Daytrip to Olympia

Saturday Cely and I drove up to Olympia Washington to check out Wagner's European Bakery & Cafe. June had been there when she visited Jutta and Vincent when they lived there. She gave it a rave review. It was not bad but not really out of this world. Which leads me to my general complaint about the lack of really great bakeries. Have we lost them all in the US? I have not found one in Corvallis and there certainly isn't a good bakery in the Quad Cities. The South Town Bakery is the only one in the area that approximates a good family run bakery with sweets and breads. The South Park has good homemade donuts and sweet rolls but not much else. Wagner's in Olympia is nice but didn't have a large selection and no impressive breads. So we had a sandwich for lunch and sampled a few of their sweet rolls. Then we took a quick look at the Olympia port. We saw a ship being loaded with logs. Who knows where it was going but there were a lot of them.

On the way home we stopped in Portland to see a movie. The French movie, Cache, starred Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. It was really interesting. Cely thought it wasn't too good, and I have to admit it was really slow. The camera shots were very long and static but the mystery drew both of us in. Cely's complaint and that of some critics was that it left open too many questions. I kinda liked that. Roger Ebert has a review that I think catches it.

The oddest thing about the day was that when we were looking for the theater we drove past the weekly no fur protest in downtown Portland. As we drove by we saw a barebreasted woman participating in the protest. Not something you often see in the Quad Cities and it seemed too chilly to be topless. That's what is nice about life, if you keep your eyes open there is always something new that keeps it interesting.

One more thing. I was listening to the Siegel-Schwall cd that they released last year, Flash Forward. There is a funny tune on it by Jim Schwall called The Unqualified Blues. It is one of the best send ups of George W. Bush I have ever heard. The little sample is a small sample.