Aquarium and Underground

Totally awesome fish at the aquarium:

Largest octopus in the world.... while sleeping:


The Seattle "underground" looking up:


Seattle was originally built on tide flats, thus making flushing the toilet rather hazardous at high tide:

Seattle Day Out

article endings and bridge jumpers

When I recently sent out an email about my new domicile, I received a reply from one of my old teachers in Vienna, Austria. I haven’t actually written anything in German since May, and I was never a brilliant writer anyway, so I had to look up a couple words (Geburtstermin is baby due date, fyi) and didn’t even bother to double check my articles. I’m sure half of my adjective endings were wrong too. But then, the beauty of writing to a native German speaker is that they never actually expect you to get them all right anyway.

This morning, I kept hearing many, many sirens on my way to work. A little while ago, I was informed by a coworker that a man had jumped off a bridge onto I-5 and stopped traffic and caused a giant hubbub. What is it about people committing suicide on bridges over I-5? Maybe they’re committing suicide because they think no one cares and everyone who has to drive on I-5 and public service personnel will HAVE to care about them for once if they cause a huge problem. I remember being told about a Navy nurse and his buddy who used to have a lot of problems with suicide attempts on long sea voyages. They decided to post a list of effective and ineffective ways to commit suicide because they were tired of cleaning up the mess after someone failed to succeed in their goal.

I will never presume to understand the mentality of someone who wants to end their life because I’ve always been too in love with life to want to end my own. But it seems to me that if I ever changed my mind, I would at least want to get it right, and not inconvenience an important part of a city or medical personnel in the process. There are other people who actually want and need their help who did not choose to hurt themselves.

yuppie/hippie hybrid

This morning was a happy occasion because I awoke at 7:20am – the same time that the Bremerton ferry leaves for Seattle. I then took a hot bath in my enormous clawfoot bathtub, ate some yummy Kashi cereal for breakfast, and blow dried my hair in the kitchen because I have no outlets in my bathroom. The place is actually so old that all of the electrical stuff is on the outside of the walls. The window in the bathroom doesn’t fully shut either, so this morning when construction started and the sound of metal striking metal woke me up, it was quiet enough that I thought my upstairs neighbor was eating cereal and banging the spoon against their bowl. I will be getting curtains. And maybe some of that rubber stripping stuff.

On my way walking through the lobby of my building, I imagined that the other people around me had little bubbles detailing their commute. One woman’s read, “Drove from Renton, left at 7:00am, drove bumper to bumper for forty-five minutes, then waited in line for ten minutes to get coffee at Starbucks.” Another’s read, “Rode the bus from Capitol Hill, took a half hour.” A man dressed in a sharp looking business suit with droopy skin under the eyes had a bubble that read, “Drove from Tacoma, there was an accident blocking traffic and it took an hour and forty-five minutes to drive less than thirty freeway miles.” What did my bubble say? “Left apartment at 8:15, took ten minutes to walk in the sunshine and fresh fall air to work.” I was feeling entirely too bright and chirpy thinking about how wonderful my imaginary bubble read in comparison to what others must have. Of course, there are the ones who make piles of money and can afford one of those lovely condos down at the waterfront. I’m not one of them.

My mom is bringing me my cell phone that I forgot at her house last night and she’s bringing along contact paper (which was the only thing that the adorable little grocery three blocks from where I live didn’t have last night. It’s like A Capella, only cuter) so I can finally unload my kitchen. I plan to have my whole apartment completely organized and tidy by the 16th of November (because I can’t buy shelving units and my second steamer trunk until the 15th). I love my new place – it’s about the size of a shoebox, and it’s got more character than my first apartment in Vienna, and I love it. It fits my aesthetic, it fits my budget, and I just love living in Seattle.

I think the attitude of this blog has much improved since my time spent in Singapore. Even horrible news doesn’t tick me off nearly as much, merely because I’m actually happy. Imagine that….

Weekend tidbits

Well, I didn’t have carrot cake. Which makes me sad, because I love carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. I will simply have to make some next weekend, and pretend that I did it this weekend. :) We made peanut butter cookies instead, and mom ate ten of them last night. How she manages to remain so thin is beyond me.

