Not a pony.

Day 3 will be delayed.  I’m too tired to put it up tonight.  Sorry.  On the plus side, I’ve had a nice time reading some of my own older entries – I sure am an interesting guy, aren’t I?

Planning on a Tacoma trip tomorrow to visit the tea shop and buy some things.  Mr. Danny desperately needs to get out of the house.

Fun fact: I leaned forward while typing this and realized I could see not only 4 speakers from my surround system from the vantage, but 3 different sets of headphones (two happen to be in a currently unusable state (repair pending) and the third is actually a headset).  Yeah… that and my wall is frighteningly blank and plain.  Sure it’s a room, but it ain’t home.  Creepy eggplant carpet can only get you so far (I actually made eggplant last night – roasted with sweet potatoes and onions).

Night night.

Hike can see you.

That title is totally straight from a punchline to some elementary school joke – make one up, it’s okay, I won’t judge.

Friday, Chris had to leave quite early to head into work, so breakfast happened nice and early (for them) – I waited a bit and just had some plain cereal with milk along with some coffee.  The plan for the day was a nice long hike up in Mt. Tamalais (I think that’s the name), the lovely state park located North of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We knew we were in for a little trouble as when we first crossed the bridge and it started raining and a good amount of fog made sure we couldn’t enjoy any views from the beautiful mountain road that lead up to the park.  Either way, the road was stunning – thickly forested over, green, winding roads (I like driving and I like winding roads – but then you knew that.)

I love the tall trees and rich green foliage along a twisty road – to me that’s adventure.  You really never know what’s going to be around the next corner.  Needless to say, it was a fabulous road and the thick ominous fog made it that much better.  Something wonderful about the mystery of thick fog around you – you could be at the edge of a cliff or sitting in the middle of a huge green field and you never know.  This reminds me of the drive I enjoyed coming up to Washington last year – if you remember those pictures of my car against the beautiful scenery covered in thick fog (see Phlargo Space, circa January 2008).  The fog was that much better on the hike when we were walking on a steep hillside, covered in fog, knowing full well that were it clear the view would have been spectacular.  Kinda cool, really.   But I’m getting ahead of myself – the winding road brought us about 7 miles away from the the highway and it really felt nice and rural and pristine. 

 

The terrain was somewhat arid like Southern California and started at about 2200 ft.  We found the hike in a guide that my sister has about bay area hiking (I have one back home for Washington hikes that my mother bought when they came up to visit me in March) – there were two hikes in the Mt. Tamalais park that we considered, but the one we eventually decided on was rated 4/5 difficulty, ~6 miles and was supposed to take between 4-5 hours.  We had a nice little pack of snacks (including that fantastic charcuterie acquired from Lucca (the Italian market) the day before – Chris doesn’t do beef or pork, Leah really enjoys a fellow carnivore when I’m in town)

So, the hike:  it was really awesome and we were basically alone on the trail – we saw a few others, but really only 1 or 2 during our 3.5 hours of hiking.  The plants were so great (if you can’t tell from my photography, I’m a big fan of natural beauty in plants and small things as much as I’m a fan of bigger, more grand things).  There were literally dozens of plants out there I’d never seen before and even though I had my camera along, it was really a hiking hike, not a photography hike, so I didn’t get much of a photographic record.  It’s almost like a collection for me – finding and remembering new shapes and sizes and colors of unique plants.  I don’t really care about names or relationships of plants and animals, but I absolutely adore variety and uniqueness.  Even a special example can be a wonderful addition to my collection. 

There were these great trees that were not only covered with moss, but they had splits down the middle so they looked they had been damaged, but it was all the trees of that type.  Those tree were also interesting because their skin (under the bark which was peeling) had a very human-skin like quality – a gorgeous mahogany color and were super smooth.  Another interesting part of the hike was the constant crossing of several little streams that were weaving across the trails during various declines and inclines along the mountainside.  There were pretty rocks too.  It was really something.

 

On my own, despite what everyone may think, I don’t think I’m a huge long-hike guy.  Truthfully, I almost always end up enjoying them when someone forces me along.  I find that I am more of a 1-2 hour hike person – I love the strenuous activity that a good hike can provide, but I also enjoy a slower more deliberate walk where I can take a close look at everything that I see (and take pictures).  I think in my mind, there is something wonderful about paying close attention to small things – we spend so much time traveling so fast and dealing with things in larger scale that it’s super easy to ignore tiny things which can be equally as magical and interesting.  I’m a big fan of textures and subtle color changes. 

The hike was a good challenge but not too difficult and by the end of it, the fog had really cleared up and we were able to start to enjoy the amazing view from up there. 

We stopped about two-thirds of the way through our hike to have a little snack – we found a great little picnic area.  Our special meats and cheeses were a wonderful reward for a good hard hike on some rustic bread and went perfectly with some fresh cherries that one of Chris’s family members had given them a couple of days before I showed up. 

 

In order to enjoy the magnificent view, we decided to take an extra little drive to the top of the mountain.  There’s this absolutely stunning view of the bay from the top of Mt. Tam (apparently that’s what the locals call it) – you can see the East Bay, the San Francisco downtown, Sausalito, and a lot of other areas around the bay, along with the coastline.  It really looks like a fake model, being able to see so much from one place. 

 

So we drove down the back side of the mountain, stopped for a little ice cream at a little roadside place and made it back to San Francisco just in time to meet Chris at home to make some homemade vegetable pizza with a whole wheat crust and four different sets of toppings (including fresh artichokes, asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, local sweet onions, heirloom garlic, and sautéed shitake mushrooms).  I must be careful again not to neglect the delicious little appetizers my sis put together: rustic Russian farmer’s cheese with a spicy Bulgarian red-pepper tapenade on some whole rye crisps along with one of Chris’s excellent martinis (gin, of course) each.  For dinner, it was German and Thai beers to start and followed with a lovely red wine.  Needless to say, by the time it was time for bed, I was feeling pretty giddy and we were all a little silly.

Stay tuned – tomorrow’s exposition will also clock in at 440 Hz.

“Mission” accomplished.

