King Oscar and the lighthouse

If you've lived around the Puget Sound for any length of time, you know about The Gray.

It has other names, of course. The Gloomy Season. The Big Dark. The Drizzle. Or, as they say in a particular movie, "It rains nine months of the year in Seattle." The constant overcast and light-to-heavy rainfall, combined with our location above the 45th Parallel, means that from November to March the Puget Sound skies are almost unrelentingly dark, foggy, or both. If you don't already have Seasonal Affective Disorder, you'll start to develop a touch of it in midwinter. You need to develop strategies to fight The Gray or it will overwhelm you and shut you down.

Now if this were a normal time, I'd fight The Gray by being with people. I'd visit family and friends. I'd go to Bremerton's nerd pubs and play pinball or cabinet video games. I'd strike up conversations with friendly strangers in the library. I'd gather with local geeks to play board games. I'd go to storytelling nights and hear about people's adventures from their own mouths. I'd meet people and I'd make friends.

But this is not a normal time.

I don't want to get sick. I don't want to make other people sick. I can't be successfully frugal AND spend much time with local friends, since it takes time and money to visit our old stomping grounds on the Eastside. And with a couple of rare exceptions, I haven't gotten out enough to meet any new people around here. I've been strongly isolated. And isolation is no way to fight The Gray.

What to do?

Well, if you're me, which I am, you knit and crochet while listening to back episodes of The Magnus Archives, putter around the house, cook, read library books, spend way too much time bingeing YouTube videos. And when you tire of that, you go troll hunting.

Today, since Captain Midnight was determined to DM some D&D deeds of derring-do, I was on my own for the afternoon. The Gray was lowering and unrelenting, but it was not a day to stay in. So I stole CM's jacket, gathered up the usual bundle of accoutrements (vitamins, water bottle, hot chocolatey goodness) and made for the ferry to Vashon Island.

You might not consider Vashon a prime spot to hunt for trolls, and ordinarily I'd agree with you. It's a fine place to find aging hippies, bike-eating trees, and (if rumor is correct) several ferocious local strains of cannabis, but until recently the only certain locale for Scandinavian cryptids was under the Aurora Avenue bridge in Seattle.

And then Thomas Dambo and crew came along and shook things up. But we'll get to that in a bit.

It usually takes a while to drive from our current digs to the Southworth ferry dock in Port Orchard. It usually takes even longer for the Southworth/Vashon/Fauntleroy ferry to show up -- so much so that on the rare occasions when I've used it to get back to Kitsap from Seattle, I end up waiting so long that I'd have made better time just driving around Tacoma and up the peninsula. CM and I usually refer to it as "the cursed ferry." So to my great delight, I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes for the cursed ferry to arrive at Southworth Dock. And it didn't take another 10 minutes to make the crossing from there to Vashon.

Despite the gloominess of the day, I enjoyed my first look at Vashon Island. I couldn't live there, as there's no hospital or even a basic medical clinic, and everything has to reach the island by boat or helicopter. But it has a remarkable number of creative people per capita, and it's beautiful.

I drove merrily through the cute little downtown area, took a turn to the left and continued to follow driving directions for... far longer than I'd expected. How long should it take to reach any spot on an island of 37 square miles? As the roadway narrowed and twisted, I pulled over and sent a quick text to my siblings: "This place is in the middle of nowhere. IF I SHOULD FALL, TELL MY STORY"

Just then, though, the end hove in sight: the upper parking lot of the Point Robinson Lighthouse. 'Bout time.

(BTW, if you're new to troll hunting, look around for clusters of painted birdhouses like these. They're a sure sign that trolls are nearby.)

Since I'd never been to Point Robinson before, I was also curious about the lighthouse. And at the time it seemed like a lot of people were paying homage to King Oscar. So I thought I'd just pop down and see the lighthouse first.

This turned out to be a mistake. Not the seeing-the-lighthouse part, the taking-this-route part. I headed down a forest trail that quickly became slick with mud and crud and slippery fallen leaves, and there were no handrails to cling to. Frankly, it's a minor miracle that I didn't slip and fall on my butt, BUT(t) somehow I SLOWLY worked my way down, walking like a little granny, and made it to the end of the path relatively unscathed (though it's a good thing my shoes were designed to be laundered).

