Hiatus

After a (not so brief) hiatus from this blogging stuff, our regular programming shall resume shortly.

Yes, it is true, I have been away for some time now. I will not share the details of my absence here, I am merely posting a quick note to say that I have a LOT of catching up to do and I'll be getting on it post-haste.

See you again in a bit. :-)

Public Service Announcement

I digress from my usual fodder to step onto my soapbox for a [maybe not so] brief moment.

My previous post talks about the bill that Governor Gregoire signed into law on February 13, 2012. I couldn’t be more proud to live in a state that has managed to make this happen. And yet I find myself cautiously optimistic. I lived in one of the last states that tried this and was then profoundly disappointed when groups dedicated huge sums of money to run a campaign based on misinformation and blatant lies in order to overturn the decision. And it worked.

I still find myself mystified as to how anyone can believe that prohibiting one group of U.S. citizens from having something that other U.S. citizens have is not unconstitutional. I am mystified as to how anyone can choose to quote a handful of Bible verses in support of their cause while ignoring all the rest. I am mystified as to how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can claim to stand in judgment of others, forgetting that it is God’s place, and God’s place only, to stand in judgment.

I know this is politically sensitive and religiously charged. But I feel compelled to share a handful of things that I have found, seen, or written over the past decade as it relates to this issue.

Zach Wahls Speaks About Family 



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One of the things that State Rep. Jamie Pedersen made clear at the Seattle Women’s Chorus event I attended on February 18^th is that we can’t sit back and assume we are in the clear on this. Just as Prop 8 in California was put to the voters (amid confusion and lies) and ultimately supported in an incredibly close vote, so could this happen to us here in Washington. There are things I learned from living through it in California.

--Talk to people. It was amazing to me how many of my friends, who are in support of same-sex marriage, hadn’t really thought about it thoroughly. When we were able to talk with each other they began to see the importance of not only supporting the vote, but actually getting out and making the vote. We can’t sit back and think that it’s going to be ok. Complacence is our enemy.

--As I talked to those friends, they talked to their friends and family. We began a campaign of “if you find that you can’t support us, please at least do us a favor and don’t vote against us”. But we do need votes, so please get out and vote if you possibly are able.

--Get clear on the actual vote itself. Prop 8 in California confused a lot of folks in the way it was worded. Some people thought they were voting in support of gay marriage by making a “Yes” vote only to discover after the fact that they had been confused by the language. The people putting these measures on the ballot do everything they can to confuse the issue. Get to know the ballot measure if it comes to pass, and then please, get out and vote if you do support equality. Here is a link to help with that.

--There are a lot of folks who don’t give it a lot of thought about it either way. They are in support of equal rights, but they don’t take the initiative to vote about it. Ask them to step up. Ask them to see human beings as deserving equal protection under the law and equality across the board. Ask them to see gays and lesbians as regular human beings with the same concerns as everyone else; concerns about the economy, jobs, education, homeland security, our nation’s future, and raising children in loving homes to become responsible, contributing adults.

We’re all just here trying to make our own way.

Stepping down off the soapbox now.

Long weekend - President's Day holiday

Saturday the 18th we had tickets to the Seattle Women's Chorus. What an incredible, awesome show. This group is extremely talented and they always put on an entertaining event, so this one was no exception. The theme was "Shot Through the Heart, Love: the Good, the Bad, the Hilarious". Good stuff. 

They also had a couple of special guests who came up on stage and addressed the audience. In celebration of what has transpired in Washington State in the past few weeks, two of the legislators who have been instrumental in making this happen stepped up and talked about the work that went into passing this legislation.

For more on the legislation click here.

The last song of the afternoon was K.D. Lang’s “Sing it Loud”. They invited everyone to pull out their cell phones and record the performance, so I did. Unfortunately when I uploaded it to my computer and tried to play it, it doesn't work. I can play it on my phone, but not here. So, I'm including a link to someone else's YouTube version.

Birthday weekend down south. (Rob's birthday, not mine)

I flew down to Southern California the weekend of February 11^th. I flew in Thursday night. My friend Rob was turning…ahem…well, let’s just say he was having one of those “landmark” birthdays. I made arrangements to stay at the Disneyland Hotel.  A lot of really cool things came of that.

For starters, they have redone the hotel. The three towers are now called Adventure, Fantasy, and Frontier. (The towers used to have different names). They've also redone the pool area.

