Greetings from Woodlawn Hall

Quick post after most of the day packing, then noodles at Gao Lhao and a short walk to Woodlawn Hall in Green Lake to see Caitlin Canty (whom we last saw live in 2015)! Local musician Eli West opened for her and played a few songs with her at the end, and she played several of my older favorites ("Get Up", "Motel") and several songs off her new CD, plus a Jeffrey Foucault song. But the most fun part of the evening was that we stopped at the PCC between dinner and the show to pick up chocolate, and I walked right into her picking up her own dinner -- she was surprised that anyone recognized her and thanked me for making her feel famous.

Greetings from Edmonds

Very quick post after a lovely evening with Paul and Chris for dinner at Thai Cottage and the Gothard Sisters at Edmonds Center for the Arts (my day was otherwise folding laundry, watching the first episode of Heated Rivalry, and now the new episode of Pluribus). For the holiday concert, the Gothard sisters have guests from the local Irish dance academy where they trained, and perform a mix of carols and their own contemporary Celtic music, the former in elf hats:

Lyrics for Saturday and Amber Rubarth Concert

You Will Love This Song

By Amber Rubarth 

You always loved the colors and the detail, so here's mine

Snuck out down a dark seventeeth street late last night

Took my little orange booklamp and the notebook with the stars on the front, the sleeping bag that my ex gave to me to keep me warm, and a black fountain pen to write the words that it was too late to say out loud

And my eyes turned green, like they do when I'm crying

And my heart, it went to blue cause you told me that I might not be what you need, you want to try more out

But you're the only thing I can't stop thinking about

Yeah I... like you... a lot

And I think it's worse than that

You said you love it when all the words in the song move really fast so your ears have to choose just one little phrase to hold onto

And you love when all the chords are really simple so you can play it on the guitar, and when it goes all funny at the end you like that too

And so I'll build you a song, and I know you're gonna love it

'Cause I'm putting in all the pieces that you said you wanted in it

And I'm writing it here in my room in just my underwear and an orange t-shirt, because I know you'd think that was hot

Yeah, hot, like that day that you called sick for work

Because we'd stayed out too late at the cheesecake factory the night before

And we held hands on the beach, and I found that crab with a funny shell

And you took a video of me holding it up by the newly-painted blue motel

And you said I... like you... a lot

And I thought, "well, this couldn't get much better"

You said you're so happy you met me when you did, because you were starting to think you didn't like people

You told me that when I moved out that I could still stay in your room for weeks

But now I'm wondering if I imagined it, or if it was ever really there

'Cause they say, even in magic nothing truly disappears

It just gets stuffed up in somebodies sleeve or behind their hand, or on top of their head

You forgot to keep your eye on it, you're looking down instead

So now, I'm the fool up on stage at the magic show

Searching the deck for my card, while everyone laughs because they know

That it's in plain sight to see, yeah it's stuck on your forehead

But I can't think you're mean, because I volunteered to be misled

Yeah cause I... like you... a lot

And I don't know what to do with it now

And I... like you... a lot

But I didn't think it'd hurt this bad

I... like you... a lot

And we both know that it's worse than that

-------- 

Just back from seeing Amber Rubarth at a house concert in a beautiful part of Seattle, after an afternoon walk in the autumn drizzle at Brightwater Park, the trails around the Brightwater Treatment Plant -- more about that later. Amber was amazing -- in addition to a few new songs from her upcoming album that she hasn't performed before for an audience, she did the masterpiece she cowrote for The Paper Raincoat, "In the Creases", plus Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me" and R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" from her recent Cover Crop album and "Lovin' Eyes", "You Will Love This Song", and I can't even remember the rest at the moment. The house concerts are always potlucks, too, with lots of desserts. Some photos, more tomorrow!

Greetings from Snohomish

After a Sunday morning of building a LEGO aquarium that Paul got me for my birthday and glancing at football, we drove to Snohomish to meet Chris and see the Gothard Sisters at the Tim Noah Thumbnail Theater, which is a beautiful, very small venue so unlike when we saw them last winter in Edmonds, we got to see the fiddling, guitar playing, and Irish step dancing up close. The concert was a celebration of the release of their new album Storyteller and the music was lovely -- plus there were pastries and cider in the room with the merchandise, which included bookmarks made by their mother themed to each of the songs on the new album.

 

There was a big storm while we were in Snohomish, but we missed the entire thing while we were in the theater and came out to beautiful sunset sky colors. The Mariners game had started by the time the concert ended, and they were down two runs by the time we said goodbye to Chris, so it's just as well we didn't spend the day waiting for the game -- especially since they lost. After the game, we watched Bad Shabbos, which is a hilarious black comedy with great pacing (and I really appreciate that all the Jewish characters are played by Jews). Now we're watching the first episode of The Residence, which is also very funny and well cast.