And here's what I found!

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Ah yes indeed, very nice. 

No official tours until Mother's Day, more's the pity. But we're good at showing ourselves around the place.

After taking a few more attractive foties...

...I decided to head back. Though by this time I'd figured out there was another route up to the parking lot, so I didn't have to run the mud gauntlet again. Which is good, because I don't think my shoes could've taken it.

Lessee, what was I doing here again? Oh yeah.

In a circular clearing not too far away... there was King Oscar holding court, surrounded by birdhouse clusters on poles. And a lot of fans.

If you're curious to know more about him, there's a helpful plaque nearby that goes into more detail about Oscar and about Thomas Dambo, the Danish artist who created him (and other trolls) out of local scrap wood.

Like most wise rulers, Oscar's staying off his feet today.

He looks so much more handsome in person than he does on the sardine cans. Also I like his birdhouse crown. Very chic.

Someone had used a few local clams to give him a fabulous pedicure. As you do.

I handed my phone to an innocent bystander and proceeded to commune with the King.

Now we're officially BFFs. If you can't be a king, it's at least nice to know one.

I wasn't through exploring yet, though.

Not far from the King's court was this mysterious object.

Other than possibly being some kind of cryptic municipal art, I have no idea what it was.

If you know, do clue me in, won't you? I'm most curious.

And then I ran off and took goofy selfies in front of a mural because I could.

Anyway, that's one way to fight The Gray. And it worked pretty well if I do say so myself!

The grown-up playdate

"Playdates" didn't really exist when I was a kid. My sibs and I tended to be pretty free-range compared to kids from more recent generations; we'd come home from school and ask "Can I go over to Amy's house?" and if Mom or Dad knew Amy's family well enough, the answer would be "Sure. Dinner's at 6:00; be home by then." We were responsible for getting transportation to and from the friend's house (usually walking or biking) and for keeping track of time once we got there. And we tended to do things like playing with dolls or card games or puzzles or swinging on the swings at the park or in the back yard (remember, this was the 1970s; the only thing to watch was boring local TV).

Captain Midnight and I learned about playdates when we started taking care of Miss V full-time. The summer before she started school, she kept looking around the neighborhood and asking us "Where is everybody?" and we kept assuring her that she'd meet kids her age as soon as the school year started. But we also kind of wondered where everybody was; kids didn't just ride their bikes around the neighborhood any more. Most kids were either inside playing video games, or their parents had "programmed" their summer schedule -- camps, classes, sports teams, etc. And because kids had so little free time, their parents and guardians would have to schedule dates for their kids to play together. (Yes, I still find that weird.)

Frankly, though, the concept of a playdate -- even if we don't call it that -- makes a lot more sense for adults. There used to be a lot more downtime built into life, so it didn't take much effort for adults to find time to catch up with friends or do something simple and fun together. But just as our world has gotten busier, so have our individual lives. It's hard to find time to spend with friends unless we make concrete plans. (And for introverts, that's hard; we're just as likely to dread upcoming social activities as anticipate them.)

Anyway, all this is just a preface to say that my friend Wendy and I had a grown-up playdate today.

No, we didn't go swing on the swings (although why not, that's still fun!), but we did go to the park.

Specifically, Volunteer Park.

The final Friday of every month is a free admission day at Seattle Asian Art Museum. I hadn't visited in a long time, and it was the first time for Wendy, so we parked near the Black Sun sculpture and headed in.

Hey, it's one of the entrance camels! Hi there, entrance camel!

There's a lot to see in the SAAM, but you're not going to see much of it here. Mostly because I forgot to take many photos. We were too busy happily chatting about things like religion, the varying conceptions of deity in other cultures, how various cultures portray people and animals, and all sorts of other things. We both like to chat, and whenever we get together we do a lot of it.

If you have a chance, though, you should visit the SAAM. The collection is beautiful and often unexpected, and the building itself is an Art Deco masterpiece.

It seems every culture has to contend with damaged sculptures. I'm not sure what happened to the hands of this Buddha.

