Life at 3 miles an Hour

In the midst of a Seattle heat wave, I’ve taken a break from the beach for a moment and am getting caffeinated in another chair in the secret garden of Hotwire Coffee’s outer courtyard. The perpetual plant sale and conveniently placed fencing are providing some good cool relief. It’s just me, the plants and Pandora out here at the moment. Pandora has been a constant companion over the past several months. It’s basically an online personalized radio station. You type in an artist or a style or even a song, hit enter, and a radio station is created. Each time you open Pandora, it begins at your last chosen station and away you go. The interesting part is that you have no idea what’s coming next on the queue, although you do get the opportunity to rate the choice either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. After time, if you hang with it, it compiles your own approved and personalized station. If something comes up, then you also have the opportunity to just skip over it. I find the na...

I pulled a shoe out this morning from under our shoe rack near the front door. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I keep sweeping and cleaning, cleaning and sweeping and it still somehow seems to live on. I find it in cracks, in vents, behind the magazine rack. The fact that it has found its way into our living room in this past year has been almost too much for me. It’s the worst part of having a cat. She and I were constantly at odds these past few months about her toilet being in my living room. But now, in some cruel act of fate thumbing its nose at me, the cat is gone and all that remains is her litter. A week ago, Sassy, my friend and nemesis for 17 years, was tragically killed in a fight with a pit bull. To my wife, she was an angel….actually her own personal angel. Anyone who watched their relationship over the years would agree. Those who knew her will say that her end was, in a way, a fitting exit. She went out in a final burst of attitude. If I hadn’t been ...

This morning, in the early morning hour on my way to the beach, I saw a familiar vehicle parked nearby…. and I avoided it. It was in the parking lot next to my house. You might wonder why I’d bother avoiding a parked vehicle, especially one parked nicely in a lot. It’s not like I’m not used to them, except for the fact that this one was actually between the lines, which, I’ll admit, can be a rarity around here. It wasn’t the car, it was who I suspected was sleeping in the back of the car. During my 10 years here in the urban world, I have become acquainted with a great many homeless individuals. A handful of them have become more than casual encounters. I have developed personal relationships with them. In the lives of these individuals I have seen homelessness from a few different angles. I have seen it come as a result of mental illness, as was the case with a man known as Father Joseph who, for some reason known only to babies and dogs, found me to be a sympathetic friend. ...