Okay okay, you all win.  I give in.  I can’t take it any more.  Email after bloody email.  Text messages on my phone.  Peculiar packages at my doorstep.  I get it, you want me to write something.  Here’s the good news: I’ve already finished cataloging the whole trip.  Here’s the even better news.  You don’t have to read it all now!  I decided daily installments were a better choice.  I hate being responsible for people falling asleep at their computers, even when I can take pride in that it was my writing that accomplished it.  Buh. 

San Francisco. So after I finished with the Southern California crew, Mom dropped me off at the airport on Wednesday evening.  I didn’t get in to SFO until after
11:00 as my plane was a little delayed (apparently we had to do some extra loops around central
California to avoid airport congestion). 

Leah and Chris were, of course, waiting patiently for me at the airport.  We drove home and basically went to bed.   The night ended up being pretty short: the loud
municipal light rail goes right by their front door and morning came awful quick as it rumbled by starting about 5:30, waking me
bright and early.

 

For those who don’t happen to know, my sister, Leah, is a professor of communication studies
at SFSU, so she was off for the time I was there (it turned out she was teaching a
summer school class starting the follow week).  Her husband, Chris, is a
post-doc researcher at a medical research company down in Palo Alto.  Since he was able to take Thursday off, we could enjoy a day out together. 

 

After cooking a lovely breakfast (they like to cook as much or more than I do, so we tend to eat pretty well when
I’m or they’re visiting), we drove to the top of Twin Peaks and enjoyed a clear
view of the city and the bay.  The weather was generally warm and mostly clear during my trip.  I remember how the sun and wind really felt great on top of the hills.  The view up there is quite nice.  We talked about some of the areas we might go during the day and during my stay and tried to figure out what various landmarks were looking at from the high vantage.

We
spent several nice hours Thursday in the Mission and it was really chocked-full of experiences. 
Chris had an interest in seeing the mission (apparently the oldest building in
San Francisco) and we scored a sweet parking place nearby, right in front of
Dolores park.  They wanted $5 entrance for the mission, so we sent Chris in as a
scout to determine if it was worth while to follow suit (I’ve been to a lot of
missions and I suspected it didn’t look all that different).  Leah and I sat on
the steps to the church and talked for a nice while, watching the busy Dolores
street action pass us by.  We talked about the uncertainty in my life and the potential for the same in Chris’s and the choices I was considering in terms of how to proceed.  We both noticed while we were sitting how many people
came by to capture pictures of the location – as though it were some special
tourist destination.  It really was just a mission, but I guess for some that’s pretty important.  We talked about how some people collect monuments and sights with pictures – like it was a measure of being well-travelled to have a variety of pictures from around your state or around the world (depending on exactly how well travelled you purport to be).  People in cities seem to go around finding the things they think they should have pictures of – maybe because they’re the things that are featured in magazines or in movies.  I guess considering how I look at things, I wonder if they intrinsically more interesting or unique than anything else?  Some of them
are, sure.. but most are just arbitrary favorites (in my opinion).  I’ve personally grabbed on to the model that beauty and novelty can be found and appreciated in anything and it’s my job to dig it
out.

 

Oh, sorry about the little tangent there. 

Chris returned fairly soon after with his review (of the mission that is: there
wasn’t that much to see, even though the cemetery was kinda cool and
the stained glass in the chapel was quite impressive (his review)).  We snuck a
side glance at the cemetery through the wire fence along the side and talked
about the gravestones and plant layout.  Rich.

 

Okay.  The good stuff. There’s this fantastic café/pastry shop called Tartine here – a wonderful almond
croissant, Mexican wedding cookies, and a ‘three cheese taster sandwich’ along
with a cup of coffee (shared) were ‘accomplished’ in short order.  Now I’m a self-described baked-goods
fan.  I seek out specialty bakeries everywhere and I’ve got a collection of favorite bakeries in most major cities I’ve been to around the country.  In fact, I think I’ve developed a pretty good eye for the top stuff and Tartine was
no slouch: coarsely ground almond paste (with none of the alcohols that are
typically used to preserve almond extract that are often added to cheap
almond-based pastries, not too sweet or overwhelming, perfectly flakey layers
with gobs of buttery goodness.  It may take the #1 or #2 spot on my almond
croissant ranking system, which is definitely saying something.  The cheese
sandwich was delightful as well – superb cheeses (I’m a huge cheese fan!!) from
three different regions (the Spanish cheese was particularly enjoyable – I’m a
big fan of the dry, grainy Spanish cheese – few curds beat a good iberico or
manchego), rich homemade rustic loaf bread, no doubt soaked in butter and
panini-pressed.  It was a day’s worth of saturated fat and truly delicious.  I
can’t provide nearly as rich a commentary on quality of the wedding cookies – I’ve only been to
three weddings in my day and none have served Mexican wedding cookies (go
figure.)   Sure I’ve had them on various occasions in the past, but my
experience is limited.  I will say the cookie part was fine-grained and light
with that nutty consistency I associate with that type of cookie.  I think the
powdered sugar on the outside might have been a little heavier than it needed to
be as it managed to coat a decent section of the table Chris so astutely saw and
grabbed as it opened up (this place was packed).  I don’t mind a light dusting
of confectioners sugar on occasion, but it was a bit much.  All in all, a solid A- effort from
Tartine – I’d not only go back myself, but I’d take others too.

 

We walked by lots of junky shops with plasticky trinkets
and Leah was enticed, nay enthralled, by a particular shop and we ended up walking in this shop
filled with a very odd collection of cheap imported goods and unusual
novelties.  I usually avoid plasticky things of all sorts (well most sorts), but specifically
those crafted from cheap foreign labor where I can, as I believe it fosters an
unhealthy attitude about consumerism and the global economy and this place was
absolutely full of them, to excess.  Even still, we couldn’t help but wander around and
marvel at the strange and wonderful things that plastic and unusual creativity
can provide: fake laptop computers (with artfully redesigned logos from popular programs as to avoid copyright infringment (Mycrosift Werf), virgin mary clocks with dancing LEDs,
incredibly cheap sandals.  Basically more junk than anyone needs… anywhere. 

