the girly who shall end all girls

my knitting group has struggled to stay together through the pandemic. the original organizer is a cancer research nurse, others are immune compromised, and we're all paranoid. we met in person once at some point last year in that moment after vaccine and before Delta, and otherwise we've been doing zoom meetings but it sucks. but today, today really felt like spring, the first warm day of the year. so we met up at a place with outdoor seating and totally failed to knit, it was just so nice to see each other.

part of my neighborhood's response to pandemic restrictions was to reduce traffic on a historic street and allow all the businesses to put seating and shopping stalls into the parking spaces. it started out rudimentary and turned into roofed open air seating with lights and heating, various sorts of decor, and plants. so on a warm evening it has a wonderful festival feel* with fairy lights everywhere and a gentle buzz of activity (but because everything is in the streets the sidewalks aren't crowded).

so anyway, we hung out at Hattie's Hat, and then wandered up the street for gelato. across the street from the gelato place there was a popcorn cart in front of the candy shop, sort of a tiny truck, large enough for someone to stand inside. the smell of popcorn is in the air, and we step outside with our dessert, lights are shining in the gloaming, and the woman in the popcorn truck begins to sing. and she was doing something. at first i thought she might just be singing opera and dishing popcorn because that is totally a Seattle thing to do. and then i realized that she was focused on the window but not reaching through the window. SHADOW PLAY!

we walked across the street and sure enough, she had a little proscenium where the walk-up window would be, colored scenery that she scrolled from scene to scene, and various spring-themed shadow puppets. and there was a dude that just came around and handed out little bags of the popcorn.** ( i found a little video clip )

and then we all drifted our separate ways and the walk home was lovely, and I got C and Leela and we did our usual last walk of the day together, and now I write it all down. those moments of serendipity, the strange profusion of nice things that are just part of everyday life are what made me fall in love with Seattle and why i'm still here.




*I know this is Tuesday in Europe but in the US cities are really shitty about anything outdoors that slows down cars

**turns out that is her dad

quiet day today. mostly walks with the dog and reading, occasionally aloud to C since the current Tessa Dare has a lot of laugh lines.

did a bit of chafing at isolation life: we took a while to settle on something for dinner and what I really really wanted was to amble through the rain to sit by the fire at Matador with a margarita. I deeply miss eating out, and being able to do so on a whim.

the weather is mild, and someone facing our courtyard has been playing the piano with the window open on and off all day. currently playing Mad World, but there's been everything from Debussy to songs from Moana.

i think my favorite was The Black Parade, though.

Ballard Coffee Works is the last open shop in the Coffee Works mini chain - it's the only one that doesn't get business primarily from office workers or tourists.

today is their last day until things change. I got a latte this morning and that's probably the last coffee I'll have for months.

last Sunday i finally got to a kayak club pool play session, and i was able to successfully do a heel hook self-rescue. this in spite of having had very little opportunity to work on conditioning - it's that much of a mechanical improvement for my particular body shape and composition. (in the process i also managed to break another of the rubber thingies that substitute for real decklines and bungies.) as i was unloading at home i got the message that my father-in-law had died, so my feeling of triumph was short-lived.

yesterday i figured out how to replace the broken rubber bit on the back deck, and hit up Seattle Fabrics for cordage and fittings to upgrade my decklines and get rid of the rubber once and for all. Seattle Fabrics is a dreamy candy store of all the things you never knew you wanted to be able to make yourself, packaged up as some blend of an old-school outfitter, a neighborhood hardware store, and a theatrical supply shop. somehow a pretty new building still feels like a grotty warehouse inside, with ceiling-high racks of technical fabric, spools of all sorts of cording and webbing mounted on pipes (complete with yardstick and scissors for cutting your own), and wooden drawers of various plastic and metal snaps and clips and other findings (all with an example taped to the front of the drawer). i never knew there were three colors of glotape! and there are patterns to MAKE ALL THE THINGS. i only bought the items that i came for, but i want to get C in there, he will love it.

in the afternoon i did my first solo paddle with the Oru. i still marvel that it's ten minutes from door to water.

photo above is the view coming back in to the boat launch. in the distance is the stop light at 28th and Market; 28th Ave runs directly into the ship canal.

once i got past the end of the marina, i discovered that the boat launch is behind the breakwater for the entrance to the locks. there were two Corps of Engineers barges piled high with storm debris - mostly tree parts, but a variety of junk including several boats (eep). boat traffic was low, but i decided i wasn't ready to find out how much of a current there was around the dam and the lock entrances, so i headed east toward Ballard bridge.

it's always interesting to see the city from the water. it's backstage and inside out from the familiar. there's a marina behind Ballard Ave that's as big or bigger than any on Lake Union, with picnic tables by the water at land end of each set of docks - they're hidden from public view by Pacific Studio. there's a sign that only someone in a small boat could read. there's a floating home completely covered in murals that has a dinghy with a matching paint-job. i looked inside an empty dry dock. i was dwarfed by a trawler. i startled a cormorant. due to darkening skies, i only went to the bridge and back, but i got close enough to Fisherman's Terminal to get a feel for just how huge the Alaska fleet ships really are. i look at them every day on the way to work and they don't seem like they're that much larger than pleasure craft, but that's just forced perspective, they make the helipad-sized yachts look dinky.

i know that exercise generally is good for mood, but the effect that paddling has on me is still remarkable. i assume that it's the combination of exercise and exploration (and i have always loved the water). i found myself singing as i went, and i stayed bubbly all the way through packing up and going home and unpacking and showering and meeting the knittas for a movie.

this was probably my last chance to go out before i go to see my parents, but i feel like i'm set now to build my stamina and work my strokes on the ship canal though the winter.

sometime this summer, a classical trumpeter moved into my building (or the one across the street). Their tone is excellent, so hearing them practice is quite pleasant, especially since it bears the sense-memory of waiting for the symphony or opera to begin.

i've been on the balcony with my spinning, enjoying the fine day and listening to an audiobook of The Letter of Marque. plus the aforementioned trumpet. and the occasional dog singing along.

it's more pleasant than you might think.

oh, i am exhausted today. but in a good way.

this weekend was the Nordic Knitting Conference, happening about 10 short blocks from my house. Klamath K (who i met through shadawyn's fiber weekends) came up to take a class and enjoy some city time. her C went off and had boy time while she crashed at my place. it was seriously a good time. my class schedule ran in a way that meant she had to entertain herself a bit more than i wanted, but she seemed well-pleased with the experience, so i won't complain. like, "honey, can we move to Ballard?" pleased.

classes were had, there was social time at Card Kingdom, a Portage Bay breakfast, lockage, late-running salmon in the fish ladder, her successful solo trip up to see Deco Japan, some of Benjamin Bagby's Beowulf, and a few episodes of Call the Midwife. plus great discussions of D&D 5e vs Pathfinder, and the role of the coach in professional sports.

the conference itself was nice. i took one class and followed my plan of spending marketplace money on raw material for gifts.

the class was a step up for me. the instructor, Judith MacKenzie, is worshipped as a god. (kind of like people used to talk about Elizabeth Zimmermann.) this was my first beyond basics spinning class, where it was assumed that i knew my wheel well and had a solid vocabulary and skillset. at first i was a bit frustrated that it wasn't quite as described in the program book, that she was a bit of a disorganized magpie, and that hand cards were on the materials list and we never used them.* but i'm definitely going to be using the techniques i learned to make holiday gifts, she was very generous with high-quality supplies, and she was a fount of tips, tricks, and factoids. i think i've got her seamless join down, and practice will shore up my semi-woolen method. it was amusing to me that as i started telling C about the class i was kind of lukewarm about the experience, but then i just kept going on and on about how cool this was and that was and things that i learned. so i'll be unpacking the class for a long time, and would pay to work with her again.

i sat beside a pair of women who had flown up from California for the weekend. they were talking casually about the other fiber events they had traveled to this year, their collections of wheels and spindles, having an upstairs e-spinner and a downstairs e-spinner, ordering custom-made spindles, and shutting back and forth between the house and the boat. (for context, they were talking about thousands and thousands of dollars worth of equipment and travel. they also seemed to not have jobs.) both knitting/spinning and quilting occupy this strange space where they are the hobbies of the frugal and of the leisure class. i know that working artists need the leisure class hobbyists to survive. i thought about the fiber i bought in the marketplace and realized that the vendor was also leisure class - she appears to be independently wealthy, and is selling at least part of her wares at cost. i love her work, and her pricing, but is she screwing things up for people who actually need the money?**


*i borrowed a pair, which required a bit of effort on the part of their owner. i'll make some rolags before i return them, and enjoy the social opportunity it offers. darn glad i didn't buy them for the class.
**this is similar to the unpaid or even pay-to-play intern model that is nearly required in professional theater. everyone who participates reinforces the barriers to people without those resources.

