Hummingbirds!

As if lush, winter-flowering bushes weren't enough to make me love where I live, a family of hummingbirds has moved in.  I've counted at least three so far.  They play in the fountains and hang out in the trees, and I feel as happy as a kid on Christmas every time I see them. 

Can you see it?  This is the fountain in my little backyard.
Hummingbirds are the dangedest to photograph, especially on a dim, cloudy morning.

This one's playing in the fountain in the courtyard out front.

It may look like a sparrow or chickadee, but don't be fooled.
In better light you'd see the bright green back and ruby red throat.

 

Flowers in January

Last night when I got home from work, I smelled something lovely.  A fresh, floral aroma floating around my front door.  How nice, I thought, one of my neighbors must have walked by a few minutes earlier, leaving a trace of perfume.

Tonight I came home and, as I fumbled with my keys in the dark, I again noticed the pretty scent in the air.  Like a cloud of springtime.  So I paused a little longer; paid a little more attention.  It couldn't be perfume:  too fresh and natural for that.  More like what you'd expect if you were surrounded by hundreds of tiny white flowers.  That's strange, I thought, it's the middle of January.

But look!  

The front and back of my house is planted with wonderful green bushes that have kept their leaves through the winter.  And there, nestled beneath the leaves?  Hundreds of tiny white flowers, fragrant as can be.

The rest of the country lies in wintry waste, and I have fresh blooming flowers on my front porch.  This may be my new favorite thing about Seattle.

The House: Why does DIY keep happening to me?

Is anyone else out there convinced that bedside tables are out to give them gray hairs and lay them in an early grave?  Because I swear that's what's happening.  It's like they're my own version of crossing the plaines, only I don't get to die of cholera before I need to ford the icy river.

The problem is that bedside tables are either hideous or outrageously expensive (or both), and exactly none of them is the right height for whatever bed you're trying to pair them with.  If you need tall bedside tables (as I did for the master bedroom), all you'll find are toll-painted cabinets that look like they came from oldlady.com (I'm not even going to check if that's a real website because obviously it should be, and you know what it would sell) and you'll be forced to buy some lovely tables that are four inches too short and make you want to gnaw off your arms and legs.  AND THEN, when you're looking for shorter tables for the guest bedroom, suddenly everything will be too tall and you'll end up buying some steel factory tables because if you can't get what you really want why pay a fortune, right?  Right, but then you assemble them and realize you're going to spend the rest of your life wishing that they were three-and-a-quarter inches shorter.

See what I mean?  This is probably what the Bible meant
when it talked about the vale of tears

But then an epiphany on the drive home from work:  Home Depot exists!  They have tools that cut things!!  They're open until 9pm!!! [trumpets, cherubs]

I started at the rental counter for power tools because I wasn't messing around.  After I told the guys what I was doing ("Hey there, I need to chop off a bunch of steel table legs, so I'll take the biggest metal-cutting saw you've got."), they chuckled and sent me over to the hack-saw aisle, probably thinking I would be less of a menace to society if I wasn't wielding something that plugged in.

I bought my tool:

The finer the teeth on the saw, the better for cutting steel.
They catch less while you're sawing.

. . . lay my prisoner down . . .

. . . measured the offending member . . .

. . . and HACK!

Amputation complete

It was incredibly easy and went very fast.  So fast, in fact, that I may or may not have enthusiastically sawed off a chunk from a leg that I'd already shortened . . . .  Whoops!

Who needs duct tape when you have clear packing tape?

Fortunately, I had foreseen that sawed-off edges would be rough on the hardwood floor and had invented an ingenious way to prevent the damage:

Sticky stuff and felt-covered feet!  I stuck a ball of sticky stuff onto the spike of the foot,
and then I shoved the sticky ball into the open end of the pipe.

Voila.  No floor damage here.

In no time at all I had shortened both tables by exactly 3.25 inches, putting them at the height that I'd wanted all along.

Perfect!  Now I just need to mount the light fixtures above each table.

If only all my decorating problems could be solved with a hacksaw and some sticky stuff!

The hills are alive...

What's a super fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon?  Singing along with Julie Andrews at the top of your lungs with a group of friends and a sold-out theatre full of grown-ups and children who are all doing the same.

We were in the 5th Avenue theatre, an ornate old building downtown
where the touring Broadway plays come -- much more comfortable
than the side of the mountain at Sundance, where I did the last Sound of
Music sing along!

As we walked in, they handed us little bags with everything we'd need
for the sing-along.

Flash cards for the song "What do you do with a problem like Maria"

A fabric swatch.  After the Captain turns down Julie's request for fabric,
she's at a loss for what to do -- that is, until the helpful audience waives their
fabric swatches at her and tells her to just turn around and look at the drapes!

We were all invited to the fact party that the Captain and the Baroness (hiss)
threw to show off the singing children!  

