The last etzy rain event meghan was at at Seattle Center

Love the pics this phone takes. I took the bus from west seattle to seattle center and had to walk about a mile. It was an amazing day and just gorgeous downtown. A perfect day for all the festivals and events that were going on at the center. Cant wait to get to the center more often with our kid when she is old enough to love that kinda stuff.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

downtown bellevue

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

green bikes around west seattle

We found one in front of a coffee shop

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

new phone

Its autumn.
wow the pics this new Droid takes are amazing. So happy we both got one.
 Also love having a phone that I can blog from too.
On another note it was good to take a walk today and smell the fresh air and see the area turning to fall. Fall is always a very happy time for me. I saw two people throw themselves into a spontaneous kiss on the sidewalk. I overheard a little girl tell her mom " she was tirsty" in the most adorable little girl voice. I saw a senior in hs carrying around a camera because she is on the yearbook team and she didnt want to miss a single picture. Seems like the world isnt so out of control when you see so many normal things happening.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

New Phone on a Fall Morning

The new phone takes way bigger pics and wasnt able to send to blogger directly which I need to figure out. So I had to download it. It seems to have captured the 3 level effect the mountains have outside our window.

A LOST reference

We were eating at the best sushi place in the Seattle Area - its in Tukwila by SouthCenter. They had these white and black rocks on our table. We looked around and we were the only ones. Very serendipitous.

Its our first trip to sushi in a long time and it was wonderful.

Its Hammer Time

We went downtown for a date night. We tried to get into  Impenema but found out that they only take reservations now and when you walk up to the door 30 minutes early they dont even tell you that and say come back later. Fuckers. Will not be going there ever for that rudeness.Instead we ate at a chain mexican place which was pretty good and then went and saw our show. We went and saw Dr Horribles Sing along Blog at a theater in Capitol Hill and it was amazing!!! So glad we caught the last night it was playing in town. Seriously it was so good they could go to Broadway with this.

bunches of fishies

Coral-tastic

Bright fishes

My first trip to Aquarium but im sure it wont be my last

The Seattle Aquarium was a LOT bigger than I imagined. I havent been in one that big in a long time - TWSS.
Here is a fellow gobbling away. Meghan and I went with her brother and his wife so it was pretty neat to wander around it. We will definitely be back with Jennsen I am sure :) Such a great thing for a little kid to go to.

A perfect sunset

 
A perfect sunset from the roof of our building.We dont go up there enough. While Meghans family was in town they all went up there a lot to soak in the view.You can really see everything from up there. The sound, the city and Bellevue. We see the same thing out of our windows in our apt - well this same view from the pic- but its much more expansive when you are up on the roof.

Trying to capture the clouds

 Trying to capture the wonderful fog in the summer. It looked so nice from the bridge but dont think the picture really captures it. You sort of can tell by the greyish nature of the large tower as it disappears in the low clouds / fog.

A random picture

Just felt like taking a pic. Perhaps it was because of the blue sky or that it was awfully bright out.

Old Part of Lake Union still standing

Old Area of Lake Union. This is what the whole area looked like before all the new buildings. You wouldnt recognize the area if you lived here 5 years ago and came back today. Especially now that they have done most of the building in the area. I wonder how much longer this old building will stand. Its not in the new super fancy area and more off to the side so maybe will last a while hidden by all the tall buildings.

Subversive seattle hippies at work in their progressive work place

I am quite envious of the people in the background of the picture. If you look you can see people sitting in their big open window office. I watched them work around their table and do some stuff with a tv and white board. I could see them clearly but camera didnt do a good job. They were your proto-typical subversive seattle hippies at work. Grungy clothes with lots of facial hair and unkempt hair on their heads waving around their venti sized coffee mugs and giving presentations.

Inner Chapter Bookstore

I love this place. It has the most eclectic selection of books. Even has a sign about hippies needing to use the side door which is clearly tongue-in-cheek considering all they have are hippie books in this place. Such comfy digs and great wood tables like the one in the picture. Of course its THE place to get S.L.U.T t-shirts still :)

Its interesting they had to change their sign and not call it the SLUT anymore. If you are at the sign you can see they scratched out the T and then underneath wrote out Trolley.

Where the S.L.U.T sleeps at night

She was out working as you can see at this time.

Sun burst

Thought it was neat.

West Seattle Fair

I found the best hat! And I wore my new Admiral Ackbar shirt from shirt.woot and got a few compliments and a bunch of stares :) I would call it a successful shirt outing. We walked around and got some sun and Meghan had her corn and I had an italian sausage. It was quite delightful.

Actually summer out

Needed to take a pic of summer from last weekend. It will be ending soon so wanted to get one pic in :)

Forgot to take pics yesterday but..

