My car was overdue for a wash, and got one at long last.
I had the place all to myself for a while.

a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I frequently drive by the newly completed Midtown apartments on (23rd Ave. in Central District) with its colorful exterior and artwork.
Today I checked it out a little closer, on foot.
Seattle Sounders FC made history tonight by becoming the first Major League Soccer team (team from the United States or Canada, that is) to win a Concacaf* Champions League title.
*The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, founded in 1961, one of FIFA’s six continental governing bodies for association football (soccer).
The Sounders beat the Pumas UNAM (based in Mexico City) by 3-0 in front of a record home-crowd of 67,000 at Lumen Field. The weather played along, as well: a high of 65 °F/ 18 °C today before it starts raining on and off for the next several days.
My mission for the afternoon was to get a few pictures of the Space Needle. It is again painted in galaxy gold for its 60th anniversary— the way it had been for its debut at the Seattle World’s Fair in April 1962.
I even drove up Queen Anne Hill to Kerry Park, to get the classic skyline-with-Space Needle picture.
The Davenport Apartments building is posted here as a ‘Find the Space Needle’ puzzle. (Part of the Space Needle appears in the picture). The Davenport was designed by architect Herbert Bittman in 1925, and has an unusual courtyard entrance to its 14-car garage.
These pictures are from my walk back home from the Bartell pharmacy on First Hill.
Mariette (looking at a picture of a tree) : What’s that?
‘K’ (the Blade Runner) : A tree.
Mariette : I’ve never seen a tree. It’s pretty.
– from the 2017 movie about a dystopian Earth, ‘Blade Runner 2049’
The Prez was here in Seattle today. He talked about legislation to help the U.S. Forest Service plant 1.2 billion trees on national forest lands.
Here is my picture of tonight’s rainbow that was visible just before sunset, now at 8.08 pm.
Three of the five amigos (two are out of town) had beers and a bite at Union. We liked the ambiance inside. The food was decent. Maybe the volume for the music videos on screens around the place was turned up a trifle too high— or maybe I’m not as young as I used to be.
One of us had to surrender a credit card as collateral, as soon as we ordered our beers. Say wha-aat? I thought. (It’s the first time in a very long time that we had been at a place that required that). They worry that unscrupulous clientele might vanish after a second or third round of expensive cocktails, of course.
This afternoon, I walked down to the 45-story apartment towers on Denny Way (official address: 1200 Stewart Street) to see how the construction is coming along.
The watering hole called The Chieftain Irish Pub— that the amigos like to go to— seems to have survived the pandemic.
The place was busy tonight, possibly because it was Trivia Tuesday.
We don’t wear masks at the pub or restaurant anymore— almost nobody does— but I still wear my N95 mask when I go anywhere else indoors (grocery store, post office).
I have not gotten my second booster shot, and I probably should go and get it over and done with. There seems to be no downside.
It looks like the stormy weather of the past two days is clearing up.
Seattle photographer Tim Durkan (@timdurkan on Twitter) posted this gorgeous picture today—of a piece of blue sky and a brilliant rainbow over the city.
I believe his vantage point was off Alki Avenue SW in West Seattle, on the very edge of the waters of Elliott Bay.
I noticed tonight that the dozen or so tents that had been in Seven Hills Park on 16th Ave and Howell, are gone. (Probably have been for a while).
I hope our new mayor (Mayor Bruce Harrell) is making headway with his plans to get homeless people out of the parks and green spaces and into shelters or homes.
It is an intractable problem. (In computer science, these are problems for which there exist no efficient algorithms to solve them).
A count from 2020 showed that our city of 750,000 people have some 11,700 homeless among us (half of which are in shelters or in emergency housing, and the other half unsheltered on the street or in tents and such).
The Dick’s Drive-in burger joint on Broadway is not open yet.
It was a proper spring day here in the city with 63 °F (17 °C), and I had to take off my jacket and drape it over my arm, as I walked back up the hill from Broadway today.
Metsker Maps of Seattle on 1st Avenue is a candy store for map lovers.
I went there today to buy a map for my friend in South Africa.
And so it is March, the month named after the Roman god of war.
There was no rain this afternoon, and a high of 56 °F (13 °C).
I walked down to the Melrose Avenue overlook (over Interstate 5), and back to Capitol Hill’s top along Denny Way.
I turned around every now and then, to look at the beautiful hues of color in the western sky.
Here’s the view of Interstate 5 and the city skyline from Melrose Ave and Thomas St tonight.
Officials announced today that restaurants, bars, theaters and gyms here in the city of Seattle and surrounding King County will no longer be required to check the vaccination status of their patrons beginning March 1.
It’s been a ‘dry’ February so far, here in the city.
Only ¼ in. has been recorded, and February gets almost 4 on average.
There was a little rain today— of the kind that does not make the ground wet under the big trees.