Theatre: Creature of the NIght

 Dracula Adapted from Bram Stoker's novel by Nathan Kessler-Jeffrey, directed by Brad Lo Walker, Renton Civic Theatre, through November 2nd.

Many, many years ago I wrote a short play and staged a reading at the Burien Actors Theatre with five readers. Two of them were friends, but three were recruits that I had never met before. All did a wonderful job at the time, but I noticed that one of my then-readers was in a play down at the Renton Civic Theatre, which is just down the hill from Grubb Street. So I made a rare evening excursion into Renton to a theater I had never attended before.

And a word about the Renton Civic Theatre, which is community theater at its best. From the street it is an unassuming theatre marquee sandwiched between a realty company storefront and a Japanese restaurant. The venue inside is excellent, the house and stage both larger and more comfortable than the Taproot's. The lobby is small, and has handbills from the 40s when this was a motion picture house. There is a bar this particular evening there was no alcohol, because the only volunteer at the counter was underage and could not serve. It's really a nice place. On this Friday night the house was mostly full, and there were more than a few attendees who ignored the whole "turn off your phone" warnings. Ah, well. 

The play itself is an excellent adaption of the original novel. The novel is epistemological in nature, which is to say that it is presented as letters, diary entries, and other first person accounts. Moving it to the stage results in a series of vignettes where the characters recite the letters, then move seamlessly into scenes with the other characters. As a result they're doing a lot of their own stage management as they haul chairs, tables, and coffins on and off the stage. 

Adapting to the stage also involved other changes. Quinton Morris, the cowboy in the book (and you did read the book as a kid, right?), gets a slight mention but never appears on stage. Neither do the brides. The finale remains in London as opposed to fleeing back to Transylvania. Yet that doesn't change the story itself, and helps retain the sense of the characters being overmatched by the Count. The production also gender changes Renfield, which actually works better.

The actors are all excellent. My reader, Michael Yichao, is the hapless Jonathan Harker, the lawyer dispatched to Castle Dracula to help Dracula move to London. The heart of the play belongs to Mina (Dani Davis) who hits everything precisely and sharply.  Angela Martin does double duty as the manic Renfield and the supportive Sister Agatha. Lucy Westenra captures the coquettish nature of Lucy. David Breyman posts an almost-comic Dr. Seward, Cameron Widmark is very British nobility and honor as Arthur Holwood, Lucy's fiancé, and Phillip Keiman is an endearing Abraham Van Helsing. And Tadd Morgan is our Count, shedding the Hungarian accent early as he modernizes for London and makes himself a holy terror. 

There is humor in the horror, and most of it comes from the characters themselves - Harker's naivety, Lucy's shallowness, Seward's moroseness. It is subtle and effective. And that's a challenge given that Drac himself has been parodied to death over the decades. There's one sequence that created inadvertent giggles among the audience, contrasting Jonathan and Mina's wedding with the death of Lucy, but in general the actors kept the audience in check and enthralled with a story that many of them knew since childhood. 

You want a Halloween play? Here's your Halloween play. Go enjoy,

More later. 

The Political Desk: Our Boring Local Elections

I don't have much to say about the State Senators and Representatives races, because there isn't much of a race going on here. Grubb Street is located in Legislative District No. 11. The district curls around the southern end of Lake Washington, and represents most of Renton and chunk of Kent. We're in the lower right-hand corner of this ornate, crenelated district.

And we're kinda boring this time out. Our State Senator, Bob Hasegawa, is running unopposed, as is our State Representative Position No. 1, David Hackney. Lucky for us that they're good at their jobs. For Position #2, we have two candidates who are guaranteed to go on - Incumbent Dave Berquist and Libertarian Justin Greywolf. And I favor Dave Berquist in this one, but I do note that we have 28 people running for Governor, 24 of which are not going to get more than 1% of the vote. It is almost like most of the gubernatorial candidates are about sending in their resume to the largest number of people, and fewer want the experience and responsibility of smaller job.

And for the city of Kent? Nothing. Nada. Zip. OK, I can live with that. We've got enough on our plates right now. 

More later, 

Nimby

So I've come across two things recently, involving unwanted businesses, affecting the communities to the north and south of where I live.

