Ed and Reub

Stealing

2012-02-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

An unplanned conversation with a pack of 13-year-olds:

Me, saying something random that popped into my head: I challenge you to remember something that you did when you were one year old!

J, loudly: I stole candy while I was sitting in the grocery cart and my mother wasn't looking!

Me: You were a terrible baby. Did you get away with it?

J, laughing: She didn't see me! But then she turned around and I had a fistful of candy!

L., chipping in: I stole candy too! When I was older. But then I threw it all away.

Me: That's like me. In my whole life the only thing I ever stole was a pack of gum when I was 5 years old.

****It gets quiet in the room...the teacher stole something?****

Me: I was only 5 years old! (holding my hand just above waist height.)

D, creating a welcome diversion: You were a huge 5 year-old! That's almost as big as me!

Me: Stand up. See? Not as tall as you.

Them, back on-task: You stole gum? What did you do? Who were you with?

Me: I was with my mother, who was distracted at the cash register. I can still see it, the slanting rack, with rows of Juicy Fruit gum, right at my eye level. The packs were yellow.

L, interrupting: With blue words...

Me: It was easy. I reached up and took a pack, and put it in my pocket. I will never ever forget that moment. Nobody else noticed.

******Quiet room******

Me, continuing: The next day I went to kindergarten, which was maybe 3 hours long. I got on the school bus to go home, and walked waaaay to the back, with the bad kids, to sit down. I took the pack of gum out of my pocket. I opened it up and inhaled its fragrance. Then I quickly gave it all away, every piece. I was like Robin Hood, sharing the wealth, right? But I never told my parents and I never forgot what I did.

G., loudly: FIFTY YEARS LATER, and you still haven't told your parents?

*******Collective gasp and giggles, as students tell G that "FIFTY" is way off and insulting.******

Me (laughing hard b/c I'm 62 years old): That's right! SEVENTY years later and I haven't said a word! And I haven't forgotten what I did.

Them, moving on: But you told us?

Me: Yes. Of course I have told you! Now let's get to work.

15 minutes later: The quietest, shyest boy in the class comes up to me and says in a soft voice: You should paint a picture of it, that rack of gum...

******You know, maybe some day I will.******

Cooking for one

2012-02-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Drawing by Franco Matticchio

Thirteen years ago, when all 3 kids were at home, John would go out of town and they would ask "Are we having tacos tonight?" And the answer was always "YES! Let's make tacos! Right now!" John didn't like the old-school tacos that the rest of us tucked into, so it was our chance to indulge: ground beef, refried beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, salsa, olives, served on a warm crisp corn taco shell. But John was right; these can be gut bombs, and I never make them any more. Even when he's out of town.

There are certain things that John doesn't/cannot eat: wild mushrooms (for which he has recently developed a terrible allergic reaction), cilantro (bad memories of food-related stuff in Afghanistan, plus it tastes like metal to him), and mussels. So when he is out of town, I step it up on these kinds of things. But mussels aren't in season right now, and I got turned off to the fabulous wild mushrooms at the farmers' market this weekend by this story, about a family that got lost for most of last week, collecting hedgehog mushrooms (which I love) and almost ate their pit bull. Jeeezus!

Pictured here are the things I couldn't resist at the farmers' market: "Hell Dust" made by a local pepper-grower (the name alone is irresistible, and it has a wonderful smokey-hot flavor), organic bacon dog treats for E&R (5 bucks, but the vendor was native American and I couldn't resist, plus E&R really approve), tatsoi greens (am I the last person to have heard of these fantastic, versatile greens?), and finally an amazing veggie stromboli with a sour dough crust, baked by a Californian-moved-to-rural-Oregon (how many thousands of times has this happened?) And then I bought myself a bouquet of red tulips, still closed.

So what have I made for myself? I don't actually believe in "cooking for one." When I'm alone I cook a feast for 2-4, and heat up the leftovers the next night. The tatsoi-which resembles a deep-green wedding bouquet- was my centerpiece for a really great stir-fry, with chicken, ginger, garlic, chili oil, peanuts, and soy sauce. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it, but you'll have to take my word; it was great. When John comes back, we'll go back to the farmers' market, get more tatsoi and make it all over again.

By that time, maybe I'll be up for hedgehog mushrooms, on the side.

When John is gone

2012-02-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

When John is gone, sometimes out-of-the-ordinary things happen. Once when he was in Brazil, all of the kitchen cabinets came off the wall and onto the floor. That was The Big Kitchen Catastrophe, which fortunately spared our then-6-year-old son who was in the midst of it, although just about everything else was in shards. A few years later a much different surprise awaited John when he returned from Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp; that was when I suddenly adopted a wonderful rambunctious young black lab from our vet. Ever since then I imagine he wonders if something unlooked-for may happen in his absence.

I wonder the same thing. He's in northern Japan now, where the snow is deep, and winter is still heavy on the land. Here, I just saw bluebirds sunning themselves at the top of the oak tree in the back yard. By the time John gets back on Thursday maybe the biggest change he'll notice is that the season has begun to turn.

But there is something else, a sad little loss that Ed and Reub and I came across yesterday evening in the tree plantation about 100 yards behind the house. We found the stiffening body of one of the twin fawns we have watched since last summer: her neck was broken, her life lost in some bad twist of fate.

My first reaction was just to be sad: poor, beautiful, fragile little life.

But then a series of pragmatic thoughts occurred. This is a place where I walk the dogs daily... a dead deer on the path presents obvious problems. But it's a smaaaall deer. I could carry it out myself...and then do what with it? Naah. Best to let the coyotes dine on it tonight, and the vultures will finish it tomorrow.

This morning I went to check; there she lay, tawny and soft and still-untouched in the frosty grass. The coyotes hadn't come through last night, and I remembered that the vultures are still in Mexico, sipping tequila on their annual winter break; unlike the bluebirds in the back yard, they won't be back for weeks. So I put on some gloves, grabbed a tarp, and drove the Subaru around the other side of the tree plantation. I wrapped her up carefully and put her in the back of the car. (John if you're reading this, don't worry, the car was well-protected!)

So now I know, kind of, what it feels like to have a body in the back of your car. Yeah, not good. You just want to really really not have it there for a minute longer. But you drive the speed limit because you don't want to be stopped; seriously, this is what you do.

I only had to go a few minutes down a long dead-end road where I knew I could lay my burden down: away from anybody's house, in the deep grass beneath a tree at the edge of a huge forest.

Sorry for this sad, dumb story, but that's what happened today. [And again, John, when you read this I know you'll wonder which tarp I used. I was gonna leave you guessing, but it was my tarp. I put it back on top of your wood pile:)]

Random stuff, plus deliveries from Ed

2012-02-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

It was Groundhog's Day today, and obviously we have 6 more weeks of winter, because ~~the groundhog~~ this dog toy sees its shadow. It was a beautiful sunny day today in western Oregon. May we have many more.

Although I do kind of miss the festive yellow sand bags in front of this house in the neighborhood where I work. The flooding is over: hurray! This place has a "For Rent" sign above the garage. Any takers?

Recently, out of curiosity I bought a "sand dab" at the store. I had never heard of these before, but this guy came from the waters of the Pacific just west of us. Very fresh.

Thank you, Mr. Sand Dab. You were delicious, and we ate every bite.

Just wondering...do you ever play with your food? Because I do, as I make stuff. This is butternut squash being sauteed with rosemary.

Eddy continues to deliver. This is one of my hats.

This is one of my socks.

A skein of yarn.

This is a Kermit puppet? Not sure where he found this, but clearly I need to straighten up the house.

What the heck. Since I am too lazy to take daily photos of Eddy, here is a synopsis from a previous post. In the past 3 weeks I can say he has brought us many of the same items:

If he brought both slippers instead of just one it would be a lot nicer.

My sandal

Ben's insole

Somebody's flip flop

My hat

John's hat

An actual dog toy, in pristine condition because it is so rarely used.

A piece of trash

A seal from a bottle

A sponge

A leaf

A coaster

A white pencil

A yellow pencil

A National Geographic map

A statement showing how much my IRA has tanked

A little jewelry case

An overdue notice from the public library

A sock

A CSA brochure

A plane ticket to Amsterdam

My contract for the next school year

Haha! Have a good day, y'all!

Is it worth it

2012-01-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images

This cape, shown last week, resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and is one of two textiles in the world made from the silk of the golden orb spider. It took the efforts of 1.2 million spiders to create this garment. This is the brainchild of English textile expert Simon Peers and U.S. designer Nicholas Godley. In the highlands of Madagascar it took 4 years for dozens of workers to collect female spiders every morning, harnessing them 24 at a time into special “milking” devices that allowed workers to extract their silk. The spiders were then released.

They also made a shawl.

Sang Tan/AP photo

I am both revolted and inspired by this, a dangerous mix.

Proof that the internet is real

2012-01-27T21:34:00.000-08:00

When John came home yesterday he said, "Who are these people?" as he looked at the mail ~~strewn across the kitchen counter~~ stacked neatly on the table.

"That's Kady and Summer!" I responded. Blank look. "Kady was the girl who danced with the wizened old jazz musician in New Orleans..." and of course then he remembered.

If I seemed happy, I was. "See?" I said, "It's proof that the internet is real." Which is kind of true. Every word that I write seems like I'm talking to myself. Comments at the end of a post always surprise me. Is somebody really reading this? Does a real person actually read my own comments on their blogs?

I guess so. Because in the mail I received a photo of Kady and Summer, two amazing women who travel, then work, travel, then work. I really love their smart (well, sometimes dumb, but I mean that in a good way) and very funny blogs. Their latest work was a man-job in which they replaced electric meters throughout the US, and it required them to dress appropriately.

I have been supportive of that work wear. Seriously. It's not that bad. Almost hot. "Almost hot" is where everybody should be in work wear! Don't argue with this, it's old-fashioned, but true. People who are "hot" at work are terrible losers. Much much better to be "almost hot."

Kady and Summer's vests are much cooler than my own. That's right, I have a fluorescent vest, bought some years back, in Alabama, when I was a participant in a skit that involved people in a prison-road- crew. Now I use the vest on dim evenings when I run on the street. It is not at all hot.

In the photo, Summer is wearing this striped shirt, which ironically, I was lusting after just a week ago when Kady directed me to The Zero Waste Home, a very admirable blog where everything is reused and recycled. Yvonne, the blogger, was talking about how she used a striped shirt to liven up all of the other stuff in her closet. It made me want to buy a striped shirt so bad, but of course that was entirely missing the point, so I didn't.

However, now that I see how great Summer looks, I might just have to splurge. I might also have to pick up a black fleece like Kady's, which is a Northern Hemisphere basic, and I don't own one yet.

