wrapping it up in queen city

hiking at carkeek park

today is our last day in queen city.  what a glorious place.  i forget how beautiful it is in between visits.  we started off our last day at golden beetle for brunch with dear friends alice and jim.  ate spiced donuts with cardomom sauce, eggs mornay with a watercress salad, fava bean falafal with cucumbers and lemon, potatoes fried in beef fat, a greek yogurt fruit salad, a spring onion/asparagus scramble, a burger topped with an egg, and a house-made charmoula soda.

pike place market.  all together!  eva's holding cheddar cheese ice cream from molly moon.

 we took the kids to church, and i dropped ingrid on capital hill to visit a friend from her study abroad year in germany.

honk fest.  kite hill.  i thnk that's leslie dalaba.

 after church, we passed cafe racer and the sidewalk was completely covered in flowers.  christian and greg are attending a memorial there right now.

a small slice of the view you can see from kite hill at gasworks park.

marni cooked a delicious sunday dinner of eggplant stuffed with spicy tomato sauce and goat cheese.  i'm making that when we get home.

tights abounded at honk fest west.

don't know what this band was called, but they were all about cave-style.

 we walked to matthew's beach and saw lots of mother and baby duck groupings.  lots of spring flowers and puddles.  the sunlight was dappled, but it was a bit chilly.

christian's annual pole climb.

 i did laundry and started to get a sick feeling due to all the packing and driving ahead of me.  marni took the girls to the lake for a ladies swimming party/spring rite.  it's freezing!  i stayed behind with moses to finish laundry/pack/chill. 

shoe poetry in ballard.  we thought it was wordsworth.

a rad bike from dutch bike.

 marni and greg, mimi and thomas, as always, are such kind, fun hosts.

oyster bar with m & g.  g:  "are you gonna blog this?"

 & our kids were lucky to spend their early years with their cousins, raised litter style.

first plate of oysters.  my fave, the olympia, is next to the lemon. next to the mignonette is a little dish of grated horseradish root to mix in with the sauce before spooning it on to the oysters.

prawn crudo with roe.  the shells were fried and deliciously edible--like a prawn potato chip, if you will.

m & g's car was towed.  waiting for ride/posing for our next album cover. m & g=not amused, obviously.  stupid cops taking payola from towing company

love bomb go go from portland.  all band members had silver spray-painted boots.

happy 23rd anniversary picture.

this has been a spring of bookends--a week in nyc where i was living when i was eva's age, pregnant with her, then a week here in rain city, performing again where i first performed and first began to unravel something i'm still unraveling about why i'm here, what i'm doing, etc.  and then having all the kids together again for the first time in years is strange--adults and little dudes, both.  i guess it seems like certain phases are ending.  it feels good as long as i don't let it get poignant.

if that makes sense.

tomorrow portends the beginning of something new.