Poem for Thursday and Seahurst Park

Puget Sound
By Marlon Fick

We reach for the smallest things first:
a wing bone from a sea gull, pieces
of kelp that break apart easily.
We hardly notice the afternoon
spreading itself too thinly across the Sound,
making the bright bones dark,
like the dark bones in each finger
of each hand.
 
I’ve been up late
listening to the steady notes of a ferry
sound and release. It holds on
for a moment and releases, like
your love for me.
I’m standing on the shore, wanting
to see between notes.
You never made me restless.
Perhaps the waves, close and away, remain.
 
Perhaps, I’m learning that the shore
is never right
and so is always shifting.
And promises are all washed up.

-------- 

My Wednesday consisted almost entirely of unpacking, doing laundry, putting things away, more laundry, a break to talk to 2/3 of my high school friends while we all ate lunch (the third had just had a covid booster and wasn't feeling well), more laundry, and quite a bit of snuggling cats who alternated between ignoring us and demanding constant attention. We took a walk in the afternoon because the cool weather was too beautiful to neglect. We did some more chores, after which we had soup and grilled cheese for dinner and watched The Masked Singer. 

Then we watched this week's What If...?, which had a lot of fight scenes but I really enjoyed it anyway. I liked getting to see a Natasha-and-Clint story in which Natasha makes the decisions, I appreciate after all the recent Tony martyrdom the reminder that Tony almost destroyed the world with his "Peace In Our Time" joke, I appreciated the Terminator and Star Wars jokes and the glimpses of alt-Steve Rogers! And I love that the show isn't just a bunch of one-offs but has an endgame in mind, so to speak. Seahurst Park on Tuesday morning: 

Greetings from Home

We did not pull out of the Dulles parking lot till after midnight so I will keep this short: woke up, walked Pepper with Adam, ate breakfast, packed, said goodbye to Adam and Katherine, picked up Daniel, drove to Seahurst Park, walked along the beach, traded Pokemon, dropped off the rental car, took the shuttle to SeaTac, ate lunch in the airport with Daniel, sent him to the light rail, got on a plane, flew to DC! 

Greetings from Puget Sound

Adam and Katherine had to work on Monday, so after eating bagels at their house, we drove into Seattle to pick up Daniel and went to Carkeek Park, which has a beach on Puget Sound reached by crossing a bridge over the railroad tracks. So people with children come to watch the trains as well as to visit the playground and see the beach wildlife (gulls, mallards, widgeons, and sea lions off in the distance on buoys). Since it was a workday there weren't a lot of other adults. We were going to visit Golden Gardens as well, but after we stopped for lunch at Patty's Eggnest because we saw a sign from the road declaring that they had Swedish pancakes (and wonderful eggs benedict and omelets), it started to pour. 

So we wound up returning to younger son's house and hanging out for a couple of hours until the rain stopped. We tried to walk Pepper by ourselves, but she was Having None Of It, so we waited until Adam and Katherine had finished work for the day, then we all walked to Grass Lawn Park and saw the site of Katherine's owl attack as well as sunset on the changing leaves. We watched some of the Cowboys-Eagles game before eating leftovers for dinner since there was so much Indian and Mexican food in the refrigerator, plus the rest of Daniel's birthday cake. After that, we played Codenames. Here are photos of the two parks plus lunch and dinner:

Greetings from MoPop

Sunday was Daniel's birthday and we got to spend most of the day with him, a lot of it with his girlfriend as well except when she needed to walk her dog, though Adam and Katherine had to go to a clinic to get her checked out after an owl attack (I said I thought it was a sign that the goddess Minerva wants her attention but I'm not sure she was convinced). Here are photos from our day: 

 

 

Daniel finding out he's a villain on his 28th birthday... 

 

 

...at MoPop's Disney costume exhibit, where we went with our kids and their girlfriends Sunday morning 

 

 

We got to see Maleficent's horns...

 

  

...and all the maximalist A Wrinkle In Time dresses 

 

 

Also at MoPop, I got to see Nancy Wilson's guitar (and some Heart concert footage)... 

 

 

...and we all got to watch some Star Trek on the big auditorium screen... 

 

 

...and meet Daleks... 

 

 

...and study the history of fantasy 

 

  

We had lunch with Daniel and Cahaya at Mod Pizza in the Armory -- well, outside the Armory at a table not very well protected from the rain -- while Adam took Katherine to get a tetanus shot because an owl dug its talons into her while she was running in the park the night before 

 

 

After watching some football with Daniel at his apartment in Belltown, he drove us back to Redmond, where we all got Indian food from Kanishka and had a Pokemon cake for Daniel's birthday, plus SKyped with all his grandparents 

 

  

Then we all played Coup (I got exposed, assassinated, and overthrown every time)

Greetings from Pike's Place

We have had another nice full day with kids and pets, so once again I will post the chronology in photos with very short captions and talk more about it when I post more pictures later on!

 

We had breakfast with Adam and Katherine, then drove into Seattle to meet Daniel and Cahaya at the Seattle Art Museum, which has this exhibit about Monet, painters at Etretat, and how Monet's paintings there transformed his career 

 

 

Here is the family in front of John Grade's Middle Fork, looking like a Western Hemlock tree... 

 

 

...and in the porcelain room, which had lovely examples from all over 

 

 

From there we walked to Pike's Place Market for lunch 

 

 

There were lots of people inside, so we ate sandwiches and soup from the Alaskan Sourdough Bakery outside Miners Landing... 

 

 

...where we had great views of the Seattle Great Wheel at Pier 57... 

 

 

...and inside I got to pose for very tasteful photos with figures from Seattle history like this one 

 

 

We went back to Adam and Katherine's house to walk Pepper and Theo, with whom we saw many bunnies, though we were so full from lunch that instead of bringing in food from a restaurant, we went to Safeway and had assorted sandwiches and burgers

 

  

And Theo was extremely helpful with food preparation and table supervision 

 

Our Saturday has just ended, insanely enough, with an owl attack. The wild suburbs!

Greetings from Redmond

Here is my lovely Friday very quickly in photos! 

 

 

We got up and walked Pepper with Adam while Katherine worked

 

 

We picked up Blazing Bagels

 

 

Daniel, Cahaya, and Theodore arrived

 

 

We took the dogs to Marymoor Off-leash Dog Park 

 

 

Theo took took the "off-leash" part very seriously and went swimming in the forbidden section until another dog helped us chase him out

 

 

Pepper was much less enthralled with the water and fine with being on the leash 

 

 

Theo had to be washed off when we got back, which he was much less enthralled about 

 

 

We hung out and ate some pistachios, then took the dogs to Grass Lawn Park 

 

 

This huge, lovely public park is an easy walk from Adam and Katherine's house 

 

 

We saw Mount Rainier out the window both when we were driving to Marymoor and when Daniel drove us in his car to pick up butternut squash enchiladas from Cactus for dinner 

And we watched this week's What If...? since Adam and Katherine had not seen it, and now humans and dogs are all falling asleep!