There was a beautiful rainbow in the sky today at sunset.
I did not get a picture of it, but here is rainbow picture from the Seattle Times’s Best Pictures of 2023 collection, instead.
The photographer is Daniel Kim.
Friday 🛸
Here we are, at the last Friday of 2023.
It didn’t feel like December at all here in the city, where we hit a balmy 58 °F (14 °C).
Farmer bears are bringing in apples from eastern Washington. And is that an alien spaceship on the Space Needle? Why not— a space ship on the space needle.
Wednesday/ a beer and a bite 🥪
There was light rain as the amigos walked down to The Chieftain for a beer and a bite tonight— but it was all clear by the time we left.
Tuesday/ Boxing Day 📦
It’ still Boxing Day* to me— December 26th— even though I no longer live in a country in which it is a holiday.
*During the Victorian era (1837–1901, the period of Queen Victoria’s reign), the upper class would box up leftover food, money, or goods and give them to their tradesmen as well as their servants for reliable service all year.
– Source: almanac.com
Pictures:
A quiet Broadway at Thomas Street, and a look back at the Space Needle as I made my way up Capitol Hill, walking home. That is a cat, that the lady has in the stroller 😚.
Saturday/ clear and cold 🔵
I could see my breath today (low 40s, about 5 °C outside)— a tad too cold for a long walk.
That’s Delta DL 282 from Shanghai, coming in to land at Sea-Tac (flight time 11 h 15 min), some 90 minutes later than it had been scheduled.
Thursday/ happy solstice 🌞
Happy winter solstice.
(Happy summer solstice to those in the southern hemisphere).
Pictures:
The Space Needle at sunset, seen from Capitol Hill.
Antennas on Queen Anne hill, from the Melrose Avenue overlook.
The EV charging station off Madison Avenue. (Looks like a Mercedes EQB SUV, a Rivian truck and a Chevy Bolt is getting a charge. Nice.)
Sunday 🌥
There were blue skies, but not too much sun, here in the city today.
The high was 49°F (9°C).
The branches on the lane of trees are bare of leaves now.
Sunday/ a jaunt to U-district 🚇
Sunday is a good day to make a run up to U-district to check out the used book-stores and music stores (yes, they still sell CDs there).
Here is the cool window display, though, of Taste of Xi’an on University Way. One of their signature dishes is called paomo: a broth that we used is slow cooked with lamb, beef bones and whole chicken more than 10 hours every day.
(New York–style pizza is pizza made with a characteristically large hand-tossed thin crust, often sold in wide slices to go).
University Way is in decent shape without too much damage, but man! some of the street blocks have back alleys that look downright awful (trash and graffiti).
Right behind it, the construction of a new 13-story office block with retail space is underway.
Saturday/ art walk in Georgetown 🎨
The amigos went out for beers and fried chicken at Maro Polo saloon in Georgetown tonight.
After that, we checked out the goings-on at the Equinox Studios and the Georgetown Atelier art school nearby.
It was the once-a-month open day for the public.
Thursday/ a soggy downtown ☔️
It was still raining on and off today.
(We’re getting a break from the rain tomorrow.)
I had an errand downtown and took these pictures.
Nice artwork on the bland wall. Looks like someone had an entire filing cabinet of 3.5″ diskettes to throw out!
It’s impossible for me to tell what percentage of the office space is occupied at this point, but I suspect it’s still way down from pre-pandemic levels.
Tuesday/ lots of water 🌊
Reported in the Seattle Times:
Continuous rainfall in Western Washington has caused landslides, train and traffic delays, and flood warnings and emergencies throughout the region Tuesday.
Rainfall at the National Weather Service’s office in Seattle set a record on Monday, at 1.51 inches, “and we’ve had at least three-quarters of an inch of rain since midnight,” said Dana Felton, a meteorologist with the weather service in Seattle, shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Just before daybreak Tuesday, rain was falling at a rate of up to a half an inch per hour across the lowlands and the mountains, where snow elevations remain as high as 10,000 feet.
It continued throughout the day, reaching 1.61 inches by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
If I read the stream flow data right (from the USGS website for river measuring stations below), some 13 times the long-term median volume of water in the Snoqualmie River is tumbling down over the falls right now.
[Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times]
Long-term median flow, cubic ft/s: 445
Discharge, cubic ft/s: 5,740
Gage height, ft: 8.52
[Source: USGS web site waterdata.usgs.gov]
Monday/ lots of wet 💦
The Pacific Northwest is at the receiving end of a classic atmospheric river over the Pacific Ocean today, and for the next day or two.