One
important stop in The Mission was Ritual Coffee Roasters to buy a
special little coffee gift for Chris’s Mom.  As you all probably remember, I’m quite
the coffee fan and this too was a choice destination – great roasted beans, excellent
coffee ethic, nice environment = winning combo.  We ordered a drink called
"Gibraltar"  which was a small shot-glass-style-glass (a gibraltar, if you will) with two shots of espresso
and a light layer of steamed milk – it was really like a 5 ounce double latte. 
It was executed superbly – a really wonderful balance of sweet rich foamy milk
and a superb espresso pull.  It brought out the subtleties of the crema and body
of the espresso and the small amount of milk permitted a little more longevity
(usually espresso can’t stand alone for more than 30 seconds to a minute without
getting bitter… but then you knew that).  There was also a cool paper/publishing
shop, an Italian specialty foods store with numerous sausages (samples and small
quantities of several of these were brought back home for later eatings – more
on this from Friday’s hiking report.  It was a full experience!

 

After an interlude looking at a prospective house (Chris and Leah were actively house-shopping) right near where
they are in the Sunset district, early evening included a walk along the beach,
followed by a homemade dinner of assorted sautéed vegetables (I think there were
three separate dishes, as is usually the case here) and vegetable and chicken
potstickers.  And we can’t ignore the special appetizers Leah put together
beforehand – delicious locally hot-smoked salmon from a favorite Russian market
they like with a special melon variety and some hard rye crackers with a little
sauvignon blanc.  Delicious. 

 

Can you tell that food might be a focus
here?

Enough for now.  More bites later.

Update Coming Soon – I promise

The story of my trip is almost readied – I just need to do some editing and formatting and I’ll be posting about San Francisco within the next few days.  Hang in their, faithful. Expect segments – there’s a fair amount of it.

 

-The Managment

Halfway through

Most of the people who read this already know where I am.  For those who don’t, I’ve taken a trip down to Southern California for a little over a week to enjoy a special event.  My good friends Kara and Jason got married on Sunday and I had the pleasure of being invited and involved in the wedding.  The surrounding days have been chock-full of spending time with my friends down here: dinners, outings, parties, and more!  It’s been pretty nuts, really and I’ve had a total blast.  It’s so great to come back to all your friends when you’ve been away and remember how much fun you have together and really the contrast is even more stark given my current situation back home.

I flew in late Wednesday night and was picked up by my sister down at LAX.  Thursday evening was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner with Kara and Jason’s families with the ‘wedding party’ (this is a new phrase in my vocabulary and I’m still grasping the meaning).  It was a wonderful dinner at Leila’s in Oak Park hosted by Jason’s mom, Lynn and her husband Dave.  It was really a great time with lots of delicious food (and wine) – and since I had my camera along, I took a number of pictures of people there (they have been posted). 

Friday was a little Bachelor event for Jason before his day of reckoning: a trip to Magic Mountain with the guys followed by dinner in Burbank and some drinks.  It was a late night as I think i finally tumbled into bed around 4:45.  Saturday was an early morning (relatively – Leah brought bagels from Western Bagel and Mom brought fresh strawberries – how the hell could I sleep?).  In the early afternoon I got together with MS and Jason for a little trip around Somis and the Santa Paula Valley to take some pictures and enjoy the scenery.  Saturday evening was a really nice dinner with Mom, Joe, Leah, and myself of barbecued chicken and sirloin steaks.  Yum.

Sunday was the wedding day and it started out with saying goodbye to Leah (she drove back up to her Northern Californian locale) with a breakfast out at Country Harvest.  Jason came over about 2:30 and sat and chatted for a bit and then he and I head off to the big event, after donning our fancy tuxedos and contemplating an impromptu trip to Argentina.  Wedding ceremony was.. a wedding ceremony.  I mean, the lot of us will certainly enjoy some inside humor based on the somewhat odd decisions in the officiant’s copy but it was generally very nice.  The reception was pretty awesome – very good food (Mom said it was some of the best catered food she’d ever had), wine, dancing, and lots of happy people.  I took a lot of pictures on Jason’s camera (he said he’d try and post them soon – but it means I don’t have them).  Even though I was really tired from the aggregate lack of sleep, I had a lot of fun dancing with Jon and David and Kim and Kara and others.  The dancing and reception died down around 10:00 and I drove back to Jason’s place with Jason and got to sit with Jason and Kara and talk about the wedding and open wedding gifts.  It was fun 🙂

Monday was a really lazy day and I slept in until at least 11:00.   I met with Jason in the afternoon so we could return our tuxes and pick up Kara’s car and then Jason took Mom, Kara, and I out for a nice dinner of excellent Mexican food and talk at Yolanda’s in Camarillo and some coffee back home afterwords.  Tuesday night, we had a nice dinner with Michael-Scott and Ginger, Kara and Jason, and Joe and my mom of wild Copper River salmon and lots of other goodies.

It was really wonderful to get to spend time with everyone.  I’m glad I have such nice friends and am really appreciative that we enjoy each others’ company so much.  It’s nice to come back home!

So what’s next?  Tonight I start the second phase of my trip – I’m flying up to San Francisco to spend another week with Leah and Chris – which should be a ton of fun!  I’ll be heading back to Seattle and my job search on the 8th (I’ve been doing a limited job search down here too).   I’ve posted several photo albums in the last month – so check ’em out if you haven’t already – there are some nice outdoor pictures of flowers and of little drives I’ve taken.

A strange offering to my strange offerees

Today the weather was beautiful (finally!!).  Seventy degrees and crystal clear and I had to get out and enjoy it.  I went back to Discovery Park in Magnolia and realized once I got there that I hadn’t put my camera in my car before taking off (yeah.. I’m back to the old guy again.. my fancy Canon XTi days are over since I don’t live with Liz anymore).  So, I used what I had: my cell phone camera.  I decided to make a little game out of it: do as much of a normal shoot as I could with just that little camera lens on the phone.  

 

Now, I didn’t start shooting at the beginning of my walk, but I tried to use some of my normal style to see how the camera on the phone could hold up.  The results were, frankly, mixed.  A few shots turned out okay but the tiny dynamic range on the puny little sensor meant that a proper exposure was much harder to accomplish.  Eh, it was fun to try.

