After the intensity of the last few days, it was a wonderful pleasure to relax a bit and spend time connecting with friends in beautiful Seattle.
Set free from responsibility (relatively speaking – I still managed to fit in 5-6 hours of work), I spent the day on Thursday with my curly GiGi sister Nancy White. She picked me up at the hotel just past noon, and we headed down to the water, stopping in at a little patisserie in the Pike Place Market - right next door to the original Starbucks - where we devoured a couple of divine pastries and THE BEST cup of café au lait. Then we met up with the fascinating Jim Benson and animatedly discuss a number of those techie subjects that float the boats of geeky types like us. The rich conversational stew included his latest start-up ideas and the next level of infrastructure for the World Café global network. Jim's thoughts about the current state of Social Media: "The tools we're using now are like saying 'I have a steering wheel' and 'I have a glove box', when what we need is a car!'" "What I'm interested in, " he says, "are tools that are as dangerous and intuitive as that car." Yeah! Sounds good to me.
Later Nancy and I walked around Ballard where we had lunch at a stupendous Mexican restaurant, bought me some sexy red shoes and stopped to restock botanicals at Dandelion. While we were there we saw an artist, her name was Salome Murray, hanging the most lovely delicate little paintings – of butterflies and damselflies, beetles and bees – done in watercolor and pen and fine pastel pencils and gold leaf. They were exquisite. She didn’t have a website (dear, dear – of course I gave her my card!), but if you are anywhere near the Seattle area, go by and take a look. I think you’ll see why I noticed them.
I spent the night in Nancy’s lovely warm hospitable home, and early the next morning we got up and grabbed a moment in between showers to walk around her neighborhood.
It was a crispy fall morning, the rain had stopped and water drops sparkled on the rich gold orange yellow red tapestry of leaves that carpeted the streets and gardens. Even with all that competition, the sky emerged as the star performer. Having spent many years in England I know there is no sight more exquisite than the sun coming out through layers of cloud, and Seattle gives a world-class showing in that particular heat. Here's my best attempt to catch the quickly shifting light:
(click this image to see it full size)
Later in the day, I met up with another Seattle GiGi-sister, Ashley Cooper, one of the co-founders of the Beauty Dialogues. Catching up on her news, I learn that Ashley has been sharing her considerable wisdom about working with children through the Seeds of Compassion initiative. This is fantastic news for a number of reasons, including her championing of Compassion Cafés to support their ongoing work.
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