wednesday aug. 6th, 2008- seattle

breathing more slowly now that we're actually in seattle. this place just makes me happy. and it's not just the coffee either. the energy here is nice and the anticipation that i'll see something wonderful is always great. the hotel we're staying in was built in 1926. the crazy characters on the side of the building affirm that opening on halloween day was the perfect choice.



and now we must feed the addiction. how great that our favorite coffee spot is just right across the street.





the barista explained to me that her tatt was an accordian exploding with rays of radness. i love that.


then we watched the paramount theatre sign light the sky.



while other signs quickly followed suit.



as we listened to a dog living in this apartment building who barked incessantly.



his bark echoed all the way down pine street. i woke up in the middle of the night and he was still barking his twilight bark. it would later become a running joke during the length of our trip..."i wonder if the dog's still barking?"

resurfaced

hi!
we had a great adventure. i took a few pictures. two. thousand.

i promise i will bore you to death with several of them over the next week or two. you will be tired of the eye popping beauty of our beautiful country and our beautiful neighboring country canada, by the time it's all over and done with. but for now, here's a taste.






the other day i decided to go to the sacred ground where my new personal ikea store is being built. it is a heavenly place. it nearly glows with potential wonder and delight. it will contain things of smart design and furniture in flat boxes. of swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce. of lovely saturated hues and indirect lighting.

the building is nearly built, the access road is paved. it is real. it's really, real.

they are building it and i will come. and i will smile like a stupid fool. because ikea is eye candy.

mr. ntm and the pb kid are sure i will be but a faint memory once the store is opened. but i'm thinking that i will see them again.

eventually.

in



the creation of one imaginative boy and a handful of straws.
oh, and a dog toy that was graciously loaned by two hospitable girl dogs. they didn't even mind that their toy was being used for a masterpiece.

and yet more handiwork.....



watching him create with such abandon made me realize how much i would like to be like him....fearless when it comes to my own creative endeavors.

so busy

in

my good friend gillian and her sweet boy paid me a visit the other night. he is so full of life and wonder. everything is fascinating to him and so new. you can actually capture some of your own sense of naivete again just by watching him take everything in.

after they left, i had to laugh because i suddenly remembered when i was a little girl and my grandmother commented to my parents that she wished she had half as much energy as i did. i just could not figure out what she could have meant by that. but now i know.

in


as a woman, i feel lucky that i get to use makeup on a daily basis if i choose to. i know some women hate it, but i don't.

i love everything about makeup. i know i'm not alone. i remember my sister-in-law plunking down her ginormouse makeup tackle box in front of me one day. it was loaded with every kind of color and tool you could ever imagine. she laughed about how ridiculous it was that she had such an extraordinary amount of makeup, but i was in awe.

whenever my friend sharon and i see each other, we sit on the bed and spread our makeup out. we try out each other's colors and talk about life. it's a ritual we started when we were college roommates and we do it to this day.

now i watch the p.b. kid's fascination with makeup. i've taught her how to unconditionally love all things mac and smashbox and she teaches me about other lines of makeups and different ways of applying them. and probably one day when she's my age, her daughter will be teaching her...and maybe me also if i'm lucky enough to live that long.

my fly fishery man








mr. ntm has been fly fishing for years and years and he still enjoys it just as much now as he did when he first started. he says he is still trying to master the art of tying his own flies, but i'd say he's pretty darn good at it now.

it'll be fly fishing season again in the fall which will make me a fishing widow once again. i've learned the only way i can get attention when it's that time of year is to break out the trout suit.

guess i better get it out of storage.

the only thing standing between me and shooting a beautiful field of lovely pale pink hibiscis was this:

well, let's see. he can out run me, he outweighs me and those horns look like they should be registered with the tactical threat division.

luckily, the big guy was feeling charitable, so we made friends, and i got my shots.









wondering if these ruby shoes still have some magic left in them....

but then again, what would i do with them if they did? i'm sure i could think of something...

pink

in
i think geraniums are like the clowns of the summer annuals. they're so in-your-face bright. i love them.
the p.b. kid's summer ritual...the afternoon nap. she's got to keep up her strength for lifting those heavy spoons of peanut butter.


my brother-in-law told me the other day that he's dealing with some mid-life crisis issues. i told him that i was dealing with the same.

honestly though,mine feels more like a full-blown psychotic state. the thesaurus defines crisis as: "A highly volatile dangerous situation requiring immediate remedial action."

there's just no way to administer immediate remedial action to this kind of crisis however. it's just something you have to sort through and it takes time. probably the universe figured that by mid-life you'd have the patience and tolerance to be able to navigate the relentless, nagging doubts and feelings that spring up right about this time in life.

what was the universe thinking?

why is that whenever we're sitting on the fence about a decision we're trying to make, that the fence we are sitting on always has to be barbed wire? sometimes we just need to be on that fence for a little bit but the barbed wire makes it so prickly and uncomfortable that we jump off of it and end up making a decision that may not have been the best choice.

maybe the trick is to learn how to sit differently and endure that prickly feeling.




there are many rivalries between the southern states over various things. one of those rivalries is about who grows the best peaches. georgia says they do, south carolina says they do. it's debatable in my opinion because they're both wonderful. but the one thing that south carolina has that georgia can't compete with is this clever water tank.

i've driven past this steel peach a million and one times over the past twenty two years on my way back and forth from georgia to north carolina. when the p.b. kid was little, she used to call it the big peach butt. i finally stopped this past weekend on my way back from atlanta to shoot it.

it's located in gaffney, south carolina and it was built in 1981. the artist is peter freudenberg. it's called the peachoid water tank and its capacity is one million gallons.

it wouldn't make a very good cobbler, but it sure is fun to look at.