The Fantastic Flying Books

2012-01-26T10:40:00.000-08:00

If you love books and believe in the restorative power of stories then oh, you should watch this beautiful, cool little film: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

This is an animated short film up for an Oscar this year. It was created entirely in the state of Louisiana, under the definite influence of Hurricane Katrina. This little movie from Moonbot Studios is distinguished from those in previous years by its release online for free, and the availability of interactive apps for the iPad (already receiving rave reviews). Pretty smart! I bet they'll make back whatever ticket sales are lost by the deal with Apple.

Oh, and kudos to John Hunter for his fabulous renditions of "Pop Goes the Weasel," the centerpiece of the entire soundtrack. Loved it.

Kerry fails the art test

2012-01-25T11:01:00.000-08:00

I listened to the State of the Union last night, and was pleased to hear the president criticize "teaching to the test," my least favorite trend in education. Because I teach art, I have been spared the standardized tests that occur in other disciplines; and you know what, somehow the kids still make progress, and I am still accountable.

But what if they had to take a test? Would it look like THIS? Holy cow!! I got so stressed out taking this test that I received a terrible score!

The possible cat

2012-01-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Every few days I have long distance phone conversations between myself and my 90 year old mother, and also my older brother Je, retired from the trucking business. In Wisconsin Je lives an hour's drive from our mother, who has multiple long-term care specialists looking in on her daily. We, along with my other older brother, Jo, hope to keep her in her home for the duration, because that's what she wants and we're trying really hard to make it happen, although we have our doubts. Especially Je and me.

Illustration by Enrico Pinochi, early comic artist and Disney illustrator

She spends too much time alone, and probably overdoes her pain-killing drug, Oxycontin. She might last longer in a retirement home, where somebody would regulate her meds, and where she would have more social contact, where somebody else would cook for her. But she tells us she wouldn't like the cooking; she hates small talk, and doesn't want to pay for any of it. Who could blame her?

"Marco" Wood engraving, Carl Montford

A few days ago, after visiting her, Je loaded his two wonderful dogs ( a springer and a golden) in his car, and she said "You're taking them? After all the times I've had them? You're taking them?" She was exaggerating of course; she hasn't had those boys for a weekend in quite a few years, but it went straight to Je's heart, my big tough brother. He called me, and we talked. Our older brother, Jo, it turns out, had tried to take a dog to her a couple of years ago, a little shitszue lap-dog. She had sneered, "That is NOT a dog." End of discussion.

And now she simply cannot handle any dog, no matter what she thinks. Conked out on painkillers and the exhaustion that comes with 9 decades, she sleeps until 12:00 many days. This is not the lifestyle for most dogs, who must be greeted, exercised and fed by 9:00AM.

But what about a cat?

Miniature painting by Clarissa Peters (1809-1854)

Je and I made a plan. On Wednesday he plans to take her to the animal shelter, where he hopes she will be attracted to a cat. A cat that he will be willing to take when it outlives her. Because no animal should have to go back to a shelter, and Je and I are are both willing to teach our dogs to respect a new cat if that's what it comes to. Especially this cat.

High water

2012-01-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

Regarding the flooding around here, I heard somebody say, "Well, it's not as bad as 1996" which is the last time the rivers and streams got seriously out of hand in Corvallis.

Photo by D Gable

A. I doubt that statement is much comfort to the people whose cars these are, parked outside my workplace on Conifer St.
B. It's still pouring! Who knows how high the water will be by the time this is over?

So yeah, there's no school again for me today; that neighborhood still looks bad. In fact today all of the schools are closed; one of the high schools (Crescent Valley) has been turned into a Red Cross station for evacuees.

Photo by F Bierlmaier

And I thought my workplace looked bad! This is where John was supposed to be yesterday, on this very road going to the HJ Andrews Forest. The driver who went down in this landslide yesterday morning is alright, although badly bruised. Obviously you couldn't say the same for the station wagon, which slid beneath the guardrail along with the entire lane of the road.

I plan to stay home today. Drink some tea, and later fix Chicken Tikka Masala, which I can then check off of that silly list of 100 foods to eat. And then, maybe, maybe it's finally time to break down and get Netflix.

The weather turns

2012-01-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

We don't often get snow here in the Willamette valley of Oregon, so when it arrives most people celebrate.

The wet snow clings to every available twig, transforming the world into a giant creation of mist, crystal, and lace.

It's like a huge wedding in which everybody is dressed as the bride.

I love it when it snows!

But when I look down to see the dogs' tracks turning coffee-colored, I'm reminded that the snow will soon turn to mud, and by Tuesday of this week that's what happened.

It stopped snowing, but it never quit raining. This is a temperate rain forest, so we're used to a lot of rain here. But relentless heavy rain? Not so often. That's why I'm home today though. The school where I work is built in what should have been left a wetland, so today the street in front of it lies beneath 3 feet of rushing water.

I'm hoping that it settles down so that I can go in tomorrow, but more rain is predicted. In the meantime I thought I'd take the dogs out on a walk, however the path behind our house has turned into a creek. A few days ago we could have skied this path, but now we could take a kayak on it! What a marvel this weather is.

How much space

2012-01-16T19:18:00.000-08:00

Detail of Tibetan painting, artist unnamed

A few years ago we were on a backpacking trip high in the Wallawa mountains, a remote alpine range in northeastern Oregon. We were with a group of John's grad students; it was a horse-packing trip organized by a young woman, J. I had completely mis-judged J at first, thinking that her blond hair, pink sweater, pearl necklace, and degree from Brown University made her...you know... a Muffy, a preppy city girl.

Actually, J was a pistol-packin' rough-rider, raised partially by an alcoholic father with a barn full of pack horses, and a mother who moved to the city to further a lucrative lingerie-party business (thus funding her daughter's Ivy League education).

Okay. So obviously I couldn't wait to go on that hike. I love people like that. And the fact that J had a string of pack horses at her disposal was almost too good to be true. John's students are truly amazing.

There are a number of things I remember from that trip, each of them probably worth a post. But the one I'm thinking about right now is this:

It was quite dark, about 10 PM on a late July night. The darkening sky meant that the temperature had dropped quickly and it was nearly time to crawl into our sleeping bags. The brightest stars were beginning to appear. The peaks just above us were capped in snow, and it was very quiet; the horses were already asleep. The fire was low. There were 8 of us sitting there staring dreamily at the embers. One of us broke the silence, saying "My family would hate this. They wouldn't understand."

It was CK who said this, a Greek-American, and I've never forgotten it. "This wouldn't be fun for them! They want to be in a big group. Inside! With their friends and family, loud and laughing. This...solitude...they would not be comfortable with this." Wow. The rest of us looked at her, and listened as she described her family.

When are you happiest? It's a cultural thing, what you grew up with. CK, however, had gone in a different direction from her Greek childhood, marrying a wildlife biologist with a big black lab. She loved being out there in the wilderness, miles from other people. Like many of us, she found that she could recharge her energy in places like that; nowhere else is quite the same.

Not everybody can dash off to the mountains when they feel the need. Doesn't everybody need to be alone? Actually, maybe not. When we visited our daughter J in Niger, people seemed to be happiest in groups. Same with our own experience in Afghanistan: being a loner was discouraged.

So much of the world lives happily in very tight quarters. I don't know if I could be happy with that. But the following video (from Maeklong, Thailand) just proves that you can make it work no matter what:

First snow

2012-01-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

We were out last night, and on the way home it started to snow: big, driving flakes hitting the windshield, the first snow of the season. That's why I wasn't surprised to wake up this morning and see that the hills above our house looked like this:

Snow doesn't last long in this mild climate, especially when the sun decides to tease us with an appearance. The sun has been popping out to greet us every hour or so.

In between come the snow showers. This is our back yard about 45 minutes ago, looking so much like a Pointillist painting that I can hardly believe it.

100 foods to eat before you die

2012-01-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

There's a list circulating on Facebook with 100 foods on it that you should aim to try before you die. It's tricky though, because some of these could cause an early death, you know? Like Frito pie, funnel cake, Spam, and Hostess fruit pies.

I checked Hostess fruit pies off the list because I feel like I know exactly what they are, but honestly can't remember when I last had one. It was a long time ago, and today I read that Hostess is going bankrupt, which made me a little sad. No more Twinkies? Really? Why aren't they on the list, anyway?

So here is the list, which I found on a food blog, not FB, where I didn't want to give them their creepy access to my info. Why does FB always ask that for silly quizzes like this? I always say no, but still want to take the quiz.

~~1. Abalone~~

2. Absinthe (Wait, isn't this a drink? Isn't this what rotted the guts of the French artists in the 1800's?)

3. Alligator

4. ~~Baba Ghanoush~~

5. ~~Bagel & Lox~~

6. ~~Baklava~~

7. ~~BBQ Ribs~~

8. Bellini

9. Birds Nest Soup

10. ~~Biscuits & Gravy~~

11. ~~Black Pudding~~

12. Black Truffle

~~13. Borscht~~

14. ~~Calamari~~

15. Carp

16. Caviar

17. ~~Cheese Fondue~~

18. Chicken and Waffles(Together?)

19. ~~Chicken Tikka Masala~~

~~20. Chile Relleno~~

21. Chitlins

22. ~~Churros~~

23. ~~Clam Chowder~~

24. Cognac(Another drink! I thought this was a food list.)

25. ~~Crab Cakes~~

26. Crickets (yuck.)

27. Currywurst

28. Dandelion Wine (They should have a separate list for drinks)

29. Dulce De Leche

30. Durian

31. Eel

32. ~~Eggs Benedict~~

33. ~~Fish Tacos~~

~~34. Foie Gras~~

35. ~~Fresh Spring Rolls~~

36. ~~Fried Catfish~~

37. ~~Fried Green Tomatoes~~

38. ~~Fried Plantain~~

~~39. Frito Pie~~

40. Frogs' Legs (I've seen them though.)

41. Fugu

42. Funnel Cake (I really want one of these, the whole thing.)

~~43. Gazpacho~~

~~44. Goat~~

45. ~~Goat's Milk~~ (I'm going to count this one since I 've had many cheeses from goat's milk)

~~46. Goulash~~

47. ~~Gumbo~~

48. Haggis

49. Head Cheese

50. ~~Heirloom Tomatoes~~

~~51. Honeycomb~~

~~52. Hostess Fruit Pie~~

53. ~~Huevos Rancheros~~

54. ~~Jerk Chicken~~

55. Kangaroo

56. ~~Key Lime Pie~~

~~57. Kobe Beef~~

~~58. Lassi~~ (To be fair, B&C ordered it but I did try it. mmmm. Then B ordered a whole deep-fried chicken.)

59. ~~Lobster~~

~~60. Mimosa~~ (Another drink. Who edits lists like this?)

