The Odyssey

Seattle looked like this on the day we left for Xmas with my family in Chicago. Our governor literally was about to declare a state of emergency when we were leaving for the airport.


It's 5am on Christmas eve. It's been snowing for a week and it continues to snow. Our cars had not been driven in 6 days. We live in a hilly city where snow is paralyzing. We have 2 small cars without 4 wheel drive. A cab to the airport was the best option because they are equipped with chains for their tires in snowy weather. And then the nightmare began....

There were no cabs available - the cab company said to call back in a few hours. We couldn't think of a person we would ask to drive us in this horrible weather or at this hour. My husband was all over the internet for weather reports, flight times - called the airline, etc. It seemed like our flight was delayed but still going, it was just a matter of how to get there. So we headed out to catch a bus in a 30 degree snowstorm. It would take 2 buses but both were allegedly running. I asked P to just bear with me and try. I just had to know that I tried as hard as I could to get home. Out we went, dragging our suitcases behind us up 4 blocks of hill to the bus. There we stood in the pre-dawn snow. 30 minutes later, a bus drove right past us while we waved and screamed at the bus stop. I had my first breakdown - knowing that we were barely going to get there and now the chances of making it were slimmer. We were freezing, wet and miserable.

As dawn broke, more people came to the stop. They came and went as no buses arrived. About an hour after we'd gotten there, an SUV drove past with hand written signs in the windows - "Downtown $5". We ran up to her and she said she was full but would come back. We figured if we at least could get downtown we could catch the airport bus or find a cab at a hotel. We contemplated calling it quits. I cried. P comforted. We talked about what our options were. I didn't know what to do and thought somehow perseverance would win. It was Christmas Eve, wasn't it? P went to the coffee shop once it opened and got me some tea. At 7am the woman in the real estate office next to the bus stop let us stand inside to keep warm. She also told us the buses were running every 2 hours. (thanks, bus schedule website....) I couldn't feel my feet, but at least we had hope that a bus would be here in about 20 minutes.

Then the miracle happened. We'd been waiting for just shy of 2 hours. The woman in the SUV came back for us. She said we looked so cold she had to come back. Turns out she drives offroad for sport and knows how to handle her truck on tough terrain. Figured she could make a buck out of the weather. She absolutely peeled down narrow streets full of snow with 2 cars parked on either side. We didn't slide once. As soon as we were in the car, I knew P would convince her to take us all the way to the airport - which he did. We ended up paying her about 1 1/2 times the cab fare, but that was just fine with us. Our SUV saviour is a single mom and said the extra cash would help her with Christmas for her daughter. We hoped she would get people to take back to Seattle once we got to the airport and made her a new sign for the window. A good deal on all sides.

We got to the airport. I held my breath as we looked at the flight departure board. We had 50 minutes left. Our flight had been an hour and 45 minutes delayed. P looked at me and said "You know we are in Christmas miracle territory, don't you?" We would not have made it if the SUV hadn't taken us all the way there. We checked in, got thru security in no time and as we approached the gate it was boarding.

That woman in the SUV who's name we didn't get. She was my Christmas present.

Snow Days

Who likes snow? Kobe likes snow!! He's built for this weather, with his waterproof fur coat. Oh, I just look at that photo and smile.He was absolutely bounding thru the snow today on our walk.












Here's our 'hood these days. Please observe center photo with people on skis. Skis, sleds, tobaggans, innertubes. Our local hills have become slopes for entertainment. Seems like about a foot deep of snow in our yard. The huz' hasn't been to his office since last Wed. I got into work on Thurs and Fri because of my reliable bus - complete with chained tires for the weather. This week I'm on vacation and just slightly happy to not have the internal debate about trying to go anywhere. Until Wed. when we go to Chicago....hoping the airport is back to normal by then.


Today's big event was walking 25 blocks (each way! in snow! too bad it wasn't uphill both ways...) with the dog to do errands, including schlepping a bag of groceries back home. I've been glued to DVD's and cleaning the house otherwise.

