Street Fair Sunday
May. 21st, 2006 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperJust before the alarm clock went off this morning, I was dreaming something that seemed to be a combination of the Aubrey-Maturin series and Shakespeare in Love, at least in the sense that someone who seemed very Gwyneth-Paltrow-like had been caught pretending to be a crewmember of Aubrey's ship. And Aubrey had to lead the effort to get her rescued and returned to her rightful place among the crew. It seemed like a pretty damned neat dream at the time, even if the Gwyneth Paltrow-esque figure did not appear to be "me". ;) I mention this at any rate not only because of the amusement value of having an Aubrey dream, but also because it affected a book choice later in the day! And it was a nice way to start off Street Fair Sunday, too.
It's odd getting up really early on a Sunday morning--around a quarter after 7. It felt in fact like Monday morning and getting up and going to work, except that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird and I were getting up that early so we could hop on our bikes and head down to the U-district for the Street Fair. We finally got going around a quarter to nine or so, and had a pretty nice ride all the way down. I was extremely satisfied to make it to the top of the one small hill that lies on the route down to the Lake Forest Park shops, a pleasant harbinger of other similar biking achievements across the day. Dara eventually got ahead of me, but that was okay; she was expected to report in at the volunteer table for I-937 at the Fair by 9:50. So she zoomed on ahead to deal with that. Rather more slowly, especially after having to take a bit of a walking break at one point, I made it to MurkSouth with the intention of seeing if I could leave my bike there. No such luck, as I realized I no longer carried a key to the garage. Doh. So on around to the Street Fair I went.
I left my bike locked up at the very northern end of the fair, attached to one of those handy hitching posts the Ave has up and down its length for that very purpose. And one of the first tables I saw amused me--it had a bunch of cheap mandolins and violins for sale, to the tune of $50 for the mandolins and $100 for the violins. I was initially charmed by the blue and red mandolins, but when I tried to play the blue mandolin, it was (unsurprisingly) horribly out of tune.
So "meh", I said, and set off to make sure I could find Dara. This proved easy enough, as she was already in place at the corner of 47th collecting signatures. I tapped her to let her know I had caught up with her, and then settled down in the Starbucks just a short distance away to see if I could get some writing done until she was free to walk the Fair at 1. Writing did indeed occur, which was satisfying, and once I even had a nice conversation with an older gent who had sat down with his wife at the table next to me. He asked me about how sending text messages worked, and I explained that while I was actually writing on a handheld computer, text messages on a phone were frequently very smart and the software that drives them can guess very well about what words you're trying to make. He sounded very impressed by this. ^_^
While I was waiting for Dara, I also popped briefly into the Cingular store just across the way and made "so, if I want to put myself on my spouse's plan, what are my options?" noises at the sales guy in there. He said I'd need to bring Dara in, so I told him we'd be back.
Once 1pm rolled around I spent about fifteen minutes waiting outside the Starbucks for Dara to show up, and when she finally did, we went down to drop off her petitions at the volunteer table. On the way down there she called our friend Danny and arranged for him to meet us back at the food booths on 47th, and we all met up there at last and acquired tasty fair food. I warned Danny that I had already planned to get a phone at that point, so he came over to the Cingular store to hang out while I picked out a phone, got Dara to sign the stuff she needed to sign, and signed the stuff I needed to sign. It was a fairly painless process, even with the sales guy taking way longer than he should have since his entering data into the system got screwed up somehow, so he had to make a phone call to make all the information be go.
Finally, though, I walked out with a phone. Rah. More on this in a separate post.
And then we started our official Fair Walk. We went first back up to the aforementioned instruments table, where Dara played for a bit with one of the violins. We were less than impressed. Dara actually managed to tune one, and it had a decent enough tone for a hundred-dollar violin, but it didn't hold a tune for very long--and the unfinished wood on the back of the neck made for an extra special touch of class. So did the quoted "normal price" of over six hundred dollars on the sign by the violins, too. Dara was almost tempted to get one just to play with to see if she would like it well enough to then purchase a real violin, but finally opted against it--partly because we don't really have a hundred completely spare dollars, and partly because she realized that if she just wanted to play with a violin, she could rent one more cheaply.
