No doubt most of you are aware of the protest movements sweeping the US. Known as the Occupy Wall Street Movement in NY city, it has now spread to many cities around the country. Protesting big corporations, banks and their outrageous profits, corruption in our government due to influence from these corporations, inequity in our society-taxation of the 99% with little or no taxation of the wealthiest 1% (CEO's paying less tax than their secretaries). Environmental corruption. The list goes on and on.....
Well, we have our very own occupy movement going on here in B-town. I have been out to the very first meeting at our Peoples Park and to the Chase Bank protest that was a national day of protest. I will hold back on any of my own thoughts on what I believe about the movement at this time as I will be attending a protest in Washington DC on Nov. 6. Stay tuned for much more on this after that date. Here are some of the photos/movies of what was going on locally in early October. The first gathering:
As people started to gather
By far my favorite sign at the event. Ironic that the DC car license plate has "taxation without representation' inscribed on it (the citizens of Washington DC have no representatives in our government).
So, about a week or so after this opening event for the local occupy movement , there was a march down to Chase Bank (which coincided with the national protest of the bank). Folks were going into the bank and withdrawing all of their money. Imagine that! We bail them out and then they continue to screw us all with their greed. I'd take my money out too!
Here is the camp in our 'peoples park'. There are a few local businesses who are supporting the group with food, facilities, donations. etc. Many local folks are also supporting the group.
Occupy Your Heart
The community kitchen set up in the camp.
You can take the old girl out of Berkeley, but you can't take Berkeley out of the girl!
These are very exciting times. Stay tuned for news from Washington DC.
So, I know most of you who follow this blog must know that we are capable of doing some nutty stuff and tend to have a good time no matter what we do. Well, we have friends who are pretty nutty too (imagine that!). When we found out that Jon Stewart of The Daily Show would be coming to our town to do his stand up comedy/political satire show, some of our friends from Canada and California decided they would make the trek out here to the Midwest to join us for the show. So.............we had a group of 9 out here the last weekend of September for the fun.
The Canadian contingent of 5 arrived late Thursday night; Rowan's hilarious buddy Natalie and our friend Trefford and his family. Corina and Maricella from California arrived on Friday. We spent 3 days cooking, eating, laughing hysterically and hiking around our great town. We were really looking forward to entertaining this group in our newly remodeled home.
Here's the group at dinner at my boss lady Carolyn's house before we went to the show:
Rowan and Natalie as we entered the auditorium for the show
Jon Stewart is an exceptional political comedian. Just nails the absurdity of so many issues. He even did his George Bush imitation. Just HILARIOUS! We got 90 minutes of amazing comedy from him.
Of course the fun didn't stop there. After the show, Natalie, Corina and Maricella all came back to our place to spend the night. Here is the mischief we got into:
We have to blame this tequila moment on our Hispanic friend Maricella :o) Naughty girl! You can take the girl out of Mexico, but you can't take the tequila away from the girl!
Here is the creepy eyeball balloon Natalie found as decoration for the dinner party at our house. Since all of our guests are in the vision science field it was the perfect choice.
With a group of 14, we decided to grill 3 beer-butt chickens and roast a bunch of vegetables. The early fall weather is perfect to have everyone out on the porch as we prepare dinner.
Here are those 3 bundles of crusty goodness. These girls really wowed the crowd. Nothing tastier than a crispy piece of grilled chicken.
So, ours are nothing like this girl, found in a NY times article. Quoted as a sexy, pin-up chicken. What do you think? I will have to try and roast them in this position next time. :o) Thanks Natalie for the photo op!
Here is part of our group of friends. Rowan, me, Corina, Natalie, Joe, Carolyn, Marina.
The whole motley crew.
Rowan took a group out for a hike at one of our local lakes, about 10 minutes from our house. Here is the load of geodes they brought back from their hike along the banks of the lake and stream. These are millions of years old. We spent the next morning smashing some of them open to see what sort of crystals could be found inside. Our California contingent took many of them home. Nothing like a suitcase full of rocks to make the TSA CRAZY!!! :o)
News of our local Occupy protest movement in my next post.
That is, if I'm not in jail yet because I have joined them! :o)
There is the most FABULOUS world music festival that comes to B-town every year.
The Lotus World Music Festival brings musical groups from all over the world to the Midwest for four days every September: http://lotusfest.org/. The excitement the festival generates consumes the entire town.
Musicians mingle with town folk along the streets as hundreds move between venues to hear the huge variety of musical groups perform. The performances take place in nightclubs, churches (where the acoustics are AMAZING), outdoor tents and city parks.
This year we chose to attend only one night of the event since we just returned home from Seattle and we are still recovering from that trip. Here are some samples of what we saw and heard:
This is a street musician playing some wonderful bluegrass. He is hidden in the shadow of this doorway playing just a fiddle and stomping his foot on a box. Local street musicians can be found all over the streets.
The Movits! http://lotusfest.org/movits A Swedish band that ROCKS THE HOUSE! They sing it Swedish, but it doesn't matter since they are extremely entertaining.
