and life goes on...

Last Friday I stayed as late as possible to get everything done and still make my bus connection, the commute was only slightly slow. Did manage to get home in time to get the car and go pick up my glasses. Little bit stronger prescription. Must be slow in the eyeglass industry, they only took 4 days.

Saturday morning we got on the road for my family picnic. Made really good time until we were nearly there and got stuck behind a combine. Not for long and we knew the reason when folks that came from close by were late arriving. There were 4 generations represented, the youngest 1 1/2 years and the oldest 86 years. Six little kids. A cousin from Swiss Miss' side of the family. Conversation with her helped me fill in the blanks on some family connections. Several people brought memorabilia: toys & knickknacks that had been in grandmother's house, the old stool we had to sit on "in the corner", Great Aunt's family bible, Swiss Miss' 1st Communion, Grandparent's Marriage Certificate (in German and fancy script), Great Grandfather's enlistment in Union Army and discharge from Indian service. I was MOST happy to learn that he was in the post hospital and had to miss Custer's Last Stand! Think those last 2 interested D.W. the most. There was plenty of good food. I made a list of everyone there afterward, we numbered 37. Weather? Sunny and hot (high 80's) but we ran into rain just as we got home; we could smell it before we saw it.

Sunday we went to the Scottish Highland Games (and Ren Faire). D.W. got some more Wicked Tinkers cds. [Poor curmudgeon tried to use Wicked Tinker to combat rap music at work and then found out that those owners of obnoxious music were also Tinker's fans. Go figure.] I found a short, season spanning, Celtic knot design dress suitable for work and a tank t-shirt which will have to be a project before it is wearable. Why any clothing manufacturer would only make size small seems odd. I'll have to cut it off at the spaghetti straps, open the side seams, and then applique' the panels onto other solid color regular tanks. It's an intricate Mother Earth/Green Man design. When it's done I'll post a pic. We also played a bit in the tent of a leather clothing company. Black (his) and white (hers) highwayman coats? We'd have to un-gafiate. They WERE pretty.

And then it got hotter! and hotter! The fans went into the windows and have stayed there, running full out. We have the exchange fans and can blow hot air OUT as well as bringing outside air in, I think that helped. Hard to tell when the temperature didn't really drop into anything "normal" even at night. We set lots of records: hottest day ever in area (twice), multiple hottest for date, longest heat wave. We are not made for 100 degree temps here! Today it only got to 86 and everyone is enjoying the coolness. It's going back up again tomorrow for another week or so they say. Boss actually sent us home early a couple days because it got so hot in the (NOT air conditioned) office. I took 1 "personal health" vacation day to avoid 100+ temp.; at home I could wear less ;)

I found out last week that my high school class is having our 40th reunion this coming weekend. There actually are a few with who I would like to renew acquaintance. There is a Friday night dinner event, and then the main event on Saturday at the Tulalip Casino & Resort. Looking at the RSVP's for the Friday event it appears that there will be 2-3 dozen people (so far none of my reconnects). BTW my graduating class had close to 700 students; it was the last year as the only high school in the district.

This coming weekend is also the annual family gathering nominally celebrating my paternal Grandmother's birthday, Swiss Miss passed away in 1989 at the age of 97 yrs 51 wks. Guess where we will be on Saturday.

If your guess was ON THE ROAD you would have it right. Because this weekend is also, drumroll anyone?, the Highland Games; where we will make an appearance on Sunday and thereby miss being part of Raven's Saturday presentation on period dress.

It looks like we will have another week of mid-80's weather with a couple possible excursions into the low 90's. I'm ok with the lower 80's during the day if it would only cool off at night; I have dresses, skirts, and this year even shorts. I have sunglasses and sun hats - one of which I am told makes me look demure. Please to stop laughing. What I dislike, have a real preference AGAINST, is when the temp doesn't drop below the mid 70's by midnight. I would like to be able to sleep.

Adding more fun this week was the buying of sticky traps for the latest outdoor toy which the boys (at least 1 of them) brought indoors. It didn't get stickied this time. Guess the boys were keeping it from getting to the kitchen and it got hungry enough to go for the peanut butter in the electronic trap. Bye bye Ratbert.

I bought onions this past weekend so that I could reprise the spinach pie rolls. Bagged baby spinach doesn't make as good an impression as fresh from the field spinach. Today the annual "gift" of Walla Walla Sweets to our office from one of our vendors arrived. I now have a sufficiency of onions.

Our Farmers Market was back this weekend. There were 2 booths that had golden beets, hurrah! This year's "trendy" veg looks to be Purple Kohlrabi. Tastes just the same as green. I'm not sure I understand why it was developed other than that they could as it has to be peeled to prepare so the color goes away.