Further down the fair we stopped at the Hatterdashery booth. The same guy who mans that booth every year was in there and looked pleased to see me; I told him I still get stopped periodically on the street or in stores by people who say "cool hat!" ^_^ And we told him that Dara had started wearing my hats, and that we needed to get her a hat of her very own. Dara finally found one she liked of a different style than any of mine, in a khaki green that matched the pants she was wearing, though she had to order a larger one than the ones that were in the booth. It'll be mailed to us when it's ready. Woot. New hat!
We got honey, and Dara got strawberry shortcake, and round about 45th or so Danny's batteries were running down so he opted to amble back home. We said bye and promised to keep him posted on upcoming gaming events at the Murk. By then it was also going on 3:30, and the weather was starting to look chancy, so we decided to backtrack and get my bike before we continued heading down the rest of the Fair.
We stopped briefly at the U Bookstore, where Dara wound up getting a lab coat and I picked up the seventh book in the Aubrey-Maturin series, The Surgeon's Mate, finally! (See previous commentary re: dream; it just seemed like the Right Book To Buy at the time.) After that, we also got our obligatory yearly round of soap from the Stormy Mountain Soap folks. I looked for a bit at some nice-looking necklaces, only to realize that short necklaces really are kind of out for me these days, because they draw the eye right to the thyroid surgery scar on my neck. Meh.
And we got Dara's bike, and would have gotten tasty Shiskaberries (chocolate covered strawberries, for those of you who don't attend Seattle area summer fairs, except the line stretched approximately up to Vancouver. And it was getting late anyway, and the weather was looking chancier, and we realized we needed to be getting on our way.
We waffled for a bit as to whether to actually ride home on the bikes, or catch a bus on 15th and head back home that way. Despite the likelihood of getting rained on, we finally chose to hit the trail with the bikes... and realized once we got around to U Village (for a needed detour to Bartell Drugs) that, like unto the bad guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we chose Poorly. We waited for several minutes underneath the overhanging roof at Bartell's while a lively shower dampened everything in sight. It did eventually let up, though, and Dara surmised that we'd actually seen the last of it since the showers were moving north and there was considerably lighter sky to the south.
Which proved correct. We didn't get rained on to speak of at any other point on the trail, and I had another small hill victory as we went up the hill out of U Village back to the trail. Go me. ^_^
The trail itself was unsurprisingly sparsely populated, with only the occasional othercrazy person biker or pedestrian along the way. But we did see two cats very close to one another at one point, and one very misplaced but apparently nonchalant duck, waddling along the trail as if quite pleased to be getting its daily constitutional along with the bipedal mammals.
Only when we finally got back to Lake Forest Park and the shops did we see a bit more rain--but at that point, we ran intokathrynt and emmacrew coming out of the Third Place Commons, where they had stopped to purchase tasty cake! We had a pleasant chat with the both of them, and after that I finally told Dara she should just go on ahead since I was going to have to walk my bike back anyway, pretty certain I wouldn't be able to make it uphill to the house.
Once I crossed the street coming out of the shops I thought I might give it a bit of a try, but my bike had other plans. It popped its chain right off the gears, giving me no option but to either get my fingers all grimy getting the chain back in place or to just walk the bike all the way home.
I opted for the latter. And didn't bother with the chain, since I was already all gungy from the ride anyway! But it was a good ride, and left Dara and me pleasantly tired.
And it was a good outing to the Street Fair!
Sunday miles: 24.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1043
Miles out of Rivendell: 585
Miles out of Lothlórien: 123
Miles to Rauros Falls: 266
It's odd getting up really early on a Sunday morning--around a quarter after 7. It felt in fact like Monday morning and getting up and going to work, except that
solarbird and I were getting up that early so we could hop on our bikes and head down to the U-district for the Street Fair. We finally got going around a quarter to nine or so, and had a pretty nice ride all the way down. I was extremely satisfied to make it to the top of the one small hill that lies on the route down to the Lake Forest Park shops, a pleasant harbinger of other similar biking achievements across the day. Dara eventually got ahead of me, but that was okay; she was expected to report in at the volunteer table for I-937 at the Fair by 9:50. So she zoomed on ahead to deal with that. Rather more slowly, especially after having to take a bit of a walking break at one point, I made it to MurkSouth with the intention of seeing if I could leave my bike there. No such luck, as I realized I no longer carried a key to the garage. Doh. So on around to the Street Fair I went.I left my bike locked up at the very northern end of the fair, attached to one of those handy hitching posts the Ave has up and down its length for that very purpose. And one of the first tables I saw amused me--it had a bunch of cheap mandolins and violins for sale, to the tune of $50 for the mandolins and $100 for the violins. I was initially charmed by the blue and red mandolins, but when I tried to play the blue mandolin, it was (unsurprisingly) horribly out of tune.
