Leavenworth Christmas Festival

Leavenworth 9, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Need to get a season's worth of Christmas in one afternoon - the Leavenworth Christmas Festival. It was picturesque; it was crowded with tourists; there was schnitzel and sauerkraut. What more is there to say? Oh yeah, there was plenty of snow.

Clear Skies

Golden Gardens 3, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Thursday, Friday and Sunday, the Cascades and Olympics were visible around Seattle. We took full advantage and went to the beach at Golden Gardens park on Friday, as well as leisurely drive around town. Lovely.

Willy Wonka in Smell-O-Vision

The tallest Oompa Loompa, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

I met the tallest Oompah Loompah in the world.

My bus stop had Bieber Fever

My bus stop had Bieber Fever, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Snow Day

Snow Day 3, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Monday. Snow. The Snowmageden. Or the Apocalypse. Or, if you said the city would use salt, why didn't the city use salt. Or, if you want every response to inclement weather to be botched, keep cutting the city and state funding. Or, maybe just a bonus school holiday.

It is rather picturesque, especially on campus.

"But don't listen to Captain Ozone or Knight Owl, police were told. They're apparently not part of the group."

'Nuff said, no?


In case you'd like to hear more, though.

On the inaccuracies of the world of Seattle Grace

Before moving to the Seattle area, I knew that Grey's Anatomy did not depict the real Seattle. The one and only bar they ever go to (in fact, the only place beside the hospital they go) looks more like the bar near the Tulane Medical School than any other bar I've ever been too (also called Joe's, in fact, and closed post-Katrina). Last night's episode, however, when the group commuted to work near dawn and then home at 6pm evidently pre-dusk was beyond the pale. When is it supposed to be? Well before 5pm yesterday it was dark as midnight!

Things that aren't clothes

The weather is changing, for the worse, and it's brought out some interesting interpretations on "winter wear" particularly in the U-District, not even getting into the popularity of hosiery with back seams worn with shorts or summer skirts, which I don't really understand - why bother with managing a back seam (which does require some supervision to keep straight) if you're not really bothering to manage/supervise any other aspect of your person? Turns out, back seams definitely look trashy instead of sexy when paired with a bubble skirt AND running shoes. I surmise the thought process was, hmm, I'm cold and looking frumpy - backseam tights to the rescue!

But, more to the point of not clothes:
A stuffed Finding Nemo-type fish is not a hat. I get that the furry caps with ears and sometimes tails and claws that look like muppet pelts on occassion are actually hats, but I'm really not sure that Finding Nemo ever had a line of stuffed toys/hats. Maybe they did. Maybe this person was just being innovated with leftover stock. Still wasn't a hat.

Control-top pantyhose are not pants. The darker portion around your nether region is not intended to replace or otherwise usurp the role of a skirt, pants, shorts or the bottom half of your dress (you know, the part that covers your nether regions). There, it needed to be said.

FYI, guy that plays with the glass ball in front of different classroom buildings is still shirtless at 43 F, in a cold drizzle.

3.11.10

Saw what was clearly an undergraduate student pick through a garbage can at the bus stop. Then two shoes, that didn't match, in the middle of a side street as we drove past - accident or do you think they were thrown out of one of the apartment windows.

Unfortunately, not much interesting to see or do otherwise. Over the weekend Saturday was rainy and Sunday I actually did do my reading. Monday a passing car covered me in water on my way to the bus stop, so my yelling obscenities on the side of the street probably would have made it into the blog if I'd witnessed it instead of participated in the spectacle.

Maybe I'll get lucky and there will be something exciting will happen to someone else while I'm watching tomorrow. Sunny weather is forecast for the whole week, and that seems to bring out some colorful behavior.

Tinky Winky

I saw two people in full Tinky Winky suits today. Two different people, not the same person twice (one was a middle school student the other an adult). No other teletubbies have been represented.

Most other people, I couldn't tell if they were in costume or not.

I wonder if kilt man wore pants today?

18.10.10

 Street person holding a substantial dream catcher and asking for spare change. Reaction from girl on the street in a tank top that said "vagina": "It's that old guy who makes the evil fucking dreamcatchers."

I'm assuming there was backstory.

