Closing of the Crocodile Cafe

Here's my two cents on the demise of Seattle's famous Crocodile Cafe.

just four more days...

...before we're off on a much needed rest. Off to Chicago for a day with Stasia's brother and then off to Michigan for another nine days. Throw in New Year's Day and that's eleven all together. An eleven day break from project deadlines, from the daily yuk of Seattle traffic.

Viva Michigan!

Silly Rain

The snow melted... fast.

And then it rained all day and all night.

Had to leave work Monday morning to take care of the house. Thought I'd be back after lunch but ended up having to take the day off.

Our driveway slopes toward the garage and the house. There's a trench drain in front of the garage that pipes to a catch basin in the street, but somewhere along that drainage line there's a blockage and so, the water rises and rises. Had to drain the driveway four times -- and thanks to the City of Shoreline, we were able to sandbag the front of the house to keep the water at bay.

Compared to a lot of others in Washington and Oregon, we were lucky. No damage. Just a soggy annoyance.

Kudos to Eliza & Levi for for doing their part to protect their neighbor's homes!

Photos from the Seattle PI HERE.

Wintery Weekend

Was skeptical on Saturday. The weather reports tend to exaggerate. Come about 3pm, however, Seattle was being blanketed by a flurry of fluffy white stuff. Nice!

Ended up being a (mostly) great night for Annabelle. Stasia and I took her down to a nearby football field to get her snow on. There's nothing like watching a dog in the snow. She ran and ran and buried her face, rolled around, did her little "swimming" moves.

Somewhere along the way, poor Annabelle Fuzzypants hurt her paw. We didn't notice until we got back home and saw that she was tracking blood through the house. Looked like she broke a claw somehow. So, we bandaged her up and her spirits didn't seem to suffer at all for it.

Now it's Sunday. Stasia is off with friends at a craft fair and I'm just having a relaxing day at home with the fuzzy beasts.

It's a great day all around -- especially since the Seahawks beat Philadelphia 28-24. Lofa Tatupu is king!

Bandaged paw

Deep in thought


Evil Kitty... is making her plans...

Quite possibly the coolest video I've ever seen

Sunday Bloody Sunday mash-up by RX2008

Today's Post

The Stranger linked to the post I wrote for Seattlest today. I really appreciate when they do that because (A) it shows they read Seattlest and (B) they give credit to me/us instead of writing something up themselves and taking credit.

Here's The Stranger's post linking to mine.

And here's my post.

Hey, What's Going On?

Well, let me tell ya.

First of all, what a difference twenty-four hours can make. I'm actually feeling pretty good today. Still a bit of a cough and still expelling a staggering and impressive amount of snot -- but otherwise, feeling a lot better.

Blah, blah, get over yourself Jack. What else is going on?

Well then.

Thanksgiving is upon us! Anastasia's been preparing all week, with one final trip to the grocery store this afternoon. Dinner will be the usual holiday fare: a sumptuous turkey (which Anastasia will have brined overnight for maximum juicy goodness!), smashed potatoes, veggies, sweet potato casserole (which I made last year to the ultimate delight of anyone fortunate enough to have had any -- delicious!) and, of course, the usual run of Thanksgiving desserts like pumpkin pie, and my new specialty, cranberry cream cheese pie. Again, delicious! (Not trying to overshadow Anastasia's efforts here. She's the real hero. She's the one doing all the planning and shopping, not to mention all of the more difficult stuff like the turkey. I'm just happy I'm able to make things which are actually edible.)

Our guests will be my sister and a friend of hers, and our friends (and newlyweds), Jill and Joey. It is sure to be an event full of inappropriate comments from Joey, attacks on my character from my sister, and squabbles regarding the benefits of doing the dishes now versus later.

For the day after Thanksgiving, we will be continuing our new tradition, now in its second year, of staying home (not shopping!) and watching a film with friends -- a classic film we've never seen before.

Last year it was "Gone with the Wind". This year: "Citizen Kane".

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

yak!

Ah, I'm sick of being sick.

For a week and a half now I've been coughing up all kinds of nasty and it's to the point that if I exhale heavily, I sound like a dying regretful horse.

Time to visit the doctor? Probably. Not easy around Thanksgiving, however.

a nice pick-me-up movie

not as beautiful for some

Been couped up in the office quite a bit lately, but today it's beautiful outside -- perfect even. The sky is clear and blue, the temperature just right. I decided I'd better take advantage of this weather before our low ceiling of gray moves in for the next six months or so.

Bought a sandwich down at the market and went down to Victor Steinbrueck Park. The place is a strange mix, above and below, in that it's a grassy spread built atop an aging parking garage. The strangeness above has to do with the people. It's one of the only places in the city where you'll see families and tourists picnicking and sunbathing next to scatterings of homeless alcoholics and drug users. A juxtaposition of affluence and abjection.

