Famous First Words: I had a farm in Africa... Isak Dinesen aka Karen Blixen. Out Of Africa
The first thing I learned on this trip is that the new airports are not designed for the convenience of travelers but for the convenience of the people who are dropping them off or picking them up. And let's admit it; those are the persons that catch our empathy in any story that involves taking someone to the airport. It also respects the slight sadness of everyone who is not flying somewhere neat to do fun things. (People who travel for work rarely have people drop them off. It is literally their job to get to the airport.) There's a couple of lanes for pulling in, unloading suitcases. and moving on. But picking someone up has only one lane. I'm not sure what that implies. There were only a few people ahead of me in the TSA line, but I was quite aways from the station because of a queuing barrier that snaked around and around and around. I passed the TSA test. I didn't see anywhere to check my bag so I took it with me to my gate. And waited. The flight itself was a little bumpy and cloudy. Flying into Seattle it was raining sideways by the window.
Seattle: where the sun is shy and the clouds are clingy.
..........'Scuse me while I kiss the sky..........Jimi Hendrix …..Purple Haze
Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther. --J P Morgan
It is a beautiful Friday morning. 17 mph winds are whipping tree branches and blades of grass around in a spring madness dance and the 71°F makes the heart glad. Puck is still sleeping and the household is just now beginning its day. The world smells of spring and dampness, of foliage and growth. The sky is clear and blue and welcoming. I am still smiling about my wonderful visit to Seattle, the conversations, the children (grown and not), and the joy of long conversations about writing and rain and life. Hope you enjoy the retelling of it.
I hope your weekend is filled with natural wonders, dear friends and relations.
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Bike Merge With Traffic --A traffic sign in Seattle where bikers merge with cars. Maybe this is only funny walking.
My Favorite Local Story of the Trip: Early in the 21st century the Suquamish tribe of Kitsap County, WA was experiencing a housing shortage. So when the 50 year lease of their Suquamish Shores property expired in 2018 the tribe did not renew the lease. And they gained back 36 acres of their land. Several homes sit on that land; the cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars a piece. https://suquamish.nsn.us/return-of-the-shores/
Traveling With Phones: Not only did my phone clock update itself as we passed into new time zones, it put up a little note that told me the time at “home”. It took the cyberworld less than 24 hours to start flooding my facebook with ads for Bremerton businesses. The craziest was I plugged in my charger on my bedside stand because there wasn't a clock. But it kept notifying me that I had lost my internet and 10 second later notifying me that my internet was restored. It was like I had brought a pet along and it knew this wasn't home and it wasn't sure it was safe. Once when I picked the beeping thing up it had a headline about Improving one's sleep by setting rigid bedtimes. And I thought I could improve my sleep by throwing this phone against the wall. Kirsten taught me about bedtime the next day so that stopped. Asking your phone for something “near me” is tricky in the sound. Since the phone measures as the crow flies, asking what's near me is tricky. So there may be a coffee shop only a quarter of a mile away but travel time is an hour because you have to take a ferry.
Kirsten once worked with native tribes. She said every meeting started with a brief note about who originally owned the land where the meeting was taking place and a moment was taken for everyone present to appreciate that fact.
..........I'm so warm and calm inside.........Nirvana …..You Know, You're Right
Trivia Questions: It is Blah, Blah, Blah Day...a day to stop procrastinating.
How long did it take De Vinci to finish the Mona Lisa?
When did Frank Lloyd Wright design the Fallingwater House?
How did Victor Hugo solve his tendency to procrastinate writing?
What was the term used to describe Bill Clinton's procrastinations?
What did Douglas Adams famously have to say about deadlines?
Big Hello: Merhaba – Turkish https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Light from the sun has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of it goes through the Strait of Hormuz. --Bill McKibben, on the reliability of solar energy
Image of the Week: Wooden Jayhawk statue in Kirsten's upstairs window.
Let's start with a few overlooked facts about Seattle. If you ride the Big Ferry (carries cars as well as foot passengers) from Bremerton to Seattle it is free. But when you take the Big Ferry from Seattle back to Bremerton you have to pay. By the way, cars always have to pay. Tacoma has a toll bridge into the city but the bridge leaving the city is free. Seattle is a very cosmopolitan city where you can hear several different languages as you walk down the street. Like everything else around the sound it is built on a mountain (They may call it a hill. But, they have real mountains nearby while I come from Kansas.) Seattle has stop lights just for bicycles and a list of musicians and bands they have spawned that stretches across the state.
Washington: where the state bird is actually a cloud.
