Safeway Produce Section

I love my local Safeway. It's relatively close, relatively cheap with a relatively good selection of stuff to choose from. But one thing that is certainly isn't "relatively", is cool. It's way more than that. Now I can't speak for all Safeways, and not even the Safeways in Seattle, but the Safeway in the University District definitely is much better than relatively cool. Especially when it comes to the produce section.

One fine September day, whiling away all the hours in the middle of the week and probably in the middle of the day (I can't believe how much time I had on my hands before school started--just 5 weeks ago!) I was being very picky about the types of plums I was going to have for my fruit bowl. There were many types to choose from...it was a big decision. After going with the cheaper option (student loans and all) I started my leisurely stroll downt the fresh vegetable wall, doing my own little version of food window shopping. Stopping at the arugula (this was in the heat of the spinach scare) and admiring the nice leafy greens, I was suddenly blinded by a flashing light. "Yep...this is it...this is how I'm going to go...go towards the light, Derek...go towards the light" is what ran through my head for a split second. Was it the worst migrane imagineable? rare under-age strokes? Why can I only see white in every direction? I stepped back and thankfully realized that my eyes had just been inches away from a strobe-light fixed directly above the fresh vegetable produce (you know, the greens, brocolli, cucumbers, etc.). That's just one of the advantages of being 6'5"--head/face/eye/nose/neck/etc injury due to low hanging objects...the little things in life people under 6'3" will never have to worry about. Anyway, the strobe flashed again, and repeated a few more times. Suddenly, literally from out of no direction, thunder was violently clapping, and by this time I really thought I was hallucinating. "Great...first my eyes, now my ears...they call this place SAFE-way?" The strobes continued to go, the thunder got louder and louder, and then the waterworks started, spraying me and the veges with the finest of mists. I had just experienced a tropical storm inside a grocery store on the corner of 47th NE & Brooklyn. I stood in awe, wiped my face and laughed.

The purpose of the strobe light? At first I couldn't decide if it was just a way to warn smarter shoppers to either stand back or get ready for some spring showers, but then there was the additional thunder claps which preceded the misting. So then I thought, "okay, the strobe is to signal the shoppers who suffer from some form of hearing loss, or who aren't paying that much attention to audible warnings, and the thunder is for those with low vision or who are completely blind". But then it really hit me...Safeway is just giving that produce the respect it deserves--its own producarian rights, by developing and maintaining an environment that is as close to being natural as can be while being located in the middle of a great and busy American city. It's taking into consideration the well being of the produce while each individual waits to be taken to a home or restaurant, where they will come face to face with their maker and close the chapter on this phase of their existence. Safeway...the progressive grocer.

So, I will continue to shop at Safeway, and purchase their well-tended produce, and try my best to do the same for them as I bring them safely home, minus the blinding strobe. Maybe I'll try making my own gushing water sounds as I wash my carrots, bang pots and pans as I spin my lettuce, and whisper sweet nothings into the ears of corn as I husk away. Regardless, Safeway gets the Derek star of approval for most fruit & vegetable friendly in Seattle. Safeway has set the gold standard, it's time for the others to catch up.

A litte orientation

Before I came to visit UW last February, I sort of had this idea that Seattle was just a big American city that was settled nicely along the Puget Sound. I had images of something like Chicago on Lake Michigan, or a coastal city like LA, Miami, Charleston which as far as I'm concerned are cities situated in a north-to-south direction with a body of water at just one side of them. The only difference, I thought, was instead of the Pacific or Atlantic, it would just look a lot more forested, nestled in the dense evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. What I didn't truly understand until this last winter when I came to visit, is that Seattle is actually a series of peninsulas, more than one isthmus (you like that description, that way I'm not forced to pluralize isthmus and look like a dork), a series of lakes, rivers and of course the Puget Sound that create a rather complex terrain and urbanisitic nightmare for traffic. But it is the complexity of the area that makes it so charming and unique.