The blessing of this snow is that it stops my anal retentive "how can we push the kitchen to be done soonest" drive. I have been really stressed about these last few weeks. First, I truly hate leaving a not quite done remodel to our dear friend who will be house/dog sitting when we are out of town for Xmas. Second, my end of the rope-edness and wanting this stupid thing DONE. As we get to the finish line, I find my type A personality blowing up. Get it done!!! How soon can we be done?? What else can I check off the list?! We must be efficient - who can I call, what can I schedule??

And now - where am I and what am I doing in this handbasket? (my favorite Far Side cartoon ever...) Weather has delayed the guys from coming to work on the house for days. We wonder if our countertops will be installed tomorrow. Or our oven delivered. Or our remaining flooring delivered to the store where I can't possibly drive to pick it up. I did get all "I'm from the midwest.....I can drive in this!" Until I pulled my car out of the driveway and began sliding uncontrollably towards our neighbor's Volvo....and then I decided maybe it wasn't that important to drive...and pulled sheepishly back into the driveway. The very few snow plows in Seattle only hit the main roads. Our street in a hilly neighborhood where many streets are closed will never see a snow plow. I have to let go and just let it be. Kitchen not finished, not finishing, delayed even more. There is nothing I can do. My Type A screams and stomps in the background, yet there is truly nothing I can do about this snow or the road conditions. Being safe is more important than being one day more done. That in itself is an odd relief. I have to just let it be and let go. For now.

Almost there.....

I read in a remodeling blog recently that approximately 3/4 through the project is when the homeowner morale is lowest. The last few weeks have been my dark place. I think perhaps banshee is a good word to describe me around the house....I can not wash one more dish in the tub. The dust is making me insane. We are literally 2 weeks from done and I still can't believe this will ever be finished. It seems to eek along at a snails pace. We had snow this week, another delay. Our appliances were delivered but not the oven. The snow comes down outside tonight and I wonder if any work will happen on Monday. I had a dream (nightmare) last night in which they told us we would be still working on this thru February.

We painted last weekend. Here we are getting ready to paint. The color I picked for the kitchen accent walls took 4 coats. I was painting my kitchen on Monday night at 10:30 pm. That was fun. I do love the color, though. It is exactly right. Photo taken at night - color looks better in daylight. It is LIME. In a good way. To the right of the lime will be an accent wall of wallpaper once I get to that in the coming weeks.
This is the upstairs with paint. To the right of the window is our new bathroom - unfinished for the time being. We didn't intend to finish it immediately, and will do so gradually over the coming months. We're actually getting all crazy and trying to do the remaining work ourselves - tile, flooring. Nice to not have chaos outside the bedroom anymore...

Snow continues to Fall tonight in Seattle. They said 4-8 inches in the metro area.. we walked to a local restaurant for dinner. Peter has been unable to get to work for 2 days. I tried to take my car out today to run errands. As soon as I was in our street sliding on ice towards our neighbor's car I decided nothing was urgent. We remain snowbound for the rest of the weekend...

Holiday Spirit

I've not had a lot of holiday spirit this year.....the above photo of my dining room might tell you why. People talk about their holiday decorations and my only comment to the conversation is: There is no point in decorating my house this year. See above photo. Do you want to decorate that? Put lights in a window that has boxes stacked in front of it? Half of my driveway is piled with construction debris. Every room has a layer of drywall dust on it. Let's accent that! A girlfriend came over a few weeks ago and just said "Wow. Your house looks like Beiruit."(and yes it does)
Just a few days later, this is outside of my bedroom. It begins to look like a hallway. The door at the end is our new bathroom.
And this. This is the piece de la resistance. I came home one night last week and this was what had transpired. The most beautiful thing I had seen in so long. My eyes literally filled with tears of happiness. Our bamboo cabinets were beginning to be installed. They are stunning. I have a hierarchy of spending in the home. Things you use all the time you spend dough on. Sofa - spend some cash. A bar stool that you sit on for 20 minutes at a crack - inexpensive. I have Target lamps that are cheap yet lovely. Cabinets - these things are the foundation of your kitchen. Good ones will last forever. Crappy ones will not. (was at a friends house a few weeks ago and slid a perhaps 7 year old cabinet drawer to have it semi collapse in my hand....) The slide on ours is like buttah. I have lived in places with crappy kitchens where you struggle to shut a drawer. Not these. They have a "soft close" so about 3 inches from shutting they will shut themselves silently. No slamming will ever happen. As I stood in the kitchen oohing and ahhing the husband yelled - "slide a drawer!!" Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about. And they just look soooooooo pretty. (sustainable, too!)