Many of the vistas we visited yesterday are actually already included in these blog-o-sphere of pages. We took the Duck tour. My first time in the 9.5 years I have been here. It was pretty awesome. Im sunburnt and cranky.Will have to say that being in that old vintage ww2 vehicle was quite impressive. Sturdy comes to mind. Going out on the water in it was the best part too. Seeing all the boat houses and barges and finding out that Boeing started on Eastlake and used to have his own airline which is still around today under another name.

Found out that the Fremont bridge is the most used draw bridged in North America. Not surprised there. It opens an average of every 23 minutes.

The price was pretty darn spiffy too for what you got. 25$ a head. It was certainly worth the 1.5 hours trip. Normally they go thru a lot of Pioneer Square but the race on sat that had aurora shut down and most of Pioneer congested made us spend most of our time in Fremont. I liked that but I was actually looking forward to the history of Pioneer Square. Oh well another time :)

A last note is that what ride or tour can you go on and quack the whole time and no one gets mad or tells you to shut up. That was worth the price to me right there. I quacked myself up the whole time :)

On a side not that has nothing to do with this blog I found that putting heavy whipping cream into tea tastes like I am drinking mashed potatoes. Perhaps I put too much but it seemed like a sparring amount. Well I shan't be doing that again.

Cascade Farmers Market

A new little farmers market down in Cascade area. This part of town is finally getting a lot of traffic and great restaurants. Lots of office buildings down here now and even some new fancy schmancy parks :)

Its a jungle out there

At the before mentioned coffee shop I saw all of this foliage at the front door. I sat next to it and felt all cozy. Mmm jungle.

Summer Bash at this cute coffee shop on friday

I just thought I would pimp for them today :)

Zatz one hell of a Badtz platz

If you like shitty service, with a fresh bagel that tastes like cardboard and watching mid-morning chaos of whose on first, then this is the place for you.

We had such high hopes for greatness as so many tout this place as a beacon of east coast style bagel nommery. To those people, you can expect a wild weasel in your next mail delivery.
The place was staffed with teens or young adults who didnt quite know why they were up at 9 in the morning and they all bumbled into each other while trying to fill orders or just plain starred at the walls. Probably they needed to drink some more of the only thing that I liked about the place - the coffee. At least they had Cafe Vita AND it was hot.
We couldnt figure out where the line to order started. Neither could others it seemed. One girl in front of us got fed up and left so we moved up in line.. hooray. Then I got to watch the dude just starring at the counter while we watched him but no one helped us. Finally the only adult there asked us what we wanted and we thougth we had reached our goal... we were wrong. Meghan asked for a bagel with egg and ham and cheese. The lady asked her if she wanted green onions and Meghan said no. So that was it and she went make the sammiches. I asked for just a garlic bagel toasted with cream cheese for the record.

Then we just stood there. The kid was still starring at the counter. No one else was being helped. A few minutes passed. A girl asks who is next and we were not sure what the story was because we still hadnt ordered any drinks. Meghan piped up that we didnt know if we were done as we hadnt finished our order. Apparently this is a no-no to say here as all three employees piped up that THE PERSON who helped you will finish that. From what I could tell NO one ever got their orders finished. Hell each person before us still hadnt been fully taken care of yet.

So we stood in our rebuffed silence watching the kid, yes STILL starring at the counter, the other girl helping someone new so they could have yet ANOTHER order to not finish, and then finally our gem of an adult making our food. She was microwaving the eggs for Meghans sammich. The look on Meghan's face of dissastisfaction as she was getting ill from just watching the affront to breakfast cookery was making me dislike the place even more.

Our food arrived and then she says "Ok so what else do you want?"  Seriously?? I dont know how they still can operate but Coffee comes first to any person who steps into a breakfast place and taking care of it last was just ridiculous. She then states that my bagel came with a med coffee... that should have tipped me off about the place, but I digress. Meghan ordered a latte. She then said our bill was 13.45$. At the time I was so relieved to actually be done with the line I didnt think about how insanely expensive that was for a bagel breakfast that included a free coffee? Holy shit is all I have to say.

We sat down and this is when I found out it was Cafe Vita and I was partially mollified. The same person who made our food then went to make her latte. Seriously the MOST INEFFICIENT place I have ever seen in my life. Hence the bumbling of them bouncing off of each other all doing the same things.

We looked at our food. I had barely enough cream cheese to cover my bagel. It might have been warm but sure didnt look toasted and low and behold it tasted like cardboard. Mmmm yummy cardboard. More please! Even Oliver Twist might have throw this back at them. Alas my bagel was a work of art compared to Meghan's - nothing was right. They had added green oninons and some how included bell peppers in her microwaved eggs, which they had forgotten to ask if she wanted but somehow remembered to ask about green onions.
Though I should note her latte was excellent but then that was cafe vita of course :)

In conclusion this place is a big KERPLATZ.

Leek me tell you how nice ..

Fresh leeks are. Meghan made this fantastic nommery of fresh leeks that we get from the farm fresh deliveries along with fresh carrots, which she didnt like ( hehe), and garlic simmered in chicken broth with black lentils, crimini mushrooms and fresh romas. I didnt take a final result picture - bad me.