And the most interesting thing: Everyone seems to get along just fine.

I finished most of my sandwich, but there were a few good bites left and I hadn't even touched the pickle or the little cup of pasta salad that came with it. As I closed up the to-go box, I noticed a woman walking around nearby. Thin body, drawn face, long gray hair, dirty clothes.

I'd seen her before. A couple of months ago, I saw her digging through the trash, picking out whatever food scraps she could. I'd walked over to her and given her my leftovers so she wouldn't have to dig anymore. She thanked me and I went back to work.

Here she was again. I don't know if she recognized me. Probably not. But she sat on a bench directly across from me and looked my way from time to time -- or more to the point, toward my box of lunch scraps. I set the box on the concrete beside me, knowing (or hoping) that as soon as I got up and left, she would claim it. Just as I was about to leave, however, a man came from behind me, grabbed the box and walked away, almost before I even knew what had happened.

I watched the man carry the box of half-eaten food across the grassy park to a spot beside a lone tree where he'd undoubtedly been watching for such an opportunity.

I got up to leave, looked at the woman. She looked at me and shrugged as if to suggest that I'd had the right idea. That there'd be other opportunities for her. And that the man by the tree needs to eat too.

Review: Built To Spill [07Oct06]

In Which Seattlest Only Tells You The Ending.

Review: St. Vincent + The National [07Oct02]

Just posted a concert review on Seattlest for St. Vincent and The National (Tuesday night show at The Showbox). I'm pretty happy with it. Check it out, if you like.

aurora dark

three fifty eight
roll north
roll home

aurora dark
heart of seattle
beating pulsing
constant artery

old man get off
dig through trash
no food kick can
now what

little boy play daddy
let mommy sleep
she tired
tell baby sis no candy
no money
be quiet

doper pet doggy
and smile
no teeth that smile

pretty girl can't sit still
girl smoke crystal
pretty girl no more

three fifty eight
roll north
roll home

mellow, sort of

Slow day, one of those days. Those days in which it's easy to get carried away.

Carried away, I was, to a bookstore for lunch. Lots of new books out I'd love to read and will, but in the meantime I've a stack of books at home I should lay my attentions on before spending money on more more more.

New books I'd love to read someday:
- Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Books I've alread got and are in the queue:
- What is the What by Dave Eggers
-A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman IV ...Technically this one belongs to my cousin Debbi, but she moved to Amsterdam, so what's she going to do about it? Nothing. Oh, and Debbi... I'm a really slow reader. Sorry!

When the work day closes, I'll head home for a bit and a bite, but then I'll be back downtown. Going to The Showbox tonight to see The National -- a fantastic band from Brooklyn.

I'm in my headphones now. I'm in there with Iron & Wine's new album, The Shepherd's Dog and it's a nice place to be.

life, summarized

Sitting on the bus this morning, reading a book.

Looked up to see a woman and a man sitting next to one another, two rows before me.

The woman had a newspaper. The man had a magazine.

The woman was reading the obituaries.

The man was reading about how to invest more money for the future.

Thought it was amusing -- the advice on how to attain more wealth right up against a reminder of our mortality.

just tidying up

I'll be deleting the other blog soon (Don't Wake Me...)

It's gone from being the primary blog to being nothing more than a photo blog, but now that I've purchased a "pro" flickr account, there's really no need to keep Don't Wake Me... around.

To be clear, I'm deleting the other blog entirely. This one, Coffee and other Habits, will be where it's at from now on.

There are some posts from the old blog that I thought I should keep, be they funny, or opinionated, or an essay that took a lot of work (On Being Content, On Envying the Faithful, etc.) -- those posts have been moved to the tail end of this blog.

To see which ones I've copied over, go to the archive on the bottom-right. For organizational purposes, everything I've copied has been saved to November of 2006.

Never Ending Story

Several months ago, in a creative writing class, I started a short story. It's a story about a girl. She's young, alone, pregnant, and waiting for a train.

Her name is Amara.

Amara waits. She wants to leave her small Wyoming town as soon as possible. She's running from something or someone, but her train is late and so, she waits.

Amara meets a man. The man appears to be a transient; he is dirty, his clothes are worn, he sleeps on a bench a few rows away. Before long, Amara and the man are talking. She's nervous at first, but he has a fatherly way about him and eventually she opens up. She begins to tell him why she's leaving.

I think it's a decent enough story. Amara's character is well developed and the setting is there. The problem is, I don't know where this story is going. It hit a wall a long time ago and it's never quite made it past that wall.

Part of me wants to simply leave it. Move on. Let Amara sit in that train station for all of eternity so that I can think about something else. But I can't bring myself to do it. I need to bring some kind of conclusion to this story.

