What Light Through Yonder Coffee House Window Breaks?

Two weeks ago my husband and I returned from spending seven days in Seattle.

I’d never been there before, nowhere even close, so I was giddy to finally get there. My knowledge about Seattle prior to that week consisted of whatever I learned from episodes of “Frasier”, the fact that the grunge movement in music originated there, and the rumor that there’s a Starbucks on every single street corner. But after this time in the Emerald City, I’m happy to say there’s so much more to it.

I have to say, the coffee there really is great, and there is no shortage of corner coffee houses. But for me it was as much about the atmosphere of the establishments as it was the taste of the beverages. These places are cozy, metropolitan-yet-kitschy with eclectic furniture and local art. Most pleasing, though, was the genuine friendliness of the baristas I encountered.

I fully expected to be given a rolled-eye look when I ordered my caffeine fix in the wrong manner. Many jokes have been made regarding whether it’s a “grande mocha latte double whip” or a “double whip mocha latte grande.” The truth is that they all knew what I meant and didn’t make a big deal about my style. The coffee snobbery that’s so often portrayed on TV is total fiction. I think only coffee preppers in OTHER cities behave that way on the false assumption that this is how Seattle baristas behave.

After taking a 3-mile walk around Green Lake Park in a slight drizzle, my friend and I popped in to the Title Nine store on Woodlawn for a quick look-see while we left our two dogs with the menfolk outside. The store clerks immediately insisted we bring the dogs inside the store so they could meet them. [Insert surprised look here.] A retail clothing store preferred we bring our dogs inside. And then they gave them water. How awesome is that? Seattle is super dog friendly, and I’m convinced it puts everyone in a better mood. Everywhere we went there were dogs walking their owners, and they all seem happier because of it.

I found the majority of people in Seattle to be quite pleasant, as well as helpful, polite, gracious…and I promise it’s not only because I was on a constant buzz of local microbrew influence. People there just seemed to be content. (Maybe they’re under a constant buzz of local microbrew influence.)
Our hosts for the week, who both grew up south of the Mason-Dixon, consider Seattle to be “home”, and I can see how the place can quickly grow on you. The backdrop of immense mountains, the never-ending expanse of evergreens (I’m telling you, these trees are spectacular), the clean air, the availability of every outdoor recreational sport imaginable, and the general attitude of welcomeness all contributed to my relaxation and fascination. On my first day back to work my boss told me I looked so relaxed that I looked 10 years younger. Seriously!


Since returning to Florida, my friends have all questioned me about the weather in Seattle. We all believe that it does nothing but rain there. Sorry, folks, but we saw the sun this week, multiple times. We even wore sunglasses. And we saw a glorious full moon between the evergreens one night. But I’ll tell ya, the Seattle rain is far more tolerable than the Florida rain. It may last longer, but it’s less obtrusive. Our hosts told us not to bother bringing umbrellas because “everyone will know you’re a tourist.” They were right, I didn’t see any umbrellas in use, only hats and hoods, and even that was only sometimes.

Truthfully, the overcast skies contributed to the beauty of the landscape. It’s easier to stare up into the massive evergreens when you’re not being blinded by sunlight. The clouds teasingly shadow the snow-topped Olympic and Cascade mountains far off in the distance.

Our ferry ride across Puget Sound seemed more romantic blanketed in grayness.



Finally, I cannot discuss Seattle without mentioning food. A place called Duke’s Chowder House on Alki Beach served a scrumptious chowder sampler that was an absolute dream.
Dungeness crab bourbon, clam, lobster pernod, cajun chicken, and Northwest seafood combo chowders were each simmered to perfection. There I also had wild Alaskan cod that was the freshest, heartiest hunk of fish I’ve ever tasted, with nary a drop of greasiness.

Our last night found us at The Matador in the Ballard neighborhood where I chose roasted tomato, chicken, polenta, and avocado soup (can you hear the choir of angels singing at its mention?). This was accompanied by butternut squash and goat cheese quesadillas. Divine. Nothing pretentious, but skillfully executed (which could describe much of Seattle, actually).

