Last Day of Winter / First Day of Spring in Photos

 Karen Molenaar Terrell makes a habit of writing about--and photographing--her daily outings around Bow and Bellingham, describing her encounters with people and their dogs. It's her way, I think, of appeciating the mundane that is all too easy to overlook, especially in troublous times. I know I'm not the only one who both appreciates hearing about her adventures and occasionally attempts to emulate her. 

 Of course, I'm nothing like so social as Karen so I end up taking photos but not having a ton of human interactions. What results for me are things like this blahdeblah update of mostly photos, taken--as the title above suggests--over the course of two days. 

 I went for a bike ride on the last day of winter. It was supposed to be just a quick ride to Mud Bay to pick up cat litter and treats, but once we were out, Bessie obviously wanted to go a little farther so I tacked on a few miles and stopped to look at stuff along the way.

 One of my first "swing around and look at that more closely" moments was this sign in front of someone's house. I assumed it would be a note about not leaving dog poop behind--a popular bit of signage in Seattle--but instead it was a bit more whimsical:

Not a great joke, maybe, but I appreciate the concept.

 Not too far from there, I came across a seriously encrusted car:

Goddess Kring helpfully included some ID on their dash so I've got a link.

 I was unaware that Monday, March 24, is National Cocktail Day*; that is certainly one I keep in my heart every day of the year. (And, similarly, I'm pretty sure that every day is "Repect Your Cat Day.")

March calendar behind the register at Mud Bay.

 Of course, even when I'm pretending to escape the political, it's still around--especially in my neck of West Seattle where quite a few people still have their "Harris/Walz" signs up.  I also encountered (and appreciated) these:

A concrete way to help Ukraine: a Seattle fundraiser dinner!

This particular house previously had a cat ladies sign

 But back to just appreciating the sights:

The West Seattleite will recognize the Admiral Theatre signage on this Little Free Library

 I shifted Bessie so we weren't blocking the sidewalk because a man with a fairly determined stride [a word that is seriously overused as a verb yet it's what I want here] was approaching the LFL. He stopped at the library to return one book and then spent some time considering his options for his next read. Were I Karen, I might have engaged him in conversation. Being me, I just got back on Bessie, meaning I don't know what he picked. No, I continued on my merry until I had to stop to admire the Cascades.

Bessie felt it was high time she was featured in a photo.

 I don't know if the camera exists to truly capture how fine the views of the local mountain ranges (not to mention Rainier) are from West Seattle; certainly my cell phone isn't up to the job. I'd say that it also fell short when I took the final snap of the outing, though the dirty window glass certainly doesn't help either.

 Since I said this was a post of two days, I imagine I should include at least a  few of the photos I took yesterday, intending to post a "Happy Equinox" note on the FB and BS. That didn't happen, what with one thing and another, but it's still spring, no? I am anxious about the apricot; it's getting the few blossoms it's going to get, but it's still not warm enough for the mason bees.

Apricot blossoms against the sky

The clematis doesn't care how cold it is; it says it's time to bloom!

*World Cocktail Day, however, is May 13.

March 14 protest in Seattle

Today's accessories

I'm glad I opted to head downtown for today's protest as it took my mind off the Senate vote on the continuing resolution for a few hours. Somehow it was easier to hear that enough Democrats had caved for it to pass after I'd spent time marching with a crowd of resolute fellow Americans across Seattle's downtown for a mile or so.

By the Federal Building

I'm still pissed off with the Senate, though not with my senators, but it sort of reinforces the message: no one is coming to our rescue; we need to do this--whatever "this" is--ourselves.

Not my sign, but certainly my sentiment

En route back to the Federal Building where I'd left my bike, I made a stop at the library; one of the volunteers there thanked me for representing. The owners at the Foggy Tea Shop, where I had a restorative cuppa, did the same--and gave me a discount on my purchase!

Mug of tea and delicious warm croissant at a bargain price

And then a couple of guys commented favorably on my sign as we were all crossing an intersection together. It was, all in all, a very heartening outing on a day that would otherwise have been very dispiriting.

I was on my own and it wasn't easy to coordinate sign, flag, backpack, gloves, and phone so I didn't take a ton of photos--and none at all while we were on the move--so I offer just a few additional snaps of signs that caught my eye:

A lovely sentiment

I can't believe this needs to be said.

I admire the attempt to cover so much on one sign.

Cha!

The Veterans for Peace would like a word.

 

Stand Up for Science (in Seattle)

Waiting for the bridge en route to the rally*

 This is, essentially, another photo dump post, this time from Friday's "Stand Up for Science" Rally at Seattle Center. They say it was organized in about three weeks which shows how very efficient and capable the scientific community is because they had a pretty good turnout (the Seattle Times says "thousands") with a dozen or more excellent speakers. You could hear all the speakers too, and the emcees included some humor, a stretching interlude, some crowd interaction, and a lot of call and response. Plus, the weather was glorious and an eagle flew overhead midway through. It was inspiriting and inspirational. My only complaint is that they never asked how many liberal arts majors were in the crowd; I am sure we were legion.

As promised, a ton of photos, in no particular order:

It's personal for this woman.

A crowd shot

Okay, this one made me laugh.

More than one speaker pointed out just how short-sighted it is to cut research funding.

The Space Needle seemed to approve of the crowd and its mission.

If only there were a vaccine for M***.

Zoom in to see the worms.

This was a favorite, . . .

. . . but I probably liked this one even more.

