Well, well, well, forget fall: It's almost October!! The most wonderful of all wonderful times of the year! Our first storm has been survived. A few outings were outed. And I'm feeling ready for a little cider and pumpkin spice hereabouts. Bring me the cozy chair and my book!
But first, a little Once Upon a Time (last week, mostly - and sorry, no, the outfits aren't as fabulous as the show, and there's almost no Captain Hook sashaying about, but bear with me anyways) by the (imaginary) fireside.
Last weekend felt pretty darned autumnal. Took advantage of the change in weather to enjoy a far more atmospheric outing to Carkeek Park
Funny story (that's your cue to smile faintly and feign a laugh at the end):
In 2009, Andrew and I met up at Carkeek on one of our first dates - the first date that wasn't meeting up at a blues venue, and when I was at blues dancing, I was on a date with everyone there, so arguably a true milestone.
For reasons I can't remotely justify in hindsight, I showed up in an off-the-shoulder something, a pretty skirt and slip-on plastic Barbie shoes; I think I was thinking we were going to be sitting on a park bench staring at the ocean - or possible parking by a creek to look for fishies. Instead, Andrew led me on a full-scale improvised hike. (Surprising nobody who knows either of us, but remember we basically didn't know each other at that point)
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| Ok, ok, this was after a 10 mile run, but definitely how it felt! |
Attempting to reconstruct it now, it appears that it was a relatively "easy" 2–3-mile jaunt down Piper's Creek trail (probably?). But again: Barbie shoes. I really remember there being some difficult terrain and feeling myself slipping around in my sweaty ass plastic shoes (did I mention I didn't have socks either?) until my feet were chapped up sweaty blisters. All the while trying very hard to be game and not cry too much, because who wants to come off as a pampered princess on what was apparently a first hiking date? I think I can still feel the phantom pains of those blisters. I did eventually ask if we could take a sit and maybe just go somewhere with lots of seating. But it took a while.
Aaaaanyways. Now I just wear sneakers to everything and skeptically ask "is this gonna be a hike???" before leaving the house. Seems to work.
I had thought I'd gone back afterwards, but now I think it was actually Discovery Park I went to, and I've never been back to Carkeek. It is on the entirely wrong side of Seattle and maybe my feet are holding too much trauma, it seems.
What I didn't know is that Carkeek also has a beach and a cool wetland area. Not that this is remotely unique in Seattle. Most beaches are situated around some level of rocky shore. But this beach was pretty damned lit.
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| Photo credit to Allan - the battery on my camera was dead on this trip, so I just took a few with my cell |
It was on the other side of some railroad tracks, and what really stood out was its popularity with the local crow and duck populations! There were maybe a hundred or more crows mucking about between the area where the creek hits the ocean.
The crows were swarming about in full frolic -- flying up high into the sky, then dive bombing each other and falling to the ground in spirals. Madness as only the corvid family can bring. We spent a chilly and fulsome morning there, before heading towards the wetlands.
Most of the bridge path was covered with water, as there had been a bit of a storm earlier. Or was it the beavers? There were beavers there as well. Well, there were dams; I'm assuming the beavers were inside their dams, as they prefer to come out at night. It was, all said pretty neat.
Of course, on Sunday Andrew went out to climb something tall with somebody who knows how to buy appropriate footwear, Allan zombified herself in front of as many screens as humanly possible, and I stayed home and read a book about US Vice Presidents because I am -- in fact -- super-duper FUN(!!!!!!!!!!!!*&#@!) and it's quite a shame for all the boys that I'm no longer out there on the market dating up a storm with my plastic shoes and rich lore of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (and more and more and more, just keep filling Mill!!) Did I mention my sterling sense of humor?
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This week was the first week of full gear homeschool schedule! Every art class, every regular appointment, and every outing. Including two days of early waking up. Including a bonus day of HVAC service, which wasn't too bad but felt a bit out of sorts because we had to hide out upstairs to accommodate.
We...
... survived?
It was touch and go there for a while, but all's well. And all the math that was assigned was, in fact, mathed.
Bravo, us! Bravo!
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It ended with a small cozy bit of panic.
On Friday, we had our very first autumn storm! It really got going for a little while there. I love that rat-a-ta-tat of rain on the roof and windows. Had to make Allan come out walking with me until I looked like I'd just stepped into the shower with my clothes on!
This was a favorite past-time of mine in my youth: I would go out in a big rainstorm and walk around until I was utterly drenched, and then I would walk right into the lake in all my clothes and just chill there in the rain. It felt amazing to take that warm shower afterwards!
The retaining pond by the house, however, is super gross; so, I did not, in fact, attempt to dunk myself there. We just got wet and came back inside. It was still fun.
Shortly after, the weather cleared. The day became sunny and beautiful. And it was at this very moment that the power went out!!!
The first power outage of the season is always a good time for remembering all the stuff you meant to do to prepare for power outages that you forgot. I did locate all the lanterns but realized that the big lantern was out of batteries and we didn't have any replacements. I do have roughly an ocean's worth of bottled water. But the radio has gone missing. We have zero phone battery backups. And everything in our house is electric, so meals are gonna start being bars really fast. On the bright side, I always have a few Spotify playlists downloaded on my computer, so we weren't just sitting in total silence. Phew!
I had just started dinner when it happened. The quinoa just reached boiling, and I was about to bring the stove down to a simmer for fifteen-minutes. Turns out that the burner and pot remained warm enough to cook the quinoa in about twenty-five minutes, which was cool. But by then we'd already ordered pizza. So quinoa leftovers for every meal for a few days!!
They never did say what happened. The power outage went from "under investigation" to suddenly fixed! I'm guessing it was a branch that took a while to fall or a driver running into a pole. It did impact about 5,000 people, so happy it was only an hour or two. And I'm happy that my quinoa survived to make it into the fridge.
Bereft of her screens, Allan consented to play a board game at the table. I had the Menorah out just in case it carried on past sunset, but we didn't end up needing it. The lights finally did come back on their own.
We are not equipped for the upcoming Apocalypse as it turns out. Ah well. We do have spotify and some board games, so as long as it's a really short Apocalypse, we'll be ok.
Today we are being fairly chill. Fairly. Sorta.
It's gardening day, which actually went through like a breeze. A few of the more dastardly weeds are poking back up, so they had to go. A few things needed pruning. And Allan went ham on some willowherb. And. voila! Good to go. This time of year is a lot less work than almost every other time of year, including "late winter" which is pretty much growing season around here.
I imagine that's really all the weekend that's required here. SO, I guess it's on to reading about the founding of the FDA (man, if you think food's adulterated now, maybe try some "pepper" that's actually dust from the floor; perhaps some "strawberry jam" that involves red coloring, grass seeds and corn syrup; perhaps a little milk with formaldehyde in it to cover up the spoiled taste? Honestly, Red Dye 40 is sounding tastier by the minute!)
Happy storms and warm bevies to all!
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