It's hard for me to say what I like the most in any art museum. But certain artworks are more compelling to me than others. This sculpture in the fountain court spoke to me particularly strongly.

I mean, it didn't LITERALLY speak to me; that would have been terrifying. But this meditative figure, portrayed as covered in beads of water, probably cold, but nonetheless serene... I don't know. Most days I wish I had this kind of unbreakable calm.

Anyway, one of the temporary installations while we were there featured several kimono.

This one was gorgeous. And I'm not even especially fond of pink.

Dragons! Woven right into the fabric! Yes please!

We didn't see everything before our time was up, but it just means there's an opportunity to come back again later.

Thanks for coming to the SAAM with me, Wendy!

Too Good to Go: Seattle

For the last several weeks I've been using the Too Good to Go app to reduce food waste around the greater Seattle area. Too Good to Go has been a popular app in Europe for some time and is making inroads in metropolitan areas of the United States, and I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about.

How it works: Too Good to Go partners with various restaurants and other businesses that have surplus food at the end of the day, and allows them to offer their extra food to customers at a discount through the app. So: you download and install the app, tell it where you want it to search for available food, look over the options, pick an offer you want to reserve, pay in advance (there are several options for payment), then come to the restaurant, bakery or grocery at the agreed-upon time to pick up the food. Take home, eat, enjoy, repeat as desired. Since you're saving food that might otherwise be thrown away, you get the chance to pick up a meal (or foodstuffs) at a deep discount. And since you don't usually know exactly what you'll get in advance, it feels a little bit like adult trick-or-treating.

After a few weeks, I've formulated some general observations about Too Good to Go Seattle:

You will mostly deal with small, local businesses: single-storefront restaurants, specialty grocery stores, local burger chains, etc. The big multinational chains have their own corporate protocols for getting rid of food they didn't sell, so you won't see Massive Supermarket Chain or International Burger Joint on the app.

It's probably best for singles or small families. Scoring meals from the same location for more than about 4 people at once is going to be a challenge. And as the app gets more popular and more people use it to find meals, the likelihood of picking up more than one meal from the same location will go way down.

It's easiest for people with flexible schedules and a car. Different businesses specify varying times for pickup; some have wide time windows (say 11 to 5) and some have extremely narrow ones (7:30 to 7:45), so if you're booked solid during the week, you might only be able to schedule pickups on your day off. And a car makes pickup much easier. (It's theoretically possible, but I don't want to think about the logistical headache of trying to pick up more than one surprise bag using Seattle's public transit system.) If you reserve surprise bags from several companies in one day, try to keep the locations close together and batch your pickups around the business with the shortest time window to save time and gas money. And if you're going to drive more than a few miles, PLEASE check the establishment's rating on the app first. Look for four stars or better; you shouldn't fight rush-hour traffic or drive long distances for mediocre food. (Learn from my fail.)

It's also a better fit for night owls than for early birds. Most businesses don't offer early-morning meal pickup; they tend to schedule pickups from 11 am to near closing time, so be comfortable with eating a late lunch and dinner.

It's easier for people who are OK with imperfect food. Items you get in your surprise bags may be seconds, near expiration, menu items that aren't as popular, or large amounts of the same thing. If that bothers you, Too Good to Go may not be a good fit.

And it's easier if you have few dietary restrictions. Some businesses advertise what they offer (vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, kosher, halal, etc.), but most don't. You agree to take whatever they bag up, including stuff you may not like or eat. (This household doesn't do coffee, and on a recent day when we picked up multiple surprise bags, we got mocha cookies, sweetened condensed milk with coffee, cold brew coffee and a slice of tiramisu. All from different businesses. Hey, this is Seattle. We just found friends who like coffee and passed the caffeinated goodness on to them.) You could also get foodstuffs to which you're allergic, so if you have a severe food allergy, be proactive and contact the business with your concerns before pickup time.

