Carm

My husband and I just returned from a trip to see relatives in Greensboro. It’s a nice little town with some great historical landmarks. We had a great time.

Waiting for the Interurban is a fun aluminum statue commemorating the light rail Interurban line that used to connect downtown Seattle with its neighborhoods. The people in the piece are supposedly “Waiting for the Interurban” which of course never comes.

As mentioned by Daydreamer, the sculpture is frequently dressed up by people in the community. In fact that is encouraged and there are even rules for decorating the Interurban statute.

I’ve seen the statue before but we visited it most recently on a walking tour of Fremont. There were no decorations that day but I asked my husband to “wait” along with the commuters.

Amongst the commuters there is a dog with a human face. That is probably the most controversial aspect of the sculpture. I regret that I didn’t take a closeup photo of the dog this time. I guess we’ll have to go back!

and now I have. This was another stop along our Fremont walking tour in May.

I understand many Seattleites see this statue as representing the quirkiness of Fremont and the triumph of art over politics. To be honest Walter and I were both saddened upon gazing at it. I couldn’t help but remember some of the things this man stood for and how many suffered and died during his regime.

Hopefully we’ve come a long way since that time. But to me this statue represents just how short are our collective memories and that sometimes that’s how we end up repeating the mistakes of yesterday.

We saw the Troll as part of our walking tour of Fremont back in May. I can’t believe I’ve lived in Seattle all these years without seeing him “in person” before. Definitely worth the 3 block walk up the hill. I call this photo “Walter as Finger Food.”

is a cool tribute to the quirkiness of Fremont. The story of the rocket can be found here.

My husband and I did a walking tour of Fremont for my birthday and the Rocket was just one of several sites we had to see. I loved that the Fremont motto “De Libertas Quirkas” (Freedom to be Peculiar) is emblazoned on the side of the rocket. If you like quirky, this is definitely worth a visit.

The restaurant Carmelita is about two miles from my home. It naturally caught my attention when it first opened up 11 years ago as my name is also Carmelita. We tried to go there for dinner a couple times but there was a long wait for a table and parking was difficult to find. It’s too bad it took us a decade or more to return.

Carmelita is an elegant, upscale vegetarian restaurant. Many non-vegetarians love it and the food is really tasty. We decided to go there for my birthday a couple weeks ago. This time we were happy to see that there was no long wait as we had experienced years earlier. In fact we were the only couple in the place! We enjoyed a leisurely and delicious dinner in an elegant atmosphere.

We had some yummy bread and a tasty cheese plate before our meal. My husband had Potato-Gruyere gratin with Swiss chard, leek cream, and fennel-radish salad with croutons. And I chose the Baked Roman-style gnocchi, lemon cream, rapini, pearl onion, pine nuts with blueberry sauce. The presentation was a work of art and both our meals were just delicious.

Walter is pretty open minded about food and isn’t a strict meat eater. Before dinner though he told me he “had a protein jones.” So I was a little nervous about whether he would enjoy his dinner. In the end he loved it and his meat craving went away entirely.

If you are vegetarian or enjoy vegetarian food from time to time I recommend this place for a special occasion. It’s a bit pricey for every day (at least on our budget) but definitely worth a visit if you want a special evening out.

I marked this one “worth doing” because it’s so beautiful there. We went through here on a cruise on our honeymoon many years ago. My most significant memory of the Inside Passage is that this is where a stabilizer went out on our ship during a period of choppy waters. That’s when I learned how great Dramamine is.

I love to come to this restaurant for lunch with a girlfriend. It has a fun Polynesian theme to it. One of my favorite dishes is a lemon grass tofu stir fry – yum! And their lumpia is pretty good too.

I had lunch here with my husband yesterday. There seemed to be something different about it so I asked the waiter if they had recently made some changes in the decor. He said yes, a little. They had painted and changed a couple things.

Then he told me that come November the restaurant will change into “something else.” I take it he meant it will get a new name and different theme. He said that most of the menu will not change and it will be the same owner and management but they want to lose the island theme.

I noticed they use the words Asian Grill on the window along with Polynesian and its true that many of the menu items can be described as Asian. Could be that they will take the decor in that direction?

I hope they don’t change it too much. I enjoy the Hawaiian look.

I had a temporary job working for the Olympic National Forest for a while. Once in a while my boss let me (clerical staff) tag along when he went out to a field location in the forest. Those were great times.

The last time we went here was on Valentine’s Day. They usually have a long line but we were lucky to get in quickly. Walter had pasta carbonara and I had spicy cajun jambalya for dinner. For dessert we opted for Craig’s Crazy Carrot Cake Cheesecake. YUMMY!!!

I’ve been to a couple other Cheesecake Factories in Seattle but I think this one has the most beautiful architecture. The food and service have never disappointed either.