So here we are, blogging again, are we? It seems the only times I bother to blog are those times when I’m traveling, when I get a burst of blogging energy and also take a lot of pictures which will have to be uploaded, culled, cropped, and commented on.

This time, we’re back in Seattle getting ready for another run at Northwest FolkLife Festival after spending the first half of our trip in Port Angeles exploring the edges of Olympic National Park while living the luxurious high life at Colette’s Bed and Breakfast.

As lazy-blogged previously via Twitter, we got to Seattle (eventually) last Friday, stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn Sea-Tac, picked up a bright red Ford Escape the next morning from Avis, and caught the Bainbridge Island ferry all of the Saturday morning. While bumbling around in the town of Bainbridge, we checked out their weekly Farmer’s Market and found my most favorite-est tea in the world, Yorkshire Gold, at the Churchmouse Yarns and Teas shop. Honestly, I teared up when I saw it prominently featured in their little corner devoted to high-end teas. The first time I had Yorkshire Gold, I was on a walking tour in England with my friend Christine, and as it happens we’ll be meeting up in Bainbridge tomorrow (it’s a convenient midpoint for us as we’re now in Seattle and she’s way out on the tip of the Kitsap Peninsula). This was one of the many epiphanies I’ve had on this trip; they all have to do with re-connecting with friends, families, and former lives.

The time in Port Angeles was wonderful, restful, full of great food, new friends, lots of memories of hikes, the ocean, and even eagles. The memories of our single night at Kalaloch Lodge – meh, that was a disapointment aside from the views. One thing I did manage to do was get in touch with my Second Life friend, Tammy, and we met up today for the first time in “meatspace.” And the other was that I managed to get a postcard sent to David’s and my niece Melissa, who’s very special to us and doesn’t get to spend nearly enough time with family.

She’ll get it in a few days and we’ll try to call her; I may not send my own sister a goldarned birthday card, but at least I got something in the mail to “Me’Liss.” I may have mentioned how Melissa lives several hours away from the rest of our Illinois family and only gets to see all of us at special occasions; we’ll see her next for her sister’s graduation celebration/college farewell party later this month. She doesn’t have access to tools like Facebook and Twitter, and pretty much lives from visit to visit, phone call to phone call. She sends notes by mail too – and it seems we never send her any mail back unless it’s a postcard, so that’s another pifanee I’ve had on this trip: I really must start writing her regularly, it would make her so happy and it’s such a simple thing.

Anyway.

I’ve been horrible about keeping in touch with more distant friends and family for the last few years…

Hi Timmy! How was your birthday?? I suck at birthday cards!! How’s your vacation going? Mine’s good so far…

You know, kind of like that, neglecting people and taking them for granted… and neglecting myself, and neglecting the blog, my (feeble) creative impulses towards writing and photography and so on. I’m getting together with as many Seattle friends as possible on this trip, and I’m going to try to stay in better touch and not simply bounce in and out of their lives every couple of years on our biannual trips here for Folklife.

So, rather than being immobilized by all that STUFF WOT HAS BEEN LEFT IDLE I’ll just… start somewhere. And that somewhere is right here, on this page, letter by letter, word by word, thought by thought.

We’re currently set up in a comfortable hotel suite near the Seattle Center – David even has a little office space he’s set up in, so he can keep up with some of his mailing list stuff that he hosts/administers. We’re here until Monday, but won’t spend ALL of our time at the music stages – most of Saturday and Sunday, probably not Monday as we’ll head home that afternoon. May wander down to the site Friday for the opening, although in all my years of going to Folklife, I’ve never made it to the opening drum circle or hippie hootenany or whatever it is. It’ll just be fun hanging out with a few hundred thousand people, listening to music from hundreds of different pro, semi-pro, and serious amateur acts. I’ll run into more friends, load up on new music CDs to load into iTunes, and get back in touch in all senses of the word.

Meanwhile, I had another absurd epiphany in the QFC grocery store earlier – there were cases of Henry Weinhard’s Special Reserve, the favorite beer of my so-called college career. And there were also cases of some truly great beers from Hawaii, that David and I are very fond of because they evoke wonderful memories from stays on Maui, the Big Island, and Kauai.

Which reminds me… some great hula halaus performing on Friday, must try to catch at least one of them that evening.

Happy Folklife, everyone! Hope to see a lot of old friends and new friends there.