photo by Ballard Avenue

On this cold day, there's nothing nicer than having 30 lbs. of heater cats on your lap.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Looks like you can't drop off the brat here anymore. You have to take little Beelzebub to the Roadway Express depot yourself.

photo by Ballard Avenue

The weather turned really nasty today with a totally November display of rain, wind, and early darkness. So to warm Ballardonian hearts (and toes), here's a picture taken just a few days ago of some very late tomatoes. If they haven't been picked by now, they're compost.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Ballard's quirky Scandinavian character fades a little each year but you can still find signs of it around. This is the cornerstone of what is now Ballard Baptist Church. I guess at some point they decided to let the Norwegians in. By the back door, of course.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Someone uses the Botts' dots they find along the road to line their driveway over on 61st Street. Ballard's a recycling kind of town!

photo by Ballard Avenue

They're called Botts' dots, those little turtle-like bumps that mark the lanes on roads. The road crews glue them down with epoxy but they don't stay in place long. Where do they go?

photo by Ballard Avenue

Amber and Christine are away visiting family for Thanksgiving, so we stopped by and spent some time with the kids today. As you can see, all is well there, and we wish the same for you and yours this holiday.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Nuthin' but gray skies do I see.There's no Photoshop trickery here, folks. This is an authentic Sunday afternoon sky looking towards Blake and Bainbridge Islands. It's the sort of gray that drives the recently arrived here back to wherever they came from. But having lived under it all my life, I find its arrival each fall kind of comforting.

video by Ballard Avenue

The recent stormy weather grounded the gulls down at Golden Gardens. For some reason they like to stand in the empty parking lot facing the wind. The pigeon doing laps in the lower right hand corner is strangely charming.

photo by Ballard Avenue

After inflicting a duck butt on you yesterday, we try to make amends with another snap of the Most Charming Cat of 2007, His Highness ChooChoo II, Lord and Master of the Laupahoehoe Train Museum.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Now there's a title for a post: Duck butt. I'll check Google Analytics in a couple of days to see who finds their way to this blog whilst searching for "duck butt."

photo by Ballard Avenue

Red bean and barley soup. A perfect lunch on a windy and rainy day, especially when you're looking over Penn Cove from the Coupeville Coffeehouse.

photo by Ballard Avenue

The always rather mysterious Michael Maier Lodge of the Rosicrucians has closed. (It's seen here in better days). The building was old, leaky, and too big for them. It sits on some prime real estate a few blocks north of Market Street, so you have to think they got a nice price for it. The developer plans nine "cottage-style" houses on the property. Anything's fine as long as they're not those dreary townhouse piles that are popping up all over Ballard.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Well, it's a living...

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Relax! I'll take care of the messes in your yard so you don't have to.

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Please call Jacki

Le Jardin du Luxembourg. Four girls from Osaka, four accordions, and "Sous le ciel de Paris." Life is good.

photo by Ballard Avenue

"Who me? I wasn't doin' nuthin'." She leapt for the bird, came up with nothing but air, and tried to put the best face on things as she came back around the garbage can.

photo by Ballard Avenue

No, she's not stalking the garbage can. There was a bird on the ground behind the stone wall. This cat likes her wings on the hoof.

photo by Ballard Avenue

The geese are heading south, but this cormorant plans to stick around town and show off a bit. He'll tell you he's just drying his wings but we know better...

photo by Ballard Avenue

"C'mon everyone! It's only 1838 miles to Cabo San Lucas! First round's on me!"

photo by Ballard Avenue

This gaggle of geese decided that a foggy day is a good day to start on their migration south.

photo by Ballard Avenue

How quiet was it at Matthews Beach Park this foggy morning? The "snap" of the camera startled the sea gulls milling around behind me.

photo by Ballard Avenue

It's out there. Elliott Bay, gateway to the other six continents and all seven seas, lies under that fog bank behind the woods. It could get dicey for ships out there in the fog, but thankfully the Coast Guard has a ship traffic control system that helps everyone stay out of each others' way.

video by Exit133.com
Orpheus in the Underworld is Jacques Offenbach's wacky take on the Orpheus myth. Written in 1858, he turns the tragedy into a comedy, and along the way skewers nearly everything about the Paris musical scene he found annoying. The libretto, regardless of how freely it may be translated from the French, is a scandal, and the music...well, imagine Rossini crashing into Gilbert and Sullivan.

Tacoma Opera puts on a big show on a small budget, and they make the long drive to the City of Destiny worthwhile.

More Discovery Park/Fort Lawton: This is part of what yesterday's house overlooks. Here we see the old parade ground, where soldiers would practice close order drill and march in review. The parks department has let the native vegetation re-grow (and worked to get rid of invasive plants like blackberries and English ivy). I wonder what all those soldiers who spent all those hours policing the grounds would think of what's happened to their old post today.

photo by Ballard Avenue

This autumnal scene isn't out in the country somewhere. It's actually in a Seattle park. Discovery Park is the old Fort Lawton, a US Army post overlooking Puget Sound. Some of the post buildings still stand. This house might have served as quarters for a senior officer as it sits by itself on a bluff overlooking much of the post.

photo by Ballard Avenue

Enough with the Hawaii pix (tho' we've a few more in the can to pull out on a slow news day). Upon arriving back from the islands, we found the city had started into autumn without us.