Forrest Gump might say that Too Good to Go is like a box o' chok'lits. (Sometimes literally. Yay Theo Chocolate surprise bags!) You never know what you're gonna get, and being comfortable with that uncertainty is a big part of enjoying this app. That food is so cheap because it's either a form of viral advertising for the business, an item that's perilously close to or past its Best By date, or leftovers that were prepped but not purchased. Sometimes you'll get a great value (like the aforementioned bags at Theo Chocolate) and sometimes you won't (three slices of lukewarm pizza from The Unnamed Pizza Joint, supposedly an $18 value--ha). In all cases, you'll reduce food waste and save money, but not every offering is equally stellar.

Got questions? Let me know in the comments.

Pandemic: just checking in

ONJOUR, mes amis! I've been hesitating to check in and say things like "we're all well here," because I realize how quickly our circumstances could take a turn for the worse (whenever I leave the house to get groceries or prescriptions, or Miss V leaves the house for dog-walking or errand-running, or CM leaves the house to get work-related hardware, we're potentially putting ourselves and the entire household at risk to catch a case of COVID-19. Charlie-cat, who never leaves the house -- though not really for lack of trying -- is our social distancing champion). For the nonce, we're all healthy and hoping to stay that way as long as we can, or until there's a viable antiviral or other treatment available.

Easter was a pleasant, if subdued, affair. I planned in advance (novel change of pace, ne?) and ordered a big box of See's candy by mail weeks ago, so we had plenty of chocolaty goodness for our Easter baskets. We had a short church service at home, then CM made a delicious pork tenderloin with cherry peppers and potatoes (recommended) and we watched a slew of movies: Father Goose, Meet the Robinsons, The Good Dinosaur and Coco (the English version and part of the Spanish version, just for comparison's sake). I'd never seen The Good Dinosaur before, and while it's far from Pixar's finest story work, it has its moments. It's best described as a dino-Western; it even has Sam Elliott doing voice work. It also has a scene where our dino hero and his pet feral child get stoned on rotten fruit, which I'd characterize as mild nightmare fuel, so if you intend to see it, be warned.

V has been making fabric face masks for family and friends, so she was busy cutting and sewing most of the afternoon. CM, as mentioned, has been cooking and making Minecraft videos for fun and (minor) profit. I've just been trying to keep on top of the dishes and laundry and making notes on whatever's running low around the house, so that when I do go out I can make my errands as effective as possible. I also do handwork -- basic knitting and crocheting, stuff that requires little to no brain power so I can do something productive while watching movies.

Speaking of movies, we also saw Onward the first day it was available on Disney+. It's very much worth watching and rewatching. We would have caught it in local theaters if they hadn't all closed down for social distancing purposes the weekend after it released. I got a kick out of the comment (I think it was on Twitter) that it could have been named The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants.

Oh, yeah, also: want a random postcard? I'll send one to anybody who sends me a mailing address. I'm not a huge fan of the USPS, but it's in danger of going under thanks to a combination of pandemic conditions and no bailout from the U.S. government, and it needs all the help it can get, so I'mma send POSTCARDS GALORE. Sling an email here if you want one.

Take care this week, find creative things to do inside, stay healthy, read, try a new recipe, etc. If you're on Facebook, I recommend following the hashtag #coronavenger for some commonsense advice on how to get through pandemic conditions. And if you have advice about how to handle various kinds of stress and strain associated with social distancing, please share. I'd be delighted to get your thoughts.

For now, though, I'm going to bed. Later skaters!

Pandemic: Life on Pause

month has gone by fairly rapidly, with many changes, and I haven't taken the time to write about many of them. And it occurs to me that I should be writing these things down, because though I've felt relatively calm and self-possessed about the changes that have occurred within the last 30 days, I also realize that I'm living through an experience that doesn't happen every decade, nor even every generation, but perhaps only once every few centuries. I take strength and comfort from the thought that the people who lived through the last major worldwide pandemic -- the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919 -- had their lives upended in ways much more severe than ours, and that eventually society shook it off, righted itself and got back to normal (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof). So although things are chaotic at the moment, I try to think of this experience not as the end of life as we know it, but merely of life with the Pause button on for a while.

So at the end of February I was finishing up the most recent travel experience with Miss V, visiting a couple of potential graduate schools in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We'd heard about the nasty viral outbreak in China and how someone in the U.S. -- actually, someone in our state -- had come back with a case of it, but we didn't yet know it was in the full community transmission phase. But when the news about Life Care Center of Kirkland broke, I knew things were about to get nasty.

