Practicing

Well, I've done it again - gone and failed to blog for nearly a month - and as usual, I'm far more compelled to write about small moments, small pleasures, than I am all the major, more drastic things that have been taking place.

The fact, for example, that my local Trader Joe's has started carrying kale, and I told my checker tonight how psyched I was about that, and he asked what I would do with it, and I said probably blend it up with all those peaches and bananas and kiwis I was buying too.

Or the fact that Lauren and I hopped on a bus yesterday in the afternoon sun and rode it all the way to Ballard - the complete opposite corner of Seattle, but a really spectacular little neighborhood - to get a couple microbrews during the Noble Fir's "Pints for Parks" night, where they donate a buck from every pint to an environmental nonprofit. This month's cause of choice is my beloved Washington Trails Association.


Doing our part for the environment
We followed that up with tapas and gelato and a nice evening stroll as the sun was going down. What more can you ask from one evening, really?

Or the fact that on Sunday, I discovered that the river is a fantastic place to practice my banjo. I can be there with friends, but also go down by the river on my own to play where the current is loud enough to drown me out, and I can strum my banjo as loudly as I please without offending anyone's ears.


I take lessons from these cats. Future string band, hello.
The big news of the month, of course, is that I'm now three weeks into my temp job with REI Headquarters, that I'm no longer in school, that I flew home to Kansas City for all of 40 hours to surprise my dad for his birthday, that last weekend I ran my second ultramarathon (third place this year, and almost exactly, to the minute, the same time as when I ran the same race last year), that my amazing friend Shari arrived in Seattle for the summer, that I went to a beginner's meditation workshop a couple weekends ago, that I've gone on some spectacular trail runs with friends (Zanna! Ron!), that I've seen some spectacular live music (Sarah Jarosz!), that I've read some spectacular books (more Ann Patchett!), and that despite it being the most hideous few months weather-wise for Seattle, summer is definitely in the air.


The snow has finally melted off Mt. Si! As seen from the airplane window on my way to Kansas.
I went for a long (for me) bike ride after work today. After starting to feel a little stir crazy about not running in five days (trying to let myself recover fully from the 50K; I have that persistent, nagging sore right shin again that I had last year after the ultra), I hopped on my bike and just took off for the lakefront. It felt good - all that wind and fresh, just-rained air, and the glorious sensation of riding my bike over the I-90 floating bridge, my tires so near to the sun-glinting waves of Lake Washington.

Once again, I can thank coworkers at REI for inspiring to challenge myself in new ways. Last week, as part of a "team building" day for the entire Product Information team, we went kayaking together. It was only my second time on a kayak - and what a joy it is!


Paddling on Lake Washington with new friends
One of my coworkers asked if I'd like to ride our bikes down to the kayak launch together, since we live in the same neighborhood and the lake is only a few miles away. We met up for coffee in the morning and then rode to the lake together, and it reminded me how much I like being on my bike - afraid of it as I am much of the time.

See, I have the same problem with biking in Seattle that I had with running when I first moved here: a sad sense of resignation that Seattle will take away from me one of my great passions. How am I supposed to like biking with all these ridiculously steep hills that I'm utterly incapable of going up and down? But, of course, as with running, it's going to just be a matter of building myself up to it. Not being afraid, not being impatient, and not giving up - just steadily climbing the giant metaphorical hill along with the literal ones. And one day I'll enjoy a chuckle at how epic my bike ride out to Mercer Island across bridge and back felt today.

The new job is going really well. It's straightforward work and extremely project-oriented, which is the way I work naturally, so the time flies by. Copywriting has forced me to stop evaluating my language in the big-picture way that I've spent most of my life doing, and start focusing on the minutiae of my words, my sentence constructions. Zinsser's "On Writing Well" has been on my bookshelf most of my life, since my father had the foresight and kindness to give me a copy, but it had been years since I'd cracked it open. I started rereading it, and wow, it has to be one of my favorite books ever written.

Why wasn't it required reading for any of my creative writing classes at Oberlin? We spent so much energy in those classes on big-picture discussions - on plot, on character development - but so rarely did we work on the bare bones of language itself. When did we relish in the many shades of meaning maintained by a single word? When did we discuss the uselessness of most adverbs and of many adjectives, the richness of active verbs? When did we pay homage to the origins of words, express gratitude for the delicious possibilities that the English language puts at our fingertips?