~~61. Moon Pie~~

~~62. Morel Mushrooms~~

63. Nettle Tea

~~64. Octopus~~

65. Oxtail Soup (I have oxtail in the freezer though)

66. ~~Paella~~

67. ~~Paneer~~

68. ~~Pastrami on Rye~~

69. Pavlova

70. Phaal

71. ~~Philly Cheese Steak~~

~~72. Pho~~

~~73. Pineapple & Cottage Cheese~~

74. ~~Pistachio Ice Cream~~

~~75. Po' Boy~~

76. Pocky

77. ~~Polenta~~

~~78. Prickly Pear~~ (Thanks, M!)

~~79. Rabbit Stew~~

80. Raw Oysters

81. ~~Root Beer Float~~

82. ~~S'mores~~

83. ~~Sauerkraut~~

84. Sea Urchin

85. Shark (Seems like a bad idea.)

86. Snail (Worse)

87. Snake (No.)

88. Soft Shell Crab

89. Som Tam

90. ~~Spaetzle~~

~~91. Spam~~

~~92. Squirrel~~

93. ~~Steak Tartare~~

94. ~~Sweet Potato Fries~~

95. Sweetbreads

96. Tom Yum

~~97. Umeboshi~~ (Thanks, C! You're right!)

~~98. Venison~~

~~99. Wasabi Peas~~

100. Zucchini Flowers

So, I've had over half of these things, but I don't really know what some of the others are. What's "Pocky"? You tell me; I'm too lazy to google it right now. Umeboshi? Tom Yum? Som Tam? Phaal? So much to learn, so little time.

Sichuan dumplings, no repenting

2012-01-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Well, fine. December is over, the house full of delightful young guests is now empty, and it is the season of sucking-in: repentance for all of the fat and sugar in we which we just indulged:

Enchiladas! Stir-fry! Home-made pasta! Asian-style short ribs with garlic Yukon-gold mashed potatoes! Samosas! Roasted chicken! Jambalaya with grilled chicken , shrimp, and sausage! (OK, to be honest, this last thing was made by my youngest son, a self-taught chef.)

And then, of course there were the multiple cookies that I produced, one-a-day, before Christmas: rosettes (a deep-fried treat from my Scandinavian ancestors), spritz (for which I bought a hilariously stupid electric cookie gun), ginger cut-outs (adorable and decorated by my daughter and my son's girl friend).

There were thumb-print cookies (oldest son's fav, and I love these too), and almond butter toffee (which cures anything that ails you, I swear).

There were cranberry white chocolate oatmeal cookies (my favorite.) Missing was my mother's almond short bread; I've never been able to get the recipe from her, and now she is 90 years old, so her secret may go down with her.

One by one our holiday guests left. But my youngest son remained, and one evening I wondered if I should fill the pepper grinder with some pepper from China which I mysteriously found in the pantry.

"NO!" he said, that's pepper from Sichuan, and it will numb your mouth if you use it like that. He said I shouldn't throw it out, that it may come in handy some time. I scribbled his comment on the package (didn't trust myself to remember) and stuck it back in the cabinet.

Anyway. I am not well-made for serious repentance. I dislike how every January there are ads for cut-rate memberships to gyms. I have not signed up for the "Biggest Loser" competition which is happening at my work place right now (put money into the kitty, lose weight, win money). I cook and bake like crazy in December, but only sparingly partake of it all, the pleasure being in the process of it, and the hope that others might like it. In January there is not a whole lot for which to repent.

Exactly 2 days after putting the Chinese pepper back in the pantry I read a post from Laoch, a professional gambler whose blog is succinct, smart, dryly witty, and from time to time features something amazing that he has eaten in a Chicago restaurant: Szechuan dumplings, for which he kindly gave me a link:

I loved the way Kelly showed how to make dumplings (potstickers), using chopsticks to pluck the filling out of the bowl. I decided to do the same. Who wants to measure a 1/2 teaspoon of anything? Why not just grab a likely amount with chopsticks? It was fun.

It used the crazy Sichuan pepper in the dipping sauce and my mouth wasn't numb at all. It called for 6 ounces of "ground pork" (that's one lean boneless pork shop thrown into the food processor). It made enough filling to load a couple dozen dumplings, and the rest went into the freezer. This means that John and I stuffed ourselves on approximately 1/2 of a lean pork chop.

Three ounces of lean pork for two people? You would think that we were on some kind of January diet regimen. Nahhh. Just cooking something fun. Wish somebody else were here to enjoy it with us.

Bag o' chaos

2012-01-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

Last week was the first week back at school after the eagerly-awaited winter break. One of my art classes was divided between kids who needed more time on their art work from December, but the other half was done and ready to move on. The ones who were finished were told that they would have a quiet day in which they could do a drawing of their choice, and that I would collect their work afterward.

Usually on a day like that I get lots of happy little drawings.

But not last week.

Almost all of their free-choice drawings were dark.

Some were threatening.

Scary narratives from inside the heads of 12-year-olds.

Even this picture of a kid's watch gives me the creeps: the time is set for the exact moment of the new year.

Sad.

I was a bit shocked.

This one blew me away:

It's a jigsaw puzzle of a girl's "perfect life," a sort of Venn diagram about to be destroyed by a big bag o' chaos. "Some one's got to ruin it" says the caption.

From what well of melancholy did this all come? I asked them the next day. They shrugged and smiled, seemingly pleased by what an impression they'd made.

"Oh, it's just the post-holiday blues" one of them said.

Huh.

Music around here

2012-01-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Music can be heard regularly in our house, and as I write this I am listening to my husband John, who is a jazz musician, practicing classical piano.

John plays guitar with a couple of different groups, and I am often tasked with the job of taking band pics.

I really enjoy this. It gives me a chance to observe them when they are practicing.

And I may find myself at a gig before there is any audience at all.

Gigs are hard to photograph, but usually there are one or two shots that I like. This one captures the crazy improvisational energy that an 8-piece jazz ensemble can create. Taken with my little pocket Canon, I'm not even sure how this picture happened.

John also plays in a trio, and they have had a couple of gigs at a resort in the Cascades, about an hour and a half from Corvallis. This is a laid-back venue.

Still, I can't take my eyes off of the drum set.

It's a nice place to play, with surprisingly good acoustics. And twice now, a Yeti has appeared...can you spot him? Yep, the Yeti exists here in Oregon, and loves cool jazz. He always asks some beautiful young girl to dance with him.

Another common venue for the trio to play is on the OSU campus, for various functions. I think it's a little hard to be cool in this setting, but the bass player's wide stance is helpful.

The trio has played multiple times at Cloud 9, a restaurant/music venue downtown, and this is what that looks like. Pretty cool. They get a free dinner when they play there; the Korean ribs are great.

Music, yeah. I really like this topic.

A descent of woodpeckers

2012-01-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

A rookery of albatross

A pace of asses

A shrewdness of apes

A congregation of alligators

It's a new year, and so starts the calendar of collective nouns, a gift from my youngest child. I like hanging the first calendar of the year, so blank and full of potential, but rife with blind corners and surprises.

On January 1 I joined my niece and her family in their tradition of recording the first bird of the new year. It might easily have been a junco or a chickadee who both crowd the bird feeders, but instead it was an Anna's hummingbird overwintering in the area, happy to have her feeder entirely to herself.

Later in the day we decided to drive over to the coast for some fish and chips (halibut, tuna, and Dungeness crab, all in season).

Hubbie and daughter had a chance to dance on the beach.

The dogs, oblivious to the new year, enjoyed themselves immensely.

Back home, all of the girls in the house got horse tattoos. And if that's not a good start to the new year, I don't know what is.

Solstice

2011-12-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

Mistletoe growing in an oak tree

We live near the setting of Twilight, the tween-vampire books and movies, and tonight is the celebration of the beginning of the winter solstice (12:30AM Dec 22). It's deep winter here in the Pacific Northwest. We have had weeks of fog and dim light, which I absolutely love: it's so moody and urges me to go in, light a fire and read a good book. Sleep a little more. Talk even less than I already do. At the same time I love the idea that day after day, for months, the light will begin to stretch itself. Until June, when I will be a little sad that the cycle already turns back on itself.

Just before winter break

2011-12-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a black-out around Ed & Reub, I know. But I imagine you have been busy with other things and barely noticed; that's the way it is this time of year.

The week before winter break in a middle school is exciting and excruciatingly slow for both students and teachers. In recent years, though, we teachers are warned that not all kids look forward to the two weeks off, that home is a far less-happy place than school, and that everybody is under extra stress during these dark days before the end of the year.

I always keep this in mind, although truthfully, everybody seems deliriously happy. I guess that's the way it is with the rest of us too: it seems to be a joyful time, but hard things can happen.

On Friday we had the annual staff versus student basketball game. This is a hysterical activity, looked forward to by the kids because honestly, they could really have a chance at kicking ass. It is a huge diversion from the holidays.

See? The choir teacher, about to play basketball!

The 6th grade team, half girls, half boys, was coached by a favorite staff person of mine: Ty, who plays in a punk rock band named the Wobblies. In my mind, Ty is pretty much perfect, despite being partially deaf from the loud music.

I love this blurry photo, which depicts one of our few black teachers facing off against one of our few black students. The way they covered each other was a piece of art.

Staff plays 3 games against students: one against 6th graders, the second against 7th graders, and finally the third against 8th graders. Who wouldn't be exhausted and beaten down by the end of that? Staff won the 1st two games, but lost to the 8th graders. The ref was happily prejudiced in their favor.

Merry Christmas, kids. It will be be okay. See you next year.

The owl I didn't photograph

2011-12-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

Regret. The English language has an entire area of verb tenses actively devoted to this word:

would have... could have... should have.

The conditional tense is hardly worth bothering about in many other languages. For example in Dari, the variety of Persian John and I learned in Afghanistan, it doesn't exist in any practical sense. The six other languages that I've pondered at some point (German, Spanish, Norwegian, French, Chinese, and Italian) vary widely in their use of this verb tense. A Swede once told me: "I like English best because it is the most accurate language. It can describe anything." I don't really believe that; each language probably reflects what's important to its original culture in a way that no other language can.

But still, we do "regret" very well in English.

See this?

Beyond the dip in this limb there sat an owl, the sun reflecting off of her perfect owl-shaped body. Her round black eyes, shining, studied me and Eddy, panting at my side. I saw her wondering. Should she lift up, dip, and fly silently away a second time? Or should we just look at one another, and wait for John to run up with Reub? She waited, and John arrived. "There's an owl right there" I whispered, "and I didn't bring my camera." In the amazing fashion of owls, she turned her head 180˚ as I commenced our run, flooded with regret.

It's bothered me: I should have brought my little camera. I almost always have it with me, documenting even the most absurd things.

Secretly hoping to see the owl again, the next morning I took my camera on my run. No owl, of course, but the sun had just come out and the morning frost melts in less than a minute unless you catch it just right.

