Independent Republic of Fremont's Lenin Statue

I don't remember if the Seattle enclave of Fremont seceded from the Union before or after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I think it was after the collapse of the Soviet Union that Fremont began acquiring Soviet statues and missiles. Or maybe it was before the collapse when Fremont was working on having a strategic alliance with the Soviets in case Civil War broke out after they seceded.

As it turned out no one else in America much noticed that Fremont had declared itself free of the United States.

Yesterday Fremont dedicated its latest statue to iconic figures from history with the unveiling of a statue of JP Patches and his sidekick Gertrude.

This drew a large crowd of over 1500 Patches Pals with big red noses and TV coverage from JP's old station, KIRO TV, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. You can read all about this important moment in Seattle's cultural history in this morning's Seattle P-I.

That is one of Fremont's Lenin statues in the photo above. Lenin is less colorful than the statue of JP Patches. Though they were both clowns of a sort, Lenin was a more somber clown.

Another one of Fremont's famous statues resides under the Aurora Bridge. It's called the Fremont Troll. As you can see in the photo the Fremont Troll has its paws on a VW Bug.

I'll miss Fremont when I'm back in Texas. Though they do have a lot in common, as in one is currently an independent republic while the other used to be one for about 10 years in the 1830s. Both have seceded from the United States, but when Texas left the Union in the 1860s a much bigger fuss was made. I don't think there are likely any Lenin statues in Texas. I could be wrong.

JP Patches Joins Lenin in Fremont

Well. Today, Sunday, August 17 I did my last Fremont Sunday Market until I return in, I estimate, will likely be sometime around 2018. Today's Fremont experience was the most interesting of the three during my month-long stay here. Today there was more bizarre people watching than in all my other days combined.

There is a disturbing fad here that has guys stretching their ear lobes to ridiculous lengths. Today I saw what looked like an 80 year old man in a Seattle Skirt, hair spiked and dyed blonde, sporting a nose ring and those weird ear lobe expanders that eventually render your ears to being Dumbo the Elephant lookalikes. The 80 year old ultra cool dude had what appeared to be a teen-age girlfriend. He must be rich.

The guy in the photo above plopped down in front of us with another guy and started playing music and singing. I tried to have them moved. Then Lulu pointed out that the guitar strumming singing guy had a Texas Tattoo on his arm. So, I had to take a photo and share. These hapless Texas musicians did not have a single quarter dropped in their tip bucket. The temps were hot, the other guy eventually rendered himself shirtless to deal with the heat. When their allotted half hour was up, with no money earned, the shirtless guy ran out through my new best friend, Wendy's, knitting booth and threw up in the parking lot.

Today was a really BIG day in the Independent Republic of Fremont. A statue to northwest icon, JP Patches, was unveiled in a plaza in front of Adobe headquarters. I am currently very annoyed at Adobe due to their Flash Player's audio not working correctly and vexing a lot of people, including me.

That is the JP Patches statue below. With Gertrude. Only northwest raised people between 30 and 60 would get this. I overheard the cute girl in the photo, in a JP Patches nose, trying to explain it to a tourist from LA. Personally, I've always found JP Patches extremely annoying and was surprised he is still alive and that the Independent Republic of Fremont was dedicating a statue to him. Their Vladimir Lenin statue, that I get. But JP Patches?



The JP Patches statue is a short distance from another Fremont statue that has earned sort of international icon status, along with the Fremont Troll, that being the 'Waiting for the Interurban" statue. Locals regularly dress the people in the statue to reflect the season or what's going on in the world or Fremont.

So, that was my day today in Fremont. If you are ever in Seattle you'll wanna drop in on Fremont. Today we had people from all over the world and the U.S. drop in at the Lulu booth. And once more someone who reads my blog dropped in. She told me my whining about an Olympic swimmer foregoing cancer treatment so he could swim had sparked a lively discussion in her house.

I love the idea that I've sparked a lively discussion somewhere. I can sleep well tonight.

Totally Full Tacoma Moon

I hope you didn't click this blog title hoping to see photos from yesterday's skinny dipping incident.

The full moon referenced in the title is what was hanging over Tacoma last night. It was very big and bright. Ironically, unlike the night before, when the moon was not totally full and yet brought about a full night of lunacy, the night of the actual full moon did not seem to bring about any noticeable lunacy. Except for a pair of poodles chasing water being sprayed from a hose.

During the night we had a heavy duty Texas-worthy thunderstorm here in usually meek and mild Tacoma. The thunderstorm included rain. Unlike such storms in Texas, though, I heard no tornado warning sirens.

Puyallup Saturday Market & Tacoma Taco

Today I'd been led to think I was going on a ferry to Vashon Island to ride recumbent bikes. This morning the island turned out to be Puyallup and the bikes turned to talk of kayaks.

