Burien and friends

LtoR: Shelley, Natalee and Betsy at 909 Coffee and Wine, Burien, WA 

Yesterday I arrived from sunny San Diego to an even sunnier Seattle, then made my way over to Burien, a suburb of Seattle, just a few miles from SeaTac airport.  I was there to meet my friends from library school.  Not surprisingly, we formed a book club many years ago, and we try to get together when we can.  I arrived an hour early, so got a chance to walk around Burien Town Square. I started at the local library/town hall, where I promptly spotted a used copy of Nancy Pearl's Book Lust, the ultimate book lover's guide to books, written by a retired Seattle librarian.   I picked it up for a mere fifty cents, then made a beeline to  Burien Press, where a got myself a really excellent latte from a tattooed and pierced barista who advised me to walk down the street to The Mercantile and Grand Central Bakery.  So I did.

But on the way, I spotted the Discover Burien shop, which features Burien Monopoly, Burien t-shirts and some most excellent Burien mugs.  My hands now full with Book Lust and latte, I decided to just take a picture of those coffee mugs, displayed below.

Burien coffee mugs

And I was distracted again. Because a big sign proclaimed that Waldo was in Burien.  And he was right in the local bookstore, Page 2 Books.  So of course I had to stop in and find Waldo.  (Sunset Magazine tells me that the bookstore has signed copies from Harlequin authors, but I missed those, as I was preoccupied looking for Waldo. But I did notice they had a lot of local books, and I love that.)  

Yes, Waldo is in Burien. 

By the time I'd browsed for Waldo in the bookstore, it was time to visit my friends.  We enjoyed some Sangria with chips and cherry balsamic salsa and admired the view of Mt. Rainier from Shelley's balcony, then walked down the street to Olde Burien to enjoy a most excellent dinner on the patio at 909 Coffee and Wine (I recommend the linguine and lemon lavender panna cotta.) And of course, we talked books.  I've been reading Caplow's 1976 classic How to Run Any Organization (more interesting than it sounds) and Shelley's been reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton.  Natalee has been reading a book by Kate DiCamillo about misfit middle schoolers in Florida.  

Jose the cat suns himself on Shelley's balcony.
Mt. Rainier is just visible in the distance. 

Addendum: In the July 2017 issue of Sunset magazine, Burien is featured in their "Perfect Day" column.  Seattle's "creative tribes are migrating 10 miles down the shoreline and creating a more bohemian community in Burien."