Case in point:

There were a bunch of other silly signs, for what else could you expect from a city as tech-savvy and caffeinated as this?

The home of LOLcats:

There were some other signs we didn't capture, PROP 8 FAIL, and another: < / prop8 > which means "End Prop8" in html code.

All in all it was a huge event:

Afterwards it was back toward the homestead for hair cuts, reading, novel writing and sleeps. Today, we started chores, made breakfast (nums!) planned our impending Thanksgiving menu, did some writing, shopping, and headed to the cinema.

We saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which had very gross and very funny parts, but was mostly hokey and unbelievable. Even for a movie. Who was Kevin Smith's intended demographic? Raunchy 18-35 males would have gagged at the schmoozy plot, and no girl that I know of in existence could have really identified with Miri...meh. It is really crazy that I can walk to the movie theater. Wee!

The Election (with commentary)

2008-11-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

You get to hear from me this time! I'm charged with writing about the election since Natasha wants to keep her posts politically neutral (but she agrees with me on everything anyway, so, alas).

So there was this election...I think something important happened, but who knows?

It was an historic election, as the pundits never tire of saying. First black President, a sweep of Congress by the Democrats, all good stuff for us blue voters.

More importantly, we got to vote for some pretty cool ballot initiatives. Washington, with our help, became the 2nd state in the Union (after Oregon) to legalize a right to death - doctors can now prescribe patients with less than 6 months to live an overdose on pain meds so they can end their lives with dignity. It felt so good to finally vote for something important. I always knew voting in Idaho that my voice would be drowned out by the deafening mob of angry Mormon Republicans. It's such a refreshing thing.

Not such good news elsewhere in the country, however. Proposition 8, a state constitutional ban on gay marriage, passed. The strange thing was that it passed with a huge majority amongst minority voters, which is sadly ironic. It's so sad that these people claim to follow Jesus and can't even abide by his most basic teachings - to walk a mile in another's shoes, for example.

Also, in Minnesota Al Franken is behind a few hundred votes in the recount for his Senate bid. If you don't know who he is, think back to Saturday Night Live - he's the Stuart Smalley character ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me"). He's written some excellent, funny books in recent years, although a run for Senate was perhaps out of his league. The pundits I trust most are still calling it a tossup.

NaNoWriMo is going swimmingly for Natasha and I - we fell behind a day or two, but caught up with a last minute blitz on Saturday. Four hours of writing in the posh community room in our building. We might post some pictures of it at some point, because it's a very nice amenity to have.

The perpetual rain that Seattle is famous for has begun, and stayed with us. I never realized how inadequate my clothing is for this reality. I might have to shell out some duckets for some waterproof clothing.

Novelin' fools!

2008-11-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

A great thing about Seattle are the hills that jut up all around the city. These steep hills all around several lakes make for amazing views of the city, huge, sweeping picturesque swaths of trees and gorgeous houses, which in autumn are all dotted bright read and vibrant yellows, surrounding the greyish blue lakes flecked with white boats. Such a beautiful time of year, and then, with the intermittent rainfalls, it makes for perfect novelling weather. This year, I've roped Grayson into my crazy novelling shenanigans. We are, together, united against evil (or with evil?), writing our own 50,000 word novels (about the size of Gatsby or Brave New World) in 30 days. Already, Grayson and my novelling styles are really rather markedly different, but it's fun to have a built in partner in literary abandon. So far, we're both on track, too!

Here are photos of Grayson and I setting up at a coffee shop on 1 November:

In other November goings-ons, this Tuesday is an election, which I fully intend to vote in. Floating around Seattle is the ubiquitous Stranger alternative newsweekly, which this week (surprisingly, because it's a third party candidate) is endorsing my favored pick for the Presidential race on their cover:

Any and all copyright violations are fully apologized for,
and at request the image will be removed forthwith.
The artist is here. Also, read The Stranger.

I for one welcome our new, adorable kitten overlord.

Here is another kitten overlord...for five minutes on Halloween, Hobbes was the fabled Hobbesian Avenger:

He then promptly tore off his uniform, revealing his kitten-disguise.

Now get out there and vote VOTE VOTE!

My shredder's name is Chompsky

2008-10-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Friday night I went out with my book club and saw a movie, and Saturday I went to my Virginia Woolf workshop. The rest of the weekend was engaged thusly:

PRODUCED

2.25 bags of shredded paper
4 bags of trash
2 bags of recycling
1 box of donatables

COMPLETED

1 novel (that makes three this week)
1 overhauled file box
1 sorted bathroom counter
1 sorted junk drawer
1 sorted refrigerator top
1 bag of books sold

AFTER
Earlier this week, I couldn't fit a single sheet of paper in.

Here is where it went

Hobbes inspects my work (his white kidgloves are obscured)

Which item does not belong?

What was once a pile of indiscernable food, boxes and small appliances...

Much of this was done now because next weekend, NaNoWriMo begins, and I can't have any excuses to *not* write, among all the other millions of things I'll have going on. This year, I have Grayson in on the action...woohoo! Wish us luck!

It was an ordinary Thursday...

2008-10-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

...like most others...

I went to work,

then I went to Fremont.

Had tempura for dinner...

...while I read books before my French class.

Walked along the canal to my French class.

SAW A DINOSAUR.

Went to French class, then home, then sleep. The End.

Saturday, Grayson and I went on a craaazy adventure to the outskirts of Seattle, into the BURBS! Grayson had to take his GRE in Mountlake Terrace, and I, as the ever-necessary navigator, was elected to come along, and find a way to kill four hours in Mountlake Terrace. No easy feat. There was NOTHING around, except for a couple of restaurants, more casinos, and a solid waste plant! Woohoo. I had to walk two miles to find a coffeeshop, technically to a different town, Edmonds. I read books, drank chai, and walked all the way back just in time to meet Grayson, who scored an AWESOME 1490 on the GRE. Then we took a two hour bus ride through Shoreline (the fourth town I had been in that day) to Northgate, and transferred to a bus home. It was a wild adventure that consisted in next to nothing.

An open letter to the citizens of Mountlake Terrace:

Dear Citizens of Mountlake Terrace,

Please tell me what you do for fun on a normal day?

Yours truly,
Me.

Today, Grayson and I walked to Wallingford to see W. It was okay, funny at parts, though mostly a poorly written, not entirely well-casted movie in which I couldn't really tell what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. Meh. I should have known from the preview that my favorite scene would be the slow-mo, almost-undoing-of-our-Pres-by-a-pretzel scene.