My cousin and I visited our grandmas this weekend. Neither of us were very good about visiting once we got out of the house, and then when grandpa died, we felt guilty (for different reasons, I was out of the country, she thought she still had time to visit) and now we make time to visit the grandmas every year. We went to Port Townsend and ate at the Nifty Fifty’s – it used to be more cute, but now it’s run by what appears to be an Indian or Pakistani family. I have nothing against immigrants making good in this country, that’s kind of the point, but a fifties white bread America soda fountain/café with Indian/Pakistani servers? It’s just weird. We also did a little shopping which was detrimental to my pocketbook. Now that I have a job, I keep thinking I have money, which is not true. Alas… but the purse is delightful, as is the necklace, and I LOVE my new sweater coat.

I have only three days left of the evil commute. I move on the first of November, with the help of my Uncle P. and my mom (thanks, guys!). I’m looking forward to being within walking distance of everything – even the grocery store is only two blocks away – and within reach of easy bus lines if I have to go anywhere other than downtown/first hill/Pioneer Square area. I do love living in the city. :D

T.G.I.F.

Today is a rather nice fall day for Seattle. The air is nippy, it’s partly cloudy (although one can probably expect the sun to come out shortly), and there’s that lovely crisp freshness of autumn welcoming the coming winter that is lurking, undefinable, behind the long shadows of the high rises.

Today is also Friday, and as most offices downtown have a casual Friday, Seattle is a veritable sea of jeans this morning. I looked closely, and saw only one pair of black slacks entering the Washington Mutual building when I walked by. My building must be slightly more dressy because the woman in front of me going up the elevator was dressed in lovely black fishnet stockings, cute black wedges and traditional business attire. Still, I’m pleased with the amount of casualness I see – I doubt this would work very well on the east coast, which I’ve heard is far more fashion conscious than we are.

Today is also the first night of the weekend before Halloween, meaning lots of Halloween parties all throughout the area. My cousin is coming up to visit, and we will have carrot cake with cream cheese icing in celebration. I hope that many people will have fun this weekend. I read an ad recently in craigslist for writers writing about loneliness in Seattle. The ad contended that while other cities had their fair share of lonely, depressed people, Seattle has a unique culture of loneliness and depression. Some blame it on the weather, some blame it on the mouth-breathing males, some blame it on the stuck-up females. I do not agree with this hypothesis, however – but what do I know? I don’t actually even live in Seattle yet. Here’s to hoping there are some great parties this weekend and lots of people have lots of fun and feel lightness in their hearts.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Peasant hats and Gothic statues

Today on my walk up to work (my employer confirmed today that my trial period was successful, yay!), I saw a young Afro-American male wearing a style of hat that was popular during the 16th century, when Peter Bruegel was painting. Except, instead of thick homespun, this young man's hat was made of blue mesh fabric. Most odd. On the bus, another young Afro-American was wearing gangsta-style clothes, the flat brimmed hat, gangsta brand pale blue jacket, the half laced sneakers, etc. But he lives near my mom - I don't care if you are black, you are NOT gangsta when you live in the suburbs.

Here are my two favorite statues in Europe. These are from the Mirabellgarten in Salzburg, Austria.

Hogwarts, here I come!

The last few days, I've been rather upset and unhappy with my situation in Singapore. As I expected, the experience of living with a man I don't know while attempting to take care of his two children to his ex-wife's expectations is rather - challenging.

But, I have slogged through what will probably be the toughest part (this is what I hope) through the support of my loving friends and family, and I will persevere. It also helps/doesn't help that I really can't wait to go home, go to the Seattle Opera House, eat at the Spaghetti Factory, go to the Imax, basically, do everything that I haven't done in ages since I moved away to college in 2001.* It's time to go home. So, I'm homesick, which is both good and bad, depending.

The last thing that's got my spirits buoyed recently is that I'm seeing Harry Potter 5 tomorrow. yay! Can't wait. AND, especially can't wait for the last book. I don't want to buy the expensive hardcover though. I'm working on how I'm going to get to reading that.

I also really need to get a job. I have plenty of loans to work on, plus I need a new laptop. Mine was on sale when I bought it because it was already going out of "fashion" technologically speaking. Now, the light in the screen constantly poops out and now my space bar is stuck. Which is making is beyond annoying to type this blog post, but I refuse to give in to self pity over a sicky space bar. Hopefully I'll have enough by next fall when I go back to school and back into deferment status on my loans. Good plan all around. :)

*I don't care that Ellensburg was only an hour and a half away from Seattle (barring trouble on Snoqualmie, which was rather frequent during winter). The Burg FELT like a different world, regardless of how close it may have actually been.