I've been so lame the past few days and haven't posted a thing. Reality is, I haven't done anything that seems interesting enough to photograph. I've been knitting like a fiend, listening to copious amounts of This American Life, getting coffee with folks, and beginning to pack. See, the image above? It's Carmen. The production I'll be doing next at Opera Colorado. We're opening a brand new opera house with it. I've never worked at this company, and there's a new production/technical director as well so the two of us will be reinventing the wheel a bit. Kinda nerve racking. Ah well, I'm sure it'll be stellar. It's Carmen, for god's sake, it'll be fast, furious, and over before I know it.

Mom gets here Sunday and we begin a week long trek out to Colorado. Thank friggin' god. It's time to hit the road and see what America's roads are like at this time of year.

another Hawaii teaser

Clare, Chuck and I took a swimming with dolphins tour on our last morning there. Here are just a couple photos of that......

Fred says

"when the right vintage car comes along that you're meant to have, you'll know."
















Crap. It's a Falcon. Who knew? Why a Falcon? I mean, there's so many other cars out there that are much cooler. But, Fred also pointed out, the Falcon is the choice car of Mr. Kavon. So, maybe that's a good thing. Went to a car show with Fred over the weekend. Saw some nice cars.......
It was a lovely day, not too hot.... We wandered around, then went to his shop to look at his old cars. Beautiful things.

Sunday morning I woke up, went to get a cup of coffee, and ran into him.
Boston Terrier/French Bulldog mix. Ugh. I want one so bad! Stupid co-op. Stupid no pet rules.

Then spent the rest of Sunday and most of today with Melissa and her little knee.
We spent the days working on knitting projects, listening to old episodes of This American Life, and watching her knee go up and down. She final got it to bend to 90% today. Yay!
Then I went home and caught the most beautiful sunset over the city. You can see Mt. Rainier looming off to the right; you know, the big volcano that will take us all out someday.....
And the view as I plopped down in the kitchen to tie up some loose internet ends. The sunsets are so pretty here in the fall. I think I'm starting to love this city. A bit.

Friday full of love

Melissa, Clare's sister, has been messing her little knee up something fierce. For years now it's been going out all over the place. At Kung Fu, while at work, it's really a sorry little sight. She finally busted it up so well that the docs decided it was time to give her a new one.
I went over to the sick house yesterday to hang out with her post surgery.
We went out to Clare's porch to smoke.....
watched the grain elevators fill ships.....and began to hear rustling down in the blackberry bushes that come up to the porch edge....
looking down, we couldn't see much, but thankfully, they soon stopped.
.
I went back out to smoke later when Melissa's knee was dozing, and the rustling started up again. This time, though, they came up for air. Rats. Lots of rats. Chuck came home and decided to get out the pruning shears before they decided to make the leap from blackberry bush to porch. Seattle's so weird because it IS a city. With rats and everything, but you always forget that 'cause it's so damn pretty.

In other news, Shawn and I saw Nine Inch Nails last night at the Key. It was unbelievably good. I was floored at how much better the songs sound live. The last time I saw them was 15 years ago, so I guess it makes sense that they'd get better with time, but crap they were good!

This morning I decided to finally finish my little crocheted camera case.
It's turning out....ok....certainly not my best work, but hell, at least the new camera has a home and isn't just flailing around my purse awaiting scratches from my keys and other crap.
Mom will be very upset at how little my skills have developed since the Ipod case at Christmas. Ah well, nothing to be done for it.

Wow

I went to bed last night and there were fifty people who visited the site. This morning it's up to 71. Who the hell is reading this? Is it you, my far flung friends? Are you actually reading it? I mean, I know Mom is reading it, she comments all the time, but who else is reading is? Meganie? Karen? Mr. Byrne? Bootyslappa?

11 days to go

I bought the TageBuch, you doubting Thomas of a mother, and I bought a book of stories from the alternative press that we can ready aloud as we're flying across the country with the man in black blaring from the stereo and the wind whipping our hair.

What the hell do I do all day?