I thought I'd share a dumbed down/touristy map that shows the lay of the neighborhoods in the city of Seattle and their relation to water. There are a lot of other neighboring cities like Bellevue (where Microsoft is), Redmond, Issaquah, etc etc, but this map is just of the actual city of Seattle. Click on the map to englarge.

If you see where the University District is, and then you read the word "Wallingford to the left of it, my apartment building is pretty much where the 'd' in Wallingford has been written.

It's really amazing living around so much water, having to deal with bridges, and windy paths to circumnavigate large bodies of water, especially having grown up in Salt Lake where everything is laid on the grid.

I love it here, truly. The first week or two after moving was really rough, and at times I regretted my decision to move away from home. It was a strange time, because I was getting to know and appreciate the beauty of my new home, but I resented it at the same time for being so gorgeous. I guess I wanted to hate it on some subconcious level so I could keep feeling blue and wallow in my "bummed out" feelings. Of course those were just the pains of relocating, and the growing pains of removing yourself from your friends and family. It's the third time in the last 8 years that I've done this, and truthfully, it gets easier each time. But try as I may, I never could honestly hate the city...this place is intoxicating.

Seattle is steadily taking hold of my heart one vista, one redwood, one rain storm, one coffee house, one overcast day, one lake, and one friendly face at a time.

Greek Mythology on Rollerskates

(This one's for Steph)

I often think of and silently thank my sister Stephanie for being one of the many people who have helped me appreciate the performing arts, like classical piano music, modern dance, ballet, symphony, experimental arts, musical theatre and film as well. One film and one experience to which I can thank her solely is what I like to call one of the finer things in life, Xanadu. Yes, you read it here my friends, Xanadu. I personally like to think of it more as an EXPERIENCE and not just another film. How did Xanadu come to be apart of my life? Thought you'd never ask.

As Stephanie has fondly helped me remember, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Xanadu was her first tape cassette that she owned. We would listen to it for hours and hours, letting the smoothly synthesized sounds of Electric Light Orchestra and Olivia Newton-John seep in and energize our souls. Of course we would never sit and passively listen, no, we would clear the furniture upstairs, keep the curtains open and share our ELO love by dancing our hearts out for all Princeton Avenue to see.

Stephanie had the good fortune of having been old enough to see Xanadu at a friend's house growing up, and I would ask her to tell me what the movie was about. Being older now I can look back and appreciate how young she was and how much she may or may not have understood what was going on in the movie, but at the time she was my older sister and the moral authority for all things Xanadu. I envied Stephanie. I loved loved the music so, and just dreamed of what images could possibly go with such enlightened orchestrations, choruses and vocals. I would often ask her to recall the movie as when we'd listen to the soundtrack. I'll never forget her summarizing the movie one day to me as I listened intently to her vivid descriptions...

It's Greek Mythology on rollerskates...the movie starts with beautiful girls who lived trapped inside a wall and they really want to dance. One by one they come dancing out of the wall wearing really gorgeous dresses. Then they help make a rollerskating rink.

Truly the perfect story. No other tale could have impressed me more at the tender age of four.

A few years later, I was finally able to experience first hand the cinematic mastery of Xanadu, climbing to the upper echelon of Derek's Flix Favorites, and has stayed there ever since. I found this clip on a friend's MySpace page last night, and I just had to share it all with you, so that you too can take part in one of the finer things in life.

Repenting

Weekend when Leslie was here: Late dinners, sleeping in, hiking, walking, napping, laughing, being goofy, kayaking, reflecting, commiserating, divulging, and lots of good eating

This past weekend: Reading, reading, reading, reading, typing, freaking out, reading, reading, late nights at the computer lab, reading, reading, collapsing from fatigue, and more reading.

This whole "paying for your education" thing is messed up. Shouldn't someone be paying ME to do this? Ugh.

Les-a-lee!

For all you language dorks out there, don't you just love the epenthetic 'a' in the title? Okay, back to your corpora....go on now go...shew shew!

