It's getting nearly impossible to get out for an evening walk in daylight, especially if I'm working out of the house.  We headed out after dinner tonight for our favorite stroll to Gasworks Park.  The park was pitch black when we got there a little before 8, but we ventured in anyway, and were rewarded with an excellent view of downtown, reflected off of a glass-like Lake Union:

Click any picture to enlarge

We were confronted with an interesting contrast in political views in our respective restrooms, and the stark reality that campaign rhetoric has reached a low point. The mens' perspective is on the left, the womens' on the right.  The handwriting's a little different, but I have this sneaking suspicion that they're written by the same person, on different nights, on different meds:

Either that, or they're trial balloons created by some savvy campaign consultants, who even now are looking at pictures of me taking pictures of their test advertising (an unwelcome development for the guy monitoring the womens', probably) and rushing to buy media time based on what they see.  Cover and duck!

11:56:09 PM    

I emerged from the sports bar Saturday afternoon to brilliant sunshine, and the dark-spot-xray feeling of guilt and dread borne by all men who slink out of a bar in broad daylight.  Except I was feeling guilty for expending one of the last precious summer days inside, instead of outside frenetically recreating.  Here's what I saw as I exited:

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Ace up my sleeve: I had bussed to the sports bar with the idea that my route home might include a walk up Queen Anne Hill and down to Fremont, where they were hosting the Oktoberfest.

I called Mrs. Perils and offered to meet her there, and started walking.  I passed through the Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair:

As I waited for her in Fremont, I took in the sights:

These confections, called Shishkaberries, put me in mind of Middle Earth sex toys:

As I passed this booth, I heard the woman saying, "And if you miss any more payments, we'll extract this one, and this one, and so on. You should get your credit situation straightened out pronto, or you'll never straighten your spine again."

Once Mrs. Perils arrived, we decided that we really didn't want to spend $20 apiece to sample beers - we're just not really big beer drinkers, and the band that started playing didn't really grab us.  Instead, we left the Oktoberfest and ambled up to an old favorite, El Camino, and enjoyed excellent margaritas and happy-hour appetizers for about the same cost.

And walked home just as the sun was setting.

1:29:49 AM    

When I got home from work Thursday night, Mrs. Perils met me on the front porch and suggested the very thing I'd been thinking as I was driving - oozing fitfully, rather - across the 520 bridge: "Ya wanna walk somewhere for a bite?"  The "walk somewhere" was the easy part, we almost never drive for food or beverages.  The hard part is always "where?"

We made our typical non-decision - we chose a general direction and distance to start walking and deferred the choice of the actual venue.  In this case, the direction and distance was Fremont - southwest, about 2 miles one way.  We actually had two places in mind - a Mexican place called El Camino, and a place featuring crepes called Le Bouchee.  As we passed the creperie, we saw that there were tables empty, and steered ourselves in.

It was definitely the right choice.  Mrs. Perils had a goat cheese & chicken crepe, and I had a salmon & caper.  We don't usually do dessert, but the special this night was fig and honey creme brulee.  We remember discussing it with the waitress, but when it arrived at the table neither of us actually remembered ordering it.  So what.  It was superb.

OK, here's an experience I haven't had in a restaurant before: a couple was sitting at the next table, and the guy had this Wine For Dummies book with him, and was referencing it as he prepared to order.  When his wine was delivered, I was dying to see what he'd ordered, but I couldn't get a good enough bead on the label.  Either he was tremendously insecure about his ability to select an amiable wine for a fairly down-scale dinner (crepes?), or he was actually trying to learn.  Either he deserves kudos for the effort, or he needs an intervention.  God knows I've given up the "instruct" part of "instruct and delight" when it comes to wine.  I can never remember what I drank.  The "delight" part I've got down.

The best part of the evening, though, was due to the restaurant's supplying butcher-paper table coverings and colored pencils at each table.  The minute we walked in, Mrs. Perils was skulking among the other tables snapping up colors she wanted.   As we dined, she proceeded to spin out this creation:

I didn't press too hard about why, out of all of God's bounty, she chose a Venus' Flytrap for her subject. 

11:12:26 PM    

Yeah, all I do is walk around and take pictures. Hide! You might be next.  Tuesday night we walked down to the Montlake neighborhood for dinner and to check in with our Drinking Liberally cabal.

