Tacoma glass

Fountain in front of the Tacoma Museum of Glass

This was the only stained glass piece they had but I like it

Look closely at the detail

This glass is made to look like knitted wool

The sides of the Glass Bridge were full of Chihuly works

And his glass towers

The ceiling is also Chihuly

Images on both sides of this fused glass piece

interesting bowl in the gift shop

These are only a small fraction of the many pretty things I photographed yesterday.  We were headed south with the mega van to drop the New Yorkers off at the airport. what is interesting down there? I suggested Tacoma, Seattle 's much poorer, uglier step sister even though yesterday it was named in the top twenty up and coming real estate markets. Some scrunched faces of incredulousness ensued.  I had heard about their Museum of Glass and its nearby bridge of glass. The God of Glass, Dale Chihuly was born in humble Tacoma and this place capitalized on that. Seattle has its own Chihuly museum but I wanted to go to Tacoma.  

First problem: parking. The museum had underground parking but guess what didn't fit?   Then the search for a very large on street spot in a busy port city. finally two cars left at the same time, a miracle. There was lots of Chiluly stuff especially pieces from his Venetian period full of elaborate putti attached to barque vases much different from his usual abstract stuff. There was an amphitheater complete with furnaces demonstrating how they make blown vases, a children's dance display, an ongoing class in fused glass that would be fun to take (years ago I made stained glass stuff). we did buy two small pieces which I hope survive the trip so we will have a tiny bit of beauty back home

On to the glass bridge which connects the waterfront with the other museums. The bridge is full of Chihuly stuff: his signature glass towers, flowery ceilings and the sides were light boxes full of his vases. on the other side there was an art fair featuring various tribal works

Back to Seattle hoping the baseball game that might end right when we were near the stadium thus causing a traffic jam from hell would continue to go into more extra innings. yay it did but the Mariners lost which will make my mother inlaw sad. she watches all the games

This place is surrounded by fruit trees. I can see figs, pears, several types of apples and plums. when I went out to gather plums for a possible tart, I found 2 peach trees full of ripe, tasty fruit. my sister in law didn't know she has them. a neighbor has permission to harvest her figs.  I converted the peaches into a pie.  I might do something with the plums today. 

It is early in the morning. I am sitting on a deck overlooking the many fruit trees. a mountain blue jay is making lots of noise. he is very pretty will try to take his photo before I leave. I am taking a break from running as my legs are sore probably by climbing the hill to the reservoir to run laps. views are great up there. On a clear day, Mt Rainier peaks through the clouds but yesterday I could just see the city.

During our last visit, we travelled north to see Mt Baker which is probably a hundred miles north. despite it being sunny, we couldn't see it but Friday night, on the beach in West Seattle. There it was.

It is so frustrating typing on this keyboard. today we take a ferry to the islands for a Beethoven concert

Pike Market

Early this morning during my run around Green Lake

Downtown from the reservoir 

Sculpture downtown 

pikes market dahlias

Lavender 

Rambutan

Seattle scenes

The brothers arm wrestle. Despite numerous medical challenges, the younger brother wins though I think he used positional advantage

 

Bingo night. I missed this. Apparently it was confusing as the Bingo people had their own language. It wasn't about just making straight lines

 

Nice Italian dinner. We ate early to accommodate Steve's mom and also to ensure a parking spot since we need two spaces with the megavan I had this very tasty tomoo and pancetta pasta. Love bacon.

us

Green Lake is about 2 miles away from my SIL's current house. Once she lived right next to it. Even when she lived far away, I found myself there. It is about 3 miles around. Over the many times I've been there, I've run around it many times though now my loops take much longer. She has a 'Boot Camp' on its shores at 6 am every morning. I'd run around until she was done

 

Boot camp on Green Lakes shores

Yeah we went here. These stores have become legal in the past year though you have to take its products home unlike Amsterdam. So these stores are only in 2 states: Colorado and Washington. Some states, including Michigan, have the products for medical use only but make the products hard to buy except illegally. How do I feel about this? Probably safer than alcohol but I have observed ambition and drive sucked away with its use. But better to have controlled stuff not laced with God knows what

 

My sister in law (the Brooklyn one as opposed to the Seattle one) made this plum and avocado salad with cilantro dressing. Tasty though the plums were not ripe. This was before I noticed the plum tree full of ripe fruit on the property. When I went to pick plums, I saw 2 peach trees that no one had seen before full of juicy fruit which I later converted to pie.

