Aztek, Behave!

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The other day  I wrote a couple paragraphs about how much I loved my car. I never got to post it because my computer got jealous and made it all disappear.  And  I should have known that it was dangerous to confess that kind of affection for a machine because I’ve had nothing but weirdness from it since, and this morning my auto-mobile became auto-immobile.

It’s internal fixings (not the motor but the thinking part) has been a little suspect for the last two of its twelve years.  Most notably, the ignition would not start the car but would produce all kinds of electrical clickings and light flashings on the dash.  And before I could take it to be fixed it would revert to normal and hide any evidence of its misbehavior.

This last year it has developed a more frequently occurring, defiant quirk.  It has refused to turn all the way off.  The engine will stop but the key will turn no further than the accessory position.  Radio, lights, annoying ding, ding, alarm, all continue to function as I lock the car and walk away.  The keys slip right out in that position, in fact, the keys slip right out when the car is running.  IN FACT you can turn the car on without the keys, just turn the switch.  But the catch is that it won’t act this way all the time, and I never know when it’s in the mood…

This morning at the usual time to leave for work, it wouldn’t start – lots of flashing lights and the motor turned a couple of times but wouldn’t catch.  The husband crawled out of bed to see what was the matter and we instituted the new rule: whoever is up and ready to leave first gets to take whatever vehicle is running.  I took his truck.  Hopefully a little time out in the dark garage would rejuvenate the bad, bad car.

No, I still love my car.  Like me, it’s getting a little worn out and a little crazy.  We have to watch out for each other all the more.  I love that it’s school bus yellow, that it has carried every kind of cargo I could possibly challenge it with, that it has taken me east, west, north and all over the south for nearly 200,000 miles with no major catastrophes.  And I suppose if you count the time I spilled pool chlorine all over the carpet, all the peanuts, cheerios, and taco chips that have had to be vacuumed up, and all the coffee spills and blobs of yogurt in odd places, we are about even. Oh, and the time (times) I backed out of the garage with the hatch back up. Yeah, maybe I should cut my friend a little slack. I’m just sayin’, Aztek, I love you even if you are a little flaky.

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Me in my Aztek with brother Gary

Seattle September

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Seattle September
.. and other words beginning with the letter S. The word striking comes to mind, since I have been looking at views that would fit the description. Today the dog and I were up early so that I could ride in to the city with Esther. I was glad for the chance to see where she spent her working hours so she gave me a short tour of the building. Striking.
The Russell Investment Center is a multi-story office complex on Union and 2nd. Her company has several floors of office space there for her division. We started way underground with her space in the parking garage. The whole building is fairly new and has won awards for LEED and energy efficiency so it is immaculately clean and smartly furnished. It has several elevator bays (I counted 16 elevators in the two I saw). I’m not from a place with big buildings so elevators impress me.

lounge corner 17th floor
lounge corner 17th floor
outside patio 17th floor
outside patio 17th floor


One floor I had access to was a lounge/restaurant area with an outdoor patio and garden. Trees and large stone features made it hard to believe I was 17 stories up in the air. Such an expansive area with no one there to appreciate it except me – an odd feeling. It was early.
I am now writing at Lowell’s Restaurant at Pikes Place. My Seattle family is not big on breakfast, not even small on breakfast actually, so I am enjoying sitting here having a classic meal and several cups of $2 coffee (free refills), which I’m finding satisfies almost as well as the $4 kind. I’m sure if I lived here I would become more of a coffee connoisseur, but thankfully that hasn’t happened yet. There are beautiful views of the harbor and ships coming and going here. I have sat by the windows on other visits but today I am tucked back in a corner with plenty of room to get the computer out. I can still see the water.

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The market is brimming with fantastic bundles of flowers and produce of all kinds. I will go back to the shop where they are saving the lighthouse painting for me. I will meet Esther at noon for a while. I might ride the big Ferris wheel on the waterfront. I will take the water taxi back to West Seattle today because I haven’t done that before. Long rows of grey clouds line the sky. I see islands and mountains through the wet haze. People everywhere – the city is waking up. I saw a girl and her dog sitting on the sidewalk at the traffic light. She held a sign “my dog and I, just getting by. God bless.” I’m just sayin’, this is Seattle.

from the water taxi
from the water taxi

Lighthouse at Alki

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lighthouse imagesToday, if it were not raining every few  minutes, I would be adventuring (new word, unlike venturing) out to see the lighthouse at Alki Point.  I am surprised that I have not seen it yet in my visits to Seattle, since I am a fan of lighthouses in general.  This one in particular is not far from my daughter’s house.  There is a steady flow of ferries, boats of all kinds, and barges going past the point and visible from the beach – an interesting waterway, to be sure.

