Some thoughts on things

I've got some random things to say:

1. Gorrilla Glue works great except for sometimes.

2. It's super fun to have a high school friend and Our Biggest Fan come visit - we are now the hosts, and we are in Seattle! We have a two-bedroom apartment you know.

3. I have posted the Pork Columbo recipe on my Recipe Blog under an alias name. Enjoy!!

4. Did you know that the Amazon.com headquarters building is in downtown Seattle?

4b. Did you know that the Amazon.com headquarters building is famously haunted?? It is apparently an old military hospital.

4c. Never do a search for "Seattle haunted amazon headquarters" and read all the stories that come up, unless you are some kind of weirdo that doesn't get freaked out by ghost stories.

4d. I get totally freaked out by ghost stories.

5. This is a way cell phones can save your career: when you use them to call your nephew-in-law when you're late for a gig and need someone to check your web site to see where it is. This use was demonstrated to us by my auntie M, who was late for a gig today in NYC. Let's all hope she made it on time...!

Blueberries!!

I've been meaning to post about blueberries for a while now. They deserve an entire post dedicated to them. Blueberries are SO AWESOME. Every summer, as soon as they come into season, my Studly Hubby and I buy as many as we can (sometimes 3-4 boxes at a time) no matter the cost. I put them on my cereal, but sometimes I eat them plain. I think they're my favorite berry, or close to it. Although, my berry loving gets a little confused sometimes. I really like strawberries too but they are much easier to get so that may make me THINK that I like blueberries better when really I don't. Although maybe I do. I think the blueberry season lasts a bit longer in Seattle and I'm pretty excited about that.

I'm still managing to score plums on my walks to and from work, however it's been made harder by some "pick fruit for the food bank" group that comes along and strips a tree of its fruit then leaves a happy little sign on the tree saying "this tree has been picked for the food bank!!" What a bummer for me!! They should leave a few pieces behind, I need fruit too. There's one tree left that hasn't been stripped for the food bank, although I think other people have been helping themselves to it also because I am starting to have to look around for the plums whereas before I could just grab a few on my way by without even slowing down.

Peggy - I'm going to get that recipe posted as soon as I get a chance.

Announcement: My former (naked) co-worker just had a baby! She and baby are fine, the dogs like the baby, and all is well on the home front (although the birth was a bit hard and she's still in recovery). Now I need to swoop down there (to Portland) and invade the quiet baby-time and try to knock everyone off-course as much as possible.

Pork Columbo

My Studly Hubby is experimenting with crockpot meals since we are now on West Coast time and getting home super late (West Coast time means: plan your whole day according to traffic, even if it means leaving work at 7 pm). Tonight we had Pork Columbo from a crockpot book we got for christmas from my Studly Sister-in-Law (The 150 Best Slow-Cooker Meals, by Judith Finlayson). It's a Caribbean recipe! It has acorn squash in it!! And it's super divine. And it made our apt smell super divine.

Seattle Weather Report

I guess some guy that everybody likes had a good blog and then the blog suddenly vanished so they are all doing odes to him through weather reports. This seems a little illogical but I like the idea of doing a weather report so even though I have no idea who this guy is nor have I ever read his blog I'm going to do a weather report too, and dedicate it to him (Milt).

So the weather in Seattle has been stunning so far. It gets warm during the day (around 80F) but at night cools off to about 60F so you can get out while it's still cool in the morning if you don't like the heat. The sun is very intense here, my husband and I both have noticed it but nobody can explain it. We have only had a few days of clouds since we got here but they say the clouds will start about mid-October and then by January you'll forget it was ever sunny. I can't feel Fall in the air at all (I'm used to feelng a little hint of it by now in the Midwest) but I may not be correctly recognizing the symptoms of Fall, being new to the area. The trees are starting to turn however, so they know what's up even if I don't.

Another Ode: to my good friend B, who just popped one out down in Portland. It was a bit early but that's good because she was starting to look like an alien harboring a high-tech weapon in her belly. Hopefully I can get a chance to go visit. Way to go B!

The Beach!!

We went to the beach Sat - Alki Beach. It's not quite the ocean beach, but it's an ocean inlet so I consider that close enough. It's a very long beach, so we parked and walked down it a ways before we got to the part where all the action was. It turns out there was some sort of spirituality festival going on Sat so we got to see some interesting things. There's no swimming at this beach though - the water is about 50F!! They say only dumb tourists ever try to get in that. We stuck our toes in but couldn't get any further.

Mt Rainier Wonderland Trail

The Studly Hubby and I decided to drive out of the city a bit today and go for a hike. We bought a hiking book on Thursday that has over 60 hikes that are within 2 hrs driving from Seattle. That was a little overwhelming, I've never been located near so many outdoor hiking opportunities (the midwest has some nice trails, don't get me wrong, but they're not quite as plethoriffic as here).

So we chose to go to Mount Rainier (a picture from the trail, top right, shows Mt Rainier in the background - we didn't actually get all that close), and take part of The Wonderland Trail (an 80+ trail that goes all the way around Mount Rainier, we just did a little stretch of it). The trail we were on had some great views and took us under trees that went right up to the Care Bears' house in the clouds (pic of me standing next to one such tree on the left - wow!). We had to go over this crazy suspension bridge (pic below) that freaked everyone out but we did good and made it across without any panic attacks or directional impairment. The trail was 7 miles, which shouldn't take four hours but somehow did - I think you go a lot slower when the trail isn't paved or flat. So four hours later we were sweaty and exhausted but totally delirious with the fun that was to be had. We then drove through the Washington countryside (weird) back to our humble home in Seattle.

While we were out we passed a lot of dirty-looking backpackers that looked like they may be doing the whole 80+ mile trail - what a trip! We were pooped after only 7 miles, imagine repeating that over and over till you had gone 80!! And sleeping on the ground in between! With no showers! I don't think I could do that. My version of "rugged" is a small cabin with a moldy shower. I don't consider myself prissy, but I suppose I am in that regard. I can't imagine something that would be so fun that it would be worth all that trouble.

Reminder: hit "refresh" on your browser

Every once in a while a blog won't reload when I go to it through a link on my blog. My blog won't even reload sometimes. Instead of the newest, most recent version of someone's blog, I get some old version of the blog and miss all the new comments and posts that might be up. This happened a few weeks ago with Mr. Mop's blog, who always posts around 5 times a day - for a few days there were NO posts and I thought he had died or something. Then one day I hit "refresh" and viola! Fifteen new posts showed up. I almost fainted from excitement. Then today, I was feeling very lonely because nobody had commented on my blog in a week or so. I hit "refresh" and about 10 comments popped up!! It was like getting a bunch of birthday cards in the mailbox. Again, I almost fainted with excitement. "Refresh" is my new best friend.