Everett Marina Park
This weekend there was an Arts Fest in the Everett Marina Park, drawing people from all over the area, as there were a lot of hands-on demonstrations and artists who encourage people to try developing a new skill. I saw this fabulous sculpture in the Marina Park:
I love it because it looks like a whale, playing in the surf. It is made of like seven different slices of (wood?) (metal) bolted together, so that if you look from one end, all you see is flat slices, but the sculpture seems to move as you move around it. So creative!
All in One Day
Life is funny, in Kuwait, you are just getting up, brushing your teeth, getting ready to head for work, knowing tonight is date night and tomorrow you sleep in. I’m in my jammies, lying in bed with my computer, watching old Law and Order’s on TNT (sometimes the Olympics just get boring) and winding down, getting ready to call it a day.
And what a day! My long time Army-wife friend and I went out playing – picked up lunch at Ivar’s and took it over to the park to eat, where we found a whole flock of new friends:
This guy was persistent – after we ate our fish, we threw him the fries:
We looked at a house for sale – great bones, significant view, lousy location:
The day was warm, but there was a persistent wind, and at one point, we drove home from the crowded malls in a driving rain. Everywhere, for the next three hours, people were saying “this is October weather, not August weather!”
A great night for Chinese food. T&T’s Seafood is SO Chinese that there aren’t that many things on the menu I am comfortable ordering, and I fly close to the edge of the envelope when exploring Chinese food. I ordered Hot and Sour Soup, Green Beans with shaved meat, and Prawns with Honeyed Pecans. I sat with all the other take-out people waiting for their orders – it’s truly that kind of night. Everyone is talking about the weather. They don’t do a lot of delivery in Seattle; mostly you have to go pick it up yourself:
It was pouring when I went in – clearing when I came out:
Heading toward the coast:
After dinner, I drove down to surfside to take a sunset photo with these wonderful clouds:
Colors and Localities
One of the things we joke about, AdventureMan and I, when we come back to the Seattle area, is that all the houses are grey. Some might look brown, but it is a very grey brown. Some might look green, but it is a very grey kind of green. Some houses are purely grey – maybe they have white trim, but they are very very grey. An occasional truly brown house sticks out, anything not toned down by grey sticks out. And oh! now and then someone with a Mediterranean soul will build a pink or terra cotta house with a red tile roof and people will say “Oh! Look at that! They must not be from around here!”
Yesterday, I was in one of my most favorite places, Home Depot, wandering around looking at what the contracters are putting in the newest houses.
“High rise toilets!” I exclaimed to AdventureMan, who was on the phone with me. “For people who are older, and don’t have the strength in their legs to lower themselves too far!”
I was looking to see what was available in small bathtubs, because I love a hot bath on a cold day, and I want a deeper, smaller tub in which I can lean back with a good book, not one of these huge tubs that take all day to fill. I was looking at shower apparatus; I am thinking one day I want to go the European way with those wall flash-heaters that give you hot water when you need it and don’t keep heating it all day when you don’t.
And then I saw the carpet samples. I just had to laugh. When we lived in Florida, I loved walking into the model homes, with their seafoam green carpets, or even a mellow shade of tropical pink. Everything looked so welcoming and laid back.
In the Pacific Northwest, people choose from shades of sand. I never knew there could be so much variation on beige, which is somewhere between white and brown:
To those of you who say that sand isn’t as dark as the darkest brown swatches of carpet, I can only say you have never walked along a Pacific Northwest Beach on a dark and stormy day. Believe me, sand can be very very dark.
Long Way Gone in PB
Just a quick note to say that if you have been waiting to read Long Way Gone in paperback, it is now on the shelves.
Tai-ho’s in Kenmore, WA
“If she didn’t have a refrigerator, Intlxpatr (only she calls me by my real name), what did she do about laundry and diapers when you came along?”
I just looked at her stupidly. That had never occurred to me.
“I remember our next door neighbors had a barrel-shaped washing machine with a hand cranked wringer,” I responded, “but I think by that point my Mom had a more modern washing machine. I don’t know what she was using when I was born.”