I was in a shop at Pike Place Market last week, drawn to the watercolor scenes of Seattle that were in the windows.  The artist herself rummaged around and found several of Alki.  The lighthouse was among them and she recalled having to get special permission on the day she went to paint there, since it was closed to the public.  I am thinking of making that painting my own, my souvenir of Seattle.

You know, a lighthouse is a very hopeful thing.  It’s not like something that you want to rush toward, because in reality it’s telling you to beware of something dangerous.  But it does speak of firm ground somewhere, and of a concern that warns of danger.  It represents a commitment to be always on duty.  Someone is watching out for you and that is the hopeful part.

Coffee House

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I’m not exactly sure why, but when you’re in Washington you go to the coffee house a lot, for many different reasons.  Sometimes it’s to get coffee, but often the coffee is just an excuse to go to a cool place where you can plug in your computer or ipad and write, or read, or watch people.  Coffee house owners don’t seem to mind what you do as long as you buy something, which you usually do.  It smells really good if you like the smell of fresh ground coffee beans and pastries.  We are at Fiore Caffe, doing what we like to do.

Rae

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20130911_100604[3]Meet Rae, my granddog, if she must have a title.  She is a member of my daughter’s family, rescued as a puppy from an accidental litter of racing dogs.  Even though I don’t see her very often, I think Rae remembers me – or at least quickly accomodates to my presence. 

By nature her breed tolerates limited activity and being housebound quite well. Strange when you consider they are also built for such extreme activity as racing.  Rae stays home while her family goes to work each day. She sleeps and waits (and who knows what else, since no one is there…) When I’m around she likes to be near me and “dogs” me everywhere I go.  She even prefers to sleep with her humans and in the few days I’ve been here she is already habitually following me to bed each night. 

A greyhound is a different looking dog, being alarmingly skinny and bony.  You have to get used to them looking more like a deer or some other long legged creature with a pointy nose.  They are not very hairy and they get cold easily.  Rae likes soft, cushy places and doesn’t mind having a blanket or two. 

She had a childhood accident which left her with a twisted front leg.  We think it probably hurts her a little, but in spite of it she loves to play fetch and run for short periods of time. I like to take pictures of her.  She is prone to “red eye” and a glowing countenance which I think makes her look spooky, like the hound of the Baskervilles.

She is a sweet, gentle dog.  She remembers me and I like her a lot.

Cle Elum

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Cle Elum

Don’t you love that mysterious sounding name? I could live there.  As it was, I was just visiting a friend for an overnight stay in this small Washington town which was about the same size and “feel” of the town where I grew up.  It’s over the pass and on the other side of the closest mountain range to Seattle and it’s geography gives it a whole different climate.  Over the pass, the sun came out and it got up to 90 degrees (again, not like Florida’s 90 degrees, but drier and with a cooling breeze).

The sights along I-90 going there were tree covered mountains, valleys, and all the expected natural stuff but in addition the marvel of the road itself.  The difficulty of maintaining clear passage in terrain like that was apparent in all the road construction and posted closings for blasting rock.  At least once I remembered thinking “I hope there is a really good geologist who inspected that rocky outcropping that I’m about to drive under”.  Think Reader’s Digest stories and You-tube videos of cars being buried under a slide…

Me, ready to ride out

Our planned outing was a bike ride on one of the local trails. What a great way to get familiar with the lay of the land! We chose the Coal Mine Trail.  It lay totally uphill for the three miles into Roslyn, the town we were heading for.  A gradual incline, to be sure, but how often do I ride bike? (or exercise, for that matter?) And did I mention it was 90 degrees?  When we pulled into the café at our destination and I got off the bike I felt really lightheaded and had to rest for a good bit with a blackberry soda and a sit down.  And of course the return trip would have required no pedaling at all if we had wished.  I was fully restored by the time we got back to Cle Elum.

20130912_184000[2] Does the name Roslyn bring anything to mind? It is the town where “Northern Exposure” was filmed and we visited the Roslyn Café and saw The Brick Pub.  It was a cute small town but evidently not much of a tourist draw in spite of the TV fame.  We went back later by car and drove around looking at the houses on the hillsides, many of them older, in bad condition, or abandoned entirely.  We drove on a few more miles to Ronald and ate dinner at a diner there.