The rash of cancellations and closures started in early March. An interfaith network meeting I usually attend, a St. Patrick's Day celebration at Seattle Center, a live podcast recording V was planning to see, Emerald City Comic-Con all got nixed. Church was canceled at first for just one week, then until further notice; we've started holding church services at home. School districts shut down one by one, switching to distance learning, and college students were told to leave their on-campus apartments and go home; some had as little as 48 hours' notice to vacate the premises. Missionaries were sent home, given temporary new assignments, or confined to their apartments. First the Seattle temple was closed, then every temple around the world was closed. There were public recommendations: practice social distancing of at least 6 feet from others in public, limit public gatherings to 50 people, then to 10 people. And always, always, "wash your hands for at least 20 seconds and don't touch your face." Commencements were canceled. Weddings were canceled. Funerals were canceled. Restaurants, especially Asian restaurants, became ghost towns even before the governor restricted all restaurants to delivery and carry-out services only. Non-essential businesses at first tried to stay open by limiting the number of customers who could be in the store at once. Eventually they had to close completely.

Panic-buying and stockpiling set in early. Certain items became difficult (and, in the case of face masks and hand sanitizer, virtually impossible) to find at groceries and pharmacies. I've been exceptionally fortunate throughout most of this, because although we've never hoarded or stockpiled anything, I've managed to keep the family in enough toilet paper for our needs.

At first I continued picking up groceries via Epic Late-Night Grocery Run, since nearly nobody was in the store late at night and it felt safer to pick things up when I didn't have to risk getting (or giving) a case of the 'Rona. Alas, I cannot do an Epic Late-Night Grocery Run now, because no grocery store in this area is open later than 11 p.m. and the governor has advised Washington residents to shelter in place, only running errands for groceries or prescriptions. To make sure my errands out are as productive as possible, I've been keeping track of household items we need on a Post-It-style phone app. Once the list gets full or something critical runs out, I venture forth for a massive coordinated errand run where I try to get everything done in one pass.

Captain Midnight has been working from home since the beginning of the month. He set up a workstation at the far end of the kitchen table, and the area is slowly being taken over by the equipment he's testing. CM is getting used to Charlie-cat hopping up on the kitchen table and sitting on his laptop keyboard for attention, disrupting online team meetings. Charlie should be a minor celebrity at CM's work by the time all this is over.

Miss V had an internship in Seattle this month, which abruptly came to an end. She's been working on some sewing projects and picking up a few paid gigs here and there. I know this isn't the way she imagined Spring 2020 would go, and she's had some anxiety and a number of disappointments over canceled events, but overall she's done her best to maintain a positive attitude.

Me, I spend too much time online. (Yes, even more than I already did.) I knit from my overflowing stash of yarn, read a library book that's now on extended checkout through the end of April because the county library system is closed down, and work on putting together a Discord channel where people can gather to tell each other stories during the pandemic. There are days when I go geocaching to feel a bit more normal, focusing on caches close to home. And there are days when I only go outside to pick up the mail. Most days I sleep until noon because I've been staying up until 3 or 4 a.m. just to recharge. There's a lot of love in my family, but we're also all introverts and we need our space, even from each other. There are days when I'm fine with doing the typical household chores (laundry, dishes, pickup, garbage, etc.) and days when I just don't wanna do squat. On Thursday Miss V, who usually avoids cooking, stepped up to the plate and made Indian food for dinner. I don't know what I appreciated more: the taste of the food or the satisfaction of not having to cook for an evening.

When I do go out, the streets are abnormally still, like what one might expect on a Sunday morning at 5 a.m. Even during rush hour, traffic is nearly nonexistent, and it feels like drivers are routinely speeding to keep from staying out any longer than they have to. It's allergy season as well (because of course it is), and high pollen counts make me clear my throat frequently as I try hard not to cough in public. I sanitize frequently during errands and wash my hands thoroughly as soon as I return, but in the end I'll probably be the one who brings back a case of COVID-19. I mean, I hope that won't happen, but I see the exponential growth of this thing and the continued lack of widespread testing and realize that, especially in the next few weeks, the virus will be essentially everywhere I go. The best I can hope for is that we'll get mild cases that clear up without need for medical intervention, and that we'll stay sufficiently isolated so no one else will get it from us.