For the newcomers, the home office of Grubb Street is located near Panther Lake, in unincorporated King County, between the cities of Renton and Kent, in the state of Washington. Renton is to the north, and I shop there, commute through there, and for a time worked there. Kent is to the south - I lived there for a time there and this is where I can find my doctor and some pretty nice restaurants. Because of our recent vote, the Panther Lake area will be annexed by Kent in the middle of this year.

Which brings me to the first item - I got a note from Kent laying out a number of meetings leading up to the annexation, and two of these meetings deal with casinos. Kent prohibits them, but there is a casino already in our previously unincorporated territory. It is up on Benson, a former pizza place on a slab away from the rest of the strip mall. It is (I assume) far enough away from the nearby Panther Lake School, though you can see one from the other. It is a squat, hermetically sealed bunker of a building, and I've never had the interest in seeing what changed from the days when I ordered pizza there.

But Kent does not allow gambling establishments, so when we join Kent, the casino goes away. Well, not so fast. Legislation exists to grandfather in existing structures and businesses, in part to facilitate annexation of those territories. Kent is going to hold meetings to see how they want to proceed. My opinion? Despite its location, it is not calling a lot of attention to itself, and the local Jack In The Box seems to attract more sketchy types than this tightly-shuttered gambling den.

Then, within the day, comes another bit of news picked up from Renton Councilman's Randy Corman's blog, that a strip club is planned to open near the junction of SR-167 and I-405 (while not being easily accessed from either). The site is tucked in a corner near the interchange, currently occupied by a closed Half-Price Pots store (I have a theory about Half-Price Pots as well, but I won't bother you with it here). It is close to a couple hotels and no private residences, but is also close to several businesses with day cares, including the FAA and Wizards of the Coast. I'm sure that the strip-club owners would be very disappointed to learn that they've moved into a nerd-abundant neighborhood.

The sign for the club is already going up, but city of Renton has put a six-month moratorium on new clubs, and looks like it is planning to make things as uncomfortable as possible for any ecdysiastic activities in the area, including enforcing the four-foot rule that went into the books in the first place to encourage clubs to go elsewhere (like, say Seattle).

Personally, I find I'm less easy-going about strip clubs than gambling houses. Not so much for the activity of the dancers, but because the strip bars dodge personal responsibility by making their entertainers "independent contractors" - like they were writers or something. Call me odd, but that sort of company behavior makes we go all wobbly and want to dig out my Pete Seegar union songs. Maybe found the International Sisterhood of Stage, Pole, and Lap Dancers (Local 112).

One of the concerns for the strip club is the clientele that it will bring to a insufficiently-desolate corner of Renton (There is already a (closed) casino along that stretch of road already). The Great American Casino/Former Pizza Place location at least has an established record for how disruptive it can be (and they should pull the police reports for the local, along with other nearby localities, including that Jack in the Box). Though the strip club (I roll my eyes at the euphemistic "gentlemen's club") missed a chance in naming the place.

Given its location, I would have called it the Renton Curves.

More later,

Dammed If You Do ...

Given that this story is unspooling right at the bottom of the hill beneath Grubb Street, I'm going to stay with it. And the story is the partial failure of the Hanson Dam and the resulting risk of flooding along the Green River valley this winter, which includes Auburn, Kent, and Renton.

Here's the short version - the ground around the dam is seeping water, weakening the dam. The Army Corps of Engineers is working on a patch, but in the meantime they cannot hold as much water back, which means that in case of a major rainstorm, they will have to pass the water along, flooding the valley.

Last time we checked in, I applauded the local leaders for recommending flood insurance, and getting it sooner as opposed to later. Now simultaneous to that, a lot of insurance companies have determined the risk in the valley was too great (meaning they would have to pay out if something went wrong), and both stopped writing business policies and tried to terminate existing policies.

Hmm. Insurance companies trying to retroactively cancel policies once they realize they may have to pay out. That seems vaguely familiar. If only there was some sort of option, perhaps a public one, that people could turn to. We could call it a "public option". Yeah, that would work.

Actually, as far as flood insurance, there is such an option from the government. That's the good news. The bad news is that while it will help, it won't cover enough for the businesses that have shown up in droves in the valley over the past forty years or so, which have a lot of expensive and generally immobile equipment. The whole story, with a particular eye towards the effects on the business in the valley, is found here in the Seattle Times. And while it states that most of the residences would be OK with government insurance (And if you have flood insurance, double-check - regular home-owners insurance doesn't cover this type of flooding), a lot of the immobile resources of the businesses, large and small, outstrip that coverage.