Party poppers to be popped at the precise moment of Julie and
the Captain's first kiss (though many smart alecks improvised popping
at other times, which was often hilarious)

And of course, a sprig of edelweiss, to be waived in the air like a lighter
at a rock concert when the Captain sings "Edelweiss"

Once the lederhosen-clad master of ceremonies had explained the proper use of our props, he quickly covered all the other instructions:  These included various noises (hissing for the Baroness, barking for Rolf, booing for the Nazis, cooing for Gretel), movements (hand gestures for the "Favorite Things" song, bowing for the woman who gets third place in the music festival), and cheering (every time Julie Andrews comes on screen).  Then we had a costume contest, where the finalists consisted of a family in full von Trapp costume, a couple dressed up like Schnitzel with Noodles, and a bunch of little kids dressed as Do Re Mi Fa So La and Ti.

Finally the lights dimmed and the movie started rolling.  It was a contest to see who could first spot Julie Andrews on the mountain top, and then of course we had to reminder her (loudly) that if the hills truly are alive with the sound of music, then you can't just sing about it, you have to sing AND TWIRL!

Twirling!

Singing along to a movie like this, with a crowd like the one we had, is delightful and silly and oh, so much fun!  Watching the movie as an adult brings back all those great memories of seeing it as a kid, only this time with a little different perspective.  You notice, for example, how awful the song "I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is, and just how terrific the Reverend Mother is.  And you leave wanting to be more like Julie Andrews and thinking if her Maria character and Cary Grant's Dudley character (from The Bishop's Wife) ever had children, they would be unstoppable charmers and so good that they'd probably get translated on the spot.

Dad and Lady do Seattle

As you know, I've been looking forward to an inter-holiday visit from my parents for the past several months.  Now that I live on this side of the Mississippi (and within driving distance of Reno), they wanted to come see my place, explore Seattle and spend time yours truly.

This meant getting the house into parent-ready state, of course, but it also meant putting together an appropriately fun and exciting itinerary for the three and a half days they'd be here.  After all, I have to maintain my status of Favorite Uncle even if there aren't any grandkids involved!

They arrived late Saturday afternoon.  After hugs and a quick tour of chez moi, we headed out for a low-key dinner of tacos at my favorite taqueria in Wallingford . . .

 
. . . followed by an evening screening of Into the Woods.

My parents saw a local production of this musical in Oregon back in the mid-90s and haven't stopped talking about it since.  And since it's my favorite Sondheim musical, it seemed like an obvious way to kick off the weekend!

Sunday morning dawned bright and boring with three hours of church, the effects of which I quickly countered with a lunch/sightseeing/shopping trip to Pike Place Market.

We started with lunch at Pear Delicatessen, which makes terrific sandwiches and sells a variety of other tasty goodies.

Once our tummies were full, we wandered through the market, past the fish-throwing fishmongers and lovely florist stands.  We snagged a dozen fresh-made donuts from the Daily Dozen and ate them overlooking the Puget Sound.  Then we stopped at Frank's Quality Produce and picked up some vegetables to make a hermit's stew at home.

And of course we couldn't leave the market without grossing out over the infamous Gum Wall.

We spent the rest of the evening at home making dinner, talking and introducing my parents to all my favorite BBC television shows (QI was not a hit; Orphan Black, however, had it's typical addictive effect).

On Monday morning we ventured into the wilds of Seattle's Magnolia Park, a large natural area (and possibly military base) on a peninsula that juts out into the Puget Sound.  The hills were steep, the parking illegal, and the views stunning.  You'd never guess that there was a major city just around the bend.

Once we felt we'd pushed our luck with the parking police long enough, we climbed back in the car and headed to Tilikum Place Cafe, where we warmed ourselves with a hearty brunch.

Warm and well-fed, we headed back out into the sunny cold for our next adventure -- this time aboard a WWII amphibious vehicle driven by a crazy man with a duck-shaped kazoo.

The duck tour was silly and fun; short on history and facts but long on lighthearted sightseeing.

Crossing the Aurora bridge. The duck put us up high enough to see over the cement guardrail.
Great view of Lake Union and the Cascades in the distance.

In the water!  We didn't sink!

Some super-nice houseboats on Lake Union.

Gasworks Park and a sailboat.  My house is only a couple of blocks behind that green knoll.

One fun thing about the duck tour is that it runs right past my house.  In the summer, when I have the windows open, I hear those things passing every twenty minutes.  It gets to where I know exactly where I am in the soundtrack, and every time, I hear the driver saying loudly, into the microphone, "Okay, now, we're going into a residential district, so I'm going to be quiet for a while."  I told my parents that I was planning to call the company and ask them to make that announcement about 30 seconds earlier, so they'd be quiet by the time they passed my house.  Our driver must have a hidden mind-reading talent, because this time, as we passed my house, he blared out, "Okay, now, we have to be quiet here because there's a person here who has hateful personality disorder and complains when I am too loud."  Ha!

The duck tour started and ended near the Seattle Center, which is where the Space Needle is, as well as a bunch of other museums, arts/sports venues and food courts.  We stopped long enough to refresh ourselves with a kebab before heading into the Chihuly Museum.

One sign of good art is that every time you see it, you find something new.
For example, this time I discovered some tiny cherubs posing immodestly amongst the
abstract shapes of Chihuly's Persian Ceilings.