Puyallup is a town a few miles east and south of Tacoma. It's where the Western Washington State Fair happens in about a month. And on Saturdays, in a park a few blocks north of the fairgrounds, yet one more Pacific Northwest Farmers Market takes place.

One of the food vendors was a bakery. One of their baked goods was an apple fritter. A big apple fritter that they called "Huge Texin Apple Fritters." I pointed out that they spelled Texan incorrectly. I was told they spelled Texan incorrectly intentionally because they figured a Texan would spell Texan incorrectly. I told them I was currently living in Texas and that I thought it likely a majority of Texans could spell Texan correctly. But then again, I'm thinking I may be wrong about that.

Speaking of Texas, I wish Texas had decent farmers markets. The Dallas Farmers Market comes sort of close, but without the variety of produce I've seen at these Washington Farmers Markets. Today we got eggplant, basil, apricots, blueberries, cheese, smoked salmon, oysters, razor clams, shallots, bread, corn, watermelon, nectarines, peaches, cherries, pretzels and a Tahoma Taho.

Kids playing in a wading pool in the midst of the farmers marketing their wares.

Everywhere you go in Washington you see a lot of flowers. Planted in the ground or hanging in giant baskets. There were a lot of flower vendors at the Puyallup market today with a lot of people buying them and carrying around huge bunches of flowers.


People eating in the shade of a big tree by a sculpture called Two Hearts. Or something like that.

Kristin getting a Tahoma Taho, aka Tacoma Taco, aka Navajo Taco, aka Indian Fry Bread. I've had this made by an actual Navajo in Utah at a restaurant called the Navajo Cafe at an inn called the San Juan Inn, in Mexican Hat. They made great Navajo Tacos at the Navajo Cafe. The Tahoma Taho that Kristin got came slathered with butter, cinnamon and sugar. I had one bite. That was enough

Full Moon Lunacy in Tacoma

Five days til I return to the relative sanity of Texas.

Last night I got a dose of the relative insanity of Tacoma. The moon was full. The Mountain was out.

Throughout history it has been noted that Lunar Maximus heightens behavior oddities, hence the term lunacy.

Last night Lunar Lulu and her first husband came over for BBQ chicken and liquor concoctions that tasted like cough syrup mixed with melted cherry lollipops.

Lulu pretty much gets drunk on anything that has sugar in it, so if you mix any sort of alcohol into whatever Lulu is drinking she quickly becomes inebriated. You mix a Full Moon into the drink and you've got yourself some entertainment.

Last night the fascinating party conversation revolved around my apparent (unknown to me) myriad of ticks and anxiety ridden behaviors. And my poor personal hygiene that evidently renders me seriously malodorous.

Yes, this was really highly elevated conversational repartee. I never get this sort of intellectually challenging witty repartee when I'm in Texas. Everyone is nice to me in Texas. These people in Washington are just downright mean and ill-mannered. Very disturbing.

At one point I was ordered to remove the shirt I was wearing and replace it with a souvenir shirt from Washington, D.C. I did as ordered and modeled my D.C. t-shirt that has license plates from all 50 states on the back that phonetically spell out the preamble to the Constitution.

As in the plate for Alabama says, "WE TH", Alaska, "P PUL", Arizona, "OF TH", Arkansas, "U NI", California, "DIDD", Colorado, "ST8S", Connecticut, "INNOR", Delaware, "DUR 2", Washington D.C., "4M A", Florida, "MUR PUR", Georgia, "FEC UNE", Hawaii, "NONE"....well, you get the drift. I hope. Lulu tried to sound out the license plates, but I don't think she knew what it was she was sounding out.

Lulu regaled us with stories of dumpster diving. Including an incident this week at the Goodwill reject store where someone was rummaging through used shoes, along with Lulu, when a shoebox was found and opened in which hundreds of dollars were stored that somehow spilled out in a way that caused the dozens of other dumpster divers to descend on the shoes to grab their share of the loot. Lulu made off with about $75. Which she used to buy more Goodwill junk.

I found the flying Goodwill money story a tad difficult to believe. How was it that that shoebox had not been opened before?

Yesterday it got up to about 90 here. The same is expected for today. There was talk, yesterday, of a ferry ride to Vashon Island and the riding of recumbent bikes. I fear the Full Moon may be wreaking havoc with those plans.

In the meantime, it's only 5 days til I'm back in Texas where people are nice to me. And are extremely well-mannered with genteel hospitality and know how to say "howdy."

Tonight Tacoma is Margaritaville

Tonight Lulu and her first husband are coming over, along with 4 surprise guests with a total of 12 legs among the 4 of them.