I have... thoughts about this administration and how it's handled the pandemic. I'm sure you do too. I also have some fairly strong feelings about people who break quarantine to play on the beach in large numbers, but I can't express those feelings without resorting to profanity, so... moving on.

For the time being, Captain Midnight has a job. I realize how fortunate he's been to keep his employment when so many others are out of work, and I'm grateful for it. Other things I'm grateful for: the ability to cook from scratch (thanks Mom), the ability to self-entertain most of the time, the smartphone I swore I'd never get which has helped me stay organized through this (thanks Julie), my bullet journal (thanks Ryder Carroll), getting officially diagnosed with ADHD before all this went down, home delivery of nearly everything, chocolate as a self-medication for stress, getting my (actual) medications filled early (thanks Bartell Drugs), my family and Charlie-cat, and -- overwhelmingly -- the healthcare workers, pharmacists, grocery clerks, delivery drivers, restaurant cooks, and all the other folks who keep the most necessary parts of our society functioning. I know it's not safe to do it right now, but once the pandemic is over and life switches from Pause to Play again, I'm giving all y'all hugs. And it will be both super awkward and awesome at the same time.

Pandemic: signs of the times

Miss V and I had to run a few errands today before we (mostly) retreat to the house for the next several weeks. As the coronavirus pandemic has pretty much turned the entire Puget Sound into a ghost town, I thought I'd take a few photos.

Traffic today, even during rush hour, was like Sunday morning around 10 a.m.

A literal sign of the times. Variations of this notice are posted on businesses and grocery stores all over town. You still can't buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer anywhere, not even at Poor Man's Costco (I tried, and they were sold out of anything and everything labeled "sanitizer." But they did have huge honkin' bags of onions, cheap bulk popcorn and a box of SKOR bars, so my visit there was not in vain!).

While V bought sewing notions to finish a project for a friend, I went off to QFC to recycle a load of plastic bags.

Let's just say the mall looked... different. Ordinarily this place is full of chairs as well as tables, and is teeming with life and movement: young families feeding their kids, teenagers flirting, retirees swaying to big band music, bookworms sipping their vanilla soy lattes, old guys playing chess, cute li'l grandmas and laundry faeries knitting in public, alla that. It was eerily still and silent today. There were probably all of ten people in the place, and that's counting the folks who were running the few restaurants still operating for take-out customers. A woman passing me enthused, "We have the mall all to ourselves!" Well, yes. But even for introverts, there's not much of a draw.

The signs on the tables have some legal verbiage indicating that the food court has been closed to dine-in service by order of the governor.

All this scene needs to complete the ennui is a single lonely tumbleweed to blow through the frame.

On my way back, I noticed that Uncle's Games was open and bravely soldiering on, even without customers or gaming groups, so I went in and bought a card game from the cashier. I know we'll want some family diversion in the next month. People are comparing the effect of COVID-19 on the Seattle area to a zombie apocalypse, but I noted to the cashier that so far it seems more like a vampire apocalypse... people hunker down in their homes, a few people furtively sneak out during the day, staying well away from everyone else, and by dusk everyone vanishes. AND THEN THE DARK MYSTERIOUS ONES RULE THE NIGHT.

*pfft* yeah right. That's when I do my shopping. I'm about as dark and mysterious as a doorstop.

At least one of us is perfectly happy to have all the hoomans stay home and lavish affection and treats upon him. So that's good.

In the next few days I think I'll do another outing, this time to choose a public place -- city park or vacant lot, I'm not sure yet -- and clean up the trash. I'll do a little geocaching in places where I can maintain a safe distance from others. I'll read a lot, finish projects, write, do a lot of cleaning. In fact this coronavirus thing might finally do what Marie Kondo couldn't: help me get my house organized.

What are you doing to wait out the coronavirus pandemic?