 

Oh, while on my walk, I asked someone to take my picture silhouetted against the sky and mountains.  Her name was Marjorie and she is featured in two of the shots.  We walked together and talked in the park for like an hour.  She even tried to hook me up with some niece she has – I told her if she really wanted, she was welcome to call me.  She is a social worker who lives in Queen Anne and is married to a political science professor at the University of Washington.  She apparently enjoys frequent walks through discovery park in the afternoons (which I think is an awesome way to spend an afternoon).  You never know who you’ll meet if you keep an open mind, right?

 

Discovery Park is really big.  I saw a whole new part of the park today that really impressed me – so different from the other part I walked in last time.  I think it’ll be a wonderful resource for photography and walking in the future. 

 

So.. check out my "cell phone shoot".  I don’t think I’ll make a practice of it, so get what you can from this one 🙂

Theatrics & The New Place

It is official.  I am now a sardine.  One house, 9 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (one is for the master bath, so it works out to 2 bathrooms for 8 people (+1 – one of my roommate’s boyfriends seems to be here all the time) and the last bath for the master room holder).

So why the tightly packed living conditions?  Time for a little story.  This may get long 😉  (later edit: you may want to grab a glass of water).

It started about two months ago when Elizabeth informed me that she wanted me to find somewhere else to live after finding that having me in the house was turning out to be more than she bargained for.  At that time, I had a lengthy discussion with her trying to ascertain what that actually meant to her and what things were troubling.  I was able to isolate a few things that she was finding difficult to deal with and I made a serious effort to curtail those problems immediately (none of it was very serious and mostly involved me stopping certain types of conversations from starting – as she felt alienated when she couldn’t be involved in certain types of discussions Kurt and I would share).  From that point, I made not only a concerted effort to assuage her discomfort, I really tried to do anything that I could to settle the situation and restore peace and indicated that once my family had come and gone, I’d be looking for new housing in short order.  For a while it seemed good.  She even whole-heartedly agreed to have Mom and Leah stay at the Queen Anne house during their visit and was again satisfied with the situation.  Sounds good: I had calmed the storm. 

Things happened.  Not my things, mind you.  Also, these things were not new – most of which preceded my stay.  Elizabeth herself is going through a rough patch of life, the story of which is not mine to divulge, but needless to say, she is going through many trying things.  Some people are able to compartmentalize their frustrations with the source of their grief.  This is not a skill which Ms. Liz excels in.  Once Kurt showed up as the boyfriend, I think she reslotted me to the redundant category – a bothersome person in the house to be tolerated.  This was a sharp change from the halo she had crowned me with for our first month and a half.  Accordingly, I believe that, in her mind, I began to embody the foul, acrid, corrosive, detestable source of all those problems which Ms. Liz was experiencing.  Not all the time, but there were at least two dozen or so moments where she looked at me in a way that told me she saw me as the most loathesome of creatures.  There were little moments of respite too, but the telling trouble occurred approximately 1.5 weeks prior to my family’s arrival when Liz said in no uncertain terms: "I need you to find somewhere else to live, as soon as possible."  That prompted my retort: "I can promise that I’ll get out of here as soon as I can, but, hmm.. you did say my family could stay here and they are arriving in two weeks."  Liz:"[<grunt> I don’t really want them here]".   This particular discussion practically coincided with my Jager Law job termination and prompted the entrance of an important ally: Mr. Kurt Krause, who couldn’t understand why there couldn’t be a little more accomidation as he was certain she would offer a little leeway in light of my job loss.  No such luck.

I had had it – she can mess with me and treat me as badly as she wants, but I won’t have her messing up my special family visit!  So I turned to the most powerful of allies to restore her patients – kindness.  I decided that if I went over the top and did everything possible to show my respect and accommodation, she’d have a hard time playing such hardball.  I knew it was a gamble and that it would likely only have a short window, but it was worth a shot.  So I went to work.  Extra chores around the house, cleaning up after their dishes, taking garbage in and out, absolutely disappearing when I could, eating at strange late hours to avoid any interaction, let alone confrontation, offering to share food and experiences where reasonable, moving my car those extra couple of inches forward so she could have 6 feet of extra room to get her car into the driveway, always leaving the porch light on, folding their laundry, etc, etc.  I set up more electronic crap and did more organizing in those two weeks…  I spent ~10 hours helping out setting upher birthday party, setting it up to show her pictures, taking pictures.  As many of you know, these aren’t crazy things and, actually, if it were a different situation, I’d be doing most of those things anyways, but here they were definitely a sacrifice.  The good news is that it seemed to work: A few days prior to Mom and Leah’s arrival, Liz’s mood had changed (thanks in no small part to a constant reinforcement of the message from Mr. Kurt) and she was being far more accommodating to Mom and Leah and even offered to leave the house for a few days (this didn’t actually happen). 

And then, when Leah and Mom showed up, we continued the trend and still tried to be as unobtrusive and invisible as was possible (Leah and Mom were real troopers here) – we all shared the two rooms I had my stuff in and spent as much of their trip as we could away from the house.  Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that Liz was not happy again.  She was ice cold to us much of the time we were around, so the interaction was lessened even further.  She even huffed and said something about being happy that they were gone after they left and again. 

1 step too far, young lady.  I was looking for places to live within the hour, the day Leah left to go home – I had scheduled interviews, made contacts, and spent literally hours on craigslist looking for new housing.  There were some promising opportunities within a few days – this type of thing takes time, probably 2-3 days average from initial contact, meeting, to decision-making.  I visited 5-6 places, a few of which seemed fairly promising if more commitment than I wanted to make given my unemployment status and uncertain future.  At this point, it was totally clear that nothing I could do was good enough for her and she got really ugly.  Accordingly, here’s where the timeline gets crazy.