Eilen Jewell: http://lotusfest.org/eilen-jewell. This musician plays really fabulous rockabilly style music. Her guitarist, Jerry Miller, is quite famous and has the coolest sound. I'm sure you will agree.
We saw her in the Bluebird, possibly one of the best small music clubs in the country.
Unfortunately, my camera ran out of space, so these are the only movies I have of the event. Go to the Lotus website in the first paragraph of this post to see / hear the full list of musicians who were at the festival. Really, really, fun!
Our trip out to Vashon Island couldn't have been more beautiful on this bright, sunny Seattle day.
The ocean water is so clear that we could see jelly fish and other sea life in the water as the ferry made it's way from the Fauntleroy ferry station in West Seattle to Vashon. Our friend Anna came to pick us up at the ferry station and then we made our way out to her fabulous flat that sits right on the water of the Puget Sound.
Anna had makings for a wonderful tapas lunch in the fridge so we got right to preparing a bite to eat. The view of the sound from her flat is just outstanding. It would be really hard for me to ever leave this beautiful setting if I lived out here. Very inspiring environment. A perfect place for Anna as she is an artist/musician/writer.
Here are Anna and Rowan.
After we had our relaxing lunch we took a stroll down the beach from Anna's place to check out the neighborhood. Another artist, a potter, had the pathway along her retreat decorated with some of her creations.
This driftwood sea king was on display right next door to Anna's place. It seemed to greet the boats that came by along The Sound.
We decided to take a drive around the other side of the island and across to Maury Island to the Point Robinson Light House: http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=113. They have a couple of cottages the general public can rent for vacation stays right next to the light house. Very secluded and beautiful. We took a refreshing walk along the beach and took in the spectacular views.
A couple of rustic lean-to shelters we found on the beach.
We had just a wonderful day visiting Anna and Vashon Island. Here is the amazing view of Mt. Rainer we got as the ferry took us back to West Seattle. It's amazing how big that mountain (volcano) is!
Like the view of Mt. Rainer wasn't enough today, we had this sunset view from my sisters living room window on this last evening of our visit to the great northwest. This is looking west toward the Cascade Range. Just stunning!
We don't get to Seattle, Washington and the Great Northwest often enough to visit my sister and her family, so when the Fall Vision Meeting came to Seattle this year we jumped on the chance to get a little science education and visit the family too. September in Seattle is usually their Indian Summer, and we were lucky to have just that during our visit.
There are always many culinary adventures to be had when in my sister's presence (yes, she loves to eat and explore food as much as I do), so she wasted no time the first morning we woke up to give us her latest concoction of blended pond water for breakfast. She has taken up juicing, and I mean juicing everything- vegetables, herbs, fruit - all together, to make the most interesting blends of vitamin packed
swamp juice (she will even juice you if you stand in one place too long). Here is a photo of our first juicing adventure:
Carrots, kale, pears, ginger, apples, and I'm not quite sure what else. Delicious! We were a little apprehensive about how far we wanted to get from the W/C after we consumed all of this. Always an adventure with my sis! Not sure our digestive systems will ever be the same :o)
Me and my sister Pat (you can tell we are related by the size of our chops).
On our first morning, we wasted no time trekking right over to the flagship REI store to do a little shopping. Here is Pat and Rowan at the REI cafe window looking at the downtown view as we waited for our fabulous Thai lunch.
Rowan in the hat section trying on a very ridiculous hat. Something to hit the high seas in. We had a blast trying on clothes and hats and laughing and taking photos.
That evening we went out with the whole family to have Greek food. My sis, her hubby Don and my nephews Dustin and Jake (including one of Jake's friends from school) had a great time running through this park and, of course, being wild and crazy. You can always count on our family having fun. I am taking the photo.
Here is a more refined photo of us trying to behave. Jake is the bruiser out front giving us his totally toned 20 year old stud pose. :o)
My brother-in-law Don came home one day with this nifty Mini prezzy for my sister. Trouble with a capital T is all I can say. My high energy sister zipping around in this toy is a ride of a lifetime (I have the white knuckles to prove it!) :o) Too much fun!
So, one thing my sis and I LOVE to do when we get together is go for an afternoon at the Korean Spa.
Go here: http://olympusspa.net/lynnwood/index.aspx
What these fabulous Korean women do to one's body is just amazing. First we always spend at least 2 hours lounging around the various hot rooms (between 100-150 degrees), sweating all of life's nastiness out of our systems. Napping is always included. Then, we spend another hour in the steam room, sauna and various hot pools, the whole time pouring hot mugwort water over our bodies on trips between here and there. Then our own adorable little Korean woman comes to get each of us and takes us in for our body scrub, facial and all around body cleansing. Heaven is the only way I can describe it.
They scrub your whole body from head to toe at least 3 times with hot mugwort water in between. THEN, the hot olive oil, hot milk and then honey from head to toe!!! I'm serious! It makes you feel like you are the main course at a dinner party. By this time the body is like jelly and feels like the skin on a baby's butt. Then, hot towels are laid over the entire body so the oil, milk and honey penetrates the skin. When all of this is in place, the facial starts. First exfoliation, milk, honey and then cold cucumber. All of this is left for about 20-30 minutes. When my FABULOUS Korean goddess came back to unwrap me and try to get me to sit up (yeah, right!), all I could do was hug her and tell her I wanted to take her home with me.
