Greetings from Bellevue

Sunday was a gorgeous day, high 60s and sunny. We had planned to go to the zoo to see the tapir before it leaves for a zoo with another tapir, but it turned out that the zoo was closed for a private event. So instead we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden for Arts in the Garden, which had a bunch of local artisans showing and selling their creations among the plants and flowers. It was a gorgeous day to walk the woods trail and to see the glass and carvings in the sun -- we felt badly for the people who'd been there in the rain on Saturday.

 

Since we were in Bellevue, we stopped at Fred Meyer for food and to look at household items (why is it so hard to find an inexpensive hanging mirror?), then we came home and walked on the dock, where it was a good day to see turtles. We saw the unhappy end of the Orioles game, ate dinner, watched this week's Snowpiercer (finally Wilford and Layton working together, even if barely!) and now we're watching the season finale of Orphan Black: Echoes, in which I guess we're not getting a Tatiana cameo so I need to hope for a season two pickup!

Greetings from Green Lake

Cahaya is in Chicago for the weekend following a work trip, so on Sunday we went to Green Lake to meet Daniel for brunch and a visit to the park with the dogs. We took them to the Greenlake Bar and Grill, where the humans had various egg dishes while Theo and Thandi waited impatiently, then we walked the three miles around Green Lake and caught Beldums -- Daniel and I had a lucky trade, so now we each have a big shiny Metagross with Meteor Mash, too. The dogs did some lunging and barking at other dogs but were reasonably well behaved and quite tired afterward. 

When we got back to Daniel's house after a stop for drinks in Greenlake Plaza, dark clouds had rolled in, so we stayed put until the wind died down. By then it was dinnertime, so we all went to Kitanda -- our original brunch plan, but they were temporarily out of acai -- and ate acai bowls. The storm had passed and there was a rainbow over the city when we drove home. We saw this week's Snowpiercer (finally Sean Bean; now we better get a scene where Wilford, Melanie, and Layton all get together, I mean have it out) and now we're watching Orphan Black: Echoes (go Jules!).

Poem for Sunday and Bellevue Parks

This Blue Vase 

By Peter Campion 

shows more than the morning clarities

of sun through leaves than through these windows.

Each thing is imbued by others. And staring

at the convex glass, I see the falls

in the one picture that held me enthralled

while you walked on through the gallery.

Even back then I must have felt

the photograph’s stark black and white

trapping the glow off tons of water

in its whole minute of exposure

one hundred years before we were born

as weirdly relevant: how barns

and long gone houses’ clapboard sides

above where shadowed cliff-face slid

vertiginously toward the falls

reflected all my naïve bewilderment

seeing what I’d thought permanent

turn so starkly half unreal.

But this morning, watching sunlight steal

across this table’s lacquered pine,

I still sense, through the smallest glints,

your presence still fusing all I see with you.

Blue irises from this vase’s blue.

-------- 

We had lovely cooler weather on Sunday, so after some morning chores and the Orioles game, which did not end well, we went to Bellevue. We had a couple of shopping stops to make, but first we went to Kelsey Creek Farm to see the animals and walk around the trail by the salmon stream, then we went to Bellevue Botanical Garden to see the summer flowers and the low water under the ravine bridge.

 

We saw the Mariners game, which went much better than the Orioles game (Cal Raleigh!), then a bit of the Olympics closing ceremony, but I'm so pissed about what the IOC did to Jordan Chiles that I wasn't in the mood. Instead we watched this week's Snowpiercer (good, but I'm missing Melanie and Wilford) and Orphan Black: Echoes (love the age-separated Eleanors but wish the endgame were clearer).

Greetings from Juanita Bay

Sunday was another hot day with some haze from the wildfires to the south, but it was also a good day to be out enjoying the area, with several festivals going on. We spent the morning doing chores and chatting with family -- Adam and Haley have arrived in Ohio, so we talked to them along with Hildy and Cindy, then we went on Google Meet with my parents -- plus we watched most of the Orioles victory over the Guardians, a bit of the Mariners loss to the Phillies, and some of the Olympics. 

Then we went to Kirkland to meet Chris at the PNW Witches' Market at Juanita Beach Park, which also happened to have great views across Lake Washington to where the Blue Angels were performing at Seafair in Seattle. We had Starbucks together and stopped at Michael's to see the Halloween stuff on the way home. Now we're watching Orphan Black: Echoes, which still has a massive Eleanor-sized plot hole, after Snowpiercer, which I'm so glad to have back that all flaws are forgiven.

