Summer Sunday at the Pike Place Market
We have a great favorite tradition – hit the early service, 0800 – what my friend calls “speed church”, the one hour service instead of the longer family services – and then head straight for the Pike Place Market. Things get started there slowly on a summer Sunday morning, and we even found a free parking space – totally amazing.
First stop is breakfast at Campagne. We don’t have reservations, but they find a place for us:
The sun breaks forth and the market is teeming with people by the time we are finishing up:
In the 1970’s, the market was a little run-down and shabby, and many business people wanted to raze it and use the space for office buildings. Seattle residents said “NO!” and instead, the market was revitalized. It is one of the major tourist destinations in the city, and a lively spot every day of the week.
A long time ago, before the big Seattle fire, my family lived just up the street from this market.
Let’s Go Fly a Kite
There is so much to do!
There is a long walking promenade along the beach, wide enough for bicycles, moms with strollers, people skating, people walking their dogs, and people just walking or jogging.
On the beach, people are swimming, sunning, building magnificent sand castles, fishing, and . . . flying kites.
Some of the kites are purely magnificent. Here is my favorite – a pirate ship!
Heavenly Sunset
This sunset sort of made me think about the heavens opening and the hand of God coming out – yep, sunsets in the Pacific Northwest are like that. 🙂
Combination of Events
Yesterday I visited our house. We have been seriously blessed with good renters, people who are good hearted, and take care of the house. We have a good property manager; when something needs to be done – a new roof, a new furnace, a new fence – he has people who can handle the job, and the job gets done well.
The house still has it’s original refrigerator from when it was built. I think it needs a new one – before an emergency happens and our renters lose their food. I measure, take stock of how the house is doing, and then . . . I have to go buy a refrigerator.
For me, this is stressful. A refrigerator is something that is supposed to last for a while. I go to Consumer Reports and I read about all the refrigerators. Here is what is interesting – the top rated model, in terms of keeping things cold or frozen, in terms of energy use, etc. has thirteen consumer reviews, and most of them are negative! Most needed repairs, and most of the repairs had to do with the ice maker and the cold water on the door thingie (to use the technical term)
So I visited three stores, looked at refrigerators. At two of the stores, you had three choices – white, stainless steel or black. I am not a black-appliance person, I am not a person who wants black in my kitchen. Neither, I discovered, am I a white-appliance person. And the stainless steel just makes me tired; it is a fad that is already passing. So what to do?
I went to the third store and there is more choice. I find the top rated model, which is on sale, and then ask the salesman if he has the same model WITHOUT the cold water and ice dispenser on the door, and he does! And it is on sale! And WITHOUT the fancy extras – it is exactly the same price as the ones WITH the fancy extras!
How funny is that?
I went ahead and ordered the one without all the water dispensers. It does have an ice cube maker, that is fine with me. Then, it took me longer to pay for it and arrange for delivery than it took me to research and decide which model to buy.
The salesman was very good, he knew his stuff. This wasn’t his fault. The problem is that I am an anomaly. My billing address is not the same as the address to which the refrigerator will be delivered. I have several different phone numbers, one of which is only active when I am in the USA, one of which rings in Kuwait, and I don’t want people calling in the middle of the night, oh, what to do?
I don’t exactly know what time is a good time for delivery for the renter; that is always handled by the property manager. I don’t have his phone number with me. GROAN!
When I finally get back to my Mother’s place, I am exhausted. A soft rain starts falling around 4 pm and from then on, I keep falling asleep. I am probably still jet lagging, yes, I know, it’s been a week but my body still has a time zone all its own.
I know it is too early to go to sleep so I make myself stay awake, I try to read, but at 9 pm, I totally give up. It’s the exhaustion, and it is the soothing sound of the steadily falling light rain. I keep my window open; I love the fresh air, and I love to hear the birds, and oh, the sound of rain! This morning, yes, 4 a.m. and I am wide awake. It is a GORGEOUS, sunny day, the clouds and rain have gone, and I had better start packing for the next leg of this journey while I have all this energy.
5 Star Pho
My favorite little restaurant, 5 Star Pho, is totally packed at noon, every table but one is taken, and that one has a reserved sign on it. Fortunately for me, a booth opens up just moments after I arrive. The waitress brings me a hot cup of tea – a welcome treat for a woman who has just escaped the heat of Kuwait to shiver in Seattle – and a menu, but I already know what I want.
