Year in Pictures in Review: Part 1 (April Through July)

Back in March, I started this blog because I so loved the neighborhood photo essays in Chuck B.'s Whoreticulture blog. Every day I'd show my admiration through tipsy responses to his posts about Bernal Heights in San Francisco, and soon I decided my flattery needed to be even more sincere, so I ripped off his blog and started this one.

In fact, this very post is based on an idea I stole from him.

MARCH

This was before I started uploading my photos to Flickr, so the pictures all look like crap. I won't bother reposting any of them here. However, I'll reprint my winning entry from a dirty limerick contest at a gay St. Patrick's Day birthday party I attended that month:

Our friend Sonny's exceedingly hot
The boys they all like him a lot
And the girls, how they sigh
With a tear in their eye
When they find out he doesn't like twat

APRIL

April was the month that I started taking lots of pictures of Georgetown.



April was also the month that I started stalking Ciscoe Morris. This is not really true. I just like taking pictures of his planting strip.



This is not a particularly good or interesting photo, but it features the plant genus that I have been obsessed with this year. Whenever I see it in bloom, I'm stunned by just how blue it is. Ceanothus!



MAY

This month it seems like I did nothing but take pictures of the darling buds of May.

Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose, Oregon.





My yard.



And Ciscoe's yard, of course.







Over Memorial Day weekend, we visited Rich Art's yard in Centralia.







JUNE

In June, the Georgetown dump proposal was killed.

I took more pictures Ciscoe's yard.





Beacon Hill held its first garden walk.





And Georgetown had a carnival.







JULY

July was a month of firsts.

I learned how to use the closeup button on my point-and-shoot.





I visited Hartstene Island and spent over $30 on a bottle of wine.



I toured the Rainier Cold Storage Building.



We built a handsome little fence.



And we went to Toronto for no good reason.

Crocodile Tears

I think I agree with Seattlest's view on the closing of the Crocodile Cafe earlier this week.

Clubs aren't taverns; they don't grow finer with age. It's better to have a steady, sustainable turnaround of clubs and venues. It helps keep the music scene itself from stagnating and compartmentalizing. There's nothing more depressing than a club reaching mythic 'legendary' status with 45-year-old, original patrons -- trying to relive old memories -- throwing lecherous glances at the 16-year-old noobs who go there because it's the cool place to be. The best thing that can happen for a club is to close before it gets tired and becomes a caricature of itself. Clubs best live on in the slightly hazy, alcoholic fog of memories of past patrons.

The Three Imaginary Girls are asking for your favorite Crocodile memories, and people are listing full lineups of shows they loved.

I've been to the Crocodile plenty of drunken times, but I don't think I can remember a single full lineup that I've seen there. However, one memory does stand out, not because of the show itself but because of an embarrassing conversation I had about it the next day:

A few years ago I told a coworker about my previous night out, at one of the Three Imaginary Girls' Christmas shows.

I told the person: "I don't remember a lot, but I do remember getting up onstage and singing 'We Are the World.' Oh my God, I must have been really drunk. Oh, yeah, I got free drink tickets because I won a dance contest!"

Another coworker who'd also been in attendance overheard us and reminded me: "You were the only contestant."

Holiday House in Ballard

Apropos of nothing except holiday loveliness, here are some photos from a friend's Christmas party in Ballard last night.

















And while we're off the topics of gardening and the South End, here are a few photos of my 17-year-old Abysinnian cat who lives up in Wedgwood (I ceded custody of him years ago).

SPD to 36 Riders: "Plan Ahead to Minimize Waiting Time"

This article in the latest Beacon Hill News made me giggle.

In reference to the recent spate of sexual attacks on female, Asian Beacon Hill bus riders, Seattle South Precinct community liaison Mark Solomon listed some tips on how to stay safe on the bus, and this one topped the list:

Keep bus schedules of frequently traveled routes and plan ahead to minimize waiting time.

As anyone who relies on the 36 knows, the schedule has nothing to do with anything. The bus is packed all day long, and it comes when it comes, and you should consider yourself lucky if it doesn't just pass you by because it's too full.

Hangar Cafe on a Sunny December Morning

This morning we went to Hangar Cafe for the first time since it reopened.





I've actually been avoiding going there because I've heard it's so good. The last thing I need is a crepe habit.

Arturo ordered the pumpkin waffle and I dared to try the reportedly addictive ham and cheese crepe.

I'd guess that's Justin, the owner, working on my crepe. I feel kind of stalkerish taking these photos without introducing myself. But I also feel it would be presumptuous to introduce myself, even though we've exchanged e-mails. I guess I'm just shy, basically.



(OK, here's a sort-of funny story about feeling like a stalker. I was recently standing in line at Pallino in the Columbia Center, and I recognized the guy behind me, and I said hi, as if we knew each other. Then one second later I was mortified to realize I'd just said hi to Seattle councilmember-elect Tim Burgess, who I've corresponded with over e-mail but of course don't actually know. But he's very nice, and he said hi back. I later e-mailed him to clear up any confusion, and he was again very nice in his response and said that next time I see him we should actually converse. You got it, Tim. I'm sure I'll see you again, as we'll be working across the street from each other. Maybe I'll give you the lowdown on what's hot and what's not in the Columbia Center food court.)

OK, back to Georgetown and the waffle and the crepe.



They were both phenomenal.



Then we saw our neighbor Lisa Marie and her cute kids.





And I realized, though it's been obvious for a long time, that THIS is my neighborhood. This is the neighborhood where I can go and run into people who live on my block. I think Hangar Cafe is closer to us than Galaxie.

Shortly after breakfast I met the wonderful owners of Georgetown Tile Works, and I found out that they live on Beacon Hill too. And I've e-mailed the future owner of Full Throttle Bottles, and she says she lives down in Skyway. Thank you, Georgetown, for welcoming those of us from other parts of the South End.

I do care about Beacon Hill (even though I haven't returned any of the e-mails or later comments from my last Beacon Hill post, and I did not testify about Jefferson Park on Thursday -- I'm sorry, I've been too busy with other stuff), but I think I'll survive if we never get a restaurant with decent lighting and a wine list. Or a pizza place. Or a burger joint with some nice beers on tap. Because we have Georgetown, and it has all of those things, and more.

Our Yard Is Looking Weed-Free

Because it's snowing in Seattle this afternoon.







A good day to stay inside and play with kitties.







Or go outside and eat snow.

Kubota Garden

Kubota Garden is an old Japanese garden here in South Seattle. It's huge, it's free, it's in a bad neighborhood. It's supposedly haunted. Everything about it is unlikely.



From the garden's website:

In 1927 Fujitaro Kubota bought five acres of logged-off swampland in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle and began his garden. A 1907 emigrant from the Japanese Island of Shikoku, he established the Kubota Gardening Company in 1923. Fujitaro was a man with a dream. Entirely self-taught as a gardener, he wanted to display the beauty of the Northwest in a Japanese manner and was soon designing and installing gardens throughout the Seattle area.

Enough talk. Let's look.