I didn’t quite know what I was getting into when I picked up this book, and I raised my eyebrows when I discovered it was all about vampires and the legend of Dracula, but I’m glad I stuck through it. Turned out to be a totally enthralling mystery/suspense/thriller, laced with romance and lots of lovely imagery of Eastern Europe. The descriptions of Budapest have placed Hungary near the top of my ‘places to see’ list, with a quick pop over to Istanbul to check out the Hagia Sophia and wander the street markets. This novel was rich with historical lessons, too, about the Ottoman Empire, the fall of Constantinople and the major figures of power that ruled in Eastern Europe in the 1400’s. I had no idea that Stoker’s Dracula was inspired by a real person, and was surprised to find that the horrific crimes committed by Vlad Tepes, as listed in this book, seem to be true. Dark, interesting stuff. My book club rates our reads on a 5-star scale, and I’m giving this one a solid 4. Well worth all 675 pages.
This was one of those nothing-special but oh-so-good kind of weekends. No big happenings at the Schnell household, but I enjoyed the chance to hang out with friends yesterday and have a ‘me’-day today. Shane had a late night/early morning at the office last night, so I decided to spend the morning being out-and-about, soaking in the beautiful day and letting him rest. After church, I stopped by the Fremont Sunday market to do some wandering. It had been awhile since I’d been to Fremont, and their Sunday street market is one of my favorites in Seattle. I was tempted by all the home-baked and hand-stitched goodies, but I practiced restraint and walked out of there with nothing but a beautiful bouquet of fresh sunflowers. Then I practiced indulgence when I came home and baked a batch of chocolate-dipped almond-cherry biscotti. The rest of the day was pretty mundane, but productive – went for a run, cooked dinner, did laundry, savored a piece of the afore-mentioned biscotti… Settling into the couch now for a little tea-time, and am going to keep my spirits high by pretending that tomorrow is NOT Monday. How fleeting a good weekend can be…
I had my first printmaking class at a local art school on Thursday and loooooved it. We will be learning several different printmaking methods over the next 8 weeks, and we started this week with monotype printing. Paint is rolled onto a plate of plexiglass and overlaid with any stencils, and the image is then rolled onto a sheet of paper using the printing press. I love the little imperfections that result from the process – it’s good for me to have to relinquish some control with my art. And the fact that I showed up to class without the faintest idea of what we’d be doing and walked out of there with several prints four hours later made me quite happy – below are my faves.
faux bois:
branches and lace:
drippy silhouette:
I’m on the lookout now for fabrics/objects/textures that I can bring to class with me next week. Feels good to be back in the creative saddle!
So hard to believe that today was the last official day of summer… The afternoon nearly slipped by us in a lazy haze of post-brunch football and naps, but around 4:00, I peeled myself from the couch, laced up my sneakers, and convinced Shane to join me on a short Sunday mini-adventure (yes, I use the word ‘adventure’ lightly). I was itching to get out to enjoy the sun and see something new, so we headed toward Lake Washington in hopes of finding some kind of close-to-home new discovery. There is a large community garden in Colman Park that I’d driven past a couple of times but never ventured into, so we decided to make that our destination. And WOW. The garden is tucked into the side of a hill, hidden from view of the lake by a large grove of trees, and as we came upon it, with the late sun just barely skimming the tops of the tallest stalks of flowers, I was enamored. We spent nearly an hour wandering among the rows of bright pink and yellow dahlias, leafy lettuce, and hearty squash plants. So many lovely colors and shapes and signs of life. And it was nice to get out of the house to enjoy a leisurely stroll with Shane – it seems that lately, all of our time and energy for outdoor activities has been funneled toward jogging (with Shane training for the marathon and me trying to work off those lattes and scones that I love so much), and so I’d forgotten just how nice it feels to be able to go outside and stop to smell the roses – literally. It’s too bad that we only just discovered this place, as things are starting to die down for the Fall and Winter, but I’ll look forward to seeing what kinds of new growth and colors Spring will bring to the garden.
We ended our day-date by sitting for awhile down near the lake, enjoying the sound of the water lapping over the rocks at the shore and the view of Mount Rainier in the distance. It was one of those very perfect Seattle kind of afternoons – a lovely way to bid farewell to what has been an amazing summer.
Been working on drawing people lately, with an abstract doodle here and there.
domino girl (2009.08.09):
page 49 (2009.08.10):
coffee in the pearl (2009.08.14):
power suit (2009.08.23):
tree trunk (2009.09.03):
Yes, it has been noted that this blog has suffered from neglect over the past couple of weeks. My quietness on the blog front has occurred for a couple of justafiable reasons – 1) work has been super-busy lately, consuming much of my weekend and evening time, and 2) for the aforementioned reason, life just hasn’t been that interesting…
But still, blog-worthy or not, an update is in order, so here’s the happenin’ highlights:
Like I said, work is busy. But it’s good. The hours are longer than I’d prefer, but the work is challenging, I’m learning a lot, and I’m being trusted with a lot. Yes, I certainly have those ‘work sucks’ kind of days, but I also have those ‘Man, I was ON today!’ kind of days, and they seem to make it all worth it.