Oh, but look how I go on and on about my cabinets.....

Although my Christmas spirit is low, a few things happened to me lately that make me feel the spirit of sharing and kindness. I was walking the dog and admiring neighbors gardens a few weeks back. My garden is in serious need of help. I tore ours out last year (hideous. weedy.) and it's just a bit barren now. My dog walk thought was "I wish someone would share some of their plants with me." I turned the corner and literally there was a pile of uprooted plants with a sign "FREE PLANTS". Needless to say I got my car, drove back and took them home. They look so lovely filling in the empty spaces. I plan to leave a thank you note on the doorway of the house that gave them to me. It honestly was just what I needed that day.

The second thing is knowing we have such good friends. Thanksgiving weekend, the huz took a sudden trip back home to be with his family. His mother is not well, she suffered kidney failure a few weeks ago, had surgery, was in the hospital for a week and was put on dialysis. It was important that he be with her - of course. We thought it was the exact time we needed to paint the kitchen and I would be left alone to primer and paint in 2 days. I hate asking for help. It's just how I am. I sheepishly emailed friends for help and had so much help offered in return. It felt so good to know our community was there for us. At the last minute the schedule changed and we couldn't paint that weekend. I was touched by all the support regardless. My mother in law is doing okay, slowly but surely. She had her family there to comfort her, which is more important than anything you can put a price on.

In our last weeks of remodeling, and the negative budget left to cover it, we look for anything we can do ourselves. (there will be action shots of us wallpapering in a few weeks....) Peter has a good friend who is not only a neighbor but an electrical engineer. He can install an oven in his sleep. They have kids, they are busy - we understand they have more obligations than we do. Although, we do have neighborly exchanges. I went to consult on a paint color recently, Peter helped install a banister. We do these things. We're friends. We have wine. They're great people. We told him and his wife that in exchange for appliance installation help we'd pay for a babysitter for an entire day for them. She can go do whatever her heart desires while the boys install a range hood, oven, dishwasher.....They said fine - saving us a ton on paying someone for it. Another good friend to the rescue.

There might be a Santa Claus after all.

How exciting is drywall??

The answer is : VERY. The above photo shows our denim walls. Yes, the entire addition has been insulated with denim. Or, to be more specific, reclaimed denim scraps that have been made into insulation that is as effective as the hideous fiberglass insulation that is standardly used. I do like the karmic justice of having used fabric as my lifeblood and using the scraps in my home.

This photo above shows our DRYWALL in the kitchen. ( and that little window will have a mountain view!) I have never been more excited by drywall. It's the beginning of the end once they are drywalling. Oh. My. God. It looks like a room again.

We really only have a few more weeks left. This started end of August. It was end of Oct. when our kitchen became non-functional. It is now end Nov. I vacillate between "holy shit how can I take this another moment" and finding it normal to stack dirty dishes in the bathroom. It's the end of the project. The cost swelled beyond all expectations, even for 2 people who have remodeled before and were prepared to go over budget. ( note to self, when a contractor comes in at 50% of the other bids, you should try to figure out why before you hire them....like maybe they bid only the cost of installing one light in a kitchen that started out with 4 lights and is having more space added to it...nope, you end up with 11 lights, and you will pay for 11 lights. so let's just multiply that part of the bid by 11...) I have washed dishes in the tub for, oh, 4 weeks. I think I may weep when the new dishwasher is installed in about 3 weeks. That's 7 weeks of dishes in the tub, people.