The sun lit up the blackberry bushes.

And then the fog, covering the valleys like snow. It just doesn't pay to hang on to regrets, I tell myself. I didn't capture the owl with my camera. And that's okay.

Secret Santa

2011-12-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

"At a time of year when typically everyone is getting on everyone's nerves, this is a good idea," Republican senator Johanns from Nebraska said, after senator Franken of Minnesota, spear-heading this gift exchange, asked him to support a Secret Santa initiative among members of the senate last week. I'm glad they can agree on something.

Secret Santa. Half the members of the US Senate are doing it and so am I; the max they will spend on each other is $10, but my workplace is a little more charitable: we max out at $25. I haven't participated in a few years, but this year I thought "why not?" I should get in the spirit of things, and after all, I do like gift-giving: first you think of what it is that might make somebody else happy, and then you do it. Finding the time to do this is difficult, but this is happy stress. People shouldn't get grumpy about it.

The thing is, in order to give a good gift, you really have to know the recipient, and not just their name, their age, their job. That's why at my workplace the person-in-charge passes out a little info-collecting sheet before Secret Santa commences, because honestly we work in the same building all day every day, but we don't know these things:

What's your favorite color? What winter holiday do you favor? What do you like to do outside of work? What kinds of books do you read? Do you like ornaments of any kind? What's your favorite music? Your favorite snack?

When I filled out my info I left the thing about ornaments blank because I don't care, and the thing about music blank because I hoped nobody would try to give me music, especially rock-bottom cheap music.

Missing from this picture is a big bag of Kettle chips which I listed as my favorite snack and which, predictably, I finished.

So what you see here is:
1. Colorful gloves stuffed with peanut butter cups. (Reflecting my choice of "All colors are my favorites" & "peanut butter cups" as a snack choice.)
2. Two tubes of aloe chap-sticky stuff, which my SS thought of all by his/her/self. (Good guess.)
3. Cute snowman filled with hot chocolate mix. (Did not specify cute, but this is to be expected & hot chocolate is fine.)
4. Mixed nuts (Yaaay! Another snack wish fulfilled!)
5. A star-shaped ornament made out of natural stuff from somewhere in China. (OK. Could be worse.)
6. A classy chocolate peanut butter Santa, taking my preference for Reese's peanut butter cups one step further. (Great!)
7. A "Norman Rockwell Deck the Halls" Christmas cd. (NOOOOOOO!!! We were doing so well, you and I, Secret Santa, and now this?)

OK, 6 out of 7 isn't too bad. I was at first ridiculously annoyed by #7, but then I realized that my SS was probably making a clever reference to the fact that I teach art, and therefore the Norman Rockwell reference. They probably weren't thinking "she's as old as dirt & will probably love a Christmas tune sung by Glen Yarbrough." No. But now I am cautious about the upcoming week, and wondering what's next.

And I hope that the US Senate takes this business seriously, because really they do not need to be "getting on each others nerves" any more than they already have.

Random stuff

2011-12-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

In some big cities, like Chicago, at certain grocery stores (like Whole Foods) you can get a massage on a pay-per-minute plan. You are protected from the grocery-shopping voyeurs like me, by a screen; but on the other hand you are on view in the front window of the store to all passers-by.

I really hate this idea and nothing you might say could change my mind.

Meanwhile, in the privacy of our bedroom, John attempts to do some yoga (downward dog here) while Reub decides to join him. Is that called "upward dog"? Must be. Our dogs always want to participate in whatever yoga we're doing. This is puzzling, endearing, and very exasperating all at once.

This week John entertained a delegation from Akita, Japan. They gave him a thank-you gift: a fabric origami item that slips over a wine bottle. It's a samurai kimono, complete with a sword. I love this! A perfectly calm bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon now looks like a little Japanese warrior sitting on the kitchen counter.

No picture here, but did you know that some stoves have their broiler on the bottom, not the top? I learned this in Chicago.

If I had a cat, or better yet 3 cats, I would teach them to do this.

Chicago Chicago

2011-12-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

Although I grew up in a rural setting, I love going to big cities. When I do travel to a place like Chicago, I'm pretty sure I must look like the country bumpkin that I am because I'm constantly gawking at the sights:

Street art

Lit-up buildings

Interesting juxtapositions of old and new.

Reflective surfaces everywhere you look: city reflections are so trippy that I'm amazed most people can walk past them without staring.

Great food and drink.

We did get out and enjoy these things, but our latest trip was mostly about something else.

This time I spent most of my time gawking at the little person whose appearance has recently bumped me up a generation: I'm a grandma now.

Which makes John a grandpa. Wow. Seems like just yesterday that we were a couple of carefree hippies, tooling around in an old truck, deciding to go to Mexico. How strange.

But how sweet.

Observing the landscape of a newborn's tiny body from the vantage point of grand-parenthood is a whole new experience.

We hated to go, but just before leaving we had a nice walk along the lake shore.

And then off to O'Hare to catch our plane back to Oregon. But since this was a trip of gawking, I had to stop and admire the brachiosaurus skeleton. Airports are just so weird.

Then back home, chased by an early winter sunset.

The skies were clear last night, and filled with stars when we stepped into our back yard. And this morning there was a heavy frost. I had a lovely trip, and I'm glad to be home.

The coming week

2011-11-21T20:36:00.000-08:00

This was last week.

This happened a few days ago.

What will the coming week bring? I don't know. I'm checking the Chicago weather right now, because that's where we're headed. And Wisconsin. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, and I'll see you when I get back.

Chickens and eggs

2011-11-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

I grew up on a small farm in rural Wisconsin; we had chickens, pigs and cattle. When my cousins came up from Chicago to spend weekends with us, they thought that the thing about eggs was so cool: eggs came, in perfect egg-shape, from chickens. They didn't get why I wasn't cheerful about one of my chores: minding the chickens and collecting their eggs.

The chickens we had back then, decades ago, were crafty, beady-eyed, athletic creatures who protected their eggs and hated being sent to the chicken house at night. You had to be really quick and determined to reach under them while they sat on their stupid eggs; sweet-talking never worked, and I dreaded their accurate, sharp beaks. I was nine years old. If I was 20 minutes late it was almost impossible to get them out of their roosts in the apple trees and back into the hen house, safe from marauding predators. I watched impassively while my mother took a hatchet to their necks on the chopping block. Later, when I found out chickens are descendants of velociraptors, I thought, "That makes perfect sense."

"A" says that the black chickens produce eggs like the one in the upper right, brown chickens produce the ones in the middle, and white chickens-you guessed it-produce white eggs.

But about a month ago I began to buy eggs from "A", who works in the lunchroom at school, and now I'm revising my opinion of chickens. "A" loves her chickens. When she collects their eggs they lean forward to be rewarded with a stroke. They get petted constantly and they produce eggs like gangbusters.

Sometimes when I open a carton of eggs from "A" I see this pattern

I was also recently told that breeds of chickens vary widely in their nice-ness. Egg-layers are supposed to be more docile. I wish somebody had informed my parents of that.

Sometimes it looks like this.

Well, never mind.

The last dozen looked like this.

I'm just glad to make my peace with chickens. However now it's going to be hard to buy eggs from anybody else other than "A," whose chickens I imagine every time I eat one of their eggs. Chickens who lean forward on their nests, anticipating their gentle reward.

Kombucha

2011-11-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

Almost exactly a year ago I had kombucha for the very first time, grabbing a bottle to have with my bagel sandwich at the little bakery where my son worked in Ithaca, NY. The label was attractive, and I thought it was just raspberry iced tea. My daughter considered it a little odd, but maybe kind of cool: "You know it's fermented with a mushroom," she said. Well, no, that was news to me, and kind of bad news at that: like long ago when I found out tequila centered around a worm. Are you kidding? Who thinks of these things? But after paying 4 bucks for it, I drank the whole thing, dammit.

The dark shape is the scoby floating in a gallon of tea.

Now, 12 months later, I find myself tenderly minding a gallon of this stuff in a dark warm place in my pantry. After conferring with one of John's young, smart, fantastic graduate students...let's just call her Meagan...I made a batch.

Meagan, you see, sensing a sucker, had given me a scoby (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, not really a mushroom) a few weeks ago. She gave me some directions and after looking it up on youtube, that paragon of reference material, I became brave. The scoby is gross, like a giant, perfectly oval, pounded chicken breast floating in the sweetened tea. When it finally makes its way to the top of the gallon of fermenting liquid, it creates a baby scoby. If you keep brewing this stuff, it keeps multiplying.

Here is a list of possible benefits, copied from a website that compiled info from 600 participants:

1. Great beverage
2. Sense of well-being
3. Helps to relieve congestion in airways
4. Thicker hair (whoopee!)
5. Energy boost
6. Straightened my hair out!
7. Helps osteo arthritis
8. Great conversation piece! :)
9. Licked Calcifying tendonitis
10. Helps with asthma
11. Has brought me into contact with some very caring people.
12. Stress buster
13.Very calming
14. Increase sex drive
15. Regulates Intestines.
16. Cured Candida Overgrowth.
17. Aides digestion - especially on top of dairy.
18. Addictive taste.
19. Eliminates or reduces heat rash.
20. Improved circulation/controlled venous stasis in shins
21. Clears and Improves skin
22. Makes a good hair rinse
23. Redundant 'Momma's make good brass cleaners!
24. Helped take the "scales" from a friends Skin disorder
25. Makes a wonderful, soothing foot soak.
26. Shrinking large fatty tumor.
27. Flattening and fading old age carotene patches on the face.
28. Stops severe menstrual cramps
29. Makes a wonderful facial.
30. Made me much more mobile with my gout.
31. Oncoming headlights do not bother me as much.
32. Reduces / stabilizes blood pressure.
33. Prevents and helps heal bladder infections
34. Eases carpal tunnel syndrome
35. Heals boils and staph infections on skin.
36. Prevents oral canker sores
37. Prevents eczema and psoriasis
38. Household Cleaner: cuts grease, cleans stoves, bathroom tiles, windows, copper
39. Hair and nails grow faster
40. I can see the pupils of my eyes again without glasses.
41. More energy
42. Clears nail fungus
43. Improves the sense of well being for people with liver Cancer
44. Helps an older woman feel and look younger
45. Helps Arthritis sufferers
46. Cleanses toxins from the system
47. Soothes burns and sunburn
48. Takes the sting and swelling away from Bee Stings
49. Good underarm deoderant
50. For some people; eliminates desire for alchohol, & helping to relax
51. Smashes flus and colds
52. Significant progress healing chapped lips from topical application of KT
53. Kombucha Colony makes a great poultice
54. Removes rust
55. Returns grey hair to it's natural color for some people
56. Improved eyesight

The Mayo Clinic, however, does NOT recommend kombucha:

...there's no scientific evidence to support these health claims. There have, however, been reports of adverse effects such as stomach upset, infections and allergic reactions in kombucha tea drinkers. Kombucha tea is often brewed in homes under nonsterile conditions, making contamination likely.

