lucy 11:52 PM

Has anyone seen that red dog?

just remember 12:26 AM

Tonight I had a date night with one of my best friends, Carrie. We ate Thai food in Fremont as it rained lightly outside. Those flavors made me remember my SE Asia trip of this last summer. It felt nice to remember being so warm. In being so very far away from home, I enjoyed waking up daily to a sense of empowerment, of fierce independence. Traveling the world made me feel fearless. I remember when I started this blog, I acknowledged the fact that it was, for the time being, mostly just about me. I read (and enjoy immensely) the blogs of many people who talk about their weddings, their marriages, their pregnancies, their babies. Maybe someday for me, who really knows. But today I am channeling my independent traveler self because it is a part of me that I am most proud of, a part that sometimes gets lost in the daily drizzle of Seattle winters. Sunsets, bare feet on terra firma and food...three things I feel lucky to have filled myself to the brim with this past summer:

[sunset: Kuta, Bali, Indonesia/ sunset: Koh Samet, Thailand]

[sunset: Gili T, Lombok, Indonesia]

[temple: Bangkok, Thailand]

[awaiting a massage: Koh Chang, Thailand

[Gili T., Lombok, Indonesia]

[Kuta, Bali, Indonesia]

[bathroom aboard a sleeper train: countryside, Thailand]

[ketchup: Kuta, Bali, Indonesia]

[beer (fuckingood): Kao San Road, Bangkok, Thailand]

[beer: Koh Samet, Thailand/ pork and noodle soup (fuckingood): Bangkok, Thailand]

My "view from here" has changed a lot in the last year and I don't hate it one bit.

love me (+ more freckles and a tan),

so happy together 9:35 PM

My parents bought our 1985 Volvo to be our family car when I was just a nice thought for the future. Some months later I was driven home from a hospital in Santa Ana, California in her back seat. For the years of my childhood my mom would shuttle us around in that car. We usually sat with snacks listening Dr. Laura on the radio and live commentary from the driver's seat. That Dr. Laura, she gives some good advice, but she's a little looney most of the time. We became adolescent feminists as my mom explained the idiocy of Tom Leykus. Years later we would get a little misty when twenty year old cheerios with the fingerprints of our baby hands (and probably remnants of our sweet baby drool and baby snot) were discovered upon replacing the back seat. And years later still, I learned to drive in that car and made the commute to high school daily with my sister. We looked something like this:

We drove the red dog home in the volvo when she was a baby. We filled her to max capacity and drove to college and realized that I wasn't a baby anymore. And now she is a happy Wallingford car, just enjoying her golden years. She carries christmas trees home simply to show that she can.

She proudly bears Sounders FC insignia. She enjoys afternoons of sun. AND this last month she spent almost a week in the shop for her annual spa treatments. This year was a year of vanity for the volvo. Seats reupholstered, small dents remedied. She looks. simply. stunning.

Frankly, I think both of us are really coming into our own this year (she has twelve months on me). While to most she is a really old lady and I am a really young one, I think we make a perfect couple. Just between us, volvo, I'm really looking forward to another quarter century of cruisin' to show tunes with you. Oh the places we will go!! (yeah I went there and yes, I will agree it's probably a little too early for perky Dr. Suess references).

we'll just keep going 11:44 PM

This last week I had some lady friends over to watch the Bachelor (don't judge) and try out a chocolate and wine pairing kit that my dad got me at Theo's Chocolate. Theo's is located in Fremont. There they lovingly create Organic and fair trade chocolates using cacao from all over the world. My dad bought me an awesome kit which included a variety of chocolate bars and some suggestions about wine pairings. They also have a beer pairing kit which might just be my next Theo's purchase. They also do really wonderful factory tours, host events in their gorgeous old building and design chocolates for special events. AND when you walk down their block you can actually smell chocolate. Seattle, have I told you lately that I love you?