Then, over noodles at Tai-Ho’s, where you watch the noodle-maker man in a specially built window, surrounded by Chinese, Chinese-Americans and Chinese-food lovers, we reminisced about our own babies, and laundry services. We were mothers of the hip generation, back-to-nature, and for eco reasons, we used a diaper service, which was considered much more earth-friendly.
“Oh! The smell of that diaper pail!” I groaned. We both moved on to Pampers after a few months with the soiled diaper smell.
We were rescued from any further contemplation of those pungent smells by the arrival of a delicious Hot and Sour Soup, a big bowl, which we divided, followed quickly by the Green Beans with Meat:
And then – one of the specialities of the house, the Seafood Basket, which is served in a basket of those noodles we saw the noodle-maker-guy making, filled with delectable scallops, shrimp, fish, fresh steamed crispy broccoli and water chestnuts, covered with a foam of egg whites – magnificent.
My friend had recommended the Green Beans, but she didn’t know about the Seafood Basket – we just ordered it to see what it was like. After it came, we saw other diners asking the waitress about it and several more came out of the kitchen. It was DELICIOUS.
Tai-Ho Restaurant
http://www.taihorestaurant.com
6312 NE Bothell Way
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 485-4020
If you are coming from Kuwait – or elsewhere – and want to eat like a local, you want Tai-Ho’s. It is purely wonderful.
Safat Down?
I was just checking the Kuwait Blogs and I got a message that Safat is corrupted. Is anyone else getting the same view?
We take their service for granted, don’t we, these guys who volunteer their own time to keep Safat running. We are so lucky to have an aggregator in Kuwait so comprehensive and reliable.
“We Didn’t Have a Refrigerator”
We were eating breakfast together, my Mom and I, when she dropped a bomb. I had no idea she could catch me by surprise that way. We’d been talking about fresh peaches, and preserves.
“When your Dad and I got married, we didn’t even have a refrigerator,” she said.
Not have a refrigerator? You can get married and not have a refrigerator?
“How did you get one?” I asked, still reeling from astonishment.
“Your Dad inherited $100 from some very distant relative,” she related, “he got like 1/32nd, which came to $100. We used it to buy a refrigerator.”
“What did you do before you had it?” I asked, still a little disoriented.
“Well, it was Alaska,” she said. “We had these sort of pantries that had shelves with little holes opening to the outside, covered with screen to keep out insects and mosquitos, but it would let in the cool air. It didn’t get that hot, even in the summer. In the winter, we had shelves on the outside porches, too.”
Holy smokes, I thought to myself. How would I function without a refrigerator? We would have to go back to shopping every day. If there weren’t refrigerators, maybe stores wouldn’t have frozen sections, too? Maybe we would have to be buying meat just as it was slaughtered, only vegetables that could travel from not too far without refrigeration, we would be using a lot more grains and things that didn’t need refrigeration to preserve them.
Maybe we would be drying more foods? We would probably, in Kuwait, be eating more dates and rice, eating more locally raised foods – what, sheep? camel meat? We would probably be eating a lot more fish. We would probably go back to canning foods while they were abundant – tomatoes, fruit jams, maybe we would even pickle some fish and/or shrimp for out-of-season eating. Our food might be saltier, as salt is also a preservative. Maybe we would eat more rice, more pomegranate . . . maybe occasionally a boat would come in from Ethiopia or Kenya bringing rare coffee beans, and only very special, very lucky people would have access to the little luxury we all take for granted.
Ooops. Well, I am getting carried away. I was so amazed to hear my mother had initially kept house without a refrigerator that I sort of spaced out.
She went on to tell me that as she was growing up, her family had an ice box, and they would put out a special piece of paper when they needed ice from the ice man, who would drive by every day to provide ice for the cool-boxes. The ice came in different sizes, depending on the size of the ice box.
(I found this picture and a fairly clear explanation of ice boxes on on Wikipedia.)