I need more practice with the craft itself of writing, with the art of decluttering, of editing, of sending half my words to the chopping block. There is value in this all, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work on it in my daily life this summer. (I should practice this decluttering business in my blog more often, I realize...but cut me some slack; 40 hours a week of stripping my sentences to their essential parts...getting to ramble a little on my blog is kind of like having a familiar, relaxing drink at the end of a long day.)

Speaking of which, it's well past my bedtime now...

What happens when I don't blog for a month

This evening, I went for a nice long-ish run through Madison Valley, arguably one of the nicest parts of Seattle, and ultimately down to the shores of Lake Washington. At the end of the road is a dock that pokes out over the lake. I was about 3.5 miles into my run at this point, and decided to sprawl out on the dock beneath the horizon-bound sun for a solid 10 or 15 minutes before continuing my run. To say that I felt grateful to be alive in that moment is an understatement.


This picture was not taken today, but this entry feels like a good excuse to share this shot I took about a month ago after running to Golden Gardens - yet another lovely Seattle park on the water.
The sky felt big today...full of those massive, puffy clouds that didn't mind sharing sky space with the sun - a rare breed here in Seattle. I had the dock to myself, and nothing but the sounds of the water lapping against its legs beneath me. The temperature was perfect lying-on-a-dock-in-a-sweaty-t-shirt-and-shorts weather. I could see to the tops of Cougar and Tiger Mountains both, my running playgrounds, and some of the snowy peaks in the North Cascades as well. Really lovely indeed. I couldn't stop thinking, I live here. I ran from my doorstep to this place. I live here.

I got together with Lu last week for dinner (Thai food, yum!) and dessert (Yogurtland, yum!) and a lot of overdue catching up. At some point, we got to talking about how easy it is to forget that Seattle is a city surrounded (not entirely, obviously) by water. Although a city of hills opens itself to the possibility of amazing vantage points and views in surprising places, there are also plenty of spots in the city that proffer no view of the water at all. My daily walk to work is one of them.

So, in keeping with the lyrics that inspired the name of this blog, I do appreciate the times I'm able to be near the water. It's a rare run I go on that doesn't have me running along, around, or over some body of water. I love it.

It has been a week of quiet, content moments like that, and catching up moments like the one over hot noodles and curry with Lu, and also a week of letting go and embracing change. As many of you know by now, I was offered a full time copywriting gig at REI Headquarters for the summer - an opportunity I am beyond thrilled about, though it has meant a swift departure from many other aspects of my daily life this past year.

In the span of two weeks, I went to my last (for now) web design class, my last (for now) in-office day at the magazine, and on Thursday, my last day (for now) selling shoes at the Seattle REI store. Although the goodbyes said this week are not permanent in the sense that anyone will be out of my life entirely...my day-to-day routine will indeed change drastically, and the faces I see at work every day won't be the same. The "goodbyes" of this week reflect the inevitable groan of change that happens in our lives, and dang, it's never easy, even when the changes are exciting.

Cobbling together part time jobs and classes and the occasional freelance contract project has made for an interesting, wonderful, and full (!) two years in Seattle, but I am hungry to try life on a regular schedule again.

Over a year ago, when I went through my last "Whoops, I have too much on my plate" crisis, I remember a conversation with my friend Tom about how being stressed out not only sucks up your time, but it also deprives you of creative flow. Without the ability to let your mind genuinely wander, unencumbered by the onerous need to constantly monitor your mental to-do list, making art or envisioning anything new at all is difficult. Creativity and innovation flow only once you've decluttered your brain enough to make room for their possibilities.

Happily, since being offered the job this summer and starting to wean myself off my current mosaic schedule, I have felt more balanced and content than I have in a long time. I haven't been stressed. I have read a bunch of books. (Ann Patchett! Toni Morrison! Hello again, world of literature!) I have had time for my friends and for myself, and it's been quite lovely indeed.

With Alan in town for nearly the entire month of May, we got in a lot of nice adventures, including a day of hiking and sunshine and waterfalls and breweries and bookstore browsing up in Bellingham.




