Seattle: back last week, a little moment, 320 Something Street

I found a missing moment among photos.

On a rainy afternoon we drove wandering around the square-grid-planted-roundabouts world of Greenwood uphill from Green Lake Seattle, shamelessly stopping in the drizzle to photograph the microworld of people's free expression in their front gardens and house fronts.

While so doing Ernesto (Ernie) San Miguel came home from work and with that strength of ex-military gentle purpose said hello in that way which says hello-would-you-mind-explaining-why-you-are-taking-pictures-of-my-house. The answer was simple. The house was beautiful and Ernie happily posed, invited us in to coffee (we said no thank you, could not impose) and told us proudly that the house had been in family for generations. He himself had come from Texas with the military, his family Mexican from when Texas was Mexican, from before the first Norte Americano war on foreign soil from a time when Mexico included what are now parts of the USA bigger than the whole of present Mexico. Well, Ernie didn't speak of all that like that, I just thought I'd drop it in, you can continue pursuing that subject here.

So Ernie came to Seattle and married a celtic MacDougall, and it's the MacDougall house in front of which we begin this set of pictures of Ernie's place on a foggy rainy afternoon in May 2015. Thank you for your gentle smiles and hospitality Ernie.

and next door... a garden bed!

Tuesday Night: Rat City Rollergirls practice night

A little movie, one minute 49 seconds, to introduce the gym routine, the rules and the underlying secret of refereeing Roller Derby, at least as now understood by me.

We had a nice night out with Liz and Mike, in a world where they are known as Betsy Nails and Mike Hammer. Practice night, Rat City Rollergirls.

As everywhere else hereabouts, we were made welcome with warm smiles.

12.42am Saturday: Liz Argall, "Mike Hammer", Lee Moyer, Toulouse Petit

It's past mindlight (accidentally typed apposite expression!). Brain curling at the edges. Such an array of surprises and delights as we go. Still things to record from these days and one more day before we go to Portland on Sunday. And I've heard Liz going upstairs to bed just now after another evening maintaining her discipline of providing cartoons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. For a widening audience, including in healing professions and communities, but for no income thus far, a condition of her visa status as Liz and Mike await the outcome of Green Card applications.

Liz is still the extraordinary combiner of values and imagination as she showed in The Prophet's Sister when she was 19 in 1999, before she learned so much depth of human experience with her mother Margaret's illness and unkind death in the two following years. We have not seen each other from 2011 to this year. It is good to be together and admire what Liz does, having taken herself to a bigger world and a wider audience for her creative work.

When I speak of my admiration for this daughter Liz instantly speaks of how wonderfully she is supported by Mike, who himself, away from his demanding day job and under the name of Mike Hammer (pseudonym, as customary in Roller Derby) has risen swiftly to the third** of five ranks among certified referees in world Roller Derby, having initially been taken up by Portland's Rose City derby team in 2009 to advise on skating skills. Liz and Mike make a great team!

** Level 3 (silver) Able to exceptionally perform referee duties for WFTDA sanctioned interleague play.

This is Liz-perspective as now articulated by the Things Without:

... and this is Liz in The Prophet's Sister, 1999:

What of innocence lost?
It cannot be lost, it cannot be destroyed. These are traps of the mind that the unwary fall into, we forget how to maintain our state of innocence and finding that it has faded to a slip of nothing assume it has been destroyed forever. Innocence cannot be destroyed—it can be injured, forgotten, suppressed and hindered in every way possible, but the potential for innocence will always remain. It is like a seed that waits inside every person, waiting for the nurturing that will allow itself to grow once more and express its glorious, bounteous, giving self. 

We travel Sunday with Liz, southwards roadtrip. Mike joins us for the Memorial Day weekend in San Francisco a week from now. We have been generously offered the house of Liz's friend Lee Moyer and his partner Venetia in Portland for Sunday night. Venetia and Lee will be away on vacation, but we were able to dine with them on Wednesday evening at Toulouse Petit in St Anne. How interesting now to have a so-far-away favourite eating place, from 2011 and again now.

The menu reads:
"previously accepted limitations no longer apply"

I don't remember Liz accepting limitations!

Tuesday: Green Lake 1. Critters

We are with Liz and Mike north of the centre of Seattle in the suburb of Green Lake. Other Seattle blog entries are around and about here. Green Lake the suburb adjoins... Green Lake the lake.

It is a very special and green place. Here some photos from Liz's iPhone on Tuesday, featuring a Great Blue Heron seeking to steal a fisherman's fish, then a family of mallard ducks and a squirrel trying to steal the show.

Tuesday: Amy Thomson—science fiction and gardening

From the Duwamish Longhouse we went round the corner and up the hill to Liz's friend, Amy Thomson, science fiction writer [link 2] [link 3] and gardener, who generously gave Helen a book and signed it

and at the sight of whose garden Helen developed an acute case of gesticulation

The view from up here

 to down there

But first, there was another demanding mouth to feed...

Regarding the garden, we note from our mild-climate perspective that gardens here experience deep winter frost. This is the world in which food production has to be quick marched through the summer.

The potatoes are growing in felted plant sacs

Irrigation because while wonderful damp growing weather now,
there is a very dry month and a half in summer

The peril of forgetting the chickens are free ranging!

The chicken house is (heftily) mobile. The home team elegant.

 Before we left, Amy found a copy of a 'get out and vote' flyer from the Rat City Roller Derby team, in which Liz appeared. We were given a copy and will have Liz sign it.

and just time for a families photo

Tuesday: West Seattle—the Duwamish Longhouse

The Duwamish are the indigenous people of Seattle.

We stopped at their Longhouse... and by chance the the Honorable Cecile Hansen, elected chairperson of the Duwamish for several decades, was there too at that moment and we were very warmly received.

Cecile and Helen standing in front of a copy of the treaty
whereby Chief Seattle signed over territory to the United States, a treaty honoured in the breach.
We discussed some comparative Australian indigenous issues too.

Cecile rightly proud of their longhouse

proud not least of the floor, a concept from the midwestern Native American architect, 

the basketweave pattern by women of the Duwamish.