Burn Your Computer After Reading

2008-10-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Now that the weather is cooling, and fall is encroaching, my list of things to see is dwindling. Alki Beach is still on the list, and the weather this weekend would have been nice (if one was not swimming), but rumor had it that some event was going down and it would be packed. Other than that, I still want to see the Ikea store, the neighborhood called Georgetown, Kobuta Gardens, Kabaret Verboten at Can-Can (which I'll never be able to drag Grayson to), Gregorian chanting at St. Mark's (a huge cathedral in Capitol Hill), and possibly, maybe, Mt. Rainier, though I'm not much of an outdoorsy person, it's probably prettier to look at from the city than to go to ;) There are also TWO more shops for cupcakes I need to hit. Also: three more renowned coffee shops, and Grayson and I are planning a jaunt to Victoria and Vancouver for his birthday.

This weekend, there were three things in three different parts of town that I wanted to do within the space of a few hours. I have enrolled in a Virginia Woolf reading class that lasts for 6 weeks, in Capitol Hill, from 10-2 on Saturdays. We are reading Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. This Saturday was the first meeting, and there was also supposed to be a National Novel Writing Month (November) meetup for people who are writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (which means a 1,667 words a day goal, which takes me 1.5-2 hours, I have written two parts of one big novel this way, and am planning on participating this year, as I have an idea for a new novel to write) in the U-District at 11, and Chris Onstad, the creator of my favorite web comic, was going to be in Wallingford at 2. I managed to go the class, which was GREAT, then straight to Wallingford where Grayson and I met and went to the signing. There was a huge long line of fellow nerds, some asked poor Chris stupid, annoying questions. We got an issue of the zine he has created in the voice of his characters signed to both of us. He was very nice, and I asked him if he would ever bring back one of my favorite characters, Ultra-Peanut, who has been MIA for 6 years. He responded positively, which makes me happy. Rumor had it he was going to hang out after the signing, but I didn't feel like finagling the crowd of drooling fans (among whom I definitely count myself, Onstad is a genius), so we walked home and hung out for a while,

had German street food for dinner,

and went to see Burn After Reading, which was hilarious (from the Coen brothers!) and gross (who brought you the delightful woodchipper scene in Fargo). It was playing at a few theaters here, but we chose the Seven Gables Theater, because it's one we haven't been to, and it was quite a place, it only has one screen, and it's all built into this ancient, gorgeous Victorian house. It was very cool.

Today, I want to try port (which they sell at Safeway here, whoa!)

Aussi, le dimanche je nettoyer mon apartement. Which reminds me: part of what has been occupying a great deal of my time is a French class I'm taking. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I leave work a little early, come home, eat dinner, change clothes, and take a 20 minute bus ride, along a hill overlooking Lake Union and the downtown skyline, then the Fremont troll, to Fremont, then I walk for ten minutes in the twilight past the 3400 Phinney chocolate factory, the Fremont Outdoor Cinema, and the Canal (very Euro) to the Seattle Language Academy, for an hour and a half of French. The class is small, and very helpful, and fun. I have a bundle of phrases under my belt already and it's only been two weeks. I want to spend time in the interim before I go back for my English degree studying a language (as well as reading the classes), so this is part of reaching that goal. After class, I walk back to the bus stop in the dark, and wait 30 minutes for the next bus (all this waiting and extra commute sure help cranking through those classics), come home, and crash. On my non-class days, I strive (and usually manage) for an hour of studying. Now, between my Saturday class, my Tuesday and Thursday class, and the soon to dominate my life National Novel Writing Month, in addition to working full time, will certainly prove taxing. I find however, that it seems that the more I pile on my plate, the more I tend to actually manage my time properly and get everything done. Though this many things on my plate may be a different beast. All of it does help to meet people, though.

Atheism, Legos, Guitars, and Lasers

2008-10-08T19:41:00.001-07:00

Natasha's pretty busy right now so I've been authorized to make a post in her stead this week. We will see how this goes.

Things continue to go swimmingly, with lots of fun activities on the weekends to keep it interesting. We are running out of places to explore, but there's always something new going on, so as long as we've got the cash, we're never bored.

Friday night we met up with the Seattle Atheists again. The occasion: the release of Bill Maher's movie Religulous. We met up at P.F. Chang's for dinner, had a great meal with good company (met a guy who spent the last 3 years teaching English in South Korea, with plenty of interesting stories), and walked to the theater. The movie was OK, not very intellectually rigorous, but very amusing if you're the atheist/agnostic type. Bill Maher, as you might expect from a comedian, delivers on the humor if not the philosophy.

Kitty is about to be sans manhood! He goes in tomorrow to have his operation. Our veterinarian is either a) for the paranoid upper middle class person who will spend anything to guarantee a pet's health, or b) a complete scam. Or both. Anyways, they require a blood test to determine if kitty's kidneys are up to the anesthesia. No other vet I've ever heard of is daring enough to invent these kinds of reasons to charge an extra $130. At least the actual procedure is subsidized by the state. The surgery ends up costing less than the blood test. Unfortunately there are no other vets in our range, and it already costs big money just to take a taxi to this one, so we have to make do.

I mention this because that blood test thingy was last Saturday. Also on that day we took a trip to Madison St to check out Piroshki, a Russian deli type restaurant (also the name of the type of food they serve). We found a place called Piroshki Piroshki in Pike Market, which sells (tada) piroshkis, but Natasha claims they are not genuine. I could care less, because they are amazing. Rather than explain the whole concept of piroshki, I will let you read about them here.

Anyways, Natasha claims that the Piroshki place on Madison is authentic, but what do yo know, their business hours are basically 9-5 M-F. Which means that, unless we get time off of work, we will never be able to go. Perhaps one day...

Sunday was BrickCon - a LEGO convention! Nostalgia heaven! Try that in Boise!

Right when you go in the door, they have a model of the Titanic about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide:

Further in, you get to see some amazing scenes. There were fairy tales, Vikings, medieval battles, dragons attacking castles, trains moving through cities, models of the Space Needle, and much much more:

And my favorites, the Battlestar Galactica models:

Many, many other things, including a replica of a Giger painting, and a model of the Space Needle taller than me (including a working elevator).

We also visited the Experience Music Project and the SciFi museum (both located in that very strange looking building next to the Space Needle). I got to play a bass again (been a very long time!!!). Saw some really neat stuff in both - Kurt Cobain's guitar from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video, quite a few of Jimi Hendrix's guitars, memorabilia from Seattle's entire musical past right back to the gold rushes of the 19th century, and much more. The SciFi museum was even better (especially for a nerd like me) - I got to see first editions of some very famous novels, and props/clothing from old televisions shows and movies. Very cool. Photography is banned in both places, so unfortunately no pics.

Natasha finally got her passport in the mail today, which she is very excited about! Europe is one step closer...

Book Sale and Museum Day

2008-09-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Large McHuge Big Library Book Sale:

They even had an espresso cart, take that, podunk Boise library sale!

Then Grayson and I took advantage of the Smithsonian's Free Museum Day

and went to the Seattle Asian Art Museum

in Volunteer Park

in/on Capitol Hill on a pretty day

(where was this damn weather when Mom was here?!?)

and then went downtown to the Seattle Art Museum, all for free.