As it currently sits, the story is really about a conversation between two strangers. A conversation which, I hope, will enlighten both characters and help them to make a decision. What that decision will be, I don't know. It's up to them. But it is getting there, to that point that is difficult. That's where the story stagnates. That's where I'm stuck.

I don't want Amara to tell the man her entire life story. That's boring. I want at least some bit of mystery to it -- to why she's running away, with a swollen belly, from her home.

Any wisdom out there?

Oregon Weekend

Ah, the wineries, the Ocean, McMenamins Kennedy School and of course, the Tillamook Cheese Factory...

A perfect weekend and the pictures to prove it.

Happy birthday Kathryn!

Vintage Seattle

Came across this great blog a while back, called VintageSeattle.org

It calls itself a "High-Resolution Visual Historical Blog" and features some really great old and new photography and postcards, all capturing Seattle's fascinating history.

The interior and exterior photo's of Georgetown's Ranier Cold Storage campus are some of my favorites so far.

Adventures in Commuting

So there we were, sleepy and half listening to the radio.

Our morning journey down Interstate 5 was going much the same as most mornings. In between yawns and thoughts of going back to bed, Anastasia and I made jokes about our silly dog. We talk about our dog a lot. Probably too much.

About ten minutes into our commute, we caught up to a dark green Geo Tracker. It was a soft top missing the rear cover, so we could easily see the driver and a passenger in the front and something in the back. The something was about as tall as the two people in the front, but covered with cloth or towel.

"Is that a dead body?" Anastasia asked with a little laugh.

"Yeah, I think so," I joked.

We smiled at each other because ha ha yeah right, but then, as we kept looking at the something sitting in the the other vehicle, our smiles shifted to a sort of suspicious half-grin.

"That's definitely a person," I said. "Look how the head's bobbing around with the bumps in the road."

We watched the body as it bobbed around, looking quite dead. We noticed the head was resting against a stick of some kind, like a broomstick, jutting up from the rear cargo hold of the vehicle. It didn't look comfortable at all. Looked like it was just there to keep the head from flopping over the back of the seat. And then the fact that the head was draped, at least from the back and sides, with a towel or something...

"That really does look like a dead body," I said.

"Should we call 911?" Anastasia asked. The mere idea of it seemed preposterous -- calling 911, telling them we're headed south on I-5 and that there may or may not be a dead body propped up in the back of a dark green Geo Tracker, license plate number...

Anastasia had the cell phone out as we changed lanes and drove up on the left side of them for a better look. What we found was a young man in the back seat -- pale, unhealthy complexion, eyes closed, mouth hanging wide open.

"Can't tell if he's dead or just passed out," I said. But what about the broomstick holding his head up? It looked like it'd be pretty painful to someone with a pulse. And the towel over his head?

As we got behind the Geo tracker again, we saw the guy's head finally move, like he'd just woken up. He sat forward, looked to either side of the vehicle and then reclined back against the broomstick.

And we laughed and laughed.

Because we almost called the cops on dark green Geo Tracker for having an ugly, sleeping passenger.

In the Immortal Words of Paula Abdul...

He's a cold-hearted snake.

Marius (my ball python) bit me again. I forget, after a while, how much it hurts when that happens. But then it happens. And I remember.

It's a quick kind of pain, which is good. It doesn't linger like a burn or a punch to the groin. Just a quick "Yowza!" and it's over. Then there's the blood. His teeth aren't very big around, but they are many and they're long enough to puncture the skin pretty good -- so the bleeding is pretty immediate. Kind of like getting a shot (well, more like many shots at once), but without a nurse's kind finger to press a cotton ball to your skin.

Anyway, I was reaching into his tank and trying to take hold of the rear quarter of his body, to let him out of his tank for a while. I feel bad when he's just sitting in his tank for weeks at a time. So, occasionally I get him out, let him explore other parts of the bedroom. This time, however, he mistook my hand for a tasty rodent and there they are -- a couple of bandaged up fingers.

Many people already don't understand why a person would want to own a snake. Then, when you tell them it has bitten you, well, the mind automatically screams "snake bite!" -- and the question of why becomes that much more urgent and reactive.

Thing is, it's not Marius' fault that he bit me. And contrary to the silly title of this post, it doesn't mean that he's dangerous or mean. He's simply not gotten enough socialization (my fault) and is responding to an innate feeding instinct. That said, I am trying to sell him.

I'm not trying to sell him because he's bitten me a few times, but because I feel I can't properly care for him any longer. He needs a home with a reptile enthusiast who will give him more attention that I can. Right now it just feels like I'm maintaining him, in that I'm feeding him, keeping his water fresh, his tank clean, but beyond these necessities, he's not getting a lot of attention from me lately. And if we decide to have kids one day, well, he won't be getting much attention at all. I'd like to give him up before that happens.

