19. Morning in Valhalla

a walk through 1% land

a local front-yard favorite

Why do people choose to live in Seattle?

High Taxes, High Crime, Traffic Gridlock, Liberal Insanity, and the hapless Mariners, but if you can afford a place in this neighborhood, life aint too bad.

Jet lag when you travel west can be nice, as you awaken early and can explore your new surroundings while the world sleeps. When you travel east you either force yourself to get up or just sleep in, and miss the quiet morning. Seattle is 8 hours to the east of Japan. I might have stayed in bed until noon, but for some reason I woke up at 3 and just sat and read on the sofa, waiting for first light around 4:45.

Here is my morning walk as the sun rises.

I passed three churches and a synagogue on this walk. Long ago in my university days I remember being at the University Baptist Church. It might have been on a painting job with my brother. A grand, sturdy old, brick building, it seemed like your typical city church built in the early 20th century. There was a lesson on vanity scrawled on the Sunday-school room chalkboard. That was in the mid 80s so it wasn't long after that that the rainbow flags went up on urban Baptist churches all over the west coast. I would guess that nowadays nearly all places of worship are woke in this town. I suppose today most of the Seattle churches enthusiastically supported the crass, sexually explicit, gaudy vanity of the pride parades that infested the downtown streets just weeks ago. Wholesome entertainment for the children!

The first place of worship I passed- The Earth Care Congregation?

That's just a nickname for the local Presbyterian church.

No exceptions!

It's an important message, because in Seattle you're bound to come across neighbors of all races, nationalities and sexual orientation, and as Jesus teaches, Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. Of course, in northeast Seattle, you needn't worry about rubbing elbows with Trump supporting, icky people with guns and Ford F100s and southern rock on the FM dial, at least after the construction guys go home for the evening, so technically you won't be breaking the Golden Rule by despising that benighted bunch of proto-humanity. They aren't your neighbors!

Whether Messiah Lutheran is woke or not, at least they don't advertise it. No rainbow flags, BLM signs, Love is Love posters, etc. Just a beautiful old brick church.

Pre-dawn at the park. Nice and cool with dew on the grass.

The Methodists practice good-think, as you can see by the 2nd flag under Old Glory and the selection in their Little Library Box.

Looking East toward Lake Washington and the Cascades, and the cultural wasteland of Bellevue in between.

Mt. Rainier appearing out of the morning haze.

All the streets in this neighborhood are named after fancy-pants colleges, and the cars and the views indicate that that's where everyone’s daughter went to school. The only thing better than living on Oberlin Lane or Wellesley Way is to have a house on the corner of Princeton and Princeton.

The lots with the views seemed to all have the manicured perfection of a Flemish garden.

While down in the hollow you got that wild, more Netherlandish feel.

Many churches will let you know how woke they are, but they stop short on displaying their fondness for abortion. What a bunch of putzes! Now here is chutzpah!

What good’s the vax if you still have to mask?

Now it's time for a coffee. These guys must make a decent cup. After all, it’s Seattle, right?

I ordered a medium, regular coffee. Held out a 20 and the guy said, “Sorry, you can't pay with cash.”

Folks, whatever happened to “For all debts, public and private”?

Credit Schmedit- doesn't anyone see where this is going? Just yesterday I saw a tweet highlighting how bad things are getting in China. People out in a torrential rain so that they could get their PCR tests and go about their business with a green ‘OK’ sign on their app. “You have to have your covid vaccine app ready to present everywhere! This way they constantly know where you are, and they can control what you’re allowed to buy and do!”

What the heck do you think a cashless society will do, green passport or not!?

And for all those who say, “Wull, wur already there. We almost never use cash. Yuh cyan't buy a sandwich on the airplane bla bla bla.”

Stop it! Use cash! Or at least use it whenever you can. Don't eat a preservative-saturated sandwich on the airplane, for crying out loud.

Put the damned phone down. At least as an initial step, adopt this practice: No Screen Sundays!

Arriving home, I found the local fish wrap on the front steps.

Run for the hills!

Wait a minute, why is there a coffee from that cashless donut shop? Did I give in and fish out my VISA? Nope, I didn’t even have it. Just a simple greenback in my pocket, like old times. The friendly dude just said, “Go ahead and take the coffee, and you can pay with credit next time.”

Tell you what, you let me pay with legal tender and I’ll come here regularly, and if you take off that infernal mask, I’ll tip you like I was making the kind of coin that people do up the hill there on Barnard Blvd.

Bill Gates getting us ready for the next covid scam. Police saying hell no to working this crazy town. Patty Murray about to win a 6th term. That was my fun reading for the morning.

But not all news was bad. Not only did the reporter mention Gates’ connection with Epstein (how did that get past the editor?), the next article talked about people's current opinions of the media.

Trust in the newspapers is lowest in 3 decades and trust in TV news is at 11%.

The Seattle Times is telling you this. Ouch…I mean Yay!

And speaking of 11, the Ms have emerged from haplessness, having won 11 straight.