Woops. Wait, it's still good for reason #8 on the above list.

Got a minute? This is funny, and kombucha does get mentioned:

A new tiny person

2011-11-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

A new tiny person was born today in a Chicago hospital, almost two weeks early, to my son Ben and his wife Chrystal. We gratefully welcome baby boy Rowan, who has made us grandparents, and whom we can't wait to meet.

Ben said:

The hospital is full of pregnant ladies and babies- the nurses are calling them "Blizzard Babies". Apparently it was nine months ago when the blizzard of the decade, complete with thunder snow, blanketed Chicago.

And the first snow of the season fell today.

All-u-Can-Eat

2011-11-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

We hadn't planned on going to Verboort, Oregon, site of the 77th annual Sausage and Sauerkraut Community Dinner. With the somewhat ominous motto of "Always the first Saturday of November," we were told that the event would cause a traffic nightmare, and we might have trouble getting to our destination.

Photo from foodalliance.org

But we were on our way to Verboort anyway, because we had to meet up with a truck load of beef from Eastern Oregon's Carman Ranch. On the left is 4th generation, smart and gorgeous rancher, Cory Carman, whose sustainable, grass-fed beef is something we want to support. It's worth it to go out of our way to buy beef from her place, even if it means driving our 18-year-old pick-up a couple of hours north and through the possibly impassable main street of Verboort, OR.

But wait...did somebody say "Sauerkraut and Sausage?" John and I are from the mid-west, raised on sausage. It was lunch time, about 12:30, and we didn't have to be at Sun Gold Farm until 2:00 PM, so we decided to swing by and check it out. You know, pick up something fun, quick and easy.

Well, shoot, that's not how it works. They were serving 1400 people at the moment and our tickets were numbers 2200-2201, which meant that lunch's estimated time of arrival was 2:30PM. As an added bonus the ticket sellers assured us that there was "plenty to do while we waited." We looked at each other pondering the variables. Could we hold off that long? How bad did we want this? And what were those things we might do if we waited?

It turned out, of course, that I wanted it really badly. Perfect timing, really.

The whole sausage festival revolved around the church (Visitation Catholic Church), its little school, and the fact that this is a 100% Dutch community, dating from the 1870's. There were sweet, elderly nuns selling crucifixes and rosary beads in this lovely little brick church, but it wasn't right to photograph them.

The school: it has about 115 students, and a highly-respected science department. The music teacher also teaches P.E. (sounds like fun). It's dependent on the All-U-Can-Eat-Sauerkraut-and-Sausage festival.

People waiting for their lunch were in the gym, where there was lots of stuff going on.

I almost bought a potholder for one dollar, but then I didn't.

A. We don't need any more potholders.

B. I was not attracted to any of the prizes, and I was afraid I might win something.

However, damn. Wish I'd forked up 7 bucks to buy a beautiful little arrangement of fudge and candy. This is a regret.

I did buy $3.00 worth of home-made sauerkraut, and 2 adorable little squash.

There was a school bus shuttle service if you wanted to go to the beer tent at the Rod & Gun Club, a mile or two away. (No beer served at the festival site, though, because it was a church.) This seemed to be very popular.

Lots of people hopped that bus to have a beer, but we had to skip out and find Sun Glow Farm, which wasn't easy at all. The Google map and John's iPhone were no help whatsoever. We stopped at 3 different places to get directions, but nobody was home; they were all volunteering at the sausage fest. We did have a good look at some of the cabbage fields that produced all of that sauerkraut.

Eventually we did find Sun Glow Farm, and got our beef. This lady was the owner, and she said that her grandmother had started the sausage festival 77 years ago, her grandfather had "shot the first pig for it," and that she was one of four people in possession of the secret sausage recipe, which she said, has "all of 4 ingredients in it."

I was completely enchanted.

While I was being charmed, her cats were all over the box of free dog bones.

Which was kinda gross, but also why I must include an extra picture.

Maybe this should have dulled our appetites, but it didn't.

We managed to get back by 2:00, just in front of this huge crowd stepping off of the school bus from the Rod & Gun Club, back from multiple Bud Lites.

The wait in line was pretty short, and there were a few fun displays to look at, including this drum. I like drums like this.

When we were seated, big dishes of hot food were brought to our tables, and it was super fun talking to the people around us.

The young volunteers serving us were polite and efficient.

They serve up 17 tons of freshly smoked sausage to over 8,000 diners. There is nothing better than rambling around and stumbling upon something like this.

This is a 49 second video in which you can hear the music being blasted from the church speakers while I admired the giant sequoias (planted when the first citizens stumbled back from the Gold Rush in 1849, with redwood seeds in their pockets.) It reminds me, a little, of my favorite movie, Groundhog Day.

Awesome day.

My day vs. John's day

2011-10-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

There are some days when I am just so glad to be who I am, a part-time middle school art teacher, and not somebody else, such as a person like John, who works at a university where he is currently the head of a search committee, in charge of multiple graduate students, and chairperson of the university press. Today he fielded multiple head-achey emails and phone conversations, while I, on the other hand:

Haha! I just noticed the paint isn't even dry on this. I'm a terrible art teacher.

Spontaneously decided that all 8th graders could ditch their current project in favor of dressing up as a forest, which was their awesome choice.

It was Halloween! Now a full-fledged holiday! I can't believe we don't take this day off. We don't get mail on Columbus Day-October-whatever-and yet THIS is a regular day? Ridiculous.

They insisted that I be the lone deciduous tree. Second from the right, lame. They dressed me head to foot. Much later I transformed into an Aztec god. Or a chicken. A shy, responsible student took this picture.

In 45 minutes flat they created this, circled the school peering into windows, and returned in time to ditch the crepe paper and painted green cardboard. Fabulously, a police car pulled into the driveway JUST as we took this picture, its lights flashing. "I KNEW we would get into trouble " I yelled at my students. But of course the officer rolled down his/her windows and waved at us cheerfully. (Corvallis Police Department, I love you.)

Then I came home and walked Ed and Reub in the beautiful damp early evening. I know I'm lucky.

Grapes, work, and wine

2011-10-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday John and I drove to Amity, Oregon, to help a friend harvest grapes.

This event was supposed to happen today, Sunday, but the weather caused the schedule to be moved up a day. Yesterday it didn't rain (good for grape harvest) whereas today it's been a steady drizzle. Even so, as you see from this spider web, it wasn't exactly as dry as a bone yesterday.

You have to wear gloves to protect your hands from wasps, and in my case, from myself. I was kind of a clumsy snipper, and cut my gloves twice...but not all the way through.

Unfortunately, the schedule change meant that a lot of helpers couldn't make it, so we definitely had our work cut out for us.

John worked on one side of the row while I took the other. These grapes will go into making pinot noir wine, a specialty of this region, and very popular ever since the film Sideways.

It was fun!

It was especially glorious after the sun finally came out.

I like the way the trees reflect on the panels. I think the energy will help run the irrigation system.

You have to have at least a little sun in order for solar panels to make sense.

The grapes were collected and put into bins, then driven about 10 miles away to Brooks winery.

John and I took some breaks with Ed and Reub.

The best break, though, was the one that included a glass of pinot noir and some homemade goat cheese.

After five hours of harvesting grapes, this felt pretty good. We had cut about 4,000 pounds of grapes, and my back was talking to me. Plus, it was fun to have a friendly black cat claiming my lap.

OK, his name was Tom, and he gave me many photo ops.

I could get off-the-subject easily here, because it was fun to photograph every part of him.

And he didn't mind it a bit.

While stroking Tom, there was a mesmerizing sunset to watch: hilltop vineyards are spectacular for observing the landscape.

However, the day was far from done. About 300 pounds of grapes were kept for private use, and they had to be crushed. This cool machine separated the grapes from the stalks.

Ed and Reub loved this. They gleaned a few grapes from the stems, although not enough to give them tummy aches (grapes are a dietary no-no for dogs.)

And then came the grape-crushing! This involved two willing volunteers, and was a lot of fun for everybody. If we sound silly, it's because none of us had ever done this before, and also we each had a glass of wine in hand.

After all of the work was done, we were treated to a lamb tagine dinner, and a beautiful moon. Cool day.

Thank you to Hilary from The Smitten Image, who honored this post with an award.

Friday shoot-out

2011-10-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hi y'all! I am over here. I'm giving Friday shoot-outs their own place. Please visit.

A decision

2011-10-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

6th grade tempera and oil pastel

It is autumn. I am in the midst of parent teacher conferences, grading, and looking over student work.

I love how this building seems to be falling down the hill. I haven't taught them perspective yet. Part of me doesn't want to.

I try to decide if I should retire at the end of the school year, but then a mom reaches across the desk and says wholeheartedly "I hope Porter has you next year..." I smile and say that I hope he wants to take art.

8th grade monochromatic acrylic painting

Part of me wishes she would sigh and say "Oh, my son really isn't into art. Thank you for everything, but I think he'll be taking Spanish instead."

8th grade monochromatic acrylic painting

There is the fact that this fall the art work my young students are producing is mind-boggling. What's going on? Why now? Have I just hit my stride? Or do I just suddenly have a bunch of geniuses? That's probably it.

"I know this is supposed to be monochromatic," the student said, "but can I paint the lips red?"

Right now I don't know if I should retire or not.

Chick magnet at the post office

2011-10-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

I live in a small town, and when I have to go to the post office I go to the branch nearest my house. It's a local business that contracts with the USPS to be an agent. So when I want to send a package, I walk past an assortment of hot tubs, grills, and gas fireplaces. There is a hand-painted sign with an arrow indicating where I should stand in line.

And that is the place, where every time, I lose my heart. It's the golden retriever there who recognizes me: he gets up from his nap next to a favorite toy (awwww), ignores everybody else in line (omg, he loves me, only me), and he comes straight to me (my boy, mine).

Dudes. If you ever. Ever. Want to attract a woman-worth-having. Get one of these dogs. Seriously.

And girls, you should always, always carry a few milk bones in your pocket. Just like me.

I'm sure it's a gadfly

2011-10-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

It was raining when I noticed this little creature hiding between the boards in the fence. It made me glad to have a raincoat and place to get out of the drizzle, a place that wasn't just a couple of mossy boards.

But what kind of insect is this? I feel like I should know. Showing the picture to John, I called it a "katydid," no a "cicada", no a "lacewing," no I know... a "gadfly." At which point he laughed at me. Sometimes I just can't hide my ignorance.

What is a gadfly anyway? I think it's a real thing, like a horsefly or a deerfly, but it could be a person who bugs you, too, and this what you get if you look it up on Google images.

Sweaters for penguins and bibs for cats

2011-10-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Associated Press photo

I am a little slow to catch up on the latest trends, but how could I have missed this? People are knitting tiny jumpers (sweaters) for penguins caught up in oil spills, the latest being in New Zealand.

Photo by Leli Nargi

That's right. To keep the birds from ingesting oil on their feathers while they await cleaning, it helps to wear a sweater, and you can find the pattern here. I wish I knew how to knit because this is just so sweet.

It's been a little while since we've had a cat, but I wish I'd known about the Cat Bib when I was trying to keep our half-wild cat from hunting birds.

This apparel keeps most cats from being successful hunters. And also I bet they feel kind of humiliated.

How things work

2011-10-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

When I was a very little girl I would sit on my father's lap and he would say as I stared into the mysterious innards of a 1956 RCA television, "Kerry, can you reach in there with your little fingers and get that red wire? Move it over to where it should connect...no no...not there...nope...just up a ways...there it is..now hold it while I screw this in...don't let go...okay... now!" My father among many other things, was a television repair man back in the days when TV sets broke down often, and people actually took things somewhere to be repaired.

He really had a great sense of how things work, and if you were among the last 20 people left on the planet, you would have wanted my dad to be among the few there with you. I remember asking him how televisions work, and telephones, too; these devices seemed nothing short of miraculous. He was able to give detailed answers to these questions, but it was like a foreign language.

I still don't know how anything works, and with the digital age it's just getting worse. I'm more clueless with each passing year.

That's why I worried a little when one of the science teachers at school asked me what I could do with the kids when they were studying "systems."

Systems? What did she mean, exactly? Connected things? Productive things? Working things? Ecosystems? I showed her a big drawing of a mysterious machine, and she laughed and said, "Yeah! That's a system!"

With great trepidation I approached this topic: Make something, and show as many steps as you can imagine! That was pretty much what I told them. Everything is part of a system.

Rube Goldberg came to mind, and you can see from their drawings that he was a big influence.

It was also a great excuse to watch OK GO videos.

Can you see what it says in the mid-left of this drawing? If kidnapping weren't a crime, I might have to steal this child.

This is where Easter eggs come from.

Somebody is apparently in charge.

Chickens come first, then the eggs.

We grow a lot of berries around here, and obviously, this is our system of harvesting them. How did you think it was done, silly?

Systems. This is pretty much exactly my level of understanding them. My dad would have been able to explain it all much better.

The Foam Man

2011-10-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is The Foam Man's idea of advertising. It's on the exterior of the little building that he shares with a car stereo place. It is, of course, a foam man, and he's been there as long as we have been here.

We moved here in 1998, and I'm kind of shocked when I realize how often I have been to this place: The Foam Man, Corvallis, Oregon.

I mean, how often do you really need foam? For us, apparently once every couple of years. Foam for cushions, a dog bed, what else? We shipped a guitar packed in foam to Australia.

These words came from Yelp, an online review site:

I love that this place still exists. It's one of those stores that you think would fail in a week... but it's still there year after year. They sell... foam...Michael N. from Seattle

Yep.

Any kind of foam you might want. There is a surprising array of foam.

I was accompanying John, who was looking for a wedge to elevate his head at night. His doctor had sent him to The Foam Man. Naturally I was dying to go along.

This time we asked him how he got into this business; how did he decide to do this?

He glanced up at us, and said with surprising directness: "You've heard of going postal? Well, I used to be a firefighter for many years, but I hated my supervisor and finally I came to the conclusion that I must kill my boss. Yes! I would murder my boss, and I would go to prison, and the government would take care of my family. So I spent some time in a padded cell, and when I came out I cashed in my retirement and bought this business. Been doing it ever since."

John made a lame joke about "the padded cell being a huge inspiration" and I took a hurried snapshot.

When you ask questions like that, you never really know what you're gonna get.

Willow Manor Ball 2011

2011-10-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

It's the evening of the Willow Manor Ball, a flight of imagination hard to ignore, hosted by the charming and lovely poet Tess Kincaid. Choose anything you want off the internet: your dress, your transportation, your date, anything.What will you eat? What will you drink? Money is no object, and the sky is the limit.

Last year I wore a killer red dress by Donna Karan. But this year I am in a different mood entirely. I just finished reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and from the Hermes Fall 2012 collection, I have JUST what I want right now:

Yep. This is so me. I know it's maybe not ideal for dancing. Whose gonna ask me to dance in this intimidating get-up? I don't care! I'll just stride around the place making sure everybody is safe from Muttations.

"Dog" Lithograph by Elizabeth Frink, 1990

Instead of a date I'll have a fabulous red hound at my side. Don't worry, he looks scary, but he's really a dear.

My only accessory will be this silver octi-cuff, an irresistible item from Etsy.

Image from the Manhattan Food Project

The entree that I choose will of course be none other than lamb stew. As far as beverages go, however...

I am not okay with drinking iodine water, not tonight. Instead I'll have a glass of pinot gris...set down this bow and arrow, put my boots up, ahhh, that's better.

Wow, everybody looks so beautiful.

Horrendously addictive page-turner

2011-10-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

My job as an art teacher takes me a lot of places. Because art is such a broad, inclusive, and evasive area, it is rarely possible to stick to a lesson plan; you can start one place and end up in quite another. One topic that I often explore with the kids I see (ages 11-14) is what books they are reading.

For the past two years or so, the books of choice have been The Hunger Games, a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and the first of which I recently finished. I was given a copy of this book over a year ago, and didn't want to read it: dystopian young adult fiction in which children kill children, while they all starve, in the reality show from hell. So awful.

But, egged on by my students and a punk rock musician that I adore (did you know that some punk rockers read voraciously, are vegetarians, and have a keen sense of social justice? And work in middle schools?)...I just devoured the first book. Wow. I finally get it, and have been talking with kids for days about the book. This is a book about class warfare, social injustices, the nurturing of family, the beginnings of love, the manipulation of the media. It is a horrendously addictive page-turner based on the legend of Theseus.

What kind of kid reads this book? A boy who lives with his dad and goes hunting every weekend; he just shot a buck (once, through the head) and is proud of the venison, this boy just got his dad to buy the book because of crazy discussions he has heard in class...the heroine of the story survives because of her hunting skills. A beautiful child from Israel, who has read the whole trilogy and can barely stop herself from saying what happens next, how the scared young survivors face a world that seems turned against them. A girl, who (just like me) has a birthday this next weekend, and who hopes to get the second book as a gift. I promised her that if she didn't, she could read my copy. Tired of waiting in a queue of 40 at the public library, I just ordered it.

It will be a movie in just a few months.

A wooden phone?

2011-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

John, who has never even owned a cell phone, just got an iPhone. Holy cow! I actually don't covet his phone, but I kind of want a wooden one and this is why:

I wish all ads were this awesome.

Miracle of the mushroom

2011-10-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

We were on a hike in the hills when I first saw it from a distance of 20 feet or so. I thought, "Hey look, somebody's been up here playing with a mushroom!" But upon closer inspection, no. This fungus was untouched by human hands. Was this a Miracle? An appearance of The Gingerbread Man for those of us who may have doubted?

Image from http://www.visionsofjesuschrist.com/

I mean, why not? If a stain under the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago might mean something to somebody- and it did in 2006-then I'm convinced that my mushroom discovery is important too.

He is so much cuter than that concrete underpass.

I want to believe, I do.

Inside their heads

2011-10-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

"Proboscis: A skin disease that causes rashes and bumps."

This past week I finally used the words I've been collecting. Thanks everybody, for contributing to the list which grew to be over 200 words long!

Paw-paw means "two grandpa dogs showing their paws with pom-poms."

Each kid pulled a word out of a hat, and if s/he didn't know the meaning they were allowed to own the word and make up a meaning for it.

Tarmac is "when there is mac and cheese on the road."

They illustrated the definitions with paintings and drawings. Some of the art work was so obscure that I had to request a written explanation.

Of course sometimes the picture made perfect sense, no explanation required.

Puce is "a sound that a gun makes...puce...pew...puce!"

If it weren't for the heavy use of glitter you might think this was thought up by a boy.

A boondoggle is a "dog ghost with goggles."

I did this with my youngest students, 11 years old, who were least likely to have sophisticated vocabulary.

This was a super fun activity for them!

"The wimple crawled through the grass."

"Wimple" is such a great word.

Hippocampus is "where the hippos go for fun."

Although "hippocampus" may have it beat.

Supercilious is "when someone is acting super-silly."

The noise level in the room was high, reminding me to add the word "decibel" to the list.

"Serendipity dipped her toes into the Atlantic ocean."

After they finished the drawing, they attached a card containing the real meaning.

"A Desiccant is a small bug about the size of a strawberry. They have a long neck and a shell that no predator can break. They have small wings and can carry things 100x their size. NO Desiccant looks the same."

It was really fun for me to see what was inside their heads...

...because sometimes what's inside their heads is SO much cooler than real life!

Little things

2011-09-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

On any given day there is big news somewhere in the world. I was delighted yesterday to learn that Saudi women will be able to vote in 2015, although why not next week? I'm glad the hikers came home from Iran, although I hope they go to the Rockies for their next excursion. I guess even good news is complicated.

What I will most clearly remember about the week isn't the big news.

Nope. The things that come to mind are all quite small, visual snippets coming into focus to the exclusion of everything else.

It's always good to stop and take a moment to examine the little stuff.

Sometimes there's a surprise on the other side.

My favorite surprises come at the most mundane moments, like just as I was stepping out of the shower. What were those tiny, unusual marks on the steamed-up surface of the glass door?

Aha.

You just can't forget something like this.

Love words? Help me.

2011-09-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hippocampus!
The word jumped out at me like a loose squirrel.

After a viral infection artist Lonni Sue Johnson lost her memory. Her complex art had been featured in The New Yorker & many other books and publications. Her recovery is centered around her art, which has changed somewhat but still retains elements of what it was. She has become fascinated with word searches.

I was reading the amazing story of Lonni Sue Anderson this morning when I became hopelessly side-tracked, off on a tangent and planning an activity to do with a mob of 12 year olds.
By all means go back and check out Lonni's story, but first help me. Here's my idea:

1. Compile a list of odd words. (I do have some well-read students, but I hope they don't know everything just yet.)
2. Each kid picks a word from the hat and illustrates it without knowing what the real definition is. This is a kind of cross between Pictionary and the Dictionary Game.

Here is my list so far, some words stranger than others.

hippocampus, stevedor, bamboozle, roustabout, gerrymander, carpetbagger, philistine, scalawag, boondoggle, muckraker, pompadour, bellhop, haberdashery, paw-paw, peckish, fulgent, leviathan, amalgamate, epee, buteo, serendipity, flibbertigibbet, halcyon, desiccant, ~~probiscus~~, proboscis, hibiscus, treacle, mahout

I bet there is an on-line list of words like these, but it's more fun to think of them on my own. Or accept suggestions!