She began with disparaging me and my progress in searching and my staying there at every opportunity.  The housing situation was also going to be changing – her father was to be moving in within a week (yes, all of a sudden – he’s 91 and things were happening quickly).  I got a note one morning (Thursday, April 2nd) informing me of this (she never wanted to ask me to do anything as that would involve confronting me, so she always left multi-page notes that had an air of insult, complaint, and irritation about them) asking me to move all of my stuff out of my room and the storage room in the garage by 11:00 am, because people were coming to look at the upstairs rooms.  So I did it all of that (I didn’t get finished until like 1:30, but they didn’t show up until around 1:00).   And I moved all my stuff from the kitchen.  And I moved all of her stuff from that room into the storage room.  I even tried to make it look decent.  Sure, I was a little pissed but I did it all.  And now the room downstairs where I had been sleeping was absolutely packed with all my belongings.  It was actually kinda nice – I finally had a room that was my stuff, as up until that point, I only had a small place in two rooms. 

When she came home that day (at 11:30 at night, after spending the evening out playing), there wasn’t appreciation or understanding, there was an acute complaint that we had to be able to move a large pull out sofabed into that room on Saturday.  Whatever.  I was ready to sleep on a concrete floor at this point as there really was no quality of life there.  So I made additional accommodations, stacking my stuff even higher and finding a place for the couch to go, all the while planning additional housing tours all while trying to maintain a job search. 

Saturday April 4th – things changed again: all of a sudden, they offered that I might be able to housesit her father’s place while he was gone.  And they were going to charge me.  They still had to talk about it, but it seemed pretty likely and, being in the tight spot I am financially and housing-wise, I figured it was a pretty good way to hold off on locking myself into something longer term or restrictive.  I put my housing offers on hold while this was discussed over the next 3 days (during all of which the aggressive/passive-aggressive behavior never stopped.  It was really miserable and I really just wanted to get out of there. 

Tuesday, April 7th – Things changed yet again – the father (Robert) wasn’t moving in anymore and the house sitting opportunity was gone.  Sadly, so were all my on-hold offers.  I had to start again.  This didn’t factor into Ms. Liz’s appreciation of the situation – she was wondering why I wasn’t already gone, after having offered an alternative solution, which caused me to pause other obligations, and then promptly revoking that offer.  Again, I really just wanted to get out of there but nonetheless began a ~5 hour/day search for new housing.  For the next 3 days, I drove all over the Puget Sound looking at places, none of which were truly satisfying.  I had really no good choices.  Most of the places were shitholes and I felt completely disgusted visiting them.  Others (many of which were also shitholes) required 6 month or greater leases, something which terrifies me given my current fixed "income" and the steadily increasing level of unemployment in Washington. 

Friday, April 10th I had 4 appointments to see 8 different properties (one guy had lots).  No real luck.  The 4th place I went to with the guy (Ryan Tacher, my new landlord) is where I ended up.  It was the newest and least ghetto of the properties.  By no means fabulous and significantly further away from downtown than I wanted to be, but it was cheap and it was relatively clean.  I signed the lease for 6 months at 4:00 PM, completely starving after having run around all day looking at places not having eaten.  I charged home, packed my car double-quick and just as I was about to leave with my first load, Liz and Kurt came home.  Kurt volunteered to help me rent a van from U-Haul and move my mattress and my few larger items.  I came back later and packed up the second load (which was almost everything else – and it could have been if I had planned a little better).  Kurt and Liz left to go out to dinner at this point, Liz giving me a big hug and telling me how much she cared about me as we said goodbye, trying to wipe clean the slate of awkwardness that had been so reinforced in the flurry of chalked hate speech of recent days.  I cordially hugged her back and told her ‘how much I appreciated her patience’.  I felt a little dirty for it, but it was better that way.  She’s not a bad person, she had just done some pretty nasty things.  I’m much happier keeping an awkward friend that making a spiteful enemy anyways.

Second load ready to go – minor tragedy struck here.  I pulled my car to the top of Liz’s driveway and pulled up the parking brake, so I could go down and close the garage door.  Now I had had my parking break looked at while I was having my car worked on a month before and while they did adjust it some, it doesn’t completely activate until it is absolutely all the way up.  Unfortunately, I didn’t pull it quite to that point and my car began to roll backwards.  Now I have good reaction time and was able to stop it within a few inches.  Again, unfortunately, the door was less than a few inches from the metal railing on the front side of Liz’s house and in that brief slide, the two had a rather forceful chance encounter.  The railing rang out like a bell choir and my door frame got a nice little bend at the edge – the door closes just fine, but it looks bad and ruins the air seal slightly.  That made me sad. 😦

I dumped the next load at the new place, filling up the last of my small new room’s floor space and decided to go back to grab the last few items so that I wouldn’t have to come back another day and could be done with the awful situation.  Drove back to Queen Anne to grab the last couple of items and left the house with a sense of freedom.  That was that.  I didn’t have to deal with that situation for one more minute.  Phew.  Other situations, sure, but that one was now over with.

So where did I go?  It’s an odd place really – a medium sized house that’s been converted to accommodate as many people as the owner could squeeze in.  What was probably originally a modestly sized 4 bedroom (~2500 sq ft maybe) became a youth-hostel for 9 bedrooms.  Long, stale hallways with doors.  Coin-op laundry.  Locks.  Keys.  Chaos.  It’s a fairly cold environment and people keep to themselves and run on very different schedules.  One room is still open, but I’ve met 6 of the other 7 people now.  A nurse, a social worker, a coast guard, a couple of computer techs from Staples, a third-year med student on rotation in Tacoma, another guy who I don’t know what does (but I think someone said is gay), and me. 

My room is around 10×8.5 with a small closet and it currently holds everything I own.  When I moved in I thought there would be absolutely no way to fit everything in here, but I spent 3 days converting it from what I have described as a crime scene to now something that more resembles a warehouse.  Sure it’s packed and cramped – but now I actually have a little free space on the shelves and could theoretically fit more in here.  Don’t give me any ideas.  The closet is jam-packed and all of my kitchen stuff is in my room (the kitchen already has far too many duplicates for me to put my decent/good stuff out there to have it soiled by some careless housemate).  The carpet is stain-free dark brown.  I told the owner he could slaughter animals over it and no one would be the wiser.  He smirked.  I have a window facing East, out to a cemetery, on the other side of which is a major thoroughfare, Aurora Ave.   

