Seattle/Oly Saturday

This Saturday was truly fantastic! I had the day completely off . . . no school, no work, no babysitting gigs, nothing. I decided the ideal way to celebrate would be getting up at 6am to go get my tires replaced. Yep, I sure know how to party. Actually, I just wanted to make sure I had time to get the tires replaced AND go to brunch with Kristine and Megan AND get down to Olympia in a timely fashion. It actually wasn't so bad . . . I dropped the Rufus (yeah, my car is named Rufus) off and spent a couple hours wandering around chilly, sleepy Ballard (I get Rufus's maintenance done at the Ballard Firestone . . . FYI, they've always done a really good job and I highly recommend them). Here's a couple of things I saw during my wanderings:

The Ballard Sip and Ship: A coffee house/post office. It wasn't open, but it looked really cute, so I googled it just now. Apparently, they serve Batdorf and Bronson coffee/espresso, as well as sandwiches and pastries, and also run a full-service post office and sell cards, gift wrap, and knicknacks. I've never heard of anything like that before; I will definitely be checking it out soon!

Carnegie's, a restaurant/bar in an old Carnegie Library building. So cool! I am definitely going there sometime!

So anyway, my original plan for my walk was to end up in Cafe Besalu, but it was too far and I was too cold, so I ended up popping into a Tully's instead. I had some coffee and hung out for awhile, and just as I was finishing my coffee Firestone called to tell me my tires were done, so I headed back, got the car, and went to meet Megan and Kristine for brunch!

We drove to Belltown and went to the Bang Bang cafe. It was excellent! Tasty, healthy, inexpensive breakfast burritios, lots of vegetarian options, but some meat stuff, too, if you're into that, and good coffee. We met the owner (well, Megan and I met her; Kristine already had), and she was really nice and friendly. Plus, it's just cool to go into a restuarant and the owner's right there, taking orders and making drinks just like the rest of the staff. Plus, she remembered Kristine on sight, which is pretty impressive considering the amount of people she must see every day.

After brunch I took off for Olympia, and spend a cozy, rainy afternoon with my aunt and cousin at RC Ridge. I've been going to RC ridge since I was a kid, but I still have trouble describing exactly what it is to people. So there's this married couple, two really awesome people, and quite a long time ago they built this big treehouse type thing in the woods in Olympia. The husband takes photographs in his studio in the basement (it's where we've gotten all our family pictures done since I was little). Upstairs, there's homemade rootbeer, soup, and other delicious goodies. There's also a shop with beautiful jewelry and other treasures, and wonderful company and conversation. The wife (I don't know if she'd like me sharing their names on the internet so I'll just call her "The Goddess" since she jokes that her husband's the boss, but she's the goddess) is like the ultimate hostess . . . she introduces everyone to everyone else, makes everyone feel comfortable, welcome, and loved, and organizes crafts/parties/treasure hunts from time to time. RC ridge isn't open to the public; it's just friends, and friends bring their friends, etc. Most of the time when we go there we don't get pictures done or buy anything, we just hang out. Today, everyone was doing collage valentines -- making collages from magazines and putting them on little doilies which the Goddess then hung on the windows. It was so much fun . . . they are lovely people and I was so glad I got to see them today.

After RC Ridge came a deliciously fattening Red Robin dinner and then I drove home. Now I'm sleepy, and happy, and not especially excited about a day of studying and work tomorrow . . . today was like a mini-vacation, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be done.

Good Week :)

First of all, I fail at updating regularly. But I've had a really fantastic week and I wanted to gush about it over the internet a little.

Probably the best thing that happened this week was that I got a really good grade on my first physics exam . . . to be honest, it was one of the best science grades I've gotten in college. I usually try not to be a huge grade-bragger, mostly because the stuff I tend to get really brag-worthy grades in is stuff that comes easily to me (foreign languages, writing papers, the parts of science I happen to really "get" just by hearing about them the first time, etc.). Usually, in my pre-med classes, I feel like I'm busting my ass just to stay enough ahead of the curve to come out with a decent grade. But for this test, I worked really hard, invested a lot of time, and it payed off. And that makes me really happy.

Secondly, I found out this week that the scribe company I work for (my ER job) is starting a pilot program at First Hill, one of the Swedish campuses in Seattle. They're sending a few scribes over there to work with doctors and hopefully convince them that they want to pay to use scribes regularly, and I get to go! I'm really excited, and hopefully I will successfully impress the doctor . . . maybe I'll bake him brownies or something? Baking brownies is kind of my fallback plan for any situation that arises in my life.

Thirdly, I got a car! A 1993 burgundy Ford Taurus, that I have named Rufus. Rufus's two main virtues are that he runs, and that he was cheap. His main deficits are that his windshield is badly cracked (but even if you add in what it'll cost to get that fixed, he was still cheap), that he has leather interior (I don't believe in leather), and that the guy who owned him before me was apparently not a big fan of respiratory health, so he smells like cigarette smoke. But I drive with the window down, and I'm getting the interior cleaned ASAP, which will hopefully resolve that issue. I am so happy to have a car! Can we talk about taking the bus to the ER in Issaquah? And back? After 10:00 at night? Actually, never mind, let's not.

Tomorrow, Rufus and I are leaving for the Lake Quinault Lodge for the weekend, because my Aunt Marion and her fiance Mark are getting married on Saturday! They're getting married in the rainforest (yes, Washington has a rainforest, because we are rad), and everyone's dressing up in the theme of "Woodland Magic." I'm pretty excited. I'll post pictures when I get back.

Also, fall, especially in Seattle, especially on the UW campus, is gorgeous. That is all.

Photo from biggarphotography.com

Anderson Island and Cute Furry Animals

So this trip literally happened more than two months ago (the date of this post is an approximation, I can't even remember exactly when we went), but I was looking through photos and decided to post some from my first visit of the year to Anderson Island. My family owns a little cabin there that's one of my favorite places in the world; you may have heard me talk about it. For you geographically-minded people out there, Anderson Island is the southernmost island in Puget sound, it's technically part of Pierce County, it's about 20 minutes by ferry ride from Steilacoom, and it's very close to McNeil Island, where the prison is (now there's a charming recommendation . . . Anderson Island's very safe, though, no worries).


On the ferry ride over.


This is the one grocery store on the island, where we stopped for some supplies. We also stepped into the nursery that's next door, where we met the adorable little guy pictured below . . .


Cocoa Mo!!!!!! He belongs to the lady who owns the Anderson Island Nursery, and he's basically the dictionary definition of adorable.

Then we went to the cabin!



We still use kerosene lamps in the main cabin; it doesn't have electricity because my grandfather wanted it to stay rustic and historical. The annex in back of the main cabin does have electricity. Oh, and the painting in the back was done by my Aunt Marion; it's of driftwood on the beach.


Here's the beautiful, rocky beach, the kind of beach I think you only find in Washington.


Before I headed back to Seattle, I went to my Uncle Neil and Aunt Jamie's house and met their new litter of foster kittens! They do this thing where you adopt a pregnant cat, house her while she has her kittens, keep the kittens until they're old enough to be adopted, and then Mama and babies go back to the shelter, and hopefully (knock on wood) to good homes. This was their second litter, and it was basically all I could do not to adopt every single one of them on the spot.