We were going to go to a million other ones, but with the book sale, there wasn't enough time to fit them all in.

Next weekend we are going to the Science Fiction Museum and Experience Music Project for the Lego Brick-Convention. Also, kitty goes in for his pre-surgery check-up. He prefers lillies if you would like to send him get-well flowers. But don't really, he'll just eat them.

Whirlwind Seattle Weekend, Starring My Mom

2008-09-28T16:55:00.001-07:00

Because there's so much to report on, I'm writing this post in the whirlwind manner in which it was experienced.

My mom came to visit from the 18th-22nd. She got the whirlwind of Seattle while she was here. We hit Capitol Hill and downtown, including Pike's Market, then on the way home we went through Queen Anne and Wallingford on Thursday, Friday it was U-Village, Saturday we took a ferry (my first!)...

The View, thanks rain.

For Real

...to Bainbridge Island, which was tame and cute, and milled around downtown, through the market, and went the Seattle Aquarium, and Sunday we went from the U-District, to Wallingford, to Gasworks Park,

to Fremont for FLAMING saganaki (mom's favorite), then Ballard for cupcakes (what else),

Royale with (Cream) Cheese at Cupcakes Royale!

and Dick's in Wallingford on the way home. The weather was grey and cruddy pretty much the whole time, which it hadn't been for months (what luck!) and it rained upon us almost the whole trip. Also, my phone was dead for much of the trip, so not so many photos. But we prevailed, and had an awesome, exhausting time anyway! Thanks for coming, mom!

Who will take the Weekend Whirlwind Seattle Challenge next???
Contact your blogger for details

Special Edition: Portland

2008-09-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

For my awesome 23rd birthday Grayson and I went to Portland, a favorite city, because of 1. Powell's and 2. You can get there by train. Grayson and I have never been on a train, unless you count my jaunt on the Boston subway once. The whole ride was about 4 hours (technically longer than driving) but it was scenic, and unstressful, and awesome.

Tuesday, 9/9

The train, as said, was AWESOME. Spacious, comfy, pretty, scenic and RAD.

There was even a conductor in a lil conductor hat.

Here's Grayson on the lounge car, we got breakfast on the train and ate it in this great car, with tons of pretty windows. There was even a tour guide lady on the train point out sites and history. The train went through Tacoma and Steillicum and all these pretty watery areas.

Grayson got me a surprise present (since buying a bunch of books at Powell's wasn't a birthday surprise)
It's a Lucky Cat, whose head bobs and hand waves in the sun. Too cute!

Once in Portland, we stayed at the Ace Hotel on Stark, which is the Portland branch of a hotel we stayed in Seattle on a visit before our move, it was very modern and hip. They had a vintage photo booth, bikes to rent (Portland is bike-crazy!), nummy smelling soap in the rooms, and a PowerBook to surfs on for free.

Here's our daytime view:

And night time:

Wednesday, 9/10

My official birthday passed in the spacious corridors of the West's biggest bookstore, Powell's...my Mecca:

Damage done:

After some other adventures and walking around, my birthday dinner was a delicious pizza from some gourmet place near our hotel:

and then I got my birthday cake!!! Grayson and I found a cupcake shop in the Pearl District, and they had so many tasty cupcakes, that I couldn't settle on one, and was able to get four mini tiny ones:

We even got candles at Whole Foods for them, made from organic beeswax or something. They came with matches! Score!

The flavors are, from left to right, Chocolate-covered pretzel, "the Pearl" which was vanilla on vanilla, "Downtown Chocolate Brown," chocolate on chocolate, and Rice-krispy treat, which had real rice crispies on top, and was very nums.

Thursday, 9/11

The rest of the trip was spent pallin' around different sites. We went to even more bookshops, the Hawthorne District, Queen Bee studios, and the Gorey store. Navigating the bus system was wicked easy with our Seattle skills:

We had a delicious breakfast (Challah french toast and latkes with sour cream and apple sauce):

and exchanged our return tickets for earlier ones since our checkout was 6 hours before the train was supposed to leave. We came home, picked up kitty from his luxury hotel, and have spent the rest of the weekend chillaxing. In the time we were gone, four new restaurants in our neighborhood popped up. INSANE.

Tune in next week for: A visit from your humble narrator's MOMMY :D

PDX, here I come!

2008-09-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

My forthcoming 23rd birthday shall pass in Portland, Oregon, at the City of Books! My birthday cake will probably be a Voodoo Doughnut. This weekend passed mostly in preparations for the trip:

Packing

Hobbes wants to go, but he can't. He will be put up at a ritzy kitty hotel, to keep him from eating wires and starving while we are gone.

Planning

Preparing...
...a list of all the books I want. Because when you spend a whole day being distracted by the biggest selection of books you've ever seen, you're bound to forget the ones you meant to look for.

Watched kitty stick his tongue out at me...

...and sleep...

...then went to Wallingford, where you can buy Trainspotting at a children's bookstore...

...and eat cupcakes at Trophy cupcakes...

(there is, from left to right, carrot cake, cafe au lait [with a coffee bean on top], and triple chocolate)

...and on Friday, before work was over, I made a collage of pictures, to shun beige far away. Look and see if you made the wall of shame, if not, send me pictures!

Extra Long Weekend Edition Spectacular

2008-09-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

What did I do with my eeeextra long weekend? NOTHING! And it was grrreat!!!

On Saturday, Grayson and I loitered in the super sweet downtown library. I figured out how the spiral works (like a parking garage! You just keep walking along, to the shelf you want, and blam-o, you've "climbed" three flights of stairs but felt like you were walking down halls of books), and got to check out books! Woohoo!

Here's Grayson reading in the library:

On Sunday, Grayson and I sent all the dirt in our apartment to the land of wind and ghosts, then we went downtown for piroshkies and cupcakes:

I cannot stress enough how awesome it is to have at my fingertips the ability to sate any insane desire that pops into my head. If I start cravin' a piroshky, I can think of two places at the top of my head that will gimme what I want. It's AWESOME. If I want cupcakes, there are like EIGHTY places I can think of. I haven't even tried them all yet. Too awesome.

This weekend was Bumbershoot, the big music festival at the Space Needle. I opted out because there weren't enough bands I wanted to see to justify the ticket prices and standing around in a crowded, hipster hell. But it did draw Marcus in, and we had brunch at my place on Monday. Then we went to Ballard for cupcakes and record stores. Then I came home and spent the rest of the day reading books and drinking tea.

And then I was well rested and able to face a grueling four-day work week. Next week is my birthday, everybody. It will be a special edition post from/about Portland.
The End.

Lions and Tigers and Otters, oh my!

2008-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Grayson and I went to the Woodland Park Zoo, and then downtown to Pike Market.

