Have I mentioned it's cold here in Tacoma? Well, this morning I took my pair of poodles on a walk. That turned into a run. From that I learned apparently I am in running shape. Me and the poodles ran a long long ways this morning. I guess it has something to do with being at sea level. Ultra-fresh air and all those hikes I do back in Fort Worth in extreme temperatures.
This jogging thing also caused it to occur to me why people here are so thin as opposed to so noticeably fatter in Texas. Here your poor body burns a lot of calories just to stay warm. And because it's so cold it's more inviting to go outside and get physical than in hot Texas. And there are very few donut stands here. And frying food is frowned upon. For the most part. The only vegetable that gets fried here is a potato.
So, this afternoon I decided to see if going jogging without the poodles could possibly warm me up. I took my camera along because I wanted to take a photo of the above house with the "Impeach Bush" and "No Iraq War" signs. A few of the neighbors of this house had similar signs. And flew the flag. Some Texans may think the west coast is full of left-wing pinko tree hugging hippie sorts. It is true that Tacoma and the west side of the mountains, in Washington, is a very liberal zone. A lot of free-spirited, well-educated, free-thinkers up here. Lesser so in Texas.
Above we see another anti-Bush sign. In 2004 I was up here to do a job for the former deputy mayor. The day he met me he took me back, in his Prius, to my apartment. When we got there he pulled in behind a pick-up. With Texas plates. He half-jokingly, I think, said "I need to get on the phone to the sheriff to have this guy run out of town." By the time he fired me I was to realize he did not have a very highly evolved sense of humor. This run the guy out of town remark was an early example of that.
See? This is an example of how very patriotic, yet rebellious, people are here. And how well everyone landscapes their yards.
One of the things I like about Tacoma, and Washington in general, is you don't have to go to a park for a park-like experience. Like these photos show, I left my sister's house to go on a jog. The landscaping surrounding the sidewalks makes it very pleasant, visually, and all the flowers smell good. Texans, take note. You could do this too if you got off your lazy big butts once in awhile. Okay, that was uncalled for. But it was what I was thinking and I'm in too big a hurry right now to self-censor. I've got a steak on the grill.
Above we are looking at a brick-covered street, out towards Commencement Bay. Commencement Bay is part of Puget Sound. Puget Sound is part of the Pacific Ocean. Tacoma has all sorts of water features, courtesy of Mother Nature. Fort Worth may some day have a small water feature, courtesy eminent domain abuse, if their Trinity River Vision ever gets clear and results in a little lake and some canals. Regarding the above brick-covered street. There are a lot of these in Washington. Fort Worth has a brick-covered street that's sort of bumpy, called Camp Bowie Boulevard. Long ago I asked a Fort Worth native why in the world they'd keep that bumpy brick road. She was a former reporter for the Star-Telegram and she actually told me that this brick road was a unique one of a kind thing. I was appalled. I'd already seen other parts of Texas with brick roads. This was the first time I realized there are a lot of Texans who do not see much of the rest of the world. Or their own state.
I jogged a couple miles. Back at my sister's I took a picture of her house. That's the car I'm driving around. It has a lot of electronic things in it that confuse me. If the photo were big enough you'd see a pair of happy poodles staring out the windows on the right. They are very very vigilant.
Above is a Tacoma Transit bus going by my sister's house. My sister can easily take a bus from her house to the Sound Transit train terminal a few blocks away, then ride that free train to the main transit hub and get on a bus to ride to Olympia, where she is a lawyer righting wrongs. You could try and do the same thing in Fort Worth. But it would be an exhausting ordeal. And not easy. I'm referring to the righting wrongs thing, not the taking a bus thing...
No comments:
Post a Comment