At large in my own city

From time to time something new in Seattle is so different or so longed-for that it brings on a classic "Wait, where AM I?" moment.

Almost eleven years ago, we got a beautiful new concert hall, in the middle of downtown. Not only does it offer two fabulous performance facilities (large and small halls) but the three-story atrium-lobby is one of the most spectacular venues in the city. On a summer or winter night, its curved glass facade facing the lingering twilight or glittering city lights, it is a wonderful place to be.

And almost every one of my friends had exactly the same reaction to the hall on their first visit - "Is this really Seattle?"

Today I had another of those moments, when I rode the new Link Light Rail. In town, the sleek train cars run in the bus tunnel that has been part of life for 20+ years (if you subtract the two when it was closed because engineers discovered it would not, after all, support train tracks without major refurbishing. Oops.)

That's all in the past. On July 18 the trains started running, and finally, 42 years after a former mayor urged the city to develop a light rail system, we have it. There is only one line so far, and it won't reach the airport until December of this year, but it's a major step forward.

So today I checked it out, riding from Westlake Station to Tukwila. For much of the route, the train tracks follow a couple of major streets, but one section of the route is a tunnel, that emerges into an underground station that's all curved steel walls and sculptural glass panels.

That's when I had the "Where am I?" moment. I've been in other stations like the one at Beacon Hill - in Copenhagen, Vienna and Berlin. Here is an architecturally breathtaking place, half an hour from home.

There's nothing quite like playing tourist in your very own city.

Temperature drops! At last!

Only in the Pacific NW? On Wednesday the 29th Seattle recorded its hottest day ever - 103 degrees.

One week later, August 5, it was 40 degrees cooler, and cloudy - but by evening the sky had cleared enough for a clear view of the full moon.

Today it was gray and cool, and I didn't hear a single complaint.

It's a good time to read. Last night I stayed up far too late, finishing another Dan Fesperman novel - The Arms Maker of Berlin. Germany, WWII, spies, counter-spies, Cold War machinations, fallout from German reunification - it's a great read.

(But I really should have turned out the light before 2 a.m.!)

Lovely weather - for flowers

But it's still too hot, especially at night. Years ago a colleague of my late husband's said that people in the Northwest are like house plants - unhappy if the temperature goes much above or much below 65.

Just by luck, I replanted the deck pots the day before I broke my wrist, and the cast does not get in the way of watering or deadheading. Petunias respond to good weather and regular attention with a bounty of blossoms.

The Blue Angels roared overhead for the last time today, the finale of Seafair. The planes are so loud and so fast that it's a trick to spot them, because they are always far ahead of the sound.

The other major weekend noisemakers were the hydroplanes that race on Lake Washington. Although their turbine engines seem loud enough (we could hear them all too well when we lived on the east side, several miles north of the race area,) an article in the Seattle Times said some old-timers miss the real "thunderboats" - the first, post-WWII hydros, powered by airplane engines! (Think B-29 with a roostertail.)

I'm ready for rain. The grass is brown everywhere, and even the broad-leafed plants are drooping.

August already?

And I'm typing with all ten fingers, though five of them still protrude from a fiberglass cast. Until August 21, after which I'll have a removable Velcro thing, which presumably will free my hand up enough to get back to the flute.

When the cast first went on, I worried about looking vulnerable. Then I took another look at the rigid fiberglass enclosing my entire forearm, and thought, "What a weapon!"

And OF COURSE I get a seat on the bus, especially when wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

If I had a garden, I'd probably be working in it this morning, because the weather is finally back to something comfortable enough to enjoy. For more than a week we have had temperatures in the 80's and 90's, and on Wednesday it got to 103. That's too hot in a place where most people do not have air conditioning.

On the hottest day I landed briefly at the Ballard Library, which DOES have AC - and felt lucky to find a seat! At our corner store, the proprietor periodically hosed down the sidewalk, aimed a fan INTO the building during cool morning hours - but said he couldn't complain, because the heat was good for business (ice, beer, ice cream...)