After over a year of scheming and planning and budgeting with our neighbors for our big backyard renovation, construction is finally underway, as of today. Photos and plans to come, but for now, I will just say that I can’t wait to set up a few chairs in our new yard and share some burgers and beer with friends. We’ve been dealing with a pretty inhospitable outdoor space for the last couple of years, but all of that is about to change!
I am getting a major vacation itch. Some of our friends are trying to pull together a winter trip to Hawaii, which sounds amazing. Shane keeps talking about his desire to visit New Zealand, which also sounds amazing. But the un-amazing fact is that vacations require both time and money, so nothing is on the books just yet.  For now, I will have to content myself with our little weekend stay-cations (mornings spent in cafes and afternoons spent napping on the couch). This is not so bad, come to think of it…
Shane will run his marathon in Portland in T minus 15 days. He has been training like a mad-man, running for hours at a time on Saturday mornings, then hobbling around the house for the following two days. I am amazed by his driven-ness. Seriously.
And with that, I’m fresh out of new content. Tired, too, so I’m signing off for now, hoping I’ll have some kind of adventure or new experience or something to report about in the next few days.
Today was a good great day – a totally open bonus day to spend however I chose. Being that cafe-sitting is one of my most favorite pastimes, I started my day with a latte at a new cafe I’ve been wanting to check out – Citizen in Lower Queen Anne. Good coffee, cool space, but a little too restaurant-y for someone like me, who likes to feel free to linger over a latte for an hour+ without any pressure to buy something else. I cut my stay a little short to give my table up to the breakfast-ers who were filing in. They did have a pretty amazing-looking crepe menu, though, so I’ll head back next time I’m in the mood for a solid brunch.
Post-coffee, I headed home and picked up Shane for an 11:10 showing of 500 Days of Summer. Did you know that movie tickets are 6 bucks before noon? Score! Plus, I showed up to the theater with snacks in my purse, so I was an exceptionally cheap date this morning. The movie was really good – smartly written and well-acted with a quirky/artsy vibe to it. Loved it. A post-movie lunch at Panera, a round of shoe shopping to find a much-needed new pair of running shoes, and I was somehow tuckered out from this wonderfully mellow morning. And Lord knows that my ‘perfect’ day absolutely includes a nap, and so I spent an hour on the couch dozing while Shane watched the Giants game, waking briefly for each of Uribe’s home runs (Shane just couldn’t silence his excitement). Refreshed, I took advantage of a momentary break in the rain to get out for short run to break in my new running shoes. An impressively good dinner of miscellaneous items we needed to use up from the fridge, a home pedicure (on the off chance that I get to bare my feet in sandals at least one more time before the chill of Fall sets in), and I’m now settling into the couch for the evening with my cup of ginger peach tea and my book. Perfection.
I had a lovely last couple of days in San Francisco. I cafe-hopped while Shane attended his conference, I caught up with a few more old friends, and I took in the sights, smells, and tastes of this city that I am loving more and more with each new visit. The highlights:
A stroll through Chinatown, in all its vibrancy:
Happy hour at ‘B’ in Yerba Buena. So good to sit in the sunshine, sip Persecco, and slurp up dollar oysters. Heaven:
Morning coffee at Four Barrell in the Mission. The best latte I had all week:
And a quick whirl through the SF MOMA, to take in Dubuffet, Motherwell, and Giacometti:
Again, Lovely.
When Shane told me last month that he’d been given the opportunity to spend a few days in San Francisco for a work-related conference, I jumped at the chance to tag along, to spend some quality time with my husband, but also snag a little time to myself in one of my most favorite cities. We flew in on Saturday morning, got settled at our hotel room, and then met up with a couple of old friends who had come into the city for the day to hang out and catch up with us. Marco is known for making every little outing an ‘adventure’, and indeed, our 8-hour whirlwind tour of 5 different San Francisco bars and restaurants turned out to be an afternoon/evening/night to remember. We started with drinks at the Gold Dust Lounge – a little saloon-type bar right near Union Square. It happened to be unusually hot in San Francisco that day, and the bar was pretty toasty inside, so as the beads of sweat began to drip down our foreheads, we decided to call it a day at that place and head out in search of someplace with outdoor seating. We ended up at Delfina pizzeria in the Mission District and snagged a nice little sidewalk table. We ordered a couple of pizzas and some wine, and settled into our chairs to enjoy a perfect city evening with perfect food and great friends. The crostini with fresh mozzarella and arugula was a-mazing, and the pizzas were perfectly light, crispy, and fresh tasting. I could have sat on that sidewalk terrace all night, but we had a 6 pm reservation at Bourbon and Branch, so we polished off our dinner and hopped in a cab back toward downtown. I’m still not sure how Marco found out about this place, but Bourbon and Branch has recreated the true ‘speak-easy’ experience. When you call to make a reservation, they give you the address and a password, and the bar’s entrance is just an old wooden door in an otherwise totally non-descript gray stucco building front.