Over the weekend....

A man was killed by an aggressive mountain goat while hiking in Olympic National Park. Really. Crazy.
I heard on the news today that they put the goat down - they're sure it was this goat because of the blood on his horns. The take home: "wildlife is unpredictable."

I'm just saying...

Sunrise today was only 7:33am. Does that seem right to you? It's only October.

Maybe I should have titled this blog, "blogging my Seasonal Affective Disorder"

11.10.2010

Shirtless man with a bright red mohawk juggling, or at least moving about in a magical way, a glass orb right in front of my building around noon today. Why? And, who? And where was the shirt? It was a chilly day, though another lovely, sunny one.

A cacophony of human smells on the bus that began with a woman smelling of grain alcohol around 9am but luckily didn't follow the logical turns of possible odors and just petered out in a strange array of different smells of men who wouldn't have been wasting their time if they'd washed up this morning. And then a rapidly escalating disagreement about whether or not a fare was paid, leading me to think it might be best to make everyone pay for bus service up front, so as to avoid any hurt feelings upon exit.

10.10.2010

Saw a man pedaling a bike and towing behind him 3 ducks in a cage. Now probably, this is the most reasonable way to convey ducks, who could be untidy in the car and would prefer to look around anyway, and with the current trend towards fowl ownership - urban chickens are on the rise around here - most likely nothing was wrong or strange about someone transporting their ducks that way. But the visual, of a man in a rain slicker making his way through traffic with 3 ducks quacking behind him... well, it was priceless and I was sorry that I did not have a camera with me at the time.

9.10.10

The Seattle Weekly organized, with lots of partners, a festival of Seattle music in Ballard, Reverb, on Saturday. I went for a few hours, visiting different venues and seeing different acts. There were more people out at 4pm than I expected, and by the time I left around 7, things were getting busy despite the heavier than normal rains. One highlight was arriving at one venue in time to watch a marimba get set up. Despite taking a while to do, I couldn't look away. At least one woman was photographing the proceedings, and I heard several people murmur about the size of the instrument. The act, Erin Jorgensen, played and sang unaccompanied (though there was a drum machine for the Rihanna cover - that's right, I said Rihanna cover, on the marimba, with the drum machine). Was it a post-modern statement? Does she just not want the music to stop? Is it just fun to do, particularly in front of a crowd who looked unfamiliar with Rihanna's oeuvre? Any way you slice it, it was a pretty awesome cover.

5-8.10.10

It was an eventful week on the bus, though not much managed to happen off the bus beside the usual. One morning a talkative man explained to me that the people in the know call it the "forty-late". He also let me in that it was a commonly held belief that drivers were relegated to our route when they were being punished.

Someone else wanted to debate whether skateboards should be considered lethal weapons. He didn't elaborate, but I suspected perhaps a run in with some errant skateboarders. I also learned there was a rather impressive panther at the zoo, and that the Grizzlies were pretty cool, too. Haven't been to the zoo yet, though it's on the list. Though I'm always torn - I love to see the exotic animals but I also hate seeing them caged.

4.10.10

National Bird Control, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Really?

3.10.10

Ballard Farmers Market, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Ballard Farmers' Market, the view from Cafe Fiore on Leary. Perfect day for enjoying coffee, people watching and buying fresh produce.

2.10.10

Golden Gardens Park 2, originally uploaded by l'exterieur.

Golden Gardens Park. A lovely day for it.

01.10.10

Just discovered there are possums. Aggressive, fearless possums who want to come into my warm, inviting home and eat my cat.

Well, maybe they don't want to eat my cat so much as get his food.

30.09.10

A guy got on the bus in loafers with no socks, short, short cut off jean shorts, a leather jacket and a coonskin hat. It was an interesting response to the surprise bit of sunshine and temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s.

At the same stop a girl got on dressed like field hockey player, only she clearly wasn't (no stick, for example), and she had a tattoo of a treble clef, with notes, winding up her thigh (which was visible due to the very, very short field hockey-esque skirt).

29.9.10

A man was using an electric razor to shave his head on the street corner in the reflection in a window of a Chase bank. It was late morning. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing when I saw him from the bus. It didn't seem like anyone else noticed.