Stray Dog

We have a boarder for the weekend. She showed up on our front lawn at about three this afternoon. Snohomish County Animal Control finally returned my phone call at about 3:45, and all of the officers get off work at 4:00, and they won't be open again until Tuesday because of Labor Day. Well, at least the pup found some sympathetic souls to feed and house her for the weekend. We made "found" posters, and really hope we find her owners, rather than shuffling her away to a shelter.

UPDATE
I got a phone call from Ginger's owner. He came and picked her up. Hooray for happy endings! He saw one of the posters that I hung in our neighborhood. He was VERY happy to see her.

Full Moon

Shot on 28 Aug 2007 at 10 pm

Wildlife Park

Another day of perfect (gorgeous) weather. It was a little warmer than it has been lately, with the mercury topping out at about 82 degrees. The breeze made it feel much cooler. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and go to the Wildlife Park that we missed last week.

We wandered around first to Shadow Lake where we picnicked on PB&J and listened to the noises that the city doesn't make. Which is basically crickets and ducks. We sat around, Merlose threw rocks into the lake, Kelly tried to catch some fish, and I took some photos.

When we got bored with the gorgeous serenity, we walked to the river and tried to catch some trout. Look at us, in the sun, getting exercise!

Pike Place Market

So that's a link. Click on it to see the rest of the photos.

Caine and I decided to go explore the Pike Place Market today. It's a giant conglomeration of vendors... lots of food, of course, in the form of fresh seafood and produce, and lots of handmade goods. There are a bunch of stores, too. It's the height of the tourist season, and it's Sunday, so we probably picked the most crowded time to go. In all, it was a pleasant experience and I want to go back, but I want to go with a few hundred bucks worth of spending money.

Gone explorin'

We decided to get adventurous and went for a drive on Thursday. I'm not sure of our route, but the road and the drive reminded me a lot of the Road to Hana in Hawaii, only instead of tropical, it was deciduous. We ended up getting a little turned around and stumbled upon a park. It (like many parks in the area) just happened to have a lake.

And blackberries grow EVERYWHERE. They're delicious.

all you need for cool photos is a top hat

garden creatures

Big Slug!

He was wandering around on our welcome mat.

living with a child

So if you haven't heard, one of my "roommates" is a 2.5 year old girl. You may remember her, she was one of the very cute babies at our wedding.

Okay, so yeah, I plan on having kids "someday." That nondescript "someday" part makes it seem like it's very far away. Or at least, it's easy to pretend that it's very far away. And then we go and move in with a really small kid. Hm. Good practice?

I haven't gotten to be around children this young for any good duration since my cousins were small, and I was small then, too, so this is a new experience for me. I'm amazed and impressed by her learning capacity. "Terrible Twos" is an appropriate moniker, but there's so much more going on than temper tantrums. I like it so far. She's completely nuts, but in the good unselfconscious way. Here are some pictures we took the other day when we were playing in the back yard.

Oh, and it rains.

I'm falling for Washington. I admit it, the more I'm here, the more I like it. Yesterday we visited Mukilteo Beach, which is only about a ten minute drive from where we live. The beaches were alive! Lots of little crabs, bright green seaweed on the rocks, and many, but not too many humans. It was warm, and sunshiny, and smelled good.

This morning I woke up and it was raining. I imagine I'll get used to it pretty quickly, but right now it's still novel. There are few things better than waking up to the sound of rain on your windowsill on a day when you can lay around in bed (with your favorite person, and maybe a cat or two) and just listen to it.

When I was a paranoid little kid growing up (and going to bed) in north Long Beach, I used to be convinced that someone was going to burglarize our house while we were at home. When it rained, though, I felt safer, again completely convinced that if it was raining, the "burglars" would just as soon stay at home and not get wet. I of course no longer believe that evil men are stalking outside of my bedroom window at night, but the rain still brings the comfortable, safe feeling.

Beautiful...