Adventures at the Seattle Aquarium

Recently Miss V's been under a bit of stress. As previously mentioned, there are many projects she wants to complete before she heads off to her summer job. For the last several days she hasn't left the house, because she's been buckling down on a specific time-sensitive project, and it's been taking its toll on her physically and mentally. Yesterday she decided she needed a chance to stop, breathe and maybe decompress a little.

So we went here. (King County Library System patrons: you can go too, for FREE! Get wise to the joy of museum passes and start visiting sundry Seattle-Tacoma area museums -- including the Seattle Aquarium -- without breaking the bank. You can thank me later.)

The first thing you see (after the big Wall of Fish in the lobby) is the tidepool area.

Beautiful green anemones (or as Nemo put it, "an anemonemone") wave serenely in the artificial surf.

This area is the touchable tidepool, where visitors are allowed to reach out and touch someone. The invertebrates, specifically, like anemones, sea cucumbers, urchins and sea stars. (Don't poke the fish. They don't like it.)

(For that matter, don't poke the humans. Some of them may like it, but you should always ask first. That's just polite.)

Having poked our fill of tidepool creatures, we wandered through the big donut fulla jellyfish (does this make it a jelly donut? hmm.) and into the next area, which turned out to contain...

...a Pacific giant octopus. (He was hard to photograph.) These guys are at least as smart as -- possibly smarter than -- dogs, and there are stories of them temporarily escaping their tanks in order to eat crabs and other delicacies from other tanks nearby.

We proceeded to the big tank full of reef fish: blue tangs, wrasses, unicornfish (really, that's what they're called) and one big pufferfish cruising along looking genial. V spent a lot of time in front of this tank, enjoying all the various creatures.

As you may have noticed already, I don't take the best pictures of creatures in tanks -- I tend not to keep track of shadows and reflections, and my camera doesn't capture the quick movements of fish very well -- but I got a few acceptable shots here and there.

While V remained mesmerized by the big tank, I took a few photos of corals and the fish that love them.

This one resembled nothing so much as a big pink head of cauliflower.

(insert additional obligatory Finding Nemo reference here)

Dwarf cuttlefish image courtesy Seattle Aquarium press photo library

We spent a lot of time watching the dwarf cuttlefish tank, for two reasons: 1) it's entertaining to watch them change color, which they do very quickly, and 2) we happened to be there around feeding time, and watching them zap out long feeding tentacles to catch little shrimp in the water (very similar to watching a frog catch flies with its tongue) was worth the visit all by itself.

Although we spent a lot of time watching the cuttles, I completely forgot to photograph one, so HOORAY FOR STOCK PHOTOS! Thanks to the Seattle Aquarium for making so many images available to the public.

This lovely creature is a longnose butterflyfish, or as it's called in Hawaiian, a lauwiliwilinukunukuoi’oi. Don't ask me to say it three times fast.

More jellies! I do like to watch them merrily glooping their way through the water. Always think of the Lewis Carroll word "galumphing" when I see them doing their thing.

Fish fry on the ceiling! No, not fried fish, that's down the street at Ivar's. These are little fishies hatched here at the aquarium, who will some day grow up to be big salmon.

My favorite room in the Seattle Aquarium: the dome, where the people are on display under glass and the fish get to come stare at them. It only seems fair.

Well, let's move on to the mammals.

It was a nice warm spring day, so all three of the harbor seals were out of the water and basking in the sun. Some of them twitched and rolled a bit in their sleep, as though they were dreaming.

We happened to come around feeding time, so we watched the sea lions being fed buckets of various small silver fish, which they caught expertly.

Finally, it's really difficult to get pictures of these guys since they move so fast and they're always on the go, but here's the best photo I took of the river otters playing underwater. They were super cute.

We went to a few other places along the waterfront and finished up our outing at Pike Place Market near closing time.

No, we didn't go on the Great Wheel today. V is no longer a huge fan of Ferris wheels. Ever since she and Jenny had that Sun Wheel incident at Disneyland...

Thanks, Seattle, it's been fun. We'll be back soon to goof off some more.

And thanks to you for reading all the way to the end of this photo essay. Here, have a fish!