It will be beautiful. We'll forget the inconvenience, the dust, the endless check writing. It's what I tell myself every day....

Fun with the 80's

This is how I went to work one day this week. In my vintage U2 tee shirt from
The Unforgettable Fire tour in 1984, a concert I attended. (of course, paired with a Stella McCartney blazer to spruce it up a bit...) Vintage rock tees are all the rage - I seriously could sell this for a few hundred bucks on Ebay. But it is far too precious. I had to point out my tee's origin to people. It's worn so thin, threadbare and perfectly soft. I fear ruining it. Many were impressed in the hallowed halls of fashion where I spend my weekdays. Like my 23 year old coworker who realized she WAS NOT BORN when I was at that concert.....

This concert is near the top of my top 10 concerts ever list. I have always kept this tee to commemorate it. U2 was not "U2" yet. They were still playing in small venues. The Aragon Ballroom on Lawrence Ave - in the heart of Al Capone's old Chicago, where my Aunt attended many a Swing dance back in the 1940's - was boarded up when last I drove past it a few years back. On this night in 1984, we were in high school. Out on our own in downtown Chicago seeing a show. My best girlfriends in tow - screaming till we were hoarse. Those best girlfriends remain in my life to this day and forever. Even if one of them notoriously can not get the words right..."Wash my arms in the name of love?" I don't think so...

I can't recall if we got beer or if we were simply covered in it from the cool-whip type containers it was served out of and subsequently sloshed to the floor from. Aside from a completely energized show by an up and coming, soon to be legendary band, the night held it's own magic. U2 always ends with their song "40". (I didn't know this then, but every time I have seen them since they end the same way....) At the end, Bono sings the chorus and the audience sings along. The guitar stops, walks off, bass stops, walks off, finally the drums stop and it's just the Rock God that is Bono on stage keeping the crowd singing. Finally he walks off. Every othrt time I have witnessed this, the crowd sings for a few minutes and trails off. Not so this cold December night in 1984. The crowd didn't stop singing. We sang the refrain walking down the steps and out into the night. It echoed thru the streets of Chicago as we left. I have never since seen anything like it.
Oh, and the house....it just drags on....This is the view from my bedroom door into the soon to be bathroom framed in back.....We're in plumbing stage now - hopefully will have inspection this week. The electrical took 2 full weeks because we had to replace our entire electrical panel. Surprise!! Once we have passed our plumbing inspection they can drywall and I believe things will start to go fast.....or so I hope......It's about week 4 of no kitchen at all. I'm ready for it to be over.

Yes. We. Did.

It's hard for me to focus on much more than the amazing result of Election Day. Who'd a thunk it a year ago? The progress this country seems to have made is heartening. The only sad note for me is the anti-gay initiatives that passed in several states. Denying gay marriage in CA, in Louisiana making adoption illegal for gay people. Really? There is still progress to be made on tolerance. It saddens me that my numerous gay friends who I love dearly are being discriminated against. Hopefully one step forward in equality with Obama as president will tip the scales for tolerance in other ways. Hopefully.

That's all for my political statement tonight. We were up so late last night in celebratory mode
that I'm really exhausted today. My friend Ricki is in town for work, she came over to watch the election returns with us. We ended up playing rock band and laughing our asses off until midnight.

We have windows!! We have windows!!! See photos above. The skinny windows on the top photo have a view to the mountains - obscured by a tree. Peter is threatening to cut the tree drastically in order to get a peekaboo view going. Not sure we really need to, since the front wall of the kitchen is now open to see the bigger view thru the dining room window. We're getting a little mountain view whore-ish over here...Bummer note. Our lead guy on the remodel was in a motorcycle accident on Friday. He's okay but spent some time in the hospital and has been off work. It seems to have slowed us down a bit. I'm leaning towards early December as a finish date for this monster.... we shall see. It's getting quite chilly in here these days with November weather and no insulation in a chunk of the space.

