Oktoberfest: beer, brats, and bar-b-q

This month has been chock full of trips and parties and deadlines. I'll start my October re-cap series with a little ditty about a town called Leavenworth.

To get a sence for Leavenworth, envision the German village portion of Epcot Center (sturdy ladies holding two beer steins, smiley guys in Lederhosen, squat brown and white buildings, flowery storefront signs). Now drop that into the middle of the Cascade Mountains, and watch for the tourism dollars to roll in. Who knew there was such a market for faux-Bavaria in central Washington? Anyway, the company I work for gave us a gift certificate to Leavenworth's Sleeping Lady Inn for our wedding (our friends Chris and Julie also got one). Not coincidentally, we decided to cash them in during the town's Oktoberfest, one of the biggest in the State.

Although Oktoberfest itself was nothing to write home about, some unexpected details made the trip. Dave navigated through treacherous traffic then gnarly mountain roads for 2.5 hours in the pouring rain. The biggest big rigs whooshed by us, rattling our trusty Subaru. Road beers, music, and a lively game of "Top 3" made the trip more fun (Dave, are you with me??). We miraculously arrived in one piece and headed out for some shnitzel (like little doughy turds).

The next morning, Dave and Chris went into town to watch a football game, while Julie and I took a two hour walk through the hills. We stumbled upon a public salmon hatchery, where they nurture baby salmon in incubators. They look like eyeballs with tails. It was way cool.

Oktoberfest was wet. Great big halls were filled with drunks, townfolk, frat kids, ladies in sexy dirndles, and Germans looking to save money on airfare. We drank beer indoors, chatted with our table-mates, and watched German showgirls dance, play bells, sing, and pique the interest of every guy in the tent. Again, picture Epcot.

We then moved the party down the street to soak up the beer with some respectable German food, including goulash, brats, and sauerkraut. I can now check off one place in the Top 1,000 Places To See Before You Die book.

Traveling home on Sunday, we stopped by a converted roadside school bus that served bar-b-q. Chris is a born-and-bred Texan food lover, and had heard about this bus in his quest for authentic bar-b-q. None of us were hungry but we had to stop. After ordering, Julie and I dipped into the Reptile Museum next door to use their bathroom. Our eyes lit up like little children at the freakishly large and creepy critters (a two headed turtled- saw it with my own eyes!, an Anaconda that would eat us for a snack, and an albino aligator). After our reptilian peep show, we ran back to the bar-b-q bus to tell Dave and Chris about the wonders of the museum and to pick up our junior-sized pulled pork sandwiches. The food was delicious! Chris and Julie, the self-proclaiming food snobs, were raving about the just-sweet-enough barbeque. Did I mention we ate our sandwiches in the converted school bus, which had alphabetic magnets all over the ceiling? We did.

not think so far away

I will try to not fret about the future. I will live by this Robert Frost poem instead:

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

And on the fifth day God made....burritos!

Tonight I went to a conference on sustainable cities at University of Washington. It was cool to be on a real campus. MassArt is comprised of two buildings (one is a quasi-skyscraper), and some scattered dorms around the city of Boston. I never got to roam the hallowed halls or lounge in the Quad. Not that I roamed or lounged tonight, but still...

The lecture was given by a pretty young Chicagoan with some forward-thinking, if not half-baked, ideas about how to manage the impending water shortage. When I learn more about modern ecological crises, I always have to balance a feeling of dread and hope. On one hand, that shit is scary. I don't see enough people shifting their behaviors to proactively manage the issues we face today. Besides that, some populations are still making babies like they're rabbits, further taxing the world's resources. Federal policy seems stuck in the stone ages. The fact that Seattle administration wants to build a huge ass tunnel along the waterfront to move more cars through makes my heart sink....and Seattle is a pretty progressive place.

Then I feel hopeful, because at least people are talking about these problems that we are now responsible for. I think of the really smart people in the world, and people in my profession, the sciences, education, and technology, who are working towards finding solutions. And I don't mean the keynote speaker's ideas were half-baked in a bad way. His visions for a Chicago that has renewable irrigation canals to serve the people and feed Lake Michigan are inspiring. His models look like a lush metropolis filled with a grid of waterways ("blue belts"), greenery, food-bearing gardens, and no cars. Eden? It seems like it'll take a while before the masses place value on that ideal. Maybe when water becomes a commodity like oil.


Sometimes I think that we are on the brink of an Environmental Revolution, much like the Industrial Revolution. All of the sudden, boom, the whole world is working towards a common goal and ideas are flowing and so is the money. Other times I think we are not doing nearly enough.

Dave picked me up from the lecture. We stopped at Rancho Bravo on our way home, a parked taco truck that makes some damn fine food. The impending water shortage may be scary but at least there are enough burritos to go around.

Ignatius lives!

I'm all jazzed to see a play tomorrow, Confederacy of Dunces. I read this book my first summer in NYC and devoured it much like Ignatius J. Reilly devours hot dogs (that's what a girl can do when she don't got a job!). I can barely even tell you what it's about, except for an overgrown loser who tries to support his elderly mother by finding myriad loser-ish jobs. It's been getting rave reviews. I'm pysched to check it out with my friend Joseph.


I stopped by one of my favorite used book stores to get a copy for our library. Dave's never read it, but that will soon change. Most of my books are still at Ashley and Jeff's apartment in Brooklyn because I couldn't justify shipping them to Seattle. Even though I LOVE to read, I often cannot bring myself to buy books. I always think about how they'll be dead weight next time we move. So I put a lot of mileage on my library card. But once in a while I think 'Man I really wish I owned that book'. This week I also bought 'The Little Friend', which no one seems to love but me! (Oh well, more used ones to buy on the cheap). Dave on the other hand is already dreaming up his library-cave for our next home. I think it'll have dark wood walls and globes and maybe ventilation for smoking pipes.

p.s. I highly recommend Tana French's Into the Woods and The Likeness. Spooky and riveting. I wished my commute was longer so I could keep reading.