And You Didn't!

Omaha and I just saw RUSH!

Grammar Fail at the Aquarium

Few things annoy me more than obvious grammar fail, such as this masterpiece spotted at the Seattle Aquarium: "The Hawaiian islands form a very unique ecological habitat."

Uh, Mr. Interactive Specialist, the word unique is already superlative. "Very" only weakens the point you are trying to make.

Off to the zoo!

We took the kids to the zoo on Monday. You know, for a "staycation" where I'm supposed to be staying off the ankle, we're going to places that demand a lot of walking around. But the trick is that I have a cane now, and as long as I'm walking on level surfaces with the ankle brace on, there's little risk of my torquing it in a way that will make the injury worse. So, off we go.

First stop, the penguins, right about feeding time. A seagull hung at the edge of the mob and succeeded in getting at least one herring while the penguins squawked and screeched at it to get clear. Meanwhile, ragged crows looking not out-of-place in a Poe story hung at the edge, waiting their turn.

We headed up around the outer edge of the zoo, passing through the North American animals exhibit as we did so. The eagles were very serious looking, the bear had the expected ginormous claws, and the porcupine looked depressed. In fact, many of the carnivores looked bored, or depressed, or expressed some combination of well-fed-but-imprisoned ennui.

We came around to the Australian animals, passing through the parakeets exhibit where the girls were encouraged to feed the birds with little sticks of seeds, a dollar apiece, which was totally worth it to watch their expressions. More fun in hard to find for such a low price in this economy.

The red panda was gorgeous, although hard to see. I know it's not really a panda, although that photo is apparently getting surprising hits on Flickr for its title.

We stopped for lunch. We brought, given that food at the park is expensive, and then made our way clockwise through several asian bird and animal exhibits. We saw the Japanese mountain goat, pink flamingos before coming around to the Africa exhibits, including Grants gazelles, hippopotamus, macaque, and sleepy but pretty African dogs. The orangutans had learned that covering their heads made them feel cooler, and many had learned the power of the blanket to give them some darkness and privacy against the prying eyes of visitors throughout the day. The elephants looked bored, like many of the smarter animals.

We stayed until the zoo closed.

Many more photos can be found at my Flickr account under my Woodland Park Zoo 2010 collection.

Because they deserved their own post.

Everyone say "cheese!"

Meerkats!

Canoeing on Lake Washington

Tuesday, we went out with friends canoeing on Lake Washington. Sadly, there are no photos; I didn't feel like risking the camera, and I know how bad a boatsman I have been in the past. I went out with Yamaraashi-chan in tow, Omaha took Kouryou-chan. Yamaraashi-chan and I had a nice time, rowing across the Montlake access, under the 520 Freeway, which at places is so low you can touch the underside of the bridge without standing up, then into a small park set aside on the south side of the wash before heading back.

Kouryou-chan apparently does not enjoy the art of canoeing as much as other people. She couldn't sit and just let time go by; we had to be going somewhere. After a while, we all rowed back to the dock.

I forget how pretty Seattle can be.

Seattle really is a beautiful city. This shot, southward from Gasworks Park takes in the city sometime toward sunset, with the light striking from the northwest, shows just how pretty it can get. It's been a miserable summer, most Seattlites will tell you, with only two or three weeks of sun, and even this weekend, when it's supposed to be beautiful, instead we get two solid days of overcast and scattered showers. (You know how Eskimos supposedly have dozens of words for snow? We have just as many for clouds: "cloudy with sun breaks," "partly sunny," "partly cloudy," "mostly cloudy," etc. And we have general consensus on what these all mean!)

We went to the park after canoeing with our friends, and Kouryou-chan and her friend disappeared into the park proper while we sat around, ate cheap fried chicken and coleslaw and soda pop, caught up on old times, and watched as the sun went down.

There was an ad-hoc sailboat race going on, apparently called the "Duck Dodge." You see, Seattle has a tourist trap known as "The Ducks," which are WW-2 era amphibious vehicles that drive around Seattle while the driver gives a patter, then drive into Lake Union from Portage Bay and give people a view of the city from, well, from the vantage point you see above. The race involves sailboats, drinking, and good-natured swearing.