Progress report

This is the fun part when I can start to do before and after shots. Above is before we moved in. The house has been painted since, the fence continues to fall apart. (It's on the list. Just not this year's list.) Now feast your eyes on the new kitchen back porch. They have just started siding, the railing for the deck is only partially finished. It will wrap around the bench that you can see the bench on the right side of the railing - cuz where better to sit down and remove my gardening boots? The electrical is done. The plumbing is started. We have a hole in the kitchen ceiling while they are doing the bathroom plumbing. Hence some fun with peering from the upstairs into the kitchen this morning. It's week 2 of no sink, washing dishes in the tub, and subsisting on microwave dinners and take out. We probably have 3-4 more weeks to go. I mean, come on, we have to amuse ourselves to keep the annoyance at bay.

Kobe, me, and my foot!

Now I'm off to Home Depot.....

Now the REAL fun begins....

This.

Leads to this.

We've gotten to the super fun part. There is nothing in our kitchen but the fridge. Luckily, can stay until it gets traded out for the new one at the end. We didn't know they were taking the dishwasher and sink out this week. We had a dishwasher full of dishes. What's a girl to do but fill the tub? EEEssh. That was not fun. I have purchased compostable paper plates and bowls so we can simply stop using dishes for a while.

Allegedly we have a month to go. It's the height of the annoyance. We're eating microwave food. The house is simply covered in dust. The dog is covered in dust. We're keeping doors shut where we can, but I swear the dust is traveling through the heat vents and spewing everywhere. I swear the dust is more of a problem than the lack of a sink!

Funny thing about the economy....we put whatever we could on Craig's List. I hate throwing anything away that can be used. We're selling it all totally cheap. It's all just functional basic kitchen appliances and cabinets......And we have NO takers. Usually you put things on Craig's List and they get snapped up quickly. It's certainly the housing market - fewer people moving = fewer people fixing up to sell or fixing up what they bought. Please, someone - take the stove!!! The economic crisis hits Craig's List....I swear.

Walls come tumblin' down.....

This week they framed the bay window in the kitchen. Our cooktop will sit in it eventually, where the cutout is. The blocks of grayish substance sitting on the ledge in the window area
are insulation. We are using a cool eco friendly insulation that is made from recycled cotton denim scraps! In person it really looks like denim. (bluer than the photo shows) It's as effective as standard insulation, which is made with awful toxic substances that you don't want to inhale.
Yesterday the wall between the kitchen and dining room came down! This was this morning before I went to work. When I came home, a new beam was in at the top and it the vertical beams were gone. YAY! The flow of space with this change is incredibly different. I seriously got teary eyed walking around and seeing thru from the kitchen to the front door, from the door into the kitchen. I walked around for 10 minutes just seeing things in a new way. It's fantastic. Peter is a bit freaked out about our over-budget-ness at the moment. Still a few weeks left and we've hit the budget ceiling. ( here comes the 20% over they tell you to plan for) I, however, feel today that it is worth every penny as I grin from ear to ear walking through the mess and envisioning the perfection it shall be. This is looking into the dining room - plastic wall to help keep the dust down. I got news for ya. EV-erything is dusty......it's pervasive now......the whole main floor is just a mess. There's Kobe....he's dusty too!



We got all crazy last night and went to a concert on a Tuesday night!?!? We haven't been to a show in a while and a super fun English band "The Kooks" were in town. The hubby took this photo of me with my coworkers. It was a super fun night! We were tiiiiiiiiiiired this morning...

Major progress....and a new obsession.

We've had huge progress. The photo above shows the upstairs bath framed! The electrician has been here, things are moving. Of course, we also had a few huge surprises. Like today, we learned we have to replace our entire electrical panel. Truthfully we anticipated the possibility.

