Tacoma Week of Lists Day 2: Things I Have Always Meant to Do

I’m sure we all have them, things we have always meant to do. I have a lot of them. I keep lists of them. These are my Tacoma ones, or at least the ones closest to Tacoma

1. View the Tacoma Metro Parks Rhododendron Garden in Bloom

I like nature. I’m kind of a fan, actually. In a former life I used to hike every weekend. Rhododendron remind me of my childhood home, the Commonwealth of Kentucky. As such I have always intended to view the Tacoma Metro Parks Rhododendron Garden at Point Defiance. According to Tacoma Metro Parks, “The nearly five-acre site was established in 1968 in cooperation with the Tacoma Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, which continues to provide support. The garden contains more than 500 plants, including 198 cultivated varieties and 75 species of rhododendrons.”

Why I have not in the 5+ years I have been living here is a mystery to me. Perhaps this year is my year of the the rhododendron.

2. Visit the Tacoma Art Museum

I’ve been to the other two other prominent Tacoma museums on multiple occasions. What is is that keeps me away from the Tacoma Art Museum? It is not the cost. Adult admission is a very reasonable $7.50. Perhaps I should get off my duff and see the current exhibition “A Couple of Ways of Doing Something.” I have always felt the daguerreotype was underrated.

3. Attend a 100th Monkey Party

Hopefully by this point everyone who reads Tacoma blogs has heard of the 100th Monkey. If not visit the website for some background. Basically it is a sort of chaotic art party with heavy community building overtones.

I really have no excuse. I have been fully aware of the 100th Monkey since its inception and have always thought it sounded cool. I would like to make it seem fate has always intervened but that is not the case. While sometimes there have been scheduling conflicts but not always. The next 100th Monkey is tomorrow, March 26 2008 at 7:30 PM. Maybe you will see me there?

4. Run the entire length of Ruston Way

Sometimes I run, then I wheeze and cough followed by some jogging and some collapsing. Once I have completed this dramatic cycle I always feel very good about myself. Sometimes I manage the courage to do this 3 or even 4 times in a week. Always I run from my house, near N. 30th and Union, northeast toward and past the Northwest Baptist Seminary. It is not that I have some special attachment to the Northwest Baptist Seminary but I always seem to run past it.

When I think of running I always imagine myself swiftly and gracefully moving down Ruston Way in the sunshine with whitecaps out on Commencement Bay. I have run on Ruston Way once. It was cold, grey and rainy. It is not cold, grey and rainy today. Perhaps I should dig out my running shoes?

5. Establish a Sunday Ritual

When I lived in Lexington, Kentucky nearly every Sunday would start with coffee and a paper on the roof of my house, a massive 1907 construction by the daughter of the great compromiser Henry Clay. I would snack through the day and have supper at the Ramsey’s, a bastion of down home southern cooking. When I lived in Charleston, SC every Sunday started with a walk along the Cooper River on the decommissioned Charleston Naval Station I called home. I would see foxes, all manner of birds and the occasional rattlesnake. When I lived in New Orleans every Sunday started with cafe au lait, beignets, the New York Times and a bench in Jackson Square.

For some reason, I am unable to fathom, I cannot establish a Sunday ritual in Tacoma. It could be the declining roll of newspapers in my life and society in general. It could be the overwhelming number of Tacoma coffee houses that serve world class coffee. It could be the fact that I move at least once every 12 months. I don’t know the reason but I simply seem unable to establish a Sunday Ritual in Tacoma.