New Genes on the Industrial Block

If an evolutionary geneticist were studying the adaptation habits of Mister E. and myself right now, he might conclude that we are healthily carving our way into a sustainable niche here in Seattle. …And, that we might just have the survival techniques necessary to keep up with these dog-nibbles-dog North-westerners.

Or…, that we might just be harmless and artistically kooky enough to Olympic-style curl our way under the radars of potential predators looking to go Darwinian on our Southern Californian rumps…

After all, we’re not doing too poorly thus far in our new habitat.

As my previous deodorant-application post attests, we’ve managed to master the bus systems. (…though, I still aspire to one day hone the social grace and deftness necessary to shave my legs in between public transport transfers…)

Also, I’ve secured a nice little, hermit crab shell-earning position in the heart of the trendy homosexual district. No…, it’s not as glamorous as you might think; it doesn’t involve flaunting my stylish cargo pants-parading butchness or testing the durability of genetically-engorged cucumbers… Instead, I teach ex-pat adults to speak with the inarticulate fluency and grammatical apathy required for visa-holders to seamlessly sew their embroidered presence into the patchwork of this country.

And, as if all that weren’t enough to support our evolutionary muscle in this new place…:

we’ve also managed to finger paint our own flavorful prints on the local ecosystem’s pallet by wandering around town in pajama bottoms to the unexpected shock of native observers (one resident even went so far as to drop his jaw – though I thought a more flattering tribute would have been to drop his drawers - and compliment us on our “superb urban trendiness”)

But, perhaps, the thing that lends the most convincing evidentiary credence to our remarkable survival fitness claim, is that we finally have a hobbit hole to call our very own… or, at least…, to call our landlord’s very own loan…

It sits atop a little hill in the once-bohemian-art-center-turned-tourist-destination, overlooking the Washington ship canal, wind-bopping sailboats and a very large refinery of sorts.

To be honest, I’m not sure that it’s a refinery at all. It looks suspiciously like a cement factory. Or a whale blubber warehouse. Or a senior-citizen-exploiting knitting sweatshop…

The building reads “Marine Industries,” and I find myself just too imaginatively intrigued by its mystique to spoil the fun by looking its purpose up on the ww-web.

Something about the hideous rectangular monstrosity makes me want to sing the Tom Wait’s song: “What is he building in there?” and spend my three-day weekend coming up with possible mundane atrocities they might be committing inside its beige perimeter…

… a warehouse filled with kelp, rounded sea glass and three-eye-sporting, tentacled anemones with Nostradamic inclinations…?

… a hydroponic, chlorophyll-producing, thermal saline energy-converter manned by octopi with reading glasses and non-accredited PhD’s…?

… a post-it notes-manufacturing farmhouse built on the buried remains of a yet-unsponsored prophet’s scrolls…?

In any case…, I like to think of our industrial neighbor as playing an integral sushi roll in our success in this new city meal. A creative muse, if you will... A humble enforcer of the potency of our socially adaptive double helix health... An angled metaphorical ass-nudger with nucleotide chains of butt-kicking vigor…

And, if nothing else…, the mound of gravel in its parking lot is perfect for midnight pajama parties, deodorant-applying barbeques and bus schedule-swapping soirees…