Space Needle – Writing Between the Lines

When the Gravy Hits the Fan

Thanksgiving was extra special this year for three reasons: My sister Constance, my daughter Bea, and Bea’s friend Beata.

Continue reading “When the Gravy Hits the Fan”

Off to See the Wizard

The Motor City might be in my DNA, but at heart I’m a Needle Rat, living, working, and playing in the shadow of The Space Needle.

Scottish Australian storyteller Meg Philp and her Kiwi storytelling friend Lesley Dowding came to visit last month.

It had been too long since I’d seen Meg, my dear friend for over twenty-five years. I’d never met Lesley, but she was a storyteller, an author, and a friend of Meg’s, and that was good enough for me. The timing was perfect, not only for Meg to tell at the Forest Storytelling Festival in Port Angeles, but to catch the peak of autumn color.

First stop, a visit to the beach down the hill from my house, for walking and talking…and talking…and talking…

…and sharing a huckleberry sundae at Anthony’s Beach Cafe.

Lesley, Meg, and I walked back along the beach, three birds of a feather…

…watching the ferries come and go.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Aim a camera, ask someone to jump off a cliff, and she might just do it for the sake of the shot. Meg and Lesley were such good sports! Again…

…and again!

I presented my city to them. We began, of course, with The Space Needle.

The view was worth the trip.

Through the protective bars we admired the paint job on the roof below the Needle.

I LOVE Seattle!

The view inside the belly of the beast was almost as good.

Then there was the Needle’s spiffy biffy.

A quick ride on the monorail took us downtown.

The First Nations permanent art collection at the Seattle Art Museum is superb.

“Going for Gold,” featured golden art objects, including ancient brocades, jewelry, even a Faberge cigarette case.

And remember that camera thing I was telling you about?

Next stop, Pike Place Market.

For lunch…

For dessert, we had LOTS of rainbow-colored eye candy.

Then we had our big night on the town.

Yes, we were off to see the Wizard. I felt like Dorothy with my very own Yellow Brick Roadies, including my husband Thom, and brother Lew.

The Paramount Theater…

…is elegant and historic, and its patrons…

…very high class!

In our days together we also saw this…

…that…

…and the other thing.

Oh, yes…and the OTHER other thing, in an eerie dark alley, well, just spitting distance from the market.

It’s an attraction the way squirrel roadkill or a really big oozy banana slug attracts the eye, even while repulsing other senses you didn’t even know you had.

Yes, I am talking about Seattle’s own Gum Wall, fifty feet high, inches thick.

After years of scraping the wall clean, only to have the gooey gum wads mysteriously reappear that night, it was finally reclassified as a tourist attraction. It was even voted the second germiest tourist attraction in the world, after The Blarney Stone. Frankly, I think the Gum Wall should have won, but that’s a sticky wicket, and we won’t go there. But I will tell you this: it was in the bowels of old Seattle that I realized Lesley and I had formed a friendship that would stick. You do remember that camera thing I was telling you about?

Wait for it….

Wait for it…

Wait for it….

This one’s for you, Lesley. I am proud to call you ‘Friend.’

All images and words copyright 2013 Naomi Baltuck.
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Eerie.

Staff Infection

As a newly graduated English Majorette, I headed Out West to seek my fortune, and arrived in Seattle just before the holiday season.

While I decided what to do with the rest of my life, I landed a temp job selling shoes at the downtown Frederick and Nelson’s to pay the rent.

The shoe did not fit. Most of the saleswomen spent their paychecks on new clothes, using the employee discount, of course. I had two and a half presentable outfits, and rotated. I didn’t wear make-up or high heels, but I did have a decent pair of leather boots that went with everything. I was competent and polite, except to the imperious bitches who mistook the fitting chair for a throne and were used to being waited on hand and foot. They were the ones who came in five minutes before closing, ordered me to fetch four different pairs of shoes in three sizes, then stuck out their feet for me to remove their own shoes for them.

That six week position seemed an eternity, but I had a secret superpower to get through it. Long before the invention of Photoshop, I had mastered my own techniques for photo doctoring.

It was crude, but effective. And my family was very forgiving.

All it took was a pin to scratch away here and a red marker to color in there, and voila! I turned my Frederick and Nelson’s staff pin into a Frederick and Nelson’s staph pin. No one even noticed, but somehow it was a sign, and it made all the difference to me.

Then one cold December day my boss called me into the back room. I was sure she was going to fire me for badge tampering. But she said, “I want you to work here on a permanent basis beginning in January.”

Before I could tell her, “Thank you, but I want to check out job opportunities in Hell first,” she leaned forward to stare at my bosom. Or at the badge on my bosom, to be more precise. “I think there’s a typo on your badge.”

“So it would seem,” I replied.

“That’s never happened before. Go get a new one, and then let me know as soon as possible about the job.”

I never did trade in my Little Red Badge of Courage for a new one. As for the job selling shoes… those boots were made for walking, and that’s just what they did. They walked on down to Grand Teton National Park, where I waited tables, and to King’s Canyon National Park, where I taught canoe.