Birds and book, day 132 of 2012 (and, oh! so much more!)
Today was West Seattle Garage Sale Day and while we didn't get to perhaps more than 5% of the 250 sales, we still managed to spend a pile of money on all manner of amazing items we had no idea we needed when we woke up this morning. Is this a great country or what? I'm not sure that I ever truly found something honorable but I got some stuff I liked while Eli was very excited to find a 1935 World Atlas and Gazetter at the sale practically directly across from us. It is late and a picture is worth a thousand words so I'm posting some photos rather than list all our fabulous finds.
On our first foray, we amassed relatively small stuff: Eli's book, a new backpack, some bowls, a few nice old canning jars, other books, a trinket for Ms. Fandra, a pair of summer pants for me, a pair of c-clamps, an old tin box of HB drawing pencils. Total expenditure: under $35.
We've been talking about a door for the southeast side of the patio for a year or more now but it wasn't until after we'd gone by two doors today that we actually measured the space and determined that, by gum a standard-size door would work in the space. Which meant we had to find the yard sale with the door again. Eventually we succeeded and, at $10, we snatched it up. And then person-hauled it home. It turns out a full-size door is more awkward to carry than a seven-foot Christmas tree.
Inspired by the success in transporting the door, I decided that of course we had room for a chaise lounge in the back yard. I also figured that in the last half hour of the sale, the seller might be willing to entertain an offer for her priced-at-$85 wrought iron lounger. I offered $60; she countered with $65. Soon after Eli and I discovered just how much more awkward than a door a folding piece of iron could be to carry about the streets of West Seattle. Fortunately it was just a few blocks.
This evening we had tickets for Madame Butterfly as well as dinner reservations at Tilikum Cafe so we had to abandon all our new possessions, change into some gawcier clothes, and scamper out (as much as one can scamper in Fluevogs which is really not very much) to catch a bus. We had excellent bus karma all evening. Dinner at Tilikum was excellent (love those noodles, I do, while Eli's chicken, which he shared, was also fabu. Everything they do with asparagus is delicious as well) and then we wandered over to the Opera House. We were a bit early so we paused to admire the fountain at Seattle Center. Helpful Tip: Don't stand downwind of the fountain when it's running and you're wearing nice clothes and are en route to the opera. We got rather soaked when some big plumes of water blasted from the center of the fountain caught a gust of south wind. We could see it coming but somehow just continued to stand there, expecting it to turn to mist.
Perhaps it was a precursor of things to come for I found myself more than teary in the final ten minutes or so of Madame Butterfly. It was the friendship between Butterfly and Suzuki (played quite nicely by Sarah Larsen; she didn't do a ton of singing but, like Butterfly, she acted well) that was just too damned moving for words. Butterfly, played by Patricia Racette, was fabulous. She had a good voice, of course, but she also was surprisingly good when she wasn't singing, too. The sort of dumb show while they're waiting for Pinkerton to show up was damned fine. Even at the operas I've been less enamoured of the lighting and staging has always been good; tonight was also exquisite. The stars came out; the moon appeared and then rose out of sight; daylight came and went when windows were closed; the stage turned red or white or dark or light...
I had no idea that the male lead in the opera was an American and that quite so much of the story is about America. The thing is Butterfly loves Pinkerton and that's somehow the central tragedy but it seems like as much as she loves him, she loves her concept of the United States. She decides on her own to forsake her own religion in favor of Pinkerton's and she brags about how the American god acts on prayers quickly, unlike the fat and lazy Japanese gods. She insists that being abandoned isn't grounds for divorce because it wouldn't be in America; an American judge would call a man who was bored with his wife a rascal and throw him into jail. In the end, it almost seems as though it's her disenchantment with America as much as Pinkerton's desertion that leads to her tragic end. Pinkerton, played by Stefano Stecco, was good too, but he didn't get as many fine songs to sing and he's just so despicable. He was heartily booed during the curtain calls which he seemed to take in the right spirit.