Preparations for tonight's elaborate gourmet production have been underway for hours. At noon Kristin came home to assist in the precise cutting of the 2 extremely delicate chickens. These are specially bred chickens who were raised naturally on wholesome feed and bottled water in a happy environment. Until their death sentence. That day wasn't too happy. But they were given special treats on their final day and were executed to one of Braum's lullabies.

We have freshly picked, organically grown sweet corn, grown in the fertile Puyallup valley by a farmer's commune that practices only totally carbon neutral methods of farming. No gas-powered equipment. All is done by hand tools and horses.

Along with the all-natural chicken we will have a variety of garden greens from another co-op, this one run by a group of ex-Amish women who tired of their male dominated culture back in Ohio. Our salad of greens will be mixed with some yellow grape tomatoes that have been marinated in a cilantro-wine sauce, with whole wheat croutons soaked in olive oil before being roasted in our wood-fired oven and coated with hand ground, imported from Albania, natural Romano made from virgin milk from goats that live on the slopes of Mount Barbullush.

We will have only one selection of salad dressing, made from the hand-expressed oil of rare south Indian sesame seeds mixed with vintage walnut oil from a barrel in Morocco dating back to 1956. A variety of herbs with complicated names and cheeses with equally complicated names flavor the salad dressing. It is delicious. You can't get it at Trader Joes.

For dessert we will be grilling Washington peaches, delivered this morning, fresh from an orchard on the outskirts of Leavenworth where each peach is given special attention during it's entire growth cycle and it's own name. Tonight we will be eating Ginger, George, Sadie, Peaches, Penelope, Lucy, Betty and Sam. The peaches will be topped with roasted coconut infused with rosemary essence and topped with homemade vanilla bean ice cream made with 10% milkfat cream we got from a local dairy this morning.

Our signature drink for the evening will be Pomegranate/Raspberry Margaritas. The juice from 325 individual pomegranate seeds has been expressed and stored at precisely 32.5 degrees. Raspberry syrup, drained from fresh canned raspberries, made under my mother's watchful eye, will be combined with the pomegranate juice and mixed with Jose Cuervo Special Edition Ultra Dark Limited Edition Tequila, spritzed with the juice from imported extra large Tahitian limes. And cooled with ice cut from a glacier in northern Alaska.

It's a simple little dinner, perfect for Lulu and her first husband.

Kathy Griffin's Life on the D List at Walter Reed Hospital

I've not watched a lot of TV since I've been in Tacoma. But last night, after a long day of washing and re-washing the same dishes and cups over and over again, in addition to hours of trying to fix computer problems, I was in the mood to be diverted by something other than my pathetic reality. That and apparently I'd drained this house of all medicinal relaxation liquids. Appalling.

So, I turned on the TV right when the season ender of Kathy Griffin's current Life on the D-List show began.

Sadly, we quickly learned that Kathy's torrid, sordid romance with Apple Billionaire Steve Wozniak had gone sour. Too bad. Kathy seemed to have great hopes of getting her hands on some of those Apple Billions.

So, Kathy quickly moved on to other good works. Previously she'd gone to Iraq to entertain the troops. On this final episode she was heading, with her Team Griffin, to Washington, D.C. to Walter Reed Hospital to do a show for wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kathy met with wives of the soldiers to try and get some idea of what might work for her show. Then she toured the re-hab facility. She was a bit nervous due to her usual type humor wouldn't work so good, the making fun of celebs and Our Glorious Leader and targeting humor at her gay mafia.

And then Kathy found out there would be kids and 4 chaplains in the audience. That amped up her worrying. Which was borne out to be reality based when she bombed bad at first. But then this guy she met earlier wheeled himself in. He'd had "F**K THE IRISH" tattooed across his chest. Which Kathy got him to show to the audience. After that she seemed to hit her usual level of being funny.

But the reason I'm blathering about this has nothing to do with Kathy Griffin and her show. It has to do with the first amputeed vet she met. It was shocking to me. This kid looked so young looking, she joked with him that he looked 12. Because he did. But he was 20. And his wife was with him.

This kid was not happy. And with good reason. He had the rest of his life to look forward to, missing a limb. The idea that someone like George Bush could set in motion a series of incompetent acts that led to young boys like this being maimed just pissed me off. A kid like that, barely out of high school is too young to be sent to such unnecessary danger. Particularly when the situation we are facing was not dire like WWII, when it's so obvious to so many that the entire George Bush debacle was totally unnecessary.

And yet, where are the Impeachment hearings? Where are the calls for War Crimes Tribunals? No one died during Watergate, yet Nixon was forced to resign. No one died due to Clinton's sleazy shenanigans, yet Clinton was Impeached. George Bush is the worst president in most of our memories, committing what would seem to be all sorts of Constitutional violations.