Anyone know of a place to take him? Or of reptile enthusiasts who might be interested in him? That's the idea right now. Give or sell him to someone who knows what they're doing. He's an adult so giving him to a novice who doesn't know much about snakes is out of the question.

Mystery Music

I was sifting through the music on my work computer today, looking for something to listen to that I hadn't heard in a while. Came across a series of "Unknown Artist" folders. Opened them up, gave all of the opening tracks a brief listen until I knew who it was, but then came upon one album that was not only really captivating, but also completely unknown to me as to who it was.

I listened to the entire album, thinking, Who is this? I must know! I had almost gotten through the album twice when I decided to do a bit of investigating. The file properties didn't tell me anything but there was the date -- I presume the date on which the album was ripped to my computer. I thought back -- back to March of 2006. Did that help? No, not at all. So, I mentioned it to a coworker and then had her give it a listen.

"Oh, that's Cloud Cult," she says. "I think the name of the album is Happy Hippopotamus."

Well, whattaya know. My mystery album is a happy happy hippo.

(I looked up the album online and found that it's actually called Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus.)

The snobs at Pitchfork seem to have loved it. They gave it a 8.3 rating, a score very few albums receive no matter how good they are. From Pitchfork:

There's a state of mind in which infancy and mortality meet. Death, its inexorability, and our fear of it render us as helpless as when we were toddlers. Many of us fill the resulting tremulous mental gap with religion ("our Father..."); others with work, love, or grown-up childishness like golf; and you and I, perhaps, with pop music. Cloud Cult bandleader Craig Minowa is obsessed with this space-- with infancy, mortality, and, alas, infant mortality-- and his grandiose fourth album, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, occupies it with messy, expansive, computer-ok indie rock.

Why I Write, or Don't

I write because it's fun. And because people tell me I'm good at it and I like to believe them.

I write because I take an equally egotistical and masochistic joy in reading and re-reading each and every thing I've written -- because it's just as much fun to look proudly at the finished product as it is to spit on it, tear it to pieces and set it ablaze the very next day because it is so completely horrible and unworthy of human eyes -- like a lot of the poems on this page, for instance.

I write because, as laborious as it is, I enjoy the revision process. I enjoy taking a sentence I thought was done, deconstructing it and rearranging the words into something more enjoyable to read.

Then, I don't write.

I don't write because it's summer. Because I'd rather be outside, in the sun, with a book, or the dog.

I don't write because I'm lazy. Because it's easier not to.

I tell myself I want to be a writer. The problem, however, is that a writer writes. Always. I write. But not always. There's any number of excuses I could fall on as to why I don't write more. Work is busy, too many things to do around the house, blah, blah, blah. But we all know these are empty excuses. We know that everything worth anything takes time and dedication. Practice and perseverance.

Maybe I'll write something tonight. Or maybe I'll play with the dog. Or go for a bike ride. Or watch re-runs of M*A*S*H.

blood in the sand

counting back from 2007
to 2003
not by days
or hours
or moments, watching the news
in slippers and pajamas

counting back from 3,213
to a "Mission Accomplished"
not by events
or headlines
or sound bytes
in your car, on the radio

counting back by bodies
lined up in perfect proud rows
draped in red
white and blue
the sum of their parts and principles

counting back by lies

old men in neck ties
spreading fear and disregard
truth means nothing
when opportunity awaits

head down, the news is on
count on the talking heads
to forget the blacks
what have they got that we want?
Darfur is nothing to us

save the oil, save the day

blood in the sand
war?
no -- conflict
it's all conflict
support the troops!
support the troops!

and the coffins

blood on your hands
keep ignoring us
everything we say
and don't you dare

don't you dare
look us in the eye


-jkh

Working Late

long day, unexpected
hours producing
productions, pictures -- things
other men will build for real

and sweating

because they turn the air
off after 6pm

-jkh

Doggie Farts

I saw a film once
called A Very Long Engagement,
starring Audrey Tatou
(A Very Lovely Girl)

as Mathilde, a woman on a relentless search
for her missing fiancé, lost
to the trenches of World War One.
It was good, this film.

However, there was another woman --
an older woman (Mathilde's mother - I think),
and she would say, "Doggie farts warm the heart."
And she would smile as she said this.

But I strongly disagree.

-jkh

Lunch, Late December at Le Panier

Cracked statue on a stool
I am, static,
cold and coarse --
granite effigy of a man

breaking up as a holy smile
plays over split lips
like I know something
my compatriots do not.

But they likely know
in their own way
of the delight in reading, reviewing
people in passing --

their tourist's eyes fighting
in chorus,
the bitter breeze,
the insistent sun.

They likely know
of ham and Swiss cheese
on very French bread
and slurpy sips of sweet
velvet coffee in a white paper cup.

They likely know.

-jkh