September 27, 2012

REI Convert

The last time I was in need of outdoors gear, I headed for the big Bass Pro Shop in Grapevine. If Bass Pro is the mecca of the hunting/fishing/good 'ol boy outdoorsy life, REI is the equivalent for the sporty/hippie crowd. There's an interesting dichotomy between the two, a difference in philosophy and approach to nature. I'm more philosophically aligned with the Bass Pro side of things, but since I neither hunt nor fish, REI works just as well!

I knew Sam would be needing rain boots before we were ready to take advantage of the winter weather, and Google informed me that there's an REI near our apartment so I pointed us in that direction. It's really quite close, only about an 8 minute walk past heavy downtown traffic, stores and road construction. Then we turn a corner and find a lovely forested oasis, complete with waterfall and mountain bike testing trail.

A helpful sign explained that this was"the first corporately sustained urban forest in Seattle"

Turns out this is their flagship location! I knew that REI was famous for its indoor climbing walls, but in addition to a large one, this place also has the aforementioned forest and bike trail, a US Ranger Station, indoor children's play area, cafeteria, and who knows what else. I even met another Texas mom! (Yay for Aggie shirts!) They'd also recently relocated to the area for Amazon. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get her name because I'm horribly awkward and scatterbrained. I'm really regretting that because she had a little boy not much older than Sam and it would have been great to compare notes.

By the time we got to children's footwear it was almost lunch and nap time, so Sam wasn't in a mood to linger or particularly interested in trying on shoes (by which I mean he screamed every time we approached his feet). In his defense, Mommy made the mistake of exploring the store and letting him play *before* we tried on shoes. >_< The lady who helped us in the shoe department was still very helpful and sold me a pair of boots (to be tried on at home) and a membership. 

So now I have another good destination to take advantage of while we're downtown! On the way out, I snapped a picture of the view:

Not bad for downtown!

September 23, 2012

Missing Texas

During the last few weeks before the move, I was keeping mental tabs on what I'd miss after we moved. By a huge margin, numbers one and two on the list are our amazing family and friends, but a few of the others (in no particular order) are:
  • The sky. It's a subtle thing, one I didn't really notice until we moved back to Texas from two years in Baltimore, but the sky in Texas is so much bigger!! Maybe it's the lack of trees, the expansive pastures, or lack of topological features, but driving from place to place the beauty of the sky and drama of all kinds of weather is palpably present.  
  • Whataburger. One of their big billboards right now says "Texas is a Whataburger state, lucky you!" During our last few weeks in Texas, I kept mentally changing it to "Texas is a Whataburger state, you lucky bastards!"
  • Freebirds. We probably ate at this College Station burrito haven at least once a week all through my college years, and our fellow graduates have made it easy for the brand to establish new locations all over Texas. Sadly, they have yet to reach the Pacific Northwest. (Decent facimilies exist, but it's never quite the same) 
  • Plentiful, delicious TexMex. I know they'll have some mexican restaurants up north, but I'm expecting a huge drop in both quantity and quality. Luckily TexMex is my cooking forte, and there's always the wonderful Homesick Texan for new recipes and inspiration. As soon as we're settled I'm planning to order an entire crate of Mateo's salsa, a Frisco brand which has quickly become a staple for us. Jonathan will eat it on almost anything and even Sam is a fan.
  • Country music. I'm not a huge country fan; back home I'd generally flip through the country station as often as alt rock, classical or pop. But if our time in Baltimore is any guide, my radio time is going to be pretty much all country from here on out. It just sounds like home!
  • Streets with names. Less a Texas thing than a Seattle thing; 95% of the rental houses we've browsed through are on numbered streets. The addresses are horrible mouthfuls, like 65583 SE 127th St. Just try saying that out loud! Oh, and heaven forbid you leave out the SE qualifier on Google maps, who knows where you'll end up. I miss street names that stick in the mind, like Teel, Grayhawk, El Dorado, Cattle Drive Ln (a real street!), or Shiny Peacock Feather Dr (possibly not a real street). They don't have to make sense, that's half the fun.
  • The heat? This gets a question mark because it's extremely qualified. I'm mostly looking forward to having outdoor activities in the summer, but every now and then that soul-melting Texas heat comes in handy. Like when you're having a nice dinner out with family and between the restaurant's AC and the after-dinner chill, you're almost shivering by the end of the meal. Then you walk outside and bingo! Not cold anymore :-) Also applies to long days in over-air conditioned schools and office buildings.
Any other Texas expats want to add to the list?

