Fear! Architecture! Oysters! Family! Alpacas!

Walking and driving around Seattle for a couple days was really fun.



I'm particularly envious of the aforementioned Seattle library designed by Rem Koolhaas. You can take the elevator to the highest floor of the building, the 10th, and walk down in a spiral, noticing how on each floor people are enjoying the space: reading, hanging out, listening to their headphones. One guy was working on a compelling-looking needlepoint art project. Somewhere around the 5th floor the stairway turns into a super saturated, bright red realm that's like a big open mouth. Kids who grow up using this library are going to remember this aspect of it, boy!



Here I am wondering why more architecture isn't as fun, inventive, and useful as Rem Koolhaas'.



Then we took off for the island to visit my sister and the kids. We brought them all presents, including some Japanese eraser characters with removable heads. Don't these guys look like I stopped them in the middle of their adventure so I could take their picture?



From what I could tell, Hazy is always in the midst of an art project. She created this mixed media masterpiece one afternoon while we were there.



We also visited some recently shaved alpacas one afternoon. Alpacas just throw themselves on the ground and fall asleep in a heap, like the one there in the middle ground.



For most of the visit we stayed at a hippie-zen-yoga-hot tubby resort on a gorgeous waterfront location. It felt, in a great way, like summer camp for grownups. A music festival was going on during the last 2 days of our visit and all these music lovers from Seattle (a place teeming with music lovers) showed up and pitched tents on the grass in front of our cabin and in the woods around us.



We sat on our porch and I squeezed (3 small drops on each!) lemon on the 500th big batch of oysters P had just shucked for us. I probably don't need to tell you oysters are where it's at.

Hooray for getting out of town!