Author: Jeff

Overheard. A man in Westlake Center, talking on a cell phone: “Uh huh . . . Right. Actually, at the moment I’m in Los Angeles, so . . .”

The track around the reservoir is gone and the joggers are gone with it. A chainlink fence was installed at the bottom of the little embankment. The shady canopy of trees is still standing for the moment, and they’re the main concern of this paragraph. With the branches hanging out over the sidewalk to discourage foot traffic, and no one using the path above it, the place is bustling with busy chirping bird life.

Homeless kids used to hang out there. They’ve been displaced to the baseball diamonds. During the day there’s usually several people sleeping on the right-field sidelines. A tall fence creates a bit of a buffer between the grass and the sidewalk. There’s a port-a-potty nearby, and a few trees for shade.

There’s one group hunkered down in the low bleachers behind the backstop. The street corner behind them is enveloped by a choking aerosol cloud. I guess they’re sniffing Scotch-Guard or something like it.

The baseball diamond is a patchwork – evenly trimmed dark grass, patches of fragile newly-planted grass, and recently cut-out blocks of dirt cut out around the bases.

Recently, tennis players have been out-numbered at the group of tennis courts just beyond left-field. There might be a pair practicing on court closest to Pine Street. But the last couple of times I’ve been by, the second court was being used as a skate park. (I imagine the skaters would move on if another game of tennis broke out.) The third court has been annexed by the city as a playground. A basketball hoop holds down one end. The other end has been covered with a soft surface and there’s a small selection of playground equipment – a merry-go-round and one of those colorful jungle gym/slide combos. It’s a stop-gap measure until the reservoir is covered and the other end of the park is reopened.

Original Construction of the Lincoln Reservoir
September 8, 1899
Photo via Seattle Municipal Archives

Lincoln Reservoir Construction
June 10, 2003

Photos of the original construction of the Lincoln Reservoir and the current project to cap the reservoir. The park that holds the reservoir had it’s name taken away more than 80 years ago. No one ever bothered to look for a new one until recently.

These are the things that happened this afternoon as the heat wave started to fade and I sat in the shade outside Bauhaus Coffee.

A nervous-looking man walked by and said, “I feel like Limburger cheese.” His tone and posture left those within earshot unsure whether he meant that he’d like to eat Limburger cheese or that he felt the way Limburger cheese feels.

A girl sat on the edge of a big planter staring blankly up the street. Her long purple hair was held back with a red bandanna. One loose strand was hooked over a branch on the shrub in the planter behind her and she didn’t notice.

Anita wandered across me and sat down for a minute with a Diet Coke. As I asked her questions, I realized that I already knew the answers from reading her recent blog entries.

I dug around for my camera to take a photo of an old man standing on the sidewalk beside a little beagle. They’d both moved on by the time I had the camera ready. A woman stepped out from the clothing store next door, untied the dog, and the two of them headed down the street. The man followed a bit behind them, but he and the dog weren’t together; they only happened to be standing there at the same time.

A Russian man squeezed into line in front of me when I went back in for more hot water for my tea. He had a concerned look on his face when he asked the cashier if the coffee shop had any spare chessboards. A guy wearing a Reagan-busters t-shirt waited out of the way for his espresso, flipping through one of the less read free papers.

Finally, a little black dog, who had just hopped out of a Yellow Cab beside a man carrying a rolled up carpet, ran off, first in the wrong direction and then up the hill. His four tiny legs raced to set the pace. He hobbled, off-balance, but unfazed by the stiff gray bandage that bound his left front leg.

A walk in Volunteer Park last week ended at the Conservatory. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photo of the Venus fly trap. (Here’s a Conservatory photo on tyd’s site.)

Pier 59

• There’s a girl sitting at a table stirring her tan-colored iced coffee drink continuously so that the ice cubes rattle against the glass. Her friends arrive, and she gets up to talk to them, the ice cubes and glass continue to rattle as she continues stirring. Her friends head in different directions to find seats and coffees, and she sets the glass back down on her table, letting go of her stirring spoon. An ice cube leaps from the glass as if it were escaping.

• One tourist tells another what there is to do in Seattle. Each of his suggestions involve leaving: Spend a day in Vancouver. Drive east for two or three hours until you’re tired of driving, then get out of the car and look around.

  He verifies that I’m a local and tells me, “You live in a wonderful city. Over the years, I’ve probably spent twelve days total in Seattle, on business; . . .” (He always qualifies the word “Seattle” by appending “on business.”) ” . . . and I’ve seen it rain maybe once.”

• I misremembered this. The anecdote at the beginning wasn’t Fiona’s, it was Tracy’s. The rest of it happened just as I wrote. Tracy pointed it out a couple of weeks ago and I have only just remembered to correct it.
• Many restaurants in Seattle have simplified their menus by eliminating one soft drink size. At most places, you can only order a medium or a large soda. The Fifth Avenue Cafe is an exception, they discontinued the large size, and now offer only small or medium sodas.
• The waitress offers fresh ground pepper and I accept. She grinds the pepper over the plate. I watch the pepper’s progress closely, but it’s only an affectation. I stop her when I think that enough time has passed.

Pier 62/63

Seattle Aquarium, Pier 59
Photo Friday – Packaging

Someone once told me
true haikus cite the season
spring, for example

I run into another high school classmate, and just as we’re finishing up our chat, a Seattle Public Utilities employee pulls up beside us on a Segway. We move to opposite sides of the sidewalk to let him pass. (This kind of thing never happened to us in Grandview.) Then we walk off in different directions, and a second Segway scoots by. They’re bigger than you’d expect – they’re wide, and they’re loaded down with saddle bags and plenty of extra hardware.

An hour later, I’m studying another Seattle Public Utilities vehicle stopped at a red light. It’s the Vactor 2100 – a roughly truck-shaped system of hoses and tanks, cables and chains, and anything else you might need. There may very well be a method to the system, but I find it incomprehensible. I can’t even tell which utility it’s been designed to service – it could be for all of them.

I don’t wear these jeans very often – the pair that has my usual waist size and inseam size inverted – they’re an inch short in the leg and an inch too wide at the waist. The bit of extra exposed ankle leaves room for a surprising amount of ventilation. The pants drape over my legs pretty loosely, so there’s some room to move around in. I guess they’re good enough for the odd warm summery day, but I’m always overly conscious of them when I have them on: I am wearing pants.