plumtastic

There are plums growing all over the place here, and they're DELICIOUS. I scored three on my way home from work today. I strongly believe that if a plum tree is located between the sidewalk and the road that the fruit is up for grabs. Besides, these trees have way more plums than one family could eat anyhow. So as I walk I pluck and eat, and it's all very yummy in my tummy.

My brothers rock out

I have about fifteen younger brothers. They all do their own fantastic stuff, and every once in a while I have to brag. I just got a CD with some sweet tracks that my brother's band made - all original, and all of it ROCKS OUT. Way to go brother J!! I'm very impressed.

Getting back on the wagon

I seriously fell off the wagon when I moved out to Seattle. I'm a former spin instructor, devoted yoga taker, attempted yoga teacher, and fairly consistent runner, or at least I was in Minneapolis. The new Seattle me had forgotten all that. I'm afraid to drive in Seattle, therefore yoga is impossible (I could walk to the studio but my previous experience tells me it may be hard walking home afterwards). I can't find any spin classes here, it seems they don't do that or even know what it is. I suppose when you can bike outside in the winter there isn't any need for that crazy indoor biking (but I like spin classes even in the summer! They're sooooo good!). I kept up on the running, but it's so damn hard here with all those hills... and then I went to New York for a week and was wooed away from running by all the beer.

So I figured, I am here permanently now (I haven't gotten fired yet, so things are looking pretty good). I need to get back on the wagon. I'm frightened of heading straight back to the yoga studio so I did a bit in my living room tonight (first I shut the blinds, you don't want the neighbors talking...). It went well. I didn't fall, pull a muscle or break out into terrified screaming, not once. It wasn't too rigorous though either. Maybe that'll be for Wednesday night.

Tomorrow I'm going to try that running thing again. The Studly Hubby and I have discovered the Hill of Death, which is only about seven blocks long and isn't too steep when you first look at it, but kicks everyone's ass in the end. I want to someday get all the way up that hill without throwing up or falling over. I also still haven't managed to run all the way around Green Lake, although I've only really tried to twice. It's hard not to get distracted by all the cute dogs prancing around that place.

I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing this winter. I hear it can get kind of rainy and disgusting around here, not to mention the sun goes down around 4 pm. I will either pull out some grandiose motivation and keep running through it all, or I will give up and become a couch slug. Or maybe there will be some interesting alternative, like a magic gym that pops up next door that offers free spin classes to former instructors any time I please.

Where do I live?

I was actually back in Seattle today so I thought I'd venture around a bit and see a few things. The Studly Hubby and I have some major plans to tour by car over Labor Day weekend so we thought we'd do the walking tour today. It turns out, you can walk to a lot from our apartment. Today we went to Fremont, an artsy neighborhood to the West of us. We first went to the Fremont market, which I thought was going to be a farmer's market but turned out was more of a flea market that had everything from used clothes to bongs, with some really nice artwork and furniture in between. That was surprisingly fun. The Fremont Market is right next to our co-op, the PCC, and around the corner are a few blocks of trendy restaraunts and shops, so we walked around the neighborhood a bit and scoped it all out.

We next walked up the hill to visit the Fremont Troll (shown above), which is a huge troll under a highway bridge that is clutching an actual Volkswagon Beetle. I think the troll may have swiped the Beetle from the highway above (although the plates have since been stolen so this happened a while ago). The troll, who clearly posed a danger to the neighborhood of Fremont, was turned into concrete some time ago so is frozen in time under the bridge.

We also found a Fremont Walking Tour Guide near the troll (the troll is obviously a major tourist attraction, trolls are rare in the US); apparently there are outdoor movies playing at dusk all summer somewhere in Fremont that we intend to try out (summer is almost over though! The last one is Labor Day Weekend). Then we walked home, had some food, and drove up to Target. The Target we went to has a super-cool cart escalator, so your shopping cart can have a super-fun time riding up and down the escalator while you ride on a normal human escalator beside it. We are big-city-livin' folks that have already seen a cart escalator at the Minneapolis downtown Target, so we were only mildly impressed. We spent some good money at Target though, then came home and filled up our apartment with all our new things.

I think Seattle is going to grow on me.

Did I tell you that roses bloom all summer here?? It's incredible.

Nature Survival Kit

Somehow in the last six years I have completely lost my country girl upbringing. Last week I found myself in the middle of nowhere, with a cell phone that didn't work, no tv or internet access, and woods and silence all around. To make things worse, I couldn't get my bedroom windows shut. Here are a few words of advice for any of your city dwellers that might be planning to head out to the country soon: take a Nature Survival Kit. A Nature Survival Kit might include:

- Earplugs - crickets and other nature sounds can keep a city girl up all night long
- A relaxing CD, like "Truck Sounds" or "Highway Traffic," to bring you back to a familiar place
- Books, music and magazines for entertainment (you can find these at a LIBRARY, which is easily accessible back home in the city).
- bug spray and a bug-proof screen that you can wrap around yourself at all times
- all things you may need any time you are there - toothpaste, cotton balls, food, directions, important phone numbers, cash and good walking shoes - because acquiring such things may be a big pain or even impossible, and it's good to have all of these things when you are stranded at a train station in the middle of nowhere with no idea where you are.
- A PHONE CARD - these are useful for when you don't have access to a cell phone. Not sure where to get one? I found out recently that airports often have them and also train stations.
- A map
- An address, explanation, or idea of where you are trying to get to if you are travelling to some naturous destination. One major and unexpected hazard of naturous destinations are that they are not near anything helpful when one realizes suddenly that they are lost.
- flares or some sort of distress signal. Sometimes a PHONE CARD is also equally helpful.
- Useful PHONE NUMBERS, especially of co-workers with immediate internet access. Local taxi cab companies, transit, and the phone number for your destination might also be useful.
- Some luck, some patience, and a lot of bravery

Gone!

Sorry about the long blog delay - I've been out of town. I'll catch up later with all y'all (Texan plural for "you").

A Shout Out

A Shout Out to my friend the Fixen Vixen, who recently started a blog so that now we have a complete nerdy-science-blog-ring going. Maybe we should start an official nerdy-science-blog-ring??