Frights and Sights

 

IN THE PINK: It poured last night, and early this morning, too. But starting at about 9:30, we managed to squeeze in a fairly dry, one-hour walk. We were pleased to see the trees lining the main east-west drag in our neighborhood are all in bloom. They stretch on for a few blocks - pretty! 
       
SPRING COMES CLOSER: Today, we made a positive step forward toward the next season. We now have in our possession tickets to the Mariners' home opener on April 8. Yesssssss!  Below is a Throwback Thursday photo to commemorate the event!
                
We also got tickets for the Mariners' 2014 Open House today. On March 31, the first day of the MLB season, the Mariners are on the road, but Safeco Field will be open to the public for a viewing party. We went last year, the first time they held such an event, and it was a BLAST.

OUTSIDE THE BOX: We watched a video today about a prototype for a very nontraditional NASA rover. Called "Super Bot Ball," it's revolutionary design would allow it to traverse terrain in a way completely different than all of NASA's past rovers. It's hard to describe a collapsible rover with no wheels. Just check out the video here to see it for yourself: http://news.yahoo.com/video/nasas-latest-robot-100545676.html

TABLED: This afternoon we headed to West Seattle. I forgot to mention last week that the kids have started a 6-week yoga class and 'social studio' there. It's led by the kids' longtime, wonderful yoga teacher Nicole, and for this session she's partnering with another wonderful professional, Ann. 

Since we had to be in West Seattle any way, we combined the trip with going to pick up an item I found for Rick's house on Craigslist. The piece of furniture was at a lovely waterfront home on West Seattle's Beach Drive. As we went to find the place, we discovered a new-to-us park, Lowman Beach. 

It's a downright disaster now, all muddy, fenced off, with heavy equipment everywhere thanks to a renovation and MAJOR sewage treatment construction. But we'll definitely be back to the beachfront property. It's secluded and will be a gorgeous park once work there is done. 

Per the city of Seattle's Web site, the park dated back to 1909, when the Yesler Logging Company gifted it to the city. It's named after James D. Lowman, who was a teacher when he arrived in Seattle in 1887, but later became a wharf master for Henry Yesler, and later a bookstore and printing business owner and eventual city parks commissioner. 

While Lowman Beach Park isn't much to look at right now, there's a house next door to the park that is a sight to behold.

 I've never seen the house before, but from what I can gather online, some of the decorations seem to be a rather in your face protest to the adjacent construction. 

From what I can glean on the Internet, the home is owned by a doctor of psychiatry, who used to have some kind of diorama of ducks in the front yard. Now, there's a placard at the top of his house that reads "The Duckies are Gone! Long live the sewage tank!"

We live in such an interesting world ... 

We found the house with the furniture, and got it transported to Rick's just fine ...except when I backed in his driveway and put the ol  CR-V into 'park,' clouds of something started billowing from below my hood in a big, BAD way. "My car's on fire!" I cried. 

Fortunately, it was 'just' steam, caused by a blown hose. Christian quickly spotted it, pulled it off, walked one block to an auto repair place, bought another hose for $1.90 and had it fixed within 10 minutes. It was a miracle, really. The best kind of car trouble ever. Had that happened to me on, say, the Viaduct or freeway, yikes, I don't even want to think about it! But the timing was as good as one could hope for, and the repair fast and easy, so we can't complain. 

And after all the drama, the table looks super ... :)