Lunchtime in Georgetown

We've not been to Hangar Cafe before, but I had a good feeling about it because I'd seen goats there before. I tend to like cafes that people feel comfortable taking their goats to.

Oh, look, they have wine, God bless them.





I couldn't take my eyes off the painting on the gate.



It's stunning.



We bummed around the residential part of Georgetown after that. I chatted with the guy who created this arbor.



He's lived there a couple years with his wife and their baby. He's a landscape architect, though he doesn't always use that term. He said when he first moved in, the yard was nothing but chain-link fence and a dog run.



He was totally fine with me taking all these photos.





I'd bet you a million dollars that this is his truck.















I have to go now, but I also have photos of the haunted Georgetown Castle, the Hat & Boots park, some basalt sculpture, and more Depression-era clothes made from flour sacks!

Trifecta

Yes, I have had beer, liquor, and wine tonight, but I'm not drunk. I've only had one of each. That's not that much.

But it was enough to prompt a trip to Randy's by Boeing Field. Randy's certainly used to be a Denny's. Now it's kind of like an unofficial Boeing museum + 24-hour diner.

I only had my cell phone camera on me, but you get the idea.

Seattle Public Library

I got out of the office for a while today and took a notebook (pad of paper, not a computer) to the downtown library. I thought I would find the space inspiring.

I wanted to go up as high as I could. Almost there.



And a quick look behind.



I chose a seat, much like the ones in this picture, and quickly got irritated and took this photo. I didn't want to sit in the sea of work desks, so I sat here. But this sucks. A stream of tourists, like these two, kept parading right by me. The seats you see here would have been even worse, I think. Who would want to sit there, seriously? Could the placement of these chairs be any more exposed and discomfiting?



And here's the seat that I had been sitting in. (There were already two people sitting in the prime-location chairs to the right, just out of view.) People kept walking right behind me, and I felt like they were reading my papers. And I was right next to a garbage can, which isn't super-pleasant. Nice lounging area, Rem. How much did we pay you for this shit? Perhaps I could recommend a book or two on usability. Jesus.



Forget it. I'm outta here.

Allium Photos from Yesterday

Nothing exciting to report. I'm enjoying my alliums, which are peaking just about now.



We're getting our roof replaced. That's the roofing truck in the background.



Honeybee. Here's to your health, little pollinator!



I'm also liking this planter. I usually go for minimalist planter arrangements, with a single specimen in each. (Or two, if the planter is 3 feet wide, like the Allium/Carex one.) I know that planters are supposed to be plentiful, so I tried stuffing this one for a change.

That Giant Plant in Ciscoe's Yard

My merry band of four or five blog readers know that I like to take pictures of Ciscoe Morris's yard. I have not seen any of his TV or radio segments and I have not read his book (books?), so I don't know much about him, other than, apparently, he likes to say "oh la la" a lot. But he lives near a friend of mine, so I like to go check out his yard from time to time.

Anyway, Chuck (who knows far more about these things than I do) has commented a couple of times about a plant in Ciscoe's yard. When I took a photo of it in April, Chuck suggested that it might be a castor bean plant.



But then when I took photos in May, he thought it was probably something else. (He's right.)





This sunny morning I decided to stay in bed instead of going to the gym, and I leafed through the Seattle edition of the May Sunset magazine, which has an interview with Ciscoe Morris:

What is your current plant obsession?

I've got a lot of them. Right now, I'm crazy about Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steriodal Giant' (also known as giant rice paper plant). It really is humungous. It has 4-foot-wide and 4-foot-long maple-like leaves on a 15-foot-tall plant. It looks so tropical.

Mystery solved!

Plants in Wedgwood

Last night we went to Wedgwood to overnight-babysit our friends' 1-year-old while they celebrated their anniversary at a fancy downtown hotel. On the way, we visited a friend who wanted to watch the De La Hoya / Mayweather fight at Georgetown Liquor Company. She sells wine to the GLC, and she brought a bottle of some fancy premier cru Bordeaux. We each tried a glass while the first of the opening fights started, Bautista vs. Medina, and I could tell that Bautista was going to win before either of them even stepped into the ring. I could see it in his eyes.



We pass the Bettie Page house on the way to our friends' house.



And we pass a Ceanothus in bloom.



In the morning we go for a walk around the neighborhood. I'm reminded how Chuck once said, "I don't like Acer dissectum cv. atropurpureum (Laceleaf Japanese Maple), mostly because it's grafted, but also because it looks like the Cousin It of plants. And I totally acknowledge that it's pretty. Sometimes being pretty just isn't enough."

Japanese maple.



Cousin It.



I like this gate.



I like this fence.



Pretty Euphorbia.



I think I'd have put taller plants behind Venus, though I do like the blue at her feet.



Nice.



I like Japanese lanterns in other people's yards, though (like Buddha, like Venus, like the Virgin Mary, like Roman columns, like just about anything) they're too culturally specific for me to want to use in my yard. I think I only want modern and/or natural objects in with my plants. I can't even handle planters that aren't neutral monocromes.



Moments after I take this photo, a woman jogs past me with her dog and apologizes for breaking the rules.



Cute. (Though there will never be words in my yard.)



A beautiful trellis.



Look, it's local gardening personality Ciscoe Morris's house again.



The castor bean plant has grown a lot.

EDIT: This is not a castor bean plant. It is Tertapanax papyrifera "Steroidal Giant" (giant rice paper plant).





I've taken this shot before. Maple, Mondo, moss.







Smoke bush. Lovely.









Ciscoe's Ceanothus isn't blooming yet.



Bye, Ciscoe!



Someone's been hard at work.





Nice colors.



This is totally Seattle. A Japanese maple and a bunch of evergreens.



And I'll show you one photo of our charge, because she's kind of like a rock star, she's so perfectly cute.