...weather and produce today. The clouds were disgustingly puffy white, the sun was shining, and our high temperature today was seventy degrees (with a lovely breeze). Please, spare me the admontions to enjoy it while it lasts. I know it will rain, and it will rain a lot.
I went to the coolest "produce stand" today, with Alamtios Bay Farmer's Market quality produce, but I swear everything was $0.99 per pound. I can get used to that. There are lots of foods to try that are readily available fresh here (lots of seafood) that I couldn't find in Southern California. Did you know there are five kinds of salmon? I was convinced that there were two: "copper river" and "farm-raised, color added." Three cheers for fresh seafood! Man, I need a job.

Photos of the New place

Click it!

I miss

My mom and dad
my brother (strange how that works... he didn't live in SoCal)
casey, claire, curtis (and all the other friends whose names don't start with C)
BevMo
having money
riding my bike
Vin de Pays
competetive prices for liquor
101 degree weather (no wait, that's not true)
driving fast
living within walking distance to a lot of art and fine dining
living among artists

DOL vs. DMV

So in an attempt to become a real-life, legal washington resident, I visited the DMV (DOL in washington - department of licensing). Proof of residency and proof of identity required... I won't go into the boring bureaucratic details here, but those two requirements are surprisingly difficult to meet. Nearly two hours for our numbers to be called, and, ninety dollars later, we have our temporary washington state licences.


Hooray for not having to go back until 2012!

"What's it like?"

First Impressions

Washington is very green.
Green stuff grows everywhere.
The trees (mostly evergreens) are pretty tall.
People drive the speed limit (which on the highways is 60 mph).
There's a lotta white folk.
No one here is from washington, originally.

Life in the 'burbs

Hm. So. I guess an introduction is in order. This is an attempt to keep interested parties informed as to how my life is going. I'll start with stories, and I'll try to be chronological, and I'll try to include photos. Sound Good? Good.

Okay. I'll start with the trip. Or what I remember of it, since it's been two weeks, and I'm still blaming the head injury for my short term memory issues.

So it took an extra 12 hours, but once we finally got the truck all loaded we took off, our primary area of concern being our three little monsters, aka Beezer, Gabriel, and Lily. I drove the lovely 14' Budget rental truck while towing Caine's little ford truck on a dolly behind it, while Caine followed (and blocked traffic, and spotted, etc) in my Saturn. He had the pleasure of driving Beezer and Gabriel, while I got to keep Lily as company. She turned out to be excellent company, alternating between sleeping on my lap and sleeping in the passenger seat of the truck.








Beeze and Gabriel are notorious car-shitters. It happens pretty much every time we go to the vet. (That's why cat carriers are made out of hard plastic, I guess.) We got to about Hollywood Park before we had to stop and clean up cat poop. Yay! We stopped for the night in Bakersfield (ugh...) at a motel 6/gas station/ihop. The drive was incredible long, boring, and painful, but once we got out of California, it was much prettier. We stayed another night in Oregon, the got on our way again as early as possible.

We were about 40 minutes from our destination, when, while I was driving, I saw a big, beautiful owl swoop out of the forest right before my eyes. And right before I hit it with my budget rental truck. Shit! It was above the cab, but I think he hit the flat top part of the truck. Caine said he thought he saw it fly away, but it was a pretty loud thump, so I don't hold much hope for the poor guy. I felt awful. That's by far the closest I have ever been to that particular beast, and I'm pretty sure I killed it. Oh well. Good omen, eh?

Unloading the truck went okay. Rob and Kelly have this rad friend named Corey who both helped us unload and showed up with a new power supply for the recently-busted one on my computer. I love that kid!

Nothing particularly exciting has happened since then, just the usual unpacking trauma. The apartment is large and airtight (which I guess is important in washington). I've been on about four job interviews so far (but nothing that excites me). It's only been two weeks, so I'm not desparate yet.

I just called the nightmare job to tell them that I'm not interested. It was for Kit's Cameras, aka Ritz in So Cal and other parts of the country. It would be a step back from my previous job, along with a 40+ minute commute. So that someday I could be a retail manager. Forget that! Oh well.