But only in isolated outposts, like where I am now, in the Pacific Northwest, do you hear voices of reason calling for the Impeachment of this person who should never have been president.

It'll be a long time before the image of that victim of George Bush's Folly gets out of my head.

Tacoma Farmers Market Part 2: The Video

I've gone to more of these Farmers Market/Arts & Crafts Fairs/Flea Market type things in the past 3 weeks than my entire previous 39 years. They are kind of fun. Sometimes.

I've gotta tell you, the Tacoma Thursday Farmers Market is very well done. Great people watching, great stuff for sale. And really good food. And lottsa smelly flowers.

Fremont's Sunday Market is good for the people watching and the overall post-hippie feel, but the food and stuff for sale is sort of limited. And there's no loud music. That Art in the Park one I did last Thursday, in Seattle's Pioneer Square, was great for the people watching, weak on the stuff for sale, great on the music and a no-show for food. The Lacey Community Market should really just close down. Though I did get great smoked salmon there.

And then today. Tacoma's got the best of all this type stuff I've seen. And it's in a great setting. A HUGE mystery to me is why the Tacoma entity known as Lulu, does not appear here. Has she been banned? It really does not stretch the imagination, too far, to think that that might be the case. Because this Tacoma Thursday thing seems a perfect Lulu venue.

But, where is Lulu today when she could be at the Tacoma Farmers Market? She's doing some sort of garage sale on steroids at Pike Place Market in Seattle. 30 miles from Tacoma. Today's Tacoma Farmers Market is walking distance from Lulu's place of residence. I know this because Lulu forced me to walk that distance. And more, last week, to get back here when she refused to drive me.

Well, I've got me a flat of blueberries from the Tacoma Farmers Market that I need to get turned into jam and some chicken to cut up and some tomatoes to turn into salsa and some corn that needs its husks removed. And I've been instructed to make cornbread from scratch for dinner. I best be getting at it and quit wasting time on this blogging stuff.

Below is video of me and Kristin today at the Tacoma Farmers Market. And, if you read the previous blogging you'll see I was wrong about the pig lady's name. It's Cheryl. Not Mary. Why is it when I can't remember a name I always think it's Mary?

Tacoma Farmers Market Computer Woes

I am still being vexed by computer woes. Something that got installed, by this evil anti-virus program AVG Free, called SpamCop, is preventing me from sending email.

If I leave AVG running I can send email. The cop lets me. But AVG Free causes my computer to go into overdrive with the fans blowing overtime to cool the CPU that's running at 100%.

So, when I get rid of AVG my computer is back to normal. Except for not being able to send email. AVG Free is worse than any virus problem I know of. Sad thing is I'd installed AVG Free before with similar woes. But I forgot. And made the same mistake again. Getting old and its attendant memory woes is a living hell.

I hate computers.

So, a bit before noon I escaped this ugly monster and picked up Kristin to head to downtown Tacoma to the Thursday Farmers Market.

This was a good Farmers Market. Lots of good food, flowers all over, music blaring, good smells, plenty of people and a lot of fruits and vegetables.

We got corn, a flat of blueberries, tomatoes and 2 totally natural chickens from, I think the name was, Mary the Pig Lady.

Because of spending what amounts to a week's wages in Lower Slobovia on the 2 chickens, Kristin got a very cool bag, for free, that is insulated with a zipper. Very handy to carry Mary the Pig Lady's chickens in.

I'm BBQing (grilling according to the Redstar Gals) the 2 chickens tomorrow when Lulu and her first husband come for din din again. I hope I don't burn them. I'm sure I won't.

It is supposed to get into the 90s today here!

Wapato Lake Park in Tacoma

About an hour before it got dark last night my sister suggested we go to Wapato Lake Park in south Tacoma to see a submerged car that had mysteriously appeared due to the lake suddenly becoming crystal clear, like something in a tropical paradise.

Last night the sky was totally free of clouds. So, The Mountain was out, as you can see in the photo, taken from I-5 as we drove south.
As we walked the trails around Wapato Lake we encountered dogs of various sizes. Poodle drama ensued.

I don't recollect ever seeing lake water that looked like Wapato Lake before. It looked like something you'd see on a tropical beach, an unnatural hue of blue. Sort of like the color you see when you look in a hole in a glacier.

We searched all over the lake, but we never found the submerged car. This may have been due to trouble seeing, due to late in the day sunlight causing glare off the water.

On the north side of the park there is a bridge across a swampy area filled with lily pads. My sisters and the poodles are scared to cross this bridge. It didn't seem too scary to me. If it'd been over a 300 feet deep chasm, that would have activated my acrophobia.

All in all, last night's trip to Wapato Lake Park was a nice break from my current computer woes that are slowly driving me over the edge. Lord knows that is a very short drive.