Be Patient

Monday, January 29^th, 2024 – Safeway

This morning’s weather was 52°F (11.1°C) with no rain. Almost perfect walking conditions for us. It would have been better if we’d found some money, but nada.

As we were starting our walk, we found a car had been broken into.

Through the window, or where the window was, we saw a book or binder that might have looked like something valuable to the thief. That is very inconsiderate. The thief could have hurt himself on the flying glass. Then he had his hopes dashed when he saw there was nothing of value. The poor thief left depressed and is now looking for a lawyer to sue the car owner. And in our climate, he will win.

For the second week in a row, we found another syringe.

Last week we found one in the park-and-ride. This one was in front of the apartments on 112^th Ave NE. We hope this is not a new trend. We used to find two or three a week, but now they are rare. At least they were before last week.

Two car parts.

A lug nut and a Chevy wheel cover. With the number of tire weights and lug nuts we find, there are a lot of unbalanced, loose wheels out there.

Earth-Rated poop bags.

Guess if they are “earth-rated” it’s ok to litter them here, but not on the moon. And speaking of littering,

who had this bright idea?

At one place on Juanita-Woodinville Way, we pulled four Wiffle balls out of the berry bushes and tossed them back over the fence. Mostly.

Okay, we didn’t find any money today, but we were rewarded with a spectacular sunrise.

We took this photo at the top of Norway Hill at 7:28 am, just ten minutes before the official sunrise.

The first woodpecker of the year.

We’ve heard that woodpeckers peck to search for food or call a mate. This one looked hungry to us.

Tuesday, January 30^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Today the walking conditions were nearly the same as yesterday, except for the sunrise.

We are back to our usual “Big Dark” weather, but the times, they are changing.

Just very slowly.

Calvin left his socks in the park-and-ride.

It’s always good to have your name on your underwear in case you get bonked on the head.

The EV parking at the park-and-ride got a big upgrade.

Brand new signs. But they are the same old 120v plug-ins. According to this article, fully charging a Tesla here would take four full days. But on the upside, the owners would have nice new signs to stare at.

Wednesday, January 31^st, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

It rained on our entire walk today. Rain doesn’t bother us too much; it just limits our visibility somewhat. As we started our walk, we picked up three cups from Janet’s favorite drive-thru. She normally does not check out the drive-thru on Wednesdays, but we took this as an omen. And she found money.

A dime and a penny, our first money find of the week.

We came across yet another New Driver magnetic sign.

We’ve haven’t kept count, but we’ve found a half dozen or so of these. We figure the students are trying to master driving a stick-shift and are shaking the signs off the car.

We pick up a lot of tire weights on our walks, but today we picked up the mother of all tire weights.

It’s about six inches long and weighs ten ounces. Most of the weights we find weigh less than an ounce. This is probably from a large truck tire.

We found a full bottle of Sleep Gel capsules.

They were in a dentist’s parking lot near Safeway, but until a year or so ago, it was a sleep disorder treatment clinic. The guy probably came back to complain that the pills weren’t working and found the clinic was gone and it was a wasted trip. Or maybe he got his teeth cleaned instead.

Time to check out Chuck’s vest pocket.

Starting with the cards on the left, a Muckleshoot Casino rewards card. The name on it is unique, and there were a few hits for it on YouTube of a Thai girl. The latest dated one was from 2014 and looks to be about 15 years old, so it could be her card. Next, a Marriott Bonoy rewards card with no name, and another Laundromat pay card that may have some money on it. We have found these laundromat cards before and to check the card’s value you need to go to the laundromat. This one is in Rancho Cordova, CA, near Sacramento, a mere twelve-hour drive. We’ll pass.

Back to the top, we found a stack of Pokémon cards that were stuck together. And yes, we still have not taken the time to figure out that game. But we also found a shopping list for more cards:

• 1x Random Pack.
• 10 Pokémon Cards.
• 1 Energy.

So, the game must be still going strong, and we still have no idea what it’s about.

Photos of a couple of kids who may be brothers, but with no other information. Below those is an unidentified piece of orange plastic reminiscent of an old Tinkertoy windmill vane, but that may just be a foggy memory.

At the top, the obligatory writing utensil, $100 of Monopoly money, a hair band and an old runover Casio watch. We have a friend who teaches clock restoration and repair at a local junior college. We thought it would be a good joke to give it to him to repair. He said it was a 1980’s vintage watch and he would be glad to get it. Who knew?

Then in the toy section, a dinosaur sticker, a pumpkin, a penguin eraser, a die, a small bucket, a foot, and a bullet shell. Maybe the shell shouldn’t be in the toy section.

In the upper-right, an envelope with a very stylized quail on it. We were able to find the origin, but weirdly the site wants you to create an account and log in to get any details which we didn’t do. However, it appears to be orthodontic rubber bands for braces. Go figure.

Finally, at the bottom right is a sticker of Jasmine of Aladdin.

You can buy a roll of one-hundred stickers for nine bucks at the SmileMakers‘ website in case you are interested.

Thursday, February 1^st, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

We didn’t find any more money today but did find some tools.

