The Socialist City of Seattle

This morning I guess I was surprised to read that starting January 1, 2009, Seattle is implementing a 20 cent per bag fee. I assume this applies to both paper or plastic bags.

Already this is causing big changes in Seattle stores as checkout people get to deal with the wide variety of personal shopping bags people are bringing into stores.

I've had trouble adjusting to the no cell phone use while driving law here in Washington. I don't know what the penalty is. I forget about the no talking law about half the time. If I remember I put the cell phone on speaker phone mode and just appear to be talking to myself and not into a phone.

I don't know if the no car cell phone use law is state-wide or just a Seattle/Tacoma thing. By the next time I return here in a decade or two, I expect that talking in cars and listening to the radio will be banned. Talking and listening can be very distracting and I'm sure has been the cause of at least one wreck somewhere.

After a year or two of the anarchy of people bringing random shopping bags into stores Seattle will likely mandate that specific type bags only be used. And then those will be found to cause some environmental hazard after which it will be mandated that all bags revert to paper, due to trees being a very recyclable resource.

Canada's Inferiority Complex Ends With Triatholon Silver

This morning I read a column from the Sunday Tacoma Tribune by a guy named Peter Callaghan. He's funny. The column was about his random thoughts about the Olympics. He seems to take the Olympics about as seriously as I do. And shares my Bob Costas aversion.

In the second paragraph Callaghan writes, "What's with Canada's inferiority complex? It's like they're all from Tacoma." He goes on to say he likes the Canadian coverage better than NBC, but that it gets tedious listening to the announcers make excuses when the Canadian fails, "which is often."

Sample excuses offered by the Canadian announcers were things like, "Was your suit too tight?" "Did you have to get up too early?" "Or is it the bad air?"

And then Callaghan writes, "And they have to tart up the slightest accomplishment. A swimmer who doesn't drown is dubbed the Canadian Michael Phelps."

So, last night, during hot dogs and strawberries and grilled corn (delicious, best corn ever) we sat down in front of the Flat Panel and watched the Olympics on Canadian TV. It is so much more watchable than NBC. Very little of that non-stop blathering and constant need to have some bizarre narrative, like Lucy's grandma died at 99 a week ago and Bob Costas is sure Lucy was thinking of grandma during that back flip into the pool.

The event we were watching was the Triathlon. I'd not seen this before. It started off with what looked like 100 guys jumping into a lake at the same time with a giant pagoda looking over them. They swam for quite a distance, like a synchronized line. Then the line gradually broke up and became a sort of thrashing triangle. On and on they swam.

During this we were informed of the story of the Great Canadian Hope who none of us America-Centric Americans had heard of, a guy named Simon Whitfield. We were quite a ways into the swimming before we realized there was an American or two among the swimmers.

After the group was done swimming for miles and miles they one by one got out of the water and ran to a bike which they pushed to the start line and hopped on, slipping their feet into shoes already attached to the pedals.

The bike course went on for miles, I mean, kilometers. They had to repeat this course, I think, 6 times. For about 300 feet, I mean, 100 meters, or so, they pedaled in front of cheering people in a grandstand.

I gave up watching after the first time around. I did not make it to the running part. It seemed like the Canadians were covering pretty much every second of this race. With a break for local Canadian news out of Vancouver, which was amusing in itself, with a Brit accented Weather Girl with very unfortunate helmet hair.

This morning I learned that the Canadian Triathlete, Simon Whitfield, he being the Great Canadian Hope, came in second, getting a silver medal. I'm sure the Canadians were quite happy.

Back to that Callaghan guy. I thought his comment that Canada had an inferiority complex, in the same manner as Tacoma's, was interesting. I've not noted manifestations of Tacoma having a civic inferiority complex due to being in the shadow of its more robust Seattle partner in the Seattle/Tacoma Metro area. I've long made note of how Fort Worth comes across in its media as having a massive inferiority complex regarding how it feels about its Dallas partner in the D/FW Metroplex.

I can see where Canada is sort of like Fort Worth and Tacoma, not quite the success story of its nearest neighbor. But that's nothing to have an inferiority complex over. There are a lot of really good things about Canada, Fort Worth and Tacoma, even though they are a bit overshadowed by America, Dallas and Seattle.