Several weekends ago, Alan and Elodie and I spent the better part of our Saturday gorging ourselves on free cheese samples at Seattle's annual Wine and Cheese Festival at the iconic Pike Place Market. Did you catch the part about it being free? Drool. Alan and I came home and filled our fridge with blue cheese, young Gouda, coconut cheese (infused with coconut oil, for real!), smoked cheddar, and acted as temporary hosts to Elodie's trove of soft, stinky French camembert.


Homemade nachos with smoked cheddar. So much for my dairy and gluten avoidance.
I also managed to make it to two of four days of the 40th Annual Northwest Folklife festival - a big old hippie party at the Space Needle every year, that Seyeon took me to for the first time in 2005, and which was a big part of why I thought I'd love living in this city. Voted "Biggest Flower Child" by my peers in my high school yearbook, is it really any surprise I went to Oberlin College and eventually wound up here?




Let's see...what else? Two evenings of dinner parties with good friends in a row - Kate and Jeff's Memorial Day deck warming party, complete with grilled burgers and mini cheesecake tarts, and Megan and David's kitchen warming/anniversary party, complete with spicy Thai soup, chocolate-covered strawberries, and the best homemade bread, made by my favorite Dutch mother currently living in the continental U.S.


Sunset last night from Dave and Megan's living room window.
Speaking of delicious food, Lauren and I hit up the brand new Skillet Diner on Capitol Hill; I'm definitely becoming one of those urban foodie divas that wants to try out all the hot foodie spots. Aiee. Seriously though...plaid shirts on all the wait staff, beer and wine in mason jars, damn good fries, and again, all within walking distance of home.

Earlier in the month, Alan and I trekked up to the small, old navy town of Port Gamble with the Outdoors NW crew for the Beast Adventure Triathlon. 6 miles sea kayaking, 16 miles mountain biking, and an embarrassingly short 5K trail run at the end...Neal, being the rockstar he is, covered the first two legs of the tri, before I took over for the final brief running leg. The weather was miserably characteristic of the Northwest, so we both got wet and cold, but (well, I speak for myself) had a blast nonetheless.


The mountain biking part was very hardcore.


Coming down the finishing chute!


Team ONW!
I've gone for some lovely runs with friends, including exploration of the water tower at Volunteer Park with Zanna (4.5 stars on trusty Yelp; go read about how people give themselves heart attacks climbing the stairs for the best free view of Seattle, then imagine the two of us RUNNING up those flights...heck yes), and my first time cruising around Carkeek Park with Ron - a sweet morning run sandwiched between delicious, raw, Incan-superfood-charged smoothies. Why am I friends with so many men (well, two at least) who eat weirder things than me, run in Vibram Fivefingers, speak with exclamation marks, and have adorable little boys I wish I could hang out with all the time? Life is good.


Summer is in the air, and I am grateful as ever to be alive and here. Hello June!

Probing the recesses of Yitka's post-college psyche

So, I'm at the (temporary) end of a long, dark tunnel of stress, and thus am putting forth a more in-depth, content-driven blog entry about some of my thoughts and emotions beyond "Seattle, woohoo" and "Coffee, awesome."

Actually, I'm not really at the end of any tunnel, temporary or not, at all - not even close - but I'll pretend! It was a twelve-hour work day for me, so I'm in need of some journaling and detoxing! I'm enjoying Seyeon's chocolate brownies with homemade cream cheese frosting, and a giant glass of soymilk. It's 57 degrees out - total jacket weather, which felt *great* on the walk home from work; I've decided to quit being a lazy bum and driving my car all 1.8 miles to my job. No excuses anymore. The fact that I can walk to work, the gym, the public library, the grocery store, my new doctor's office, or any of 452348238 coffeeshops is awesome, and I am taking full advantage.

So. Life after college. It's surreal to continue following the Oberlin blogs, for whom I used to write, and know that academic life is carrying on for so many other people, but not for me - and for the first time in my life, no one really cares what I do to occupy my time all day long. I was out on an epic run yesterday and passed a whole group of high schoolers at Seward Park. They were apparently on a school field trip, and it was so strange to think that all of them had a confined area in the park they could go, and chaperones to answer to, and a deadline at which they'd have to board the bus again and go back to school. Meanwhile, I could just run...literally, run away.