I expect the various leaders in the valley, from local to national, are trying to address this, and there will likely be more to this as we move forward. The article notes that the advanced warning provided for this potential flood has contributed to the insurance companies bailing. If the dam just broke suddenly, they wouldn't have the chance to get to higher financial ground in time. How fortunate for them.

On an unrelated note, there is another matter that's crossed my mind. The Hanson Dam is in the Tacoma watershed. If they can't hold as much water back, what kind of challenge does that present to them? Has that subject been brought up yet?

Yeah, this is going to be ongoing.

More later,

Hanson

So this is what happens when you put things aside - the mainstream media gets hold of a story before you get around to talking about it.

I've been meaning to post about the Hanson Dam situation. Sacnoth has been doing a good job keeping up with it, but then, living in the Green River Valley, he has a vested interest in the entire situation.

Here's the story. The Green River flows out of the Cascade, north through the valley to the sound. Once it was joined by the White River near Auburn, but after a flood, that river changed its banks and now flows towards Tacoma. And it was once joined by the Black River, which disappeared when the level of Lake Washington dropped with the Montlake Cut. So it does not have the force it once did.

However, it does have a lot of force, and I've seen pictures of the early days when the local farms and racetrack was inundated by floodwater. In the early 60s, the Howard Hanson dam was installed upstream of the valley to regulate the floodwaters, and in addition, the river itself was dredged and banked with a series of levies, changing its flow from a ever-changing meander to its present course.

And in the wake of that control development spread through the valley floor, including the huge mall (still called by the locals Southcenter, though it is really now officially Westfield) and a lot of light industrial and residential growth.

Which is all well and good as long as the dam does its job. However, after the flooding of last year, the dam began to leak. Waters usually held back have found other paths, and the integrity of the dam is threatened. As a result, the dam will pass along water that it would normally hold back, or else risk failing. And that excess water passes downstream to the developed valley.

The current plan is to inject a grout curtain to stem the leakage, but this is at best a patch, and the results of the patch won't be known until the rains come again. So everyone downstream is getting a little nervous.

And they are looking towards the levees. There have been a couple failures in the past few years creating localized flooding, but the idea that there will be a systematic flood is making all the valley residents very concerned. In the wake of Katrina everyone started looking at their infrastructure, and a lot of levees came up, pardon the pun, short. Here's an article from USA Today that noted levees that were in such bad shape that, if they failed, the Army Corps of Engineers would provide funding to rehabilitate them. A lot of them listed in Renton are for the Cedar River (which is another valley, and I suppose a discussion for another time) but there are candidates on the Green as well. And mind you, these are just the ones that are so bad that the Army Corps doesn't want to deal with them. Not included are those that will be overtopped during a major flood.

All this puts local politicians in a bind - spend the money for levee improvements and get castigated if the floods don't come, or holding tight and being villains if Kent and Renton go underwater. I am in favor of the improvements (and the eventual replacement of the Hanson dam - no one seems to be talking about it, but its not like its going to get better over time). In the meantime, those on the valley floor should be thinking about flood insurance and go-bags, at least until we know the patch is holding and that the levees are up to snuff.

The local media has picked up on all this, and noted that the new Kent courthouse is ready to move at a nonce and the King County Elections Offices have already relocated. However, there is this large MALL right where the Black River used to flow into the Green which has just completed major renovations (and is not going anywhere), along with the new US Mint building and, oh, the Olympic Pipeline Hub nearby as well. Not to mention companies that range from Wizards of the Coast to biotech startups throughout the valley floor. So yes, the dam is the first line of defense, and the levees are the second, but should all watery hell break loose, this could be a major disaster.

But for the moment - flood insurance and go-bags.

More later,

On The Road Again: The Ticket II

Heckuva a way to start a week.

I got a ticket this morning. Let me spare you the drama by saying I was, um, guilty of the charge (more on that later). But what cheeses me off is not the fact that the officer was professional, personable, and younger than me, but that it blows my regular rhythm of a ticket every four years or so. Worse yet, it happens in the same neck of the woods as my LAST ticket.