The really cool part is that Rob is a huge fan of Western themes—music, furnishings, artwork—you name it. So I was thrilled to see that my room was located in the Frontier tower. They’ve redone the lobby area in each tower, so this tower had cowhide-backed chairs and artwork depicting Frontierland, including a large diorama of Thunder Mountain Railroad.

When I walked into the room, everything had been refurbished. The bathroom now has granite sinks, the artwork on the walls is new, and there is a new headboard that lights up and plays “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” when you first turn it on. The pattern is of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle with fireworks and stars. It twinkles too. Yep, I’m a sucker for Disney magic and they have made the hotel into a really cool experience with the re-furb. Sorry, I forgot to get a picture of the headboard. oops. :-/

I went out to Carolyn’s on Friday. (Hey, I was within 60 miles. It had to be done.) I stopped by the JCP outlet on the way back and found a bunch of shoes on sale. (I bought 3 new pairs and when I went to Wal-Mart to buy an extra bag to bring them back home in, I found yet another pair. I should be set on shoes for a while). I got back to the hotel in the afternoon. I met my friends at the new outdoor firepit next to the new bar called Trader Sam’s in the center area of the hotel.

Following that, we went to PF Chang’s at the Garden Walk, followed by the movie The Artist. Uggie is my new hero. Just sayin’.

Uggie

Got up Saturday morning to a surprise visit from our friend Ethan! I rode into the park on the Monorail with the gang and then rode back to the hotel. I left there and drove out to my brother’s house. It was also his birthday weekend and they were having lunch at his house. So I made a surprise visit. My mom was the only one who had an inkling that I’d be there. I stayed for a couple of hours and then headed back to Anaheim in a gnarly rain storm. By that time, everyone had left the park and headed back to the Hearthstone Lounge. (I got back just in time!) From there we went to Steakhouse 55 for dinner, followed by more time by the outdoor fire pit.

Desserts by Disney

Got up Sunday morning and went to Storyteller’s for brunch. Went into DCA to ride Soarin’ Over California and then to ride Screamin’ with my pal Drea.

Then it was time to catch a plane back home.  :-(

Busy, full, FUN weekend. :-)

Arlington, Darrington and the 20

Two weekends ago we took off on a trek, again up the I-5. We got a bit of a late start (completely my fault--I had something to do in the morning and it took longer than I'd expected).

At any rate, Lisa, Linda, Travis and I took off in my new car to explore a new route. (Side note: it's really cool to have a car that accommodates Travis. He seems to be good with it, so I'm very pleased to be able to put some miles on my car instead of constantly putting them on Lisa's!)

If you check out a map, we took the I-5 North to the 530 heading East. The 530 eventually joins up with the 20. At that point we jumped on the 20 West, back towards the I-5 and took that South back towards home.

We had a few hours of sunlight and this is what I got along the way:

Blaine, Birch Bay, Ferndale, and Lummi Bay

The backstory:

Years ago my friends Jim and John from Angelo's in Loma Linda told me about a little restaurant in Redlands called Kay's Cafe. I never made it to the one in Redlands--I didn't go to Kay's until the owner had moved the restaurant to San Bernardino. At that point, Kay's became a regular breakfast spot. We quickly figured out that the patio at Kay's was the place to be, for a couple of reasons. First, you could smoke on the patio and at the time we had acquaintances and friends who smoked, so they liked that. Secondly, there was no waiting list for the patio. If there was an open table, you could take it without waiting. And last, but certainly not least, the patio had Jamie. Jamie quickly became our favorite server ever. (And at the time, there were a lot of servers to choose from--I went to dinner with my Dad every Monday night. We met a LOT of servers over the years. Some still know us by name. But I digress.)

Kay's eventually changed ownership -- I think in 2005 maybe? The owner picked up and moved to Washington state. (I was both annoyed and jealous.) The first new owner did ok for a while, but then it changed ownership again. That was when we swore off Kay's for good.

A year or so later we ran into a friend of mine from junior high. She saw Leslie wearing a t-shirt from Kay's. The t-shirts were kinda famous. They read: Caution, Does Not Play Well With Others. My friend told us of a new place in Redlands called Carolyn's Cafe. The way the story went was that a bunch of the folks who had originally worked at Kay's made a mass exodus. One of them opened up her own place, and several of the servers went with her.

For those of you who know me well, you know that Carolyn's has been a favorite hangout for the last several years before I left Southern California. I miss my friends, I miss my family, and oh how I miss Carolyn's Cafe. At any rate, since I've moved up here, I've continued the quest to find my Carolyn's of the North, but I also wanted to head up to Big Al's in Blaine because that is where the original owner of Kay's -- Big Al himself -- ended up.

Yesterday was the day.

I had hoped that the day would be sunny. The forecast said it might. Turned out that it was mainly cloudy and overcast, but it didn't stop me. I headed north, up the I-5. I got a little bit of a late start, but got to Big Al's around noon. Here is my FB post from yesterday:

Finally made it up to Big Al's in Blaine today. Sat at the counter and Big Al himself came out for a chat.
We talked about Kay's, Carolyn's and Angelo's -- all the good hangouts (and one used-to-be good hangout) in So Cal. He claimed that he taught Carolyn everything she knows. I don't know about that. I think she does an awful lot of things right at the Cafe, and I'm not sure all of them came from him.
The food was good, as expected. Right up there with Carolyn's.
The service? It was good too.
But there was no Kaycie, Jen, Linda, Chris, Wes, Carolyn, and of course, no Jamie.
But then again I didn't have to put up with Brad either. ;-)

p.s. The free wi-fi was also cool. It enabled my Words With Friends addiction during brunch.

 

 

After a yummy breakfast, I headed West towards the coast. My thought was that I would drive through Blaine and then catch Birch Bay road and stick to the coast as much as I could. I stopped first at Blaine Marine Park. From there you get a great view of the ocean and a pretty good view of the border crossing as well!

 

AAAAAGGGGH!

 

 

Did I mention I got a new car? It's great for exploring. It has heated seats. That may be the best part. I am now a walking, talking, driving stereotpye. It's a Subaru.

 

 

From Blaine I headed down through Birch Bay towards Ferndale. I have no real clue exactly where I went or how I got there. I stopped at a cute little used bookstore along the way and picked up a map of the area since my phone's map app is pathetic and doesn't really keep up. Everything in the store is $1.00. The owner said it makes the tax math really easy. She reports everything as 92 cents and with tax it adds up to one dollar. I happened in on a day where everything in the travel section was free. So my map and the book on Amazon wildlife didn't cost me a thing. I tried to give her $2 anyway. She split the difference with me. What a deal!

 

I continued poking around [sort of] following my map. Mainly I used the map to make sure I didn't get completely lost. I ended up following Lummi Bay road. From there I headed down through Bellingham and finally ended up back on the I-5 heading towards home.

 

I stopped to get pictures of these barns and some guy pulled over and jumped out of his car with his camera and asked "what are you taking pictures of?"

I replied that I liked the barns and he looked at them, and back at me, almost disappointedly.

I guess he thought I'd seen a UFO or something.

I love the haze and the colors and the sky in this one.

There was a large flock of birds circling around in the distance.

I was hoping I could get enough detail to catch them in the shot.

The funny thing was that when I turned and looked back across the street, this is what I saw:

More pics from the day:



Not sure what it is about me and wet rocks but I just can't seem to stop myself from taking pictures of them.

Lummi Bay road.

At one point I turned to head back to the car and 3 dogs started moseying towards me.

They seemed very sweet.

They may have just been old.

They didn't charge or growl or look menacing, but I didn't stick around to learn their names either.

 

Catching Up

I went to download the pictures off of my camera yesterday, and I realized that there were quite a few I'd sort of forgotten about! I also found a few from the day we went to SAM and the Pacific Science Center.

We had some really nice days during November, and the Fall colors were incredible. So I took my camera to work and got some shots from the UW Tower.

This is downtown on our walk to SAM. We parked near the Space Needle, walked to SAM, walked to Pike Place Market for lunch, and then caught a bus most of the way back to the Science Center. I'm pretty sure this popsicle is real. I believe it is cold enough up here to be real.

We visited the butterfly exhibit at the Science Center. It took about 10 minutes for my camera to finally quit fogging up! I felt a little strange stripping most of my clothes off outside the exhibit. Going from 40 to 80 degrees was fascinating. It reminded me of why I left Southern California. ;-)

Somewhere in between I took a trip down south. I took Veteran's Day weekend off instead of flying down Thanksgiving. After checking airline prices for T-giving week I decided it was more financially prudent to make a trip earlier instead. These trees are at the Long Beach airport. I couldn't resist.

Now contrast that with our first snow days up here. That happened in January--most likely you all heard about it on the news; or for those of you up here, well...you experienced it first-hand.

I was already home that week recuperating from that whole pesky gallbladder thing, so I didn't think it was horrible. In fact, Mom was still here for the beginning of it. She flew out just before it got really bad. I was also fortunate because I was not in the part of town that lost power!



That pretty much brings us nearly up to date. Next up: my trip to Blaine.