So "meh", I said, and set off to make sure I could find Dara. This proved easy enough, as she was already in place at the corner of 47th collecting signatures. I tapped her to let her know I had caught up with her, and then settled down in the Starbucks just a short distance away to see if I could get some writing done until she was free to walk the Fair at 1. Writing did indeed occur, which was satisfying, and once I even had a nice conversation with an older gent who had sat down with his wife at the table next to me. He asked me about how sending text messages worked, and I explained that while I was actually writing on a handheld computer, text messages on a phone were frequently very smart and the software that drives them can guess very well about what words you're trying to make. He sounded very impressed by this. ^_^
While I was waiting for Dara, I also popped briefly into the Cingular store just across the way and made "so, if I want to put myself on my spouse's plan, what are my options?" noises at the sales guy in there. He said I'd need to bring Dara in, so I told him we'd be back.
Once 1pm rolled around I spent about fifteen minutes waiting outside the Starbucks for Dara to show up, and when she finally did, we went down to drop off her petitions at the volunteer table. On the way down there she called our friend Danny and arranged for him to meet us back at the food booths on 47th, and we all met up there at last and acquired tasty fair food. I warned Danny that I had already planned to get a phone at that point, so he came over to the Cingular store to hang out while I picked out a phone, got Dara to sign the stuff she needed to sign, and signed the stuff I needed to sign. It was a fairly painless process, even with the sales guy taking way longer than he should have since his entering data into the system got screwed up somehow, so he had to make a phone call to make all the information be go.
Finally, though, I walked out with a phone. Rah. More on this in a separate post.
And then we started our official Fair Walk. We went first back up to the aforementioned instruments table, where Dara played for a bit with one of the violins. We were less than impressed. Dara actually managed to tune one, and it had a decent enough tone for a hundred-dollar violin, but it didn't hold a tune for very long--and the unfinished wood on the back of the neck made for an extra special touch of class. So did the quoted "normal price" of over six hundred dollars on the sign by the violins, too. Dara was almost tempted to get one just to play with to see if she would like it well enough to then purchase a real violin, but finally opted against it--partly because we don't really have a hundred completely spare dollars, and partly because she realized that if she just wanted to play with a violin, she could rent one more cheaply.
Further down the fair we stopped at the Hatterdashery booth. The same guy who mans that booth every year was in there and looked pleased to see me; I told him I still get stopped periodically on the street or in stores by people who say "cool hat!" ^_^ And we told him that Dara had started wearing my hats, and that we needed to get her a hat of her very own. Dara finally found one she liked of a different style than any of mine, in a khaki green that matched the pants she was wearing, though she had to order a larger one than the ones that were in the booth. It'll be mailed to us when it's ready. Woot. New hat!
We got honey, and Dara got strawberry shortcake, and round about 45th or so Danny's batteries were running down so he opted to amble back home. We said bye and promised to keep him posted on upcoming gaming events at the Murk. By then it was also going on 3:30, and the weather was starting to look chancy, so we decided to backtrack and get my bike before we continued heading down the rest of the Fair.
We stopped briefly at the U Bookstore, where Dara wound up getting a lab coat and I picked up the seventh book in the Aubrey-Maturin series, The Surgeon's Mate, finally! (See previous commentary re: dream; it just seemed like the Right Book To Buy at the time.) After that, we also got our obligatory yearly round of soap from the Stormy Mountain Soap folks. I looked for a bit at some nice-looking necklaces, only to realize that short necklaces really are kind of out for me these days, because they draw the eye right to the thyroid surgery scar on my neck. Meh.