..........Thoughts arrive like butterflies.........Pearl Jam …..Even Flow
Moonbeam: Friendship! Mysterious cement of the soul, sweet'ner of life, and solder of society. --Robert Blair
Blasphemy of the Week: It is easier for a removable bra cup to be inserted through the tiny hole and placed in the correct shape than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. --Natalie --Submitted by MMS
Coffee Joke of the Week: There is a little warning at the bottom of the label on my coffee can. It says: Warning: Sudden Caffeine Happiness May Occur.
Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I wish Democrats were half as socialist as the right-wing pundits claim. --blubthetux
I had only been on 2 ferries before Seattle. As an adult I rode the Staten Island Ferry and I ferried across the Mississippi when I was a little kid. It started when we drove onto a concrete floor. I was pretty small, but I knew concrete didn't float. And when my mother lifted me up so I could see the paddle wheel from above I freaked out. Bremerton to Seattle has the Big Ferry and the Fast Ferry. The FF takes about half an hour and is for foot traffic only. It costs both ways all the time. It is commuter transportation and does run weekends during the winter. I don't know how much it costs. Fares are mostly done on cards but you can pay cash. The BF takes about an hour and so doesn't run as often. It has 2 decks of cars and a big enclosed area for foot passengers. There are tables in the passenger area that have jigsaw puzzles on them. We got 2 pieces of the 500 in our puzzle before our attention got grabbed by something else.
Come for the coffee, stay because it's still raining.
..........Won't you come and save me..........Alice In Chains …..Man In The Box
1) It took Leonardo da Vinci 16 years to paint the Mona Lisa due to “distractions”.
Almanac: It is Friday, April 17, 2026. The moon is new today and is in Aries. Today is Bat Appreciation Day, Blah! Blah! Blah! Day, Ellis Island Family History Day, Ford Mustang Day, Herbalist Day, National Crawfish Day, and Nothing Like a Dame Day,
Among those born on this day were Henry Vaughan (1622), Frederik I (Sweden, 1676), Robert Blair (1699), Samuel Chase (1741), Ann Sheppard Mounsey (1811), J.P. Morgan (1837), Isabel Barrows (1845), Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen-Finecke, 1885), Nikita S. Khrushchev (1894), Senor Wences (1896), Thornton Wilder (1897), William Holden (Franklin Beedle, JR, 1918), Lloyd Biggle, Jr (1923), Daffy Duck, Elmer J. Fudd, & Petunia Pig (1937), John Oates (1949), and Olivia Hussey (1951).
On April seventeenth Martin Luther was excommunicated (1521), Thomas More was confined in the London Tower (1534), Gallaudet was founded as the first US school for the deaf (1817), there was a bread revolt in Savannah, GA (1864), Haile Selassie ended slavery in Ethiopia (1932), the US Office of Price Administration was established to handle rationing (1941), a World Fair opened in Brussels (1958), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded (1960), 1,400 Cuban exiles landed in the Bay of Pigs (1961), Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating Robert Kennedy (1969), Bernadette Devlin was elected to the British House of Commons (1969), Apollo 13 made it back to earth safely (1970), Solidarity was granted legal status in Poland (1989), and South Carolina declared James Brown the state's "Godfather of Soul" (2002).
Night Sky, 4/17: Two bright stars, Arcturus and Spica, anchor the eastern sky after sunset while Venus and Jupiter shine in the west. The official new moon occurs at 11:52 UTC (6:52 am CDT) Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) will be a prime object for viewing. It is expected to reach high visibility, potentially to the naked eye or easily with binoculars, in the predawn eastern sky.
Family Picture of the Week: The siblings this week are mom with Kirsten and Chris.
This Week: Saturday, April 18 – Auctioneers Day & Pinata Day & World Circus Day
Sunday, April 19 – Bicycle Day & Dictionary Day & National Hanging Out Day & National Garlic Day
Night Sky, 4/19: An hour after sunset, brilliant Venus and the crescent moon are in the west-northwest near the Pleiades star cluster.
Monday, April 20 – National Weed Day & Right To Read Day & Boston Marathon Day
Tuesday, April 21 – Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day & Kindergarten Day & National Library Day & National Yellow Bat Day
Wednesday, April 22 – Earth Day & Beagle Day & National Bookmobile Day
Night Sky, 4/22: Sunrise: 6:35 am Sunset: 8:05 pm (13 hours and 30 minutes of daylight) Moonrise: 1:35 am Moonset: 10:43 am
Thursday, April 23 – Celebrate Teen Literature Day & English Language Day & Spanish Language Day
I was in Washington for 6 days and 3 of them were sunny and warm. This is, I think, a miracle; it may even be a record. I understand there's a permanent Light Drizzle Advisory for the whole sound. . Sometimes those wonderful cups of coffee need little umbrellas. Often the mountains including Rainer (known by natives as Mt Tahoma or Mt Tacoma) are hidden by clouds. When you look up and see Rainer, you say The Mountain is out. Souvenir shops sell little umbrellas as Seattle charms for your charm bracelet. I have one hanging off my computer. Forward Flash: When the plane took off to bring me home it was very cloudy so everything disappeared outside the window as we rose. But when we came out above into the sun, there was the tip of the mountain sticking up above the cloud bank, only the tip; so it was not so majestic and dominating as playful and equal with the clouds. The only thing I really ever loved about mountains was their love affair with clouds.