Being unemployed at home is weird. I mean, really, really weird. Usually at this point I'm off an running visiting people all over the frickin' place, but this year, not so.
I go to Ladro. It's almost guaranteed that I'll run into someone to gossip with. It's freaky the way we all show up there at the same time almost everyday.
Paul came over to use the internet machine the other day.
I spent that time finally reading the instruction manual for my camera. The first photo was taken using the "underwater" setting. This one is the "indoor" setting. I feel bad because other people who buy this camera and see the underwater setting probably think they can actually take the camera underwater when the reality is you still have to buy this gynourmous case for it to make it water tight. I simply use it for more interesting color saturation.
We had a beer. Moments like this take up much of my time these days. Yesterday I did spend quite a few hours at Maddy's house painting and such while she operaed away. I organized her kitchen, so now she'll be calling me all year long asking me where I put the flour and marshmallows.
We went to Red Mill for dinner and saw this car on fire in the middle of Ballard. It was crazy, and we waited thinking it would explode (the waiting had nothing to do with the fact that I could barely move due to the large amount of beef in my belly. Damn those burgers really are great.) but the fire trucks came roaring and put out the blaze.
To end, yes, Mom, we could buy a little house in Ballard, but I think this one is better. It's just up the hill from me and costs only $2,300,000. That's a mortgage of like, $10,000. We could do that, right? I mean, it has 17 bedrooms. More than enough, I think.

Madeleine bought a little house.....

Maddy and Chris went shopping for a house in Ballard. One of the highest priced neighborhoods in Seattle. They shopped and searched, poking around all sorts of places in and out of their pricerange, but each time they went to bid, were beat out by all the other little buyers running around Ballard. Slowly it dawned on them, they'd need to be sneaky to get a little house! So the next house that came around, a large old craftsman owned by the scarriest pack rats to ever live in Seattle, Maddy and Chris pounced. They offered three weeks free rent to the pack rats to get all their stuff out (with a sneaky clause that if they didn't, Maddy & Chris got to keep some money for "clean up"). 9:00 came and went on moving day, but still the pack rats scuttled about. 10pm, 11pm, 12am.....finally, at 1am the pack rats were kicked out and the locks were changed. Maddy and Chris slowly looked around, and this photo above is just a sample of the huge stacks or crap left scattered as far as the eye could see. They even left the dishwasher full of dishes. So now the work begins....
Maddy became the superhero "CLEAN GIRL" and I became "TRIM GIRL"

This of course was due to my amazing talents at painting trim.
See, behind us you can see the beautiful new hardwoods.....oh, it'll be so pretty when it's done!
And then, next summer, we shall sit upon this porch in rocking chairs laughing about all the months of painting, scraping, cleaning, demolishing, and just plain work it all took to buy a little house in Ballard. But the mint juleps will be lovely.

She'll dance her way through the western states with us.....

In less than two weeks....

we will be here with a nice, crisp bottle of wine and the little opener that lives in my car so that we may flippantly open nice, crisp bottles of wine whenever we may feel like it and stop and drink said wine while laughing at the little rodents that cross our paths and sigh as we look out at the little birds nesting in the trees and smile at the warm sun upon our faces and marvel at how good life is if you just stop with a nice, crisp bottle of wine every now and again.

The week-o-music

Woke up Saturday morning and went to Ladro. It was kinda like walking into that show, "This is your life". It seemed that everyone decided to stop by at the same time.

All the normal suspects were out. Gossiping, getting their first cup of joe. Catching up at the start of a big day. See, it's Dead Can Dance tonight at the Paramount. Very exciting for all the gothic folks here at Ladro. It's got the same feel as the day of Prom; too bad I don't have that photo to throw in here. The scanner is my next big electronic purchase, so soon all those will come out! Just to get into the flavor of the night, though, I submit my prom photo for the show with my date, Paul.
Don't we look fancy? We had to, I mean, Dead Can Dance is kinda like gothic opera. Plus, they haven't been out touring for 10 years. Last time I saw them was at the Vic in Chicago. To this day, it sticks out in my mind as the fanciest concert I ever went to.