Of the three little towns I experienced, Cle Elum was definitely my favorite.  Because of its proximity to I-90 there was more business, more choices of what to do and where to catch a meal.  Its history included a fire which destroyed many of the homes so most dwellings were newer, well maintained but still in character with the small town ambience.  Honestly, some of the streets were so wide and devoid of lines and stripes that they were like parking lots and made me feel strangely insecure.  The valley around Cle Elum is wide and flat and known for its hay production and exporting.  We visited a large fruit/vegetable market with a three story building housing antiques on the top two floors.  I could easily have spent the whole day looking at things there but as it was, my friend found my souvenir in half an hour so we didn’t stay.  I added a small cast iron turtle to my turtle collection and I was pleased since I didn’t have any iron turtles yet.

Other highlights of the trip: good conversation with my friend and her mom, seeing their charming, newly remodeled residence, relaxing with several episodes of Sherlock Holmes before retiring.  I’m just saying it was a good trip (including the exercise)and I’m glad I went.  And would go back again, for sure.

Pinch Me

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I’m here in Seattle, and of course I’m sitting in a coffee shop looking out at Puget Sound. The ferry is crossing my view, people of all ages are running, biking, walking with their dogs on the street.  It’s supposed to be a record high temperature today, maybe in the 90’s, but it certainly is not like any 90 degree weather back in Florida.  This cool breeze off the water will make wearing long sleeves comfortable most of the day.  I’ve spent half an hour with my coffee while looking at bus schedules online.  I’m going to meet my daughter this afternoon in the downtown area and we’ll go to one of her appointments together.  I want to go early and pick up something at the famous Pike’s Place Market. 

I spent yesterday getting used to being here and resting from the trip.  I left the house only to take the granddog for a short walk.  Rae has been my little buddy since I got here, “dogging” me as I move from room to room.  She crept in and slept with me the first night and we’ve taken several naps together too, something we both seem to love to do.  Even though she does the alone thing pretty well, she seems glad to have my company. 

The mountains in the distance to the west look so inviting.  I have not been that far yet but hope to do it sometime soon.  Tomorrow I will be traveling an hour east for an adventure with a friend – maybe on a bike if my painful shoulder isn’t too affected by riding.  

Lots to think about here, and to look at, maybe to write about.  but for now my battery is getting low and I must close out this session.  Just sayin’ it – from Seattle.   

Is It Time?

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That’s what I’m wondering – is it time to make a change? I’m talking about jobs, not necessarily professions, and there is a difference.  This is always one of my hardest decisions and I have to be more than a little bit unhappy to take the plunge.  In my career I’ve had jobs that I knew I needed to leave and could hardly wait to do so, jobs that I left because of other changing circumstances (like a move away from the area), jobs that just ended and I didn’t have to decide.  The one thing that’s always been missing is the “perfect job” that I never wanted to leave.  Do people have jobs like this?

I can vaguely remember writing a post similar to this at least once in the last two years of working. It’s always been provoked by the job I have now, so maybe this at least strike two for this place of employment.  I think the reason it’s so hard to leave is that I’ve devoted a lot of effort into becoming good at what I do in this position.  I love being good at something and in fact, that’s part of what makes a job fun for me. 

It becomes “not fun” when my physical well being is threatened, when I’m not trusted and when the assumption is made that I have wrong motives for actions I’ve taken.  Do you ever remember having a fight with your brother or sister when you were a kid? How the accusations became heated and a bit ridiculous because you really didn’t know how to disagree and discuss an issue? You were only a kid, right?  I don’t expect that kind of thing to happen as an adult in the workplace.

When it does, I really don’t like it.  When it happens regularly I begin to question whether I want to be subjected to it again and again.  Even in this economy, is it worth the money to have the mental and emotional stress? Work should be challenging me to think, grow, and problem solve but some environments make that very hard to happen.  Problems remain unresolved. I’m getting a headache thinking about it.

So, if it is time, the next question is how?  How to leave in a God honoring manner, with kindness, with clarity.  Do I want this door to be permanently closed?  Is there still something left to be accomplished relationally?  I am done in this place, but is God done with me in this place?

I have always felt that God gave me this job, as an answer to my request for provision for a specific financial need.  But even God’s assignments can be for a time, a season, and then be over. I’m just sayin’ I think this time is over.