In the morning, we went and sold some books and had breakfast, and then ... we submitted our applications for our passports! Grayson and I are planning a trip to Europe next summer, and hopefully to Canada in February for Grayson's birthday (to which you need a passport now). Behold: here are the photos you will see on tv when Grayson and I have committed some weird murder high on Dutch pot:

After that, we made pilgrimage to the Woodland Park Zoo, which is in an area of town called Phinney or Phinney Ridge, right next to Greenlake (a big ol' lake in the middle of town). This is only a couple of miles from where Grayson and I live. The zoo was MASSIVE, and it had a price tag to match. There were tons of animals, including gross bats. There were NO bunnies in the farmyard :( Here are some aminulz they did have:

A lion('s butt)

Hungry, hungry Hippos!

This otter was a total show-off, all swimmin' super fast and whatnot.

Tigey!!! (Grayson's favorite. He was taking a bath most of the time).

We also saw African wild dogs, wolves, and a million other aminulz. Even wilder than the animals were all the children...banging on the glass at the lion, running into me and touching me and trying to push against me to get me to move so they can see an animal that is hiding from them in the first place. One kid was screaming and crying in a stroller, though he was clearly of age to walk (why can't parents make their kids walk and just sit and take a break every once in a while?) just whined without saying anything and pointed in the direction he wanted to be pushed. And the parents DID IT. Holy crap! Then there was one kid that was crying, and his dad was a metalhead about Grayson's age, and he says to the kid: "What do you want?" (Kid) "Whiiine," (Dad) "What the f***?!" Yeah, wow, nothing like a trip to the zoo to realize that I am just fine with not having children. EVER.

After the zoo, we went downtown, which I don't get to do that often. We mostly went through Pike market, trolling through book shops I hadn't been to since before we moved here, and then to that cool poster shop. Grayson and I took a rest at the waterfront, gazing out at Bainbridge Island. (I think that's what it is).
Stay tuned next week when we possibly, maybe go to Alki beach. Though we will probably only to Ballard to get my camera repaired.

A weekend in pictures...

2008-08-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

In despair and sadness at the convalescence of my camera, here is our weekend in photos:

Friday night: Bellevue-We checked out the upscale suburb to the East, which is mainly shops, new skyscrapers and McMansions.

Also, Chihuly waterfalls indoors:

and, a LEGO store!!!
The art museum also apparently commissioned a huge shopping bag for the art displayed outside by their entrance. And the closest bookstore to their huge shopping district was quarantined two blocks away. I do not think I like this town a whole lot.

On Saturday, we walked through the Washington Park Arboretum:
Beware, the dark forest:
And then I got super-excited because there were a lot of lily pads around, which I have always liked. And then there were beautiful white lotuses growing from some. Grayson got down and reached his hand into the buggy, murky deep to retrieve for me a single white enchanted lotus. Because I am not a fan of receiving gifts that require effort just to watch them die, I do not usually like getting flowers, but because they were so pretty, Grayson stole for me what would be the first flower he has ever given me from the State of Washington!

After that, we went to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which is a Washington History Museum which just happened to be about to close their GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE EXHIBIT!!!

I saw-in the FLESH-some of my favorite photographs ever:

Imogen Cunningham's '2 Callas,'
a Steichen print I can't find digitally, and Ansel Adam's 'Clearing Winter Storm,'
they also had Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother'
After that I went to a book club in Capitol Hill and Grayson and I wandered around Cal Anderson Park, which has cool fountains and black metallers playing fetch with their dogs on a sunny summer day.

Gasworks Park and Ballard

2008-08-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Grayson and I went to Gasworks Park on Saturday, a park that once was a plant that converted coal into gas, and was bought by the city in the '70s and converted into a park...where all the rusty, industrial bits of the plant are surrounded by Lake Union, vegetation, and people with kites.

It's a fun place, with plenty to take pictures of: the downtown skyline with the Space Needle, the hills and bridges of Seattle around the lake, wild berries:

and thistles:

...until one's camera breaks. My camera decided to not only NOT connect fully with my lens over and over again, but to make nice plastic crunches whenever I tried to fix the problem. So all was lost, and I got off a whole four pictures or so before it decided to be a big ol' broken lame-o. Now I get to take it into the shop. Maybe while I'm there I'll get a new lens...

After that, the sunny day started raining, and Grayson went home to study and I went to Queen Anne for a meetup group. The rain kept pouring until just as I got to the University District it stopped raining, as the sun was setting. Grayson and I met for pizza, which after only one meal and a day full of walking, two slices ended up not being enough for me, but Grayson insisted that we find a treat in Ballard, one of the last few neighborhoods to explore on our list. So we made our way to Ballard, where Archie McPhee's was closed and it was mostly boring and lame, and I felt grumpy and sad that the trip was for nothing. And then...

...we found a Trophy Cupcakes, a happy little cupcake shop. It was a perfect treat, and super fun to boot. They had chalk-drawings of bunnies, and delicious cupcakes of many flavors, and delicious Stumptown (local roaster) coffee. My lame trip to Ballard was justified! They even made a pretty design in our lattes:

All in all, a great find. Grayson had a MoFro cupcake (chocolate cake with mocha frosting), and I had a Coconut cupcake (chocolate cake with coconut shavings frosting). I also got a LEGALIZE FROSTITUTION t-shirt. Because this is an issue I support strongly. More frosting, regulated safely by the government.

Also, Hobbes got his first bath:

Do not feel bad for him: as you may know, kitties usually give themselves baths and do not usually need help from humans, but not when a kitty commits the unspeakable evil that Hobbes committed. Then, you get help from humans. He didn't seem to hate it, though. Freak.

Next week, I swear, we are going to go to the Arboretum. I will definitely want a working camera, though.

Weekend of Gustatatious Delights

2008-08-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Because last week's post was short, here is a picture to compensate. Instead of showing you the palatial view of Seattle from atop Queen Anne, here is Grayson getting bunny ears from the Space Needle:

With SeaFair going on this weekend, from Thursday until today the Blue Angels have been screaming through the sky above Seattle. It has sounded like a thunderstorm rolling right by. Grayson and I elected not to go (not really our thing), but apparently it's a big air and sea festival. This is the same festival that diverted us via a parade last weekend.

Saturday we spent trolling around to restaurants. We went to Mae's Phinney Ridge Cafe for breakfast, and Dick's for lunch (finally!). Dick's was an experience: they only accept cash, you can not special order ANYTHING on the menu, and they have four burgers to choose from, fries, condiments in a little cup on the side and soda. You can also get ice cream treats. That is it! But, it was a good little burger and the fries were really good.

Today we went to a philosophy lecture in Capitol Hill, and went to some book shops before heading home. My tummy is still over full from awesome Aladdin's falafel. This weekend has been one for food, apparently. Tonight I do laundry, and we shop for food for the week. And I get to try and plan a trip to Bainbridge Island in September (with my mommy!) Still to come on the Seattle To-See list: Waterfront stuff, parks, zoos and museums. I also have been putting off the Arboretum for a couple of weeks, so that is probably what we'll shoot for next weekend.

