Sushi Cat?

Sunday, April 12th, 2020 – New Route, Second Time

This morning was cooler than yesterday, but not too uncomfortable.  This was our second Sunday on this new route and was a bit easier.  We are still in the mode of grooming to bring the trash count down to a normal level over a few walks.  We sound like a Covad-19 hospitalization report.

We found an Easter bunny.  Happy Socially-Distanced Easter!  At least we are not socially-distanced from Him.

We thought we found some stolen mail.  We find birthday and Christmas cards ripped open by mail thieves hoping to find money.  This one was unused with neither addresses nor inscriptions.  A kitten and puppy?  “You’re in my thoughts?”  We may know why it was discarded.

We found a dime.  It was a bit beat up.  Probably not worth a dime.

Two hubcaps.  The one on the right was found near the 7-Eleven dumpster and was quickly discarded.  The one on the left was a large truck hubcap and we carried it for the greater part of our walk.  We did offer it to dog-walker we passed, but he said it did not match his truck.  Likely story.

Another baseball.  With the baseball season delayed indefinitely, guess they didn’t have a use for it anymore.  Well, it’s in our ball collection now.

We found a Vivitar USB Power Pack.  It’s only an 1800 mAh capacity, but we’ll see if it’ll charge up and report back.

We found what looked like a tool.  After some research, it’s a pin vise.  It holds very small drill bits for hand-drilling or holds other thin material.  There you go, your educational lecture for the week.  You are welcome.

We found a lot of apparel.   A very ratty Converse shoe.  But only one. — Into the garbage can.

A folded pair of child’s gloves.  Neatly folded.  Obviously not by the child.

An unpair and pair of socks.  Sock it to us.

Near Safeway we found one of their carts across the street.  In it was a t-shirt from USC.  Also in the cart was a pair of shoes.

Don’t ask us, we only report it.  So when someone wears these, do they need to take out ankle break insurance?  Just asking.

We haven’t quite figured this out.  It’s a cat sitting atop some rice, all plastic.  It is called a “Sushi Cat,” and there are several.

Just one of the weird things we find.

Monday, April 13th, 2020 – Safeway Route

Traffic seemed a bit busier today, but still very light.  But this guy is still stopping traffic to cross the street.  You can’t be too careful.

Update on the USB power bank.  It did charge up and was able to provide a test charge to an iPad.  However, when left charged and unplugged for eight hours, it was able to discharge itself.  It’s in our battery recycle can.

We found a lot of gloves and poop bags, but we’ll save them for Saturday.  Lucky you.  The car that had the firecrackers lit on it seems to have endured the episode fairly well.  Just weird.  When we first saw it on Saturday, there were a lot of police in the area.  It may have been related.

We found another tool! Okay, only an errant Torx drill bit, but it was in good condition unlike most of the tools we find.  It’s the little things in life.

Someone lost their ESL notebook. Okay, what’s wrong with this picture?  Well, the picture is fine, but the content?  ESL is English as a Second Language.  So what’s with the Basic Spanish cheat sheet?  It could have been a Ukrainian trying to learn English but the instructor is Spanish.  But…  Oh, never mind.   

Someone tossed a DVD out the window.  Is it distracted driving when he uses his only free hand to toss the disc out the window?  Also, it’s disc one of two and we only found the one.  Maybe he’s still working his way through the second disc.  Who knows, it may have a great plot.

An eCig cartridge neatly repackaged after use.  “Pink Lemonade, Disposable Device”  You idiot, dispose of it in a trash receptacle, not in the middle of our street.  And don’t get us started on cigarette butts.

 

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route

Today’s walk was again comfortable.  The earlier the sunrise gets, the earlier we can turn off our flashlights.  It also means we can see the drivers waving back at us and some are even waving to us first.  It makes our day.

More money.  A penny in relatively good condition and a quarter in very bad condition.  The quarter was in a busy intersection and had been run-over multiple times.  It could have been nickel that was flattened, but we’re sticking to the quarter theory to increase our net worth.

