Drink

Last night I gave some quavery testimony about my love of Georgetown at City Council's jam-packed public hearing on the proposed Georgetown dump and council member Richard Conlin's zero-waste strategy for the city. Weird how public speaking is always scary! I've spoken at so many hearings in the last year, that I think I assumed that I would be good at it by now. Oh well. The hearing went well, I think. Great turnout, lots of good comments about how we should try to catch up with Portland and San Francisco in terms of recycling, polystyrene bans, etc.

After that, I needed a drink in a bad way, so my Sierra Club buddy (who also testified, hurray) and I had a super-quick beer at Fado before I ran down to Design Within Reach to see our lamp at the NorthWestern Light exhibition there. It's the cute yellow one toward the end of the table.



My friend Luca, who made our lamp, was there, as was our friend Philipp, an industrial designer whose company made this bendable paperclip lamp.



We went to Virginia Inn and had double Maker's Mark Manhattans, the bar's specialty.



I like to go to Georgetown after hearings about Georgetown, because it's fun to see the people whose personal stories you just heard. So we headed down to Jules Maes, where I had one half-size Manny's.



Jules Maes is the oldest bar in Seattle.



As I'm sure I've mentioned before, it's supposed to be haunted. It sure looks like it.









We went to one more bar after this.



We got a couple of Knob Creeks on the rocks at Nine Pound Hammer, where the owner recognized me from the hearing and thanked me for testifying. He's sweet. They're all sweet. No dump!

Fairie Gardens Again

I love Fairie Gardens in Tumwater, Washington. Here are just a few more photos of this place, which I've shot before.

















I bought a couple of these sea holly plants, which the proprietor described as "pretty but unfriendly."



And now I need to go plant them. Bye!

Rich Art's Art Yard in Centralia, Washington

Southwest Washington is full of weirdos and cranks.

Maybe there's something in the water. They all used to live near Trojan Nuclear Power Plant on the Oregon side of the Columbia. I remember going on school field trips here as a kid. We were taught that nuclear power was "clean, safe, and efficient."

It's now decommissioned and the cooling tower is gone, but the whole operation was just up this little road, off Highway 30.



OK, onto I-5 now. At milepost 62 in Washington, you pass the ugly-ass Gospodor Monument Park, a local weirdo's "elaborate tribute to Mother Teresa, Native Americans and victims of the Holocaust."



A bit farther north in Chehalis, Al Hamilton, the cranky Uncle Sam billboard guy, is complaining about something or other.

"Is Virginia Tech an 'unarmed victim zone'?"



And up in Centralia, wonderful weirdo Rich Art continues to fill his yard with sculptures made out of styrofoam packing material and other found objects.



He tells us he likes to keep his yard open for visitors from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend because it's a goal he's set for himself.



















At this point, I got the feeling that Rich Art was a Robert Crumb fan.

















Creche.





OK, need to get back on the road again. A couple more shots of Centralia.





Then farmland.

Cistus Nursery Again

A few photos of Cistus Nursery from Sunday morning. I was here a couple of months ago.







Here's that weird plant that Chuck told me I should buy next time I saw it. I didn't get it this time because I didn't know how long we would take getting home from here.











There's a llama ranch by the nursery. Hola y adios, llamas!