Here we are as we were heading in for our mind and body adjustment.
We are about well done at this point :o) HEAVEN!!
Since adventure is never lacking in our world, my sister took me out so I could see her and her sculling group do their thing out on Lake Washington. It's really zen to watch a boat of 8 people do this thing together, all the way from getting the boats out as a team and then rowing as a team. Can you say co-op-er-a-tion?
Here are Pat and Don (red and blue ball caps) as they are rowing away from the dock.
As we walked around Lake Washington we found some fabulous wildlife. Here is a great blue heron resting on a branch in a large lily pad area in a lagoon.
A turtle on a log in some sort of heat induced sun coma.
Our next adventure was to check out a Mobile Food Rodeo. Food Rodeo? Well, this gathering is like a local homemade food orgy. Hmmmmmm.....food orgy? Well, it's basically a place where a whole bunch of mobile food trucks gather (yes, the kind you see in many cities, or out in rural farmland. The ones that feed the masses with local delicious food). These folks have FANTASTIC offerings that will just blow your socks off. My sis got us earlybird tickets so we could get to the mobile food trucks an hour ahead of the big crowds. The trucks all come from Seattle and Portland, Oregon. We dropped Rowan at UW for her science meeting early this morning, so we arrived early for the event . We got a bite of breakfast at Whole Foods first and took a walk out to The Sound to get some exercise before we make pigs of ourselves at the food rodeo.
Here is the view of the sound from just north of downtown.
As we went through the entrance, in the field behind Whole Foods.
We were nearly at the front of the earlybird line so when we entered, there was really no one there.
We had our first bit of foodgasm at the Bistro Box. We jumped right on the Kobe Beef Sliders. Melt-in-your-mouth beef with a layer of goat cheese with herbs and a tomato chutney to die for! Go here for a fantastic menu: http://www.bistrobox.net/catering.html
Really, REALLY, fantastic!
Our next craving was for Thai: http://www.kaosamai.com/.
We both agreed that a good way to judge Thai is by having the Pad Thai first. So, here it is:
Slurp, slurp...YUM! The chunky green chili sauce made it extra FABULOUS!
OINK!!! OINK!!! A person only needs to have one small hair size vein of smoked or grilled pork enter the nose area, and well, the brain instantly causes the human GPS system to go in the direction of that smell. The feet and head automatically turn in that direction and then it is almost like sleep walking until you are at the source of that wonderful smell. So, here we are! A WHOLE PIG HOUSE ON WHEELS!!!!! We almost passed out.
It's like a bed of pulled pork you can eat :o) OINK!
You can imagine by this time we were starting to get full. Well, we decided we just had, had, had to try two more things. First, a stop at the fabulous Air Steam kitchen of The Skillet. Heck, just the fact that the kitchen is in an Air Stream makes it a must see. http://skilletstreetfood.com/company.php
The sandwich we were about to ingest ended up being the biggest food orgasm of the day. Can you say, FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH????
House made fried chicken (fresh out of the skillet) House made herbed ciabatta bread, fresh young raw kale in an aioli sauce. Warm, crispy, crunchy, slightly spicy and green. Perfection! Go to the The Skillet Cafe on Capitol Hill if you are ever in Seattle (or find the Air Steam on the street), you won't regret it!
My sis almost lost a finger!
Animals! Sooooo darn good!
We didn't even have time to come up for air before we saw the fresh made mini donuts rolling off of the rack at Street Donuts. They sell their product exclusively on the street:
Look at these cardomom and ginger sprinkled warm drops of wonderfulness. Too good to be true! I feel like I'm going to have triplets in about 9 hours. :o) What a fantabulous, extraordinary, gastronomically adventurous and extremely delicious day. A nap is in order.
As we left the event, we noticed the huge line of people still waiting to get in. Good thing we left some food for them :o)
Time for a family moment. This is my extremely handsome and hunky nephew, Dustin.
17 years old - can sing, dance, draw, create, lifeguard, swim, make you laugh, asks good questions, gives intelligent answers and is stronger than you think.
Rowan, me and Don (not Colonel Sanders, but my brother-in-law)
This is my nephew Jake. A hunk of burnin love. In college, working too. Is extremely funny, kind, compassionate and has the ability to make just about anyone his fast friend. Can't remember how many of his friends were girls, but no girl-friends :o) Go figure............he is definitely in his element in college.
One of our good friends, Anna, just moved from the mid-west to Seattle, so we made a trip out to Vashon Island by ferry to pay her a visit while we are here.
If you are familiar with this blog, you know by now I can't resist taking movies of this kind of stuff, so here is our ferry ride:
A beautiful day for a ferry ride on The Puget Sound.
So you have to wait until the next post to see the art and culture of Vashon Island. I'm such a tease :o)
Stay tuned.........it's coming in the next couple of daze.......