When Natalie was in town and she and Lu and I got together, we discussed how strange it is that our entire lives up until this point have revolved around working toward another obvious stage - getting through middle school to get to high school, getting through high school to go to college, getting through college to get to graduation. And then what? There are no certainties anymore! Some hopes, perhaps - a lasting relationship, maybe grad school, a steady satisfying career, a family someday - but nothing in our futures is certain anymore. Things are a lot more up in the air...as well as a lot more up to us, individually, than ever before.

There are enough stories out there of people hitting middle age and feeling that the time just passed them by. Regrets, often. I do not want to be one of those people. I was determined to hit the ground running out of college, and even though there were some hitches along the way (graduating in the worst year to be a college graduate in nearly a century, and with a financially impractical degree), I feel like I'm not doing too shabbily for being about 10 weeks into my new life in a new city: two delightful, rewarding jobs I'm passionate about, my name in print in an awesome magazine, being in the best shape of my life and plans to run the Seattle marathon in two months, the beginnings of some good new friendships, and plans to get an apartment with Alan in November.

I feel fortunate that my mind hasn't changed too much over the years. To illustrate this idea: the first computer password I ever created for myself, probably back in elementary school, was "author33" - because I wanted to be an author when I grew up, and because I thought 33 was the most magical number in the world. Miraculously, over a decade later, I still want to be an author, and anyone who's spent more than a few hours in my presence in recent years has probably heard me sing praises for the number 33. (If you haven't, please ask! I'd be delighted to elaborate for you!)

Anyway: the fact that I don't change my mind much certainly makes planning out my life at this point easier; instead of devoting huge amounts of energy to deliberating over what I want to do with myself, I get to concentrate my energies on crossing things off my existing life to-do list, one by one. Several years ago, at the very tail end of my blogging time with Xanga, I wrote a "Life Plan" entry, with the tagline, "The idealist in me needs some tangible dreams to hang on to this summer." It's cool to look back on that entry, written in the midst of a troubling, floundering time in my teenaged years, and see that in the time since, I've already accomplished six of the "tangible dreams" I wrote about that summer.

Again, as with the tale of my graduation cap (which, UPDATE (!!!) - was featured in the Oberlin's alumni magazine's current issue!), I kind of want to give my past self a high-five.

And, of course, there are new goals now: I want to be a recession success story! I want to move up with both/either of the fantastic companies for whom I now work. I want to start my own business. I want to climb Mount Rainier. I want to hike the Appalachian Trail. I want to head my own non-profit. I want to publish a work of nonfiction. I want to travel extensively in Africa. I want to learn how to design websites. I want to advance my photography skills. I want to grow my own food.

And there are revised ones, too: job at literary agency or publishing company? Meh...there are other career paths that interest me more. Dancing the funky chicken on my 75th wedding anniversary? Doubtful :) But I can live with all that. What matters to me now is just that I don't lose focus of the dreams I had going into college - the ones that propelled me through those four years, and to this city, and into the shoes I'm wearing today - the ones that whisk me away for hours of running along the shores of Lake Washington and carry me home through Seattle's winding, hilly streets at the end of a long day's work.

Ennui-less in Seattle

What a week so far. I haven't stopped going since Monday morning...not sure how much longer my caffeine resistance is going to hold out. Especially now that I've officially gone off the deep end by accepting a fourth job that will get me out of the house by 4:45 a.m. a few mornings a week.

But! So far, so good, despite my ostensible foolhardiness on the job front. However, multiple jobs lead to good things, like
- money
- feelings of purpose and accomplishment
- gratitude, especially in this economy
- many new friends


And those things lead to fabulous adventures like last Sunday night! REI hosted a staff beach party on Alki Beach - miles of actual beach (not just a strip of gravel and rocks that the city of Seattle seems to think can be referred to as a "beach"), with sand you can dig your toes into and everything. It's located in West Seattle, which means that, like the photo posted several entries ago taken from Gasworks Park, it affords a stunning view of the downtown skyline from across the waters of Puget Sound (Elliott Bay, in the case of Alki; Lake Union, in the case of Gasworks.)


I got off work at 7:30 on Sunday, swung by my coworker Zanna's houseboat on Lake Union to give her a ride to the beach bash, swung by home to pick up Seyeon, and the three of us trekked across the West Seattle Bridge with a mission - make it to beach before the bonfire was out and all the marshmallows roasted. We pulled it off!


