Life turns on the smallest of things. A turn here leads you in directions you never dreamed; a chance meeting alters your world; and on a smaller scale, you can do something random and it decides your activities for the next day.
Life does turn on small things. It always has and, I suppose, since that is the way of life, it always will. It is the randomness of life that adds flavor to it. It is the absolute randomness of it that determines, in a small way, what kind of life you'll have.
I know that sounds a little out-of-left-field, but it has always fascinated me how seemingly small things make such a huge difference in a person's life.
For us, the day we had was determined by a whimsical decision from the day before. Coming back from our visit to Southcenter, entirely on a whim, we stopped by our park just to look around. And look around we did. Other than the Trailer Park Marina, we saw Coulon Park across Lake Washington and saw that it was lit up with Christmas Lights.
BAM!! Right then I knew what we would be doing Friday night. Had no doubt about it. The only thing left to decide was what time we'd arrive.
Hahahaha, small things.
And, because we were heading towards Renton late in the afternoon, we decided to dine out. Some fine restaurant for gourmet dining. But which one? My plan was to drive to the Landing and then walk around until we found a restaurant that struck our fancy as long as it wasn't Red Robin.
We were running down the usual suspects, Panda Express? Panera? Torero's. Mucho Burritos, Thai 65 or, maybe, Wingstop? Oh, too much information, overload!! Future Shock again!!
But, Carol remarked that we hadn't eaten at the Five Guys yet and, BOOM!! it was done. Hahaha, just like that it was decided. Trust your instincts I say and go with your impulses. Hahahaha, it was a lot easier than trying to figure out another restaurant to eat at.
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| Picture was borrowed from Five Guys website. |
Fun Fact: Choice Overload, or Overchoice, is a term describing a problem facing consumers in the postindustrial society: too many choices. The term was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock.
Overchoice is the result of technological progress. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, each year, more and more products are being offered. Consumers have more ready money to spend and producers can more easily and cheaply introduce more and more products.
Having more choices, on the surface, appears to be a positive development; however it hides an underlying problem: faced with too many choices, consumers, you and I, have trouble making optimal choices and thus can be indecisive, unhappy and even refrain from making a choice at all. Boy, I am intimately familiar with that!!
Toffler noted that as choice turns to over choice, 'freedom of more choices' ironically becomes the opposite - the 'unfreedom'. Don't laugh, this is all true!! Often, a customer makes a decision without sufficiently researching his choices, which may often require days. Then, when confronted with having to make a choice without reliable information, many people prefer to make no choice at all, even if making a choice would lead to a better outcome.
Think about it!! How many brands of cereal did you have to choose from when you were a kid? When I was 10 years old we had 7 channels to choose from as we watched TV. How many do you have today? Hahahaha, we are being inundated by all the choices we have and sometimes it can lead to a state of shock; of an inability to make a choice.
That's where the ol' impulse comes in.
You rock, impulse!!
So we found a place to dine at. The Five Guys at The Landing.
Not a lot of frills here . . . bags of potatoes and boxes of goobers decorate the restaurant. The menu is simple, hamburgers, hot dogs or a grilled cheese sammie. Oh, and they have a veggie sammie thrown in just for the heck of it.
We both opted for the regular hamburger, one patty only, thank you. No cheese but we did decorate them according to our tastes.
Mine had mayo, mustard, onions, mushrooms, jalapeños, pickles, relish, lettuce and, with a nod to healthy eating, a tomato.
And fries. Thank goodness the woman taking our order suggested we go with a regular order rather than getting the large order to share.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cash Register Lady!!
Receipt in hand, we sat down at a window table and partook of some roasted goobers.
Whup!! There's me, modeling my new sweater.
Which, upon reflection, looks strangely like my sweatshirt. Same color and crew neck. Hmmmm, I see a trend here.
And this lovely, modeling her new shirt and scarf while eagerly awaiting her order.
And here they are!!
Word of warning, there is no way to eat these without getting something on your chin or dropping something into your lap. Nope!! No way!!
But you can see the fries there, in the bag. That was half the fries and it was still more than I could eat. Carol had a cup full and I got what was left over in the bag . . . and that was plenty!!
Oh, and they were ga-ooood!! Oh, greasy, salty delicious little taste treats!!
Mmmmmmm . . .
Heaven, I'm in heaven . . .
The burgers were OK. I think it's my fault that my burger didn't have much taste. I may have swamped it with too many other tastes.
My only real complaint is that I ran out of burger and still had about a third of my bun, and all the condiments on it, left.
Here it is about half-way into the whole thing. Note all the fries still left in the bag. Oh, believe me, I wanted to eat them all, I really, really did but, unfortunately, I didn't.
Oh, and bottomless DC. Another Mmmmmmmm!!
I don't think kids appreciate what a boon that never-ending soda is. When I was a Whipper-Snapper, we had to buy a soda and then, if we wanted more, we had to pay for another soda!!
I know!! The humanity!!
Some things have improved with time . . . like me.
So we're sitting there enjoying our burgers and fries and what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a Jolly Old Elf and his accompanying Dear.
Yeah!! Santa Claus came in and wished us all a Merry Christmas!! The Old Elf was in good form and his Ho, Ho, Ho's rang out loud and clear in the restaurant!!
What fun!!
I sure did enjoy that visit from Santa.
And I sure did enjoy those fries. We had to sit, absolutely had to, for a while after the meal and so, being who I am, I got some pictures. Here's the late afternoon sky from my comfortable seat inside the restaurant.
And I got to look at all the cool stuff for sale across the street.
Love the Christmas Trees.
I saw this board and went over to investigate. They've got a bulletin board where you can color your own card and pin it up. The crayons and the cards are there on the right.
Some of them seemed a bit like a Five Guys commercial.
While others showed the resurgent Seahawks pride as we prepare to do battle with the hated and detestable Forty-Whiners on Sunday.
Hey, a Trifecta!! Penguins (there's a new movie about penguins), we were eating at Five Guys and, of course, The Seahawks!! Somebody knows exactly which apple to polish and for how long, too!!
And then this politically appropriate (especially for exceedingly left-wing liberal Seattle) little missive reminding us that women are everywhere!!
Everywhere!!
Hahaha, OK, I'll get off my soapbox.
Five Guys is conveniently located right next door to the Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 Theater. That is one butt-ugly building, right? I think the other theater, the $3 one I usually go to is better than this one architecturally and it's not too good-looking, either.
We didn't do too much walking around at The Landing as the sun was setting and we wanted to go on over to Coulon Park and see the Christmas Lights. I did want to get there before the sun set completely.
But we did have a little bit of time to grab some pics along the stores there as we made our way back to the mini.
And this one. Love the Christmas decorations.
OK, let's get one last shot from the parking lot. It was starting to look like it was going to be a beautiful evening.
OK, so like previous blogs, the pictures are presented pretty much in the order they were taken. So here we go with Coulon Park.
We've had a lot of fun there from picnics, walks, remembrances and always the photography; it's been a kick.
And it didn't let us down today.
Yesterday, when we had visited our park, we had seen the lights from across the lake and knew we would be stopping by. It's my first time, even though I've lived here eight years, visiting the park during Christmas. To be honest, I never knew they had lights here.
But not now. Nope!! I'm retired now and I have the time to get out and indulge myself. And it is wonderful!! It really, really is.
This was taken from the parking lot. I was testing out the remote on my camera.
Hahahaha, obviously, it worked.
We walked down to the south end of the park so we could walk back up and get all the lights in their turn. As we rounded the trees separating the park from the parking lot, we saw this.
And then we turned to the right and were greeted with Candy Cane Lane.
Love the wide-angle. It's not as wide as the previous one I had but, still, it is pretty wide. It gives you a different perspective, doesn't it?
Pretty good light, right?
The birds were getting ready for night.
Pretty much the rest of this blog is about the Christmas Lights.
I took most of these hand-held. Oh, I know. I should have used the tripod but . . . it's a long story and it doesn't make me look all that mature or reasonable so we'll just say I tried it and it didn't work.
Thank goodness Carol was with me to share in taking pictures.
I've gotten a picture of these benches in almost every season now. I've got them when the magnolias were budding and then in bloom and finally as they were entering into Autumn. They've been an effective backdrop for many a picture.
Looking over the boat launch towards our park.
Back to the Candy Cane Lane and the benches.
It really was a beautiful sunset . . . normally the sunsets and sunrises here are kinda dull. One thing I'll give to El Paso (and I hate to give it credit for anything), being out there in the desert gave them some hellacious light at the beginning and end of just about each and every day.
SEASONS GREETINGS!!
aka
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
To the left is the picnic area and then the restaurants.
Seen this one before, haven't you.
I think it's a hamburger. You'll understand why when you get a little further along on this tour.
Have you had enough of Candy Cane Lane yet?
My gosh, this Frozen thing is out of hand. I saw the movie and it was OK but, c'mon, folks, it wasn't that good!!
But here he is. It's Olaf, isn't it?
The pavilion at the left of this pier is one corner of a enclosed area. When we were here a couple months ago, they were holding radio controlled boat races in this area.
And anchoring that pier down was the Ivar's Restaurant.
It was so nice I shot it twice. But at least I waited a minute or so in-between shots. How can you tell that time has gone by between these pictures?
Did you get it?
It was the clouds. Man, they were moving in fast.
So we've left Candy Cane Lane and now we're on the Clam Lights side. I figure the hamburger stand contributed to the lights on Candy Cane Lane and Clam Lights is sponsored by Ivar's. I don't know but it sounds reasonable to me so I'm gonna go with it.
Fun Fact: Christmas lights, also known informally as fairy lights in England, are lights used for decoration around Christmas. This custom goes back to the use of candles to decorate the Christmas tree in upper-class homes in 18th-Century Germany. We get a lot of our Christmas traditions from Germany.
Christmas trees displayed publicly and illuminated with electric lights became popular in the early part of the 20th-Century. By the mid-20th-Century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights along streets and on buildings as the Christmas decorations detached from the Christmas tree itself.
The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Local newspaper ignored the story, seeing it as a publicity stunt. However, it was covered by a Detroit newspaper reporter and Johnson has become widely regarded as the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights. By 1900, businesses started stringing up Christmas Lights behind their windows. Christmas lights were too expensive for the average person; as such, electric Christmas lights didn't replace candles until the 30s.
In the U.S., as the price of decorating with lights came down, it became popular to outline private homes with Christmas Lights in tract housing beginning in the 50s. By the late 20th-Century, the custom had also been adopted in non-western countries, most notably in Japan and Hong Kong.
Hahaha, I thought these were Ms. PacMan figures but Carol rightly pointed out that they are clams, not animated creatures running around and devouring everything in their way.
There's Santa!! And his reindeer. Although, for economy, not all the reindeer are represented here.
Quick challenge: Can you name all 9 of Santa's reindeer?
There was Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixon, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall, the most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer!!
Fun Fact: Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Chicago based Montgomery Ward. The retailer had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. May considered naming the reindeer "Rollo" and "Reginald" before deciding upon the name "Rudolph".
In it's first year of publication, 2.5 million copies of Rudolph's story were distributed by Montgomery Ward. The story is written as a poem in the meter of "Twas the Night Before Christmas".
When first pitched, the story idea was initially rejected because of the cultural significance of a red nose, which was closely associated with chronic alcoholism and drunkards. May asked a friend, an illustrator at Wards, Denver Gillen, to draw "cute reindeer", using zoo deer as models. The alert, bouncy character Gillen developed finally convinced management to support the idea.
May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, adapted the story of Rudolph into a song. Gene Autry's recording of the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart the week of Christmas, 1949. Autry's recording sold 2.5 million copies the first year, eventually selling a total of 25 million, and it remained the second best-selling record of all time until the 1980s.
These Candy Canes are on the Clam side. I didn't go back to the other side, they just have them on both sides. When they're not posing as Candy Canes, they have regular jobs as streetlights.
Then, and I don't know if this guy is with Ivar's or not, a lit up small boat came gliding alongside the pier. Someone has decorated their boat in Christmas lights.
Cool. You can see just a bit of it . . . the bright purple there in between the Canes.
These canes are farther along the walkway through the park.
They even strung lights out along the pier. I was having some fun with the reflected lights.
An overview of all the lights . . . on the clam side.
Carol stopped by where she had dropped flowers into the lake for Ev and Adrienne.
Carol especially liked the reflected lights. Hmmmm, is she, possibly, influencing me? I think so.
Hahahahahaha!!!
Here's Ivar's and the picnic area.
Oh, there goes that boat!! See, all in purple.
You can see the Seasons Greetings through the picnic pavilion.
More reflected lights for Carol. : > )
Carol . . .
It still amazes me that these two restaurants are still in business. But look at the crowd in the Ivar's!! People are coming out to the park just to eat at the Ivar's.
Craziness!!
Well, at least they have a sense of humor. I mean, c'mon, Clam Lights!?!
The lights of Seattle are reflecting off the clouds.
Ahhhhh, the end. It was a long journey but worth it.
I had a great time. It was a totally enjoyable evening and I'm planning on going back and actually using that blasted cheap ol' tripod. Hahaha, gotta grow up sometime, right? But, seriously, the tripod really is foreign to me and the way I shoot.
Carol was amazed when she first went shooting with me. My style is to see, shot and move on. Her's was a more deliberate, thoughtful approach. She worked up to each picture and carefully thought it through before shooting.
Hahahahaha, my own thinking was something like, "Oh, pretty!", SNAP!!
Hahaha, I am a simple man. Most of the time.
A good evening. And the weather was primo.
So, until the next time, have a Merry Christmas and a Most Happy and Joyous New Year.
Life is good.
Hooah!!
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