Duh!

D'oh!

Truth!

Crowd shot 2

Seriously, I love the simplicity here.

Scott is feeling poorly today, and I'm really capable of only so much social action in a week, so we've given the International Women's March a miss today. I'm trusting others to pick up our slack.

*and yes, I had to make a new sign that would fit in Bessie's basket for this rally. This site had templates!

Protest Interlude

Something new for the blahdeblahblah bots; a list of local protests coming up in the Seattle area over the next few days. Make your sign, grab your flag, put on your sensible shoes, and go make your voice heard!

March 4: 50501 protest at Westlake (2901 Western Avenue) in Seattle; starts at noon, runs through 2:00. There's also one that starts at 3:00 at the Federal Building (see below).

March 4: Support Ukraine protest at Federal Building (915 2^nd Ave) in Seattle; runs 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm to coincide with Felon47’s state of the union speech (This one is also listed as a more general 50501 event)

 

March 7: Stand Up for Science protest at Seattle Center (Mural Amphitheatre); starts at noon (runs through 3:00). It's a nationwide protest to stand up for science and scientists whose valuable work on climate change, cancer research, and more is now at risk. See here for list of events across the country.

March 8: International Women’s Day march and rally on Capitol Hill (Broadway & East Pine Street) starts at noon (runs through 2:00 pm). There are many such events nationwide.

Book interlude

Tea and cookies with The Exiles Return--not Mrs Miniver, as I assumed--(and some hangers-on)

 My plan is to return to London one of these days--or at least to writing up the enthralling tale of our time there last year. Not that I wouldn't like to return in person too (so many places for tea!), but god knows the way the current administration is going Americans will be banned from just about every other country on Earth--and who can blame them? I stray.

Some of the stacks

 Today was the Red Letter Day long anticipated around here: the day I finally dealt with the piles of books that were shifted to the bedroom floor when we were clearing the living room to make space for Christmas dinner guests. I have just pointed out proudly to Scott that that means it was less than two months, aka practically no time at all. But I noticed this morning that there were drifts of dust and such accumulating between the stacks and that just seemed a little too nasty.

Oregon vacation reading (not recommended), vacation snacking (yum), vacation drinks (lovely)

 I started by sorting so the second photo above does not include Scott's "to be read" books or the blank books or the Mountaineers publications or the field guides or miscellaneous other sorts that required less thought. And it also includes some titles that never made it to the floor but instead have accreted since Christmas on tables and such. I never did a final "2024 in Books" post and I sort of thought that might be what this would be, but now I'm doubtful that's going to happen. But let's see:

The Sentence, tea, and cupcake chez Aurora

 Going by the list to the left, I read eighty-four books in 2024, and for the first time in thirty-seven years I don't need to add "not including books read for work" which, I must say, has been damned nice. Oh, I quite enjoyed a lot of the books I read as part of my job, but I also am not sorry to have all the time--and mental capacity--for my own. I was pretty good about using the public library, at least for the first half of the year and then I had a lot of books purchased on Bookstore Day(s) providing me fodder through the summer and beyond. Indeed, I still have not read a couple of the books picked up the end of last April. 

At Sea-Wolf: I remember liking The Last Samurai, but I find I don't remember the story at all.

 I confess I am shocked to find that I read only five Trollope novels in 2024; I would have thought the number would be a lot higher, but then I don't consider page counts in these belated summaries. I went heavy into mysteries (eighteen) which I attribute, at least in part, to getting books from the library: mysteries is an easy section to browse. Two favorites from that genre, both courtesy SPL: My Murder and After She Wrote Him. 

The Goodbye Cat (good, but not as good as The Travelling Cat Chronicles) in the backyard

 There were only eight children's books this year, and half of those were re-reads, while I also read but eight non-fiction titles. The loveliest of those was likely Maeve Higgins' Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them though Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? was also quite fine. The most disappointing book of the year (possibly of the decade, if not the millennium) was David James Duncan's Sun House, while the in-search-of-a-publisher Islands and Other Stories (Scott's latest) was the best. If I take Scott's book out of the mix then the best would likely be The Trumpet of the Swan, The Girls, or one of those two mysteries.

Americanah (and maybe some snacks for later) at La Parisienne 

Presidents Day Protest in Olympia in photos

 As Scott and I made our way to the light rail so we could meet up with Wendy and Jera for the trip to Olympia, a guy saw Scott's sign and asked what we were protesting. "Everything," was Scott's response and that was reflected in the range of signs we saw at the Capitol. We jumped off the light rail in Columbia City so I could fetch some pastries at the PCC there. When we were checking out, the cashier asked if we were going to a protest. When we said yes, she expressed regret that she had to work--and  then comped one of our pastries! I felt just like Karen Molenaar Terrell for a moment! (Scott's observation: "Shrinkage.")

"The Olympian" says there were about 2,000 of us on the Capitol grounds yesterday; that sounds accurate enough to me. People lined the road with signs, getting a lot of supportive honks and waves from passing cars. A second group was near the Tivoli Fountain (a feature I never actually saw) where the sound system left a bit to be desired. The third throng was on or near the Capitol steps where the sound system worked and the State Insurance Commissioner (I think) got some serious applause--not the something you might expect, really. 

 The nicest thing about a protest at the state capitol? You get access to real bathrooms with running water and everything! Go Democracy! 

 This post is mostly photos--in no particular order, mostly of signs, because there are some damned clever people who care about democracy.