Another pic for a better view of Da Guds

Leeky

Thats one pretty leek.

Organic groceries delivered to you.

This is our second delivery. We have them sent to Freshy's and then we pick them up. Its quite handy. So much good stuff. Meghan is going to make salmon and leeks this weekend :) Ill probably juice up a bunch of the stuff.

Paint a picture

I am reading Walden by Thoreau and it is fascinating how much can be taken from it and applied today.

He writes this book from a state not unlike our own. The area around him is more or less like our own state of commercialism and high consumerism with little regard for self worth and what we need to survive. He decides to go out into the woods and is mocked by his contemporaries for doing this. His choice to not live in the city and use all the conveniences both upset and disturbed his neighbors.

I found one part very reachable in todays terms - " if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of luxurious and more expensive things,then he would only need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade it then to use oxen to plow it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old,..." " and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow or pig"

Seems to be saying. Live within your means and dont allow yourself to be tied down to "The Man" as it were. Sadly, the basis of our culture has become that you are " supposed" to be tied down with all of these trappings. This is normal. Living within your means is now "bad". Mostly its all the credit companies that I would call the " cows and pigs and horses". They are the means by which we increase our our material trappings outside of our natural abilities to get them. Tend to our needs ourselves and stay within them.

If that pillow was a vampire he WOULD not be happy

I shall call him the NOT a Vampire pillow.

Nom Nom Nollies

I havent had bagel and gravalx since I lived in Atlanta. This was A M A Z I N G. A dill sauce on the whole wheat bagel with homemade gravlax. Wow. I met the chef and he told me how he made them as this was his first time doing it and he loved it as well. The girl who rang me up also suggested scrambled eggs next time which I do believe I will do. The only complaint I had was that I ordered a drip coffee and she gave it to me and it was very luke warm and really made me sad. I was so looking forward to my hot coffee to go wth my breakfast that I had for second lunch. Yes I ate this at 2 in the afternoon and it was just as wonderful as if I had had it for 6am.

Nollies by the S.L.U.T storage bay

I have walked by this place quite a few times lately and wanted to go in. Looked to be quaint and have bakery goods that were nummery. On that account they did not dissapoint. There was actual seating in the place and it had metal counters to stand at for lunch as well. The one sitting room was painted yellow, which i found cheerful and relaxing and I bet in the morning would find even more wonderful.

Mother

The butter that Mother from LOST used...

Freshy's on california ave

We saw a post for this place in the west seattle blog. They have movie night and were showing The Fantastic Mr. Fox which we both really wanted to see. So we headed on down the street and hoped there was some good vittles there too. We smelled the hot grilled sammiches even before we made it to 20 feet of the place. It was heaven. I had a grilled ham and cheese on this delightfully toasted bread which was liberally smeared with horseradish sauce. It was to die for! Dont remember what Meghan had as I was too focused on mine. They both looked the same and were prepared with wonderful precision and brought out by the owner and barista and cook. I also had some coffee , per the picture, and it was amazing as well. We are definitely going back.

Everyones Name on the Cave Wall... Door

Chalk on the Cave ... err I mean Door

It just so happened that we had a nice red door for our apt that was PUUURFECT for putting up chalk writings of everyones name. Even Jon who didnt show :) I gave him number 2.

On a side note. We go in trouble for doing this and the manager of the building fussed at us. lol

Dharma Balloons

ABC's Lost Finale Kit had some pretty high quality balloons in the kit. Thanks Marlo!

Sushi

This was my first attempt at making california rolls and meghan edumacated me on how to make them correctly. They turned out fantastic and I nom'd them :) I made wayyy too much of the spam musubi and of the california rolls but I did eat them for 2 days afterwards. heh

I will be making the california rolls again sometime for us. Her crab salad she made for them was magnificient.

Pre-Party Pics of the Lost Party Spread

Meghan had this kick ass idea to get a chaffing dish with sterno. Ah the memories of all those years of banquets. So happy to have it too so that the ribs stayed nice and hot :) Then she had some stands to elevate the sushi on which gave it a great look overall. Hmm didnt notice the shade in the pic when I took it but it was bright out so wonder how I did that.

Nom Nom Namaste

They went all out on this LOST Finale Kit

The craziest thing is that we were looking for one of these that somehow neither one of us owned one and here it came in the LOST package. There seems to be no bounds to the things that LOST does for us :)

Where's my cup Dude?

We got the PARTY KIT for the Lost EXTRAVAGANGA!

Its Dharma Approved

Palmer and GodZooky

We put Godzooky up to attack West Seattle. He is starring out at the water.  Planning his plans.

Fire

Oh look a PIT!

Sideways Seattle

You can get the whole city in the pic. Bellevue was just to the right of the pic and cut off but you can see that whole city too.