Monday, December 26th, 2022 – Safeway
Merry Christmas (Observed), at least that is what our Outlook calendar says it is.
In case you missed it, we lost another week. The short version was the weather was too bad to walk.
The long version is on Monday, the nineteenth, the weather had deteriorated, and we had about two inches of snow. Throughout the week, the snow stopped but the temperatures dropped to 14°F (-10°C). Early Friday morning, the freezing rain hit, and everything was coated with a thin layer of very slick ice. By Friday morning, the temperatures started rapidly warming, melting the snow. This morning as we started our walk, the temperature was 50°F (10°C) with rain, a full 36°F (20°C) change in just four days. All that was missing were the locusts.
Anyway, we enjoyed getting back into our walking routine even if we got soaked. We picked up a lot of trash that had accumulated, mostly mundane beer cans and fast-food trash. No money and no roadkill, but we did pick up an accumulation of sixteen Mikes Hard Lemonade cans on Norway Hill. The bad weather didn’t slow that guy down.
As we were walking down 112th Ave NE, we saw something that looked like an S.O.S flashing at us from the other side of the street. It was an earbud in trouble.
It had been run over but still was flashing. The off button was gone, so we put it in our recycle bag where we lost track of it. It may still be blinking its help signal in one of the trash bins we used on our route.
This irked us. Someone got a new 75-inch HDTV for Christmas.
Instead of cutting the box up and putting it in the recycle, they would rather watch the football game, so they tossed it in the street. Such good citizens, we hope their team lost.
At the top of the Tolt Pipeline, a lone condom wrapper.
What? Did the guy wear it home? We’re sure that impressed her.
The missing cat signs are still around nearly three months after the cat went missing. The reward is enticing, but we have given up hope. But then we saw this.
Okay, okay, we’ll keep looking.
Tuesday, December 27th, 2022 – Park-and-Ride
It was slightly cooler today and raining, but still felt like the Bahamas relative to last week. We are keeping up our trend of finding no money but did remove a raccoon from the road. Most raccoons we find are large. This one looked scrawny. Perhaps that is how it got hit, foraging for food.
But we did find a tool.
Yes, another socket, and a 10mm at that. No biggie.
Nearby where the socket was found, another condom wrapper.
Okay, we could go into the use of tools, but we won’t stoop to such low levels. At least not for now.
We find a lot of eyeglasses, mostly run over, broken or at least scratched up. Today we found a mint condition pair of aviation sunglasses.
Not a scratch on them. Unfortunately, they are Pugs that appear to be a very cheap brand. It figures. If they were $160 Ray-Ban glasses, they would be smashed to smithereens.
For weeks, we have been passing a chain-link fence with a can just out of reach of our pickers. Chuck tried yet again today and failed.
Then he spotted a twig and using the twig with the picker was able to coax the can close enough to grab it. Chuck is as smart as a crow.
Okay, maybe not.
Hopefully this was not a Christmas present.
In the gutter, three-quarters of an Enya CD, “A Day without Rain.” We are in the Seattle area, so we get it. However, we listened to a few tracks on YouTube and we didn’t get it. We still removed it from the gutter.
This is a first for us. We are continually picking up pieces of car accidents, mostly fender-benders. We get it. You get in an accident, exchange information, etc. and drive off thinking about reporting insurance, police reports and so on.
It’s easy to forget about the random bits of your car you left behind. Like a piece of your headlight lens, or that key you left in the magnetic case under the fender. It is GM truck key so we can cross-reference the headlight lens with GM trucks to track down the exact make and check the public records for a recent accident at that location. But really, we are not that interested.
We found an unopened bottle of fish oil capsules.
Not like finding an unopened can of beer, but still.
At the park-and-ride, we found a pile of shoes and hats.
None of the shoes matched. Then in another location we found a pile of more shoes that matched the shoes in the first pile, also random clothing. Was this one of those adult party games picking partners by matching shoes? And don’t ask us what the hats were for.
Wednesday, December 28th, 2022 – Safeway and 100th Ave NE
It was cooler and dry today with no money and no roadkill. But we did find some beverages along the way.
Three full cans of Mike’s Harder Lemonade. Well, make that Cranberry. If you read this blog regularly, you know we pick up several empty Mike’s Hard whatever cans each week. We have never tried a Mike’s beverage, but last winter, we found an unopened can. We decided that when the weather got warmer, we would give it a try. It is still in our refrigerator. Now we have three more to add to it.
We also found nine empty cans of smokeless chewing tobacco. So smokeless means it is okay to use, right?
Wrong.
“Hey, Billy, I bought you a new bike for Christmas.”
“Gee, thanks gramps, but I’m 18.”
Behind a switch box on Juanita-Woodinville Way, we found a chain saw and a pole saw.
It was free, but they would not fit in our bags, so we left them. Too bad, Goodwill would have loved them.
We came across this.
And empty bottle of VShot Male Endurance Formula. It must work because Walmart sells it, right? On the Walmart site, the description states, “Vshot Male Endurance formula is a Dietary Supplement that helps to provide peak performance quickly! This supplement hlpes you perform at your best in that very special time of need.” Well, if Walmart says it “hlpes”, who are we to argue?
Thursday, December 29th, 2022 – 160th to 124th Street
This morning’s weather was much like yesterday. Again, no money but we did remove a rat from the pavement. A very stiff rat.
This is the time of year that the cars start shedding their antlers.
We pick up five or six of these each year. This is only the second one this year, though. Most of them are two- or three- point antlers, but this one is a six-pointer. We may need to get this one mounted for our museum.
On the freeway overpass, we picked up what we thought was another disposable cigarette lighter.
But it was a fifteen-dollar Newport lighter. The most expensive disposable lighter that fool has tossed.
At the street near the freeway that we have been keeping clean, we started picking up 14-Hands wine bottles again.
In the end, we picked up seven wine bottles along a one-block stretch. Oh, and one condom.
Then at the top of the Tolt Pipeline was this.
A lollipop and another condom. So, what does this say about the Candy’s Dandy adage?
We are wrapping up this week early because we have a conflict this weekend.
Our take.
- No Money. Again.
- 26 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans, three still full.
- 9 Chewing tobacco cans.
- 7 14-Hands wine bottles.
- 6 Matching shoes.
- 4 condoms.
- 2 Balls
- 1 Chainsaw, ready for a massacre.
- 1 Bottle of Fish Oil pills.
Have a great week and let us know if you spy any swarms of locusts.
Trash Walking 