Not many seem to use the kitchen much, so I’ve had a pretty good run of it and actually churned out some decent meals.  I don’t know if it’s that bad, but I’ll be straight with you all – I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.   I can only imagine that within a month or two I’ll feel even more certain about this J  But I only pay $485 with utilities and even though I’m locked in for 6 months, I can probably negotiate out of it if I have to.   Sure could be worse, but it could be a lot better.

I posted a little album with a few pictures of my room and the house so you can get a better idea of what I’m looking at.

http://cid-d2ad83b102d2854d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/2009%20-%20April%20-%20The%20Sardine%20Tin

There you are, more than 2800 words later (and two hours of typing) you made it through my story.  It’s a weird time for Danny.  Still looking for work everywhere I can but nothing yet.  I’ve steeled myself for the long haul here – loans deferred, unemployment contacted, all addresses updated, court dates set (for the ticket, of course).  Goals for now:  First: Survive to the end of May when I get to come home back to CA for Jason and Kara’s wedding and other happy things.  Interim: watch an assload of stored up television shows, look for jobs, get to the gym regularly (it’s not as easy to get to here), eat well, get outside when the weather permits (not yet, apparently), keep sane.  Spluh.

Californian Invasion, Part 2, and The Escape from the Harpy’s Nest

To continue… after a little lunch, Leah, Mom, and I sat down for a coffee at Seattle Coffee Works where I swear a picture that I had taken had been recreated as a poster on the wall.  It wasn’t actually my picture, but the photographic design was based exactly on the composition I created.  I had emailed Sebastian, the owner, a full version of the original and told him he was welcome to use it for his marketing.  I’m hoping he took advantage of that license.

Sunday afternoon after Pike Place Market involved a jaunt over to Gasworks Park.  After a brief stop at home, the sun came out and we headed out again for another outing.  Gasworks Park is along the north end of Lake Union and is what I’m guessing is an old gas works that has been converted into a park.  It has these cool old rusty steampunk-looking structures and lots of grass and a beautiful view of downtown from across Lake Union.  Mom and Leah enjoyed this outing especially because it was sunny for the first and only time during their trip.  We took some pictures, wandered around and soaked in some sun. 

The big plans for the rest of the day was our special birthday event (Leah had just had a big birthday (the type with a 0) and Mom’s birthday is at the end of February), a trip to Teatro Zinzanni which I had been planning for the last month or so (I’m glad I paid for the tickets before I lost my job – it’s a pricey event).  It’s kind of a dinner cirque/comedy show, something akin to a small Cirque du Soliel with dinner and a lot more comedy.  Jager Law took us there for our holiday party and I knew that it would be a great place to take my family when they came to visit, especially if I could time it around some sort of celebratory event.  Two birthdays – perfect.  The show was really fun as it had been before, but we had the strange treat of getting some entertainment, which we are still not sure as to whether it fell beyond the bounds of the show.  It’s a crazy show, but I think this might have been just a little too crazy.  I’m going to talk about our unique experiences here and so if you’re interested in the show, I suggest you check out Teatro Zinzanni’s website (www.teatrozinanni.org) to learn more about the "planned show".  Our show was called "Under the Gypsy Moon".

Let me preface our experience with the fact that the general manager gave me his card and told me he’d make things right, they refilled all of our wine glasses and gave us 4 $25 off tickets at the end AND our server explained that the whole staff was pretty stunned, two guests from our table were evacuated to another, safer table, and when we were leaving, the table next to us expressed their amazement. 

What happened, you ask?  Meet Tami: When we arrived, a young couple was already seated at the table and when we joined them, two empty seats remained.  Shortly after the show started, a very enthusiastic woman arrived.  We quickly found out her name was Tami.  She sat next to me and explained that her mother (the owner of the adjacent seat) couldn’t make it as she was undergoing treatment for late-stage brain cancer and was likely on her deathbed.  Tami was extremely energetic… or maybe maniacal is a better word.  She started off only slightly odd, acting a little too interested in what everyone else was doing.  She asked me to help her put on her necklace and dumped her stuff on the table.  She was loud and raucus and was, by any definition, over the top.  By the time our salad course was served, she had practically sat herself in my lap, drunk half my wine, fondled me, made inappropriate comments to just about everyone at the table (perhaps it was mostly me).  I didn’t mind really: Mom, Leah, and I, at this point, figured she might be a plant for the show and was just causing trouble – the staff was very attentive to her and us.  It wasn’t until she disappeared for 20 minutes during the show, came back in a new outfit, knocked over our bottle of wine, effectively wrapped her legs around me, told me how horny she was, kissed me on the cheek, disappeared twice more to return with new outfits, hid from Leah and I as we were going to the bathroom, practically did a pole dance during one of the musical numbers and then finally disappeared not to return prior to dessert that our guess about her involvement in the show waned.  I’m still not sure about what happened, but I know the staff and management, if she was a plant, was damn good at maintaining their stories. 

Tami gave me a business card when she told me about herself – that included a link to a real website with a picture of her.  Leah maintained that she was the real deal and just hopped up on drugs or completely drunk.  I’d like to think she was some obscure plant for the show.  The truth may lie somewhere in the middle – we kinda guessed she may be one of the owners’ relatives.  The seat she was sitting in would have been a terrible seat for a paying customer as the view of the center of the tent/stage would have been at least partially obstructed and would have likely been one of the worst seats in the house.  Accordingly, it would have made sense for the management to put a plant or family member in those seats.  The truth is, we’ll never know.  I kinda like it that way.  I was a little conflicted as whether to ultimately complain about the experience (and maybe petition for a 2/1 deal for Leah and Chris to go to the San Francisco show or something), but I decided it was okay.  Sure, I didn’t get to enjoy some of the comedy and performance of the real show, but the show we got was arguably way more crazy than I had possibly expected.  So maybe the night wasn’t a rousing success in the way originally planned but it certainly made for an exciting, unexpected, confusing, awkward, and ultimately titilating experience.  Needless to say, long discussions were held afterwards about our crazy tablemate -especially after the staff told us they were all talking about Tami in the back and our server even indicated that someone had seen her walking around outside behind the tent during the show.  I guess we’ll never know.  And I kinda like it better that way. 

