today

"Today" was really Wednedsay. We celebrated our last Wednesday off as a family by going to Ballard. That is where the locks are. The girls and I went with family in July but Bob had to work. When we were there in July we commented several times on how much he would like it. It was a beautiful sunny day and about 78 degrees. Perfect. Bob did enjoy it and we did get to see lots of salmon. King(Chinook) and Coho(silver) were running up the ladders. We saw lots of them jumping out of the water and flipping back into the water. It was like fireworks, everytime we saw one jump out of the water we would "ooohhh" and "aaahhhh". We enjoyed walking through the botanical gardens just as much as the fish.
So many beautiful flowers, awesome trees and plants. Sid and I took lots of photos of great flowers. Bob even found an extremely tall eucalyptus. We haven't seen much of them since leaving Calif.
We finished out the day by going to Burgermaster, the 50's style drive in hamburger joint. The servers come out to the car(no roller skates) and put your food tray on your halfway rolled down window. Then took the long way home down Lake Washington Blvd. Big gorgeous homes to the right and beautiful Lake Washington to the left. Lots of people watching, dogs, volleyball players and such.
I have worked the last two days. Owner is on vacation so it has been pretty low key. I have been a little busy but not too much. I am really motivated to get busy. Today, another stylist and I handed out gift cards on Lake st. There have been some new businesses that have sprouted downtown lately and we stopped into all of them. One is a new coffee place. It is so beautifully decorated, large, high ceilings, large video screens. All good til you walk up to the counter. The employees/baristas were scary. Not hair salon material for sure. One guy was probably about 20 and had a handlebar mustache, it wasn't even neat or cool. One pale guy with bright red hair all clipped up and pony tailed, one flat out refused the gift card. There is a popular trend in Seattle right now, "Steam Punk" is what it is called and these three were way into it. "BEFORE THE age of homogenization and micro-machinery, before the tyrannous efficiency of internal combustion and the domestication of electricity, lived beautiful, monstrous machines that lived and breathed and exploded unexpectedly at inconvenient moments. It was a time where art and craft were united, where unique wonders were invented and forgotten, and punks roamed the streets, living in squats and fighting against despotic governance through wit, will and wile." is how SteamPunk magazine describes it. It definitley sub culture. The next coffee place is not new but the baristas were way cuter and way more normal. The owner even invited us to leave a poster or flyer to advertise. I got all excited and gave one of my certificates to a man with a shaved head. We then headed to a herbal wellness shop. Not sure what they are selling but it did smell really really good and they were serving some herbal tea. I tell you... all very Pacific Northwest. Last stop was a vitamin supplement store. Brand new redecoration with Brazilian wood floors to die for. Great floors but wierd inventory. One bottle of each supplement and kinda sparse. The owner was a lovely very deep ebony color woman with some kind of accent. Perhaps Australian or New Zealand but not quite and maybe some kind of British. She was friendly and offered to order my co worker some water soluable vitamin. I liked the smell of new wood in there as well.
About two hours later I got a call from a guy walking down Lake Street. He was on his cell. He wanted to know where we were located because he wanted a haircut. Lucky for him I had time or he would have had a long walk for nothing. Turns out he is a chiropracter that just moved here from Oregon by way of Tennessee. He was sweet, young and single. Not handsome in a Pierce Brosnan sort of way but cute like a thin, young Kevin James. He had one of our certificates.
I think if I have a break on Sunday I will go out again and smell, I mean visit some more retail establishments around the salon. It was the highlight of my day.