Pike Place Market where fish fly higher than your rent.
..........The gentle, sweet singin' of leaves in the wind........Heart …..Crazy On You
2) Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Fallingwater house in just two hours; specifically the two hours right before his client was expected.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Things I thought I would have as an adult: A thriving career, An impressive retirement account, A new car. What I actually have as an adult: A favorite pan, Back pain, A cabinet full of mismatched Tupperware lids. https://www.facebook.com/AmusingImagesandText
Moonbeam: Deefeecult for you, easy for me. … S'alright --Senor Wences
Fun Photo of the Week: The mountain was out.
Not A Video of the Week: In Seattle we visited the Jackson Street Workers Mural which is 72 panels of labor history. The pictures I took are at https://workersmural.blogspot.com/ Or http://www.wslcmural.org/walking-tour/ for way more information
No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking. --J P Morgan
In Seattle your umbrella has a better social life than you do.
On Saturday (4/4) Sakura Con 2026 was held at the Seattle Convention Center. When Chris (Topher to those who knew when he was young) and Kirsten and her daughter, Aleena, and her grandson, Ollie, (all of us wearing perfectly ordinary clothes) took the Big Ferry, it was filled with anime personalities and general anime looking costumed folks. The snippets of conversation were quite entertaining: Power swords and life quests...what were, I hope, descriptions of battles...and gossip about the anime characters or the people who dressed like them; I couldn't tell which. It was all ramen and plot twists.
..........were you born to resist..........Foo Fighters …..Best of You
3) Victor Hugo famously had his servant take all his clothes to prevent him from leaving the house so he had nothing to do but write.
Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Spreading false rumors about the president dying/sick is not something to joke about, btw; like what if he's actually okay and I just wasted a bottle of champagne. --@dearfranchaelas --Submitted by gd of somewhere out west
Weird Word of the Week: Adoxography: Elegant writing on a trivial or unimportant subject. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/adoxography ~~Doesn't this, in fact, perfectly describe the ePistle?
Dragon of the Week: Year of the Dragon –Seattle Sculpture Park Chinese Zodiac Signs
Wacky Uses for Common Products: There are a lot of removing rust suggestions here and I'm just going to list the various things from which Coca-Cola can remove rust and/or its strains. A sink, chrome bumper, wrought iron, ice skate blades, and tools. Next week we'll go back to things besides things coke can kill besides rust. https://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/cocacola4.html
Seattle is, of course, a great place to eat seafood. There may be an actual law that requires all restaurants to serve fish and chips. For my birthday I had cioppino, a stew with clams, mussels, shrimp, and white fish in a tomato-fennel broth. It was wonderful. The restaurant was the Yacht Club right on the sound. I watched the tide go out while I ate. Apparently my children remember me drinking bloody Marys in their youth and encouraged me to have one. ...where to begin...It must have been a quart. It had a strip of bacon in it and the little skewer had an olive, a wedge of lime, a pepperoncini and a spiced green bean. I did not quite finish it but I really enjoyed it. I may make it a new tradition to have a bloody mary on my birthday.
Flirting in Seattle requires 2 umbrellas and mutual sarcasm.
...........'Cause you're thinking all the time.........Death Cab For Cutie …..You Are A Tourist
4) Bill Clinton was known for doing things on “Clinton Standard Time”.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Don't let anyone drive you crazy. You're close enough, and the walk is good for you. --Submitted by Writers, Readers and General Tomfoolery
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: Screamiverse Expo 2026 )18-19, Roanoke, VA) The world of macabre arts... https://www.screamiverse.com/
News of the Week: The headlines in Washington shouted up the passing of the millionaire tax.
Spark of Joy of the Week: While we were waiting for our food one afternoon in the city, Ollie taught us Egyptian numerals. The one's place is called tallies which is a little vertical line just like we tally things. You use one for each of the numbers in the one's place. The number 23 would have 3 tallies. The tens place is called a hobble and looks like a lowercase n. A hobble is an object to which you tether your horse. You use one hobble for each number in the ten's place. The number 123 would end nn|||, apparently spoken as hobble hobble tally tally tally. The hundreds place is a coiled rope, it doesn't look like anything I could find in my regular fonts. You use on coiled rope for each number in the hundreds place. So if you had a really long number you'd have a lot of actual digits. Oh, Ollie is 5 (|||||) years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_numerals
Seattle coffee: strong enough to swim through puddles.