Monday was Mom’s last day – she was to fly out about 5 PM.  The morning was a very lovely brunch trip to Senor Moose (the well-known brunch place I think I mentioned in an earlier post which serves pan-Mexican cuisine, dabbling in various items from regions all over Mexico) in Ballard.  We all had great food and some of the best drip coffee to be found at a breakfast restaurant (at least according to the popular consensus).  Following this was a stroll around Ballard that included a tour of the lock system that allows boats/ships in Lake Washington and Lake Union to exit out to the Puget Sound, the accompanying visitor center and the salmon run which is designed to let visitors watch the salmon jumping up the fresh water lakes (there were no salmon during our visit).  We spent some time watching ships being raised and lowered in the locks and checking out the dam and enjoying the ships passing through with the banter of the lock attendants.  On our way back home, we stopped at Chocolopolis in Queen Anne after a little wandering around the Queen Anne Ave and enjoyed a very
special treat – their hot chocolate, but not just any hot chocolate –
ours was made with one of my favorite chocolatier’s couvature, Amedei’s
Chuao, an estate Venezualan chocolate that is on its own magnificant
and the beverage captured all the beauty of the chocolate.  It was delicious.

We dropped by the house to grab Mom’s stuff and then went up to Capitol Hill for a little trip out to Lake Washington before we dropped Leah off at the Downtown Seattle branch of the library.  Mom and I travelled over the 520 floating bridge to Medina and Bellevue and drove around looking at the old charming housing in that area.  I then took her down to Seatac and dropped her off at the airport so she could make her flight.  I picked up Leah on my way back into downtown and we drove back to Queen Anne for a little Happy Hour hopping.  We stopped at two places to enjoy different happy hours – drinks and little small plates to accompany.  It was lovely and it gave Leah and I a great opportunity to spend some time talking and hanging out together.  Early Tuesday morning, on the way to the airport, I took Leah to Macrina bakery (which was four blocks from Liz’s place) to pick up some special treats for the plane.  Leah  selected two muffins and I got an Italian Plum Roll.  I heard from Leah later that day and she indicated they may have been some of the best muffins she’d ever had 🙂  I dropped Leah off at the airport around 10:00 (if I remember correctly) and it was time to enjoy the not so subtle adventure back to my reality.  It was so wonderful to have Mom and Leah visit and I’m so glad they were able to make it.  I think they really enjoyed their stay and, as with anyone who visits me (ever), they got to see as much as could possibly be jammed in during their visit.  I would say it was most definitely a successful visit.

With their departure returned the abrupt reality that my housing situation was falling apart – Liz had been growing increasingly unpleasant and impatient about my departure.  This has come and gone and I think is best saved for a later posting.  Stay tuned for part three – hear about my flight from Queen Anne to my current home in Greenwood (I moved Friday night, top to bottom, from 4 PM – 10 PM). 

Never a dull moment.

Californian Invasion, Part 1 (what an embarassingly bad title…)

I am going to suspend discussion of my current problems for a future post because I wanted to provided a detailed account of what was enjoyed by my two special guests at the end of March.  I had the wonderful pleasure of being visited by both my mother and sister for 5 days.  And since I’m sure many of you have already seen the photo collection that documented this visit as it was posted nearly immediately after they left, you probably don’t even need to read this, ’cause you already know what we did.

While we all missed our good Mr. Chris’s involvement in this particular adventure, Mom and Leah turned out to be plenty of guests, given the circumstances of limited sleeping arrangements.  We were actually all able to stay in Ms. Atkin’s house and even if she wasn’t thrilled about it (even though she had described it as being "just fine" a few weeks earlier – more about this later as my housing has fallen into terrible disarray), it ended up working out just fine.  We spent most of our time out of the house.  So, as long as we had a place to come home to after long days of checking out the scenes, it would all be fine.  We did actually end up eating some meals here too and that also managed to work out.  And maybe a fist fight would have broken out had they been here much longer, Mom and Leah’s stay went great.  I’m not bitter.  Really. 

Okay okay… So what did we do in their 4 days in Seattle?  Well, as many of you can guess, there’s no way they could see everything I’ve found in this brief stay, Mom and Leah’s stay was jam-packed with Puget Sound area explorations.

Leah showed up Thursday afternoon at around 4:00 PM and we took some time to wander around downtown Seattle after I picked her up from SeaTac airport.  We went to Franz Chocolates (which is a famous chocolatier in Seattle) and got some sweet samples (hot chocolate and truffle samples!) and got Leah some shoelaces.  Once we picked up Mom (she flew in around 8:00 PM) we took her back home to drop off her things and we went out to our first Seattle coffee experience, which was really my first experience in the beginning of 2008, Zoka Coffee in Greenlake.  It was fun to take the fam there.  I actually remember the day I went there a year ago with a friend of the family I was staying with in Federal Way where he introduced me to the now famous Zoka bar (one of which was enjoyed by my family too – the very reason it’s now famous).

Friday was a trip down to Tacoma.  We went to West Seattle and checked out the cool park that offers a beautiful view of the Seattle cityscape.  We drove down along the coast of the sound despite the bad weather (it rained almost the whole time they were here – people think the weather is intentionally bad to drive off possible immigrants).   We drove through Federal Way so I could show where I had lived early last year and then along Dash Point to the port of Tacoma.  I managed to get a $700 ticket for going 30 miles per hour in a school zone and having an expired insurance card (the insurance fine has been removed and I’m actually going to court to contest the other part as I’m not sure it was fairly "awarded").  Nevertheless, the coast was really beautiful and the Port of Tacoma, even if not totally clear and pristine was still pretty.  We then drove out to Point Defiance and drove along the five mile drive route and had some lunch at a little cafe and stopped at my favorite Tacoma coffee institution (Satellite Coffee) before visiting Mr. Tobin Ropes at Mad Hat Tea where we sat, drank tea, and chatted.  Tobin was all too quick to "extoll my virtues" at length.  It was funny. 

