Anger Burger

I’ve been asked when the best month to visit Seattle is, and I always answer “August, but I wouldn’t if I were you.”  You see, in August, the Northwest is a majestic, alluring, fragrant, warm, pulsating bosom into which no one can resist burying their face.  It’s a perfect climate in a world literally dripping with ripe blackberries and figs, where beer very nearly grows on trees and it’s difficult to avoid stumbling into a charming little cafe first thing in the morning.

The other 11 months are total shit.

Sure, I love hyperbole, but I really have had the same conversation too many times to count while waiting for a bus in side-slanting rain while dreadlocked hippies hump our legs:

me: So, why did you move to the Northwest?

transplant: Well, we visited in August…

me: Oh, I’m sorry.

And here I am sucked into the very same Siren-bedecked whirlpool — Seattle is beautiful.  It really is.  The scenery is perfect, the weather is tempestuous but good and the eating, holy mother of Buddha, the eating is good.

For a long time a favorite destination was Le Pichet, a French hole-in-the wall that kicked froggy ass at œuf plat, a simple dish of baked eggs over good French ham that cured anything at all that ailed you.  But it being close to the Pike Place Market and having a kind of devoted clientele meant that more often than not, Le Pichet was full.  Since then, and of course since I moved away from the area, the folks who gave us Le Pichet opened Café Presse, a larger, more American-feeling restaurant with – most importantly – the same delightful food.  In fact, better than same.

Behold, the greatest croque-madame I have ever eaten.   I warned Mike that it was the best madame I’d had, and he nodded with sage experience and said “Yes, but you’ve never been to Paris.”  True, but if they are better in Paris then I will have an actual aneurysm.  And indeed, with the startled hesitancy that I imagine lottery winners feel, he agreed: this is one fucking hell of a thing.  I mean, I’m stumped for words.  I never even took photos of mine half-eaten as I intended to… I don’t remember anything from the duration of my eating it.  My brain shut down to save me from the memory of it.  Otherwise, day-to-day experiences would seem colorless and grim by comparison.

Indeed.

But I’d eaten at Café Presse before and knew what to expect, and these things pass as all thing do.  Of much greater surprise to me was the sudden appearance of the Seattle light rail, a kind of half-assed subway.  I can’t tell you how many years of bus-riding took me past a station for the light rail as they built it, bolt by tiny bolt, inch by inch of concrete.  It was like they were getting paid by the hour to build the damn thing.  And here I was, ready to ride on it!

Where everybody go?

First off, I have to say it was a nice ride.  Our intention was to visit a friend in Columbia City, and I enjoyed the experience.  Apart from where we paid for tickets that we apparently didn’t need to pay for.

Let me put it this way: having ridden subways before, I automatically purchased a ticket and then later realized that no matter how far you are going, it’s always going to be $2.  Just a few blocks?  $2.  Twenty miles to the airport?  $2.  So sure, a trip to the airport is a steal, but to get from Westlake to the International District?  Maybe a dollar too expensive.  Second thing: there were no turnstiles.  So for what reason I just purchased a ticket I cannot say.  Honor system?  A moment of observation revealed that other Seattlites had no such honor.  Not a big revelation.

Why no turnstiles?  Well, basically it goes something like this: the stops are mostly open air, and the few that aren’t are underground in a shared tunnel system that also services buses.  If the bus passengers pay on the bus (as most do) then they’d have no way to get past the turnstile.  Um.  Sure.  I don’t know what the solution is, but I admit that I expected the city to have figured it out before they opened the light rail.  Where this sudden optimism for Seattle’s transportation infrastructure came from I can’t say.

Wait, yes I can:  August.