Your Sunday Squirrel

I posted this guy on Instagram earlier this week.  OK, it's a little grainy, but that's all part of the appeal.  I had just been sailing on Friday.  At first there was no wind, which was really vexing.  Then all hell broke loose by the time I reached the north end of Lake Union.  The wind kicked up from the south and gusted from a number of directions.  All this put me in the midst of the UW crew that was out training.  So there was much wind, lots of waves and no room to maneuver.  The only thing to do was to point the bow into the wind and let them pass.  This caused the sails to flap like crazy.  But it all worked out.  It took a long time to get back to the dock, because the wind was still blowing strongly from the south. Then it suddenly stopped close to the dock. What the hell?  I eventually got there and docked near-perfectly.  After that was over, I walked home, saw this squirrel and took his picture.  And that was it.

Oops! Amber's Liquor License Gets Suspended!

I'm sure there's more of to it than what this says, but apparently, it looks like they wouldn't let the place be inspected, so they got a 12-day time-out to think about how they made the liquor inspectors feel.  OK, so they're closed till the 26th.  Will they reopen?  We'll see.  I've only been there once.  I was starving and they were on happy hour.  It was quite good. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

This one's a little shaded, but it's still a good shot.  With fall soon upon us, there will many furry squirrels in the future.  Also, I'll be off on my honeymoon in the coming weeks, so I will also be featuring British and French squirrels.  That's something to live for.

Your Sunday Squirrel

 

Two guys from today  Maybe they're the same guy.  There were a lot of squirrels coming and going.  I only wish the bottom shot was a little more in focus.  But there were lots of other pics that I'll post soon. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

This guy is from a few weeks ago.  He didn't mind standing in the light.  Most squirrels do, because it means that predators can see them.  But this one was a performer.  At least as much as a squirrel can perform squirrel things.

Your Sunday Squirrel

Here's a fellow from a week or two ago.  Ain't he sweet?

Belltown Block Party

We got home from Longview and guess what?  It was the Belltown block party.  And my block was the party block.  What that meant is it was loud.  But hey, it's for one day a year and it was pretty fun.  There were a bunch of bands, but all of them seemed very angry about something.  But they ran the gamut from punk to death metal.  I didn't take any pictures of them, because they were all kind of not very good.

There was "professional" wrestling, which was really the best thing.  Very entertaining, very fake.

There were skate ramps.  Lots of wipeouts!

And people made art in the meantime.

This is the second year for this format.  Last year, I was up at my folks' place, so I missed it.  But this time around, it was really fun - especially the wrestling.  And it only lasted till around 1am.

Squirrel Fest 2018!

OK, so we had a great time at Squirrel Fest last year and had to revisit wonderful Longview for this year's festivities.  I gotta say that it was certainly bigger and had more events than last year.  In case you're new to Squirrel Fest, it's an annual celebration of town's many squirrel bridges.  They're all built with different themes and designs.  And there's a parade.  This year, if it hadn't been for people running for local office, it would have lasted about three minutes.  Instead, it was about seven minutes.  And it went around twice.  So fifteen minutes worth of parade.

The parade begins...for the second time.

A guy in a squirrel suit.  Not a real squirrel.

Unenthusiastic pirates...

A band...

These are bed racers.  It was a new event this year.  The guys with the acorn bed didn't win. 

 

Sweet Becko doing archery at the Boy Scouts tent.

And there she is standing in front of the lie-berry.  That bust is the founder of Longview, Robert Long. 

Here's the squirrel statue in the middle of town.

Here's the Monticello Hotel.  It's definitely seen better days.  The sign's paint is all chipped off and the restaurant on the corner calls itself The Pizzaria.  I wonder if they know it's misspelled.  The lobby is a dark-paneled mixture of garish paintings of celebrities and murals of the good old days.  One in particular is called "The Departure of the Red Man," and it shows Native Americans leaving the land to the white man. 

Anyhow, in all this festivalizing, I forgot to take any pictures of the squirrel bridges.  Last year, we hopped on this very fast, very rickety trolley and took a tour of all the bridges.  This year, we were told that the trolley was out of commission.  It's too bad, because is was a great way to see everything.  Hopefully, next year it will return.  Oh, and I also saw no squirrels.  No real squirrels.  People in squirrel costumes, yes, but no genuine tree rodents. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

Just a squirrel hanging upside down in Denny Park.  This guy was pretty super-skittish, but he held still long enough for this shot to happen.