I went to a dispensary and I don't even remember the name of it. Chris had commented that dispensaries were like head shops but with weed. And that was my impression too. They did have pot gelato, but we didn't get any. And lots of pipes and papers and t-shirts. There were 3 or 4 people ahead of us. Chris had phoned in his order and so he was just picking up. I was wandering about the store looking at stuff. 3 times including Chris' order the cashier said the words “that brings your total down to...” Discounts are for veterans and people with medical prescriptions. I didn't check to see if there was a senior discount. I did not, in fact, buy any product since I didn't want to carry it on the plane. But “brings it down to” sure sounded good in this economy.
..........Bring it on, here we are, win or lose.........Modest Mouse …..Float On
5) I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. --Douglas Adams
Protest Sign of the Week: When Cruelty Looks Normal Compassion Looks Radical
Better Protest Sign of the Week: Land Stolen From Natives Built By Slaves & Kept Beautiful By Latins. https://www.facebook.com/groups/138468440878309/
Quote of the Week: The fortunes of the entire world may well ride on the ability of young Americans to face the responsibilities of an old America gone mad. --Phil Ochs
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Donald Trump isn't protecting the Constitution; he's wringing it dry. --The Black Adder aka Rowan Atkinson
Today's Peace of History April 17, 1965: The first national demonstration against the Vietnam War took place in DC. SDS organizers expected 2,000 but 15,000-25,000 showed up.
Seattle calls itself The Emerald City but I know real Emerald City floats somewhere above Kansas.
On the return trip I had wheelchair service. It was actually very easy to find the wheelchair station in Seattle. Staff checked my boarding pass and my ID and stuff; the rest was a carnival ride. A very small lady in a uniform, zoomed me down the very middle of the aisle. There were passengers and children and luggage whizzing past and I was dodging like someone watching a 3D movie. She took me by a few TSA lines to a place in the back with NO ONE in the line and I passed again. After that we went down an elevator to a part of the terminal that had no people, none, I was wheeled onto a train car that took us to my gate. Then the small lady left me waiting. Since the morning had started at 4 am and it was now 6:30 and I hadn't had any coffee, not even my totally unhelpful decaf. So when I was offered coffee even before the plane had finished loading, I didn't say decaf, I drank the real thing. Just about then I discovered my seat mate was a nice lady and her “nearly two” year old daughter. ==I feel like there should be some dramatic musical crescendo at this point.
..........Just remember to always think twice.........Michael Jackson produced by Quincy Jones …..Billie Jean
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle, April 17, 2026: Rain-soaked ePistle . Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. Lawrence, KS.
Moonbeam: The more bombers the less room for doves of peace. --Nikita Khrushchev
Cost of War:
Pentagon Spending as of 4/16/26 : $551,428,238,536
Pentagon Spending as of 4/09/26: $532,032,375,984
Pentagon Spending as of 4/01/26: $509,374,006,944
That's $19,395,862,552 this week and $42,054,231,592 this month, which averages out at $2,628,389,474.5 per day.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/category/military/
I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for. --Thornton Wilder
Famous Last Words: A dying man can do nothing easily. --Benjamin Franklin who died 4/17/1790 from a burst lung.
..........And it's taken us somewhere.........Screaming Trees …..Nearly Lost You ~~All of today's songs are by Seattle artists.
In 2011 Gentlemen's Quarterly named Seattle “America's Least Funny City”.
The nice lady was well organized and ready. She had several different activities so that she could whip out something new every time Isabel, her nearly two year old, got bored. There was a paint with water book, and a toy with a bunch of very, very small limber pool noodles that she could bend into various shapes on a little board. Daddy and the older brother (kindergarten or first grade, I guessed) were in the seats behind us. (Sidebar: when the ballpoint I was using began to hemorrhage ink, the nice lady had baby wipes and helped me clean up myself and the plane.) Once during the flight there was a major switching of parents and children but the Seat Belt sign came on in the middle of it. So it was like a Chinese fire drill for a minute or two. Then I was next to this nice man and Isabel who fussed and got a bottle and slept heavily for the rest of the flight. The thing I will remember most about this family is the brother asking his mother why people cry at weddings. There are so many answers to that question. I didn't hear the reply.
May Peace rain on your days
And Joy Drizzle through your nights
prairie mama
christine
Last Laugh:
