OF SHOES AND SHIPS AND SEALING WAX*

The last time I saw TS we met on the beach, halfway between Seattle and Tacoma, to celebrate her birthday a month after her birthday. Funny though...for TS's birthday I got a present, and it was wrapped beautifully.

I made her a blueberry-peach pie, like I did for her birthday 2 years ago, when we had just moved to Seattle. So much has changed it two years, but the whole time I lived in Seattle it felt like we had just moved there.

I would like to say happy birthday TS, but her birthday was in July, so instead I will say happy fall.


*
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

(The Walrus and the Carpenter)

THE EVIL BARON VON HAMBURGER TAKES SEATTLE

Backtracking yet again...One of the last things I did in Seattle was attend the New Belgium Brewery's Tour de Fat. New Belgium beers are brewed in Ft. Collins, and our pal Jason "Baron von Hamburger" Knauf was on the tour this summer. Plus, New Belgium beer is tasty, and the brewery is really into bikes, so of course we had to go. Events included a funeral procession for The Car.



And an awesome performance by Portland's Sprockettes. Seriously, these girls made me want to form a bike dance troupe of my own. It looked like a lot of fun, and they reminded me of the silly dances, air bands, and magic shows my sisters, friends and I used to practice and perform in the backyard.


But watching Jason's performance as the evil Baron von Hamburger was definitely the highlight of the day.

Jason joined the circus last winter, the Squirm Burpee Circus, that is. Who'da thunk a person could make a living as a vaudeville performer in this day and age?

Jason makes a really excellent villain.



And he let me try on his cap and moustache after the show.

I practiced my evil laugh. Who knows when a girl might need to laugh evilly? I need more practice. My laugh was weak.



But Craig and Jake were scared anyway.






Ross von Hamburger looked kind of noble...







The Baron tools around on this crazy monkey-powered bikemobile. Dan and Mike Huling, the original Handsome Little Devils, designed and built this vehicle, and made all their props and costumes.









And with that, Hamburger pedaled off into the rusted remnants of the Seattle Gasworks.

A STORM HOVERED OVER THE CITY

MEASURED OUT IN COFFEE SPILLS

After a chaotic summer, I'm working to establish some routine again.

Ross has been here for a few weeks, which has been really nice, of course, but he heads back to Seattle this weekend.


Lucy seems to be settling in pretty well.


The mountains are so close to the city, and so surprising.


Stilllife: Catie With Mysterious Berries.


Study for "Berries."

Ross, V, Catie and I went on a quest for some creek dipping a few weeks ago but learned that wading and swimming aren't allowed in order to protect the watershed.


Then Ross and I took a short hike on Labor Day weekend.














Generally, I hate to see aspens with names scratched into them, but I can't help but kind of like these old Basque sheepherder carvings. I suppose I forgive them for carving up the trees. It was pre-environmental movement, and they were all alone in foreign mountains. It seems that carving your name or drawing a little picture in the bark of a tree might have been assurance that you existed, when otherwise you were floating, insignificant, lost.


A few years ago Ross and I met Judy on a visit to SLC through some friends. Although I have only spent a little time with Judy, all those times are particularly memorable: a churchyard after listening to a string quartet, a picnic overlooking the tremendous open pit Kennecot Mine (the mine trucks looked like toys down there), wandering through an almost forgotten cemetery in Tuscarora, NV, examining Mormon crickets as they dragged each others' corpses across the highway. Anyway, Judy took Ross and I on a picnic high on hill overlooking the city. It turned out that day was Judy's 36th anniversary of living in Salt Lake. She moved here for grad school from New Zealand way back when. We toasted her home.

MILES OF HIGHWAY POPPIES

My parents came out for a visit. It was the hottest week of the Seattle summer--I think the mercury reached 103 one day.

They brought their tandem bike, so we spent a lot of time pedaling around. At the end of a long ride, we decided to catch the water taxi back across Elliott Bay. It was a nice breezy ride--lots easier than riding back through SoDo.







Dad really fell in love with the monkfish at the market.



Finally, after living in Seattle for over two years, we saw my Aunt Reenie, who lives in Olympia, less than an hour from Seattle.

After a barbeque in Reenie's awesome backyard (my cousin's brought gigantic oysters--yum!), we went to see the State Capitol, and the old Oly Brewery.



Then we were off to the Peninsula for a couple of days. We kept an eye out for cosmopolitan vampire and old-soul werewolfs, but I guess they blend in well with the general populace.














It was so hot on our ride. We were saved from heat stroke by a swim in the Dungeness River. It was a real swimmin' hole--crowded, with a rope swing.


It was nice to show my parents a little of the Pacific Northwest before I left it.