we've had our Approve 71 sign in the planting strip out front for almost a week now. it's baby's first yard sign and i'm pleased to be able to host it where it's visible in an area with lots of foot traffic. (and we are near the parking lot for the splitters.)

the signs come from cafe press and they're kind of cool - a printed vinyl pocket with a three-part wire frame. the whole thing ships in a tube but makes a nice flat and sturdy sign in short order.

after a day or two it had been knocked around a little. i shrugged it off, since there are always cars parked there or dogs being walked, etc. every morning on the way to work i would straighten it. later this week when i came home from work, the top of the wire frame was gone and the sign pocket was turned 90 degrees so that it was an indistinguishable shape and unreadable.

uh oh.

when i came home from an engagement last night, around 10:30pm, i found an Approve 71 sign on the ground down the block from my house. it had been split at both seams, like someone tore it as much as the tough vinyl would allow. i picked it up, and indeed, it was our sign. looked like whoever grabbed it scooped it up as quickly as they could and left the frame behind. i took the wire uprights inside and put the whole thing back together with an internal cardboard reinforcement and white duct tape. and put it back outside before going to bed.

WTF, Ballard, WTF. C and i think from the way the ground is torn up that passerby have both pulled it down and put it back several times.

the work stuff what ate my life is winding down a wee bit, just in time for mom and dad to arrive. i've missed writing here, and i hate how content-free 2009 has been. i will attempt to make May a month where i post more. not just more often, but with more substance.

- today (with five key minutes of consultation from an actual developer) i got my Omniture pilot project running. since yesterday i was told that the only person at my skill level who had tried it previously gave up, i am extra-pleased.

today i also had a mai-tai. and got doggy kisses. and walked barefoot on Alki.

- i haven't seen much of buhrger in this MTBWA, but any party where we all adjourn to the kitchen to play with non-Newtonian fluid is a success in my book.

-Norwescon was lovely, even though i didn't care about the writer GOH. i did have fun with friends, and good panels, and mimerki and i danced and danced. oh, and i bought a corset. i forgot to take a picture of me wearing it, but i swear that i will wear it more than just at con and therefore there will be pics and live sightings. we buy nice and spendy things to use them, dammit.

-kuki linux. i meant to wait until they had another rev or two under their belts, but then i accidentally zeroed Bianca's battery during the con which led to startup trouble and then i was thinking harder about how i should do a full backup to restore from and then i did and then what the hell if i don't like this distribution i can always roll back or try another one and okay the maintainer says one way to solve this issue is to edit grub...you know how it goes. it's slick and pretty nice and so far my only issue is that the Linpus i used to have had a circular scrolling gesture for the trackpad and i keep reaching for it. someone wrote the two finger gesture for Ubuntu, i bet i can look this up...

-i worked Saturday and Sunday this weekend. but i also had Norwegian pancake breakfast at Leif Erickson Lodge Saturday morning- a fundraiser for the Sons of Norway scholarship. Ballard is adorable and i love lingonberries. the lodge seems to be pretty modern but the walls have huge turn of the century paintings of Norwegian history. (no birthday party, so very tired.) and we made time on Sunday to get to the Friends of the Library booksale. i only bought 15 books this year only three of them were about linux and Sunday is half price day, so i got books and a burger and lemonade from the burger stand at the booksale and spent less than $15. hangar full of books is the reason a bunch of people come out and picnic on a beautiful day. i love this town.

last night we bundled up and walked around the neighborhood. since Matador was open we had dinner and drinks by the fire. Matador has an open fireplace with a bar curving around it; the place was hopping, but without a waitlist like a typical Saturday. there were few cars moving, but plenty of people walking with their babies bundled up like little starfish, and dogs in coats.

things were quiet again today; we were ordered to stay home from the second party of the weekend. Ballard has its priorities - C went out to get our usual Sunday morning coffee and pastry, and not only was the shop open but there were people hanging out inside.

we've had snow all day. we have at least six inches, and it keeps piling up. no wind here, just a white blanket over everything. the buildings outside are disappearing from view...which is definitely the snow and not the dark, since the white sky and the white ground are reflecting all the ambient light and making it full-moon bright out there.

we're sleeping on the futon in the living room, which stays warmer than the bedroom. we're eaten too many cookies, and made cake inna mug, and done all of kinds of useful-yet-stupid things like rearranging the office to expose more of the heater. (but of course we lost interest midway, so the bookcases in their new locations are mostly empty and there are books everywhere.)