OK, I've mentioned that I often use Lake Washington Blvd instead of I-5 heading north. It is calmer, more scenic, and often faster than the main drag. And, according to the highway department, perfectly cool, as long as you obey local laws. So I keep my speed down, my eyes open, and, after my previous experience, make full stops.

But Lake Washington Blvd parallels the rail line, and trains have right of way. So when a train carrying at least three airplane fuselages pulls into the crossing, I come to a stop and wait for it to pass.

And then the train stops in the crossing, blocking traffic.

I'm sitting there, and a number of cars start pulling to the left, using the Gene Coulon Park access roads as a way to get around the train. I wait for maybe thirty seconds, then follow them.

This, it turns out, is illegal - the official term is "Avoiding an Intersection". The roads in Gene Coulon are not real roads (that is, public thoroughfares) but rather access to the park, and using them to get around an obstruction is like cutting through a corner gas station to avoid a light.

Anyway, the people who cut AHEAD of me got away with it, but by the time I got around the blockage, there was a motorcycle officer who pulled me and another car off to the side. And I had to do the parking perp walk, though he gave me a municipal citation as opposed to something that would ding my insurance (which, I suppose, is something). And the fine, which stings enough to make me think twice about pulling this type of stunt again, is not excessive.

But it does leave me cranky this fine Monday morning.

More later,

More from the Flood

Yeah, I'm going to keep coming back to this. As well as back to the writer's strike as well. It is one of the strengths of blogging is that you can pick your subjects and stay with them as long as you choose to. Me, I'm still concerned about the effects Katrina has had on the Gulf Coast, including such locations as Biloxi, which has pretty much slid off the radar while New Orleans, hardly in a better position, gets the media attention (if not much in the way of better treatment).

Anyway, the flood from a few weeks back. While I noted that we were pretty safe up on the hill, down in the Renton Valley things were a tad bit dicier. Most of the localized flooding we got was the result of storm sewers being clogged up by debris and massive rains, but it was still pretty impressive. These filmmakers got some good shots outside of the local IKEA, where the road was overwhelmed (and the businesses were slightly higher up. (And here's a clip of Snoqualmie Falls - known best for the site of the hotel in "Twin Peaks").

Also, down in the Chehalis area, the Seattle Times is reporting that Weyerhauser, the big lumber operation, is re-examining its policies, seeing how it clearcut a bunch of hillsides that were officially too steep, but for which they got permission after a company geologist vouched that they was safe. Now that a good chunk of those hillsides have washed into downtown Centralia, they're having second thoughts about the wisdom of that move (and the geologist who gave the thumb's-up should be relocated to Phoenix by now).

And lastly, the flood did have an effect on my local commute. Part of I-405, the chunk between routes 167 and 169, was severely undercut by a sinkhole (yeah,, you heard right, a sinkhole and requires emergency repairs. Said repairs involve lane closures and are definitely screwing up the daily transportation, mainly because travel options are relatively infinite for the chunk of land between the foothills and the lake. The Times takes due notice, then goes back to campaigning for more coolness for I-520. Ah, well.

More later,


More later,

On The Road Again: The Ticket

On a Monday, I was arrested
On a Tuesday, I was locked up in jail
On a Wednesday, my trial was attested
On a Thursday, nobody would go my bail
-- Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter

So I've been a little miserable for the past 24 hours, because I got a massive ticket. But I'm much better now.

Here's the story - the Renton police are heavily patrolling Kennydale neighborhood along Lake Washington Boulevard, which is a common alternate route because 405, as readers of this blog know, is an absolute crapfest. And yesterday morning, I saw a cop in a prowl car pull over a driver going the other direction.

And feeling glad that it wasn't me, I proceeded to California Stop the next stop sign, and the cop on the motor scooter wheeled out behind him and pulled me over. Busted.

(California Stop is also called a rolling stop . Yeah, you do it. You slow at the intersection, look both ways, and the gun it, the sudden speed making it feel like, in comparison, you made a real stop. Well, I did that, but did not happen to see the cop on the motor scooter, which sort of points out the weakness of this tactic).

And the cop pulls me over and is firm but friendly and asks me what I was thinking when I obviously violated the law and could I hand over my license, proof of ownership, and most current proof of insurance. I gave him the info and he went back to his scooter to check me out.

