Month: March 2004

There are two cowboys that I always see around town. They wear all the gear – simple cowboy hat, flannel shirt, leather vest, boots, and big belt buckle. They’re beards are frizzy and untrimmed, and they walk a bit bow-legged – like they would if they were wearing chaps. They’re always walking at a steady clip, side-by-side, making quiet comments between them. I’m constantly surprised that they know their way around the city.

They walked by just now, and one of them was pushing a wheel chair with a little husky pup riding in the chair.

Thank you to everyone who went down to the Elephant and Castle yesterday for the low key surprise party. That was really fantastic.

Now we’re off to Mt. St. Helens, I think.

Seattle Art Museum

Harbor Steps

An older man side-steps up to a middle-aged man and starts up a conversation. They’re both browsing the Religion shelf in the book area of a big charity thrift store.

“You know, of course, that Yahweh is the one true god.” His tone isn’t evangelical. He says this the way someone might say, “Tide is good for grass stains.”

The younger man nods his head once, indicating his agreement – Yes, Yahweh is the one true god. He’s a bit distracted. He has a stack of books and is holding his place in one of them with a finger pressed in between two pages. For the moment though, he’s giving this conversation his full attention.

“Well. What do you think of the trinity?” The older man doesn’t reveal his own stand on the trinity – pro or con. But he’s clearly testing the younger man.

The younger man responds with the same distracted nod. “Yes, the trinity.”

The older man raises his eyebrows, tilts his head, and the younger man clarifies, “But only one god. He’s three-in-one.”

waterfront trolley tracks

Bracelets are going to be big this spring.

(It’s what I did.)

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A slide shown before the movie at one of the bad superplexes: “Recycling one Coke can saves enough energy to power your TV for three hours.”

While I’m here, I’ll stop to appreciate the fragment of poetry that appears beneath the theater chain’s name – “Loew’s Theaters” – in the over-produced jingle that comes right before the movie. Grammatically efficient, yet somehow unbalanced: “An ONEX Company”.

As soon as the latest delivery of taxidermied chickens arrived, it was packed up and shipped away to a psychic channeler of some repute – a close friend of the soap star who bought up the last few chickens from the December order. Now Samantha’s boss has placed two nineteenth century stuffed parrots in the store’s window display. Samantha is skeptical about her boss’s claim that they’re more than 100 years old. But they’re dusty and faded, and it’s clear that they’ve seen better days – I mean even since the day before they were stuffed and preserved. These birds are from Samantha’s boss’s personal collection, so officially they’re not for sale, but a whisper price is being circulated. Bargain shoppers would be disappointed, they’re at least the price of six stuffed chickens. Regarding the chickens, another delivery should be coming soon. Some of them are already reserved for the psychic channeler. For spring, there will be taxidermied baby chicks. Sadly, all of this is true.

There were three people on Pier 62/63, spaced out across the row of picnic tables at the foot of the pier. The man at the far end played “Making Whoopie” on a clarinet. In the middle, a man wearing a sport coat and a beret leaned back and watched the mountains, then stood abruptly, jogged out to the middle of the pier and circled back. I think I was doing nothing – only holding down my end of the pier. The clarinet player played another song, and the man in the beret jumped up again and ran another half-lap.

Beans for Breakfast is a web-thing by me, Jeff Sharman. New stories, photos, or other things are posted one or ten times a week.

I live in sunny Seattle, Washington, and grew up outside Grandview, Washington – in the Yakima Valley. My most recent meal was a Caprese sandwich. I’m not sure how that’s pronounced. The people at the cafe where I had the sandwich are starting to recognize me as a regular and will probably be able to predict my order soon. A few days ago, I got a voice message from a former classmate about my ten year high school reunion. The stapler on my desk is 17 inches long, and I have seasonal allergies. My dad is going to retire soon. I’m currently trying to create a job from scratch.

Trees