Exotics at Redmond Town Center

Every Saturday morning, fickle Pacific Northwest weather allowing, spectators from all over the greater Seattle area (and sometimes beyond) converge on Redmond Town Center for a masterfully organized exotic car event. While some dealerships bring in display cars, for the most part the point of Exotics @ RTC, as it’s known, is for ordinary people to bring in own their recently detailed, show-ready, rare cars for other enthusiasts to see.

I’m not a car person, but I’d like to be. I’m working on it. It’s been something of a drawn-out, slow-burn awakening for me, from the days I drove a 143 horsepower Honda Civic in Houston to the present, landing in a niche coupe and more than tripling my power since.

And I’ve discovered I love hearing people talk about their car passions almost as much as I love being behind the wheel of a V8: their favorite roads, their modifications, their brand loyalties, the driving experience they seek, and most of all what design elements make their hearts skip a beat. I’m drawn to a squat, swoopy, mean-as-fuck silhouette, and lucky me — there are just so many cars at RTC that fit the bill.

You might be living in an early 20th century British novel if...

Throwin’ it back to a Blenheim Palace visit in 2013.

• Everything was much better before The War

• You use four different nicknames daily for "Charles," and they're all for the same guy

• Someone you know would lay down their life for a cold, inconvenient, and uncomfortable middle-of-nowhere house

• Your local spunky unmarried 30-something woman looks like Emma Thompson

• Your friend has confided in you that he can't possibly leave his cheating spouse, he’s an upstanding Englishman!

• You’ve experienced extreme drama surrounding unsent or misinterpreted letters

Oxford, 2013.

• Nanny still lives in the attic 47 years later and will show off your baby photos if you ask

• You have a vague perception of Catholics as being kinda weird

• Someone is the black sheep of your family solely because they married the wrong person

• At one point you have regaled a friend with everything you know about a particular man. But you are definitely not in love with him, oh no. You think about him 24/7 but you are not in love with him and have never been. Also you have no other memories from the past decade that don't involve this man that you are absolutely not in love with

• Papa says England must be falling because women have jobs and opinions now

• You’re reliably very, very surprised when you run into a neighbor-slash-relative...in your tiny town...at a family event! Small world

• Your family friend Edmund is a commoner, but he's allowed to party on our veranda because man, can he write 

• A symbolic Big Tree grows on the grounds of your family home

• They're tearing down your ancient house to build flats, what a pity 

• It's been a while since you’ve heard from your distant relative in India or the Levant

• You’re certain the butler can't feel love, he exists just to butler

• People who didn’t go to Oxford don't count  

• Is your nickname derisive or affectionate? You genuinely do not know

• Mama is lying down on account of her nerves and migraines; please don't make noise in the corridors

• You’ve considered running away to Switzerland to ride out a wave of drama and gossip in style

• You know cousin Victoria is capital-R Rebelling, because she wants to marry an American 

• There's a new baby in the family but you never see it and rarely mention its name 

Seattle Coffee Tour

Barista Jacob hard at work.

Pike Place Market, near our tour starting place.

When I was a child, coffee occupied the same space in my mind as did alcohol. It just had a very adult aura about it. It smelled dark and cozy and everytime I asked my dad about his steaming mugful, he’d snatch it away from me say, “NOT FOR KIDS.”

I didn’t drink it regularly until after college, at which point it was regarded as fuel - something purely utilitarian, just a tool to get me through the day. It didn’t help that most of the habitual coffee drinkers I knew were the same way, putting away 3 cups of bland liquid every morning to stay focused and productive.

I moved to Seattle with little sense of local coffee history / culture other than a vague impression of the rise of Starbucks. But this city has a way of endearing you to its passions, and it was about time I filled in the gaps. This past weekend I took a downtown specialty coffee tour with Lucas, offered through Airbnb experiences.

Easily the best cold brew of my life.

Our friendly tour guide.

First coffee I’ve had that was made in a Hario V60.

Over about a 2-hour period, we walked to a few iconic spots and had surprisingly in-depth conversations about the role of coffee in our lives, the ethics of pricing, and even extraction curves (?) and particle size and how those elements affect the taste of what eventually ends up in a cup. Got a long way to go before I’m tossing glassware around and making fancy “slow bar” drinks in a Chemex like Seattle Coffee Works barista Jacob, but at the very least…maybe it’s time I got my old French press out of storage.