And here I shall leave you with another picture one could only find in Seattle:

...standing in the sun?

Social butterfly weekend

2008-07-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend was all about being a social butterfly. Saturday I went to a meetup group, then met an old friend for lunch and a movie, Grayson and I investigated Queen Anne, and then got stuck in and around the SeaFair hubbub. Today we went to brunch with said friend, then I took a big, long journey to the northernmost parts of the county. I saw an Albertson's! Then I attended a book club meeting. Now we're trying to plan the week's meals. We'll see how it goes.

Finally a Seattleite

2008-07-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

Because the criterion for citizenship could only be:

a liberry card!!! I have already gotten two insanely long books I will never read!

Also, I have my almost-official Washington State ID card. The real one comes in the mail in two weeks.

Variously:

We investigated Fremont this week. Here is the obligatory picture of the Fremont Troll:

He is apparently not a fan of German cars. He does not, however, mind every child in Seattle putting their entire fists into his nostrils. Grayson refused a photo-op with his head in a nostril. :(

We saw crazy stuff at the Fremont Sunday Market, and I almost bought an astoundingly beautiful orchid with SIX BLOOMS!!! I would have killed it though, most assuredly. It was too beautiful. We bought too many books this weekend. But, I have joined a few clubs to meet people, and now have three books to read for reading groups in the next few weeks. Exciting times. Grayson and I went to a Hawaiian/Tiki restaurant in Wallingford for one such meeting. It was pretty cool inside, but none of my cruddy cell phone pictures turned out.

While walking to said restaurant, I found my dream home. It was grey with white trim, an adorable craftsman with a tidy lawn, an attic and the house numbers were in Futura. It was adorable. I took a picture, but it may be creepy to post on the internet.

In other random news, Grayson has taken to cooking. He's getting quite good. We are having steak tonight!

Beverage Edition

2008-07-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

In the Seattle sphere this week...I am still a temp, kitty got sick, and the weather has been sunny and clear all week. WHAT THE HELL, SEATTLE?

I discovered my new favorite hangout, this place called Remedy Teas in Capitol Hill (where I work). It is really cute and modern inside, and specializes in all kinds of exotic, awesome teas. They even have a nutella sandwich on the menu. They have hundreds of kinds of teas that they brew for you by the cup or pot, or you can take the leaves home. Super-awesome-o. I've actually seen a couple of tea shops that I want to hit up, but perhaps more-so when it is warmer.

I tried a taro bubble tea, finally. Taro was the single flavor on the menu at all the bubble tea shops that I had never heard of. Before I blew $5 on something I might hate, I looked it up on Wikipedia...it was thoroughly unhelpful. It sounded like a plant-y, leafy green, but there was no help on the taste front. I even asked the guy at the shop and he was at a loss for words. I decided to take the plunge and I really loved it...it's purple! It tasted (to me) somewhere between a really faint almost grape taste and strawberry milk. It was AWESOME. New favorite flavor. Though I have to try them all, so it may be a while until I get that kind again. The menus are HUGE, there are too many flavors to pick.

In other weird drink news, I've found two things in the local convenience store that are pretty exotic. Canada Dry apparently makes a sparkling green tea ginger ale, which tastes exactly like it sounds: half green tea, half ginger ale. I haven't seen it anywhere else yet. You can also buy Pocky at the CONVENIENCE STORE!! How cool is that? Even in flavors I didn't know it came: I got coconut pocky and Brazilian pudding pocky (which tastes like carmel-ly, custard-y flan). These are just the flavors at the convenience store! Super happy-making. And for the other exotic drink available at convenience stores is "Ramune," which is Japanese, comes in a little glass bottle, and basically tastes like an Italian soda. Except that it is somewhat complex to open, but it pops this little marble in a convenient hold that makes a fun rattle while you drink! Woohoo!

Yesterday we went to Tivoli, the Scandinavian Festival at the Nordic Heritage Museum. Among other quaint goings-ons, there were SWORDS and LEGOS! Observe:

That's the Midgard serpent, getting what's coming to him.

Today we were pretty boring. We saw Wall-E, it was pretty cute. Next weekend, we're going to the Center of the Universe, Fremont!

Studio living room

2008-07-06T09:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, now, the minimal, spartan, spare, not-quite-past-the-college-look piece-de-resistance:

Front door on the left

Sofa bed

Eating area on the right

Closet on the left is where we've magically fit everything from our 750 sq ft apartment into 416 sq ft. On the left of the closet is the kitchen area.

Chinatown adventures, Explosions and our minion, Hobbes!

2008-07-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Chinatown
This week, Grayson and I went to Chinatown, which really should revise its name: there were tons of Thai restaurants, a huge Japanese bookstore and grocery store, and some Korean restaurants, too. There was even a retro gaming store called Pink Godzilla...check out their rad logo! There was also a Chinese restaurant called the Purple Dot Cafe, with an awesome illustration that I am kicking myself I didn't get a photo of, with a like, weird dinosaur thing coming out of an egg? It was awesome.

Grayson and I also discovered a frozen yogurt place on the Ave that makes frozen yogurt actually taste like yogurt...their plain flavor was a bit too tart for me (which means Grayson adores it), but their green tea flavor was really good. Though I couldn't really taste the green tea, like you can with green tea ice cream.

Fourth of July
Grayson and I got to watch the fireworks from our roof. The view was really cool. I attempted fireworks photography, with shameful results:

Next week I have a job interview for my current job. If I get it, my pay rate goes up almost $3/hr. I will be making 220% of what I was making in Boise-HOURLY. Not to mention the fact that I work 25 more hours a week. w00t! Now I can afford to eat...luxury pie!

And, introducing to the world...Hobbes!

Affectionately known as Hobbeses. Hobbes is the progeny of my brother-in-law's kitty Gypsy. He was the solo, adventuring type of the bunch, which was perfect for us, because we could only (barely) afford one cat. So we flew him from Idaho up to Seattle with us, and he's been alternating between a cute, fuzzy, love-fluff adventure kitten, to a scratching, biting, but still totally adorable disastercat. He's about 11 weeks old. He was named after Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher and Hobbes of Calvin and Hobbes, so he's mostly Grayson's sidekick. I guess that makes me Suzy?

Movin' in

2008-06-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

As it stands, we are almost entirely moved in. There remain only six more boxes, three of which are leaving tomorrow (they're donations). That leaves three boxes of books that we've listed on Amazon.com to sell and get rid of. Who knows how long they'll be here. But, that means that the living room is 95% done, and the bathroom and kitchen are complete.

Bathroom

Kitchen

Living room pictures next Sunday.