And we got Dara's bike, and would have gotten tasty Shiskaberries (chocolate covered strawberries, for those of you who don't attend Seattle area summer fairs, except the line stretched approximately up to Vancouver. And it was getting late anyway, and the weather was looking chancier, and we realized we needed to be getting on our way.
We waffled for a bit as to whether to actually ride home on the bikes, or catch a bus on 15th and head back home that way. Despite the likelihood of getting rained on, we finally chose to hit the trail with the bikes... and realized once we got around to U Village (for a needed detour to Bartell Drugs) that, like unto the bad guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we chose Poorly. We waited for several minutes underneath the overhanging roof at Bartell's while a lively shower dampened everything in sight. It did eventually let up, though, and Dara surmised that we'd actually seen the last of it since the showers were moving north and there was considerably lighter sky to the south.
Which proved correct. We didn't get rained on to speak of at any other point on the trail, and I had another small hill victory as we went up the hill out of U Village back to the trail. Go me. ^_^
The trail itself was unsurprisingly sparsely populated, with only the occasional other
Only when we finally got back to Lake Forest Park and the shops did we see a bit more rain--but at that point, we ran into
kathrynt and emmacrew coming out of the Third Place Commons, where they had stopped to purchase tasty cake! We had a pleasant chat with the both of them, and after that I finally told Dara she should just go on ahead since I was going to have to walk my bike back anyway, pretty certain I wouldn't be able to make it uphill to the house.Once I crossed the street coming out of the shops I thought I might give it a bit of a try, but my bike had other plans. It popped its chain right off the gears, giving me no option but to either get my fingers all grimy getting the chain back in place or to just walk the bike all the way home.
I opted for the latter. And didn't bother with the chain, since I was already all gungy from the ride anyway! But it was a good ride, and left Dara and me pleasantly tired.
And it was a good outing to the Street Fair!
Sunday miles: 24.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1043
Miles out of Rivendell: 585
Miles out of Lothlórien: 123
Miles to Rauros Falls: 266
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RE: Street Fair Sunday
You know that I just love this dream! I've only dreamt about Jack a couple of times, and I really couldn't tell you what it was all about except he was in it (considering he hates women being on his ship -- outside of this woman you'll read about in the later books and she's one of the ones in surgery that helps Stephen with the amputations, cleaning up, etc. Can't remember her name, but as she wasn't an attraction for the men, that made a big difference. Unlike Clarissa Oakes who caused a lot of problems...and the woman who was married to a crewman in The Far Side of the World when you finally get to it). Most of my dreams have centered around John Biebe, but he's my favorite. :-)
Glad you've finally gotten to The Surgeon's Mate. You'll have to let me know what you think of it.
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-23 07:16 pm (UTC)Thinking about it, off the top of my head I don't think I've dreamed of any other of Russell's characters. Russell himself has periodically shown up in my dreams, but I think Aubrey's the only actual character that has. Which I think says something about my affection for Lucky Jack!
I will indeed post with great and loving detail once I get around to that book. Doing some mental shuffling of the queue of Stuff To Read Next; it may have to wait till after I knock out Eucalyptus. :)
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-23 10:19 pm (UTC)Now I've never dreamt about Russell himself -- just John and Jack...which is all righty with me LOL
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-24 05:40 am (UTC)Whenever Russell shows up in any dream of mine it does tend to be in the strangest contexts--I think that last one I had about somebody trying to assassinate him and Alan Doyle was particularly weird. ;) But usually it's more like "I'm playing video games with him" or "I have to hand him this box of Christmas ornaments!"
Eucalyptus has to duke it out for next position on the reading list with a few other things--The Surgeon's Mate, for example. ;) But it's coming!
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-24 04:48 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about books duking it out with one another. I had to suspend my Zooba membership (where I'd get a book for $9.95 per month, no shipping and handling) and was saving sometimes $20 per book! I had way too many coming and I couldn't read all of them. Right now I have three from them that I haven't even touched (the one on John Wilkes Booth, a bio on Katherine of Aragorn and the Zorro novel by Allende), along with Emile Zola's Therese Raquin (which I got when I bought my mom a Gerard Butler movie -- he's going to be doing a new film adaptation of the book). I was going to have them put me on a "vacation type" hold, but they claim they don't have anything like that so they cancelled me! LOL Oh well -- I can rejoin some other time. It was just that I was losing control! *g* And I do still order stuff from Amazon as well!