Seattle is very supportive of bikes with racks like these and many bike lanes. What stops it from being a bicyclists' paradise is its many steep hills

U of Washington Arboretum

sunset at Metro. I assume the black dots are to save birds, not wreck my photos

Editing will be done upon return. We had a late flight to Seattle but various situations arose to make things later. first a medical emergency a few rows in front of us.  A big dude had trouble breathing. Now was sitting in the exit row so in case of emergency, there would be no getting around him. fortunately we didn't land in North Dakota. an ambulance was waiting for him in Seattle blocking the planes path. any communication with the ground crew? We had to wait until they got him off and then waited an hour for the luggage despite Deltas new policy of 20 minutes. then off to the car rental place.  by this time it was 4 am Michigan time. so so tired.   And the desk person told us they had no more cars. we were about 40 minutes away with no traffic from Steves sister and too late to call her. We were offered a 12 person van instead. no choice but to take it.  later in the week we can trade it in. It is hard to park in a busy city. Despite only 4 hours of sleep we were up with the sun.   We went for a walk in the Arb. despite the drought it still is quite lush

The sister-in-law

A walk through the Arb. My sister-in-law lived near here when we first visited her almost 30 years ago and I would run here

lots of big trees: sequoias and Douglas firs

We visited Steve's mom happy to have all her children with her. She is almost 91 and doing well. She used to be as tall as her daughter. She was quite striking as a young woman

Throughout our visit, I was amazed what flowers still were in bloom. Magnolias come out in April in Michigan for a very short while. I saw peonies here that in Michigan bloomed briefly in June

leaving on a jet plane

Some of the people we will be visiting: nephew and mother-in-law



morning sky

hopefully flowers will survive our absence

dried flowers from garden

cleome taking over

 

I always feel anxious leaving home. Will things get watered? Will storms knock out our power again? I never thought this late in the game we'd still have 2 houses (3 if you count the condo).

 

I need to concentrate on having fun.

Storms and animals

Both  of these shelf cloud photos are from Click-on Detroit from the thumb area. Most of the devastation though was in the NW part of the state with lots of downed trees

I have a lot of monarchs lately Too bad this is out of focus. Also missed opportunity: hummingbird moth on impatiens

We took Allie to the farm center yesterday. Very big sow

She loves petting the animals

I am waiting for my California friend to come as I type. I've been busy. I did my bicycle ride while it was still cool and calm. As the day progressed, it became windy, very humid and hot. The air felt unstable. Indeed later, some tornadoes touched down in the western part of the state. We were treated with high winds and hail. The energy company indicated our old house was in an area of power outages but when Steve checked on the house, the power was on, the new floor was dry. Back here, the wind knocked over everything it could. Lots of my flowers were ripped apart.

Our open house was yesterday. We arrived early to clean the yard up. Our realtor showed up with a minute to spare followed closely by the first viewer. Still no offers despite the many people who go through. Discouraging.

On to Josh's where we went to see the animals. The sheep were panting with their tongues hanging out from the oppressive heat. They needed a shearing.

Later my friend came over and we watched the birds drinking our Blood orange Ales. And then, more Orange is the New Black.

A first this morning: deer in our yard though I know they have been there before as evidenced by my shortened tiger lilies. I just never saw them before. But the storm brought in cool dry air. Perfect for a long run.

Fisheye

Steve's new toy: a fish eye lens. My garden room: theme? flowers

one of my succulent gardens

park that Shanna's family had a photo shoot at. We needed an overcast sky, which happened about 25% of the time

Shanna's family and the photographer

clear water

Later ice cream at the Dairy-Go-Round

For Shanna's birthday, I got her a photoshoot wth the photographer that did a photoshoot of Josh's family. The photographer's brother-in-law was one of the 4 boys I used to take on my 6 day bike rides. At one point, a bystander asked me if all the boys were mine.

 

Well this week they are but only one am I responsible for the rest of the time.

 

I had them guess when they wondered which one was my son. The photograher's BIL was their first guess. My kids are lucky to look like their father though Naomi really doesn't look like anyone. She does have her dad's build.

 

We took them to a park that was about 15 miles away but construction made the trip an ordeal. I came along as a Sherpa and hair comber but the strong wind undid any feeble efforts on my part. How to get 3 antsy kids to look the same way smiling at the same time. Big complication: although Oliver has a nice smile, he can not elicit it on command. His smile looks very forced and cheesy. Hopefully some non cheesy smiles can be found. The other kids can smile naturally but will look in all sorts of directions. Tessa by far is the easiest.

 

The last few days have been cooler and dry; fairly nice for exercising. A good friend came over yesterday for a Happy Hour of sorts on my patio. Nice to have company.