Saturday Snaps

A hasty photo post while Scott shakes up a few cocktails.

Rampaging honeysuckle

Today was the Xth Annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, and this year there were more than 300 official sales. It also was a rather wet and cool day, dampening our enthusiasm and requiring the sellers to cover up their sale tables with plastic sheeting, etc. many times. Despite the conditions, we eventually set out on our bikes to visit at least a few sales. (It's Bike Everywhere Month, in case you didn't know, and my goal is to be the one on the Mountaineers Books team with the most trips for fewest total miles. I think I've got a lock on that one. And, at least momentarily, I'm in first for the "most total trips" period. That's on my team. Other people on other teams have more than 160 trips so far which is, clearly, crazy. I may not have many standards, but at least I don't consider an 0.1 mile ride to the Little Free Library a "trip.")

Go, Bessie, GO!

So. We hit maybe half a dozen or so official garage sales during our garage sale outing, our late start meaning that some places were happily closed by the time we reached them at shortly after 3:00. My haul to that point wasn't bad: some excellent bits of upholstery cloth, fire tools, a few odds and ends of kitchen items, and a new jacket (purchased at the sale run by a couple of ex-Columbia Sportswear employees who proudly advertised "hardly used outdoor gear and computer equipment," leading us to wonder whether their former employers would be stopping by with the police), but it still didn't feel like exactly "honorable."

Luckily, we came across a few other sales en route to the grocery store later and at these sales I found true yard sale items: old paperbacks, some fancy hangers, and a very heavy birdhouse made of colorful old tiles.

2016 West Seattle Garage Sale Day final haul

One reason for our late start was that we went to see Seattle Shakespeare's production of Romeo and Juliet last night. It's not a play that I ever particularly long to see, but I realized last night that possibly it's a play that I've almost never seen. Certainly Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech was utterly unfamiliar and quite lovely. Mercutio in general was quite excellent, as was Juliet. Romeo wasn't so bad either. But, seriously, why all the fake deaths and the rest? Why not bundle Juliet off to Mantua with Romeo immediately? Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense?