hi. i'm don.

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#thursday #night #wine

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Apr 9, 2020 at 8:58pm PDT

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Cajun shrimp, sausage, veggies. Kinda like jambalaya minus the tomatoes and rice. 🍳 🍤 🔥 #quarantine #quarantineeats #cooking #sheridanheights #lakeforestpark #washingtonstate

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Apr 1, 2020 at 7:05pm PDT

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Our go-to camping recipe for dutch-oven jambalaya adapts magnificently for stovetop prep, quarantine or no. #campingathome 🍤 🔥 ⛺️

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Mar 23, 2020 at 7:33pm PDT

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2800 lights, ~30 angel ornaments, and 9 hours later... 🎄 (also: Snoopy!) . . #Christmas #ChristmasTree #Holidays #Angels #Snoopy #LakeForestPark #WashingtonState

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Dec 1, 2019 at 3:59pm PST

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Celebrating a friend’s 10-years-in-Seattle milestone with a bonfire on the beach. 🔥 🏖 🌅 . . #GoldenGardens #Beach #Sunset #Bonfire

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Nov 15, 2019 at 4:48pm PST

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Unsettled sky @SpaceNeedle @SeattleCenter . . #weather #sky #clouds #spaceneedle #seattlecenter

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Nov 15, 2019 at 3:20pm PST

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Locked and loaded 👻 🎃 🍫

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Oct 31, 2019 at 5:37pm PDT

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...been a bit of a long night 🍷

A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Oct 28, 2019 at 10:52pm PDT

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A post shared by Don (@donnunn) on Sep 28, 2019 at 1:21pm PDT

[I trigger the update]
Installing. About 27 minutes remaining...

[5 minutes later]
About 42 minutes remaining...

[4 minutes after that]
About 49 minutes remaining...

[12 minutes go by]
About 48 minutes remaining...

[48 minutes later]
About 41 minutes remaining...

Weekend at McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge and I’m pleased to have a view over the Columbia River.

Digital zoom does it no justice, but I was pleased by the view from my north-facing office window this morning just after sunrise:

Mount Baker, visible from 80+ miles away bathed in sunlight and peeking above the rooftops and below the clouds.

But not my coworkers. Them, I’m fine with.

I go to work early to avoid my coworkers. I leave early for the same reason.

— Vodka Time (@VodkaTiem) September 3, 2015

Although I don’t use work to avoid non-work peeps. I use antisocial behaviour, which works just as well.

Celebrating a work milestone (release going well) with a scoop of chocolate mousse ice cream and accompaniments.

And, well, why not have ice cream for lunch anyway?

I guess Bemis didn’t feel comfortable putting “See where you pee” on the toilet-seat packaging.

Supreme Court rules same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

Beautiful writing from the majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

An indoor cat, Flex always makes a beeline for the lawn edge so he can do a bit of grazing.

Brunch at Skillet Diner in Capitol Hill today, a send-off of sorts for a friend who’s leaving Seattle for Florida to take a job offer and move closer to his family.

I ordered Serious Toast, which from the menu description sounded delicious:

Molasses custard soaked thick cut brioche, raspberry jam, local pit ham, powdered sugar, two eggs your way

About 15 minutes later our brunch items arrived and I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from my first time seeing the reality of Serious Toast:

What a send-off: China’s funeral strippers told to cover up

(CNN)—If you were mourning the loss of a loved one in China, at least the entertainment might have cheered you up. Until now.

In rural China, hiring exotic dancers to perform at wakes is an increasingly common practice, but is now the latest focus of the country’s crackdown on vice.

Strippers are invited to perform at funerals, often at great expense, to attract more mourners, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

Another report suggested another motivation: that the performances “add to the fun.”

Photos obtained by CNN from an attendee at a village funeral in Cheng’an County in Hebei Province show mourners of all ages, including children, watching the performance.

And wishes for continued prosperity and wellness for years to come.

One of the (dis?)advantages of being color-blind is that I tend to dress simply, in solid colors and materials that are easy to match—basically the adult version of Garanimals. I also favor darker colors in general, and a lot of navy, green, and blue in particular.

Today, then, I am an unintentional 6-foot freshly inflicted contusion:

• Navy boxers
• Black socks, shoes
• Dark blue jeans, black belt
• Navy tee under a black Henley
• Navy hoodie under a black wool overcoat

This is the result of a few standard clothing items (I always wear black socks) mixed with random grabbing out of the dresser drawers and laundry basket.

Tomorrow I will probably happen to choose brown or green and so will switch to the Healing Bruise look on the holiday, because with the new year comes optimism, or something like that.

Flex found a sunbeam and a throw for a bit of relaxing.

Because the WA lottery commission loves to drive people CRAZY.

On the plus side: It was a $10 winner. So time well spent.

$65,000 to go.

Flex resting on the kitchen floor mat.

Normally I’d post a photo of this year’s Christmas tree with a count of the number of lights we installed (it was 2800 in recent years)—in fact by now that photo’s usually been posted for a few weeks. But this year we decided to observe the holiday in a pretty low-key manner.

No Christmas tree, for example—I’m sure our electric meter is pleased with that, no lights making it work overtime to track power consumption this month. We did lighter decorating with candles and some small lights, a lighted garland over the fireplace with our Christmas stockings. Also did some baking and we hosted a small group of family and friends at dinner on Christmas Eve, a tradition we started about 10 years ago to leave Christmas Day relaxing and uncluttered.

In that spirit, then:

Here’s to a warm and happy Christmas to you and yours, and the best wishes for the upcoming New Year and into the future.

I’m really not as much a lush as my blog and social media would have you believe.

Almost on our way to Chicago. We just have to leave the gate....

I’ve never had to use an OveGlove before to handle a mug after reheating. Ouch.

The aftermath of the chicken pot pie recipe Julie Anne made tonight. HELP ME.

Frost’s bacon maple bar, baby.

I call it a Barney poop.

(Though actually I stole that from my mom. Thanks Mom!)

Your guess is as good as ours.

The joy of eclectic neighborhood cafes: Random drinkware for your sipping enjoyment.

Courtesy of an entry yesterday in the Seattle Times Today File blog, emphases mine:

Working in fast food is no cakewalk.

In fact, sometimes it can be a downright cakefight.

Case in point:

On Saturday, Seattle police Officer Nic Abts-Olsen responded to reports of an assault at the KFC in the 13200 block of Aurora Avenue North. The weapon of choice: Cake.

Lemon cake, to be exact. But more on that shortly.

As Abts-Olsen and his partner Cliff Borjeson rolled to the scene, details of the attack trickled in from dispatchers: “Unknown male was throwing cake at employees.” Followed by the ominous: “They can no longer sell the cake.”

Employees told the two officers that a man walked into the store, threw a KFC-brand cake at them and then left.

Fortunately, the man’s aim was off.

Staff at the KFC were only able to provide a vague description of the man.

But they offered a much more vivid description of his weapon: “The cake was described as a lemon cake, yellow in color and circular and costs exactly $5.19,” Officer Abts-Olsen wrote in a report.

Nightly meds for Flex, my 10-year-old black cat who has hepatitis and diabetes. He’ll be on daily steroid and insulin doses for the rest of his life.

Steroid on the left: 0.5 mL budesonide in an allegedly chicken-flavored suspension. Flex adores chicken but doesn’t much care for the medicine. And I gotta say, the one time he pulled away as I was giving the dose and it splashed on my lip, chicken was not the flavor note I came away with. But of course I’m not the target audience.

On the right, the U-40 syringe holding Flex’s 1.5-unit dose of ProZinc insulin. (He gets that dose twice a day.) The injections don’t bother him unless I manage to goof on the initial stick—happily, it’s been a few weeks now since a stick made him cry out or twitch away.

I guess I always assumed stevia was “in the raw”.

On our way to Bainbridge Island for a leisurely afternoon of wine-tasting and lunch.

Not why I put the cushions there, Flex, but excellent idea anyway.

Because, why the hell not.

Not a milestone this year, a regular old (hee hee) run-of-the-mill birthday. But still getting a multiple-day celebration thanks to your family and friends who love you.

Here’s to 40-some more!

Everyone, go pester Jewells with birthday wishes at her various online haunts:

• Jewells in Seattle
• Facebook
• Twitter

For a cat, anyway.

A routine task, putting away laundry.

I pick up socks, turn to the dresser, put them away, turn back to the basket. Stack of tee shirts, turn to the dresser, put them away, turn back to the basket for the last pair of jeans it still holds:

The weird thing is, it wasn’t until a full day later we thought to wonder where the balloon shop is.

Flex cannot pass up a chance of a hint of a possible tiny bit of food. We often find him perched in the kitchen sink this way.