An 8mm combination wrench on the freeway on-ramp and a deburring tool which we have not seen before. It is for deburring pipes or tubing after they’ve been cut.

The last item is a set of diamond edged drills for drilling through glass, porcelain, and ceramic tile. Unfortunately, 40% of them are missing.

But still, that’s 100% more than we had before.

The last two tools were found on 116th Ave NE, the road that parallels the freeway offramp. This road is often used for folks to eat, drink, smoke and perform other activities.

Last week, we found about one hundred cigarette butts along a small area and we picked them up.

Today, there were only about fifty of them. And yes, we picked them up again.

On the freeway overpass, we picked up a small piece of flattened metal. When we got home, we could see the writing, “pink slip” on it which made it easy to track down.

It’s a model car, ten bucks on Amazon.

The description is, “Pink Slips 1:32 W1 2020 GR Toyota Supra Die-Cast Car, Toys for Kids and Adults (White).” Can they do that? Isn’t that discrimination?

Friday, February 2^nd, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

It was a little cooler today but dry. We found money at Janet’s favorite drive thru.

A dime and four pennies and she needed to mine for each one.

And we picked up more tools.

A small paint roller and a 16mm deep socket. When we got home, we noticed that the roller was still wet with wood stain. We tried to remove the roller, but it was stuck tight and the more we struggled the more stain got all over our gloves and inside the garbage bin which was, fortunately, lined with a bio bag. Finally, we gave up and left the whole thing in the garbage. The socket was in good condition, after we wiped the stain off it.

Today seemed to be a lot about picking up the aftermath of shatter-scatters. They used to be called fender benders, but cars today shatter instead of bending. We picked up the remains of two gas caps near the Safeway stations, a small shatter-scatter near McDonalds on 100^th, and a bigger one on 100^th near 145^th.

For most, we put the parts in our recycle bags and get rid of the bigger ones in recycle bins we come across. We carried the bigger parts of the one above to the corner an will return with the car to pick them up.

Today’s route takes us down 100^th Ave NE through the big construction zone. They are removing the sidewalk in several areas.

Closed? It’s gone and there’s no sidewalk on the other side either. We didn’t cross over to check, but there’s probably a sign there saying to cross over to this side.

Yep, another Be Patient sign.

We’re guessing this one got scraped off by the construction pylons.

The first sign of Spring?

It was fooled by the warmer-than-normal weather. It’s a bit premature to be popping up.

We found a Western Washington University water bottle in the bushes atop Norway Hill.

It looks like Dad set it on top of his car and forgot about it. It looks to have been run over a few times before being spun into the bushes.

On a high note, last week we reported that someone left some tires by the side of the road. We submitted a request to the City of Kirkland and this week; the tires were gone.

Kirkland is getting more responsive to our requests.

Saturday, February 3^rd, 2024 – Riverside Drive

This morning was a bit chilly, but dry again. We removed a roadkill rabbit from the street but also found money.

One penny, if you can call that money. Remember, a penny saved is worth two in the bush, or something like that.

Throughout the week, we saved up the photos of the unopened food items we’ve found.

A single-serving cereal bowl, snacks, a Guava Slash hydrating beverage, and for dessert, a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar. Sounds like a square meal to us.

And speaking of square meals, across from the apartments on Woodinville Drive, it looks like someone had a party and tossed the trash into the bushes.

Eight Modelo beer cans and one large Modelo bottle. And fittingly, a very large urine bottle. ”Hey, I gotta go. Who used the bathroom last?” ”I got it, Zeke. Here you go.” They could have flushed it, at least.

Nearby was this fellow.

He looks traumatized by the scene. The tag calls this a Pet Simulator X which is a popular game. So popular, we’ve never heard of it. It’s an online game with virtual pets. However, they also sell stuffed toys that match the virtual pets in the game. This one is too old to be on the site, but according to the current pets, this one was sold for $35. Woof! And that isn’t a virtual ‘woof’ either.

At the park-and-ride, someone lost their license plate.

According to sources on the Internet, this plate belongs to a 2018 Ford Mustang, so it would look something like this.

Well, without the front plate, of course. And the same guy may have lost his pants, too.

But there is no evidence that they belonged the the same person. So, if you know someone who owns a 2018 Ford Mustang with a missing front plate and he isn’t wearing pants, let him know we have them both.

Very close to where someone’s window got smashed on Monday, evidence of another broken window.

This one we can kind of understand. Afterall, it was illegally parked south of the no parking sign.

That wraps up our TrashWalking week. Our take this week:

• 26 Cents.  Really? That’s all you could lose?
• 12 Mikes Hard Lemonade cans
• 6 Sunrises, one rewarding, the rest not so much.
• 5 Tools
• 5 Unopened food containers.
• 7 Balls including four Wiffle balls.
• 3 Articles of clothing.
• 2 Patient signs.
• 2 Smashed windows.
• 2 Car parts and a shattering of others.
• 1 Roadkill rabbit.
• 1 Giant urine bottle.
• 1 Expensive plushie pet.

Have a great week and remember, be patient with the flying Be Patient signs.