In other news, I have a job: I just finished my first week temping at an HMO, as a 3rd tier admin, makin' some pretty sweet cash. I'm not sure how long I'll be temping at places, but I am glad to be pulling in some cash sooner than expected.

This weekend is Pride, I'm heading out for festivities later today. Yesterday we ate breakfast at Portage Glacier Cafe (really good), then went to Northgate mall (almost 4 hours north) for some housewares. I never thought I would actively seek out a mall, but they have a Target there, and we gotta buy things on the cheap. After that we hung pictures in the living room, ate lunch at Fourno's on the Ave (Grayson's favorite), had a bubble tea (see below), took two backpacks worth of books to Half Price Books to sell, and then came home to watch movies. It was entirely too hot yesterday...into the 90s, and we have no sort of AC in the house, just a noisy little fan in the window. Hobbes spends all his time laying on the kitchen floor, where the tile/linoleum stuff is cool.

Bubble Tea is something I had never heard of before I moved here to the University district, as there are about six places along the Ave alone that serve it. Basically, it's tea with milk that you can get these things called "boba" or "tapioca" in ... it's a treat that came from mainly Southeast Asia, though our favorite shop is Korean. At our favorite place (which is heavy on the Christianity) makes milk tea like milkshakes or smoothies, with tapioca in them. The tapioca are these little gummy balls about 1/2" in diameter, that are relatively flavorless but gummy and tasty. Last night we had a cookies and cream one, so it basically tasted like a cookies and cream milkshake with a hint of black tea, and had these fun tapioca to chew on. They seal the top of the cup with a lid that you puncture with these extra thick straws to suck up the tapioca in. They are super awesome. I've also tried a Banana (*****) and a Chocolate (**, only because it was neither very blended nor chocolate-y, we avoid that bubble tea shop now). Bubble tea was only invented in the 90s, so I think it just has not caught on yet. It will though, I think...they are delicious and fun!

Scenes from a Move

2008-06-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Before the big move, I spent many fun days with my friends before we left. Then we got the nitty-gritty:

Loadin' up the U-Haul (that's my little sister...while it may appear that she helped us move, I think that's the only box her dainty little hands touched. She just stopped in before we headed out.)

SNOW in the mountains through Oregon and Washington in JUNE. Crazy weather. The drive was nice and pleasant. Just mom and I in the U-Haul, while Grayson and our new kitten flew up together.

Here's Grayson and our new kitten Hobbes, the morning after the move.

So long, Boise!

Jar of Dirt

2008-06-22T08:48:00.001-07:00

There's an urban legend that circulates throughout Boise, that those who wish to leave must take a jar of Idaho dirt with them, and it will ensure that they don't return. Boise, and Idaho in general, have this drawing quality for those that live there...of course there is familiarity, but it's just a safe, fairly sane town, and many people come back after trying to leave. So, the same day we were filling the U-Haul, I went into my mom's backyard and filled a small, cleaned out spice jar with dirt. It sits now on a shelf above the kitchen...keeping me at bay with its high-desert magic...

Scoping it out

2008-06-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

This past Memorial Day Weekend, husband and I drove up to Seattle for a show, and to pal around. We were able to take a look at not only our soon-to-be apartment building, but also the neighborhood around it. We located grocery stores, book stores, etc., and were able to see all the other crazy-convenient stuff in our area. The roof has a view of the Space Needle and Queen Anne, and the neighborhood is chock-full of awesomeness. Being able to concretize where we're going and what we're going to do when we get there has helped both of us refresh our anticipation for the move, amidst all the stressful details.

As far as other emergent details, we have decided to get a kitten, which we will bring up with us. My brother-in-law has a new litter of cute orange-stripey cats (my favorite), and we've picked one for our own. Hobbes is only 6 weeks old right now, and he's already costing us a fortune! Grayson will fly him up on moving day and now we have all kinds of kitty accouterments to acquire, as well as all the bureaucratic and health things to look into. However, he's a super cute kitty and will totally brighten up our tiny apartment.

I have an address!

2008-05-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

We got a place! In the U-District! Very pleased! I now have a Seattle address. In other news, I totally graduated college. I am now a professional philosopher (B.A. Philosophy)! Big news for me, small news for a blog.

Preliminary move completed, application

2008-05-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

This past week husband and I moved out of our apartment, cleaned it, helped my mom move into a new house and moved into said house ourselves. It was stressful, dirty and exhausting, but I hope that not only will this preliminary move help the final, official move in a few weeks, but the weeks without bills and rent should help us save some mad ducats.

In other news, my ichiban, super ultimate favorite apartment building on my list of places to possibly move into has an opening a week into June. I've spent in excess of $50 to overnight an application and checks to them, and should be finding out in the VERY near future if we get the place. This will be awesome not only because of the location, and the awesome amenities, but for the pure and simple fact that I will have one less thing to worry about if where we live is no longer an unknown. Then it will just be getting our stuff up there and then finding a job.

This week I finish finals and graduate on Saturday!

Preliminary Move

2008-05-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

The extra wrench thrown into my move is a "preliminary move" we have to complete. Since our estimated move date is the beginning of June, but our lease ends this week, we are moving in with my mother for three weeks before we actually go to Seattle. So not only do we have to pack up and clean our apartment and THEN move it to a new place, we have to help my mom move, and our stuff has to sit around for a few weeks, THEN we get to go. So it is like doing a dual move right now: out of our apartment, and then helping mom move from her apartment to her new house. The whole point, essentially, is to save around a month's worth of expenses (rent, bills, etc.) by crashing at my mom's. It also affords us some transportation, (via my mom or my brother) for when husband puts his car into the shop and eventually sells it before we leave (there's a small dent on the side that he is having repaired to increase the value). That really is the last hurdle: once husband has sold his car our savings goes above our goal! I will be really excited if husband is able to sell his car.

Other exciting news: This past week I called around to the places we are looking at and booked tours (before we sign leases). We got some annoying news that one of the ways the application screens potential new tenants is to ensure that said potential tenant's income covers three times the rent amount. Since husband and I were planning on moving up there without jobs, and find them once we had an address and were in town and able to go to interviews, this was a problem. One of the property managers I talked to said you can usually get away with putting your previous income just for the application's sake, but then deus ex machina rained down good fortune upon us. This week, husband put in his thirty days at his job (the pay of which barely encapsulates three times any average rent in Seattle). The very next day, his boss offered him the means to do his job from home in Seattle. This is not final yet, as it has to clear through corporate, but if it worked, oh my...how golden we would be. I would not be under pressure to make a ton of money, and furthermore, I could take my time finding a gig, since one of us would already have a job, on top of our savings. Fingers crossed!

District vs. District

2008-04-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to decide which neighborhood to live in Seattle. Each neighborhood has its charms and benefits, so this is one of the harder decisions for me. The way I am working around it is picking apartments to look at in my top three neighborhood choices. This way the choice is made for me, and the year-long lease says I get to deal with whatever cons there may be while enjoying the pros.