[Screen shots from tonight’s NBC Nightly news broadcast].
Sunday/ a little bit of sun 🌦
The sun was out for just a little while today— low on the horizon as the daylight was dwindling.
Black Sun is a 1969 sculpture by Isamu Noguchi on the eastern edge of the park’s man-made reservoir, and across from the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
Saturday/ a freehold 🏠
The construction of the Central District Freehold apartment building on 19th Avenue East with its 61 apartments is now complete.
It was designed for active seniors (55+) and residents are qualified for its affordable rent, based on their income.
The project was funded by Mount Zion Housing Development (MZHD), a housing group founded in 1988 to provide affordable housing to seniors in Seattle’s Central District.
From the Mount Zion Housing Development website:
The word Freehold means a permanent and absolute form of tenure by which real property is held for life.
As such, it must have two qualities: unmovable and it is held forever. “We like the words within the word – Free + Hold; The word reflects our values of history, inspiration, safety, connection, hope, and renewal. The mere definition reflects the mission and vision of MZHD”.
We wanted to remember the history of the Central District, its people, places, and events. Events and places such as: The Mardi Gras, The Birdland, The Drum Room, Madison Plaza, Volume Food Market, The Black and Tan, The Seafair Parade down 23rd Ave. All of these places and events evoke memories for those people who have connections or historical ties to the Central District. In living at The Central District Freehold, we wanted people to feel invigorated by the memory of these events and places.
Barack Obama, 44th U.S. President
Harriet Tubman, abolitionist
Malcolm X, American Muslim minister and civil rights activist
Rosa Parks, civil rights activist
Frederick Douglass, social reformer and abolitionist
Friday 🍁
Happy Friday.
December is here— hard to believe 2023 is on the way out.
I had business at the post office on Broadway.
I also stopped by the Capitol Hill library and ended up taking out a double album of really weird German electronic music from the 70s and 80s.
Sunday ☀️
We had our first dry Thanksgiving in eight years.
In fact, the sunny-but-cold weather here in the city will continue until Thursday.
The leaves are almost gone, but not quite yet.
Black Friday 🛍
Seattle is reportedly dead last on a list of large cities for spending on holiday gifts, per person. (The city’s 10.25% sales tax and relatively few shopping malls are given the blame.)
Nevertheless— I trust that the the profits from retailers had moved from the red to the black by this Black Friday.
Here’s looking west towards the Olympic mountain range from Republican Street and 13th Avenue East, a few minutes before the sun set at 4.24 pm.
Sunday/ a murder of crows 🗡
A wake of buzzards
A confusion of chiffchaffs
A chattering of choughs
A commotion of coots
A murder of crows
An asylum of cuckoos
A curfew of curlews
A trembling of finches
A swatting of flycatchers
A prayer of godwits
A crown of kingfishers
A parcel of linnets
A cast of merlins
A conspiracy of ravens
A worm of robins
A parliament of rooks
An exultation of skylarks
A murmuration of starlings
A hermitage of thrushes
A volery of wagtails
A museum of waxwings
A chime of wrens
An orchestra of avocets
A mural of buntings
A water dance of grebes
A booby of nuthatches
A quilt of eiders
A mischief of magpies
An aerie of eagles
A wisdom of owls
A quarrel of sparrows
A wisp of snipe
A kettle of swallows
An invisibleness of ptarmigans
A committee of terns
A descent of woodpeckers
A pitying of turtledoves
A banditry of titmice
A circlage of house martins
A scold of jays
A charm of goldfinches
A fall of woodcock
A deceit of lapwings
Source: countrylife.co.uk/nature
Maybe the earthworms came out for some air after the rain had stopped. There are more than fifty crows in this picture, and at least fifty more further down the street that I did not get into the frame.
Saturday/ twin peaks 🗻
It’s been crisp and clear these last few days, but there will be rain tonight.
Those are The Brothers peaks, top center, part of the Olympic mountain range.
Then comes Bainbridge Island/ Kitsap Peninsula, with Puget Sound in front of it.
Phinney Ridge separates Green Lake in the foreground and Puget Sound in the background.
[Photo credit: Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times]
Thursday/ the Eastside 🏢
Here’s looking east from East Mercer Street and 24th Avenue East in Montlake today. Sunset is at 4.31 pm, only 30 minutes away.
The backdrop of mountains is the Cascade Range and the red beam at the bottom belongs to a giant construction cane.