Seattle goings on
It’s been a while since I’ve done any kind of gallery related stuff. In spite of my art school edumacation (What, you didn’t know I have a degree in painting and drawing? I do!) and my many years of perching in under-heated and under-ventilated studios where I made a mighty attractive mess, I’ve never been …
I tell people that when Seattle is nice, there is no place on the planet I would rather be. I am not lying, exaggerating, or using hyperbole, it is 100% true. When the days get long, when the sky gets that backlit blue in the evenings, when the cold edge comes off the air and is replaced by something salty and floral and earthy all that the same time, that is when you realize that Seattle is, at that perfect moment, the best place in the world.
I have been very sad lately.
First there was the seemingly unnecessary departure from Hawaii just when it was starting to get good. I lie. It was good from the day we arrived and it wasn’t totally unnecessary to return to the mainland, after all, a person has to earn money, not just spend it. I was blue on the plane on the way home and it did not help that we returned to perfectly awful weather. That’s moderated a little, though according to our local weather guru, the June gloom is on the way. What I’m saying is that we were in Hawaii and then we weren’t, and it hasn’t yet turned to the time of year when Seattle is the most perfect place on the planet. It will, it does that every year just so you won’t leave in a snit.
In the last month I found myself chatting with two coffee roasters while they worked, one at Mt. Hood Roasters in Rhododendron, Oregon, and one at Java Kai in Hanalei, Hawaii. I did not admit to either of them that the coffee we drink the most of at our house is Trung Nguyen, a mass produced Vietnamese coffee that we buy ground in big quantities from our local Asian supermarket.
We buy this stuff because, well, we like it. I acquired my first package out of desperation. I was in Seattle’s International District and I needed coffee, stat. When I opened the can — it was still in cans then, it smelled of chocolate. Brewed up it tasted very smooth, not bitter at all, and it held that nice deep aroma. It’s cheap, too, really cheap, compared to anything else I like.
In spite of that fact that we had hail the size of rock salt yesterday afternoon and temperatures in the 30s at night, it is indeed spring in the Pacific Northwest. The days are longer — a few days ago I watched the evening light change until well past 8pm, nested on my couch facing …