Watching the race was fun, but one boat was taking it way too seriously-- a medium racing yacht with a full crew. Maybe they were practicing for something. But as the boats headed toward their moorings and the sun began setting, the city lit up again with the last coppery rays reflecting off windows onto the water, and it was a photograph too pretty to pass up.

Really, guys? I mean, in Washington State?

I guess there's no better way to distinguish that you really aren't, and want nothing to do with, that economic powerhouse 35 miles to the west named "Seattle," known for its coffee, its culture, and its liberality, than to fly the Stars and Bars, the official flag of the Confederacy.

I may have to drive out there before September 12th, so that I can hold a flag-burning party.

Glenn Greenwald's Cheerful Thought

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

We camped!

Anyway, we went to Wentachee State Park, which is, as far as Omaha and I are concerned, far too civilized, in that decadent way that post-imperial America is supposed to be: there's a camp store, there's electricity, and there are assholes who seem to think that it's perfectly okay to leave trash at the campsite for the rangers to pick up in freakin' bear country. I saw this twice: once, it was food trash, and I and the girls packed it to the bear-safe trash boxes, the second time it was just three empty propane cans left behind. We didn't clean those up.

There were also a lot of people who brought dogs despite all the signs telling them not to. I pointed to a chihuahua and said, "It's so nice of those people to bring the bears and cougars a snack, don't you think?"

Dinner was beercan chicken, our family tradition on outings like this. I used a pear for the head since we'd forgotten the usual potato, patted the bird dry with paper towels then rubbed it down with a mixture of butter and a handful of herbs, and used a mixture of watermelon beer and liquid smoke. We ignored the instructions to cook with "indirect heat," instead making a foil chimney to channel heat around the bird.

We also had broccoli, wrapped in foil and steamed directly in the fire, and egg noodles. It was all magnificently delicious.

We also made s'mores, which were fine with graham cracker, dark chocolate, and marshmallows. Like an idiot, I was tempted to buy "campfire" marshmallows, which were too damned big and made so much of a mess that I must discourage others from buying them: just buy regular marshmallows.

Morning brought scrambled eggs, bacon, toast. Yum.

We broke down camp then walked down to the water. The girls swam until almost three. Thunderstorms rolled in, we quickly packed up and headed back home.

The thunderstorm followed us until Stevens Pass, dropping nasty hail at one point, and then we stopped at Deception Falls for a restroom break. Deception Falls had a number of small paths leading away, and someone had left their lovely ancient convertible open, with two coolers and a large box of... lettuce? Very strange.

We drove back home, restauranted at Red Robin (Kouryou-chan's choice). They have these tableside cardboard add placements that change every quarter. This quarter they were celebrating their annual "kid's cook" menu, which was oragami'd into the shape of a stove. The placements have a cute note visible only if you pick them up, and this one read, "Stove tops have all the fun. Stove bottoms? Not so much." Oh, the things I could say.

I have discovered that the salt scrub sold at Trader Joes is awesome as a daily defoliant and completely alleviates the itch from my ankle brace.

Either way, I'm pretty sure it ain't Kosher

Either way, I'm pretty sure what's in there ain't Kosher:

NW Trekin'

Our last day was spent at yet another zoo, this time Northwest Trek, an open air "nature preserve" on a couple hundred acres of land, with diesel-powered trams rolling through the terrain and letting us get a good look at various life forms once indigenous to the area but now consigned to living either in these cages or the inhospitable margins of territory where humans don't want to live in great density.

This cougar had no muscle tone at all; her belly hung down about her waist like a great jellysack. Trek isn't nearly as successful as Woodland Park Zoo at keeping its cages up; they were small and, frankly, cruel to the nocturnal animals; while the cages themselves were enclosed for protection, it was unnatural protection; there was no place where the barn owls, for example, could hide from the prying eyes of visitors even in the daytime.

The animals themselves were beautiful, as we expect them to be: the foxes, the wolves, river otters (favorite creature of some segments of Furrydom, as it's the mammal with the largest penis relative to its bodyweight), grizzly and black bears, skunks, moose, owls, bison.

The kids had a good time, although by the end of the day both Yamaraash-chan and Kouryou-chan were flagging and ready to be done. I think we all were. Vacation was over, and we were ready to go home and be done.

Omaha and I had one more thing: for the next day, we had tickets to go see Rush.

Many more pictures can be seen at the NW Trek picture set on Flickr.