little black journal

It’s tempting on Friday evenings to come home from work, put on the sweats, and spend the night vegging out on the couch.  Embarassingly, it isn’t that uncommon for me to crash out by 9 on a Friday (yes, I am self-admittedly lame).  But tonight the sunshine drew us outside and we found ourselves at the lawn bowling green just up the street from our house.  Friday night is free “open bowl”, and anyone is welcome to come use the clubhouse balls and grab a lane on the green.  Shane and I did this once last summer and had a fantastic time – I don’t know why it took us so long to get back.  But it must have been pretty apparent that we weren’t regulars, because a very friendly woman approached us as we started to set up our lane and asked if we’d like a lesson.  She gave us a refresher course on the basics and we were left to begin our lawn bowling dual.  Such a great game (similar to bocce ball, but played on a smooth green) in such a great setting (the course is on Beacon Hill and has an amazing view of the city).  The best part?  I think I might have actually found a game in which I can hold my own against Shane.  Finally!  We had a pretty intense head-to-head match going.  Thank goodness our friends J and J showed up to relieve some of the tension.  I’m a competetive player and a terribly sore loser, especially when it comes to losing to Shane (I have been known to throw pieces of sporting equipment or even video game controllers when he really starts to get a lead on me), so it’s always a good idea to have someone else in the mix to mediate the competition.  We switched to pairs mode, which was even more fun, as there were more balls in play and more chances to knock each other out of the way.  Fun stuff, seriously.  This green is such a great little neighborhood jem.  Check it out.

Shane and I took advantage of the Seattle Art Museum’s extended hours on Thursday night and spent some time wandering through their new Impressionist exhibit.  The title of the exhibit is “Inspiring Impressionism” and it explores the links between the Impressionists and the significant European artists that preceded them.  After perusing the galleries, Degas’ “Visitors to A Museum” (shown below) was the one painting I was drawn back to.  This is what I love about the Impressionists – Degas wasn’t afraid to leave things rough around the edges, slightly unfinished, sketchy.  The hem of the woman’s dress isn’t delineated by a hard line – it’s left as a blurry streak between light and dark.  I wish I could paint with such freedom.  I have such a strong tendency to paint/draw with solid, crisp blocks of color – everything has a definite edge.  Degas imparted an underlying sense of emotion into all of his work.  I look at pieces like the one below and can just imagine him painting with his quick, free brushstrokes.  Striking.

Shane and I headed over to Georgetown this afternoon for the annual Artopia festival.  It was an interesting mix of music, art, food, and just plain randomness. The art was so-so, the kiwi gelato was amazing, and the powertool races were amusing (contestants are asked to convert bits and parts of powertools into moving, race-worthy machines.  saw blade wheels seem a bit dangerous to me, but what the heck…).  I am so happy to see Georgetown developing into such a fun, vibrant, creative community.  But I hope that this neighborhood’s “revitalization” doesn’t translate into it losing all of its original character.  The old brick warehouses and junk-filled lots are beautiful (and photo-worthy).

Big stuff happing in the ‘hood these days… The fun began on Tuesday at 4 am when I woke to sound of crashing and crackling. My eyes flew open and I was startled to see what looked like lightning flashing outside of our window. A storm, I thought? Couldn’t be. I stumbled out of bed, fumbled for my glasses and peered out the window just in time to see another intense flash of light – in the midst of a pitch black neighborhood. Power was out for as far as I could see. I tried to wake Shane, who seemed to be much more concerned about sleeping than he was about the crisis that was throwing me into a panic. Everything was suddenly eerily silent. So I got back into bed, perplexed and unnerved, but helpless. The sound of fire trucks just a couple of minutes later drew me to the front of house, where I quickly understood the cause of the crashing and flashing. A power pole was laying in the middle of the street, in the midst of a mess of smoking wires. Our neighbors lined the sidewalk, shivering in their pajamas. Shane assured me that the fire department had it under control (“Kelly, I’m so tired, just come back to bed!”), but being the busy-body that I am, I had to go out and get the details. Turns out a car had come down the hill too quickly, lost control, and crashed right into the power pole. Crazy. I went back inside and attempted to go back to sleep, but that seemed to be a lost cause. I laid there for over an hour, worrying about all the food in our fridge that would spoil if we didn’t regain power soon. And how would I blow dry my hair in the morning? And how much battery power did my cell phone have left? I should have recharged it the night before. It’s embarrassing how neurotic I can be when I’m tired and it’s the middle of night… Nearly 30 hours later, power was fully restored. Thank God. I just enjoyed a hot shower and am contentedly sipping my night time tea, made with water quickly heated in our fully functional microwave. Dinner by candlelight and the absence of electronic distractions was nice for a night, but the novelty of it wore off when we woke to an unheated house and 40 degree temps outside. It’s nice to be warm and in a well-lit room, with the internet at my fingertips as I type on my plugged-in laptop (my battery is dead). Part of me is ashamed of my dependence on electricity and all the modern comforts that are associated with it, part of me is just glad this “crisis” has been averted.

