Following Ratty's dictum in The Wind In The Willows, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing as wonderful as mucking about in Boats, I signed our family up for the Center For Wooden Boats' Family Boatbuilding Workshop, where we build a dinghy in four days. Our motto going into this insane venture was "If we can build it, ANYONE can build it ( Read more... )

As I said previously, the first few days were kind of fun. We were bold urban pioneers keeping up a stiff upper lip in the face of disaster. I took pride in our ingenuity and toughness. Articles about wimpy Eastsiders who had fled to hotels in downtown Seattle were greeted with a disdainful curl of my lip. Hah! We were made of sterner stuff! ( Read more... )

The first few days of the power outage were actually kind of fun. We bought a fireplace grate and discovered that our wood burning fireplace worked very well. We got out the candles and enjoyed a few evenings by candle light. Our downstairs fireplace had a gas insert, and we kept that running continually. We have a gas hot water heater, so we ( Read more... )

As many of you know, we had a huge windstorm about a week and a half before Christmas. Hurricane force winds in Seattle of all places! Because there's a huge and lovely pine tree just outside my daughter's room, she slept on the living room couch. In my hot pink paisley sleeping bag that I had as a kid and wrapped myself up in to watch the very ( Read more... )

Darby and Agnes were married in a small town named Komarom about an hour outside Budapest. We rode there on a chartered double-decker bus. Komaron has this neat fort disguised as a hill, which we saw bits of, but obviously couldn't tour. Another thing on my list to go back and see. The church was a lovely yellow and cream confection with a tall ( Read more... )

My nephew Darby got married in Hungary a week and a half ago. Of course I went. I only have one nephew. And besides, it was a chance to see Budapest. For starters, Hungary is mis-named. They shouldn't call the place Hungary, they should call it "Eat, you look thin!" The food was fabulous! And my nephew has married into a great family. He's ( Read more... )

I recently started trying to set up one or two weeks each month with no appointments. It gives me a chance to get caught up. This was supposed to be one of those weeks ( Read more... )

We went off to Chinatown a couple of days ago to the very first Night Market. It was pleasant, but not nearly as evocative as the name. It was organized by the youth group as a part of the Neighborhood Night Out campaign. This year its' just a one-off event, and felt a bit sketchy, but it was well attended, even if there wasn't enough stuff out ( Read more... )

While I was picking up my daughter up at Girl Scout Day camp at Camp Long, I ran into the mom of one of Katie's classmates. We got to talking, and I forgot myself and mentioned that I was going off to Harbin Hot Springs to go to throat singing camp . *Damn* There goes another lost play date for Katie. It reminded me of a fellow fan who took his ( Read more... )

It's been a simultaneously busy and quiet summer. Much re-writing is being done. My daughter Katie is going off to a series of fun summer camps. Last week she went to a sailing/kayaking camp on South Lake Union, which she enjoyed immensely. I envied her the opportunity to muck about in boats. But I enjoyed it too, because it was only a hop, ( Read more... )