We stayed late with a couple of other REIsters (apparently that's the lingo for us; I'm learning) around the bonfire, watching it go down, talking about life, trying to find the perfect placement in relation to the fire to keep from either burning up or freezing our butts off in the September nighttime chill.

In other magical nights in Seattle, I got together with fellow Oberlin alum (!) Zoe, who hails from Portland originally but is going to grad school up here. We missed connections a lot throughout our years at Oberlin, despite having been in touch (via the now ancient blogging website, Xanga) the summer before college even began. It was great to finally get to know one another a bit more, and in the context of the city. We went out for great Mexican grub on Broadway, then off to Gasworks Park for a lovely sunset, the longest falling shooting star either of us had ever seen (it started directly overhead and fell, over the course of many slow, beautiful seconds, to the horizon before finally burning out), and a long night lying on the grassy side of a hill overlooking the sparkling skyline.


Final other highlights of the week, in spite of the 60+ hours of labor:
- Seeing a really stirring, well-orchestrated performance of Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" at the Intiman Theater with Lu
- 8, 12, and 16 mile runs along Lake Washington Boulevard, with clear and stunning views of both Mount Rainier and Mount Baker
- Fabulous, killer cycling class earlier today
- Lots and lots of cookies and cupcakes, courtesy of Seyeon's spectacular baking skills
- The usual awe and wonder: mountains, sunrises, sunsets, Space Needle, I-love-Seattle, blah blah blah...


:)

Friends, cupcakes and the great outdoors

So, I feel like my blog is neglecting my life outside of coffee. Ironically, I'm actually neglecting coffee...yes, that's right. I moved to Seattle and am trying to give up coffee. Minus Mondays, I've been caffeine-sober for nearly two weeks now. So, just one cup for my Cup o' Joe Mondays; loyalty to my blog readers is that strong! Otherwise, I'm trying to manage this morning person schedule here without. If I feel I need coffee to make it through my day, I'm obviously not getting enough sleep. The solution? Sleep more.

But...onward! Enough on coffee. I do other things in Seattle too! This holiday weekend in particular was made up almost entirely of work...30 hours, in fact, between Friday evening and Monday. I love my job. The people - coworkers and customers alike - are amazing. I've gotten so many fantastic tips on trails to hike, places to run, gear to utilize, etc. The learning curve was steep but doable, and I'm already feeling cozy and comfortable in my REI vest. Coworkers often bring cookies and cupcakes to share. I get to read the Seattle Times and Runner's World on my breaks. A couple nights ago, I went out for hot chocolate and a long, late-night walk around Seattle with a coworker who also just moved to the area (from North Carolina). Hooray for making friends.


In the past week also, my friend Natalie came to visit Seattle! She stayed with Lu, another close friend (both from high school), and I got to spend a day with them playing around the scenic Seward Park - a small, forested peninsula that hangs off the east side of Seattle into Lake Washington. It seems that motorized boat traffic has been prohibited there, as the lake is unbelievably quiet and placid - and Seward Park scenic and much emptier of the hordes of people that some of the more centrally located parks invite.


A 3-mile path wraps around the park, offering beautiful views of the water, Bellevue and the woods themselves in all their tall-treed and sunshine-poking-through glory. Magic-garden-esque, no?


I was there again the next day, with Alan, as he got to spend a few days in town. We got to take long walks in the park too, play in the water, get ice cream cones, go out for cupcakes with Seyeon (official blog review of Cupcake Royale cafe coming soon!), stroll around Pioneer Square, eat gyros and falafel in an open-air cafe, browse the infamous Elliott Bay Books, stroll around the small mountain town of North Bend about thirty miles east of Seattle, watch a sunset over Green Lake, have the Alaskan Amber on tap that I sampled and fell in love with at the brewery itself when my dad and I were in Juneau last summer.

Life's good.


P.s. And a plug for a new discovery - singer/songwriter Kelly Dalton. I'm loving him, and his "Home" EP captures the mood that Seattle's drizzly, gray mornings give me before the afternoon sun breaks. Check him out if you get a chance.

Will play outdoors.

Ah, I've failed to post since my last Cup o' Joe Monday - and there *will* be a new post tomorrow, so I'm determined to squeeze one in before then so I can address everything else that's happened this past week.

