Poem for Friday and Skipley Farm

Poem in Which I Only Use Vowels
By Paola Capó-García

Poem in which I have wisdom.
Poem in which I have a father.
Poem in which I care.
Poem in which I am from another country.
Poem in which I Spanish.
Poem in which flowers are important.
Poem in which I make pretty gestures.
Poem in which I am a Deceptacon.
Poem in which I am a novelist.
Poem in which I use trash.
Poem in which I am a baby.
Poem in which I swaddle.
Poem in which I bathe.
Poem in which I am a box.
Poem in which its face is everything.
Poem in which faces are everywhere.
Poem in which I swear.
Poem in which I take an oath.
Poem in which I make a joke.
Poem in which I can’t move.

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I was a still a little out of it on Thursday morning -- my arm felt like it had a fever, I had a bit of a headache, and my foot was still sore from overtaxing it in Seattle. So I had a quiet morning with cats piled on top of me now that the temperature is dropping, then after lunch we went out to the bank, CVS (for orthotic inserts), and Giant (to restock after travel). 

We took a walk because it was a gorgeous afternoon and we're expecting tropical storm rain for the next several days to keep us indoors a lot. After dinner (veggie burgers), we watched She-Hulk (I really love Jen, but die Josh die), then some of the Dolphins-Bengals game around my Thursday night fan chat. Here are some photos from Skipley Farm in Snohomish outside Seattle: 

Greetings from Home

Another quickie this evening because I got a flu shot at my checkup this morning, and between that and being jetlagged, my brain is not fully focused. Most of my day was post-trip chores anyway: three loads of laundry that are dry but not yet folded, toiletries and accessories mostly put away, jewelry mostly sorted. I talked to my high school friends after lunch, which is always lovely. 

We took a walk in the lovely cool before dinner (I could only manage soup). Evening TV included last week's She-Hulk (cute but I was expecting more superhero connections) and Lord of the Rings (the music! the Numenorean armor! Galadriel as Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age! I love this show). The beach at Howarth Park in Everett, on Puget Sound, with its views of the naval base: 

 

Greetings from Seahurst

Quickie from home after easy flight (I was mostly reading Kate Mosse's Citadel, our row companion kept her mask on, we ate the cheese plate and the tapas box). Before that, Daniel drove us to meet Adam at Seahurst Park, where we often walk on the beach before going to the airport, to see the crabs, gulls, herons, and ships -- today we also got crows and ospreys in the wildfire haze -- and had lunch at the Burger King in Burien. Then Adam headed home to work and get the new covid booster while Daniel took us to SeaTac and went to recover from having us visiting for a week! 

Greetings from Issaquah

We started Daniel's birthday by driving to Adam's house, where we ate the rest of the bagels we bought two days ago and Skyped with both sets of grandparents around Adam's online work meetings. We then left him to work and went to Snoqualmie Falls, hazy in smoke from nearby wildfires and perhaps therefore not very crowded -- warm and beautiful, we even saw a peregrine -- plus a stop in Salish Lodge, whose shop offered the closest I came to apples and honey this Rosh Hashanah. 

Driving through hazy hills, we visited the Issaquah Fish Hatchery, where we saw salmon in and out of the fish ladder and herons and ducks in the river, then we came back to Daniel's house to play Beyond the Sun before we met up with Adam and Cahaya (Katherine was working late) to go to Petra for dinner (I had the mezza platter with hummus, dolmades, babaganouje, falafel, and lebneh, perfect), after which we came back to Daniel's house again for a few hands of Coup and leftover cake from brunch. 

Greetings from Marymoor

Daniel's birthday is on Monday, but since both his girlfriend and Adam's have to work that day, Cahaya invited us all plus her parents for brunch in the private room at the Birch Road Cellar club with all-vegetarian catered food and a cream cheese spice cake. It was great to meet her family and the food was phenomenal! After we ate, Cahaya and her parents went to her apartment and the rest of us picked up Pepper in the suburbs, then headed to Marymoor's off-leash dog park to walk on the river. 

Adam had told me about SoulFood, a New Age coffee shop with books and crystals, where we went for drinks, plus a nearby independent toy store, which we visited before hanging out at Adam's for a while. Then we went to Matador for Mexican food (they had vegan "pork" tacos) and walked around Redmond's downtown park, before going back to Adam's for cake my parents sent Daniel, and Chai, a game about serving fancy teas to people with known preferences like the Queen and Captain Picard. 

Greetings from Snohomish

Fall is arriving late in Seattle this year, unlike when we visited last year during the drought, so the trees are mostly still green and the weather is mostly spectacular. We picked up and brought Blazin' Bagels to Adam and Katherine for brunch on Saturday morning, then we drove in two cars (because of two dogs) to Howarth Park in Everett, which allows dogs off-leash on its beach. Pepper was unenthralled with big dogs running around, but Thandi had a great time -- not even a dead seal deterred her -- and we got to see sailboats and the naval base beneath Mount Baker, plus a train on the tracks that people must traverse to reach Puget Sound. 

After that, we went to Skipley Farm, also dog-friendly, where we hoped to get some apples for Rosh Hashanah, but they were were past peak so we picked grapes instead. We went back to Adam's house for dinner and shared a bunch of Thai dishes, though Thandi broke out of her harness, peed on the carpet, and was exiled to the porch, where she whined a great deal. After dinner, we walked to Grass Lawn Park to get Thandi some proper exercise, then we played a few rounds of Sushi Go before dropping Thandi off with Cahaya and coming back to Daniel's house past the UW stadium, where Stanford was playing, though we only watched it on TV. 

Greetings from Ballard

Friday, like Thursday, gave us gorgeous weather, so we met Adam for breakfast at Kitanda (acai bowls for me and him, breakfast sandwiches for the others), then we drove to Ballard, where we visited the Chittenden Locks, which were full of salmon heading into the fish ladder and harbor seals trying to catch the fish -- there were also lots of seagulls, some herons and cormorants, and enormous lion's mane jellyfish close enough to the surface to watch, as well as geese and squirrels in the gardens. 

We went into the town of Ballard for Salt and Straw ice cream and to visit a couple of shops -- there are lots of craft stores and some antiques and consignment shops -- then we dropped off Thandi for a nap and headed toward Adam's house, where we met up with Katherine and Pepper so we could all go to dinner at Panera. After eating, we went back to Adam's house to play The Estates while we ate coconut macarons. Now we're back with Thandi and all her energy! Animal pics soon, this is mostly us: