Book of the week

They say the best form of exercise is walking. Perfect! Having no car and still getting used to the array of buses, I walk everywhere. I walk 100 times more than I used to at home which is super good for me – especially as it’s a hilly city. However, it has resulted on a blister appearing on one of my toes which is very painful and requires constant popping due to my constant walking. Having always made sympathetic noises when my boys’ hands were covered in blisters during their rowing days, I now have a renewed admiration for their stick ability to the sport whilst in such pain.

The supermarket is a short 5-minute walk from the apartment – a distance my toe and I can cope with, and a walk I do every day. It’s a huge Safeway which takes me around half an hour to find the most basic of items. Having lived for a long time in a place where the supermarket has been a 15-minute drive away I am enjoying the “spur of the moment what’s for dinner” shop – and it’s light enough I can carry it home!

Usually I manage to talk myself into continuing on to The Bellevue Center (180 shops). It takes grit and determination to walk the extra 5 minutes to the mall with my blister, but I figure it is essential to familiarize myself with the merchandise before my upcoming shopping spree! Nordstrom alone has a shoe department that stocks 240 BRANDS of women’s shoes – Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Valentino, Ellen De Generes, Dior, etc. It also has a section which is Design Your Own Shoe! It’s the sort of mall where it’s very easy to go round in circles and end up where you started when you’re just trying to just get to the other end– but it’s open until 9pm every day so you have plenty of time to find your way out.

Gone are the days of a suited husband dashing off to work at 6.15am and returning 12 hours later. Instead he now leaves the apartment at 7.15am dressed in jeans, strolls the 15 minutes it takes to get to the Bellevue Transit Centre and catches the bus to work. Usually he’s back home about 5.30pm and I must say it’s lovely seeing him more often than usual – I hope these more sustainable work hours continue.

We have no TV which doesn’t upset me at all – instead we tend to get out and have a look around. The Downtown Park is only a few blocks away and in the evening it’s full of joggers, people strolling, dogs being walked, dads spending time with their children – it’s a beautiful place to be especially at that time of day. Or sometimes we stop at our favourite café Jujubeet. It is just a block away, the service is super-duper and they make the best coffee, and my favourite – “Turmeric Latte”! And as if it couldn’t get any better they are open from 7am to 9pm – perfect! One night we decided to cut some shapes on the dance floor (living room) – that was fun, although I had to remind my better half that we had neighbors below us and maybe he could cut his shapes a little less vigorously? Sometimes we sit just watching the world go by outside!

Perhaps the biggest bonus to living here (for one of us at least) is the Fire Station just around the corner. And what a busy wee station they are! I’m not sure if there’s some ruling that states they MUST toot their horn and put on their sirens directly outside our apartment……but they do! The siren is a peculiar one – one truck makes the noise of about 5 appliances.  It’s a whoop/baaaaah/bipbip/bweep – all from one truck and randomly. Very exciting!  I have noticed that HG has brought over to Seattle with him his Firefighter Combat Challenge gear, and has started working with vigor in the gym every day. I sense a visit to the local Fire Station to say hello, and a trip to a nearby Firefighter Combat Challenge competition is on the horizon?

Seth Casteel book Underwater Dogs

Bellevue Progress