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-25 10:25 pm (UTC)Bummer about losing that membership! Me, I have been fortunate enough to be able to buy my books on a pretty regular basis, but I still wind up having them stack up when I don't read them fast enough. I recently did a cull of my shelves, too, to eliminate the books I just had to admit I wasn't going to read! I figure that if they've been on my To Read list for over three years and they aren't by an author I already know I'm going to love, chances are, I am not ever going to get to them.
I'm trying to whip through a lot more of my To Read shelves to make room for new purchases. That Zorro book is on my To Buy list, though!
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-27 05:40 pm (UTC)I can't tell now but I think they may have reinstated me. LOL I'm going to have to check closer....I feel like they have me going in circles. I didn't realize how easy it is to lose track of how many books you actually read. It's different if I order something like a cookbook as that's a reference I can refer to off and on when necessary. It's the novels and historic books that keep stacking up on me. Oh well I'll manage.
Russell does seem the Halo type, doesn't he? Or something along those lines -- the strategic and action sort I guess. *g*
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-29 04:57 pm (UTC)And yeah, I can totally see Russell playing Halo. Me, not so much. ;) I like watching others do it, just because it's amusing to watch players interact when we get a big video gaming group at my house, but I've never felt terribly inclined to take a crack at any of the first-person shooter type games.
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-05-29 11:07 pm (UTC)I'm not much of a video game player although I used to love playing the arcade game, Area 51 (Me vs. horrible aliens LOL). I played a friend's Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers game once and I did real well at the first battle (when Sauron is defeated and the Ring is cut from his hand)...but BOY did I have problems protecting Frodo from the Ringwraiths (you're Aragorn and you not only have to fight them off but protect Frodo too LOL). Oh well!
Well, I'm about 10 to 15 pages from the end of the bio I'm reading on Elizabeth I so I think I'll leave it at home tonight and see what I'm going to read next. I'm thinking that instead of something historical, I may go with Zola's Therese Raquin instead, just to give myself a change. (I think I told you that when I ordered a Gerard Butler DVD for my mother, the novel was discounted as that will be his next movie project. I've read Zola before but not that one).
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-06-04 06:15 pm (UTC)I think Eucalyptus is next on my queue!
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-06-04 10:15 pm (UTC)I decided to read Therese Raquin after all! I was on Gerry Butler's website today and it seems there was some discussion that the movie might not be made...or if it was he might not be part of the cast after all, but it appears all is set! (More than I can say than for Baz Luhrman or Fox Studios dropping Russell from the still unnamed Australian GWTW-like epic). The fans were laughing about Gerard attempting a French accent, wondering if he could do it, but I think they're fairly forgiving.
Anyway, this Zola book isn't as detailed as the other one I read (Lady's Delight -- I can't write the French translation *g*), but I think that has a lot to do with Therese Raquin being almost claustrophobic in nature and being much more psychological in character deterioration. I have about 70 more pages and I'll be finished, and I'm not sure what I'll tackle next. Probably...maybe *g* the bio I got on Katherine of Aragorn or Manhunt. (I'm still wondering who they will cast as Booth; seems like Harrison Ford is still on and I only hope this is a lot better than some of his recent attempts).
Let me know if you do start Eucalyptus.
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-06-06 04:26 am (UTC)And when I got to the first appearance of Ellen finding her nameless stranger under the trees, I couldn't help but think of the shots of Russell sleeping under the trees at the very beginning of Silver Brumby. ;)
Sounds like you're having fun with your reading, too!
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-06-06 10:32 pm (UTC)Okay -- this is getting scary. I also thought about The Silver Brumby when Ellen discovers the Storyteller. *sigh*
I can only think of what might have been if things had worked out. But I'm still not sure Nicole was the right choice for Ellen. I know people told me not to depend totally on the book, but I halfway wonder if the reason why the script fell to pieces was due to trying to rewrite the adaptation to suit her being cast. When you finish reading it, let me know what you think.
Re: Street Fair Sunday
Date: 2006-06-07 12:10 am (UTC)