It gets better. As I was reading the Wikipedia information, I came across the Pot in Pot refrigerator , known in Arabic as a “zeer” for which Mohammed Bah Abba was awarded a Rolex Laureate (Rolex Awards for Enterprise) in 2000. You can read about Mohammed Bah Abba, the Nigerian teacher who developed this simple, but effective refrigeration technique, by clicking on the blue type above. You can read more about the Zeer pot, and see a photo of how they work, by clicking here: Science in Africa.
Oh Deer!
AdventureMan and I keep ourselves sharp by exploring new areas. As I was looking around in a newer housing area, I found that the old residents are still hanging on. Deer can be a problem – the nibble on your roses and sweet peas, they cause a lot of damage . . . but don’t they have a right to forage for a meal? Weren’t they there first?
Significant Birthday
We stopped by a Party Store to pick up some things for my Mother, and we saw this truck loading up with balloons:
Inside the store is chaos, as all the employees have the nitrous oxide tanks going, filling up balloons, which the guys then tie into groups of ten.
“Three hundred and fifty balloons!” they responded, when we asked how many they were doing. “It must be some great party!”
I guess so. You wouldn’t think you could get any more balloons into a the truck, but here come some more!
“Silver Lining of a Down Economy”
I found this in yesterday’s Seattle Times:
Highway crashes kill more than 41,000 in 2007
Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday.
By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON —
Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday.
Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006. It was the fewest number of highway deaths in a year since 1994, when 40,716 people were killed.
The fatality rate of 1.37 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled in 2007 was the lowest on record, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in its report.
“Thanks to safer vehicles, aggressive law enforcement and our efforts, countless families were spared the devastating news that a loved one was not coming home,” said Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.
California had the largest decline, 266 fewer fatalities than the previous year. The largest percentage decreases were in South Dakota and Vermont.
North Carolina’s death toll increased the most in the nation, up 121 over the previous year. The District of Columbia and Alaska had the highest percentage increases.
Motorcycle deaths increased for the 10th straight year. There were 5,154 motorcycle deaths last year, compared with 4,837 in 2006.
Peters, an avid motorcyclist who keeps a scuffed helmet in her office that she credits with saving her from a severe head injury in a 2005 crash, said the rise in motorcycle fatalities was disappointing. The increased deaths have come while the number of registered motorcycles have surpassed 6 million, compared with 3.8 million in 1998, and vehicle miles traveled have risen.
Peters said with higher fuel prices, more people may use motorcycles or scooters that can get 50 to 60 miles per gallon.
Transportation officials said they plan to target motorcycle drivers in a $13 million anti-drunk driving advertising campaign running during the upcoming Labor Day holiday. The department has also discussed new safety and training standards for novice riders, increased training for law enforcement and curbing counterfeit safety-labeling of helmets.
Still, safety officials said they were encouraged by the overall trends.
Fatalities in crashes that involved a driver or motorcycle rider with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the legal limit, declined to just under 13,000 deaths in 2007, a 3.7 percent decrease.
Traffic injuries fell for the eighth straight year, to fewer than 2.49 million injuries in 2007, compared with 2.58 million in 2006. And the number of people killed in large-truck crashes fell by more than 4 percent.
Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said the sluggish economy was likely a factor in the declines.
He predicted that the combination of a slowing economy and gas prices approaching $4 a gallon throughout the U.S. could lead to further reductions in highway deaths in 2008. Many states have reported double-digit drops in fatalities during the first part of this year.
“Fewer highway deaths is always the silver lining of a down economy,” Lund said.
From the Arab Times – let’s hope this is also a silver lining:
350 motorists booked for not wearing seat belts, using phone while driving
Kuwait : During a crackdown on reckless motorists and traffic law violators, the Hawalli Traffic Department has Thursday issued 350 citations, reports Arrouiah daily. Upon instructions from Major-General Mahmoud Al-Dousari of the General Traffic Department, the Hawalli traffic police erected surprised checkpoints at entry and exit points throughout Hawalli and issued citations for motorists for not wearing seat belts, talking on the cell phone while driving and not complying with safety regulations. The source added the campaign will continue in various parts of the country to impose security and ensure compliance of traffic rules and regulations.
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