Birds
house finches
house sparrows
goldfinches
pine siskins
white-crowned sparrows
golden-crowned sparrows
black-capped chickadee
bushtits
western tanager (alive! in our own yard!)
robins
northern flickers
crows
gulls
starlings
pigeons
osprey
Book
Tiassa Busy day. No progress.
Another day...photos of Gradka! Bee house!
On our first foray, we amassed relatively small stuff: Eli's book, a new backpack, some bowls, a few nice old canning jars, other books, a trinket for Ms. Fandra, a pair of summer pants for me, a pair of c-clamps, an old tin box of HB drawing pencils. Total expenditure: under $35.
We've been talking about a door for the southeast side of the patio for a year or more now but it wasn't until after we'd gone by two doors today that we actually measured the space and determined that, by gum a standard-size door would work in the space. Which meant we had to find the yard sale with the door again. Eventually we succeeded and, at $10, we snatched it up. And then person-hauled it home. It turns out a full-size door is more awkward to carry than a seven-foot Christmas tree.
Inspired by the success in transporting the door, I decided that of course we had room for a chaise lounge in the back yard. I also figured that in the last half hour of the sale, the seller might be willing to entertain an offer for her priced-at-$85 wrought iron lounger. I offered $60; she countered with $65. Soon after Eli and I discovered just how much more awkward than a door a folding piece of iron could be to carry about the streets of West Seattle. Fortunately it was just a few blocks.
This evening we had tickets for Madame Butterfly as well as dinner reservations at Tilikum Cafe so we had to abandon all our new possessions, change into some gawcier clothes, and scamper out (as much as one can scamper in Fluevogs which is really not very much) to catch a bus. We had excellent bus karma all evening. Dinner at Tilikum was excellent (love those noodles, I do, while Eli's chicken, which he shared, was also fabu. Everything they do with asparagus is delicious as well) and then we wandered over to the Opera House. We were a bit early so we paused to admire the fountain at Seattle Center. Helpful Tip: Don't stand downwind of the fountain when it's running and you're wearing nice clothes and are en route to the opera. We got rather soaked when some big plumes of water blasted from the center of the fountain caught a gust of south wind. We could see it coming but somehow just continued to stand there, expecting it to turn to mist.
Perhaps it was a precursor of things to come for I found myself more than teary in the final ten minutes or so of Madame Butterfly. It was the friendship between Butterfly and Suzuki (played quite nicely by Sarah Larsen; she didn't do a ton of singing but, like Butterfly, she acted well) that was just too damned moving for words. Butterfly, played by Patricia Racette, was fabulous. She had a good voice, of course, but she also was surprisingly good when she wasn't singing, too. The sort of dumb show while they're waiting for Pinkerton to show up was damned fine. Even at the operas I've been less enamoured of the lighting and staging has always been good; tonight was also exquisite. The stars came out; the moon appeared and then rose out of sight; daylight came and went when windows were closed; the stage turned red or white or dark or light...
I had no idea that the male lead in the opera was an American and that quite so much of the story is about America. The thing is Butterfly loves Pinkerton and that's somehow the central tragedy but it seems like as much as she loves him, she loves her concept of the United States. She decides on her own to forsake her own religion in favor of Pinkerton's and she brags about how the American god acts on prayers quickly, unlike the fat and lazy Japanese gods. She insists that being abandoned isn't grounds for divorce because it wouldn't be in America; an American judge would call a man who was bored with his wife a rascal and throw him into jail. In the end, it almost seems as though it's her disenchantment with America as much as Pinkerton's desertion that leads to her tragic end. Pinkerton, played by Stefano Stecco, was good too, but he didn't get as many fine songs to sing and he's just so despicable. He was heartily booed during the curtain calls which he seemed to take in the right spirit.
Birds
house finches
house sparrows
goldfinches
pine siskins
white-crowned sparrows
golden-crowned sparrows
black-capped chickadee
bushtits
western tanager (alive! in our own yard!)
robins
northern flickers
crows
gulls
starlings
pigeons
osprey
Book
Tiassa Busy day. No progress.
Another day...photos of Gradka! Bee house!