He came back much firmer and a little less friendly. The insurance card was expired. I said "no problem, I probably have the right one here," He stopped me and informed me that he had already written out the citation, which was an OFFICIAL COURT DOCUMENT (he said that a couple times, so it stuck), for me driving without insurance, but pointed out the number and the address on the form for the local traffic court and that I could get it knocked down if I presented proper documentation to THEM.

And through it all, I was in that creepy, kafkaesque limbo along the side of the road. The parking perp walk, where YOU are hauled off to the side, and all the OTHER traffic is moving past you, smirking that its not THEM. And you're stuck watching them, and seeing them do the self-same California Stop you were busted for.

Anyway, the moving violation was waived for the lack of insurance charge, and to prove otherwise I had to go to the court building sometime in the next 15 days to clear things up. So I'm not feeling my best, and when I see that the fine is listed a "550" I'm thinking the officer has bad handwriting, and meant to write
"$55.00", which is a bit much, but makes it worthwhile to go in and get reduced.

So I get the office (fully stopping at all stop signs)and call the number, and a cheerful young woman says, yes, you can get it knocked down if you bring in the right insurance document (which I had but failed to present when asked for) and pay a fee (not a fine) of $25. Oh, and the officer didn't have bad handwriting - the fine for driving without insurance was $550.

$550.

Which of course makes it well worth coming in. So I went down immediately, only to discover that "next fifteen days" meant "next fifteen days, but AFTER the paperwork cleared". So with dejection I spent most of the day is a cranky mood with a $550 bill hanging over my head.

And while I would love to spin this into a long story showing the horrible nature of bureaucracy and the poor common man caught in its vicelike grip, here's what really happened: On Tuesday I stopped in and paid the fee and got it cleared up. So the end result is that I spent a bit more time, but ducked a moving violation, and paid a small fee for doing not one but TWO stupid things in quick succession. Which really isn't that bad, justice-wise.

So the moral here?
- Make complete stops.
- Have your insurance Info handy.
- Make sure it is the right stuff. The officer stressed he wanted the most up-to-date info, and was in a "no-take-backs" mood. And I really can't get too hett up about that.

And when I drove up Lake Washington Blvd this morning, the same cop was there on his same scooter with ANOTHER car pulled over. And I drove carefully around them, but the officer didn't wave. But I was glad that it wasn't me.

Of course, I made a complete and full stop at the next stop sign.

More later,

The Jeff Recommends

So, to summarize:

ST/RTID Proposition 1 (Roads and Transit) - Here's the deal - if we don't pass it, I don't want to see any of you on 405 northbound between 9 and 10, because that's when I need to get to work. Vote YES.

R-67 (Insurance Accountability) - So $10 million has been dumped into this campaign to defeat it, in the name of protecting consumers. How much has come from actual consumers? $700. Vote YES.

I-960 (Supermajority Taxation) - We say government doesn't work, and we want to make sure it doesn't! Another "Give me a pony!" initiative. Vote NO.

ESSJR 8206 (Supermajority Rainy Day Fund) - Let's push some cash away for an emergency, but then make sure we can't get to it. Sometimes I feel that way about the Girl Scout thin mints in the freezer. Vote NO.

SJR 8212(Prison Labor for Profit) - Prison should have to worry about punishment versus rehabilitation, not whether Bennie the Shiv and C-Block has made their fourth quarter numbers. Vote NO.

EHJR 4204 (REMOVE Supermajority for school funds) - Vote YES.

SHJR-4215 (University plays the Stock Market) - This I was wavering on. Do I really doubt the intelligence of a UNIVERSITY to invest in stocks wisely? Um, yes. Yes, I do doubt it. Vote NO.

King County Initiative 25 (Make the County Director of Electors a political race) - Yeah, THAT will make things move much smoother. Vote NO.

King County Proposition No. 1 (Medic One) - Why yes, when I'm have heart pangs, I'd like to have an ambulance. Hell, I'd like to have a transporter. Vote YES.

King County Prosecutor - Both men have good resumes and will likely do a good job, but the GOP candidate keeps trying to hide that he's Republican, stressing non-partisanship while at the same time taking gobs of money from the state party and doing fundraising for other GOP candidate. Vote BILL SHERMAN

Port of Seattle Position #2 - Go for GAEL TARLETON and keep an eye on her.

