Weekend Update
It's officially Getting Warmer (the indeterminate season we have up here in place of Spring) and the calender is starting to fill... So, these should be coming more often. (Assuming I remember to write them...)
Saturday was a bit of an odd day... Matt hl-mateusz has been in the hospital for bypass surgery, and I was tapped to drive him home. (He couldn't fold up to get in the back seat of their car, and isn't supposed to ride in a seat with an airbag.) So pretty much all day was spent waiting by the phone... and it wasn't until 4ish that the hospital got their act together. When we tried to get him in the van, it was embarrassing to discover that I *couldn't* move the middle seat back like I thought I could so he ended up being more cramped than we had hoped. (I think I was confusing this van with one of the one's I'd owned previously... which brings up the question of what exactly *are* those fittings in the floor for?) Driving was a trial, as I was trying to be as gentle as possible but the roads are bumpy in places and I couldn't be a hazard to other traffic either by starting or stopping too slowly. We finally got him home and some re-arrangement of their living room done (he's sleeping there as he can't do the stairs to the master bedroom). We were invited to stay for dinner, but bailed pretty quickly after dinner because it was getting late-ish and he was very plainly getting wore out.
Sunday, we went over to Seattle Center for the Seattle Cherry Blossom & Japanese Cultural Festival and had a blast. There were a lot of interesting displays and almost all of the artisans were more than willing to chat about whatever it was they were demonstrating/displaying. I was kind of disappointed with the carpentry display though, the gentleman had something of a canned routine and wasn't very responsive or interested when I tried to go a bit beyond that... had there been a crowd, I would have understood, but it was just B and I at the time.
There was a display of Japanese photography from the Tōhoku region (where the earthquake and tsunami hit two years ago) that was simply stunning. It wasn't pictures of the aftermath, but historic, documentary, and fine art photographs from the last half century. I used the show program to make some notes for future research into the photographers.
I took a bunch of pictures (of course) and some should be spectacular... One set in particular I have high hopes for, there was a Taiko drumming performance in Center House (which they've gone back to calling the Armory for some unknown reason), and while the light wasn't bright enough for stop-motion, it was bright enough for longer exposures.
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