a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
There are so many ways to make one’s cup of joe in the morning – or at any other time of day. I like the medium roast from Starbucks and I have a drip coffee maker, but it’s really difficult to make exactly one cup of drip coffee (which is of course why some of the other methods were invented. See Wall Street Journal’s diagram that explains it all). Starbucks CEO and coffee czar Howard Schultz uses a French press for his coffee.
(The heading is a play on the 1970s advertising hall-of-fame slogan from the Esso gasoline commercials that said ‘there’s a tiger in my tank’). The stamps to save some vanishing species such as the tiger are not new; they were issued in 2011 already. But they were the nicest ones the post office had when I sent out something in a bubble envelope, and I couldn’t resist. (The tiger figure is part of my very limited animal figure collection). Scientists are closing in on their ability to bring extinct species back, though – even ice age mammals like the woolly mammoth. I fear the way it’s going now the poor creatures will have no ice, of course.
‘I’d like to have some sushi for dinner’ said my brother on Saturday night, and Yelp.com came to the rescue with two restaurants near Pike Place Market. The plan was to eat, and go check out the market with the remaining time that we had.
My brother had the sushi chef’s combination of items. I steered clear of the sushi and had gyoza (Japanese pot stickers), and tempura vegetables (deep-fried in a light batter), with a Sapporo beer. Very nice! So a very Japanese dinner!* The restaurant is cozy, with a nice vibe and a sushi bar.
*Can I call myself a Japanophile if I don’t eat sushi, though? Some people will say no! you cannot!
My brother and I and friends went out to the Museum of History and Industry in South Lake Union neighborhood (yes, I was there a few weeks ago as well), grabbed a bite to eat nearby, and went on to check out the Ballard Locks (official name : Hiram M. Chittenden Locks). The locks are part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, a large project that was started in 1911 and officially completed only in 1934. The system of locks separate the fresh water body of Lake Union that is on average 20 ft higher than the salt water of Puget Sound (depending on the tides). The locks also have a ‘fish ladder’ .. a set of boxes and weirs that allow salmon to migrate into Lake Union and Lake Washington to spawn. I see fish like salmon that do this salt water-fresh water migration, are called diadromous fish.
My brother from California is visiting just for a day or so, and Friday night we went to the waterfront even though the weather was a little rainy. Why not try out the ‘Great Wheel’? I suggested. The Ferris wheel has enclosed gondolas, 42 of them – exactly because of Seattle’s weather. We got to sit in gondola no 1. It says up to 8 people can fit into a gondola, but that would be a tight fit, was our impression. The ride is not for people with vertigo, or with claustrophobia !
(Wednesday) I was waiting at the doctor’s office yesterday when someone came in with a cute mid-size dog in tow. What breed of dog is he? I asked. I couldn’t make out what the man was saying, but did not want to ask again. And at home my on-line searches for dog breeds called cay-son or kashun produced nothing.
(Today, Thursday) I find myself in another office building and purely by coincidence there is a dog book on the coffee table. Alright! Let me see if I can spot the dog I saw yesterday, I thought. And there it was : a keeshond. What threw me completely off the scent was the Dutch pronunciation of ‘kayz-hond’. In my native Afrikaans we say ‘keeshond’ as in ‘leery’.
This poster for a new animated movie From Up On Poppy Hill is from a lamp post here on 15th Ave in Capitol Hill. Hmm, I thought, those little faces look awfully like those of the characters in the animated series Heidi* that we had in South Africa in the 70s, I thought. Sure enough, this is a ‘Goro Miyazaki’ film .. and he is the son of Hayao Miyazaki that produced the original Heidi series. The elder Miyazaki is one of Japan’s greatest animation directors.
*At the time, one of my colleagues at work told us that his daughter started crying when one of the Heidi episodes started on the TV. Why are you sad when Heidi is so happy? he asked her. Well, she knew that episode would soon end, and then she would have to wait a whole long week for the next one. Aww.
I’m happy that April 1 has come and gone, so that all the technical tomfoolery is now out of the way. Google released an April Fools video announcing ‘Google Blue’, a version of Google Mail that has been ‘years in the works’ (but it turns out all it does is be blue). Some commentators point out they are probably poking fun at a version of Windows 8 called Windows Blue that’s slated for release later this year. Google also offered a ‘Treasure’ mode of their maps and its new odor service called ‘Google Nose Beta’, with which you could search for odors or smells which would appear through your computer so that you could smell it. On Sunday, Twitter announced it will no longer allow the use of vowels in tweets, and that users will have to buy them. (Not true). Check out Joan Rivers’ creative response below. 