Port of Seattle Position #5- Keep reformer ALEC FISKEN and give him some support.

King County Assessor - OK, Scott Noble actually made a pun in his Voter's Pamphlet - he's the singular choice. Get it? SINGULAR? Because his opponent is named NOBLES? And they say Assessors have no sense of humor. Vote SCOTT NOBLE.

Public Hospital District #1 - Snake Pit. The incumbents have done poorly with their task, but their opposition is suspect. The foe of my foe is not necessarily my friend. Split the difference with CAROLE ANDERSON and SUE BOWMAN, and get a new CEO, stat!

And on the ones I cannot vote on:

King County Commissioner District Six: Jane Hague. Yep, flawed vessel, the weakness that flesh is heir to, yadayada. But that doesn't make her opponent obviously better (though he does have a Myspace page).

Renton Annexation: Oh, and now we have a City Council dustup where a religious stealth candidate running against King Parker (of King and Bunny's Appliances, up in the highlands) is striking back against a web site targeting her on how most of her support is coming from outside Renton. OK guys, on Annexation, you're on your own here, but you should know what you're getting into.

Feel free to print this out.

More later,

Local Politics: Not So Distant Thunder

Last one, then a wrap-up.

One of the final matches is one I cannot vote on, but which affects my neighborhood one block north. Because there is the dividing line between the part of Benson Hill that may be swallowed by Renton, and my chunk, which is supposedly to be injested by Kent (I suppose by osmosis - I haven't heard a peep about it).

The Renton Annexation is no small potatoes. Previously an attempt to make this area, including Fairwood in the east, an independent community failed at the polls. And with this addition, Renton will be a larger city than Bellevue, though not a taller one.

And Renton has been expanding like mad. I joke about the sprawling IKEA that dominates the southern office parks of the city, and express worry about the large tank farm for the Olympic Pipeline that is only a few blocks away, but it has been on an expansion run. The Federal Reserve, King County elections, and even the Seattle Seahawks practice field are all relocating. Add a sprawling attempt at Kent Commons and it is trying to shoulder its way out of its status as the Rodney Dangerfield of the Pacific Northwest.

And the full court press has been on everywhere - three varieties of lawn sides and a web site, the ominously titled SoonerNotLater.com [Note: Link removed - site linked to no longer deals with the Renton Expansion - 8/25/15. Meanwhile, the opponents of annexation have been visibly few and far between. So how can this fail?

Inertia. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. As the Fairwood folks found out, it takes a lot to move people out of the traditional routines, and King County swearing that they cannot adequately serve these outflung no-longer-rural communities means little as long as the recycling disappears from the curbside at the proper time. Plus, there's the added fact that Renton already has its Highlands, suffering from what may be called benign neglect - is Renton just after them for their tax base?

Ah yes, and while swearing that taxes should come down for the people making the King County/Renton switch, not too long ago Renton was banging the drum loudly to bring the Oklahoma Sonics to town, building them a very expensive arena in the process.

And Renton itself is in a very nasty mayoral fight between an incumbent and a newspaper owner, which is providing thrills, chills, and concern for those who are looking to these guys for leadership.

So despite the huge press to annex now (before its too late), the measure still has a ways to go. I wish it luck, and am wondering when Kent will get off the dime and start working towards absorbing our neighborhood - are they just waiting until EVERY old farm out here is buried under townhouses?

More later,

The Death of Four Cow Bridge

So Renton loses another landmark, and I wish I had a decent picture of it. Here's the best I can do, a copy of the centennial plaque.


Way back when Renton was founded, the railroad skirted along the southern edge of the then-town, paralleling the then-Black River (which disappeared when the Montlake Cut drained parts of Lake Washington, but that's another story). The route crossed the property of Erasmus Smithers, who gave permission for the railroad, provided they give him a tunnel by which he could drive his cows to the pasture on the southern part of his property.

How wide? asked the railroad. Four cows wide, said the farmer.

And that is how we ended up with Four Cow Bridge, also called Four Cow Tunnel and Four Cow Wide Tunnel. Smithers sold the land, development moved southwards, and FCB's neighbors became strip malls and housing. And the tunnel stayed, converted over to one-lane underpass with minimal clearance. In defiance of logic, it remained a two-way street, with stop signs at each end and a de facto one at a time system of passage. Actually, the presence of the stop signs reduced the speed on the roads, and the Lovely Bride was a fan of using it as a shortcut because it was so cute.