Downtown
There are a million things to do downtown. It is crazy, it is fun, it is busy. It is the heart of everything. The only down side is the scariness aspect, the crimes and whatnot that are more prevalent there. But walk scores for just about every place I am looking at are at least in the high 90s. And, it really should go without saying that it's closest to the coolest library in the galaxy.

U-District
The proximity to the university is a nice benefit; both the husbandero (hyah!) and I would like to get jobs at UW to take cheap classes. Furthermore, the U-District has some of my favorite restaurants, and Wallingford is the first neighborhood I stayed in when I visited Seattle, so the atmosphere has a familiarity to me. Walk scores hit 100 in this neighborhood. My favorite book shop is here. There is still crime, but obviously it is a bit tamer than downtown.

Capitol Hill
I love this neighborhood. Cool shops, cool restaurants, and tons to do. There is the Richard Hugo House, at which I hope to take writing classes. There is a scrabble group, (at the same bar where there are 'L Word' watching parties [my guilty pleasure]), so the sense of community and having plenty to do here definitely goes up. Walk scores are good, and it is tame enough.

Obviously the decision is a difficult one to make, ergo, at the end of May we are making a pilgrimage to tour apartments and make our choice then. It will be based mostly on the apartment, since any neighborhood would be fine for us. As I've said before, I am sort of pulling for Capitol Hill and the husbandero (hyah!) is pulling for the U-DIstrict. However, the awesome, utopianesque metro system opens up all the neighborhoods for exciting adventures!

Reconciling the "Crisis"

2008-04-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

1. Stay in Boise vs. I. Move to Seattle

I may come back, I do not rule that out entirely. However, I need to get out for at least a year. For the challenge, for the change, because Boise is like a safe, pleasant crutch. As per Seattle: I just love the city, we shall see if it stays that way.

Finish an English degree (go to school)

I don't know if this is necessarily in the cards for me. I do want to continue taking classes to continue reading, I want to get more proficient in a few languages and to take some writing classes. So while I am unsure about a degree, I am sure that I want to go back to school for ... so I am going to try and get a job at a University.

Other projects

As far as reconciling the crisis of not know what I want to do with my life, I have determined thus far in my life that as long as my job is unlike my hobbies, I will have the energy to dabble in them in my off time. No matter where I end up, there is a pile of projects I want to endeavor:

a) language proficiency
b) edit novel
c) research/write new novel
d) take writing classes
e) still-life project
f) lifetime reading project
g) travel to Europe

So if Grayson gets in to grad school somewhere weird, if Seattle works or if it does not, I think I will be able to carry fulfillment with me, as long as I am growing as a person, and engaging in hobbies I enjoy.

Why not Boise?

2008-04-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

There is an urban legend in Boise that if you want to leave (that is, move away from the town for good), then you have to take a jar of Idaho dirt with you, and you will not come back. I am going to test this hypothesis in 49 days, when I move.

There are a lot of reasons for not staying in Boise, but in the interest of not sounding too whiny, I'd like to state categorically that Boise is a really pleasant town. There is not a *ton* to do, but it's safe, and simple, and I have been here most my life and know my way around. While I would recommend it as a place to live for most anyone, and while it may seem contradictory given the fact that I have spent my formative years here, Boise is just not me. My interests, my values are not reflected here. Furthermore, Boise is definitely a place where one can set down roots and conceivably never leave. I crave experience...quantity over quality, even (in the great words of Albert Camus), so I'm setting off on a journey that may fail, simply to take a journey. I think I ought to be happy in Seattle, but I am sure that even Seattle is not the end-all/be-all for me. Yet I cannot allow Boise to be either, for the following reasons:

1) Low pay

2) Blue girl, red state

3) Religious homogeneity=yawn

4) Public transportation is abysmal. The buses stop at seven and do not even run on Sundays. It is near impossible to live in this city without a car, everything is spread far out.

5) There is little in this town to do aside from shopping. I'm not much of an outdoorsy girl, so that leaves infrequent culture stops that are ... decent ...

6) Never (okay, rarely) any good concerts

7) Many of the people in Boise (which is strange, since it is a small, sort of "down-home" city) are cranky, rude and short. I know I am not alone in this, people who move to Boise from other cities notice it...one bus driver (from New York) said back home nobody would ever threaten to call your supervisor just because you disagree with them (as I witness constantly here), there is definitely a strong sense of entitlement among people.

8) FEAR. Fear of stagnation, fear of growing more boring than I already am, fear of never changing, fear of calcification, of oxidation, of experiencing eternal recurrence in the same life.

9) Not a ton of interesting, creative jobs.

10) I may never go back to school, but if I do, BSU does not look very serious to potential employers if I choose to edumacate.

Of course I'll miss my friends and my family, but they're only eight hours away, and I tend to see most of them so infrequently anyway, I think I'll survive. Who knows, in a year I may be pining to come back...or I may be headed for Canada!

Why Seattle?

2008-04-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

Lately, as I have been mentioning to others that I intend to move to Seattle, I get the same response over and over. "Why Seattle?" Most often it sounds like a genuine, "why-would-you-want-to-go-there" question. This is so self-evident to me, that it always takes me a few seconds to reply; I never know where to start. So I'll make a top ten list, though the order means nothing.

10. Culture—The museums are rad, the opera/philharmonic/theatre all put on way awesome shows every year. There will be something cool to see just about every night of the week. Furthermore,

9. Concerts—Every band I love generally makes a stop in Seattle. I can't afford to keep flying up and driving, and in fact I often don't and thereby miss a lot of awesome concerts.

8. Shops—Bourgeois, I know, but there are some seriously cool shops in Seattle. Clothes (which I usually don't give a crap about, but up there there are so many cool places), cool record shops, unique paper stores: for all the dorky crap I like, in Seattle there are several interesting, offbeat places for.

7. Transportation—This is huge for me, as I don't drive (I have never gotten my license), and I don't intend to, especially with the whole impending energy crisis. Every general neighborhood I want to live in gets an 88%+ walk score, that means that one really does not need a car in many of these neighborhoods; there is such a proximity to grocery stores, medical establishments, hardware stores, restaurants, shops, etc.. And on top of that, the bus system is so stellar in Seattle, that even if what I want to do is not in the neighborhood, I can take a bus at virtually any time of day and get there.

Plus, the King County Metro website rocks, it has a Trip Planner! You can tell it where you are, where you want to be, and whether you prefer fewer transfers, minimal walking or the fastest way, what time you want to leave your starting point or arrive at your destination, the farthest you're willing to walk and it spits out a few itineraries for you to choose from. SCIENCE!