SO, for the evening we ended up with FIVE different bottles of wine for the three of us. Don't worry...while we came close to finishing them, I am still enjoying the last sips from several different wineries days later! It was just too fun to try all that wine side by side. The kit came with a sheet for notes about the various pairings. Maddy was religious with her constant note-taking. Ladies and gentleman, this is why that woman is one of my best friends.

[Liz's personal chocolate tasting technique :)]

These friends are my favorites. I'd say my Bachelor night was a resounding success. While sometimes I feel a little sad to be laughing at the silly ladies on that show (single sistas UNITE!), I just keep watching and they keep doing silly things to make me laugh, so we'll just keep going I guess.

Dear Sister, 11:20 PM

You are basically the cutest.

Just so you know, I will take a million more pictures of you whether you like it or not.

One of my favorite things to do is drive through my sister's espresso stand in the afternoon before work, get a hazelnut latte, add her requests to the grocery list and just check in. Why are some people at least 500 times cuter when you see them in their element? Like at work. Like doing the things they do everyday that they never think about, that you never see them do. These little almost daily excursions are always good, but have actually been made even better due to several simple facts. 1. We are enjoying the warmest, sunniest January in Seattle history and 2. I get to cruise through these warmest sunniest January days to Jamie's stand in my newly reupholstered, 1985 volvo. She (and by she, I mean the car love of my life) is SO beyond happy these days and 25 looks dang good on her if I do say so myself (pictures of the car to follow).

p.s. As I write this I am watching reruns of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. I will miss you more than I can say.

demolition day 11:30 PM

I told you I was back, but I lied. This year my new years resolutions are as follows:

1. be better at staying in touch with friends.

2. pamper myself (facial/some sort of spa treatment every 2-3 months [I know, tortuous])

3. Update my blog more frequently.

So far I've been doing really well with the first two, but that third one hasn't been happening. I spend so much time trying to make these blogs worth reading that sometimes I get all hung up worrying that I have nothing important to say for the day and just don't post anything at all. LAME! The fact is, I've been taking more pictures with my new camera. So at the very least I'm going to attempt to post at least a photo daily or every other day. OK? This city is looking really nice through my lens lately (mostly thanks to my genius Nikon baby).

The other day, while driving home from a romantic pho date with myself, I saw the Sunset Bowl on Market Street in Ballard being demolished. I knew this was to happen. In fact, I even heard some corny man on the radio talking about how "by sunset today, most of the Sunset bowl will be gone". But really seeing it was actually kind of emotional. Since its opening in 1957, this place had been a landmark in the Ballard neighborhood. It had been just one of those divey places that everyone knew and loved. Much of it's staff worked there for decades. The rainbow colored building never tried to be anything that it wasn't. It was just Sunset bowl. Today a crowd of former employees and Sunset loyalists stood outside to say goodbye:

I was never very close with Sunset Bowl but this crowd reminded me of the kind of presence this place had in our little borough. It was mostly quiet. Two elderly men just watched, a baby slept through the demolition. I liked watching them through my lens as they loved this building. But I hated what I was watching as much as I loved it. Do you have a place like this? I get the feeling that during these times most people have a story like the one that we can read in the faces of these people.

I love you for reading and here's to making #3 happen!

faces 6:24 PM

Excuse my several week hiatus...weeks filled with happiness and holidays have taken me away from my computer. Let me be the first (or seven hundredth, hopefully) to tell you how grateful I am for YOU and wish you happy holidays. Thanks to all who have read, supported me and made your love so amazingly clear. I love you for this always, but especially in this year of years that has so thoroughly chewed so many of us up and spit us out. Right now I feel stronger and completely surrounded by all of the faces that I could ever need.

I thought about sending out a Christmas card but figured that most of the people who I would send it to would read this. So here it is: portraits of the people who are nearest thanks to my new baby, Nikon D3000.

lucy girl on the porch

prime rib and red dog beggars

family and my new brother in-law (named Macbook Pro of course)

my own little home sweet home in the city