Poem for Tuesday and Ballard Locks

The Fish Ladder 

By Timothy Donnelly 

To be the fish on the ladder

     and not know what it means. To feel the bronzes,

          the pearls, the greens, but in a context

               of pure combat. To fight the literal stream

we hurl ourselves into for no

     discernible purpose, other than some molecule

          says it will be worth it. To feel

               worthless enough to listen. To feel

something rather than nothing, the rungs of it

     a punishment, a goading

          into againstness, against the current. To come to know

               the concrete intimately. To come to know

what we want is. To come to know what we want is

     to be the fish on the ladder

          nonetheless. To feel the sun

               like a god we can discern. We hurl

our self into it, being for this purpose. To come to see

     what there is left to feel. To come to feel

          some other. To come to know

               what we want is. To be the fish on the ladder.

-------- 

Paul got up very early to be at Michael's Toyota when it opened so we could find out what was wrong with the van, which turned out to be a vapor leak because the gas cap seal needed to be fixed, so that was fortunately pretty small, easy to fix, and not horribly expensive. When he got back, we watched the US Olympic women's gymnastics team win the gold while I folded laundry, then we did assorted work while checking in on swimming and other sports (I rooted for the Israeli swim team but they finished last in their heat). 

We went for an early walk to the beach in gorgeous overcast weather before my Voyager group, which actually managed to watch an episode this week, the not-great but not-terrible "Critical Care" with its anti-socialized-medicine themes. Then we watched the end of the Orioles game over dinner before catching up on Orphan Black: Echoes, which made very little sense, and the first episode of Time Bandits, which was fun. No auroras, but we saw a beaver late tonight! Here are seals, salmon, seagulls, boats, and more at Ballard Locks:

Greetings from Discovery Park

Sunday was more overcast than Saturday, but still gorgeous and not too hot. We went out early for a Sunday to Discovery Park, where we hiked the three-mile loop down to the beach and back, bringing a picnic for lunch. Because it wasn't warm enough to swim in the Sound, the parking lot wasn't crowded and neither were the trails. The tide was in, so we didn't see starfish or anemones, but we saw some crabs, shrimp, and clams (many eaten by seagulls and eagles, who were flying over the beach) and a variety of sailboats, cargo ships, and paddleboarders.

 

We stopped at Safeway on the way home for provisions, then watched most of the Orioles loss to the Rangers around chores and a walk on the dock. We just finished watching the season finale of Interview with the Vampire, which was emotional and intense and did a great job integrating material from the later Vampire Chronicles that Anne Rice hadn't written yet by the end of the first one. Now we're watching Orphan Black: Echoes, which is clearly trying to incorporate characters and actors from the original but it's too soon for me to tell if it's really working.

Greetings from Seahurst

Puget Sound had a forecast for this weekend for very low tides, exposing the intertidal zone where moon snails are currently making egg collars and sea stars are clinging to the undersides of rocks. So in the morning, we packed sandwiches and went to Seahurst Park in Burien, which we used to visit on the way to SeaTac when we were about to leave Seattle and only learned after several years had great tidepools. We saw many snails, crabs of all sizes, sea stars, sea cucumbers, chitons, and assorted fish. Then we ate our sandwiches while sitting on driftwood, watching the herons, gulls, and crows fish and eat too. 

 

We came home in the afternoon and took showers because we had lots of sand in lots of places, then watched some baseball (the important games of the day for us, the Mariners vs. Marlins and Orioles vs. Astros, had both ended badly earlier). Then we ate ravioli and watched the start of the second season of The Bear (excellent), followed by the penultimate episode this season of Interview with the Vampire (sad, very well done, though I miss one of the most poignant moments from the novel), and the first episode of Orphan Black: Echoes (too soon to tell whether it will in any way be a good follow-up to the original).

Greetings from Camarillo

We are all in California for our niece Noelle's wedding! We had a somewhat turbulent but okay flight; lunch was delayed because of the shaking and I left my Kindle at home on the table, but I was sitting next to a woman from Syria who works for the Defense Department and we had an interesting discussion of world politics when not distracted by the three-year-old girl in the row in front of us who had a lot to tell us.

We met Daniel at LAX, though his luggage somehow did not get on the plane with him so it is being delivered to our hotel at 2 a.m. Meanwhile we met Uncle Mickey, Lesley, and Garrett at a Mexican restaurant near the Ventura County Fair where they treated us to a really lovely dinner! Now we're in a hotel watching the series finale of Orphan Black (except Adam, who went to bed early), and tomorrow we're seeing a college friend for the first time since college!