Last night I alternately smiled, laughed, sniffled (and fumed because the theater was 80% empty) while watching "Blue Window" at Driftwood.

Craig Lucas' play demands a small skilled ensemble cast. This group did a fine version of the play in February, working in a tiny performance space that barely qualified as a black box theater.

The current production is a fund-raiser for Driftwood - and a chance for the actors to spread out, on a real stage. The actors appreciated the chance to revisit the play and their characters, and the audience stayed right with them all the way. Congratulations again, everyone.

Now if some people will just COME TO SEE THE PLAY! It's on tonight and tomorrow afternoon - Wade James Theater, in Edmonds.

Ten-fingered typing again...

Although the (small, neat, but still awkward) cast doesn't make it easy.

When I got the present cast, on the 6th, the doctor said, "Keep those fingers moving," and I was delighted that typing was an approved activity. With knitting out of the question for a while, I can housekeep or read or use the computer - cheered by e-mail and Facebook.

(I've considered trying to learn to knit Continental style, but so far haven't made the attempt.)

The flute is also living in its case for a while, which is a shame, because so many of the good Sousa Band gigs are outdoors in the summer. I hope to be back to playing by mid-August.

Here in the Pacific NW we've had certifiably summer weather for weeks now. There was a brief interruption for thunder, lightning and rain last Sunday, followed by a couple of gray days, but now it's back to sunshine (with an occasional foggy morning.)

To no one's surprise, Chase Bank announced, soon after the 4th, that it will not fund the fireworks next year. That gives organizers a year to find a new sponsor - and as my pragmatic son pointed out today, during its 21-year history the fireworks show has had several underwriters.

Recommended reading: Anything by Dan Fesperman, especially his two books that cover the period of the Balkan wars (1990's) - Lie in the Dark and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows. Either one illuminates so much of what we heard on the Danube trip last year, as we floated through Croatia and Serbia. After a lecture by a Croatian woman in Vukovar, our Serbian tour guides made sure to tell us that "there IS another side to this story," and subsequent Serbian lecturers sketched out an interesting array of conspiracy theories.

Eastern Europe is full of people who live side by side while remaining deeply suspicious of each other. The first time I went to Transylvania, people in our (mostly) Hungarian partner village said they watched on TV as Croats and Bosnians were driven out of their homes and towns, sure that the same thing would happen to them when the Romanians got around to ethnic cleansing. What kept the lid on in Romania was the government's overwhelming desire to become a member of the EU (a goal achieved in 2007.)

The party's over...

For another year at least. Last night Chase Bank sponsored a truly spectacular fireworks display over Lake Union, perhaps to reassure Seattle that they are at least as civic-minded as the late WaMu. (Now if they will just think about renewing that office lease agreement with SAM...)

Today an acquaintance reported on a conversation with "the most pessimistic person you can imagine," who ranted about what a waste of money a fireworks display represents. We agreed fireworks are a luxury we can handle - we may even deserve the show!

As usual, people in this building have the luxury of watching from the front porch, so to speak. I and Z made a delicious dinner for me and one of my neighbors, and we enjoyed a lovely gift bottle of bubbly (a thank-you for loaning out extra parking places.) After making sure her cat and mine had dark quiet places to feel safe, we moved to the neighbor's deck, because her view of the lake is just a bit wider than mine.

Fireworks here don't start until 10:15, because the sun doesn't set until well after 9 p.m.

Ready for big bangs...

...and learning to type one-handed. Yesterday, on the way up the escalator to the Pilates studio, I put my right hand out to break a fall -- and broke my wrist in two places.

Good news is that I don't need surgery. Bad news is the bulky splint (my arm looks like something ready to be unwrapped after 3500 years in a pyramid) which will be replaced with a proper cast on Monday.

The best news is that I have wonderful children, who did all the necessary transport, shopping, and most of all - THE WAITING. Their reward (I hope they think of it that way!) is to come back for mega-fireworks over the lake tonight.

I'm looking forward to touch-typing again.