My Boston dwelling sister, Leslie, graced me with her presence this weekend and inaugurated my apartment as being the first weekend guest. Now, in all fairness, Mom was really my first weekend guest, but I like to think of her as more than that...I mean, who would really make their guests help unload U-Haul trucks, carry up the box springs, and drive for two days just to WORK? No no, Mom is like co-settler. Jared, on the other hand, is co-founder, although he never actually got to see the place, but that's another story. I digress. Leslie got in on Friday night and left just last night(Tues). Apparently some schools in Boston actually celebrate Columbus Day. Here at UW, I think we looked at each other and said, "he sailed the Nina, Pinta and Sangria, right?". But whatever the reason, I had Leslie all to myself for four whole days. One cannot conjure in words the feelings of joy felt by seeing a family member/friend/loved-one after being surrounded by strangers for weeks. I had the same sort of experience when I was in Japan, and my friend from high school and college (and LIFE!), Danae Whipp, was finishing up her contract in Japan, and crashed at my pad before taking off from Fukuoka Airport on her way back to the States. Seeing her in the sea of bad-Japanese haircuts, screaming cicadas and sweating the day through was a feeling that the word "happy" hardly touches.

I think I've gone on long enough that I just need to start a new paragraph and get on with the weekend. I guess I'm trying to make up a bit for a lull in my writing (thanks to said-weekend guest ;). Les and I picked right up where we had left things in Newport this summer, and embarked on a really great four days. We managed to walk the hell out of the northern neighborhoods of Seattle (University District, Wallingford, Ravenna, Fremont), visited the Ballard Locks, made people blush in clothing stores by dancing to funky ambient music, both suffered from really bad gas after a great lunch buffet on the Ave, discovered Snoqualmie Falls and the some fun trails in the Cascades along McClellan Butte, silently and not-so-silently cussed out impolite hikers, slept-in, caught up on all the family stuff, had competitions who could make the ugliest face in public, had sushi on Lake Union, kayaked to Gas Works park and along Fremont, watched MAKING FIENDS and a lot of other fun stuff. And just as a side note, if you ever want to come and visit me and go kayaking, I will go for you...but only for ONE hour. That's my limit. That's it. After that, my 38 inch legs just can't handle the, as Leslie and I called it, "perfect and un-moving Roots & Wings position" any longer. I didn't hold back in letting Leslie know of my discomfort level, but by the time I was paddling back under University Bridge, she kindly asked me, "How you holding up?", to which I replied, "I'm fine now...the numbness is euphoric". No, I'm not a whimp, I was just biologically assigned a very very very very long pair of legs.

You probably don't care about my issues dealing with being long and lanky, so I'll cut to what people want...pictures. In an effort to further my photographically-challenged/undocumented-life cause, I managed to take all of two pictures on this trip. That's actually an improvement for me. Just ask my darling Jed. Ten days spent together in Boston and New York this March resulted in 5 or 6 pics (although they were really great, I must admit).



Leslie and I at the base of Snoqualmie Falls, doing the whole "Derek will take a picture with his freakishly long arms (that surprisingly go with his even longer legs) and make both of us look really distorted" thing.



Leslie's toilet of choice. We saw them EVERYWHERE and couldn't get over the name.

The best part of having a weekend guest...there's someone there who wants to get out and see things that you really want to see but have somehow managed to put off as foolish ideas. "Why would I want to go and commune with nature, when I have 300 pages of diagnostics reading to cover before next Friday?"

The hardest part of having a weekend guest (and being in school)...going and having fun and forgetting that you are indeed in school and really need to stay on top of your studies before they start getting on top of you.

We were blessed with delicious weather...truly. I don't know what I'll do when the real Seattle weather starts moving in. I've been so spoiled these past weeks with days of warmth and basking in the sun's rays. I fear I'll suffer from a panic attack with reality sets in...but in the mean time, I'm enjoying THIS reality!

So many besos to my sister Leslie for getting on a plane and flying to the LEFT coast (as she likes to call it). It was great having you here!