September 19, 2012

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

Also posted on Goodreads:

I absolutely loved this post-apocalyptic novel, which is apparently a classic that I'd never heard of. The book's got it all: apocalypses, Catholic monks, re-developing civilizations, religion vs science, religion working with science (even better!), and multiple characters with more than one head. I feel slightly cheated that I wasted time reading drivel like The Road while Canticle was waiting to be discovered.

Although Miller writes with plenty of dry humour, it's a dark story and a heavy, occasionally plodding read. The theme of cyclic history is both amusing and haunting when it's not being terribly depressing. The characters come and go without too much fuss (I half suspect this is done on purpose, a statement of the monk's light grasp on this world and focus on the world to come).

I found it satisfying that Miller commits the secular heresy of suggesting that the Catholic Church would not only outlive modern science and the fall of civilization, but would protect and foster their redevelopment. When the "Christians/Catholics hate science" narrative is still way too strongly preached in many areas, it's refreshing to hear it so beautifully refuted.

Quick note: I usually link my blog posts to Facebook, but since the review's cross-posted on Goodreads and (I'm pretty sure) shared on Facebook, nobody wants multiple newsfeed items every time I finish a book.

September 18, 2012

Peanut Butter-illas

I plan to include cooking posts on this blog, but with a tiny and pre-furnished kitchen I'm in minimallist mode for dinners. Thought this might be worth a post, although I'm not going to glorify it by actually calling it a recipe. I take no credit/blame for the idea, Jonathan came up with it at some point and we supplemented with a quick internet check to see if it was a workable culinary experiment or doomed for messy failure:

Peanut butter-illas! Exactly what they sound like, slap some peanut butter on a tortilla, fold and apply to frying pan, dip in jam. Allrecipes recommended using butter in the pan, but I think it added more grease and mess than extra flavor.

It was a fun varation on our standard pb&j! I'd like to try some variations next time--maybe use whole wheat tortillas and add sliced banannas or apples to the mix.

The two jams are wild blueberry and lingonberry, which we picked up on our trip to Ikea last week. Both are very tasty. I'd never had lingonberries before; they have a bitter bite that reminds me of cranberries.

September 16, 2012

Aquarium Trip

We went to the Seattle Aquarium last week and it was a huge hit! Sam enjoyed the fishtank at the Children's Museum (also awesome), but when he saw the full wall of fish at the Aquarium entrance, he was absolutely entranced. "Fishies! Fishies! FISHIES!" For awhile I was afraid we wouldn't get any farther into the exhibits, because he was about ready to camp out all day. Every few minutes he'd run back and drag me to the glass, just to be sure I wasn't missing anything ^_^ He kept trying to count the fish, but his grasp of counting isn't quite ready for anything that wiggly.

My pictures didn't turn out so great, boo!

Eventually I lured him away with the promise of more fishies, and we found the tide pool/shoreline exhibit. This tank had a wave generator and every 15 sec or so a big wave would go through. The waves surprised him, every time one went by he would yell "hey!" I hope it didn't bother any of the other guests; I thought it was hilarious.


Then we moved on to the hands-on pools, where you could touch starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and I don't even know what else. Sam was mostly interested in the water ("splash splash!"). We didn't hang around too long, but I did find a star fish for him to touch. Dunno how impressed he was though, since it neither glittered nor wiggled.

He also really liked the jellyfish exhibit, but just like the hands-on pools, I suspect he found the media more interesting than the inhabitants. It was a big transparent ring with jellyfish rotating through and a color-changing backlight on one end. He plastered himself to the light and informed me of all the color changes.


We wandered around for a bit after that but were starting to run out of steam. Sam liked the otters, especially once I pointed out that they were kind of like our puppies if Millie could swim. Hopefully that doesn't lead to confusion down the line.

The problem with going to the Seattle Aquarium via public transportation is that our bus dropped us off waaay up on Pike Place (in front of the Market) and we had to trek down a looong stairway to get to the aquarium. It was doable first thing in the morning and going down, but I wasn't about to attempt it going back up afterwards. That meant a long, roundabout bus ride with a (level) walk to catch our original bus back home. And guess what happened on the first bus?


Yeah, sleepy baby did not wake up through several blocks of being juggled through the city, onto bus #2 and all the way back to the apartment. He's a heavy boy! 'Course, it's his mommy's fault for not leaving sooner or bringing a stroller, but wheeew it made for a long haul back. Totally worth it to see him at the aquarium though!

September 12, 2012

Downtown living

As far as I'm concerned, big cities are terrifying. Alien planets, foreign soil; too many people in too little space, too much misery and crime in the bad sections and too much money and high fashion in the good ones. Growing up we made a general progress from suburb to small town to middle-of-nowhere and I loved it. Soooo, now we're smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle for a few weeks and I'm resolved to enjoy the experience instead of just surviving.