In other words, America, Dallas and Seattle are gold medal type places. Canada, Fort Worth and Tacoma should be quite pleased to be silver medal type places. And nothing stops them from aspiring to gold medal status. It'd be a great thing to see Canada become a Superpower. Fort Worth, not so much.

It's Dreary in Tacoma. And Raining.

The rain has been constant today here in Tacoma. Last night and this morning lightning was striking. It's like spring in Texas without the tornado drama.

So, this morning, due to the rain, Lulu's first husband could not ride his Huge Harley to REI to do whatever it is he does there. This left Lulu without a car.

So, I drove to the Lulu House, ostensibly to take photos of some of her apparently fabulous jewelry stuff and to go to WOW'S for lunch with Frank and Virginia, them being the well-known, constantly sparring partners, who live their own little Univision Telenovela.

But, eventually I was to learn the real reason Lulu lured me to her lair was so that I could drive her to Safeway. There was no WOW'S.

Before Safeway happened I learned, inadvertently, that Lulu was about to slur me on her blog in a most horrendously malicious way by describing me as a 4 year old with attention deficit disorder in dire need of Ritalin and with a mad compulsion to talk to strangers. And that I have no sense about how to operate a successful market stall because I engage the people in conversation, thus wasting time from the all-important transactions.

Well. I'll just say this about that. I lost track of the number of times Lulu wandered from her booth on Sunday, taking with her the stash of change-making cash. The worst incident came a bit after noon when I had 4 women wanting to buy bracelets, necklaces and magnets from me. All with $20 bills. And me with no change.

I didn't know what to do. It was embarrassing. And then Lulu sashayed up ( I wanted to say waddled up, but that somehow seemed mean ) and as she sashayed she was stuffing her face with Kettle Korn from a Giant Bag. I could not get her to focus on the problem at hand. Or her hand out of the Kettle Korn.

One of the customers walked off in frustration. After about a half hour of this madness I was finally able to make change for the first lady, who then walked off, obviously, and quite righteously, seriously offput. The 3rd and 4th long-waiting customers seemed to find it all amusing. As did Lulu as she just stood there stuffing popcorn into her pie hole.

As for the issue of me engaging the people in conversation. Well, from that we learned where many of them were from. We learned Lulu should make more skeleton stuff. We learned some of them read our blogs and I got invited by an Austin artist to an event in Dallas.

There was one slight problem caused by me talking to one person in one minor incident when a lady was overcome with joy about seeing JP Patches and would not shut up about it. All I did was ask her what the deal was with the big fake red noses so many people had. On and on she went, quite animated. I eventually escaped by saying I was off to take photos of the new JP Patches statue. I thought the lady left when I did, but Lulu claimed she came back and Lulu had to shoo her away. I don't believe Lulu's account.

So, back to the real reason I was lured to Lulu's today. The Safeway trip. I've wondered how Lulu goes from having a few hundred dollars by the end of Sunday and then no money by the end of the next day. Well, the grocery shopping at Safeway was instructive. One chicken at $1.99 a pound for over 10 bucks. One box of 12 chocolate chip cookies, $5.89. 4 donuts, $3.26. 2 magazines at about 6 bucks each. 1 package of bacon for $5.99, with a buy one get one free deal of equal or lesser size. But Lulu got only one, not understanding that she'd be paying $5.99 for that one package. I did not get too pointed about this mistake because I think Lulu could maybe not eat so much bacon. I'm forgetting some of the stuff. Oh, one Starbucks Grande Vanilla Bean Frappacino, with whipped cream. Those cost about $4. And was sickeningly sweet. Particularly with donuts and chocolate chip cookies.

The total for 2 puny bags, filled mostly with junk food, was about 50 bucks. Or 50 magnets in Lulu Currency. All in all, the Safeway excursion was a real eye opener. I now know how Lulu can end up broke so quickly. And, also why she's not quite the dainty little thing she used to be in her younger years. Donuts, bacon, cookies and Starbucks do not a dainty girl make.

I'm outta here in less than 48 hours, not that I'm counting. I will continue to engage strangers if I feel like it. And I'll never do one of those Lulu's Shows again without a pocket full of dollar bills. And a mute button. For Lulu. I won't even talk about the bad Lulu behavior that occurred in front of about a dozen customers when my ex-fiance' called. Let's just say it was very embarrassing. And loud. Like a 4 year old having a tantrum....

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.