There’s no question whether I loved Seattle. It was well worth every dollar and hour it took to get there. I felt a million miles from home and yet felt entirely comfortable there. I already miss the chilly mornings I spent sipping my coffee on the deck, gazing at the evergreens and cedars, looking for the hummingbird that surprised me the first day. I can’t wait to go back to what was described to me as “the only place you want to be in summer.”

Seattle, wait for me.

Buffetting the Storm

Fifteen years ago I learned to embrace the power of positive thinking.

I wasn’t attending a Tony Robbins seminar, nor was I reading a Norman Vincent Peale book. Rather, I was stuck in a car on a Pennsylvania highway, alone in a traffic jam.

It was early January 1996, the final semester of my senior year of college. It was 18 degrees outside and I was driving back to campus after a seven-week internship in sunny Florida. A major storm had just blown through the entire Northeast, and I knew there was 23 inches of snow on the ground waiting to greet me at my apartment.

I was still an hour and a half away when it began to snow again just as the sun started to set. Some unseen event ahead of me halted traffic to a snail’s pace, and we reached a top speed of 10 miles per hour for the short spurts when we were actually moving.

In the prior seven weeks my blood had quickly thinned out to a deeply southern consistency, so the cold was hitting me hard. On top of that I was tired from hours of traveling and just wanted to get to my apartment. My stomach was growling. And I had to pee.

Solitary on Interstate 78, I had no companion with whom to commiserate. So I reached for my tape collection and one of them spoke to me. His name was Jimmy Buffett. I cranked up the heat as hot and high as it would go, then I popped in the cassette and pushed play.

For the next 70 miles I thought about how I’d been lying by the pool just days before, and I really pondered the concept of changes in latitudes/changes in attitudes. Steel drums had me drifting south immediately.
I imagined sitting on dock sipping two more boat drinks. And crazy enough, I slowly shook the chill that had enveloped me all day. I could envision that the snow outside was really a white sandy beach, and that the blowing flakes were sea spray. The heat pouring out from my ’85 Celebrity’s vents rivaled any Florida summer wind.

In a bit of perfect comedic timing, Buffett’s song Volcano was playing just as I passed a highway sign pointing toward Three Mile Island (“Don't want to land on the Three Mile Island/Don't want to see my skin aglow”). I may have rolled the window down just a tad and sung this line at the top of my lungs, but I can’t be certain.


In any case, by the time I arrived on campus my mood had improved so much that I didn’t even mind that the parking lot hadn’t been plowed, or that snow drifts had completely blocked the sidewalk. No, in my mind I lived down by the ocean.

For all my friends in PA and NC and crazily even GA, who this week are all dealing with ice and sleet and feet of snow, I can only offer as advice that process which got me through my own snowpocalypse. Remember, it won’t last forever. Come Monday, it’ll be alright….

Ponyboy Curtis Sleeps Here

It wasn’t so long ago that I had a magazine picture of Ricky Schroder taped to the wall above my bed. Most of my friends had a Duran Duran poster taped to the ceiling above theirs. But 25 years later, such decorating sense would be frowned upon both by spouses and design professionals alike.

Luckily, there’s a place to where us Gen X girls can steal away and relive our 1980s youth, if only for a night. The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto boasts a Teen Queen room, decorated with lavender walls, gingham bedspread, unicorn lamp, and—best of all—walls plastered with teen magazine photos of everyone from Rob Lowe to C. Thomas Howell.
All of The Outsiders are represented, as are “fox” Kristy McNichol and bionic woman Lindsay Wagner. There are also a few paintings of horses thrown in for good measure. (I never had the horse fixation myself, but I’ll roll with it knowing so many others who did.)

Cecilia Berkovic is the artist who created the room and describes the Teen Queen as, “Like sleeping over at your best friend’s. An homage to the young girls we were, feared, wished we’d been, or wanted to date.”

My friend Leslie recently spent New Year’s weekend in the Teen Queen. Despite the retro pop culture theme, she said the room was actually aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. “I definitely felt like I was spending intimate time in an art installation,” said Leslie.


In fact, the Gladstone boasts 37 uniquely-designed rooms which the hotel claims reflect the diversity of talent in the city of Toronto and “encompass a number of disciplines including visual artists, interior designers, architects and material-based artists.” Each room is dramatically named for its theme: Skygazer, Faux Naturelle, Trading Post, and my favorite…Parlour of Twilight.

Said Leslie, “Some of the rooms had long-winded, high-falutin' artist statements about “acclimatization” and “erasure as efflorescence,” but the artist statement from the Teen Queen room sold me with its simplicity.”


Just looking at her pictures makes me want to put my hair up in a neon scrunchie and choreograph a dance to a Wham! song.

If you venture to Toronto, the Teen Queen starts at $169/night. But please, no lipstick marks on the photos.

The Deja Vu Memorial Bridge

If you’ve ever driven I-95 in northern Maryland, chances are you’ve crossed the Millard E Tydings Bridge, which spans the Susquehanna River near Havre de Grace. As a kid, we must have gone over this bridge every year on family vacations, but I saw it differently the first time I drove it alone. For one thing, I never noticed the sign warning motorists of “Dangerous Crosswinds.” Great, I thought, I’m going to blow off the bridge. I then white-knuckled it all the way across.

It’s a beautiful view, traversing from one rocky bluff to the other.


(photo found on Flickr by Tpal3)

That first time driving it alone I was on my way from New Jersey to northern Virginia, on a weekend trip to visit my brother. It was the first real road trip I’d taken by myself, and while it was only a 4-hour drive, it was something special for me to do. Something about crossing state lines on your own feels grown up.

As I approached the bridge heading south, Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” came on the radio. Having just read the road sign about the deadly crosswinds, the lyric “fly away…high away…bye bye…” didn’t ease my nerves. Neither did the one about “walking head-on into the deep end of the river.” But somehow I made it across, and was even able to catch a few glimpses of the changing fall foliage on that October morning.

I might not have remembered what song was playing had it not been for a strange coincidence. Two days later on my return trip, the same song played on the radio as I drove northbound on the very same bridge. I was sad to be leaving my brother’s place after a really fun weekend, and the melancholy tune was fitting. It served as the opening and closing acts to the weekend.

I usually have a fleeting thought of that bridge whenever I hear that song. But two mornings ago I heard it on the way to work and I thought about it a little longer. Today is the beginning of October, almost the same time as the day I took that trip 19 years ago. While it doesn’t feel like fall yet here, the sky and sun look like fall. It was grey that morning, making me yearn for cooler weather. I found myself wishing there was a bridge nearby that I could drive across.



(photo found on Flickr by Karol A Olson)

A Weekend in the Garden of Good and Evil

I love traveling as much as I love writing, so it's a bit of wonder why it took me so long to blend the two. This is my first attempt at travel writing, and I think I like it.

Paraphrasing from John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, “The whole of Savannah is an oasis...it is isolated, and gloriously so. A little enclave on the coast, surrounded by nothing but marshes and piney woods, and not easy to get to. If you fly there, you usually have to change planes at least once...it’s a terribly inconvenient destination!”



But, oh, how worthwhile that journey is.

Upon arriving in Savannah, my first stop is always a place called Fiddlers, where I sit on the upper balcony overlooking the Savannah River, inhaling the fresh air. It is here that my blood pressure drops and my neck tension releases. It is here that life is good. I found it by chance, but I think maybe it found me and said, “this is where you’ll sit a spell.”

So how do you get the most out of a weekend in this fair city, nicknamed the “Hostess City of the South?”

The only way to stay in Savannah is at a historic bed and breakfast. The city is full of them, each one unique, and many offer a little something extra that you won’t find at a chain hotel. A resident ghost--or at least the legend of one--is common. In fact, Savannah boasts some of the finest ghost tours you’ll find in the South, which detail more stories of skeletons in closets and unexplained beings than you’ve likely ever heard before. You can even take a ghost tour while riding around in a hearse for a truly spooky experience.

Now, depending on where you’re from, Savannah may take a little adjustment time. If you’re city folk, slow down a bit. In Savannah you walk slower, you talk slower. The city just wants you to relax. Take your time, Savannah’s not going anywhere.

Understand that this is a walking city. To get the most out of what’s really worth seeing, put on your comfortable shoes and head toward the riverfront through the historic district.