The show was beautiful. Better than I could have hoped for. The audience was a bit crazy, though, as we had a noise nazi in front of us who made me giggle every time she "shuushed" someone. I felt like tapping her on the shoulder after the show and offering up an opera season pass. She seemed the type. Speaking of which, Lisa Gerrard, the lead singer, would make an ass kickin' Erde in the Ring. I mean, really. I kept wanting here to pull it out, but she never did....
Drinks after were at the new Bad Juju Lounge. I feel like a card that I didn't know the bar had moved, but there it was, in it's new home smack dab next to Neumos. It wasn't too crowded, and Paul and I met the camel lady, which is always a nice treat for smokers out for a night on the town.
We proceeded to the drinking, vodka soda for me, martinis for Paul. I can't do martinis. The last time I had one was at the Green Mill in Uptown. Holy crap, I was in a sorry state. Those drinks are pure evil.
Josh and Shawn came out later on and joined us because Paul and I were going on about how great the DJ was. Of course, as soon as they showed up he started playing crrraaapp. But, such is life. All in all, was a very entertaining evening. Much fun was had, and then I slept away half my Sunday.

What does a stage manager do when unemployed? Why, make enormous dumplings, of course!

This is Bill and Drea. Bill was my first boss at Record Town in the lovely Golf Mill Mall. I then got Drea a job there. Here we are, 14 years later. Bill up and left his job at Borders in LA due to excessive corporate scarriness. He's now contemplating a move to Seattle; I mean, who wouldn't really? Seattle is the town that all locals try hard to keep the "it rains all the time" myth strong to stop all us crazy folk from moving too. I think they've almost given up the ghost as home prices now match Chicago for idiocy.

In other news, I made Austrian Plum Dumplings yesterday. They were huge, gorgeous, and tasty as hell. I have such distinct memories of eating them as a kid in Suzanne's kitchen, I just had to try to make them myself. It took alllllll day. But they really were delightful. I think unemployment is good for me. Keeps my domestic skills strong. Now I'm off for a long walk around the city.

2008, Mrs. Kiss comes to stay

Hallo, Hanna? Where are you? I don't get it....ohhhhhh.....it's another three years away. Ok, I get it...well, at least it's not five years.

The somewhat strange antics of unemployed girl and her friends

Started out yesterday trying to get all life things reorganized. Balanced the checking account, paid some bills, washed my windows (which is another highly interesting tale of cleaning original 1933 windows in the third floor from outside) and then Malissa came over after work to kvetch over coffee. We decided to continue the gossip over drinks at the Mirabeau later that evening.
Turns out she dragged a bunch of friends from Ladro over to wish me well coming home.
This is Fred. My one and only rockabilly friend in town. He'll be my date when we go to the shake the shack rockabilly fest at the tractor in a few weeks. We're going to get all gussied up and make Dez proud. Lord know, many photos will be taken.

Shawn came out a bit later on and joined the festivities. He had to watch football during the day and I have a somewhat strict no strange americana sports on my boob tube clause. It's a good thing he has a great new TV at his place, or I would have had to leave the house.

Paul came out after trying to break into his school today. He'll be my date later on this week to go see Dead Can Dance. We will also get all gussied, but for this show I do believe my old goth side has to come out. That'll be a kick in the pants.
Moving on to the next bar, Noc Noc, while Malissa coordinates with others, we speed down the Seattle streets with Mr. Shawn at the wheel due to my copious vodka and soda consumption.

Noc Noc had some strange party going on, so we headed over to Chapel where Dan was DJing. It's a bar in what used to be a funeral home. They took down all the body lockers and such and made the bar out of them. A very cool vibe, and not too crowded on Sunday nights.
This was supposed to be like Paul's angels, but somehow, half of us got cut off. Stupid beer messing with the camera man.

Malis and I are trying to show big boobies to the camera, that part didn't work, but I do enjoy Paul's strange look in the background.
The boys tried to match us, but I strongly feel they were not nearly as successful. All in all, a very entertaining evening. Music was good, drinks were strong, and I was surrounded by my lovely Seattle Posse. Thank god I found them.