The last outing of the day was to see the works of Dale Chihuly and other glass artists at the Glass Museum in Tacoma.  They have a live glass blowing studio where we learned something about the process of making art glass.  It’s a neat museum if you’re into art glass.  I enjoyed the experience but was a little sad we couldn’t take more pictures – we couldn’t take pictures of the galleries as they are "copyrighted" according to the curators.  We took some pictures of the Chihuly glass shown on the bridge outside which are included in the collection from their trip.  Amazing what they were able to do with blown glass.  I remember the first Chihuly glass I saw – it was at the National Liberty Museum in Philadephia – a pretty decent free museum with an unbelievable 2.5 story art glass centerpiece, The Flame of Liberty.

Saturday was a trip to the Kitsap Peninsula.  We took the Bainbridge Island Ferry after a quick pancake breakfast.  If the weather was poor on Friday, Saturday’s weather was awful.  It poured much of the day and it was cold.  But we got by and it really didn’t impede our enjoyment of the trip at all.  We walked around in the city on Bainbridge Island, walked around the Scandinavianesque town of Poulsbo (and had delicious halibut and clam chowder at a well known fish and chips place) drove up to and crossed the Hood Canal Bridge to the Olympic pennisula and drove some along the Hood Canal and drove down South along the Kitsap Penninsula and stopped in Gig Harbor for another afternoon coffee stop at a somewhat disappointing place called Suzanne’s (it was hard to keep up with the other excellent coffee experiences.  Dinner was in University Village at an Indian restaurant.  It was delicious.  Kinda fun to see the U-district at night too – some colorful characters.

Sunday was the all important trip to Pike Place Market and Downtown Seattle.  Lots of walking, coffee at Seattle Coffee Works, oils and vinegars at Sotto Voce, and panini at "that good sandwich place I can’t remember the name of". 

I’m falling asleep, so while I could finish this tonight, I’m going to save the amazing conclusion of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning for a future posting.  More soon!  Nighty-night!

Unemployment and Life Update

So what does one do when they suddenly find themselves unemployed after being terribly busy for 4 months?

 

Strangely, not much different.  I still go to the gym in the evenings (in fact I go a little later now so I can avoid the crowds), I haven’t spent noticibly more time preparing myself dinner on a nightly basis.  I have, however, been staying up much later – I was averaging a 10:30 sleep time two weeks ago and now I’m at about a 12:15 sleep time (it seems to better fit with this household’s schedule).   I still watch an obscene amount of TWiT (live.twit.tv, if you’re curious) while doing other things, download lots of files, organize my computer, take pictures, eat, sell preteen organs at auction, etc.  I still like beets.

 

I have had time to pick up some Japanese dramas again and I just finished the second season of a silly show called Hana Yori Dango. It’s a story about a poor girl (very poor) who goes to a rich kid high school (very very rich), where a group of thr richest meanest guys, called "F4" start a  little war with Tsukushi Makino (I liked her name, as I rarely remember the character names).    Of course, the lead F4 guy and her, despite hating each other, fall in love.  Insert usual collection of awkward rich people/poor people relationship stereotypes, rinse, repeat… ad naseum.  And then there was a second season.  Oh!  And an amnesia sequence.  It was cute at times, but it was so cliche and so preditcable it was one of the most disappointing dramas I’ve seen to date.  The writing was pretty sad.  Here’s the strange part – this is one of the most well known, famous dramas in the last 10 years.  Go figure.

 

I have also had time to make some posts here – which I was sorely underperforming on during my period of employ.  For that I am sorry, dear fans.

 

So about work.  I’ve been doing quite a bit of stuff but nothing you care about – searching for jobs, filing unemployment documents, rendering beef tallow, renting beef tallow, considering alternative locations/careers/lifestyles/anger management classes.  I’ve sent out about 30 resumes so far.  About 70% to law firms with the others going to Microsoft, Amazon, and a few other techy companies that had either law related positions or other openings for things I can do.  And I heard from Elizabeth that my former firm had already hired a new associate by the middle of last week (yep, that’s 3 days after I was let go).  To me that makes me think that my departure was a planned event as it probably takes about 2 weeks top to bottom to find and screen a candidate, even if you’re very efficient at it (like I’m sure Steve is). 

 

Kinda strange really: I would have thought that there might be more indications that there was some disatisfaction with me.   It may go down as one of the more unusual employment situations in my experience… but no regrets.  As I explained before, in many ways I’m really happy to be moving on.  I’ve been thinking again and again how doing that for a year and a half or two years or however long I would have stayed there would have been a rough and unpleasant experience.  At least now, the future is completely blank again.  Sure it means I won’t be paying off my student loans any more quickly and that Ferrari is one additional step away, but at least for the day-to-day, I’m really glad I don’t have to be doing something that I didn’t find very interesting.

 

Here’s to finding something better and more interesting, for you and me both.

 

So, as usual, my post will end with an explaination of the new set of pictures that got posted.  These don’t require much thinking through though as the title is pretty self explainatory: Ms. Liz turned 60 this weekend and her boyfriend Kurt, her daughter Kayla, and I prepared a lovely party for her at the house.  I chopped vegatables and fruits and meats and cheeses and concrete blocks for at least 4 hours before the party.  It was a good success – a smallish gathering (by Liz standards) of 20 or so new and old friends, a lot of food, and a good amount of booze.   People mostly drank bubbly things.  As usual, I was the photographer, taking pictures of the event to memorialize the experience.  Hey, it’s just what I do.  Accordingly, here are some nice pictures of the party.

 

Oh and one bonus picture of Liz dressing up for St. Patricks Day.  Kurt made corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage and we had irish soda bread with it.  tt was a fun little evening with the three of us.

 

Next up, later this week I have the glorious opportunity that some ofmy family will be visiting me.  Two of my favorite ladies, Mom and Leah (Mr. Chris is not coming this time) will be coming to the Puget Sound region on Thursday afternoon/evening for a 5 day trip.  We have lots planned and there should be some really nice pictures from the event.  Can’t wait to share with you all… but you’ll have to wait a week or so 🙂