By the numbers:
55 miles biked
30 hours worked at new job
28 miles run
1 swim in Lake Washington

So, the weather continues to be astounding. It's impossible to stay inside. I woke up this morning with a full day off ahead of me and tried a variety of projects - reading, working on my website, writing, catching up on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes, etc. - before gazing longingly out the window at the sunshine and the mountaintops and feeling entirely dull about my attempt to do things indoors. Silliness, on a day like this, when all I'm hearing from the seasoned Seattleites is "Muahahaha you just wait until your first winter up here..." I have to take advantage of the sun before he goes into hibernation!


The outdoors are great. Getting to work in a place that promotes them is even better. Making friends in new places is always a slow process, but I really, really like a lot of the people I've met here so far - many of whom are just as new to the area as myself. And some who aren't! Seyeon and I are planning a camping trip with a few friends in the next couple weeks that should be a real blast. In the meantime, I'm getting a kick out of all the end-of-summer festivities:


Tug-of-war between rival bike shops in the Seattle area


Pick up football with friends! Guess who scored not one, but TWO, touchdowns?! :)


Taking time to enjoy the scenery
Biking and running alike continue to be incredible ways for me to learn my way around the city and familiarize myself with its green spaces, trails, scenic hot spots, coffeeshops to potentially review on Mondays, and cute restaurants at which I'll someday be able to afford/enjoy a meal! I'm still not really comfortable biking in Seattle's traffic, nor on its insanely killer hills, but I'm sure I'll get there. I can already feel how much stronger my legs have gotten in running up hills...so it's nice to have hill-conquering goals to work toward on my bike as well. Goals are good.

Yup, I love this city.


P.S. Oberlin Run-in of the Week: Seeing a couple of lovely fellow 09-ers whom I met in my first week or two at Oberlin - this time of year, four years ago, really - as they were trying on shoes at REI over the weekend! And only to find out we live just a few blocks away from each other...awesome. Love the small world.

Brewskis, beaches and bargains

So, the big event of last weekend was a barbecue that Seyeon and I hosted for her co-workers at Gregg's Cycle. A bunch of them rolled up to the house on two wheels throughout the evening for burgers and brewskis and bike talk - it was neat to meet all of them and enjoy good food and great summer night weather.


The past week has been a lot more of the job searching business (again, scared to jinx things by blogging about specifics - but hopefully soon I'll have something for sure to show for all this agonizing waiting?), learning my way around more, getting together with Lucinda (yay!) from high school, doing a couple writing assignments for the magazine and house/dogsitting for a wonderful flat-coated retriever named Xochi who's quickly become my best doggy friend in this city...


We've taken to going swimming together in the mornings or evenings in Lake Washington - a beautiful, tiny rock beach tucked away in a residential neighborhood nearby. He's a great swimmer and takes immense joy in paddling around me in tight circles with his tennis ball. I've also gotten to know many of the neighbors with dogs at the local park, and had some nice talks with locals and other Seattle transplants who, like me, visited here once upon a time and were convinced they wanted to live here. Anyway, the swimming hole is beautiful, with great views of the mountains and downtown Bellevue - hopefully I can post some pictures soon!

In other sporty news, Seyeon and her mom and their 86-year-old neighbor Millie and I all went kayaking on Monday. We paddled for several hours, riding the wakes of passing tugboats and stopping in the shade to snack on Rainier cherries - hands down, the tastiest cherries I've ever eaten! It was a blast.

Lastly, this morning, I got together with a guy named Kam whom I met at the Oberlin alumni picnic last week. He graduated back in the eighties and we'd had a great time comparing notes on Oberlin and exchanging stories at the picnic - so today, he took me around in his fantastic little '86 Fiat convertible to cruise yard sales all morning in Seattle's different neighborhoods.


I passed on the 1-dollar bra box...


...but for $8.50, (Mama, again, are you reading this? Alan told me I had to write about all this on my blog because he knew it would make my mother proud!) I procured the following: a set of brand new, adorable espresso cups and saucers, an unopened Cranium game, an unopened 1,000-piece puzzle, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a beautiful ornate candle holder, three bottles of bubbles and bubble-blowing paraphernalia, three bars of French soap, a package of incense from India, and probably the most exciting useless purchase of all: a set of holographic-cat-and-dog playing cards. + A Saturday morning well spent with a new friend, cruising sunny, tree-lined Seattle with the roof down and the wind in my hair!


Days in Seattle with no rain yet: 17