This is what I crave while I am living in Kuwait. My friend, Coeurcountry, has improved my life so much by making me a gift of the rice-paper wrappers, and a great recipe, so I CAN make them myself, but oh, 5 Star Pho does it so much better! Even though I am in and out of town, not a daily or even a weekly regular customer, they always remember me. I don’t even have to ask; they bring me extra peanut sauce!
I am sorry, I couldn’t wait. I had to take a bite even before I shot the photo!
Seattle OKs Bag Fee
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
City OKs 20-cent fee on plastic, paper bags
Council also outlaws foam food and drink containers
By KATHY MULADY
P-I REPORTER
Move over, baseball caps and T-shirts.
Logo-emblazoned cloth grocery bags could soon become the most popular company freebie in the Puget Sound region.
Seattle became on Monday one of the first major American cities to discourage the use of paper and plastic shopping bags by requiring grocery, drug and convenience stores to charge 20 cents per bag. In a related action, the City Council also banned plastic foam food and drink containers.
Both laws will go into effect Jan. 1.
People can avoid the fees by bringing their own reusable bags when they shop. The city of Seattle will launch a 90-day education effort to help people figure out the best ways to use cloth bags, and remember to take them when they go shopping. The city also plans to provide residents with a couple of free bags.
One of my favorite stores, Trader Joe’s, has been selling reusable bags forever. They now have a display with many sizes and designs to choose from:
I’m really trying hard. I have a friend who is so conscientious about recycling, she always carries her own bags, and her actions have influenced me greatly. She believes even one person makes a difference, and I believe her – I can see that her behavior has already changed mine! I am trying to carry my own reusable bags now, too.
Especially for my Kuwait/Gulf/Middle East readers, I got a big grin when I saw this in the prepared food section:
A ready-to-go lunch, with felafel, hummous, tabouli and a little bit of flat bread.
Off the Banned Driver List
When I got to the car rental counter, the polite man behind the counter typed in all the information and then blanched.
“Ummm, ” he started off, very embarrassed, “there is a problem . . . . ”
I knew, I just knew what was coming. I had even sent the car rental agency an e-mail asking them to check to make sure everything was straight.
“You’re on our banned driver list.” he finished up.
If it hadn’t happened before – TWICE – I would have been a lot more embarrassed. Now, I am just annoyed.
When I came in here last time, I didn’t know my license had expired. Fortunately, I have another driver’s license, so they let me use that one – it is the license that is banned, not the driver (yeh, go figure). The very next day, I was the first one in line at the driver’s license place and renewed my license in less than five minutes. It’s easy. I just explain that I live in Kuwait and don’t always have access to registration facilities! They understand.
But when I got to California and went to rent again – same problem. Again, they let me drive on my other license.
So third time is the charm. Once again, they give me a car based on the second license (I mean, isn’t that funny in itself; you have this BANNED person and you give her a car because she can show you another license???)
The counter guy gave me a sheet of paper with an intimidating list of the possible reasons I was banned, including expired license, but also things like fleeing the scene of an accident, or felony warrants and things like that. (If you could see me, you would know how dyingly funny this is.) Before I even took the car, I called their security people. It took a total of 30 seconds. I told them I renewed the license, they checked, found out I was not lying and BINGO! I am no longer a BANNED person.
I knew what the problem was, but being BANNED made me feel terrible. It was so unfair. It made me think about labels, and how even though they are just words, words can make you feel really really BAD. I truly hated being a BANNED person.
Culture Shock
AdventureMan and I have discovered we have lived overseas for so long that we suffer from a little culture shock every time we come back to the United States. We come back two or three times a year, so you would think we’d be keeping up on everything, but things change and we fall behind, especially when we are not living here.
Here are some things – like nobody writes checks anymore. I’m not exactly sure what people do. One time, before I had my burner phone, I went in to Verizon to activate an account, and when I went to pay, the woman looked at my $100 bill (most of which was going to activate my account) and her mouth formed a little “o” and after a pause she said “oh, I don’t think we have change for that here.”
I said “there isn’t going to be that much change!” as I think it was going to come to like $89 something, but she laughed and said “but no-one pays with cash anymore!”
I was really embarrassed. “How do they pay?” I asked, and she said “Everyone pays by credit card.” “No problem,” I responded, “I can pay by credit card,” which I did and everything was cool. Then I started watching, and everyone was paying by credit card, maybe a few with debit cards, but usually the debit card machines were malfunctioning, I don’t know why.
