THE BOWER BIRD CONSTRUCTS AN ELABORATE STRUCTURE ON THE FOREST FLOOR FROM TWIGS, LEAVES, AND MOSS

We stayed with Kale and Hannah for the first few days, venturing out from the inflatable mattress every morning to try and find a place. We’d pretty much narrowed the search down to Capitol Hill, a very hip neighborhood next to Downtown w/ quite a few strips full of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, clothing stores, and organic produce. Heaven.

Long story short, we gave into the magic that had carried us this far (sincerely), and stumbled across a place for at least $200-300 less than everything else we had seen. Hardwood floors, TONS of storage, more square footage than anything else we checked out, and directly between 15th and Broadway, two of the major strips in Capitol Hill. Absolutely perfect (except for the lack of grounded outlets, squeaky floors, a neighbor upstairs that gets off on doing laps in her living room in high heels, and other things not worth complaining about). Here is our castle:







I think you can see a video that Juli made of our apt. and me scurrying around like a lonely specter here: http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/julim/may%202006%20big%20move/?action=view&current=newapartmentmpg.flv

The weather, BTW, has been PERFECT. Exactly one day of rain—the rest of the time temperatures have been in the 70’s, clear skies, refreshing breeze with flowers in the air, no humidity, beautiful lakes and Puget Sound all around us, and the Olympics on the east horizon, the Cascades on the west horizon, and when it’s really clear, Mt. Rainier rising like our very own Mt. Fuji directly to the south.

I know, I know, just wait for the dreary winter with piss rain and then you all can laugh and throw sandballs at me or something, but for now I’m soaking it in.

Jeff Randolph has been our own little Emerald City angel thus far, taking us to all kinds of good food, good views, and good conversation. He and Nazik have fantastic friends and family who have already taken us in as one of their own. Good to have folk like that around…

Just so you can see how beautiful it’s been, here’s a recent jaunt to get incredible Mexican food in Queen Anne:







Though we look stoic, in actuality we are drunk on good weather. It makes you a content little zombie.

Seattle is divided up into all kinds of neighborhoods that each have independent farmer’s markets, festivals, and concerts. Recently, Fremont (where Toby and Adam used to live) had a Solstice Festival, which is famous for a naked bike ride. Kale and I got there late, but I have to say that we felt embarrassingly normal among all the body paint, stiltwalkers, and glitter-throwing.

It felt awkward to take too many pics of naked folks, but here’s one just to prove it:


The best part about it all? TONS of families around, showing their toddlers what a naked fat person loving life looks like. Very refreshing.

So after getting settled in a bit, we went to pick up Ty at the airport. He’ll be staying with us for the foreseeable future as he and I try to start a pop (!) band in earnest, which basically means overdosing on the Pogues and gospel music as we sit around with acoustic guitars and annoy the upstairs neighbor.

This is us arriving at the abode with minimal luggage in hand:


This is us chilling in the abode with minimal furniture surrounding us: