Add a little bling to your Christmas decor.

Naughty Martha. We have no holiday party to decorate for this year, so what does she do? She comes up with five handmade "Glitter Christmas Projects". We might just have a tea party with our cats to celebrate the season. Just so I can decorate and wear a pretty dress.

In Cars.

On Thanksgiving day we were in a minor car crash. We were driving around trying to get to Kerry Park to show my mom the lovely view of the city, when suddenly a truck pulled out right in front of me. I swerved a couple of feet into the next lane to avoid him, and sideswiped a Lexus going in the same direction! The truck, of course, sped off quickly, but we were able to write down his license number (FGN944, Minnesota, if you're curious). This led to a lot of sitting around and waiting for the police to show up. Currently I'm filling out a lot of insurance reports and getting repair estimates. Fun stuff! At least no one was injured, which is certainly what is most important.

Super Furry Seattle.

Man, there is nothing like a good rock-n-roll show to make a girl feel young again. We saw the Super Furry Animals tonight. The singer even crooned right out of the eyehole of his freaky Strongbad-esque helmet. My desire to learn Welsh is renewed.

Coming Soon: Fun photos of the car crash we were in yesterday... on Thanksgiving! Yikes.

Thankful.

More than ever, I am thankful for our friends and family. Here is a funny little note a good friend sent to me this week (Thanks, Brooke):

---

Reasons you should move back to Indiana:
I am not as crafty now as I was when you were here.
Deer season - bang bang.
No frizzy hair from long bouts of rain.
My scrapbook is suffering.
Girls nights suck with out your fun new recipes.

---

Missing you all and hoping everyone has a nice holiday.

Exploring with Liz.

The Experience Music Project (or "smashed guitar building"):



Dinner with sushi in motion at Blue C:


More yummy goodies here in Seattle:

Are we in London?

Dave arrived from Boston Friday night and Seattle decided to hide under a blanket of fog. It's making for an interesting weekend, but our usual views are majorly obscured...

We spent Saturday tooling around downtown. We took the "Underground Tour" of Seattle, which was pretty interesting. It consisted of walking in underground tunnels that resulted from a great fire at the end of the 1800s. It wasn't too claustrophobic or scary, but we did see a dead rat at the end of it. Blech!

Also, caught this guy in action outside of Pike Place Market. He's *the* Spoonman!!!

Things are picking up.

It's been a quiet week here. Other than one dinner out, we've done very little it seems. Things are picking up, though! We have two guests coming starting tonight. Tonight through Sunday, Dave from Boston flies in for a quick jaunt around Seattle. When we drop him off Sunday, we pick up Shawn's mom, Liz, who will be spending Thanksgiving with us. We are so glad she's coming. It'll be nice to have part of our family around this week and I'm hoping it'll help cure my continuing bouts with homesickness.

Otherwise, we have a ton of great shows coming up, which makes me smile. Super Furry Animals, Echo & the Bunnymen, Mark Kozelek, Low, Coldplay, and finally Supergrass! Haven't seen those monkeys since 1994. Time flies.

PS: The above photo was taken when our last visitor (my mom!) was here. This is the "Fremont Troll". He lives under a bridge.

Our day with Rick.

One of the perks of moving to Seattle (for me, at least) is our proximity to Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door headquarters. His staff offers free travel classes every Saturday and the travel center has a huge, cozy library for hours of perusal. We spent most of this particular Saturday at their fall travel festival, taking classes with Rick himself. Listening to him discuss Spain, Portugal, and Italy for over 4.5 hours was impressive. He didn't miss a beat and remained funny, honest, and all-around charming, just like his TV persona. I'm energized to plan our next trip... just have to figure out where we're going first!

Best Restaurant Name Ever.

"What the Pho'?"
One of the approximately 10000 Vietnamese restaurants in the Seattle area, but certainly the best named. And, by the way, it's pronounced "fuh".

As Heard on the Bus.

While I was riding the bus, I witnessed a mother and her young daughter getting off at a stop. As she departed the girl looked up at the admittedly freaky lady across from her and proclaimed "You sca-wee!".

Great American Throwdown.

Tonight, while watching the Colts finally demolish the Patriots, we were speaking with our new friends Andy and Elizabeth about midwest sports. On the subject of the Reds stadium (the "Great American Ballpark"), they happened to mention that they were at the "Farnsworth Game", in which Cubs pitcher Kyle Farnsworth threw down the Reds pitcher, who had charged the mound to start one of the all-time great baseball dustups. We were at that game also, but H's aunt and uncle happened to be there as well, not to mention her parents' friends Phil and Ruthie (none of these people were there together, by the way)...it seems like everyone in the midwest was at that game! Crazy!!

We bought beer on a Sunday.

After four days of rain, we had a beautiful day in the city today. Yay! We were able to get out of the house and visit the Urban Craft Uprising craft show. It was full of neat vendors, but so packed with people that we didn't stay long. Our favorite item? Sew Dorky's felt donut pin cushions. We didn't buy any, but we certainly admired them.

We headed downtown to window shop and visit Pike Place Market afterwards. Half of the city seemed to have the same idea because the streets were crowded. Also visited one of our fave places here: Bottega Italiana. They make damn fine gelato and also speak Italian. Woo!

And we bought beer at a grocery store today... a pleasure unknown to Indiana residents.

The Seattle grunge sound.

So, last week, Eric emailed me and asked if Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage" sounds cooler at our house than it does in his. No answer to that yet, but the next night Shawn spotted this related classified ad in a local paper:

------

SPOONMAN SEEKS TEAM
posted 10/14/2005
The world’s most famous spoonplayer, ever, ought to be able to earn more than $12K annually. I need an agent, publicist or manager, not to mention a gig. Google up Artis the Spoonman.

------

As it turns out, he also lives in our neighborhood.