April is National Poetry Month

For some reason I just now found out (on April 30th!) that April is National Poetry Month. Apparently this was started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. April was chosen because as T. S. Eliot wrote, "April is the cruelest month" and they hoped to lessen that. In honor of National Poetry Month I'm including a favorite poem of mine. The date I wrote this was February 5th, 1995.

Jazzman

The flight cut through the smoke filled room,
the vibrant sound, accompanied by smooth tones, rose to a destined crescendo.

The sweat poured from his brow
as the Jazzman spoke to the auditory senses of his audience.

Chairs rumbled beneath their energetic bodies
as his language moved their beings with each emphatic tone.

Their thoughts were transported to an imagined zone,
where images dance to the funky tribal rhythms.

As he made his descent back into reality
he pulled them to the furthermost edge of their individual thrones.

And, as he hit the final resounding note,
his awestruck admirers released their tension in a cloud of applause.

Fundraising Update: $1484.01!!

Thanks to new donations from Whole Foods Market (the 5% day), my Aunt Judy, Mary Joy (go Wenatchee contingent!) and some dishes I sold to my new company my current amount raised is $1,484.01! Only $715.99 to go until I meet the minimum amount required to participate in The Breast Cancer 3day! If I can get 30 people to come to the Boobie-Que I'll be able to hit that in no time! I'm so excited to be almost done with the fundraising portion of this event. It has been weighing heavy on my mind, no doubt. As soon as I am done I'll start helping my other team mates meet their goals.

Go Seattle Warming Hut Hotties!

Side note - the Seattle Warming Hut Hotties have also started a team that will participate in the 2008 Race for the Cure on June 21st. This is a 5k walk and anyone that would like to join us is encouraged so sign up. It's a pretty flat fun walk. If you're interested here is the link to our team page. Please let me know if you have any questions. The more the merrier!

Backyard Update - Pearl Arbor

We're finally making some serious progress on our backyard project. As a reminder, here is what we started with, this was the first phase, and this was the second phase. As soon as the warmer dry weather hit this spring Chris began the next phase that we refer to as Pearl Arbor. He finished this phase this past weekend. In addition we spend time, and numerous trips to nurseries, planting out the raised flower beds and building our pots path up the stairs to the deck. Sadly it began to rain yesterday before I got my pictures taken, but try to imagine what this will be like in full sunshine! I'm really beginning to love our backyard!

Pearl Arbor



Hops on Pearl Arbor

Stone Kitty and the Apple Tree

Pots Path


Stone Rabbit and the Rose Bush

Welcome Back Water Taxi!

Today was the opening day of the 2008 West Seattle Water Taxi Season. I went down to Seacrest to watch Chris working crowd control. There was a live band (Once), a clown, and free ice cream from the Husky Deli (YUMMY!). The weather wasn't as good as they predicted but there was still a good sized crowd down at Seacrest. Captain Joe was driving the taxi today and doing a darn fine job. I'm exited to see the water taxi back in action, but sad because I won't be riding it as much this year (darn Bellevue!). Here are some photos I took of Chris working, Joe on the boat, Dow Constantine speaking and Chris's boss Kevin Clark speaking. Fun times!

Chris acting important:

Here comes the taxi!

Captain Joe:

Chris watching Dow speak:

Chris watching Kevin speak:

Waiting for the Paper

Two years we've lived in this house. Two years we've subscribed to the Friday, Saturday & Sunday local newspaper. Two years we haven't missed a delivery. I get up on the weekends between 6 and 6:30, make coffee, open the front door and grab the paper. Yesterday, no paper. It arrived 5 minutes before I left the house for my training walk (7:30). Today, no paper. This is my paper time, but hard to do without the paper. I hope it arrives soon.....

LA Fitness - Shame On You!

It's the little things that have begun to eat away at me. I've posted before about how in the beginning I loved my new gym, but then it ate another gym and soon I couldn't fit in the locker room. Well, it has continued to slowly go downhill. So beings a short rant about the things that are currently bothering me at my new gym.

