Fly, Fly Away

CHECKING OUT: Lately, we have had a mass migration.

Wednesday, around noontime, the kids and I noticed the bees behaving 'funny.' There was a beard of bees on the front of the hive, a little mound of them on the ground, and a small cyclone of them above our western most hive. I called Christian and told him I believed a swarm was in the offing.

We had things to do so couldn't sit out there to watch them leave or not. But here's a little bit of what the suspected swarm looked like.

Christian checked the hive on Thursday during the day, and reports plenty of bees still there, some queen caps, but he didn't spot the queen he'd see and marked last time he cracked the hive open. Fast forward to Thursday night and someone about a half mile away posted on a Facebook neighborhood group that they had a swarm in their tree. 

In other 'flew the coop' news 'our' bird is gone. You know, the one who was dwelling in a nest atop our folded up ping pong table. I was in the habit of looking over at it every time I took the dogs out back and one morning I looked over and the whole nest was gone! 

I quickly found it on the ground, under the ping pong table. No sign of Budgie (that's what I'd started calling her, because she wouldn't budge). No sign of egg shells or feathers or anything.

I used a pancake spatula to pick the nest up and perch it back on the ping pong table just in case.

We'll never know what became of her. Did a nest robber swoop in in the middle of the night? Or did Budgie come in for a bad landing and send the precariously perched nest to its doom? I honestly don't think she ever had eggs in it. I don't think Budgie was the brightest little Junco. 

OF COURSE: Friday midday, Kennedy came down and took the kids to the SeaTac disc golf course. It has been months since he or CJ and Annabelle have played any disc golf at all, due to winter and then COVID closing all of the parks for a long stretch.

By all (three) reports, they had a great time. 

Here's an action shot of Annabelle tossing off the 'tee.'

And at one point, CJ was clearly 'in the weeds.'

And here's a map of the course. 

Red Rover Redux

PERSEVERANCE: Today I did my thing, working in my bedroom from 8-5 trying to help Washingtonians seeking unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, Christian was in the basement, doing his work at home so Seattlites can have water. 

The kids worked on Japanese and Annabelle had a writing class. Come 1 p.m., they were both tuned in to a broadcast from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory all about the next Mars rover, Perseverance. 

Here's what Annabelle had to say about that. ...

NASA’s Perseverance rover is best described as a “little sibling” to Curiosity. It follows the same basic shape and looks remarkably similar, but it’s had many small tweaks and additions to make it more efficient and give it some unique new features. For example, the shape of the treads has been made a more wavy design so that there will be less sharp edges for rocks and other small debris to get trapped in as it moves. An extra piece of technology that has been added to the rover is a small helicopter drone that will be the first test of powered flight on Mars.

During the NASA channel livestream this morning, multiple engineers from the team spoke a bit about how this project differs from the Curiosity rover and gave viewers some links to sites where you can find resources to learn more about the space program and NASA at home. One of the sites is jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach , which is for teachers and parents that want to teach their kids structured lessons. The other site, go.nasa.gov/learningspace has more self-contained projects that students can work on on their own, meaning they’re much easier for those that are unable to attend a physical classroom during these times. 

And here are CJ's takeaways from the hour ...

Earlier today, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) hosted a brief livestream about the upcoming Perseverance rover, which will accompany its older sibling Curiosity in exploring Mars' surface. The livestream mostly featured a NASA scientist (unfortunately, I could not find the archived livestream, and her name escapes me) providing a short description of the Perseverance rover's features and goals.

The two features of the Perseverance rover that were emphasized the most were its embedded flying "drone" (not sure if that's the right term), and its sample-collecting features. The "drone" embedded in the rover could potentially fly out, to get higher-altitude pictures of Mars' surface, and record details about Mars' higher atmosphere. The Perseverance rover will have the ability to collect several samples of material from the red planet, which, unfortunately, can't be analyzed right away. However, later down the line, NASA could send another mission to Mars, which could potentially attain and even bring the samples to Earth. This would allow NASA scientists to gain an unprecedented level of knowledge about Mars' composition.

Here is a replay of the broadcast they watched if you want to check it out:  

So Very Seattle

THE KID: We worked a fair bit around the campus this weekend, but we also made it out and about for a couple of field trips. Saturday we delivered some mask making supplies and visited with a friend at a safe social distance. 

On the way home, we were coming up on the Mariners' stadium and I suddenly ordered (or hopefully asked urgently) Christian to (please) stop the car. My oh my, we just miss baseball SO MUCH. I wanted to stop and say 'hi' to Griffey, at least. 

In normal times, there are throngs of people around the Ken Griffey Junior statue.

 In a pandemic, you get him all to yourself. It really is a wonderful sculpture.

When we first approached Junior, I was surprised that CJ started scaling the statute. Apparently in the car I said we needed to 'hug' Griffey. CJ is Mr. Literal, and so that's what he was determined to do.

Apparently that's discouraged. 