We know a lot of the young people don’t have land lines into their homes anymore, and that makes sense to us. We aren’t sure how people connect for television – it seems there are a lot of different ways, so how do you figure out which is the best? And some have phone, cable and internet all bundled together, and you pay one bill . . . again, how do you know which is the most cost effective?
If people don’t write checks anymore, how do they pay their bills? I have been doing some bill paying online, which sure is convenient when you live in Kuwait and have bills to pay in the USA, but is that how normal people pay their bills, like utility bills? Magazine subscriptions? And if you do that, how do you keep track of things for taxes, when you don’t have checks to back you up?
It’s almost overwhelming, trying to figure all these things out.
In some areas, I feel like I am anti-too-much. Like I don’t want a GPS in my rental car – I know the area, and I know how to use a map to figure out where I need to be. I know how to use GoogleMaps! Sometimes the GPS things are just distracting to me. I have a bad feeling that makes me old fashioned.
This morning, my first back in Seattle, it was raining softly. I was glad; a little rain helps keep Seattle green. On the other hand, I had thought I would go for a walk, and the steady light rain was a little too much rain for walking – for me, anyway. There were a lot of Seattle people out walking – they wear rainhats, lightweight rainproof jackets – and shorts!
Gas is running around $4.59 a gallon, in contrast with 80 cents a gallon in Kuwait. 😦
A Question of Balances
This made me laugh out loud – send to me by a good friend in, of course, Washington State:
God was missing for six days.. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found him, resting on the seventh day.
He inquired, ‘Where have you been?’
God smiled deeply and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, ‘Look, Michael. Look what I’ve made.’
Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a planet,’ replied God, ‘and I’ve put life on it.. I’m going to call it Earth and it’s going to be a place to test Balance.’
‘Balance?’ inquired Michael, ‘I’m still confused.’
God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. ‘For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over here I’ve placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things.’
God continued pointing to different countries. ‘This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.’
The Archangel , impressed by God’s work, then pointed to a land area and said, ‘What’s that one?’
‘That’s Washington State, one of the most glorious places on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, and plains. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and humorous, and they are going to travel the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, carriers of peace, and producers of software.’
Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then asked, ‘But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance.’
God smiled, ‘There’s another Washington. Wait till you see the idiots I put there.
“But You Don’t Even Drink Coffee!”
“But you don’t even drink coffee!” I exclaimed to AdventureMan as he utilized the miracle of modern technology to pick up some shares of Starbucks, which had plunged to unbelievable depths.
“No, but they have shown they are quick on their feet,” he responded, clicking away on his online-investing account. “I like the way they cut their losses quickly, and they are always looking for new twists to keep their customer base coming back.”
We have very few investments in individual stocks; most of our money is in funds. When we do invest in individual stocks, we choose stocks we have a personal interest in, like, for me, Amazon. I read books. I buy books. It makes sense to me.
If you have ever studied decision making, you learn that people make decisions – on a personal level, on a financial level, on a national level – based on irrational criteria. We can put together a matrix, we can put together a decision-making process, we can get all the pros and cons – and when the decision has to be made, other factors come into play.
The perfect suitor, good family, good character, hard working and handsome might be rejected because you don’t like his cologne.
The perfect candidate for the job, well qualified, having a magnetic personality, a great track record – may be rejected because the manager has an unidentified fear that the candidate could outshine him/her.
Nations go to war for irrational reasons. We understand rational processes – and then we bypass them.
We have a mental list of how we will rationally make a decision – and then we have the primitive brain undermining our rational choices.
Or that is how I see it.
The truth as I see it is that I am happy he bought shares in Starbucks because it is a Seattle company. I love going into Starbucks, seeing people sitting around drinking coffee, tutoring students, old folks passing the time, couples getting to know one another – on a cold, rainy day in Seattle, a cup of Starbucks tastes great. I vote for Starbucks for emotional reasons.
I have my favorites, and you never see them here in Kuwait. At Thanksgiving / Christmas, they have a Gingerbread Latte, and they have a Peppermint Mocha. I adore them.
With Ramadan coming up, they should put together a Ramadan cup of coffee, for after Ifthar, don’t you think? Maybe a little cardomon in it, maybe a little cinnamon?
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