Glass and Cupcakes

The best thing to do in Tacoma - watch the glass artists in the Museum of Glass' hot shop.  While the exhibits were cool - especially the glass sculptures based on children's drawings - it was awesome to enter the 90 foot stainless steel cone that houses the hot shop.  The workers were creating glass structures using molds created by artist Nicholas Kripal.  To envision one of these pieces, think of a bunt cake made of glass.  The glass is blown into a bulb then the bulb is blown into the mold creating clear pieces whose edges contain crystalline architectural details.  Later, the pieces will be constructed into a larger site specific artwork.  Nicholas Kripal and Jeffrey Mongrain are the artists collaborating on this project.  It was wild to see the method of glass blowing, but even more amazing to be in the presence of the artists as they oversaw the procedure.

3.  Blowing Bulb in Mold

1.  Creating Bulb

                                                          

                                                                           2.  Placing Bulb in Mold

Finished Product - for Now

To leave the Museum of Glass and head away from the sound is just as much of a treat as the museum itself.  The walkway over the highway, called the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, is full of glass artworks from Dale Chihuly.  The first part as you leave the museum is cool - a huge case of various size vases with elaborate flowers and imaginative squiggles coming out of them and snaking around them.  Then there are the giant sculptures that look like blue rock candy.  Finally, the jaw dropping ceiling of glass art works.  I was really not expecting to look up while crossing a bridge over a highway and see over two thousand object floating above my head.

Tacoma has a pretty cute little downtown.  As we meandered, I found myself babbling away about some cupcake show I watched last week about a cupcake shop in the northwest (although I think the shop is in Canada, so A joked that it is actually in the southwest).  Like the angels heard me there was a cupcake shop!  I had this amazing chocolate pretzel cupcake.  Not only was there an inch of fudgy frosting covered with pretzel pieces, but there were also pretzel pieces baked into the bottom of the cupcake.  In honor of friends who love to take pictures of their food, salivate over this:

Didn't Get on the Plane

In the movies, a standard cliche is Lover A is dropped at the airport by Lover B and after a heart-wrenching goodbye, Lover A meanders away supposedly to board the plane.  After enough minutes pass for us to think that Lover A got on the plane (or at least through security), Lover B realizes the mistake in separating and makes a mad dash back to the airport.  This usually involves a mad dash through heavy city traffic and often an illegal entry through security, or, my favorite, the purchasing of a very expensive plane ticket ANYWHERE just to get through security.  All plane travel abandoned, the lovers reunite and go out for sushi.

In real life, plane tickets cost a lot of money.  So today, when I didn't get on the plane back to Maine it is because I called to change my flight yesterday.  Maybe there was not as much drama or romance, but who can waste that much money during a recession?

To step outside of a long ago arranged plan is totally out of character for me but also totally invigorating.  To clear a whole week of plans just to mull about more in the Northwest is as rewarding as taking a whole box of junk to Goodwill (maybe more rewarding).  I guess this is living in the moment although I did think more people might notice, like I might have a new glow and people would stop to point as I walked down the street.  It's enough that it is my quiet secret that I was nearly totally irresponsible and used long stored up (because I never use any) reckless abandon.

Pacific Northwest

     With the pine covered craggy shores, rocky beaches, and chugging fishing boats, I could easily be anywhere in Maine right now.  Puget Sound looks so much like my favorite bay in Midcoast Maine.  With an entire day all by myself with no hotel room, I meandered through Point Defiance Park.  This large wooded area of Tacoma is a microcosm of woods and water that made me feel so at home, but instead I was in the middle of a city with almost a quarter of a million people.

     While I have been warned not to get sucked into the glorious weather of August, it is glorious here.  Friday we hiked twelve miles in Mount Rainier National Forest.  The forests here are more fir and there is some very old growth.  What is unique is the swatches of old growth sliced together with new growth.  In one small stretch of trail, the trees might go from 20 feet to 220 feet.

     In less than a two hour drive we got to the Olympic Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean.  This was a HUGE deal for me because I had never seen the Pacific and I love to check off places I've been.  While there was a large state park parking lot, everyone seemed to just drive their cars onto the beach;  hundreds of cars by mid-afternoon.  There was a much larger prevalence of sand dollars than I have ever seen on a beach although we weren't able to find any unbroken ones.  The water also had a bit of a brown tinge to it.  However, I couldn't resist a foot dip (had the air temperature been warmer, I probably would have taken a real dip).  One more ocean down!

     

Saturday and Sunday I got a taste of Seattle life.  While it is a large city, it seems very casual and manageable.  It felt good to be navigating city streets feeling overwhelmed by the many options.  We walked around the Seattle Center and Pike Place Market area at dusk then ate a late dinner at the Space Needle's revolving restaurant.  A little kitschy but an experience.  The food was actually excellent, and as long as I didn't look at the windows, I didn't really feel the movement.  We made it about one and a half times around by dessert.  This afternoon we returned to Pike Place Market to see it in action.  The most impressive thing were the vibrant bouquets - prettier than anything I have ever seen and for less than 20 bucks.  It was not just ordinary grocery quality flowers thrown together; they were like samples out of a dutch painting.  And the food!  Crazy displays of fresh seafood, fragrant fruits and vegetables, good coffee, and AMAZING pastry (Piroshky Piroshky).  The most rich flaky and hazelnutty thing I have ever consumed. 

     The thing I like most about this area is that despite the obvious urban setting (there are three major cities in a 60 mile line on I-5) the urban is so seamlessly intertwined with the forest.  It also helps that Puget Sound provides a waterfront to every city and you never have to look far to see Mount Rainer looming off in the distance.  I have never seen cities with such extensive parks and Seattle has two lakes!  This afternoon we met some friends near where they live in the University District and kayaked on Lake Union.  Here we are amid hundreds of boaters, under an interstate, paddling away.  And it was peaceful and beautiful.  Even many of the apartment buildings in Seattle are nestled in the evergreen trees.  Oh, and did I mention the houseboat used in Sleepless in Seattle is on Lake Union! 

Here is good.  I don't want tomorrow to be my last day.

Today Only

As someone with the initials JGL will point out with mild disinterest and sarcasm, I do not update blogs frequently.  I always get on a kick and then lose it.  Well, isn't that the way with life?

When I quit my job a little more than a year ago, I had grand plans for a year of wild carpe diem.  I started off well - India, Greece, upstate NY, Italy.  Then I got two part times jobs.  I'm not good at math, but I can do this equation:  1 part time job + 1 part time job = 1 full time job.  So, work 17,456,987, carpe diem 4.

A bit ago, a former college roommate said she was jealous about my carpe diem quest.  I told her not to be because it actually floundered.  Well, here goes part two.  For the last few weeks, as my summer employment neared its end, I have resisted with great difficulty applying for a permanent respectable job (i.e. a permanent or semi-permanent teaching position).  There have been several available in my area, but my quest to truly experience life in the moment (and my lack of desire to put down roots that will once again be torn) overpowered my sense of practicality.  And hence, in less than a week the school year begins and I, happily and worriedly, have only a part time job (if adjuncting one class and tutoring a few hours a week can even be considered part time).  While some may think it is foolish to talk this way when so many people are right now unemployed not by choice, I am feeling this great sense of relief and exuberance.

I don't know what I am going to do.  I have some ideas.  And because I am incredibly blessed (and my husband is a saint who just wants me to be happy), I have the means to quest.