• Henry Art Gallery: Went to the Henry Art Gallery's Summer Party last night, where they debuted their new exhibit "The Violet Hour."  There was fresh (albeit dark) art, music, beautiful people - a fun night!  Seattle has a vibrant art scene, and it never ceases to amaze me.
  
• Havanna: Went to Havanna last night - great club, great mojitos.  Also discovered a new alternative to the late night cream cheese hot dog - a guy set up a smoker across the street from Havanna (in front of Cafe Vita) and had a full on spread of bbq pork ribs, beef, chicken, collard greens, etc.  The bbq was so legit and the guy cooking it was so friendly that it's pretty much impossible not to like!
  
• Urban dodgeball: Saw a HUGE urban dodgeball game taking place in the tennis courts right off Pine, behind the Century Ballroom.  We stopped and watched and it was amazing!  It was about 10:00 PM on a Friday night, and there were almost fifty people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities playing dodgeball together.  There were clearly rules and order in the game, but also plenty of smack-talking and heckling.  It felt really intense and really fun all at the same time.
  
• Volunteer Park & Madison Park: Today, after James wakes up, we are going to go to the Volunteer Park Conservatory to check out their world class orchid garden.  One of the things the city is blessed with is great parks - there are few better ways to spend a sunny afternoon in this city in my opinion.  Earlier in the week, I picked up some meat, cheese, olives, and bread from Salumi and James and I walked down to Madison Park Beach in our neighborhood for a picnic dinner, followed by some tennis at the Madison Park courts.  It was a great way to spend an evening!
• Theater: Tonight, we have tickets to go watch Avenue Q at the Paramount Theater.  This city gets a great range of shows that pass through here, and I can't wait to get a touch of Broadway right here in Seattle.  

• BBQ's - Lake Samamish, The Lid at Mercer Island: Last weekend was the weekend of the BBQ.   Part of why I love Seattle is all the great people here, and BBQ's are a great way to kick back and hang out with friends.
  
• The Parlor: The nightlife is spreading out past Seattle, and is taking a stronghold all the way out in the suburbs now!  In just the past year or two, several new popular spots like The Parlor have sprung up right in downtown Bellevue.
  
• Ballard: Ballard pretty much deserves to be its own category.  James and I spent a whole day here last weekend and it was one of the best days of summer yet. 
  
• We started off going to the Ballard Farmer's Market to do some gorcery shopping and have a light lunch.  We've been hitting up a bunch of different farmer's markets this summer, in our attempt to cook more locally and seasonally, but the Ballard Farmer's Market, with its wide range of selection, the picturesque location, and the great ambiance created by local musicians who set up shop along the market really sets this market apart from the rest.  But really, it's all about the food - there is such a great variety of produce grown right here in the Northwest, and farmer's markets are a great way to truly taste the city.
  
• After the Farmer's Market, it seemed like a shame to let such a beautiful day go to waste, so we went to the Ballard Lockes right down the street.  It turns out that there was also some sort of Irish festival going on there too, we watched a full on irish band (bagpipes, kilts, and all) play for a bit before exploring the rest of the park.  A lot of boats were passing through the lockes, a ton of salmon were swimming up the ladders, and there were a lot of other poeple out enjoying the afternoon at the Lockes just like us. 
  
• I've driven past the fishing boats docked in Ballard many times before, but since we were in the area anyways, James and I decided to go down there and explore a bit.  We went down to the piers and walked around.  Some of those boats are huge, and come all the way from Alaska to dock for the off-season.  In fact, some boats from the discovery channel show "Deadliest Catch" were docked there.  The scandanavian influenced fishing culture has had a huge influence in the Ballard area, and is a very important part to this city's history.
  

• Wing Luk Asian Museum: James and I went to the grand re-opening of the Wing Luk Asian Museum at its new location.  The museum is really a beautiful tribute to the history and influence of   Asian-Americans in Seattle.  It was iincreidble not just to see all of this great history documented in a museum, but it was really moving to see my story and the story of my family right there on the gallery walls.
  
• Food: There are so many good restaurants in Seattle!  Here is a rundown of some of the spots I've enjoyed so far this summer: Boom Noodle, Harvest Vine, Samurai Noodle, Molly Moon's Ice Cream, Matt's in the Market, Botegga Italiana, Maneki, Cafe Presse, Pike Street Fish Fry, etc.
  
• Flea Market: I don't know why, but the Freemont flea market was really fun!  A bizzare mix of people, food, used junk, old clothes, and random nick nacks.
• Film festivals: Seattle has great film festivals year round, and there have already been two (that I know of) this summer!
• The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is the biggest film festival in Seattle every year.  I only managed to catch one movie this year - Sparrow (from HK) which was lighthearted, funny, and really strange all at once haha.  The festival has films from around the world, and you are bound to be able to find one from a country or using a language that interests you!
• I suspect that Seattle's True Independant Film Festival (STIFF) was created as a responsee to the International film festival to focus on domestic independant movies instead.  James and I went to watch Wiener Takes All: A Dogumentary.  This movie was about the competative world of wiener dog races, and was one of the best and funniest documentaries I've ever seen!
  

The sky filled with gray and gloom this morning was enough to put a damper on my Monday.  I suddenly and inexplicably felt sad, depressed even – seasonal anxiety disorder, perhaps? 

I knew that being cooped up in my office all day would not help, so

I took off my heels and threw on the flip-flops I keep in my office for occasions like this and walked from the financial district to the retail core of downtown Seattle. 

The stores downtown are blessedly free of tourists and the B&T crowd on weekdays.  After dropping in a few of my favorite stores and finding some cute stuff on sale, I swiped my plastic and walked back to the office. 

A little bit of exercise to get the endorphins running, a little bit of retail therapy, and I was suddenly in a much better mood. 

I read an article recently about the “curse” of happiness on American women.  It stated that American women are obsessed with the idea of being happy.  The article implied that happiness was an unattainable ideal, and that because we seek happiness, being anything less than happy, like being content for example, would be perceived as failure.  This was purported to be an “epidemic” purported by popular media, and attributed to high rates of depression in our society. 

This made me wonder if it is better to think about happiness as an unattainable ideal, or rather an attainable goal.  Perhaps I am discriminately an optimist, but I do believe that the perception of happiness as attainable is a better outlook than accepting its unattainability.  If there is nothing to strive for, what would inspire us to make our lives better, richer, more worth living?  If happiness is unattainable, than there would be no reason to do anything, big or small, to bring us closer to it.  Wouldn’t that then become a self fulfilling prophecy, and preclude the very happiness that is believed to not exist?

For example, if I had just accepted that I was going to be unhappy this morning and left it at that, I wouldn’t have done anything about it.  I would have sat in my office all day, inundated with gloom.  But instead, by believing that I could be happier than I was at that moment, I went out and did something small for myself to change my mood, and it worked.  This was not an action inspired by complacency, but rather optimism.  And I’m happier for it.