Your Sunday Squirrel

It's been a slow week for squirrels.  They all seem to have gone on vacation.  Here is a fellow from a while ago.  He had a wonky eye.  I saw him not too long ago and he's all better.  At least I think it was him.  Sometimes it's difficult to tell.  Unfortunately, he's a little blurry here.  But this being Sunday and him being a squirrel, he is your Sunday Squirrel. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

The hollow on this tree is a source of unending fascination for squirrels.  They love to stick their heads in it and rummage around.  They never find anything, but don't seem to remember that.  Right after I took this picture and gave this fellow a peanut, he was sticking his head in it to see if he had missed anything all those other times.  I guess they do this because they don't have television. 

After Hours

For no reason at all...

Your Sunday Squirrel

Here's a guy from a while ago.  Since the day after Christmas, I've been commuting to Seatac Airport to send people up to Alaska for a seafood company.  Despite the time involved in the commute, it was really fun.  I love riding the train.  But if I had to do it every day, I probably wouldn't like it so much.  No, the three-minute walk to this company's headquarters in the Darth Vader Building is preferable.  And on top of that, it's a fine place to work.  I'm still just temping there, but things might change in March.  Anyhow, now I have time to go to Denny Park again.  I saw one squirrel this morning and he wasn't friendly.  He just stared at me for a while and then ran up a tree.  Well, it's a free country.  I had a delicious peanut for him, so whatever.  Hopefully, there will be friendlier squirrels running around during my next visit. 

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Turn and face this train!  Well, things are changing on 6th Ave.  The outer reaches of Belltown are having the bejeezus developed out of them.  I'm not some NIMBY whiner, so I say that it's a good thing.  But such ventures come at a cost.  In this case, two rather sizable buildings are coming down:  The Sixth Avenue Inn and the King Cat Theater.  Observe:

They still haven't stripped out all the air conditioners yet, so it'll be a while till its date with the wrecking ball.  I heard from some old jazz guy that the lounge here (not always called the Tally-ho Sixth) used to feature some pretty hot players back in the eighties.  Well, even if it wanted to host today's jazz talent, it couldn't.  It's doomed.  And Jazz Alley is across the street.  They get national acts and they want you to keep your table conversation to a minimum.   

Back in the nineties, this place was a revival movie house, then nothing, then a Bollywood theater, then a death metal venue.  Now it's just doomed.  It will soon join its former across-the-street competitor, the UA, in theater heaven.  The UA was torn down and persisted for ages as an empty lot.  Now there are big happenings taking place on that entire Lenora-Blanchard block. 

The metal monsters are gathering to take the King down.  Although I'm sure what they're going ot build will be acceptable, I advise the King not to go quietly.  

Funny thing, a little bit ago I made the observation that nobody lives on 6th Ave. in Belltown.  But that will change very soon.   

Your Sunday Squirrel

Here's a fellow I photographed a few weeks ago.  He was much more interested in something only he could see in another direction.  With all of this getting up at five in the morning to go out to the airport and send people to Alaska, I haven't had much of a chance to visit the tree rodents at Denny Park.  I hope they're not starving. 

Hey, I understand that the Seahawks won today.  Ordinarily, I'm a big football fan.  But it seems that when I watch a Seahawks playoff game, they lose.  So I went to see The Hobbit.  I was quite surprised by how excellent it was.  It's also really long, so you feel like you're getting your money's worth.  But it does occasionally suffer from the same thing as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that being characters staring moodily off into the distance while they tell no one in particular either what happened long ago or what's going to happen very soon.  And then there's generally lots of talking.  It was, however, very nice to see Gollum.  He's kept fit since LOTR.  One thing I don't get is when Martin Freeman turns into Ian Holm.  Couldn't they just put a lot of old makeup on Martin Freeman and not have to pay Ian Holm for playing Old Bilbo?  This is an important question.  So in conclusion, The Hobbit is way better than I expected.  And Skyfall was way worse.     

Christmas Is Over

Unless you're Eastern Orthodox.

This was my tree.  As artificial as the law allows.  It's down now.  Trees up and lit after New Year's (unless you're Orthodox) tend to make you look, y'know, crazy.  Or oblivious.  Anyhow, please note that, like every year, I put as many lights and ornaments on it as possible.  In fact, I believe that it was so weighed down by this point that it was being held up by the wall.  I only knocked it down once.  I think that might be a record.  Be that as it may, Christmas is over. 

Meanwhile...

...at 2nd & Blanchard:

I call it Couch Henge - created by the ancients to reckon the seasons! 

Happy New Year, Part 2

I was at the Space Needle last night to watch it explode.  Very impressive.  Here are a few short videos:  

So yes, extremely spectacular.  I was standing underneath some of the fireworks.  It was slightly disorienting.  Anyhow, Happy New Year from me and the New Year's squirrel. 

Happy New Year, Part 1

Cousin-in-law Sergei comes through again with a squirrel for the new year.  Back in the bad old Soviet days, people still bought trees, but they became New Year's trees.  Of course, it didn't help matters that Orthodox Christmas comes in January.  So the New Year's tree easily morphs into a Christmas tree.  How about that?  Anyhow, I suppose balloons are the squirrel way of celebrating.  No funny hats for tree rodents, nosiree.  Anyhow, just like the card says: С новым годом!