Pre-move thinking went something like this: Lots of people enjoy living in the downtown areas of big cities, gotta be worth a try, maybe we'll really like it! It was a sound theory, with several promising points. For one thing, Jonathan's commute is only about 10 minutes of walking, and there's a good bus system for Sam and mommy to use when exploring the city.

But my first impression, after a long day of travel and stress, was less than positive. Mentally and physically exhausted, I puttered around our new apartment home, frustrated at what felt like every turn. Why would anyone choose to live like this?! How do people raise children in this building?!

After a night of sleep though, I had to recant my ill-tempered musings. For one thing, this is the view I get with my morning coffee:


On the other side of the table, Jonathan also approves of his view:


It's not like I can fault Amazon's relocation arrangements--it's a fairly new, generously-sized two bedroom apartment--as much as I complain, we're not exactly (nowhere near!) slumming it here.

So, on our first morning in Seattle, fortified by sleep and a little relaxation, we started our first weekend of bravely facing big city culture shock!

I'm totally lying; we turned tail and ran for the suburbs. In our defense, we needed to stock our new apartment with a bunch of odds and ends, which required the car's hauling capacity and big box stores like Target and Ikea with plenty of parking. But yeah, other than walking the dogs I didn't venture outside my comfort zone much for the first couple of days.

Now that we've had a few days though, we're finding plenty of other good things about our temporary abode. Jonathan is enjoying his walks to and from the office (not to mention the new job!), and after a couple of nights Sam adjusted wonderfully to his new sleeping arrangements. St. James Cathedral isn't too far, and mass on Sunday was beautiful. I took Sam to the Children's Museum yesterday, and he had a blast--we'll be going back for more! (and posting pictures)

The weather our first few days here has been a dream--highs in the mid-70s or high 60s, with the autumn chill and color changes just starting up. We've only had one and a half cloudy days so far, but those were almost better than the sunny ones! (This is the only area where I feel sympathy with vampires--full sun is highly overrated. But ask me again after a few years up here and we'll see if that holds)

On the whole, we're still putting a lot of effort into finding a good rental house out in the scenic suburbs, but I'm glad we have this opportunity to experience Seattle up close and personal.

September 9, 2012

The Move

Made it to Seattle! It was a little crazy at times, but we're safely installed in our temporary apartment. The first stage of the move was pretty easy, the moving crew swept in and boxed anything that stood still for too long then loaded it up in an impressively short time. I only had to beg for reposession of one forgotten item (dog medicine), and it turned up in the first reopened box, yay!

We spent our last night before the move in a hotel near the airport; I can highly recommend the Euless La Quinta hotel for all your dog-friendly hotel needs. Then it was up at 3 am to head to the airport! That was the tricky part, luckily my dad was there to help, not only the day before to help with errands and getting to the hotel, but then again at 4 am to get us to the airport. Thank you Dad! Between six checked bags, carryons, two dogs and their crates, and (not at all least) The Sam, we had our hands full.

 The flight was actually the most relaxing part of the day! We got Sam strapped into his carseat (which I'm very glad Jonathan was willing to lug through thr airport) and he just took everything in and read his book until we could turn on the electronics. Then he was absolutely thrilled to have 3.5 hours of uninterrupted iPad time, and I took a nap.



Just a little bit like his daddy :-p

Once we landed, things were not so relaxing. We managed to pile all our stuff and the dogs in a corner of the airport, and I waited with an somewhat bored Sam and two nervous puppies while Jonathan picked up a rental truck. (Interesting note: in Texas, it's cheaper to rent a minivan, but in Seattle, cheaper to rent a crew-cab pickup--yay supply and demand) I can't even imagine how strange we looked, but luckily (I guess) we were noticeable enough for a porter to come over and offer his help with the loading process.

Once we were all loaded, the hard part was over! Sam fell asleep almost immediately, and we took turns walking the dogs and waiting with Sam until check-in time at the apartment.

September 3, 2012

Crunch Time

Two more days! The movers start tomorrow, and Thursday morning (early morning!) we'll be getting on the plane. It still feels a little unreal, but suspect that won't last much longer--things are about to get very real indeed.

We had an open house this weekend with several interested parties, so fingers are crossed for maybe hearing about an offer! That would be wonderful. You know it's bad when my non-Catholic husband suggests that I get a St. Joseph statue to plant in the yard :-)

Last week we actually had a rainy day, so we took the opportunity for a quick picnic! This may sound counterintuitive unless you've lived through a Texas summer, but it was wonderful--a short walk through the woods and light rain to covered picnic tables. Sam splashed in a few puddles, explored, and enjoyed being allowed outside after 9 am!