Once we'd had our fill of art and culture, we went home for dinner and 18 episodes of Orphan Black.

Tuesday dawned brighter and even colder than the day before, so it worked out well that I'd planned a day of (mostly) indoor activities.  Seattle, as you may know, is kind of the birthplace of modern commercial aviation -- Mr. Boeing set up shop here in the early 1900s and his company continues to crank out a significant share of the world's airliners.  I got us tickets to tour the Boeing manufacturing plant in Mukilteo (a town about 40 mins north of Seattle) so we could see how the proverbial sausage is made.

All personal items and electronics (including phones and cameras) were strictly forbidden, so no pictures, but I will say that the tour was super interesting and I'd recommend it to anyone if they've got the time.  I was particularly impressed with the scale of the operations -- the planes are built in a building that is the largest in the world by volume; each plane has millions of components, and yet the whole thing was spotlessly clean and exceedingly organized.

After seeing the manufacturing plant, we drove to the other Boeing campus (in Renton, about 20 mins south of Seattle) to see the Museum of Flight, where we saw an impressive collection of historical and current airplanes and spacecraft.  We even got to climb inside a few of them!

Lady and me before boarding a sales model of Boeing's new Dreamliner.
(New goal: Fly on one of those planes!)

The Concorde.  It's astonishing to think of a 3-hour transatlantic flight.

Airforce One.  This one served Kennedy, Johnson and maybe one or two more.
It was cool to see the ancient telephones and Mid-Century design aesthetic.

By the time we'd finished with the museum, it was time to head back into town for dinner and a movie.  We had reservations at the very tasty Boat Street Cafe (where I failed to take any photos) and tickets to a late showing of final installment of The Hobbit at Cinerama, a stylistically retro but technologically cutting edge movie house downtown.

The time flew by and before we knew it, it was Wednesday and time for Lady and Dad to drive back home.  We spent our last morning making waffles and fresh orange juice before loading the car for the long drive home.  It was a fun time, and I can't wait for the next time they visit!

Christmas!

For the first time in, gosh, how many years? I didn't spend the month of December working around the clock to close a bunch of year-end deals. Instead, I had a great December full of sisterly visits, furniture shopping and -- to top it all off -- a white Christmas with my sibs and the grandkids in Boise.

I flew out from Seattle on the morning of Christmas Eve.  For being the day before Christmas, everything went super smoothly, and my fellow travelers were even happy and well behaved.  One guy, in particular, went out of his way to be positive, courteous and pleasant to everyone around him -- all of which had the effect of elevating the mood and standard of interaction for everyone else.  When it goes well, there's nothing quite like traveling on a holiday -- you've got the energy of the holidays, plus the excitement inherent in flying off to a new place; it's the best of both worlds!

Heather picked me up and we spent the rest of the day getting ready for Christmas dinner.  The tree stood brightly in the corner, and soon we had a lovely table laid for Christmas dinner.

The kids were beside themselves with anticipation for Christmas morning.  They eyed the clock, lamenting how slowly time passes!  Meanwhile the adults watched the oven timer, mouths watering for a taste of Jordan's home-cured Christmas ham . . . delicious!

Eventually Mark and Erin came over, the hame was finished, and we all gathered around for a delicious Christmas dinner.

During dinner it started to snow (sending the kids into the next level of Christmas hysterics) and when Christmas morning finally arrived, it was a beautiful White Christmas.

Cheese stone!  With little dishes for olives and stuff!

We spent the rest of the day playing with princesses, tablets and an epic quantity of Legos (including several incarnations of Unikitty, my favorite creature ever).

Next morning, I headed out with Jordan, Mark and Erin for the annual distribution of beds built by Sleep in Heavenly Peace (a creepy name, I know, but they didn't ask me).  The organization was founded by a friend of Jordan's, and Heather and Jordan have been closely involved in the project for several years now.  The mission is to build bunk beds and deliver them to families with children who need beds.  I was lucky enough to be able to go along this year.

Initial organizational meeting -- all the volunteers converged on Jordan's trailer,
which was full of beds and bedding.

Mark and Jordan carrying a bed to our first stop.

The first attempt -- taking it through the front door in one piece.

We quickly discovered that no way would this thing fit through the internal doorways
into the kids' bedroom.  So we brought it back out on the lawn and took it apart.

Power tools!

Reassembling the bed in the bedroom, where space was at a premium.

The two little boys who were getting the bed were super cute and
so very excited.  The little one used to sleep in a broken crib
with his baby brother.  The bigger kid slept on the couch.

So excited for the new bed -- and look at that bedding!

Our next stop was pretty similar -- a small apartment with adorable kids who were super excited to finally have a place to sleep (they'd been sleeping on a mattress they'd gotten when the 90-year-old neighbor died, and which had springs poking through).

It was all they could do to hold still long enough for a photo.

Whenever I question whether I made the right decision to change jobs and move across the country, it's things like this -- spending holidays with family and serving others -- that make me think, yes, this is the direction I want to go.  Merry Christmas!