This is Day Two of "Torchwood, Children of Earth", on BBC America. This 5 day mini- series presentation of the story is presenting a lot more depth of character than most of their past storylines. Check it out. I think I saw that it releases on DVD around the end of the month.

Dad called, seems that he got an astronomical gas bill. Seems his meter hasn't been working and they just figured it out. This sounds all too familiar, seems there was a whole slough of dysfunctional meters last year. We're going to review his past bills tomorrow.

I ordered my new glasses yesterday, they should be ready in a couple weeks. These have a light violet colored frame, it will be a different look. I'll probably get new lenses put into my current frames when I have the new ones. I'm thinking that there will be times when I will want the more neutral color.

So between then and now - life happened...

Last weekend we went to Cabelas. 'Nuff said? see D.W.'s blog for his comments. As an incentive for the road trip he suggested a visit to Shipwreck Beads, "the world's largest selection". It's about 2 miles from Cabelas and, though it is hard to credit, I had never been. WOW! We spent a couple of hours and I bypassed whole sections, including the books and instructional dvds.

The next day I rearranged the corner where my new gun safe is located. Moved several furniture pieces that were not large, but cumbersome. My back complained a bit for a couple of days. Aleve to the rescue.

We have gone back to "summer schedule" at the office. From now through September I will be working 4/10's, Tuesday - Friday. Makes morning come pretty darn early! I catch the very 1st express bus of the day from this area into town, and the next to last bus out.

This weekend is Kent's Cornucopia Days celebration. No Farmer's Market but a rather extensive street fair set up. We found a few Xmas gifts. I also found out that a local shop hosts spinners for a few hours twice a month. YES! Much easier to get to than visiting Weaving Works in the U District in the evening after work. Picked up cards from a couple of local craftspeople who do custom refinishing.

Last night D.W. showed me a page from Wednesday's, July 8, Seattle Times which featured a recipe for Spinach Phyllo Pie, (actually a roll). I decided to try it for tonight's dinner.

Before baking



During baking we opened a bottle of Sangria, which we 1st tasted on the trip to Long Beach for D.W.'s birthday.
His glass says King Crab
Mine says Queen



After baking



D.W. says
"YUMMY"!



I have now written several amendments on the page and it will go into the recipe box.

Tomorrow I am planning to visit Carpinito's fruit, vegetable and plant center to see it their produce department carries golden beets. I found out last summer that I can eat them easily, unlike the red ones that bite me back. They seem to be one of those "specialty" veggies like kohlrabi (another of my summer faves).

Then I'll be visiting my Dad.

Bummer! Learned today that the Broadway Across America production of Fiddler On the Roof - featuring TOPOL! - has been rescheduled from Dec 2009 to May 2010. Sigh.

So guess I'll have to make do with having a theatre party night for Wicked instead. Gosh.
Hey Raven! Hey StitchWitch! how does Friday, Sept. 18th sound? I'll book us in downtown for the evening; we can have "after" and go shopping on Saturday. Yes? Maybe we can even do something that TigerBoy and Wolf will find interesting.

Oh NO, just looked at Camlin and it looks like they are doing the group theatre thing again. How about we get a couple of 1 bedrooms and go to the play on Friday, Sept. 25th? Email or call so that we can talk tickets.

Sometimes I really don't like my commute. Like yesterday afternoon when it took over 2 1/2 hours to get home. The game got out right at rush hour.

I know that Seattle has to repair/resurface their downtown streets. It just seems that if they have to 1/2 the available traffic lanes there should be some way to detour part of the traffic. My bus driver yesterday suggested that instead of getting on at our usual north end stops we take a different bus through town in the tunnel and then connect with our bus at the final stop at the south end of downtown. I'll have to try that next week.

The majority of southbound bus routes through town approach downtown from the east on Stewart Street, which is currently reduced to 2 (of 4) lanes on left so that they can repair bus zones. This causes stack-ups of buses waiting to get to stops. The routes split between 3rd and 2nd Avenues when they turn south. Second Ave. is currently, for 2-4 weeks, reduced to2 (of 4) lanes to left for the same reason.

I've heard that the surface streets all need to be done while there is "stimulus" money available, and that they have to be done before the viaduct replacement tunnel can be started. Too bad the light rail doesn't go through town. Someday.

I stayed home from work on Wednesday because I wanted to be there when Sierra Stone Northwest did the resurfacing of our patio. They'd said they'd leave the bill and I could mail a check if it was easier. Those who know me also know that since D.W. had to go to work and I don't always believe workers will do what I was told they would do when unsupervised...... Not to mention I wanted them paid immediately so that there was no possibility of a construction lien being started. Yup, trusting, that's me.