Mural Outrage

OK, so I featured the mural in the back parking lot a few weeks ago.  Yeah, it's still really cool and I hope it stays there forever, just like the one on the Cinerama.  But they've been painting one across the street on the Jupiter.  This is what it looks like:

It continues on past the the tree.  Uh, I don't think it's done, but they seem to have stopped work on it.  I can sort of see what they're trying for, but it's not quite there yet.  So the question is: are they planning to finish it?  Or are they going in a different direction?  As it is now, it doesn't, y'know, look good.  I hope it does end up looking better, because it's a big part of my view. 

Chalk Walk

Well, they had a chalk art-thing on Bell Street this weekend.  OK, so you don't get a lot of that kind of thing in a city where it rains often, but this weekend was pretty much guaranteed to be without precip, right?  Well, wrong.  But still, there was some interesting stuff.

..and the obligatory Hendrix.  This is just a sampling.  You might want to go there tonight, because tomorrow everything will be lost to the elements.

Your Sunday Squirrel

OK, so this perfectly respectable-looking squirrel was skittering around Denny Park yesterday.  He was very photogenic, as you can see.  I gave him a peanut and this is what he did:

I mean, I've seen squirrels hang upside down on tree trunks before lots of times.  But I've never seen a squirrel do that - just kind of hang there.  I'd get woozy, but apparently he wasn't bothered.  Notice that his back feet are almost turned backwards.  Squirrels can do that.

The Torchlight Parade

Well, it happened again.  This year, it seemed that attendance was down quite a bit over previous years.  I dunno, it's probably millennials or some such.  Anyhow, here are some highlights:

Motorcycle cops at the beginning. 

This is the police pipe band...

The firefighters pipe band (they were better)...

An airplane balloon...

A strawberry wearing headphones...

Cool Mexican trick horses...

The Army band was small, but these guys followed them.  Nobody looked happy about carrying a state flag.

Here's the Marine band.  They were really good.

The dragon finally showed up.  This year's version had lights!  Once they went by, we headed home.  Sure, there was a lot more parade, but when the dragon's done, so am I.

The New Mural!

And what a mural it is!

This is what it looked like at the end of the week.  I thought it was done, but I was wrong.  I went out the back this morning and this is the finished version:

It's on the side of the Army-Navy Store on 1st between Blanchard and Lenora.  I like it a lot.

Speaking of murals, they're painting one across the street on the front of Jupiter.  It's taking quite a while.  So far, it looks like a lot of tubes and such.  They're just starting to add color, so things are looking up.  I'll have pictures by next week, but I'm pretty sure they won't be done by then.

Your Sunday Squirrel

This guy's from just today.  Sweet Becko were out looking for hungry squirrels and this guy showed up.  Every Sunday, the hugging Christians have a service in the park and squirrels can be found in the areas farthest away from all that worshipping.  This fellow was very nice.  I have many other good shots of him. 

...And Gone!

You know, I thought they were just going to renovate that nondescript building on the other side of Blanchard.  But no!  They tore the whole thing down.  It's now an ex-building:

This is the front view.  See?  No building.  My guess is that the new place is gonna be taller than just paltry stories and will probably house more than a dentist's office.  But that's just a guess.

Somebody Drew This in front of the Rivoli Last Week

It's Rick and Morty!  I just got finished with the third season.  Only 10 episodes!  Boo!  But I tell you, it was really mind-bending.  Great stuff!

Your Sunday Squirrel

I've gotten some very good pictures lately, and this is one of them.  In general, the squirrels have been less cooperative.  I've just gotten lucky; the lighting's been really good and the squirrels seem to know their good sides.  Just like this guy.

De-Construction!

Well, I was just walking by the building on the other side of 2nd & Blanchard and I saw actual daylight coming through the back, which is unusual. 

I went around to the alley and this is what's going on.  Yeah, real-live heavy equipment and everything. 

This is the place that once had Wally's (now in my building), which then, after a fashion, became the Bear and Bee.  The upstairs became The Upstairs and Pintxo was the other storefront.  Well, everything's gone now, and rumor has it that it's going to be a dentist's office.  I'm finding that a little hard to believe.  The whole building?  Something else has to be going on.  It would be really nice to put in a pair of capable restaurants in the storefront spaces.  The Bear and Bee made very nice sandwiches and was a much-needed lunch spot in this crummy neighborhood.  Pintxo was a bit more of a hard-sell, because it had a very small kitchen.  They're in a much better spot now on 4th.  I've been there and it was good.  Anyhow, I'm looking forward to this building not being entirely a dentist's office.