Poem for Friday, UW Cherry Blossoms, A Complete Unknown

Sakura 

By Saigyo Hoshi 

Translated by Haruo Shirane 

The cherries' only fault: 

the crowds that gather 

when they bloom 

-------- 

Friday was a ridiculously beautiful day, mid-60s and sunny, so we did all our work early, ate bagels, and went to the University of Washington to see the cherry blossoms at peak. They were glorious, and the campus was very fun, with various sports teams taking photos under the flowers and music groups giving short concerts, plus campus groups setting up tables to recruit interested students. We walked around the dorms, which we've never done before, and down to the famous fountain, which we've only seen in cloudy weather so we had no idea that approaching from the center of campus, you can see Mount Rainier right behind it. We came home for dinner and the disappointing Mariners and Orioles games. 

I'm a huge fan of Bob Dylan's songs but not of how he treated his wife and several of his well known colleagues, so I expected to be irritated watching A Complete Unknown that no one can reproduce his music and biopics of living people are usually too adoring. But in fact the movie showed what an asshole he could be, and Chalamet to my surprise was wonderful both acting and singing (so was Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and the scene where they sing "Blowin' in the Wind" together is amazing). I'm irritated that every film about a male musician includes the Elle Fanning character -- I'd had enough of her back when it was Meg Ryan playing her in The Doors -- but overall I really enjoyed the movie. 

Greetings from the Edmonds Center for the Arts

Very quickly as we are just home after a lovely day in Edmonds -- a walk past the marina to the beach where we saw a big flock of brant geese and some hungry seagulls around the dog park, some shopping in town at art galleries, a bookstore, a kitchen store, and some gift stores, pumpkin curry and Thai basil tofu for dinner at Thai Cottage, a walk at sunset along Puget Sound by the ferry to the Edmonds Center for the Arts. (Photos of all that later in the week.) 

We saw the Gothard Sisters, Edmonds-born contemporary Celtic folk musicians who all play violin, plus they take turns on guitar, mandolin ("hobbit guitar" as a TSA agent identified it), bodhran, whistles, and various hand-held percussion as well as Irish step dance (joined tonight by kids from the local dance school where they learned it). Now we're home where I uploaded these photos while watching the House episode where Wilson proposes to him, hee! 

Greetings from Marymoor

We spent most of Saturday in Marymoor Park, which had the CHOMP! festival of sustainability. There was live music (including local pop-folk singer Amelia Day, whom we wanted to see so we got there well before 11, and she played both an Indigo Girls song and a Chappell Roan song in addition to her own music), a petting zoo, zucchini races, building crafts, a beehive, lots of tents with information about local food, plants, fishing, and sustainable living, and a wide variety of food, both free samples and lunch trucks. We had Indian food because the park was also hosting the Utsav Mela festival for India's Independence Day, with lots of vendors selling everything from decorative items to Indian wedding clothing and jewelry, plus kids' activities and a moonbounce. 

Since we were at Marymoor, we also took a walk along the river path through the dog park before we left in the late afternoon to make stops at Target and Safeway. Then we came home, checked on the frogs and turtles from the dock, fed our neglected cats, and watched most of the Orioles game, which was great for several innings and then the bullpen came in. The PCC was giving out organic peaches at the festival, so Paul made peach cobbler with them for dessert, which we ate while watching The Union, which is entirely predictable and has too much Mark Wahlberg but I enjoyed Halle Berry and J.K. Simmons in it. Now we're watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife just because we've never seen it and there's already a sequel, which hopefully also has Carrie Coon.

Greetings from Crossroads

Saturday was bitterly cold with temperatures that weren't even over 20 degrees until afternoon. So we had a very quiet morning snuggling cats and swapping hummingbird feeders to stop the nectar from freezing, then we watched the Browns-Texans game. I was glad to see Joe Flacco back, but I wish he'd thrown more touchdowns to Cleveland players and fewer to Houston. Then we got a call from Wild Birds Unlimited that they had our hummingbird feeder heater in stock, so we took a short walk around the neighborhood, then went out to pick it up. 

We had had plans to go to Cahaya's parents' house for a barbecue, but it was so icy on the roads where they live that we postponed that and instead met her, Daniel, and Adam at Crossroads Bellevue -- the mall that we discovered yesterday has a public market with restaurants serving food from around the world. We browsed in both bookstores and ate (Adam and I had pho, Daniel had Korean barbecue, Cahaya had Estonian food, Paul had fish and chips) while listening to Joshua Red Uttech and Ruth Navarro play folk music on the Market Stage.