Apparently Brandi Carlile is a lesbian icon. That's what Laney told me, anyway; I wouldn't really know. I just know she's from Ravensdale, a tiny town about 30 miles southeast of Seattle. Still King County! Anyway she basically opened the main stage show at this year's Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition, shortly after 1:00 yesterday.
This event goes from noon until 2:30, and I made the exact same mistake this year as I did last year, thinking I could get there a bit late and still see some of what I wanted to see most—which is the actual caroling groups in competition, who you can vote on. But, that
only happens in the first hour, and since neither Alexia nor Laney were able to join me, I went ahead and went along with Shobhit to his doctor appointment at University Village in the U District first. That was at 11:30, though, and Dr. Means—who works most days at the downtown Virginia Mason but up there on Saturdays—was running late.
Shobhit had originally planned to go to this appointment by himself, while I went to Figgy Pudding with Alexia, and then he was going to meet up with us afterward. But, when I emailed Alexia a few days ago to confirm, she said she must have gotten some scheduling mixed up because she had Book Club this morning. I later learned she did indeed get some scheduling mixed up: she cleaned her apartment and made food and everything, only to discover Book Club is actually
next Saturday! I'm just glad it wasn't for next Sunday, which is when Alexia and I are going to the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad's "Christmas with the Clauses" train ride.
So, I figured, what the hell, I can just go with Shobhit first. We left home at 10:30, and caught the Light Rail from Capitol Hill Station to University of Washington Station. This is about a three-mile drive, two and a quarter miles as the crow flies, and all of five minutes on the train—but, the next stop is on the Ave, well out of the way; we could have taken a bus the rest of the way but we walked instead, which should have been about a mile but when we tried cutting through parking lots and wound up having to go around pretty wide barriers, it wound up being more like a mile and a half. There was no bus coming soon when the appointment was over but we walked the much more direct mile back to University of Washington Station.
And this time, we rode the train two stations, getting off at Westlake Station and then walking from there to Pike Place Market to see what we could see if the Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition. I already had plans to meet Laney again at 2:00, and it was now well after 1:00, so the photos I took span between 1:16 and 1:48—basically half an hour. Given that constraint,
19 shots for this year's event isn't half bad, even if it's
the smallest of all the albums I have of this event over the years—now four: the past three in a row, and before that, just one all the way back in 2014.
Back in 2014 it was held at Westlake Center, as it had been for many years. I'm not sure when they moved it to Pike Place Market, although it kind of makes sense there as a fundraiser for the Pike Place Senior Center. In 2023, it was also still held at night, which I find to be much more fun, but as of last year they moved it to the weekend and starting at noon. And yesterday the weather actually cooperated spectacularly, at least until right around when the event ended.
I do always see if Laney wants to come to this, just as I do
Holiday in the Park, but outdoor events in December are increasingly a tall order, especially now that Laney has gotten a bit older. If there's a chance the weather will be wet and unpleasant, she isn't likely to go. I get it.
A Link Light Rail extension is a bit of a different story, though—for more than one reason: a whole lot of the time is spent in the warm dry light rail car; and these events only happen one time ever, as opposed to annually. And I'm really happy Laney has mostly prioritized these events, joining me for
three of the five events since the very first Light Rail line opened in 2009. Barbara joined me for that one, and Laney has joined me for University Link Extension in 2016 (this one was especially exciting as it was when Capitol Hill Station opened); Lynnwood Extension opened last year, 2024; and Federal Way Extension just yesterday. I don't remember why Laney wasn't able to join me for Northgate Extension in 2021, only that I couldn't make that Grand Opening on October 2 as that was finally the day of Auntie Rose's twice-postponed memorial, and Shobhit was the one who ride that extension with me about three weeks later.
But! Laney and I totally plan to joyride all of the 2 Line on the East Side, which has actually been open minus the Lake Washington connection since April of last year, but I refuse to go explore all of those stations until I can actually take Light Rail to get there, when the track over the floating bridge—the world's first light rail track on a floating bridge, the engineering for which is why there have been delays—finally opens, sometime early-ish next year. A Sound Transit staffer at Federal Way Station told us "No later than May 31." So I guess I'll just keep that date in mind, and be pleasantly surprised if it opens earlier.
So, back to
Federal Way Link Extension. I do find this a bit fascinating: the Sound Transit Express 577 bus from 2nd & Pike to the Federal Way Transit Center is scheduled to take 33 minutes, but Light Rail between Westlake Station to Federal Way Downtown Station is 54 minutes. That's quite a difference, and the bus is likely to win even in heavy traffic. Now, I live on Capitol Hill, so I need to either walk half an hour down to 2nd & Pike or catch another bus downtown first, the full itinerary for which is still 62 minutes. Light Rail from Capitol Hill Station to Federal Way Downtown Station takes 57 minutes, but I still have to add about 12 minutes to that for my walk from home to Capitol Hill Station, to toal 69 minutes—but in this case there are no transfers and no traffic concerns most of the way. The next time I see Gabriel in Federal Way, for example, I am most likely to take light rail all the way down. And fewer transfers is always preferable, allowing me to just settle in and read a book or nap or whatever, without worrying about getting off what's transporting me until I get to my destination.
Granted, in the scenario where I go to see Gabriel, his house is still 5 miles across town from "Downtown" Federal Way (I like to put "Downtown" in quotes here because it's basically one big strip mall: lots of big box stores and national chain restaurants). Taking a bus out there from Federal Way Station adds another half hour, but this is also a scenario in which Gabriel is much more likely to pick me up and/or drop me off, this being a 12-minute drive rather than the 45 minutes or so it takes to drive all the way back to my place.
I did consider letting Gabriel know we were going to be in Federal Way yesterday, but as we were stopping at all the stations and exploring for an undetermined amount of time, I would have had no way of saying exactly when we'd get there. Also in the most likely scenario there, we'd have tried to find a place with heated outdoor seating nearby, and I have no idea if there even is such a place, nor did I budget for that. But, I am certain I will visit Gabriel one day and get there via Light Rail.
As for the actual stations, this extension included three, much more spaced out than the ones in Seattle are: Kent Des Moines Station; Star Lake Station; and Federal Way Downtown Station. These span an extension of 7.8 miles of new track. I did look this up, and the next extension south will connect to the Light Rail line that already exists in Tacoma, starting at Tacoma Dome Station—but this section isn't scheduled to open for another ten years. I'll be 59 years old before Light Rail goes any further south than Federal Way. I think the next extension, after the link over the lake is connected in 2026, is West Seattle, which keeps facing delays and budget shortfalls but is currently scheduled for 2032. Even that's seven years away, albeit 5 years after the 2 Line is fully connected. Basically, once the 2 Line finally connects across the lake, this will be the Light Rail system we have for the foreseeable future. But, hey—27 stations on the 1 Line (there's still one on the Lynnwood Extension yet to open) and 12 on the 2 line before it merges with the 1 Line track (this will include two new stations at Judkins Park and Mercer Island next year), making a grand total of 39 stations, isn't too shabby.
It's too bad Laney and I couldn't have hopped on the train earlier. We were going to meet at 2:30 but then she went with 2:00 so she could have a hard out from a residents meeting in her building where a guy who really annoys her was in attendance. And by the time we reached even Kent Des Moines Station—and just from Westlake Station, that was 17.8 miles and 25 minutes—all of the festivities stuff was already being broken down, the "Grand Opening" ceremonies having happened earlier in the morning. I need to make a note of this for the next opening, keeping the entire day open and not scheduling anything else. This should be more easily done when it's not the holiday season.
Also, even the new stations on the Lynnwood Extension from last year were more exciting. More and better public art installations, although we were informed of a couple on these south-end stations are yet to be installed. Some of the elevators either didn't work or went at a glacial pace, so some of it seemed a bit janky by comparison. I wonder if average wealth of these respective areas is a factor? We did really like the glass mural paintings at
Star Lake Station though, and several others were really cool too.
In the end, I got a
42-shot photo album out of this particular adventure. The last of
these photos was taken on the train on the way to Symphony Station at 6:00, so this adventure lasted just a bit more than four hours. The ride back from Federal Way included a short delay near Columbia City Station due to a car accident on the tracks that had to be removed, so the ride actually took a bit longer than the scheduled 57 minutes. Laney and I split ways from Capitol Hill Station, and I walked home where I worked on photos while Shobhit and I finished season three of
Squid Game on Netflix. Which was all right.
All I have to update you on today is Laney coming to our building to watch
Avatar: The Way of Water, which she had actually never seen and was only my second viewing. Damn, is that movie entertaining.
I felt a little bad when Laney let me know that she was putting on her mask because I sounded congested. "Do you have a cold?" Shobhit is getting over a cold, and I was congested for a bit but I actually didn't feel congested as of this afternoon. Indeed, I was breathing fine. No coughing either. I didn't realize I still sounded like I had. cold. If I'd had a mask with me, I would have put it on too, but Laney didn't seem any more bothered after putting her mask on, so I let it go. I don't have anything planned with Laney again until Saturday so hopefully I won't even sound like I have a cold by then.
I'm already taking tomorrow off of work, to burn through PTO. I haven't made any plans, which is probably for the best. I'll finally have the time to start working on the first of what I ultimately expect to be three or four separate holiday-season travelogue emails. And it won't hurt me to otherwise just take it easy for a day. I do have this incision site hole in my back that Shobhit needs to replace twice a day, and the last two times he said the seeping fluid seemed to be worse than the last. On the upside, we have far better gauze supplies so the dressing has consistently kept the seepage from getting into my shirts again.
[posted 7:09pm]
