A couple of years ago my neighbor, Scottish Tony, had a good laugh watching me try to get up on my roof. It just felt too high and the ladder too shaky for me to venture up there. So I was pretty stoked when I came across this interactive piece of art at Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. Called The Western Oracle: I Will Tear The Roof Off The Mother, 2013, Heather Hart’s masterpiece allowed Henna and I the chance to climb all over a house without having to worry about falling and breaking a leg. Per the hipster security guard watching over us, the whole park used to be an oil field just a few years ago. Now it’s a cool public space a few blocks away from the circus of Pikes Market. Tourists like us wandered among the sculptures while joggers and cyclists moved past us and a free aerobics class went on in the adjacent pavilion.

Another thing Seattle has going for it are plenty of tourists kiosks manned with knowledgeable and witty persons (when I asked directions to a bank the answer given was “go to the chocolate shop, get a sample or two, and then walk through the rear door to find the ATM.”) Another person I met showed a lot less sense of humor when she lectured me as to why Seattle’s China Town should be referred to as the “International District” (Rand McNally calls the area “China Town and International District.”) Either way there was a Dragon Festival going on but we did not get a chance to see it. I did grab a Greek Salad while Corey and Henna went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. Or is it more polite to say I had a salad of Mediterranean descent. Noel