Clean Apartment

There are many wonderful benefits to having a weekend guest...and the one which I would like to highlight this evening is the benefit of feeling like you really have to make the apartment look nice. Maybe I should have guests more often (hint hint)!

Things that make me feel...

SAD....getting a Hep B booster, Tetanus Booster, Varicella Titer, and TB skin test all in the same arm.

HAPPY...getting an email from my professor letting all his grad students know that class has been cancelled tomorrow due to an unforeseen obligation to which he must attend.

The reason this makes me happy (albeit temporarily, because you always know that when teachers miss class, they feel even more inclined to dampen our gleeful spirits by clarifying to the class that we will be still tested on what was supposed to be covered, regardless if they get around to lecturing on it or not) is because I have to be at school Monday through Friday by 8:30 or 9:00 AM. Now, I know that some of my gentle readers will see this and respond in emails saying, "Oh poor D-Rock, who has to get up in the morning with the rest of the working world". But allow me to remind you that I am PAYING to do this, not being PAID. You all have paychecks to help you get over the misery of waking up and beating the sun to the face of the freezing earth. I just have interest accruing student loans, which strangely enough offer no real comfort.

And while I'm complaining about my schedule, may I make a suggestion by way of academic law proposal? What's so wrong with mandating that all Med SLP students who are found in the clinic or Eagleson Hall before the hour of 10 be severely punished for their contemptible infringement of a newly fashioned "A.M. Productivity Intolerance" deptartment policy? I would pledge to uphold such an initiative and certainly would not be found to be a perpetrator of such heinous activities against it.

So, tomorrow morning, I will not be waking up to my alarm clock. Don't get me wrong, I'll still be rudely awakened at 6:15 sharp when the guy on the other side of the block revs up his mufflerly-challenged motorcycle for one minute (which interestingly enough turns out to be the LONGEST minute of my day). It's just that after my heart stops pounding out of my chest and calms to a normal beat, I'll be able close my eyes knowing that I can fall back asleep and let my body take over and wake me up when it wants to. Which will undoubtedly be 7:30. ;)

Everything is beautiful at the Ballet...

Okay everyone, don't hold back, and sing it with me...
(gotta love Chorus Line)

After talking to my sister Leslie on the phone for quite a while yesterday, I reminded myself that not only did I make the move up to Seattle to go to a good program in my field, but also because I really wanted to experience what Seattle has to offer. So, after spending the majority of this last weekend in doors in front of the computer or a textbook, I awoke this morning feeling that I could justify going and doing something non-school related for the afternoon. I remembered that the Pacific Northwest Ballet was finishing their run of their season opener "Director's Choice", a program of three different ballets, all of which I had previously seen, but wanted to experience with a new company. So, I got a bit dressed up, took the bus down to the Seattle Center where the new Opera House is (of course I took a textbook with me on the bus and read), and enjoyed a WONDERFUL afternoon of living performing arts.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the ballet. I do. I just love it so much. I love the classical tutus and tiaras and sparkles that makes little girls want to grow up to be fairy princesses and the such. I love the danced barefoot avant-garde choreography that offends and makes old women in the theatre wax nostalgic and ask, "Why can't they just do the traditional stuff that we want to see?" I love Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Rosalinda, Anna Karenina, etc. as much as I love Ghost Dances, In-and-Out, Black Cake, Equinox, Polish Pieces, and today I especially loved In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, with its score that sounds more like a hundred cars involved in the worst auto-collision possible.







Above are two images I found online, and a great clip of two members of the pas de trois in the final sequence of the ballet. Can I just say that YouTube really kicks ass? Pardon my French, but you can seriously find ANYTHING on YouTube these days. The video clip has really bad audio, so you can't get the full effect of the music (it's really overwhelming when you see it live, it's common to see people plugging their ears, I can' even imagine what the dancers are experiencing with the music blasting).

There are some things in life that I just really never want to be without...and a ticket to the next ballet is one of those things.