When I first conceived of this blog, the thing I most wanted it to do for my life was to get me to do things I’ve meant to do forever and to find the things the rut of everyday life had kept me from discovering. Well, I’d meant to go to the Seattle Greek Festival for, oh, at least seven years now.* Seven years out of the nearly nine I’ve lived here. Come the hell on, Standard Deviation. It’s like four blocks from the freaking 43. Continue reading
AUTHOR ARCHIVES :
I Love Bedlam
I think it makes me a bit of a traitor to Capitol Hill, but Bedlam in Belltown has been rapidly approaching the top of my list of favorite Seattle coffee shops. I know, I know. But there’s something about their constantly shifting art and t-shirts, their self-consciously-but-perfectly Seattle-funk™ decor, and their wonderful earnestness that just… works.
Also, the coffee is good, if you care about that too.
I was there today, and I spent some time reading in their excellent upstairs closet-turned-reading-nook.* Before I took myself upstairs, though, I saw this.
I asked the adorable, always-incredibly-friendly ponytailed gentleman barista, “Did you guys get a shipment of bum lids?”
He grinned and gave me the slightest nod.
So this kind of thing? Where someone gets a super-goofy idea and carries it out to the tune of graphic design and completed packaging? This is genuinely what makes my days worth living sometimes.
Bless you, Bedlam. Bless you and your iced decaf Americanos, served in a mason jar with a handle.
*I am fortunate enough to be able to tell you that said nook is also a stellar place to squeeze in with someone you fancy to be cozy and ever-so-slightly inappropriate in a public space. Yes.
This Is Fucking Awesome*
Here is the best-case scenario when you arrange to meet a friend in the suburbs for hardcore Labor Day thrifting. Continue reading
Hither and Thither #2
“I want to go here; add this to the list” is something I say to myself pretty often lately. (Two recent additions: Alaska in the summer, to hike and see the nearly-all-day sun; a couple free-form weeks on the Eurail. These both happened within FIVE MINUTES.) But Asia is something that hasn’t piqued my interest so much until recently, mostly because of my fears around not being able to talk to everyone.* But OH MY GOD, this! According to this, the Wat Samphran Temple isn’t on many mainstream tours, which says, to me, that most mainstream tours are exercising poor judgment. I want to go there and just stare at it for about 15 minutes before wandering through all the (publicly accessible) nooks and crannies of this incredible place. Continue reading
The Water Fountain with a Parking Lot
This part of 164th Street in Lynnwood is pretty sedate. It’s a tree-filled break between strip malls and an easy place to stare idly out of the open window as you drive by (assuming you’re usually the passenger, as I am). Continue reading
Hither and Thither #1
It’s Seattle. Of course there are bees on a dock in South Lake Union. OF COURSE THERE ARE.
Capitol Hill Seattle’s picture roundup of the vigil for Melrose and Pine. Now’s the time to sit at Bauhaus, have ok-enough coffee, and pass judgment on people walking by – its days are waning as another big, dumb construction project looms. Continue reading
Save Ferris*
I need to hang out at the waterfront at night more often, it seems.
My Modern Met put together a really beautiful collection of long-exposure images of the Seattle Great Wheel** at times when it puts on its fancy clothes for holidays and the like. God, I love stuff like this. I’ve never been up in this thing, but I will soon, and I’ll bring you along. Also maybe a flask – I hear it’s pretty slow going.
Fun fact: one of the highlights of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis was the 26-story Ferris Wheel, which could hold 2,000 people. It was the same Ferris wheel featured at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.*** However, after its second life in St. Louis, it was BLOWN THE FUCK UP, and only its axle remained. Only no one knows where it is – people believe it may still be in Forest Park, where it’s not out of the ordinary to find weird artifacts from the World’s Fair. But a GIANT FREAKING AXLE remains out there, unaccounted for. This is an open case, people! This is still a thing being discussed!
World’s Fairs are weird things. I wish they still happened in all their hopeful, disposable glory.
*Eesh, sorry.
**Yes, that is the name of the Seattle Ferris wheel when it’s at home.
***P.S. Go read Devil in the White City. I’m serious, get to it, now.
Just an Ordinary Walk Home
With a $5 bouquet and two pounds of clams in hand, I arrive home.
Natch.
Of COURSE the new planet in Fremont has a ring covered in solar panels. How could it be any other way?
The Weirdly Awesome Under-Interstate Bike Park
Welcome. Hello. Have a seat.
I cannot overstate how badly I wanted this couch to be made of stone.
This is what greeted us when we crossed Lakeview to arrive at the I-5 Colonnade Mountain Bike Park. It pained me – I have a long-held ambition to have an outdoor couch of my own – but I’ve heard far too many bedbug stories on NPR lately to sit on furniture of unknown pedigree. Sad. Continue reading