Good: Weather Vanity

I'm pretty sure there is no practical reason to have a weathervane, but I like them anyway. Here are a few I saw while walking around town:

This isn't a weathervane, but it's pretty hilarious. It's on a little crackerbox-size house.

Almost Good, Except…: If You’re Going To Build A Castle, Don’t Do It Halfway

This house has a lot of re-chido features. It has a lion guarding the entrance:

It has a garden wall with a little door:

Gargoyles!:

Love the twisty chimney:

Even an entry tower, and crenellation on the terrace:

Could’ve been really awesome, but the windows look all wrong to me, the back doesn’t match, and the roof isn’t really castle-perfect.

Good: Topping It Off Right

Some people put thought and effort into putting the right roof on a building. Here are some examples [note: I took all these pictures sitting at my desk. This item brought to you literally from my point of view]:

This one has a sail-like triangle enclosure on top, which, combined with the stripy curves on the walls below, has a subtle nautical effect:

By the way, that dark thing on the flagpole is a PERSON. I used binoculars, and it looked like he was either cleaning or painting the pole. What an awful job. Made me dizzy to look at him. That building is about 50 stories tall.

Here’s another pretty chapeau. Stylish, goes with the building, keeps the neighbors from having to look at cooling towers and whatnot:

And here, in another style, is another appropriate roof. The barrel shape is reflected in the roof of the podium level below, which you can’t see in this picture:

This last pretty roof is on the building I used to work in, soon, I’m sure, to be renamed something other than Washington Mutual Tower. That pyramid shape doesn’t just hide the mechanical equipment; there is also a basketball court in there. Also, behind those arches are terraces you can walk out on if you’re nice to the right people, and the view is spectacular:

Of course, most commercial building people don’t bother with such niceties as roofs which do much besides keep the rain out, so we all have to look at atrocities like this:

I don’t understand it. Spending millions of dollars to build nice walls, then just tarring the roof and throwing a bunch of junk on it? Like no one is going to see it? It would be like building a house with a really fancy front, with nice windows and rockwork, then using cheap windows and vinyl siding on the sides and back, because no one’s going to look at that (besides you, and your neighbors, and anyone you invite over for a barbeque, and the meter reader, and people who drive by…). Oh, wait. Plenty of people see no problem with that.

Here’s another analogy: it’s like making yourself a fancy dress for some nice event, but then, because zippers cost extra and are a pain to sew in, just leaving the back hospital-gown style.

Bad: It’s a Jungle Out There, Only Two Blocks Away

Apparently my neighborhood is much more dangerous than I had thought. I saw these signs in a yard the other day:

What are the chances that one family would happen to have THREE dog-attacking cats? Either something is very wrong in that household, or the cats are totally normal and this is just a strategy to keep neighborhood dogs out of their yard. Although I also suspect that “White Cat” is angry because no one could bother to give him a real name.

I'm sort of curious to see these cats, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk. Maybe these people have a safari jeep I can ride in for the tour through their yard, and maybe I'll get lucky and it will be feeding day...save me the trouble of a trip to Africa.

UGLY: So Expensive, Yet So Cheap

Found the house I was looking for earlier! And is it ever a sight to behold. I believe the official name of this style is “Cartoon Pretentious.”


I have no idea what the designer was thinking, aside from maybe, “if we put some of a lot of things that are known to be fancy, it will look fancy…right?” WRONG. This house, which, by the way, occupies a VERY valuable plot of earth, is like a study in awkwardness and fakery, to the point where it almost seems as though that was the intent…but who would spend millions of dollars for that purpose?

Let’s look at the sides and back:


Yes, it’s even cheaper and less tasteful back there. Look at those flat windows, that senseless roofline. By comparison, the playhouse/garden shed/whatever is pretty cute. I mean, it needs an architrave or something on those columns, to start with, but cartoonishness always looks better on children’s things.

Good: Movin' and Groovin'

Ah, fall, when the air is crisp and a young lady’s thoughts turn to exercise. Mine, anyway. Brisk air is conducive to movement. Of course, once the rain starts I mainly do my exercising either in the gym or dancing around my living room, which means I need some tunes. Here are some of my favorite aerobically stimulating songs:

· “Shake It,” Metro Station. The name says it all.

· “La Vie en Rose,” Belinda Carlisle. Rather rosier and more upbeat than Edith’s version.

· “Here It Goes Again,” OK Go.

· “Tres Deseos,” Gloria Estefan.