The teaser of a sunshiny day that we had yesterday has been followed by a cool, gray day today, and so I am foregoing an afternoon at Seward Park for an afternoon in a previously unexplored cafe. And I might just have found my new favorite hangout – All City Coffee in Georgetown is sweeeet. Natural light floods in through the big storefront windows and reflects off the crisp white walls and rough concrete floors. A lazy dog lays by the door, occasionally lifting his head when a person enters. One woman sits at a table sketching in her notebook, a couple of people are tuned into their laptops, several others are intently reading books and newspapers, two women next to me are knitting some fantastically colorful scarves. There is a very hip-intellectual vibe in here (and whether I fit into that or not, I am still very comfortable sitting here with my latte and my chocolate biscotti). I don’t know why I don’t make it over to this neighborhood more often – it’s only 2 miles from our house and filled with gems: beautiful old brick warehouses (some of which I hope will remain intact through Georgetown’s “revitalization“), industrial yards filled with all kinds of wonderful rusted-out junk, and a few trendy-but-not-overdone eateries and boutiques. It will be interesting to watch this place change over the next few years – I certainly hope it is able to retain some of its original character. This cafe was a good, good find (gray skies actually worked out pretty well for me today).

For the first time in months, I opened all the windows today and enjoyed the feeling of a fresh breeze flowing throughout the house. Heaven! The joys of spring can officially begin: walks along the lake after work, barbecues in the backyard, tending to my new little herb garden… Days like today make the months of gray drizzle all worth it. I hate to let my mood be dictated by the weather, but my God, this sunshine is making my happy! Is there such a thing as a Vitamin D high?

I think Spring is nearly upon us, as evidenced by the cherry blossoms that are in bloom throughout Seattle. We took a nice stroll through the UW campus with my parents yesterday to admire the flowers as set against the beautiful brick facades of the old buildings there. The sun was shining, people were lounging on the grass, the sky was blue. And then… it started to rain, and gray skies ultimately prevailed. But at least we had a glimpse of what’s to come, hopefully in the near future.

For me, an ideal afternoon is one spent in a cozy cafe, sipping a latte and reading or writing or sketching. This pleasure harks back to my time in Paris, where I found that cafe-hopping is a reasonably affordable way to really experience the vibe of a street or neighborhood (I couldn’t afford to eat out very often, but for the bargain price of 2 euros, I could get a cup of espresso and a chance to sit and soak in a cafe’s ambiance for a couple of hours). And so when I moved to Seattle, coffee capitol, USA, I immediately started asking around about where to find the city’s best cafes. I was living in Capitol Hill at the time and frequented Bauhaus, Espresso Vivace, Cafe Vita, and Joe Bar. Then I did a bad thing. I started taking all this urban, espresso-filled goodness for granted. I started filling up my Saturday and Sunday afternoons with errands and house-cleaning and tv-watching and naps. But I’m back on the wagon and am sitting in Stumptown Coffee on Pine Street as I type. And I like it. It’s nice here – warmly lit with comfy seating and clean, modern decor. Fellow Seattle-ites: any suggestions on where to spend next Sunday afternoon?

The beauty of God’s creation astounds me sometimes. I was ecstatic to wake up to a sunshiny day this morning and so I jetted straight over to Seward Park for a jog. Is it really possible that we live just two miles away from all this? Glistening water, dense green forests, a view of snow-capped mountains in the distance, and lots of happy, happy people. Nothing unites Seattle-ites like a little sunshine. I saw 70-year-old couples strolling hand-in-hand, young families playing on the beach, people walking their dogs, people pushing strollers, people riding bikes… I even saw a couple of elderly gentlemen sweeping for valuables together along one of the trails with their matching metal detectors. And everyone was smiling, basking in the beauty around them (a stark contrast to way that people tend to retreat into themselves on rainy and windy days, putting their heads down and just focusing on getting from point A to B as quickly as possible). What a glorious day… Spring is so close I can smell it.

To counter-balance my Debbie-Downer post the other night about how much the weather sucks, I want to throw a little positivity Seattle’s way…

Went to “First Thursday” a few nights ago with a couple of girlfriends and had a fantastic time – the first Thursday of the month, the local art galleries stay open late and offer food and wine to celebrate the opening of new artist exhibitions. Started at Punch Gallery and admired the blobbish-but-intricate balance of Jen Erickson’s painting. From there, we wandered around the corner to what looked like just a small corridor lined with paintings. Turns out we had found our way into the TK Artist Lofts: a maze of artists’ studios and galleries. We went from room to room, each of them filled with all kinds of creative goodness: sketches, photos, paintings, sculptures. Yum. I went home that night giddy with inspiration. Not sure yet what to do with that inspiration, but for now I’m content to rest in the budding awesome-ness of Seattle’s local art scene.

Cool Seattle experience #2 came in the form of a super-good breakfast with Shane yesterday morning at Both Ways Cafe near Seward Park. A quick search on Yelp for breakfast places near our house led us to this gem in the midst of an otherwise quiet neighborhood. We grabbed one of only 6 or 7 tables in the cozy dining area and chowed down on eggs and biscuits that tasted wonderfully homemade – I kept peeking back towards the kitchen, wanting to confirm my expectation that some cute little old lady was back there in an apron with chickens all over it, lovingly forming each piece of biscuit dough. I saw no such thing, but was impressed with the friendliness of the hip young waitstaff, nonetheless. Once again, South Seattle proves that it rocks!

I anxiously await the dawn of summertime, but I’m also realizing there is still much wintertime fun to be had. And so I will stop my whining.