6. Food—Oh my god...mmm...food in Seattle. SO MANY awesome restaurants, for so many kinds of food. The best middle eastern (my favorite) restaurant I've ever eaten at is in downtown Seattle. Oh, and then there are the piroshkies in Capitol Hill, the Asian/French fusion place near Beacon, some of the best Thai food I've ever had in the University District, the vegan-friendly bakery in Wallingford...oh yum...mmm...

5. Water—This may sound weird, but I love that there is a close proximity to water. I love the ocean, and while the waterfront in Seattle is a little...uncharmingly olfactory, the fact that the ocean is nearby is sort of comforting...

4. Neighborhoods—I love that each neighborhood in Seattle has its own character, and in and of itself, there is always plenty to see and do.

3. People—It has been my experience that aside from the few crazies every once in a while, the people in Seattle are generally incredibly nice and cool. I know it's not just because I'm always in a good mood there, but also because other people have corroborated that in general, people are nicer and more easygoing.

2. Feeling of home—This one I cannot explain, because it is probably the most subjective, feeling I have. However, every time I go to Seattle, I feel like I'm at home. I'm happy and excited and when I have to leave, I get sad and shaky, and always think of ways that I can hide out and miss my plane and just stay forever. I'm weird, I know...but this is one of the biggest pulls for me...the great unexplainable.

1. BOOKS!—I am the biggest bibliophile in my one-person universe. So the fact that Seattle is one of the most literate cities, with so many incredible book shops, STUNNING libraries, book groups, writing classes, rain to keep you inside reading and coffee to keep you reading into the night, this is definitely the icing-on-the-cake reason for me to move to Seattle.

How the Internet is helping me move

2008-03-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

As I have been organizing the move, I have been hyper-conscious of the indispensability of the Internet. I am in Boise right now, and where I want to be is Seattle, so the only (obvious) bridge between the two is the Internet.

Apartment Search
I am searching for apartments on several websites. SeattleRentals, Apartments.com, property management sites, etc. I am reading tons of blogs, compiling information in order to get a sense for the neighborhoods on a day-to-day basis (as opposed to my quick visits in the past). I am even using the brilliantly awesome WalkScore to rate how walkable a neighborhood is, since a big draw to the area is the rad public transit and our hope to sell the car. I have also discovered Apartment Ratings, where people rate apartments not only on a scale, but leave helpful explanations of their experiences. I am using Google Docs and Spreadsheets to compare all the apartments we are looking at. (a column for the walk score, a column for the rent and the square footage, etc.)

Saving Money
I'm using another Google spreadsheet to track our savings goal for the amount we want to have in order to make the move possible. We used Mint to create a budget, and we check it daily to keep on track. Every dollar I stay within budget translates into actual dollars saved for Seattle.

Earning Money
We have sold gobs of furniture, electronics, books and DVDs via Craigslist, Amazon and eBay already, and plan to do so much more the closer we get to the actual move.

Culture Search
As I get a sense of what neighborhoods we will likely inhabit, I'm getting a sense of what is offered in the area as far as things to do. In order to make friends, since I will have neither school nor old friends nearby, I found a scrabble group on Facebook. I searched for the all sorts of cultural institutions, places where there are shows, etc., and have them all bookmarked. I have post-undergraduate goals along the lines of learning languages, finishing my novel, tackling my "to-read" list, etc. The Internet, in all its glory, has directed me to language learning classes, places to take writing classes, and neighborhood reading groups via GoodReads. I've already got a filled calendar, three months before the move date!

It makes me wonder how people moved big distances before the internet. The only thing I'm sadly not able to do entirely over the internet is job hunt, so that, though I have an internet head start already (thanks to Monster.com, NW Jobs, and more), it all has to wait until I'm physically there.

Crisis Averted

2008-03-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

We're moving to Seattle!

ETA: Beginning of June! The money is saving (budgets, sellings and savings, oh my!), the school is finishing (busting my ass to pass math and thusly graduate college) and then, we are off to the Emerald City. Currently, we are preliminarily apartment hunting. It is difficult to do this far out, but we are getting a sense of where we want to live. I am pulling for Capitol Hill, Husbandero (hyah!) is not very picky, but leans downtown. Leg wrestling will surely ensue. We are planning a visit in late May to tour some places, see a concert, and sign a lease. Then we are outta this dust bowl.

My goal for this blog is to talk about the move, but mostly chronicle living in Seattle. Hopefully, I will pretty regularly post pictures, review shops, restaurants and events. Subscribe to the RSS feed to kick my ass into production!

Quarterlife Crisis!

2007-10-12T11:29:00.001-07:00

I need all your help. I'm currently in the throes of a quarterlife crisis. I need (because of application deadlines soon looming) to make a decision. What are all of your objective, subjective ideas on what I should do with my life, because I'm honestly completely even across the board on pros and cons.

1. Stay in Boise, and finish an English degree at BSU.
(Pros: I get to see my infant nephew Alex a bit longer, I finish an English degree cheaply and with a Prof. I like, my mom is happy, Grayson gets to stay at the job he likes)
(Cons: I don't get to go to Seattle at all or very soon, which is something I want to do desperately. I'm burned out on school for the moment. I have to take a bunch of classes I'm not interested in.)

2. Move to Seattle and go to school immediately.
(Pros: Seattle!)
(Cons: $$$)

3. or, Move to Seattle and take a year off, then go to school.
(Pros: Seattle!, Resident tuition rates)
(Cons: Will I have the energy to go back to school? Will I get in after a year break?)

4. or move to Seattle and don't go to school
(Pros: Seattle!)
(Cons: What will I do for a job? Will I just be a drone and try to get my book published or will being out of school refresh me and make me happy? Maybe I *can* make it as a writer and photographer...)

A couple of notes.
I. Seattle
I LOVE Seattle. I've wanted to live there since the 11th grade, when I stayed for a week with a friend in Wallingford. I love the people, the culture, the food, the things to do, the bookshops, the surroundings, the weather. Grayson and I both desperately want a change in scenery. It's the default. He likes his current job (it is a dream one) but he could make more and is a tantalizing candidate in the field of Network Operations. We could do well for ourselves in Seattle. But, all our family is here. A big problem (for me) with NOT moving to Seattle is that I said I was going to for so long, I've cancelled photo shoots next summer in preparation for it, I would feel like a total dork if I didn't go. So many people say "I'm going to move to Seattle," then it falls through. I don't want to be one of those people. This is a crappy reason to feel motivated not to stay, but there it is.

II. "going back to school."
What I mean here is going back to get my undergraduate degree in English and then pursuing Graduate work in English with the hope of becoming an English professor at the University level.

III.
"my book" ... "photographer"
I have finished a novel (which is currently unedited). I am interested in cleaning it up and getting it published. I have worked off and on over 4-6 years as a journalist freelance writer, so I could make money writing that way. I also have an extensive portfolio and three years work experience as a photographer, so I could make money that way.