It's almost Christmas! Brian is done with finals on Wednesday. I'm really excited to go see the Christmas boats once he's done. There are dozens of boats that are decorated with lights that tour around the lakes every night during the holiday season. We see one or two of them each night as they enter Lake Union and they're beautiful.
I call alot of people everyday.
If you yell at me because I mispronounce your pretentious name, you are dimwit.
Examples:
Jurgen and I pronounce it Jer-gen instead of yer-gen.
Karen and I pronounce it care-en instead of Kar-en
Andrea and I pronounce it An-dree-ah instead of an-drey-ah
Nol and I pronounce it Nole instead of No-el (like xmas)
ugh.
My first and last names are rarely pronounced correctly. In fact, I am shocked if someone gets it right on the first try. And I'll answer to anything: Alice, Tricia, Alison, Marcia.
Sorry to be bitter. I just had to get it out.
The best cheap beer in WA is Rainier. Named after the majestic ancient volcano, it is light, crisp, and not "cold-tasting". And it's often $2/pint or less. The vintage-looking can is as stylish as a Seattle hipster.
Things I like about Seattle: Part two in a series
1. No one jaywalks. Popular wisdom says this is because of high fines for jaywalking, particularly around the University district. I love it. You are never in that much of a hurry as to endanger your life.
2. Listening to KEXP while working.
3. Donuts. There are lots of places in town that make their own donuts. The vegan place is called “Mighty O.” Yum.
4. The city rises early. The city is alive much earlier than DC. Work for most folks starts at 8am. By 7:30-8am, lots of folks are walking around, getting coffee, heading off to work. So everyone is done by 5pm and ready to enjoy life outside of work.
5. Running along Elliot Bay. Our office is near Pioneer Square on the waterfront. Sometimes I get to go for a run during the day and see the huge cruise ships leaving, the tankers coming in, and sea otters playing in the kelp near the aquarium.
Things I don’t like
1. My job. It’s a campaign lifestyle. And the campaign is boring. Lots of phone calling and running phonebanks. A focus on numbers. 39 days until the election.
2. Seagulls. They are dirty and noisy.
I am employed! Well, I was before but it was a soul-sucking temp job with the Dept. of HHS Regional Office. But I quit.
I'll be working with Grassroots Campaigns to organize Move On members to get out the vote around the mid-term elections to take back the House. It'll be intense but exciting out here. There are some good races and it'll be a short , 7 week sprint to the end. There's a training in Boston starting Thursday so I'll fly all day tomorrow to get there. The wrap-up meetings will probably be in DC in mid-Nov! I'll keep everyone posted!
Brian starts classes next week and orientation has started. So he'll be super-busy too.
We went to Mt. Rainier on Tuesday. It was to be the last sunny day for a while and we decided to take full advantage. The National Park is about 2 hours from Seattle. We did a relatively short but steep hike in the meadows and foothills (hike, gawk, hike, take pictures, hike, “this is amazing!” hike). The view was so clear. We were able to see all of the glaciers on the mountain, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Baker. Mt. St. Helens had a little tuft of smoke in its cone all day. There was still some snow pack in the meadows. The fat, noisy marmots like to lie down with their bellies on the snow to cool down. We also saw a regal mountain goat feeding on some bushes.
You could really spend all day up there, enjoying the view—we also so Mt. Adams. My neck got sunburned. It is like finding yourself in a bucolic beer label, with green meadows, streams and waterfalls surrounded by hills and snowy mountains. Luckily we did not see any mountain loins. All the animals were very unafraid of people. We saw a hawk fly by 10 feet from us and not higher than 8 feet off the ground. There were also deer munching away. Marmots are my new favorite animal. We also saw a large group of hikers returning from the summit. They were laden with tons of gear. Overall, I just can’t imagine a bigger payoff considering the minimal effort we put in hiking.
Part one in a series
1. There are no boring barbershops/hair places. The biggest chain is Rudy’s. They’re super-punk rock. Their haircuts are cheap. A buzz cut, their specialty, is $10. And, according to Brian, they have Playboy in the waiting area.
2. Coffee. It’s fantastic. People drink it all the time. It’s not a myth. There’s an unlimited amount of small coffee shops with cool chairs, great music and internet access. There are no less than three espresso shops within 3 blocks of our house.
3. Everyone else dresses way hipper than you do. That includes you, Cat. Even my most stylish outfit is bland. The style is more artsy-punk than NYC style. I think it’s mainly because no one knows what business casual is here. Unless you’re going to a job interview or court, there’s no reason to wear a suit or slacks. Almost everyone wears sensible footwear. I blame the hills and the rain.
4. People cannot drive well. On the highways people drive either 40 mph or 60 mph, nothing in between. And no one knows how to merge at high speeds. Ugh.
5. There’s no state income tax. But the sales tax is about 9%.
Come visit us! We now have an air mattress, a local coffeeshop (that makes homemade donuts!), and a list of touristy things we want to do.
Let me know if you want our address.
alisuper AT yahoo
The city of Seattle has a recycling program. Not like DC’s token program. We have four trash thingies in our kitchen.
A- Recycling- paper, cans, plastic bottles and containers, cardboard packaging
B- Glass
C- Compost- apple cores, yard waste, coffee grounds and pizza boxes (!? They break down)
D- Trash
We take it all out to the garage where there are also four dumpsters. Compost is the most interesting. The city puts all of the organic matter together in a field under a black tarp. Because of the volume of matter and the black tarp, the compost reaches an incredible temperature. So unlike backyard composting, you don’t have to worry about weeds or invasive species. They’ll get turned into dirty faster than you can say “Doesn’t it rain there a lot.” Every spring, the city sells the rich compost and makes boatloads of money.
Yep, that's the view out of our window in our living room! We're up on the third floor on a big hill. That's the view of downtown, Puget Sound, the Olympiic mountains, and the space needle. The other window is directly to the left of this one (making a corner view).
Brian is very excited about making it to the top! The lookout cabin is in the clouds between the trees. It's white so it blends in with the fog.
We've finally made it to Seattle!