What we DIDN'T anticipate is that there is no way to put a "normal" toilet in the upstairs bath. Something about the necessary drain on the opposite side of the house. Why this came out this far into it...I don't know...The only option is digging a trench that would be horribly costly. So today was spent with some investigation into "macerating" toilets. I really don't want to go into it, it's probably what you think....Although, my investigation shows some ones that seem okay. We're not finishing the bathroom for a while, but we need to have a clue about it while they do the electrical and plumbing.



I posted the start of my silhouette project the other week. Here it is completed! I really like how it came out.


Let's be clear. I am not a video game fan. Just not interested. However, my husband finds himself out to all hours on the occasional weekend night playing "Rock Band"with friends. I recently caved and said we should get Rock Band...which is actually funny because Peter already had bought it and had it hidden in a closet. I wish I had his sheepish admission of that on video tape....Let me tell you, it is about the most fun I have had in ages! We have been playing for a few hours a night and it's just a riot. You have actual (toy) instruments that you play on, you're playing along with real songs by real artists you know, and you get rated, the crowd loves or hates you based on your performance, you get fans, you go on tour. It's just super fun!! !

Igloo.....

The finest plastic available is all that is keeping the elements out. This is RIGHT outside our bedroom, where the bathroom is being added. ( note to JK - so ends the window seat. We never used it. You mused that no one ever uses them when you saw it.) It was 53 degrees today. Overnight it was down to 39. We have the heat off, because we'd only be heating the great outdoors, so why bother. Needless to say, the house is freaking freezing!! The exterior wall is supposed to be up tomorrow, so bye bye plastic - hello heat.

Here's what the kitchen looks like today. Not airtight in here, either....and with a fine layer of dust on everything on our entire first floor.

Really keeping this short as I am coooooold and wish to get under a blanket.

Phone conversation with the husband today:
him - the contractor is framing the bathroom. turns out we only have room for a tub under 5 feet long. 5 feet is standard and the only ones I can find that are smaller are high end super expensive - we are not spending $2500 for a tub.....we may need to reconfigure the room if we can't sort this out.
me - ( getting on google) okay, okay, there has to be something out there
him - ( also clearly googling, now excited) oh - cool - motor homes have small tubs. we can totally get a motor home tub, they're really cheap too!!
me - what??? we are not getting a motor home tub. i hate flimsy plastic tubs, no way....i can find something better than that.
him - you will be the death of me.
me - ( thanks to the google) American Standard makes a 4 1/2 foot tub for a couple hundred bucks. done. I can not believe you were about to bring a motor home bathtub into my house....

Who makes all home goods decisions around here? And for good reason. Now I gotta get under a blanket. My fingers are numb.

It's go time!!

For any other Seinfeld fans out there - it's GO TIME! ( Man-del-baum!) If you don't get this...never mind. The link below will clear up this mystery if you care. I have been living with perhaps the most die hard Seinfeld fan ever for too long.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFSOnumgZA


This week they started framing! Turns out the lead guy had been sick all week, they didn't want to start with someone else or let the less experienced guys work without him....considering that they removed a big chunk of our house today, I'm glad the lead guy is on the job.....

Oh, yeah....this is the kitchen I was waiting for.....we'll be on microwave dinners, cereal and dinner out now for a bit.....In the center of the photo is our propped up sink on 2 x 4s as an interim fix. I just want to delay rinsing dishes in our bathroom for as long as possible.Thankfully, it's 70 degrees out, as you can see the light shining thru there. This weekend it's going back to 60's and rainy. (There is plastic over those open spaces, don't worry.) I just hope these guys can get a lot done this week. I went to Ikea last weekend and bought oh, 40 drawer pulls. All materials are now purchased - that is a happy place for me.

And now on to something more fun. I finished my silhouette project. The CP silhouette is not done, so that is a white lie. The paper color I wanted was not available so I have to finish this coming week. I did finish the husband and the dog. Here they are for your perusal. Nice, huh??
I backed them with wallpaper samples I'd ordered. Am in a complete wallpaper fetish phase...must wallpaper everything! Must order samples from England! ( the Brits make the best wallpaper for certain...)