· “Footloose,” Kenny Loggins.

· “El Pibe de Mi Barrio,” Dr. Krápula. The artist’s name crack me up, but the song is fun too. And, since I had to look it up, I’ll mention it here: Pibe = kid.

· “Hot, Hot, Hot,” Bina Mistry. I have a lot of versions of this song…Buster Poindexter, Caribbean steel drum, Sesame Street…this one is my favorite.

· “I Ain’t No Quitter,” Shania Twain. Makes me laugh.

· “The Rockefeller Skank,” Fatboy Slim.

· “Come On, Let’s Go,” Ritchie Valens. Some day, when I have my own band, we are going to do a really awesome cover of this.

· “Send Me On My Way,” Rusted Root. This is good for doing abdominal crunches.

· “Pon De Replay,” Rihanna.

· “Move Your Feet,” Junior Senior.

· “Body Movin’ [Fatboy Slim Remix],” Beastie Boys.

· “Santa Monica,” Everclear. Also fun to sing at full volume on a long solitary road trip, not that I would know personally or anything.

They’re hippin’, they’re hoppin’.

Good: Magnolia, aka Outer Mongolia

I love the neighborhood I live in. It has a small-town sort of character, and is pretty much the polar opposite of those neighborhoods ruined by their own neighborhood association rules & regs, where every house is beige or grey and cheap-looking and has a ginormous garage set back exactly the same distance from the street and the same grass-and-two-trees landscaping.

It is also a place where it is easy to get lost. Magnolia is very hilly, and the many streets wind around and reconnect and stop and start in unpredictable ways. Therefore, it is hard to take the same walk twice, which is excellent. Every time I venture out I see things I have not seen before.

It’s odd that I get lost in Magnolia so easily, because I don’t tend to get lost in other places. Also, people ask me for directions all the time, like multiple times per week. Either I look like I know how to get places, or I look like I won’t knife bewildered tourists just for bothering me.

It was nice and sunny Sunday afternoon, so I picked up my camera and headed out. Only six short blocks from my home, I happened upon an intersection that claims this view:

Downtown looks so much nicer when it’s off in the distance in a light haze than when I’m there working.

A bit further up, looking off the hill the other direction, I caught sight of a cruise ship, heading off to Alaska on one of the last trips of the season:



From that vantage point, it looks like the whole neighborhood is going to slide down the hill into the water. It isn’t really. Well, probably not today.

At this point, I was already slightly lost. I wasn’t really aiming to take pictures of distant scenery. I was looking for a specific house, which I have seen several times before, because I must capture it with my camera. It is an extraordinary example of what can be accomplished with a lot of money and little to no taste.

A few weeks ago, at the Interbay car wash, a man asked me how to get to the “Ballard Troll.” I gave him excellent directions to Fremont, home of the “Fremont Troll,” and he couldn’t possibly not have found it because it’s under the end of a REALLY BIG BRIDGE. I’m pretty sure there is no Ballard Troll.

The houses around here are in a vast range of styles, but in spite of that, or more probably because of that, most everything actually fits together quite harmoniously. It takes something really jarringly bad to look bad when it can’t stand out simply by not being exactly the same as everything else. Here's a nice-looking place:



By now, I was totally disoriented, probably about a half-mile from home. A dressed-up lady driving a fancy car pulled over and rolled down her window. She was having trouble finding an address. She had some directions, but they were sketchy and made no sense whatsoever. I was no help, which was disappointing to me because I am usually good at giving directions, and probably even more so to her. I pointed her in what I thought was the general direction, based on the numbering of a street I had just passed and the location of the sun.

I get the feeling that some of my neighbors really wish they lived in some other state or country. This doesn’t look very “Seattle” to me:



One day, downtown, a man who knew very little English asked me how to get to the Mexican consulate. I had no trouble getting him there.

Back in Outer Mongolia, I saw some flowers that were interesting, but I didn’t get a good picture of them, and a guy with a mean-looking dog was walking toward me so I decided to move on. Is there such a thing as purple daisies, or were they something else? I know nothing about botany.

When I was in Marrakech, where it is famously easy to get lost, I had been there for about two days when a quartet of senior citizens approached me. They didn’t know how to get back to the Djemaa al Fna, the main plaza. I was able to give them clear and concise instruction in French, a language I do not speak.