No sooner had we left the house and turned the corner than we encountered another unexpected outdoor musical event - this time, a trio comprised of a violin, string bass and guitar standing in someone's front yard playing bluegrass.  We don't water our lawns here, we serenade them.  I had to stop and catch a film clip, of course.  Mrs. Perils' stomach is growling in the background.

Video! Click to play (2.5 mb)

No pretty pictures this time, just some sorta whacky stuff.  Like this television that someone had left on the curb for possible adoption.  A graffiti artist with a fear of heights or just a lack of ambition elaborately tagged it while the Ship Canal Bridge stood unmolested a few blocks away.

Down near Lake Union we came across this place.  At first, I just saw the sign on the left, and I was trying to formulate some concept of what Teriyaki Coffee would taste like, and wondering whether it was the one last flavor that Starbuck's hadn't turned into frappuchino.  Then I saw the sign on the right, and wondered if their menu would be equally absurdist.  Teriyaki Tiramisu, anyone?

On the way home we walked by the University of Washington hospital complex, and this sign just struck me as odd. 

I'm imagining a Surgery Pavilion as something akin to a shopping-mall food court.  In the center of a skylit atrium a myriad of operating tables are arrayed, while around its perimeter you can find kiosks offering:

• Facelift Farm
• Gall Bladder Gazebo
• Appendix Ahoy!
• Caesarian Salad Bar
• Colonoscopy Corner
• Lasik Lane
• Nosejob Nook
• Bypass Booth
• Carotid Kitchen
• Bone Appetit
• Hysterectomy Heaven
• Vasectomy Village

You get the idea.  The longest lines, of course, will always be in front of the Anesthesia Annex.

8:05:58 PM    

Miscellaneous shots from an evening's walk up to Phinney Ridge on Monday. First stop: The Woodland Park Rose Garden.

Click any picture to enlarge

 

Our route to or from the Rose Garden usually takes us through a tunnel that passes under Aurora Avenue.  A couple of times now, we've encountered this guy who's ridden his bike, carrying a guitar case, up to the tunnel and is using it as a sound studio.  Here's a clip of him playing, as Joni Mitchell put it, real good for free.

Video! Click to play (4.3 mb)

7:03:05 AM    

It's hot here, in Puget Sound parlance.  Sorry, John from Texas and anyone else moldering in more hostile climes, but I'm gonna bitch anyway about 96-degree weather.  Even if it does drop to the mid-60s in the evening.  Understand that I have no air conditioning either in my house or in my car, and I haven't had the presence of mind to schedule client visits to those of the economic stratum that actually have air conditioning.  You guys have issues.  You know you do.  You need to call me.

Since I'm flying to Milwaukee Sunday, I sorta blew today off, work-wise.  I'd been thinking earlier in the week of doing an overnight kayak trip, but stuff kept pushing me later and later in the week, and I really don't want to battle the hoi polloi for beach space on a summer weekend.

So, my grandiose plan got funnelled down to a day trip today.  I launched from the beach in Mukilteo, a town north of Seattle, near Everett, which I know mostly for its Washington State Ferry service to Whidbey Island.  Of course, my impeccable timing combined with my congenital morning sloth saw me launching at 1:30 PM, pretty much high noon, Daylight-Savings-Wise.  On the hottest day of the year.

I paddled up to the port of Everett, then back south to somewhere near Picnic point.  There wasn't anything really remarkable about this part of the Sound, but I'd never paddled this particular shoreline, there was an afternoon Mariners game that dissuaded me from heading south, and, ultimately, I needed to just point myself out the door or I wouldn't have left the house at all.  Through some ham-handedness that I won't elaborate on just now, this is the only photo I have from the trip worth posting:

I thought it might be a little cooler on the water, but there wasn't much breeze, and the only respite was to dip my hands into the 50-degree water, which felt like shoving them into the freezer, and provided agreeable relief.

After I got home and stowed all my kayaking gear, Mrs. Perils evinced a desire to walk a bit.  On such a night, where else would we walk but Gasworks Park:

Clicky-click to enlarge.

It looks like an Ingmar Bergman skeleton-dance up there on the hill, but when we got up there, everyone was possessed of adequate human flesh except this unfortunate pilgrim.  Don't know what his particular complaint was, but I think I might like his shoes:

1:42:01 AM