When you knock on the door, a man in a Dick Tracy-like hat opens the door just a couple of inches, peers outside, and whispers ‘What’s the password?’. Quite the production, but totally amusing. Luckily, we had that magic word and were led into a dimly lit bar, replete with dark wood paneling and furniture, deep red velvet-embossed wallpaper, and a drink menu that would impress any cocktail connoisseur. Since cocktail connoisseur I am not, and since the first page of their menu clearly states, “Do not even think of ordering a Cosmopolitan!â€, I nervously flipped through the menu in search of something that looked like it would fit my tastes. My first choice was a White Lady, which is a mixture of Cointreau, gin, lemon, and egg whites. The egg whites give the drink an interesting foamy texture, and the lemon cut through some of the really ‘alcoholic’ flavors.  Shane ordered an Old Fashioned (an homage to Donald Draper, for you Mad Men fans), and claims it was the best cocktail he’s ever tasted. We stayed for one more round, and then headed back out into 21st-century San Francisco in search another venue to continue our adventure. We ended up at Lori’s diner and munched on French fries to soak up some of the alcohol that was resting in our stomachs from those uber-strong cocktails. One more stop after that for a night cap, and we were ready to call it a night. We said good-bye to Marco and Lisa as they hopped on the Bart, returned to our hotel, and slept like a couple of babies that night, thankful that we’d had the foresight to fill up on food and water before we went to bed.
Yesterday we woke to a fog-blanketed city, but didn’t mind the gray weather, as we had time to get a slow start to the day.
Really, we had only one item on the agenda: meet up with a couple of other friends to watch the Giants WIN against the Rockies. It turned out to be a good afternoon for a baseball game, sunny and clear, and as we put on our Giants gear, we silently said a little prayer that our team would come through with a victory (we’ve watched them lose twice this year already, in San Francisco and Seattle, and I was worried that Shane just couldn’t bear a third defeat). The Rockies started off strong, and we were nervous when they went into the bottom of the 7th inning with a 5-2 lead. But then the Giants’ Renteria stepped up to the plate and knocked a pitch right out of the park, bringing in four runs and giving the Giants the lead. It was one of those all-consuming, totally joyous, game-going moments when everyone jumps up and down and grins stupidly and hugs and high-fives each other. Very cool. The Rockies just weren’t the same after that Grand Slam and so our team came through with a 9-5 win. YESSS! Games like that make me rethink my only lukewarm feelings about baseball.
We turned in early last night after a relaxing swim in the hotel pool, and I am now beginning my first day to myself at Café Centro, trying to decided what kinds of adventures today will hold. I’m suddenly feeling like the opportunities are endless…
This was a fabulous weekend. Nothing super-special took place, but a lot of little things came together to make this a really good, really productive couple of days. I kicked off Saturday with a 5-mile run along Lake Washington – it was a gray morning, but I always feel like I’m energized by being near the water, so I was able to pull through at a pretty steady jog. And I’m finally getting into a groove where these runs don’t take everything out of me, so I was left with enough energy to check off a couple of errands, pick up some groceries, and shampoo our carpets. It’s embarrassing to admit just how much I really enjoyed giving our carpets a thorough cleaning, but man, it was satisfying to dump bucket after bucket of dirty water down the drain. Well worth the $25 rental fee we paid to split the ‘Rug Doctor’ machine rental with our neighbors. And I have to credit Shane with having the better carpet cleaning technique between the two of us – he was able to turn those corners with impressive tightness. What a man… We spent Saturday night with some of our most favorite Seattle peeps, celebrating a friend’s birthday and recent return from a 10-week stint in India. It had been awhile since we’d sat around a table with these people, and we reveled in the joy of sipping our cocktails, stuffing our faces with pineapple cake, and laughing uncontrollably as we all tried on the fake mustaches that were a birthday gift for J. Weird, yes, but there is in fact a story behind the mustache joke that I won’t go into here… I think my eyes are closed in this photo, as I was trying not to sneeze – I spent the rest of the evening trying to blow gray fur out of my nose.
Today was a much more mellow day – we went to church this morning, and then I spent a few hours at the office, which is not how I prefer to spend a Sunday afternoon, but it did relieve some of my anxiety about the mid-week deadlines I have coming up. Another short jog, a dinner of pork loin and corn on the cob straight off the grill, and I was ready to settle in for the night with my fleece blanket and cup of ginger peach tea. I definitely earned my “veggin’-out” time tonight, so we are cozy-ing up to watch the latest Mad Men episode before we call this weekend a wrap.