This was on Norway Hill near the start of our walk.  Can you spell S o c i a l  D i s t a n c i n g?  Hopefully they were not essential  workers.  We’re feeling so unessential these days.

We picked up another dog ball with no obvious home.  We’ll take it, but we really prefer money, especially the folding kind.

A few weeks ago we discussed the Together For campaign that a local church is running for the pandemic.  They had signs for folks to take for all the cities in the area.

Evidently Oskam’s Corner felt left out.  It’s a neighborhood, not a city, but we won’t tell them.

We seem to be finding a lot of hitch pins lately.  This one’s about six inches long and in good condition.   No, of course we don’t have a Found Hitch Pin Collection.  That would be silly.  Now, if it were a linchpin…

At the site of the accident last week, 

They made repairs.  Essential workers keeping the Internet up and running.  We salute you.

They also mowed along this section of road which uncovered more trash including some discarded clothes.  Socks, shorts and, yes, an orange pair of underwear.  It was all pretty ratty and ended up in our trash.

However, the park-and-ride continues to deliver the goods.  With very few cars in the lot, we have an almost unlimited view.   A pair of slippers that appeared to be in good shape until we got home.  The one on the left was torn up inside.

Also there were a couple of bags of material.  We left the slippers with these bags and collected them later with the car.

The bags contained a set of bed linens and some women’s clothes.  Some of the linens went into the garbage.  The clothes consisted of lots of socks (matching) several bras and some underwear and other miscellaneous garments.  These were washed and are headed for Goodwill.  There was a very nice Seafair Jacket from 2017 in very good condition.  We’ll think about whether Goodwill gets that one.

Also at the park-and-ride.  Yes, it is the park-and-ride, but not that kind of ride.

 

Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 – Safeway Route

Today’s temperature was the warmest morning of the year so far at 49 °F which is in the perfect temperature range for us to walk.

This morning as we were passing a Korean church on our walk, a young man approached and introduced himself as the Pastor of the church.  He told us how much he appreciated what we do and that his congregation also noticed.  He said he would pray for us.  He went on for a couple of minutes and it got to be a bit embarrassing, but we do appreciate it.  And we probably need the prayers.

Maybe his prayers worked.  Later, we found more money.    Ok, another penny.  Maybe we need more prayers.

The city has started mowing.  For us, that means the accumulated trash is uncovered.  But, we also find treasures.  Ok, not really a treasure, but it wasn’t run over or rotted like most balls we find.

Someone lost their sunglasses.  Too bad, this was a nice, sunny day.

The pinup in 1943 during World War II, Betty Grable.

The pinup in 1968 during the Vietnam War, Raquel Welch. 

The pinup in 2020 during the Novel Coronavirus War, Charmin.  Hey, we don’t supply the material, we just pick it up.   “Flush’em if you’ve got’em.”

 

Thursday, April 16th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route

Today was a bit cooler, but we were rewarded with a great 70°F afternoon.  A great stuck-at-home afternoon.  [Sigh]

This morning, soon after we left the house, we found someone left a table by the street.  It seemed to be in reasonable condition and had a hole in the center for an umbrella (not included.)   Someone may be able to use it for a putting blue.  [Putting green.  Get it?]

At the park-and-ride, we routinely pick up beer cans at a specific spot in the lot and have documented it well.  We’ve noticed that as the parking lot has been empty, the preferred party spot has been changing.  This is probably their corona-concept of bar hopping.

We chiseled someone out of a tool.  It was in the turn lane to the mostly-empty park-and-ride, so it was barely run over at all.  Cool.

For several days, the top of the Tolt Pipeline has been mostly spotless.  Today there were marijuana packages and McDonalds trash.  They say marijuana makes you hungry.

We found a video cassette tape that had been buried in the weeds.  Dang, we got rid of our VCR years ago.  It would have been interesting to see what was on it.

 

Friday, April 17th, 2020 – Safeway Route

We call Friday traffic “Friday Light” because even in normal times the traffic is noticeably lighter than other weekdays.  With the pandemic, it has been extremely light.  Today, however, there seemed to be an increase in traffic.  Hoping folks are not jumping the gun on the reopening of things.

The table we passed yesterday now has signs on it.  “Free stuff” and “Free table.”  So, if we want the table do we need to take the “stuff” too?  If we don’t want the stuff, do we need to leave the table until the stuff is gone.  If so, what happens if someone else wants the table?  Obviously, they need to get a lawyer and add some fine print.  And, no, we don’t want any of it.

We found a pair of mittens.  A very small pair of mittens.  They will end up at Goodwill.

More balls.  Both were found near someone’s backyard so we tossed them over the fence.  We always wonder if it’s the right fence.  Maybe they’re tossing back to get rid of them.

We found Mac’s dog tag.  We’ll call the number and see if they want it back.  Always a touchy situation.  Chuck has dog tags, but they don’t have the cool Sea Hawks logo.  They have his blood type.

Whoa!  For the second day in a row, a mess at the Tolt Pipeline.  Yesterday was McDonalds and a pot shop.  Today was Chick-fil-A, Dairy Queen and Five Guys Burgers.  Maybe someone got their Coronavirus Economy Stimulus check and is actually doing the right thing by  supporting local businesses.  Thank you, kinda.

We also found a $1000 bill.  Weird.  We did some Internet searching for a Buckaroos club but couldn’t find anything relevant.  Probably a good thing.  There are several kiddie day cares around the country  named Buckaroo something.  We certainly hope not.

 

Saturday, April 19th, 2020 – Riverside Drive

We had rain on our walk after a week without any but it as a warm 49°F so the rain really didn’t bother us.

More painted rocks. They all have “Hide me” written on the bottom.  Last week we hauled one about a mile and placed it near a bus stop.  This week, we moved a couple of them a short distance, but they’re rocks.  They are heavy for goodness sakes.

We did find more money today.   Another quarter and a penny.  That makes sixty-three cents this week.  Not a bad week, and no, we will not calculate our hourly pay.

We broke some walking records this week.  Forty-three gloves and eighteen dog poop bags in one week.  Also, eleven gloves in a single day today.  Ok, these are the only records we are tracking, but we’ll start more.  With the shortage of gloves, we could start sterilizing and reusing them.  We could do the same with the bags… no, we won’t.

Another spoon for our flatware collection.  It wasn’t all that flat, we’ll include it.

Early in our walk, we found two unopened cans of Red Bull.    Very thoughtful of them to leave us each an energy drink, but it was early in our walk and we really didn’t need it.  Emptied, de-tabbed, crushed and put in the recycle bag.

Someone dragged out their ’18 Valentine’s Day music mix.  1918 or 2018?  Did you not learn anything from Y2K?  They were probably planning to use it as a romantic oldie’s mix in 2020, but the virus interfered.  It tossed their plans and the CD out the window.

At the Sammamish River access road, someone dumped a bunch of rubbish.  People, and we use the term loosely, have been dumping trash down this road for years and we have dutifully notified King County.  After a  few notifications, they set up a concrete barrier to block the road.  Someone plowed through the bushes making a new road into the area.  Others, like whoever dumped this, just dump in front of the barriers. They need to put in cameras to catch these “people.”

We picked up another hubcap. We had to carry it all the way home because, as we’ve pointed out, the park-add-ride trash cans can’t handle large items.

True love respects the need for social distancing.     Lust doesn’t.  At least they stuffed the condom back in the wrapper and that’s more considerate than most.

Someone got a certificate for winning a basketball shot contest.  Why would he throw it away, it’s good for two tickets to a UW Men’s Basketball Game.  Oh, wait, what games?

Stay home, stay safe.