Science Experiment

Belle Bath Cooper wrote 10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science for the Huffington Post. I highly recommend it.  I intend to apply Ms. Cooper’s advice on a daily basis to cultivate a habit of happiness.  In case you want to try, I’ve compiled visual aids…

#1. Exercise

#2. Sleep

#3. Move closer to work

#4. Spend Time with family and friends

#5.Go outside

#6. Help others

#7.Practice smiling

#8.Plan a trip

#9. Meditate

#10.Practice gratitude

All images and words copyright 2013 Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Habit.
Thanks to my FB friend, storyteller Carol Connolly, who shared Ms. Cooper’s article.

Advertisement

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.

Flying High

Last week my son Eli and I got into the car and drove down to Sea-Tac airport.

It was a beautiful day.  We saw honest-to-goodness sunshine for the first time in a long time.  I was glad I remembered to bring my camera.  Turning onto Main Street, we saw the Olympics in all their glory.

Eli and I have a very simple system for sharing the camera. If I’m driving, it’s “Eli, quick, take a picture of that.  Without the power lines, if you can!”  Sometimes he gets excited, and says, “Ooh, Mom, can I have the camera?”   South of downtown Seattle, we rounded a bend, and gasped at the magnificence of Mt. Rainier, looming over the city like a great white ghost.  “Quick, Eli, take a picture!”

He got a good one.  Only this time, I asked him to take another, with the carpool sign in it.  At the time I wasn’t sure why, but I realize now it’s because I wanted to remember being together in our little family carpool, sharing that moment in our beautiful home town.

Everything seemed so natural, and ordinary. Except this time, we parked at the airport, checked his bag, and grabbed a cuppa joe and a goodbye kiss, before he boarded an airplane to Argentina as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.

While inching his way through the maze toward the security gate, we waved and smiled at each other each time he passed by.  He reminded me of a kid waiting in line to go on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.  Only this was the real thing.  My son put on his shoes, grabbed his backpack and ukelele, and gave me one final salute before hurrying off to his gate. Then I went to the parking garage, got into my car, and blubbered.

I’m so proud of my son.  He’s courageous and adventurous.  He’s doing what all our baby birdies are supposed to do.  We hatch them, and nurture them….

They test their wings…

 

…and then they fly.  That’s their job.

My  job is to miss them, and worry, and love them wherever they are, and to get on with my life.  I had shows to rehearse for, a manuscript to finish, out-of-town company coming to visit.

It seemed impossible that I should be arriving back home while Eli’s plane still sat on the tarmac waiting for take-off.  I swung by the water, and saw that the sun was still shining.  Cars and people were still coming and going.

Ferry boats too.

On the way up the hill to our house I passed another familiar sight.  I’d always appreciated the simple beauty of this little wooden structure, vaguely wondering who had built it on such thickly forested unoccupied land–and why.  That day I perceived it as a work of art, an invitation, a gateway to adventure, to the unknown, to the future.  And  I stopped to take a picture for Eli.

Click here to read Elaiya Blogea, Elijah’s very funny, very interesting blog about a year in Salta.

All images and words c2013 Naomi Baltuck.

Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Travel Theme: Transport.