But progress moves on, and in redoing the rail line (it still carries fuselages for Boeing jets, and needs to be upgraded), the Four Cow Bridge is no more, to be replaced with a more modern, two-lane structure which will open up more of the neighborhood south of the rail line (still small homes, an island increasingly surrounded by commercial buildings). And while it will be easier to zip through Renton (always a good thing), some of the charm will be gone.

I just wonder where the centennial plaque went to when they were taking the old bridge apart.

More later,

Lucky Chaarms

So I dropped in at IKEA in Renton the other day, an idea which scares some people (like, you know, me). Even scarier, I discovered that they had expanded.

Now saying that the IKEA, blue-walled purveyor of flat-pack furnishings, has expanded is sort of like saying the the Vatican has suddenly thrown up another wing. When I first moved out here, the IKEA was a big warehouse, half of which was store and half of which was indoor parking (a surprising rarity in a land with so much supposed rain). Well, most of that parking is gone, and they gutted out the warehouse next door for more parking, and gutted the next building over as WELL for the overflow lot. So yeah, they've expanded.

And like the Vatican, the IKEA is its own self-established nation-state completely surrounded by another, larger governmental entity. Actually, it is more like mitochondria in our cells in that it has its own unique DNA that doesn't match up with its surroundings. It is this little (well, big) wafer of European salesmanship in the midst of otherwise American consumerism.

Anyway, my goal was to find two items that the Lovely Bride has been unable to locate in more traditional outlets - a hand-held orange squeezer (which looks like a frozen, unbloomed flower, or a small, medieval mace), and the plastic lid you put on the plate you put the plate in the microwave. They were pretty common but specialized items, and I felt if they would be anywhere, it would be here.

So, walking into an IKEA is a strange thing in itself, with its carry-all bags and recycling bins. Very different from the stink of desperation and failure I always get when I go into a Walmart. Indeed, there is a feeling of Scandinavian progressivism that extends far beyond its blonde furnishings and low-priced Swedish meatballs. The layout of the store is a single lane that meanders through its huge vault, punctured by small but discrete openings in the walls. These do a great job separating the shoppers (who take the paths and are looking for many things) from the buyers (who want to go in, get what they want, and leave).

But it does create this weird vibe that you are rats in the maze, and in his secret bunker, Ingvar, secret master of IKEA, is watching your progress, flanked by two busty Scandanavian assistants in tight lab coats. "You see?" He says, as Sasha (or is it Inga?) marks down something on a clipboard, "By moving the entrance to the cooking implements three feet over from the Persian rugs, we have increased cross traffic by three entire percentiles!"

And I admit, I felt like a very smart little lab rat, being able to avoid the home furnishings and framed posters to get to the cooking tools. Where I found what I was looking for with very little difficulty. In non-American tradition, there was only ONE orange-squeezer (called chaarm - everything here has its own strange, cute name. There is a lab somewhere in Denmark filled with writers whose only job is to come up with these names). But it was a big bin of chaarms, negating the need for any other chaarms in the world. Similarly, there was only one "plastic-lid-you-put-on-the-dish-in-the-microwave", called a haaselhoff or something, but it was the only plastic-lid-you-put-on-the-dish-in-the-microwave you'll ever need. You can imagine Invar and his assistants testing hundreds of them is some clean, bright lab, just to bring you a bin of them.

And there was stuff there that I, Food-Network junkie that I am, could not identify - single-taskers that would make Alton Brown have a cardiac. I had to ask one of the well-informed clerks to identify something that looked like a cross between a rifle bolt-action and a robotic sex toy, and was informed it was a corer. I think its name was knurdel.

So, having grabbed my chaarm and haaselhoff, I fled for the exits, to discover that there are fewer secret doors the deeper you go into Invar's lair. I finally found myself in the new checkout area, where they have incorporated self-checkout. I was partially successful, for while the haaselhoff read properly, the tag on the chaarm was such it would not read and ANOTHER friendly, well-informed clerk ran it through. Properly armed with my chaarm and haaselhoff, like a knight of old with lance and shield, I fled to the indoor parking lot next door.

Though I left, I could have sworn I heard Invar's dry, Swedish chuckle behind me.

More later,