I have no picture to go with this post, at least not at the moment, so I'll just try to paint a little word portrait. I try to walk around Capitol Lake anywhere between 1-4 times a week, usually with friends but sometimes on my own. This evening after work I was on my own, just me and my iPod, listening to Robert Hardy read Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. It was about 80, the sun was warm, but not too hot. It's Friday and the weekend's ahead so I was feeling fairly energetic. The air is clear and the lake is calm, as is Puget Sound, right across Fourth and Fifth Avenues.
Here's what I saw that was interesting: First, the birds -- Canada geese, lazing in a flock. Every so often one would tip him or herself over, back end in the air to root around after something yummy in the shallow water. A single heron, standing guard on a log near the shore, looking imperturbable. And a fleet of white-beaked black coots pecking around for bugs in the algae bloom. We have a bad red-tide in the Sound this year and way too much algae in the lake, I'm afraid.
Across Fifth, there was a row of 12 adults, three kids and a dog leaning over the bridge to watch for salmon returning through the lake to the Deschutes River. And farther on there were the war protesters on the Sound side and the counter-protesters on the park side of Fourth. It was a strangely festive atmosphere, but I can't figure out for the life of me how someone can grin and wave in the sun while holding a placard with a fairly hateful message ("Jail Weasel Watada", referring to the lieutentant from Fort Lewis who recently refused deployment to Iraq.)
Everyone uses a sunny Friday afternoon in August in their own way, I guess.
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