• The training staff - the are a bunch of stuck up teenagers. They stand around and eat fast food and look up videos on YouTube at the training desk. And yet they keep calling me over and over again to set up my "free" training session. No thank you!
• The equipment - It seems like everyday something new is broken. Today many of the elliptical machines had "out of order" signs on them. Lame.
• The front desk staff - ummm...I'm pretty sure they don't have personalities. Double lame.
• The showers - with the influx of new members the showers have gotten progressively worse. Today there was what I believe to be the hide of a Sasquatch caught in the drain of the shower I was in. Ewww.
• The maintenance staff - these guys stood behind me as I worked out on the elliptical trainer for about 1/2 hour yesterday discussing how some of the equipment was malfunctioning. I hate when people who are not working out stand around in a group talking super loud behind you as you sweat profusely. It's rude. Triple lame. (oh and as noted in the 2nd bullet - they didn't fix anything).
• The locker rooms - still very overcrowded. And many of the lockers are broken.
• NO MORE HAIRDRYERS - today I got out of the shower, got dressed, and went to the counter to dry my hair. Yesterday there were four hairdryers. Today there were zero. Gee thanks. Not a sign anywhere warning us. How hard would it be for one of the training staff to run to the store and buy a new one? Oh right, they're too busy with their YouTube!
  

So, I went to the website for this club today with the intent of outlining some of these items. And guess what. They don't have an option to email them! They have a 1-800 number that routes to somewhere in Arizona and a "mailing" address. WHO SENDS SNAIL MAIL ANYMORE?! So one more item to add to the list:

• Their website - it sucks. Guess I'll get out my pad and pen and write a letter. Yeah right.

Reaper vs. Reefer?

Today the Seattle Times ran this story about a drug bust in Seattle. Apparently it is called Operation Green Reaper. Shouldn't it be Operation Green Reefer?

Rant - Earth Week Edition

Here is my rant about water bottles.

A few years ago I jumped on the "drink more water" band wagon. I understood the need to stay hydrated and realized that I felt better when I did. So we started buying convenient bottled water from the grocery store.

I would often refill the bottles over and over again and when I did finish with one I would recycle it. Then some studies came out that stated you shouldn't re-use a disposable water bottle. They were dangerous and would leach chemicals into the water. So I would only use them once. Of course I quickly became aware of how wasteful that was and switched to a more "green" choice, the trendy plastic water bottles made by companies such as Nalgene and CamelBak.

So we got a Brita pitcher for our fridge, kept numerous CamelBak and Nalgene bottles around the house, and we've been using these for a couple of years now. For Christmas this past year I even gave the CamelBak flip top water bottle as a gift to a few of my relatives. Imagine my horror when I recently found out that I was encouraging them to ingest dangerous chemicals that could lead to breast or prostate cancer!

Of course Nalgene and CamelBak have jumped on this, pulled their dangerous bottles off the shelf and they are producing a whole new line of "BPA Free" bottles. So I guess I will go out a buy a couple of these as soon as they are available. Or maybe a couple Sigg bottles (although I hate the taste of aluminum).

So here is the new dillema right. What do we do with our dangerous water bottles. I can't recycle them (or can I???). I don't want to donate them and kill someone. Do I just dump them in the landfill with the rest of the mistakes we've made?

The Battle

We have two cats. Neither of which are "long" haired cats. Yet our entire house is constantly covered in cat hair. Not only covered in cat hair but you can often find it floating by in the air. The other day Chris said "I think I just saw our third cat float by". It doesn't usually bother me that much. I've always had cats and dealt with the consequences. I actually don't hardly notice anymore.

But then my parents came to visit for the weekend. All I heard about was how much cat hair was on their clothes. My dad was walking around with a lint roller and rolling off the couch before he sat down each time. And here I thought the place was pretty clean. I mean, we even have a cleaning lady that comes twice a month to help fight the cat hair for me. But apparently it is still everywhere.

Oh, and at my walk on Saturday morning my co-captain Stephanie looked at me and said "Boy you're hairy". I'm hoping she meant the cat hair and not me in general.

This sort of sums up how it works:

I Blame My Parents

Everytime my parents have decided to come to Seattle to visit, or to cross the mountain passes in general, we've had a snowstorm. Of course, stupid me was thinking that since it was April, the MIDDLE OF APRIL, we'd be safe this time. No such luck. My parents are crossing the passes today to visit so of course there is a snowstorm. Not much in the way of snow here at our house but I was caught in a crazy hail storm driving home yesterday. But, my sister-in-law sent me a couple of pictures yesterday of the snow at her place in Edmonds. Can you believe it is snowing in April? Crazy......