We forgot to take a "before" picture, darn. It took them about 5 hours.
They cleaned out the starts of new growth that had appeared post-pressure wash and filled in the holes and cracks with epoxy. That was followed by a rather nasty smelling primer, then they chased away the neighbor cat. They started to mix epoxy for surface when neighbor cat returned, got chased away again. Back to mixing; picked up neighbor cat and set him just on edge of primer - he schedaddled. Finished mixing, glared at cat. They blended 5 different colors of pebbles to get the mix we had selected, poured in the epoxy and they were off on the 1st of 4 sections. (I watched the color/epoxy blending. A cooking analogy would be layering dry ingredients for a recipe, without a bowl, blending them then adding liquid to center and stirring to combine evenly.) To create the new patio surface they used a "rake" to spread the stone mix and then got down on hands and knees to spread/tamp/smooth. As they started to mix for 2nd section they had to run off you-know-who, again - luckily this was the last time. The last step of the day was tossing a light layer of sand over the wet surface, to add just enough "texture" that it won't be slippery when it gets rained on.

We had chosen a 2nd, lighter, color to be applied to the "step" aka "weird angled ledge" on patio. Guess what! It can be seen, easily. Now I wish I had told them to do that to garage door step as well.

The "new" patio looks great! We were laughing last night because it has just enough shine to look "wet". No more looking at patio and saying "it's starting to rain". :)

Next, final (?), step is building new stairs. Home Depot here we come.

We'll have a BBQ when they are in!

Hello world, I'm back. It has been pointed out to me that it has been several days since I posted. OK, yeah, I'm aware.

Think I told you that I took a tumble on a Seattle street. I landed complete palm down on my right hand, which means that the wrist was nicely bent, so I jammed it down pretty hard. I've had a recurring soreness when I turn my wrist or pick up anything with much of a weight (large, full, coffee cup for example). NO it is not broken, or sprained - it doesn't hurt nearly enough for either. Been there, done those. I think strained would be the most it can be called. It has caused me to treat it "nicely" for the past week. It is much improved!

Yesterday was Father's Day. D.W. and I took my Dad to brunch at Marie Callendar's before D.W. had to go to work. They have quite the spread. Omelets, waffles, fruit, and dessert in 1 room; salad/soup bar in another room, and the bisquits&gravy, salmon fillets, chorizo, quiche and the like hot trays in a 3rd location. We all enjoyed it. Dad ate more than his usual for breakfast :) , including giving in to a bit of sweet tooth. I'd never put shredded carrot into a veggie omelet before, that was pretty good. D.W. and I did justice to the wonderfully flavorful pineapple.

Have I told you that the neighbor's cat has been trying to convince us that he belongs to us too?
Started when we let him into the dining room (where the cat door is) when he was locked out of his house during the snow storms that past winter. Now he just comes for company. He knows that he isn't supposed to come any further in than the dining room area; and he minds a darn sight better than ours do.

Anyway, this weekend another cat (who I have only seen once before) came to sit on the steps and gaze in. This one is a large, medium-long hair, cream color with orange points.

What brought this subject up is that "someone" decided to scent mark my kitchen! So I washed down the counter fronts, and the floor, and the rugs. That worked. Think I'll go back over the counter fronts and floor tonight with a more specific cat odor out solution just to be really sure.

Raven and I went to Firwood Farm Alpaca's earlier this month, see previous post. And we went back after they sheared and took a look at the fiber that they decided to keep and sell directly to hand-spinners. Raven also booked a day for the weaver's guild fiber artists to visit and have a mini spin-in. We had told her that we were mostly interested in the chocolates and the multi-color suri (long haired) fiber. She showed us the whites, and the pure black that she had as well.

We purchased small amounts from those for which we had previously expressed interest. Mr. C's is a warm, milk chocolate color. Hershey's is a dark chocolate color with some blending toward his father's black, and just a bit which is an usual kind of grey-brown. The the suri, Bellagio, is a 6" long staple of mixed fawn, grey, white, cream. For the event, the farm staff will be making an assortment of 1-3 oz. bags of single color or assorted color/texture.

I haven't worked with raw alpaca before. I decided to look for cleaning instructions on-line. What I discovered is that there is a wide range of ideas on how to treat raw alpaca. Who'd have figured. I knew that because alpaca does not have lanolin that it would take a lower than sheep's 150 degree wash temp. What I hadn't realized is that the "popular opinion" as to care would range from 85 - 140 degrees. And some said they thought the best option was to spin raw and wash afterward to clean and set twist at the same time.

With this alpaca I can see that last option, these are very clean alpaca. Very little vegetation and pretty low odor for a camelidae. These species like to roll, and who cares if there is urine on the ground. Apparently this farm has very well behaved alpacas, they don't even dig wallows.