i [heart] fremont

This last weekend marked the beginning of a badly needed summer in Seattle. This last spring was so wet and cold that this will be the best river rafting season in decades (in the Pacific Northwest). So it was glorious to see the sun this past weekend... especially since squinting because of the sun is a great scapegoat when you're watching a bunch of nekkid people parading down the street. 'No, no, it's just the sun. I'm not trying to make out what animal is body-painted on that guy's ass.' Yes, my friends, I speak of the 20th annual Fremont Solstice Parade. It's where the drag queens march (in HEELS) to legalize marijuana and the belly dancers shake to promote breast cancer awareness. Not to say that everyone who participated had an agenda. The Fremont Fair is mostly just to have fun and celebrate... naked (for some people). It was fun to watch.

After the parade, we went over to the Buckaroo Tavern. Best dive/biker bar though I didn't get into a barfight, nor do i think I got hepatitis. After the obligatory PBR, I walked across the street to Urbanweeds. I picked up an ecoforms pot urn to try to separate some of the basil seedlings. I love how these pots look and the ecofriendliness of them.

So with pot under my arm and face flush with the asian-glow, I walked (not staggered, one PBR wasn't enough) the two blocks home and reflected on what a great neighborhood I lived in. Other than the porn video store outside my livingroom window, there's great food (by Seattle standards), great bars, shops and color around Fremont. How long it's going to stay this lovely little neighborhood is uncertain though. This year's parade drew an estimated hundred thousand people, some watched the parade between the heads of ten rows of people, and the fair afterwards was sheer madness. In the throngs of the crowd, it's hard to imagine that six years ago (says an old-timer in my lab), everyone had a front-row seat to the parade and mostly it was a neighborhood thing. The gentrification of this little neighborhood didn't start that long ago. And I feel lucky to live here at this time, when Fremont still has a bit of the small neighborhood feel but with businesses that I love walking to and browsing.