Really, who doesn't want some sort of tower or turret?:



In the park in the middle of Magnolia, I saw a toddler wearing a fabulous fish costume. When you’ve got a great Halloween costume, it’s never too soon to start wearing it. It looked like a shiny blue and purple fish was swimming in the grass. I didn’t get a picture, because, a, my camera batteries were dead, and b, you can’t go around taking pictures of kids you don’t know. Just imagine it.

Anyway, I never did find the awful house. I do have some ideas about where it might be, though, so we’ll return to that fine treat another day. In the meantime, maybe I should get out a map and learn to navigate the neighborhood I’ve lived in for six years.

Good: Fun With Foodstuff

After a wildly successful experiment, I now know exactly what to do with a mostly-full carton of leftover corn-and-cheddar ice cream that you no longer find appealing. Put it in a Pyrex™ dish and bake it at 350º for an hour or so. The result is like a combination of creamed corn, candied yams, and pumpkin pie. But in a good way. Do you know what this means? Total Thanksgiving dinner EFFICIENCY, that is what.

Now, you may be wondering under what circumstances you would find yourself with a mostly-full carton of leftover corn-and-cheddar ice cream. Well, it happened to me after I had a little trouble entertaining myself one day and wound up wandering around Chinatown, browsing for weird things to try. All I can say is, it was better than going across the street and trying crack or something. The odd things I do sound much better when they are put in the proper perspective.

Don’t worry, friends and family. I won’t really make this for Thanksgiving dinner. My actual efficiency strategy is to avoid doing any of the cooking at all.

Bad: Gift Cards: The Gift That Says, "Whatever"

I'm treading in treacherous ingrate territory here, because I've been given gift cards a number of times. A positive real number, greater than 5. I may have even given them myself. I like almost all the people who have given them to me. I do not think they are evile or thoughtless; indeed, they are generous and it was certainly very nice of them to have given me something.

That wishy-washiness out of the way, however, here is my thesis: a gift card is not the equivalent of a gift. A gift card says, "I feel obligated to present you with something, and I value you at X dollars." A properly chosen gift, on the other hand, indicates that one has spent time thinking about the recipient. It provides her with something nice without the trouble of slogging through the rain to the store to get it herself, and then standing there debating whether it's too much a splurge. It is a personal gesture, and the amount of money spent is beside the point.

My other objection to gift cards is that it is very difficult to spend the exact amount provided. Either the giftee gets something for less, and part of the money is wasted, or she chooses something more expensive and has to add some of her own money to get the "gift."

Maybe I'm wrong, and the people I've been so carefully choosing cashmere sweaters and pig-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers for would rather just have an envelope of cash. Would you? Let me know.

Good: Salad Days

I'm a terrible cook, but I make great salads. Everyone says so.

I am ready and willing to share my secrets, because if more people make good salads, I won't have to. Here they are:

1. New lettuce. Some people think that one can grocery shop only once per week. This is not true unless one has a garden with in-season stuff, which is not true for most people most of the time. Old dead lettuce is not worth chewing. Accept this, and never buy more than two days' worth at a time.

2. Fresh sweet basil. I'm surprised more people don't use it. If you don't grow it, try to find a good cheap source. Asian groceries and stores with loose herbs where you can buy as little as you want by weight are good. If your market only supplies the overpriced little plastic boxes, harass the produce manager until he or she switches to a more acceptable format. It doesn't take much; two or three medium leaves per serving will suffice.

3. Chop, chop, chop. Non-bite-size lettuce is annoying. Use a cutting board and knife. 1/4" x 1" max for lettuce, smaller for more flavorful ingredients.

4. Add stuff. Tasty stuff. Two or three other vegetables, maybe, for a variety of flavors and nutrients, and perhaps a little bit of cheese, nuts, or bacon. The possibilities are way numerous.

5. Shredded carrots are the devil's vegetable. They stick all over everything in little bits like a tissue in the washing machine. They cannot be picked up with a fork. They bug me. Is there any good reason to shred rather than chop?

6. Dressing. Maybe I should be a snob and insist that homemade dressing is the only way to go, but I don't care. I say, pick something you like that isn't full of high fructose corn syrup or other nastiness, and save yourself the trouble.

Those are all the tips I know.

Welcome, One and All

Well, probably just me. If anyone else happens to read this, please feel free to comment. By "free" I mean within the limits of what I consider civilized.

So, I created this page to discuss things I like and things I hate. I will not be discussing my day-to-day life, because no one is interested in that, including me. The topics will be limited to things I have opinions on, so I may very well run out of things to say within a month and that will be that.