Mark your calendars.....

Winter began in Seattle today. Mark it down. Sept 20th. 63 degrees and rainy.
This is what I will look at for the next 7 months. Gray sky. You can't see the rain,
but believe me, it was raining as I took this photo..... Okay, so at least I don't have to water my garden anymore and mother nature will handle that for me....

Not to be so glum.

Nothing is happening on the remodel. We are told framing starts on Monday and from then on it will be fast progress. We have our foundation ready to go. I really don't care so much since we are not really disrupted right now. I pack a little in the kitchen every weekend just to be on top of it. In my years of living and moving the one thing I know is kitchens are a beeee-yatch to pack. It is the room in the house that takes more boxes and more time than any other. In essence, our kitchen needs to be fully packed up by the time we have new cabinets put in, so I'm trying to chip away at it. Really, I do adore the fact that we own 12 beautiful Champagne glasses given as wedding gifts....but those things can get packed up for the next few months! and so it goes with the panini press, cookbooks, vases, the juicer, etc, etc, etc.

Last weekend I had a visit from my friend Col. She's been working on a convention in Seattle for the past few years so it's been great to see her a few times a year. The convention is finally here so she was in town to facilitate. Last trip on the work dime......sad, but she swears she will come back on her own dime soon enough. We had a great night and perhaps a bit too much wine, but that is what happens when one is in the company of an Irishwoman.....Yummy dinner at Tavolata, supreme Italian food in Seattle.

Rainy days = time inside to work on projects!!! I have had a wild hair to do silhouette portraits of my family and have been working on them today. I must admit - I am thrilled with the result. Yes, if you know me you know modesty is not my strong suit, whatever....Intending to play with this idea more, perhaps do paintings instead of the construction paper cut outs you see here, although I do like the cut outs! ( true silhouette making - old school ) Can't decide to frame them individually or matted together? Sorting it out, but really inspired by the initial work. Do they not look just like us???? I made my hair crazy on purpose...that wild curl in the back is intentional.....

Seattle September Sun

We've been enjoying the remains of summer in Seattle this week. Perfect mid 70's sunny days with just a hint of crispness in the air to remind that sweater weather is just around the corner.

Lovely sunsets every night - this tonight from my bedroom. This big guy had a bit of a scare this weekend. On a walk a seemingly like any other, a dog approached while it's owner gave us the okay. Didn't take long after standard dog introductions for the other dog - bigger than my 85 lb Lab - to jump on him with bared teeth and proceed to bite a hole in his ear. ( big dog yelp - what a sad sound!) He seemed okay after we got them apart, aside from the blood on his ear. He rejoined me in our walk as if nothing had happened. I, on the other hand, was shaking with adrenaline and had to sit down to catch my breath.
Last night on our evening walk however, at the approach of every dog the hair on his back stood up. That is completely non standard for Kobe. We're going to have to get him to trust other dogs again....poor guy.



Here's the latest shot of construction. Not a lot seems to be happening. Allegedly they will pour the rest of the foundation tomorrow.I'm really spending too much my time annoyed at this woman. Are people in America really that stupid or should I say uninformed? It's just so unfortunate that the race is about non-issues. Starting to get ugly. The Republicans can't focus on what the policies are because if anyone is to be reminded of who's in power over the mess that is America they would sink. If anyone paid attention to actual record and not her lies, she'd not be nearly as popular. Stop saying you're a reformer, woman!!! You are a freaking game playing politician with a really messy record that is inconsistent with all the things you say you stand for. She is more conservative than Bush, and more scary born again Christian. She and her husband actually own the rights to the business name "Rouge Cou" which is French for redneck. Haven't we had enough of the (fake) redneck in the White House???? Average people should not hold the 2nd highest office in the land. Nothing about this woman is above average, aside from her beauty queen poise. Don't you want someone smarter than you, better than you, making the decisions that affect us all??? I know I do.