When CJ finally made it up onto the platform, a robotic and-not-friendly voice ordered something along the lines of "GET OFF THE STATUE." I told CJ to get down, of course. And he did, post haste (after one short photo snap). Naturally, during this 5 second stint, a Seattle Police Department cruiser just happens to be RIGHT at the intersection next to us. Terrific. Fortunately, nothing serious came of it. So, we said 'hi' to Griffey and none of us wound up in jail, so that's a good thing. 

Before stopping at the stadium, we drove through the Pioneer Square area. There, sitting vacant, is one of the most fun shopping spots in Seattle, multi-leveled Magic Mouse Toys. It made me melancholy driving by it, seeing it vacant. When I realized there was someone sleeping on the sidewalk in front of it (only after looking at my photos), it made it the scene that much sadder. 

And before we passed the toy store, we had rolled by a nearly empty Pike Place Market on a sunny Saturday evening. It was kind of eerie. 

Speaking of eerie, our tour also included a stop at the park in our former neighborhood. I title this photo "Pandemic Playground."

I didn't realize until afterward, upon seeing a sign on the ground, that the playground was actually 'closed.' (And yes, we carry vats of bleach wipes and spray sanitizer in our car and use them liberally.)

CHECKING OUT CHAZ: Sunday afternoon we made our way to Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. There's a little something going on there. Or, a big something, per certain news outlets. I have had people from across the country and around the globe writing, asking if we're OK, as their news stations are making it sound like the city is being over-run by armed Antifia provocateurs. 

Here's CJ's report from the scene:

For the past week, the so-called "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" (CHAZ) or "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" (CHOP) in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood has attracted international attention. On June 8, after the Seattle Police Department (SPD) abandoned the East Precinct, activists effectively took over six blocks of Capitol Hill, including Cal Anderson Park. The SPD abandoned the precinct after several days of intense protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis on May 25. Since its start on June 8, the CHOP has been host to a diverse display of protest and discontent with the serious institutional issues permeating police departments across the country. 

While I was at the CHOP, there was a very relaxed atmosphere. This was completely counter to the alleged chaos that right-wing talking heads like Tucker Carlson were shrieking about. A lot of mass media would have you believe that the CHOP is a lawless warzone, but that couldn't be further from the truth (at least for now). The CHOP is home to a huge amount of street art displays, many of them dedicated to the memories of defenseless black people killed by police. Unsurprisingly, the CHOP is also host to a large amount of graffiti, the most common graffiti drawings being BLM (an initialism for the phrase Black Lives Matter, the central phrase used by protesters at the event) and ACAB (an initialism for a vulgar anti-police phrase that I'm not comfortable repeating here).

George Floyd tribes were scattered throughout the autonomous zone.  

The boarded up police precinct has makeshift memorials to dozens of others. 

A fire department captain was being interviewed while we were walking by. The crowd was quiet and respectful during that interaction. 

The streets of the autonomous zone are colorful, with many messages. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER is painted down one block. This capital B marks the start of that phrase.

The zone has a number of care stations with sustenance for the taking, and dozens of people were streaming in with donations when we passed by.

There were therapy dogs at the free Emotional Support station. Annabelle went by to say hi to he dogs and walked out carrying a free yellow iris bulb. That was sweet. 

There were posters and placards everywhere. 

We spent about a hour just sitting in Cal Anderson Park. As you can see, it was socially distanced. Most everyone was wearing a mask, thankfully. If that had not been the case, we would have walked out before even walking in.

Voter registrars were walking around, there was a black man dressed as Darth Vader, complete with boom box blasting the Vader theme. There were people in steam punk regalia and parkour folks doing stunts. There were young families, and there were elderly people. One woman who looked to be well into her 70s was walking around passing out excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. 

CJ availed himself to some freebies. Apparently all that social justice observance makes a guy hungry and thirsty.

CHAZ/CHOP even has a community garden. I kind of loved this little cedar (I think) plunked down in the middle of an asphalt jungle.

Here's what Annabelle had to say about the experience. ...

Yesterday, my family and I visited the CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, formerly known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZ.) To be honest, when I saw how many people there were and how little parking their was, I was expecting something akin to chaos, but once we got past the initial crowd, everything was completely respectful and I felt incredibly safe. At the place we entered, there was a large drum circle with performers just outside the former SPD East Princinct, and a rather large crowd had gathered to stand and watch the performance. There were multiple memorials and murals dedicated to those that have died, and in front of these were tons of offerings and and tributes. 

The soccer field in the area had been turned into a sort of communal space, where anyone who wanted to could simply sit and chat with friends or visit an emotional support booth - there was also a live DJ by the goal that was leading quite a large dance floor of people. I have to say, while walking through and sitting in the CHOP, I've never seen so many cute dogs in one place! All in all, the CHOP seemed to me like a really nice community space for everyone to have their voice heard and pay respects to those who have fallen victim to unnecessary police violence.

A public protest probably isn't the best thing to participate in during a pandemic, but we found a (seemingly) safe way to check it out.