When I was in Seattle last spring, the family took me to a place called Pike Place Market. It is a public market where artists and food growers and fishermen sell their wares. And what a place it is! There, you can buy anything from trinkets to t-shirts, huge flower bouquets, fresh fruits and vegetables, and fish, fish, and more fish. (And it ain't cheap!) The market is perhaps most famous for having a booth "where they throw the fish". (Other booths will advertise their locations by mentioning their proximity to "where they throw the fish".) Bystanders come to wait and watch for someone to buy a whole fish so the guys that attend the booth can throw it from where it is on ice in front to where it gets packaged and paid for behind the counter. Sometimes the fishmongers get cute and throw the fish back and forth several times, deliberately making it look as though a bystander will get hit with a flying fish. And all the while, the mongers are yelling, "Hey---yo!" It's quite an attraction!
The last time I was there, Robin and Denis stopped at a shop that sold made-to-order crepes. Robin had one that that was filled with Nutella and sliced strawberries, topped with whipped cream. She reluctantly gave me a couple of bites...and I have lusted after it ever since! I vowed that if I ever got back to the market, I was going to have one of those. In fact, I even suggested that we should take Shari to the market just so she could experience it this trip. Thus, one day we decided that we would "do" Seattle.
At first, we thought about going up in the Space Needle, but a quick peek at expenses for that venture made me think our money could be put to better use. Parking = $18. Admission for the two senior citizens = $19 each. Admission for the other four in our group = $21 each. Yikes! So much for that! So, Pike Place Market (and the crepe shop), here we come!
Last spring, the market was crowded with people. It was hard to get around, especially for a person pushing a rollator (one of those walkers on wheels, with a seat in the middle), which I needed in order to be mobile. This trip, however--due to the season and day of the week--it wasn't crowded at all. We were actually able to enjoy browsing. We did take the time to go into the alley to view the Gum Wall--another famous feature of Pike Place Market. Somewhere in its history, people started affixing chewed gum to the bricks all along the walls of the alley, and the feature became an attraction. I guess in the summer, it smells pretty strongly of gum out there. In the winter, however, it wasn't so noticeable. At one point, Megan, Denis, and Robin wanted to go walk around the shops outside. The old gals--Shari and I--decided to stay inside. (I forgot to mention that Ryan stayed home that day.) We arranged to meet back up in an hour in front of the fishmonger's booth, and off they went.
Shari and I mostly just browsed. She did find a booth with some things she wanted to buy for the folks back home. At one point, I sought the restroom--which was a bad idea because the restrooms are on a lower level and the elevator was totally confusing about where to get off to use them. Also, the elevator was tucked away in a very hidden spot, and there was a homeless drunk guy leaning up against the wall commenting incoherently to anyone about anything. He gave me the creeps, so we forgot the restroom idea and went on about our business. But guess what? The drunk guy wound up where we were two more times. At one point, he was begging for a cigarette. We would have given him one, but I figured it would just be an excuse for him to hang around us longer. We decided to let him annoy someone else--which he did. Yuck!
By the time we met back up with the rest of the family, everyone was hungry. Meg and Den had found a diner-type restaurant that had a decent menu, so we went in there. It wasn't crowded, and the food was good. Full bellies and full day made for tired people!
Also on our docket for Seattle was a stop at Kerry Park. It is just a little overlook-type spot above Puget Sound. The last time I was there in the spring, it was a clear day and the view of the Seattle coastline with Mt. Rainier in the distance was stunning. I wanted to share that with my sister. Unfortunately, the cloud cover made viewing Rainier almost impossible. Maybe next time!
Not sure what particular evening it was, but everyone agreed it was a good time to put together the gingerbread houses from the three kits Megan had bought. The houses were already structurally assembled. All we had to do was use the candies and icing that were provided in order to decorate them. We worked in teams: Megan and Robin, Denis and Ryan, and Shari and me. We had fun making a gigantic mess of the table (and the floor). The door on the house that Shari and I made had vertical stripes to represent boards, and a horizontal stripe to make it a Dutch door. Megan declared it looked like a jail. (Humph!) The boys' house went a little on the dark side. They couldn't get one of their gingerbread men to stand up properly, so they killed him off. He lay murdered on the ground next to the house, with the words "You're next!" on the wall over his lifeless head. Megan and Robin's house was, by far, the neatest and cutest. Figures! They hadn't been into the cooking sherry the way my partner and I were...but I'd hate for that to go to their heads. (Megan found out that Cinnamon Fireball Whiskey makes great cough syrup. And we all had coughs, you know...) In any case, we enjoyed ourselves in the process of making the edible edifices! I wonder if Hansel and Gretel would have approved?
All in all, our trip to Seattle proved fun and therapeutic for all but the people who were hosting us. (I can't help but think it was just a marathon of busy-ness for them.) Sister Shari had just lost her husband to a long-term illness in September, and while I was still with her in Illinois well into October, and my daughter was pressing me about holiday trip plans, Shari just blurted out that she'd like to go too...and the rest is history. We did it. Thelma and Louise pulled it off. Thelma had a good time. I think Louise did, too. She tested her ability to leave her family behind by being with me for Thanksgiving and spending two weeks away from them during December. She got to see and do things she might not otherwise have been able to do see or do--memories that will last a lifetime.
Four days after we returned to the Midwest, and two days after Shari returned to IL, my grandchildren flew to Chicago to be with their father and wife for a week, and they came here to share Christmas/Hanukkah with me and their other grandparents across town for a couple of days while Megan and Denis left on a mini-vacation to Canada. Shari was able to host her traditional Christmas with her family. All is right with the world. New experiences. New perspectives. Now on to 2017!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment