Uncle Hal

• 2 pints PBR - Uncle Hal's Tug Tavern

Ingredients:

One dilapidated house.
One outside patio.
One basement living room.
One bar serving beer and wine.
A coupla pool tables and dart boards.
Combine carefully. Drink at your own risk.

"I'm Renee. I haven't seen you in here before, so I'll need to check your id. What's your name? A mini-pitcher is a better deal than two pints of beer, except for today, when PBR is $2 for 'Cheapskate Tuesday'. Usually, order a mini-pitcher if you're going to get two beers or more."

I love you Renee.

nine twenty-nine

• 1 Imperial pint Hobgoblin English Ale - home
  

Solitude

• 1 can mILLER hIGH lIFE - home

• Sunday morning walk for 8 o'clock Mass.
• Soaking under the stars solo - jets off.
• 3 am drive.
• Singletrack.
• Empty house - nighttime.
• Eyes closed; sound off.
• Prayer.

Nine Twenty-Seven Sixty-Seven

• 12 oz. Dick's IPA - home
  
• 3 pints Bud Light - Emerald Downs
• 1 pint Widmer Hefeweizen - Emerald Downs
• 1 bottle PBR - Vermillion

Forty-one years ago my mom went into labor early in the morning on the 27th. I was two weeks earlier than expected and my dad was in Walla Walla for a work project, so mom had to have a neighbor (whom she didn't know too well) drive her to Lakewood General. She was surrounded by new people, in a new city, with a new doctor. At around 11:00 am, I was born - her first. Mom was 22 years old. It was difficult to contact my dad at the time because he was working "in the field". That is, he was in the Walla Walla countryside, sleeping in a truck with his other work partners, so he didn't know he had a baby boy until the next day, the 28th.

Witnessing (and participating) in the birth of London, and knowing what an emotional and painful and exciting process it is, I think about my mom in a hospital new to her (they had moved up from California just months before), lonely without her new husband, and going through the birthing process. I can't imagine how she felt having to ask her neighbor to drive her to the hospital and asking her to sit with her while in labor. There were no relatives nor friends to be with her in her room. There was no way she could contact my dad and I wonder if she was able to call her parents in California. I wonder how she felt when she found out it was boy. I wonder how long she was in labor. I wonder what she was thinking as she lay in her bed, knowing she had just had a son. I wonder if she had wanted a girl. I wonder how she got home. I wonder...?

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I think birthdays get better as I get older. I have such great memories from my 40th birthday party last year. When I was younger, I had always looked forward to turning 40; I mean, I wasn't in a rush, but I was never hesitant about it either. I hadn't planned on doing anything for my birthday this year, but the planning just sort of happened. At one point I spontaneously decided that I wanted to have some type of get together. I guess it can seem a little self-important to announce, "It's my birthday and I want you to come!" but that's not the way I think of it. As I get older I realize how much my friends mean to me and how much happiness they provide in my life. Throwing a birthday get together is my way of appreciating the friends in my life.

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This was the first year in eleven that I wasn't teaching school on my birthday. Students' exuberant 8:22 am voices greeting me with "Happy Birthday Mr. Barker!!!", sometimes leaving a gift on my desk, or in my hand, made me feel special. "How old are you?" "What are you doing today?" "What did you get for your birthday?" are questions of the day. Also, for the past six years, there has always been a 4th grade student with whom I share a birthday. I love sharing their birthday through their eyes. It almost makes me feel like I'm ten again. :)

Birthday Bowling

• 12 oz. Dick's IPA - home
• 1 can High Life - home
• 1 pint Pyramid - West Seattle Bowl
• 2 pints PBR - WSB
• 1 tequila shot - WSB
• 1 Bud Light Lime! - WSB
• 1 Bud Light in the Bowling Pin Bottle! - WSB
• 1 tequila shot - Yen Wor Village
• 1 Jack & Coke - Young Whore Village

Pumpkin Ale!

• 2 cans MHL - home
• 1 pint Mashing Pumpkin on nitro - Elliott Bay Brewing, Burien
  

Twenty-Four

• 1 can High Life - Barking Lamb Hot Tub
  
• 2 margaritas - home

Twenty-Three

• 1 can High Life - Barking Lamb Hot Tub
  

Autumnal Equinox

• 1/2 can High Life - home

As much as I love summer, I do love autumn in Seattle. The crisp air, the fallen leaves, the earlier darkness, the morning mist, the way the sun sits lower in the sky; all give me a special feeling that only fall can give. I've felt it since I was a boy and I wonder if it was my early years in Puget Sound that have shaped my feelings about fall. A person can't truly experience the fall in Southern California - it's still too warm (not that I have a problem with that - sigh). It's a beautiful time of year here in Seattle, and some of the best holidays are approaching - Halloween, All Saint's Day, and Thanksgiving, along with experiences such as finding the perfect pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, navigating my way through a corn maze, and putting together the perfect Halloween costume. I can't wait...

Fremont Oktoberfest

• 10 - 4 oz. beer tasters - Fremont Oktoberfest
  
• 1 - 4 oz. RedNik red wine - Fremont Oktoberfest

Beer: Good!
Wine: Bad! (Tasted like Hawaiian Punch with vodka.)

OKTO

• 2 bottles Widmer Brothers OKTO - LRobb's house
  

West Fest

• 1 can High Life - home
• several plastic pints Elliott Bay Brewing Hefeweizen & Pilot Light - HRS WF
  

nine eighteen oh eight

• 2 pints PBR - The Siren
• 2 glasses Domaine du Grand Prieur Cote du Rhone red - home
  

Hot Tub!

• 1 bomber 22 oz. Elysian The Immortal IPA - home
  
• 12 oz. Deschutes Anniversary Wit - home
• 12 oz. Snoqualmie Harvest Moon Ale - home

THE FAIR

• 3 bottles Red Hook Summer Ale - Isner's house

Sometime from when I was 2 years old or so until 8 years old, I lived in Puyallup, a small town about 40 minutes south of Seattle. It's grown much since I lived there 32+ years ago, but Main Street is still the same as it was when I lived there. The Western Washington Fairgrounds inhabit much of the downtown area of Puyallup and it was here that I have many great memories. Riding in the backseat of the car down the steep hill of Meridian and into downtown, I never forgot to look into the fairgrounds, vacant most of the year, dreaming of the late summer days when I could finally ride the rollercoaster and enter baked goods for prizes. The wooden rollercoaster was my very favorite ride, and I still love coasters to this day. It would clackety-clack up the first steep hill; the large chain pulling it, pulling it to the top, where the sign at the crest read "Keep arms inside the car at all times." When the final car was released from the hold of the chains, the coaster would speed down, rickety-ricking over the steel tracks, shuddering the wooden supports below and securing my body against the boxed confines of the cart. I loved the roller coaster and looked forward to it throughout the year.

As much as I loved the roller coaster, I may have loved entering baked goods more. My mom taught me how to bake at a fairly early age and when I was five, she helped me with my very first entry into the Western Washington Fair: Hot Wheel Sugar Cookies. My mom was clever and Hot Wheels were those little metal cars that were very popular. She thought it would be a good idea to make sugar cookies cut in the shape of a car, and then use red hots to outline the shape of the car, hence, (such a funny word!) Hot Wheel Sugar Cookies! I won a blue ribbon (First Premium!) and a scan of it is shown above. It was September 15, 1972 - 12 days before my sixth birthday. I think it's funny that the category was "WOMENS HANDCRAFTS". Over the next few years I continued entering baked goods....Blueberry Coffee Cake (blue ribbon), Blueberry Pie (red ribbon (the crust burst and the pie spilled through)), and Nut Bread (blue ribbon). Later, when we moved to Kansas, I continued entering items in the fair - Finney County Free Fair - ranging from flowers, furniture, collections, my cat(!), my cat's cage, woodcrafts, fruit, and models. I won many ribbons, but it was my first one for Hot Wheel Sugar Cookies of which I am most proud.

Susan, London, and I went to the fair today and it is much like I remember it. I love going and it's amazing how much it's the same...the animals - cattle, bunnies, chickens (I loved watching the just-hatched chicks in the incubator when I was younger), sheep, goats, horses, cats, and dogs; the dairy room with the life-size butter cow and free milk; the collection of quilts, flowers, fruits, and baked goods; and the wonderful world of amusement park rides. The same roller coaster is there, but I didn't see it running. There's an innocence to the fair - so much has changed in 40 years - yet the fair exists on it's own timeline. Quilters will always quilt, bakers will always bake, vegetable designers will always lay out their prized vegetables in amazing arrays, and farmers will always compete for "Largest Squash". I look forward to the day when I can return with London, showing him the fair that I grew up with, and perhaps, just maybe, he'll enter his own version of Hot Wheel Sugar Cookies.

Monday

• 1 pint Deschutes Inversion IPA - Duke's on Alki
• 1 bottle Dogfish Head Immort Ale - home
• 1 slow shot Corazon anejo - home
  

Sunnyday

• 1 can mhl - home
• 1 pint Manny's Pale Ale - Ama Ama Oyster Bar

WABL Oktoberfest

• 10 tastes x 6 oz. = 60 ounces (5 beers) Tastes included: Big Al Brewing Brown Ale, Elliott Bay Brewing Mashing Pumpkin, Georgetown Brewing Super Chopp, Rogue Ales Double Dead Guy, Schooner Exact Brewing 3 Grid IPA, Snoqualmie Fall Brewing Harvest Moon (delicious!), Two Beers Brewing Echo IPA, Widmer Brothers OKTO, among others.
• 1 pint Rainier - Triangle Tavern
• 1 pint Manny's Pale Ale - Owl and Thistle
• 1/2 can(?) MHL - The Barking Lamb
  

What can I say? Fisher brings out the best in me.

We hit the WABL (just love that acronym (pronounced 'wobble')) Oktoberfest behind the Pyramid Brewhouse on Saturday. Sunny and warm day that it was, we arrived to find the taps covered by...

tents! Seattle just can't get enough of it's shade. Anyway...

tokens were purchased, plastic 12 oz. mug was seized, and breweries were found. Most were local breweries - I even was introduced to one located on the Admiral end of WS - and many gave us more than the allotted 6 oz pour we were supposed to get. Fisher and I found a spot in the sun, 'tween the shadows of the Pyramid building (and didn't that used to house an online porn company at one time?) and the viaduct. Ran into Michelle's sister and said hi. "You're ALWAYS at these events!" "Noooo, YOU'RE always at these events!" "Nooooooo, yOu'RE always at these events!" After a few hours our tokens were gone and we decided to "wabl" towards the water taxi to catch it back to West Seattle.

As fate would have it, we crossed paths with the Triangle Tavern, which is the corner of what is the only thing left standing from what used to once be a pretty tall and awesome brick building. You've probably seen it packed with Mariner's fans on gameday. Saturday it was filled with locals...that is, those of the street variety, or so it seemed. I was a little hazy at ths point...I don't even remember what I ordered. A PBR maybe? (It was a Rainier Fisher reminded me later.) I do remember using the bathroom however - those did make quite an impression. I'm not sure why, and I'm a little worried because of it. I also managed to rip off the Miller High Life beer code from an empty 24 pack, but my ripping skills aren't what they used to be because I missed the last of the 12 digit number. I can barely make the 11th out to be a 5, or maybe an F, or an E. Anyway...

Donna calls at this point to say that she is heading to our house. I think it was pretty close to 7:30 and we realized we missed the water taxi, so we decide to continue walking to catch the 8:30. As fate would have it, we crossed paths with the J&M, one of my favorite Pioneer Square bars. I think it was taking awhile to get served, so Fisher suggested we continue walking. I'm not sure if we ever did get served, but we continued walking. Thinking we still had some time to kill, I suggested we duck into the Owl and Thistle, which is a cool Irish pub in the shadow of Fado, or somewhere near there. It was pretty empty, but that didn't stop us from ordering a beer, of which I forget what mine was. Maybe Fisher remembers? (Fisher reminded me later that it was a Manny's. Manny's? At an Irish Pub? I really was drunk.) Around this time Susan calls and is very upset because apparently we missed another water taxi. We decide to take a land taxi home, which we do, but by then I don't remember much. (Fisher later reminds me that I demanded to sit in the front seat, so the taxi driver had to remove all his stuff from the front seat so I could sit next to him.) Too much beer in too little time on an empty stomach. After we departed the land taxi and entered the Barking Lamb, I only remember the following:

• scarfing down two types of dip with any and every available cracker or chip
  
• opening a High Life for Fisher and myself
  
• hanging out in the kitchen wobbling back and forth
• listening to Donna make fun of me (later she told me she didn't. I believe her.)
  
• holding London in the bed room
• stinking up the kitchen badly (sorry guys! that was horrible)
• being confused that Jeff was there, but I didn't know where he was (with Hazen)

and unfortunately that was about it. Luckily I woke up Sunday feeling fine - thanks to consuming Advil, lots of water, and a gallon of spinach and artichoke dip with two types of chips before passing out. The interesting thing was, at the time, I felt pretty much in control and cognizant of everything around me. The next day however...things had been forgotten. See you Saturday at Fremont Oktoberfest!

Wanted

• 2 pints PBR - Poggie
• 1 bottle Singha - Jhanjay Vegetarian Thai
  
• 1 bottle Rainier - Admiral Pub

Impromptu visit to the Admiral Theater tonight to see Wanted. It was on my list of things to see/do before London was born. Bless the Admiral Theater.

Aunt Janice & Uncle Ken

• 1/2 can mhl - home
  
• 1 bottle Sam Adams Oktoberfest - HR Rectory

Tonight I visited with my aunt and uncle from Oakdale, California. They are heading out on a cruise tomorrow morning and were able to spend time with us...my aunt has been out since Saturday however, so I've seen her off and on throughout the week. I always have great memories of Aunt Janice and Uncle Ken. One of my earliest is when Michelle, Ken, and I (and mom and dad) visited them in Stockton one Christmas (this was back in the 70's) and we all slept in cousin Steven's (now goes by Steve) bedroom and we kept waking up and running to the living room to see if Santa had made his visit. The parents kept telling us "Go back to sleep!", but of course, we just couldn't. [I don't think cousin Andrea was born yet, but maybe she was a baby.]

They are all special to me for a few reasons: Andrea and Steven are the only cousins that we visited regularly (I've never met my cousins on my dad's side) as children, and, Janice is my mom's younger sister. There is no real resemblence between them (I leave that to my sister who is, now, more than ever, a ringer for my mom - both personality-wise and look-wise), but the fact that she is my mom's sister is special to me. Mom and Janice were very close to each other too, sharing many personal things. When Janice found out that our baby's name was London, she immediately thought that maybe that's where Susan and I conceived him (not true), and she said that if my mom had done that, Ken's and Michelle's names would be Hughson and Hughson. (Hughson is where her dad lived and we'd go to visit often). So I know there were many personal things shared. It's stories like these that I cherish hearing.

I can only guess that my mom and Janice were close because they were closer in age to each other than their youngest sister, Becky. I forget how much younger Becky was than the two of them, but it might have been around six years, which isn't much, except that Janice and Ken were married when they were 19, and Becky would've been 13 and my mom was 23, so in those terms, it's a big difference. Unfortunately Becky is in a psychiatric hospital and I haven't heard from, or about, her in years. She used to play with me when I was a baby though and I still have pictures of Becky as a young girl holding me.

A few years ago Janice and Ken invited us to their time share in Maui. It was a great time and they showed us my grandfather's, and great-grandfather's burial site. I also saw the house where my mom lived the first few years of her life. Even though Janice was born in Centralia (another coincidence), Maui holds a special place in her heart and they vacation there every year. I've only been to Maui twice, but I feel a connection to my mom when I'm there. It's where she began life and I like to imagine her as a baby sitting in her mom's arms in the hot, humid Hawaii'an sun with her dad and her grandmother, dressed in muumuus, sitting under palm trees, cooling themselves in the salty breeze.

Janice and Ken live in Oakdale, California, which is the only other place in the US where there is a Hershey Chocolate plant. We used to tour it as kids. Janice told me however that it is no longer the chocolate plant and some other company purchased it. I was sad to hear this! Driving to Oakdale, you drive through miles and miles of orchards; the air is dry and the land is arid. Every once in a while you might catch a whiff of a turnip factory, and do they ever stink! I like to think of it as Steinbeck country, but I'm not exactly accurate by saying that. There are many fresh fruit stands along the way and it's always fun to stop and get a couple of treats. At my mom's funeral, Uncle Ken talked about how my mom used to drive those dusty back roads through the orchards at top speed, scaring her passengers - he was terrified to ride with her - ...she didn't do it on purpose, that's just the way she drove. I like to think of her flooring that pedal and kicking up the dust as the orange groves blurred by.

Saying goodbye to AJ & UK is never easy...they're all I have left of my mom's family. The memories I have of cousins Steven and Andrea, of sisters Yvonne and Janice, of Ken and Michelle....