The historic district is situated around 21 grassy squares, or small parks, which are over 150 years old. Most have a noble statue or a fountain in memoriam to a war hero or other city historic figure; all have benches and grand oak trees, with blooming azaleas in the springtime. Remember the scenes from the movie Forrest Gump where Forrest was sitting on the bus stop bench? That was filmed in Savannah’s Chippewa Square. That bench is no longer there, but you’ll recognize the square nonetheless. And don’t be surprised to see an eccentric old woman in a fancy hat pushing her Pekingese in a baby carriage, or art students sitting on a bench, sketching.

The district is easy to navigate, and sidewalks are plenty, but keep a basic map handy just to keep the street names straight.

It is through this easy meandering that you will discover part of the city’s exceptional beauty: its architecture. From Georgian and Greek Revival mansions to colonial rowhouses, hidden gardens and brick alley passageways, you’ll find yourself peering through wrought-iron gates in search of a peek at a hidden treasure. You don’t have to be a student of architecture to appreciate Savannah’s dedication to both historic preservation and old Southern charm.



But all this walking can make a person hungry. Being a coastal city means many things, not the least of which is delectable seafood. The riverfront section on River Street is full of casual restaurants serving up the fresh catch of the day. I especially recommend the crab cakes at Fiddler’s.

From here one can meander down the clunky cobblestone street—remember those comfortable shoes, this is not for the stiletto crowd, trust me—and grab an icy drink. Savannah knows everyone is happier with a cold drink in hand, and has a relaxed attitude on folks who prefer to amble with a go-cup.

If the feets are achin’ but the soul is still willing for more Savannah touring, there are many options. Tours are always circling, just take your pick of your desired mode of transportation: horse-pulled carriage, motorized trolley, Segway...hearse. Tours are affordable and all give an excellent overview of historic points of interest, and tour guides are personable and quaint, giving a wonderful representation of Southern Hospitality with humorous commentary.

But don’t think you’ll see everything in one weekend; you won’t. Savannah is a city of great warmth and kindness, but it delights in teasing you to come back for more. And you will want to.

It clings to your memory like so much Spanish moss clinging to the boughs of a 300-year-old live oak. No need to brush it away, though. Savannah will welcome you back, anytime, with a cold drink and a soft breeze. Savannah’s an old friend with an open gate; come on back anytime, Sugar.

My Best Days, Part 1

One of my college roommates has written a book that is a guide to gratitude. Conscious gratitude is supposed to improve our outlook on life and bring us joy. So in that spirit, I’m starting a new recurring feature of the blog.

Called My Best Days, it will be a recollection of singular days that in themselves might not have been dramatic or life-altering, but were memorable simply for being good. The experiences were simple but they continue to remind me of how life can be great through a collection of bright moments.

My Best Days, Part 1….LaJolla, California, 07-06-2000

I get lost in thought when I see these photos. I was visiting one of my best friends in the world (of course, a “Jen”) who was living in the San Diego area. She had a cute little apartment in La Jolla, just two blocks from the Pacific coast. We spent this particular morning hiking the hills and rocks along the shoreline.



It was misty and breezy in the morning, but in typical fashion the marine layer lifted by noon and our sweatshirts came off.

This picture was taken on a pedestrian bridge that spanned a small cove of ocean that jutted into the landscape.



The water could not have been bluer, the foliage greener, or the sun cast a more golden glow on everything. I kept looking right, then left, then ahead, and then back again…I just couldn’t take in enough of the panorama. At that point I remembered a coworker telling me that when she went to San Diego, she felt like her soul was where it belonged. That is what I felt here!

And it was so quiet, save for the water hitting the rocks, the blowing breeze, and our own laughter.

I don’t know how far we hiked, probably only a mile or two. Maybe “hiking” isn’t the best word…aerobic meandering is more like it.

We watched the seals on the pier. I saw gnarly trees that appeared to be directly out of a Dr. Seuss book.
We laughed uncontrollably when a squirrel looked at us funny. It was that kind of day, where nothing could have gotten us down.

We ate lunch at bistro in LaJolla Village, and to this day I swear it was the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten. Turkey and cheddar on rosemary bread.

Two old friends with no schedule to keep, warm sunshine, and laughter. It was a day where I can truthfully say I completely relaxed and loved every...single...minute.

I still think of that day whenever I eat rosemary bread.