Or Would It All Just Be The Same: Part 0

On June 25, 2003, I hopped off the bus at 15th Ave and 45th St NE Seattle, but it was a Seattle completely unlike anything I'd seen before: The Seattlites were smiling. They were smiling at each other. They were smiling at the world around them. They were smiling though no-one had reminded them to be friendly.

I had never seen Seattlites so smiley, and maybe that's because I'd never seen Seattle so sunny. There was a heat wave going on. No-one was wearing puffy jackets. No-one was wearing layers of clothing. There was a heat wave going on; I would experience record-breaking temperatures.

Cheap Rents

Everything was different, but the University Hotel was still in the same place it was the first time I'd gone to Seattle. I found it, checked in. I had a suite with a kitchen right next to a retail neighborhood. I noticed that there was a sign up in front of a neighboring house--Someone wanted to knock down some houses to put up a new hotel. I hoped they weren't going to knock down the University Motel. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the suite.

I was hungry, and decided to take advantage of the early hour. I'd eat at the Cedars, where a long line for tables had previously thwarted me from dining. I checked the phone book, scribbled down the address, and went to the wrong restaurant. There are two branches of Cedars in Seattle's U. District. I found the wrong one, which didn't serve Indian food, and didn't have a breezy outdoor seating area.

I ate an OK falafel and eavesdropped on my fellow diners, two university office workers. One was an officious bureaucrat, complaining about her day. A professor had done something harmless and useful and unforgivable using a computer in the bureaucrat's office Perhaps it was unforgivable because this paper-pusher didn't know her job well enough to do anything herself. She talked about the 3-month course in Microsoft Office she'd taken, and how she'd forgotten everything in the course. No wonder she was mad about that professor accomplishing something in her office. There was a real danger that her bosses would figure out that she was just taking up space.

After dinner, I was pretty sleepy. I'd been up since early in the morning. I wanted to stay awake, to stay on a normal schedule. (This was a mistake.) So I went to see a movie, The Hulk, which featured plenty of explosions and kept me awake for a few hours. But when the movie let out, it was still light out. To stay awake, I went for a walk North along University Ave.

I was in a good mood. I was too hot, but I liked seeing the Seattlites smiling at each other. I went past the correct Cedars, just around the corner from the Motel. As I headed North, the shops thinned out, there were few people, and twilight finally started to fall. I kept walking.

Up ahead of me, I heard a strange gargling yell. That was strange. Perhaps half a minute later, I saw a bicyclist coming South--he paused to yell something at a pedestrian. It sounded like "Thrakkorzog." I started retrieving that comedy routine from deep memory as the bicyclist resumed his journey. He was heading towards me. I braced myself.

He rode up, stopped, put his foot down and yelled at me: "The Angel of Death!" What? I was ready for him to yell "Thrakkorzog!" I had no idea what to say in response to "The Angel of Death!". So I just nodded and kept walking North. I was still in a great mood.

I walked past the Knarr Tavern, which had vertical slats covering its otherwise open windows. A patron within tossed out a lit cigarette, and its tip hit the slats and sent a shower of sparks down through the evening light. Gorgeous.

I turned back. A bicyclist rode up to me and said, "Excuse me, do you know how to get to the University Bridge from here?" I considered yelling "The Angel of Death!" at him, but didn't.

As I went past the Irish Emigrant bar, a voice within said, "God bless you, Rachel," and I knew I wasn't the only one in a benevolent mood. I walked past a closed comic store in which happy geeks lurked over a gaming table after hours. I stopped in at a place called Pochi and bough a boba iced tea, just the thing to cool off on a hot night.

So G-dd-mned Hot

When I woke up Thursday, it was early--my habit of waking up with the daylight was not a positive survival trait at this latitude. I tried to burrow under my pillow for a while before I gave up.

I put on my jeans and started to sweat. I realized that I should have packed shorts. I realized that I liked being too hot in Seattle. It made the place seem exotic and different.

I walked along the North shore of Lake Union, taking in the sights. It was a working waterfront that hadn't been set up with sight lines for loitering tourists. It seemed like there were interesting things going on, but I couldn't see most of them. I did get photos of a pretty electrical substation, a view of downtown, and an obscured view of a big shiny ship that might have been getting repairs.

I lingered at the Gasworks park, went past Bea and Adobe and was soon in the Fremont District, where my attention was immediately arrested by a large storefront: Peet's Coffee. Oh my. Peet's had come to Seattle. I strode up to the door, restraining myself--there would be plenty of time to get a great cup of coffee after breakfast. And then I saw the dust, the scaffolding--the store wasn't open, it was under construction. I could see gleaming machines inside, ready to dispense bitter caffeinated pleasure--but not this day.

Instead, I experienced the pleasure of a great breakfast at the Longshoreman's Daughter. On my previous Seattle trip, I'd thought that maybe part of the reason I liked the Longshoreman's Daughter so much was the pleasant wait for food. My friend and I had been seated immediately, and I'd thought it was nice--but not as sublimely wonderful as usual. This time I was seated immediately, and the food was great, just great. So I was wrong last time. The wait doesn't matter. Maybe you just have to order the right thing. This time, I ordered an omelette instead of the hard-to-make-interesting bowl of beans.

So I had a wonderful omelette and the waitress kept refilling my coffee. Ah, bliss.

So Sunny and Bright / So Clean and Good For You

It was a sunny day and I had no plans until the evening. But though I was full of omelette, I didn't just want to sit around. Must not dawdle; time to waddle.

So I decided to take a few hours to do something I'd so far failed to do in Seattle: take some unhurried photos of the high-speed grain-loading facility.

No, really.

I walked across the Fremont Bridge and up into the hills of the Queen Anne neighborhood. Soon I'd emerged onto the Sound side of the hill, and started snapping photos.

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