Fog, Flowers, Rain and Pizza

It rained in Settle yesterday. I'm using the term rain loosely here, it was more of a get-your-glasses-wet mist. Let's just say it was the first moisture to fall out of the sky in eleven days. I was talking to Kathy and she said she recently experienced a Seattle type day with the low soft grey sky and the soft misty rain. She didn't say she loved it, she said she could live with weather like that. What she hates is the bitter wind, freezing rain, pelting sleet and hail, snow, however, she was experiencing a stunning Texas day at the park with her beloved husband and Avery. She won't be able to visit me in July.

Jerry and Jane won't visit in April. It's okay, the tulips are peaking now. With a record breaking warm December, and then a warm warm February, the jonquil and tulip blooms have taken over Skagit Valley. I don't believe you would have made it in time anyway Jerry. Oh well, there is always next year.

Tal and Julia won't be visiting due to some fishing trip planned.

If I can't ponder company I am left to ponder fog. Love me some soft Mukilteo fog. I leave Seattle in the afternoon in brilliant sunshine and the further North I drive the foggier it gets. Beautiful soft fog starts enveloping the horizon as I leave I-5 and turn North on SR 525 then it gets thicker and thicker. As I pass the ridge and start my little downhill slope to home, on the ferry side of Mukilteo not the QFC side, the fog is complete. Mukilteo with its soft mild perfect temperatures, fog, and flowers. Flowers are blooming everywhere.

The purple rhododendrons are blooming, I don't know why purple always blooms first, but they do. Redbud trees, forsythia, some trees covered in white, I don't know if they are plum, pear or something else entirely, but they are beautiful and in full bloom. Pink, white and purple ground cover is filling the gaps around fences and rock walls. Don't know the name of them either. Trees are getting covered in a soft green fuzz as they thicken and start to leaf out. The first frogs I heard were in January. Hearing the frogs always portends spring to me. Love me some singing frogs. And all those the tulips and jonquils dazzle. Fog, frogs, and flowers awaken my soul.

Seattle at its finest that I'm enjoying while it lasts. Seattle is almost as bad as Oklahoma with "do not trust the weather" tomorrow could bring a snowstorm. We had one in late April once, of course Arkansas beat that with their May snowstorm. Was that last year?

The local pizza place had a sign out front that said 40 million pizzas will be eaten in America today, 40 million! That's a big number and made me curious. What about coffee? A quick search came up with the number of 400 million cups of coffee are consumed by Americans -- every day -- 400 million! I do my share. Americans are the most coffee drinking culture in the world and Seattle has 10 x more coffee shops then the average city. Are you surprised?

I tried to find statistics on sushi but only came up with rules and etiquette on eating sushi. Rules for eating sushi! Did I ever mention how much I hate rules. Bah-humbug, sounds elitist to me. It opens up the world of I'm eating sushi correctly and you aren't, you moron you. When is it okay to use your fingers and when is it okay to use chopsticks, when and how to dip in wasabi or soy sauce, when and how, oh never mind, it makes me angry just thinking about it. Tradition and culture okay, but rules, never.

I am usually opposed to that type of line drawing, elitist line drawing, name calling, bullying, only because it leads to other more heavy handed line drawing. It belittles and demeans, it says I'm okay you aren't, I'm in the right you aren't, I'm smart you aren't. If you can break rules eating sushi you don't stand a chance with other more serious social mores. I believe it can eventually, in the extreme, lead to the environment where it is okay to behead someone for following different rules.

Plaid pants, so what.
Dog meat, so what.
Noxious music, so what.
Conservative neighbors, so what.
Mega church, so what.
I'm not an Okie, so I'm okay.
I'm not fat, so I'm okay.
I'm not a moron like you. so I'm okay.

Jeezus -- now I'm being heavy handed. Where did my singing frogs go?

In life the risks and responsibilities are mine for me alone.