I'm listening....

Math and I

2011-09-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as a creative person. And by that I mean I'm also not bad at math and have some analytical skills. Who is it that perpetrates the myth that artists can't think straight? Perhaps artists themselves? After all, what artist doesn't want to think of herself as either a bohemian, a rebel, a misfit, or a contrarian? (I see by the little red dots that I just made up the word "contrarian" but you know what I mean.)

Math and I, we go back a ways. My father was brilliant in math but never had the chance to finish college. Instead he dropped out to support his father, one of Louisiana leftist Huey Long's creative, disgraced book keepers. The family fled Louisiana and got off the train in Wisconsin, so different and far away that it was like a foreign country to them.

Vetruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci

Grandpa-as Huey Long knew- was very good with numbers, and it was supposed to run in the family. But my eldest brother showed little aptitude; I remember slouching in my bedroom and listening to my father downstairs, frustrated and angry, yelling at him about how easy the quadratic equation is.

I vowed to myself never to ask for help with math homework: n.e.v.e.r. I did my own math, then like a moth to flames, gravitated towards art-and teaching- unheard of within the family and quite misunderstood.

Michael Beutler's "Outdoor Yellow-13" in the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt, Germany

Math and art, after all, are old friends. Artists are very analytical. It's what they do all day, every day. Any piece of art is an exercise in problem-solving and that exquisite, elusive thing known as judgment.

Cookie-pie chart courtesy of Flowing Data .

Even if one never really embraces math, you can't get away from it. The same can be said for art. They live in the same house.

The nurse and the sandpiper

2011-09-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

We had such a nice house guest for two nights, a young woman-a nurse- on an epic solo road trip across the country. M was so upbeat, helpful, and easy to talk with that we were sorry to see her go. She was headed down US 101 along the Oregon coast, and it so happened that John and I were going to the coast ourselves.

We loaded the dogs in the car and found a stretch of lonely beach to exercise them. Just the three of us with Ed and Reub, and an assortment of sea birds. There was a fabulous flock of beautiful little western sandpipers, pausing on their migration to feed in the wet sand, but periodically taking to the sky in breathtaking aerobatic formations: beautiful exhilarating birds.

Ed is a ball dog, and M took her turn at entertaining him with the "chuck-it," a long-handled ball launcher.

M had a good arm, and tossed that ball long and hard down the beach...at the very moment when the flock of startled sandpipers flew up...

...and one little shape fell like a stone, onto the sand below, just at the edge of the lapping waves.

"You hit one," John exclaimed. Poor M. She was mortified.

We hurried over to look at the bird, sure from its posture and strange head movements that it was dying. John gently moved the little fellow away from the greedy tide, and we debated what was best to do. Should we put the bird out of its misery? Drown it? Leave it to the quick mercy of predators? M looked on, stricken with remorse. I felt terrible for her.

But while we had this sad conversation, the little bird straightened his wings, adjusted his balance, and smoothed his feathers. Then he pooped. And finally he flew straight up into the air in front of us. He vanished in the windswept sky as we watched awestruck by this tiny miracle, a tragedy averted.

Where Reub is at

2011-09-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Reuben: Ed's best friend, and my foot warmer as I sit at the computer wondering what to say about him. It has been four months since we consulted a specialist about his mounting anxiety and aggression, four months of training and Reconcile (Prozac, marketed for dogs). Four months of wondering if we could "fix" him. I bought a muzzle for him.

How will this end?

Truth is, no matter what, you can never know how anything will end. I do know this: we've gone through training with him, yet we must never stop training. We've put him on meds, and now we can never take him off. We have restricted him to his leash, and outside of the yard, he must always be on leash.

I don't believe that he is "fixed" and that suddenly we can pretend that he is a happy, well-adjusted creature in this large and confusing world. However. We have had no incidences of aggression in four months. On a run this past week, twice, he went right past two intimidating "type A" dogs. He did grrrufff on the way past a hiker with a headset on, a person who neglected to greet us when we greeted her...Reub takes exception to that kind of behavior...if you are unfriendly, he will be unfriendly. No amount of Prozac will change his mind, but it does slow down his reaction time.

Before finishing this post I went to ring the doorbell; five months ago this was a flip-out time for Reub. Tonight Eddy barked. Reub got up, stretched, and came to check it out. I hugged him and gave him a treat. He has yet to learn how to react when strangers come to the door, but this is a start.

We know that Reub's journey is not over, that it could still end badly. We know that when we adopted him he hadn't had an easy start to his life, that we would have to work with him.

It is about commitment. Yes, thankfully he is better, but it isn't over.

Looking back at Labor Day

2011-09-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

It was Labor Day today, and I don't even know what that means anymore. I am a die-hard member of a labor union (the "terrorist group" known as the National Education Association...please watch this funny clip...).

My father was a union member before me. He was an Iron Worker, back in the day when you could lean right and still be an avid union member, and I remember him going to union meetings when I was a little girl.

But times are different now. I find it interesting in this age of technology that our most recent poet laureate, Philip Levine, is rooted in the idea of labor, of work. Hear Mr. Levine reading his poem "What Work Is," and it will recall a classic image of grinding blue collar labor. But this isn't my life, nor John's.

We spent the weekend at Odell Lake Lodge in the Oregon Cascades, bartering his jazz band's performance for a free night's lodging (plus dinner for the band).

Labor Day in the old sense? No. Do we work hard? Yes. Although the idea of "what work is" has changed through the decades, I still appreciate this holiday. Even if it only means for most people a long weekend, a last gasp of freedom before classes kick in, a chance to hit the big sales at the shopping mall. I still like it.

Very berry

2011-09-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the beginning of September, one of my favorite times of year: school starts, the leaves turn golden, and the harvest season is upon us.

This time of year coincides with the fabulous fruit season here in western Oregon, a time when you can go out and pick berries to your heart's content. So fun!

Spread out on my kitchen counter are enough blueberries to bake 3 pies per month for the next year. They're very late this year, due to the non-arrival of summer weather; ordinarily this scene would appear in July.

What the heck do you do with plums? They're in season too, and since we are in the heart of hazelnut country, what better thing to bake then this hazelnut-crumb plum tart? Luckily we had some folks to share this with because it's waaay too rich for the two of us to polish off on our own.

There is a two week period during the year when I stop cursing the nasty, thorny blackberry bushes which invade every possible open place they can. This is that time, and yesterday these came off the bushes in a neglected tree farm just behind our house. My fingers were stained purple within minutes!

Inspired by a recipe in Wednesday's New York Times, I tossed the blackberries together with some lemon and a little sugar.

Ed and Reub like to hang out in the kitchen with me and the juke box (yes, there is a juke box in my kitchen), listening to oldies and messing with berries.

Are they hoping to get a bite of this? Never!

We made our teeth black with berry juice eating cobbler, both for dinner and breakfast: glorious!

Honey Night

2011-08-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when one of John's colleagues asked him if we wanted to come to "Honey Night" (isn't that a good pair of words) I was enthusiastic, but last night after a long day I wasn't sure I had the energy.

It sounded like fun, so I went anyway: a work party, thrown by 3 beekeepers, to help with honey extraction. It had to happen at night because that's when the bees are mostly at home in their parts of the hives, and inactive with the frames filled with honeycomb ready to be harvested.

The "supers" (boxes filled with frames of honeycomb) were stacked in the yard.

There was an assembly line of activities to get the job done. Here are a couple of experts slicing the wax caps off of the honey comb.

They are using heated knives to slice through the very top.

Gosh, those guys were really good at what they did, making tamale-like rolls of beeswax.

I tried my hand at it, and although I wasn't as good as they were, I tried not to waste honey by digging too deep. A honeybee only lives about 7 weeks, works constantly, and makes a total of just one-twelfth teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime. Mustn't waste that honey!!

Look! This big cell contained a queen, long-gone. The 1st queen bee to emerge goes about murdering all of the other candidates. Was this that bee? I don't know.

The frames are then put in a centrifuge to extract the honey. After hand-cranking it for awhile you have to switch the frame around and do the opposite side. This was fun too, but only because we all took turns. Otherwise it would be really tedious.

The honey pours out of the bottom of the centrifuge.

And then it's emptied into a barrel.

In the barrel it is collected in a cheesecloth bag.

And here is John, squeezing the bag to get all of the honey out. Only a fistful of wax remains after all of that.

Our payment for this lovely night of work is a jar of honey. Perfect. I'm so glad I went to Honey Night.

Granny make-over

2011-08-24T23:00:00.000-07:00

When our son and his wife told us that they are expecting a baby in November, it didn't automatically occur to me that I would be a "grandma." My first reaction was more like hey, wow, THEY'RE gonna be PARENTS! Can you believe it? Rock 'n roll!

It was only later that the word "grandma" came into my mind: right there with the image of the nice old lady with white hair tied in a bun, the lady who accepts help from the boy scout when she needs to cross the street, the one who knits and sews while watching Lawrence Welk on the TV set.

Gaaaaahaaaaah.

I'm going to need a granny-make-over mighty quick if this transformation is going to happen by November. Working towards those ends, today I got out the sewing machine. I'm a horrible seamstress. An old Simon & Garfunkel tune was running through my head as I set things up...Hello Singer my old friend, It's time to talk with you again...I can never remember how to thread the bobbin and was hoping that the sewing machine would magically thread itself after being serenaded. Which it kind of did, that is, I got it all threaded but don't really know how it happened.

The object: create, grandma-like, two flannel blankets for the baby. The blue one seemed too boyish-we don't know if the baby will be a little girl or a little boy, plus, I thought it would be instructive to learn how to attach blanket binding (which is not as easy as it sounds) so hence the yellow binding to both give this a gender-neutral look and simultaneously enhance my sewing skills. But: ugly, ugly, ugly. Even the baby, surely, is going to know that this is an ugly little blanket!

So, scrap the binding. I can teach myself later how to sew binding to an edge. To my amazement the sewing machine can actually do some crazy finishing stitches that look professional; that's the way to go here. I love these little stitches.

Since I nixed the yellow edge, I must look to the pink bicycles to convince myself that this isn't a boy's blanket only. Right? Say yes.

I honestly did not know that my sewing machine could do curvy lines, but yep.

I like sock monkeys well enough, even at my advanced age, to possibly NOT give up this blanket.

I'm certain that I could find some use for it. A babushka perhaps, for my aging head?

Dogs of Spain and Germany

2011-08-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have a huge soft spot for German Shepherds. The two GSDs that we have owned were the gentlest, mellowest dogs we've ever had. This boy was in Solsona, Spain, and he had learned how to open closed doors (although he had yet to close one behind him.)

I can't help but notice dogs when I travel.

A worshipful dog gracing Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, along with his family. I think that he is very likely a Portuguese Water Dog, like Eddy. PWDs graced the coasts of both Spain and Portugal for centuries.

In Spain, we noticed them everywhere, usually well-kept and going out for evening walks with their owners.

In Germany it was the same thing, and because we were with outdoors-men we saw a lot of lucky dogs accompanying their masters in the workplace: the forests.

I took zillions of pictures of animal gargoyles in the cities of Spain and Germany.

But my favorite gargoyle of all was this watchful little terrier in Barcelona...

...although this hound dog looks alive enough to jump out of the stone wall, and I liked him too. Definitely a "him."

We spent a good bit of time in the Pyrenees, but this fellow was the closest thing I could find to the breed we know as the Great Pyrenees.

Look at this scary guy, guarding a building in Frankfurt, Germany. He must have been effective because the building made it through WWII unscathed.

Luckily all of the real live German dogs we met were much less scary. Since most of the time spent there was in the vicinity of foresters, it wasn't surprising that almost every dog we encountered was their breed of choice, a hunting dog, the German Spaniel.

Germans don't consider this dog a spaniel. He's called the Deutscher Wachtelhund, which is how the UKC registers him, but this breed is uncommon in the US and not registered yet by the AKC. He needs a ton of exercise, loves the water, will hunt anything, wants to be indoors with you, and needs a strong leader.

The Germans say that "a wachtelhund will abuse any weakness you provide". Look at this boy, laying patiently on the cold floor of Frederick I's castle, through a boring presentation about German land tenure. He is waiting for the instant that his leader tells him it's over. Just like the rest of us! Good, good dog.

A photo and a quote: Friday Shoot-out

2011-08-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Goethe

(FYI: This is Eddy, who is spontaneously delivering to me an over due notice from the local library. I owe 70 cents.)

Time with my dogs clears my mind, renews my faith, and lets me see the world as it is. My only regret loving dogs as I do, is the misery of their early departure.

Robert G. Wehle

Get in the habit of taking pictures of your community; share them with others, and improve your photography skills: Friday Shoot-Out.

Photos from Corvallis, Oregon

The mysterious cat

2011-08-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Look how tiny I am, cat-shaped there on the right, and how little the windows are. John's photo.

After a couple of nights in this centuries-old stone farmhouse outside of Solsona, Spain, we departed in our little rented Leon. Maybe you know that leon, translated into English, means puma or lion, but at the time I didn't think about that.

This mountain in the Pyrenees resembles the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan.
John's photo.

I just admired the good job John was doing navigating the tight curves, and thought how strange it was that we had the mountain roads completely to ourselves, like we were the last people left on earth. But suddenly, after an hour or so of this dizzying drive all alone, we rounded a curve and were confronted by two cars heading towards us: SURPRISE. There was just room for the three of us on that narrow road...and then, while I was still taking in my breath...

I saw a shape in the brush at the side of the road.

It was a cat.

A big one.

For one astonished second, the cat looked straight at me, then turned and disappeared over a fallen log.

Living in Oregon, a place were large wild cats are considered plentiful, I know many people who have seen cougars; our house lies on the circuitous path that mountain lions take through our area. I've wanted so badly to see a cougar, but they don't show themselves to me, ever. At the same time I've always thought that Europe-so long settled and "civilized"- is basically without wildlife, and relative to Oregon, it is. There just aren't big wild cats over there.

Well.

After the stunning moment of eye contact, I said matter-of-factly, "That was a cat." And to my relief, John said, "I saw it too."

Subdued, we made our way through the countryside and up to this house, Cal Paller.

Cal Paller sits in a remote, impossible location deep in Catalonia.

Recommended to us by Spanish friends, this was our big splurge before roughing it on our hikes in the mountains.

It was a room made for meditation and yoga, somewhat marred by the Joni Mitchell Christmas tape that was continuously playing.

We were greeted by a friendly woman, who said that we were "los unicos aqui" and chatting away, she showed us around. " Este es la sala d'chell-ow" she explained as she opened the room next to ours. A "chill-out room!" Just what we needed after our strange drive to this dramatic place where we were the only guests.

Also just what we needed: beef steak and potatoes. I almost never eat steak, but just this once...

Oh, and this, too: an exquisite dessert. Dark chocolate shell, filled with custard and kiwi, topped with a razor-thin pineapple chip.

When I went to bed I was still thinking about the wild cat. It had happened too quickly to get a picture, and, aside from John, probably nobody would ever believe me.

But here's the thing. Before falling asleep we opened our shuttered window to let in the cool mountain air, and what should appear on the sill but a pure white cat, greeting my outstretched hand.

She came into the room and regarded us for a long while, in the moonlight, from beneath a wash stand. Then like a ghost in the night she left. Call me a crazy fool, but I took her as an affirmation. There are wild cats in Europe.

Why sleeping with 78 strangers for 2 nights was worth it

2011-08-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

That's Refuge d'Amitges -just barely discernible-on the top of the forested ridge in this picture. A few weeks ago we hiked up into the high Pyrenees of Spain and spent two nights there in the middle of Parc Nacional d'Aiguestortes. It's the only way to access the back country of the national park, and the price seemed reasonable: for about 50 euros you get a bed, breakfast, dinner, and a picnic lunch. The website said we would have bunk beds. Fine.

By "bunk beds" they meant a couple of gigantic platforms, with all 80 of us sweaty hikers tucked in side-by-side. Oh my. I was lucky to get one of the end spots, so I was next to the wall with John on my side.

The sleeping arrangement was odd, but what did that matter when you stepped outside to see this?

That's me, dwarfed by my surroundings.

We took a long day hike across the rugged high country of the Pyrenees.

I have never given Europe any credit for having wild country, but this trip changed my mind.

There isn't much wilderness over there, but it does exist in a few beautiful hard-to-reach areas.

You have to be willing to work pretty hard to get to it. I have NO idea why I'm laughing in this picture: punch-drunk at 10,000 feet?

Some of the most beautiful sights in alpine areas are the tough little flowers and clear streams.

The landscape is dotted with small lakes made by springs and snow melt.

This is the very top of Pic d'Ratone, named after the marmots living below it, lucky little devils, to have a view like this every day.

This was the lunch they provided

Yes, well, it wasn't that much fun to cozy up with 78 other people at night, but in the end it was worth it. And I must say that being tired after such tough hiking was the best sedative of all. I actually slept.

Post script: All but the last two photos were taken by hubby. Thanks John!

Friday shoot-out: rustic, rusty, rust

2011-08-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I participated, but this week's theme for Friday Shoot-out, where we do a photo-shout-out for our communities, was so appropriate for Oregon.

Rustic. Last night I was at a pot-luck and this is how it looked in front of the little cabin where we were, just outside of town.

Rustic. This is the ceiling in our living room, a typical northwest-style house (complete with *&^%$! cobwebs in upper right!)

Rustic. John's jazz trio was invited to play at a lodge in the Cascades over the weekend; "jazz" and "rustic" aren't usually found in the same sentence.

Rustic: As part of the deal we were offered a free night in a cabin.

Rustic: The cabins are furnished with locally-made furniture.

Rusty: An old Ford on a nearby farm

Rusty: Farm equipment left out in our rainy climate doesn't last long.

Rust.

Get in the habit of taking pictures of your community; share them with others, and improve your photography skills: Friday Shoot-Out.

Watermelon doughnuts

2011-08-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of Wikihow, and have to admit I have read (without remembering) the directions for "How to make a vase out of a plastic bottle," "How to make crop circles," and "How to make a zoetrope."

I also really like doughnuts and haven't had one in an awfully long time. That's why I couldn't resist yesterday's wikihow: "How to make watermelon doughnuts."

I had all of the ingredients: watermelon, almonds, yogurt (substituted for sour cream) and honey. Plus a doughnut cutter. You just sweeten the yogurt, add it to the top of a watermelon ring, plunk another ring on top and frost it with more yogurt and a sprinkle of nuts. Bingo: you have a ~~dessert~~, no a fruit salad.

OK, call it what you will, and although it wasn't really a doughnut, I could almost, almost, be fooled into thinking that it was. Whatever. These were awesome.

Gaudi in Barcelona

2011-08-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

When Antoni Gaudi was handed his certificate upon graduating from the Barcelona Architecture School in 1878, the director commented, "We have given this academic title either to a fool or a genius. Time will show."

It seems that time has proven him to be a success, because in 2011 work continues on his most iconic structure, the Sagrada Familia, a world heritage site in Barcelona, and one of the most unusual buildings anywhere.

It's a building that looks like an enormous sand castle, covered with kelp and crawling creatures: I mean this in a good way, of course.

Drawing his inspiration from the living world, I doubt that there is a perfectly straight line anywhere.

The interior of this cathedral is modeled after a towering forest, with the columns resembling branching trees, and the place is surprisingly light.

There are reminders of Gaudi everywhere in Barcelona: buildings, parks, streetlamps, and even the sidewalks have tiles that Gaudi designed after honeycomb.

Organic shapes were his special genius; this is a window in the apartment building La Pedrera ("The Quarry").

The interior courtyard of La Pedrera is painted.

It's little wonder that La Pedrera, completed in 1912, has been both reviled and adored. It's pretty wild up there on the rooftop!

Crazy genius.

And then there is Parc Guell, a large hilltop garden. This is a view from the top of the hill looking out at the expansive city.

Details of a bridge in Parc Guell.

Serpentine mosaic railing, Parc Guell.

I realized, happily, that the mosaic technique used by Gaudi is one that I use with middle school students: it's so fun because you make glazed tiles, smash them, then create something new in the way of a mosaic.

Parc Guell is sheer fantasy and delight. And free.

Free that is, if you can avoid buying trinkets from the many vendors.

I kinda wanted one of these cheesy fans, but took a picture instead. I have a feeling these probably came from China.

Gaudi was the main reason I wanted to go to Barcelona, and he didn't disappoint.

Freeloading and off-course

2011-08-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

There wasn't even time to get over jet lag: as soon as we got back from a big three week trip abroad, we headed into the Cascades for a couple of days. Not that I'm complaining.

I owe both trips to John, who works as an anthropologist in OSU's college of forestry, and who from time to time teaches and speaks in places like Spain and Germany. In his other life, though, he is a guitarist, and that comes with its own special blend of perks.

There is something weird in this pic; can you spot it?

It was a music gig that got us a free stay at Odell Lake Lodge, about a 2 hour drive away.

I am a total freeloader on these trips. No worries, just eating, reading, walking. Ed and Reub really appreciated being included on this one.

Here they are competing over who has rights to the interesting beaver stump floating in the water. (Eddy won, but didn't have a big enough mouth to drag it ashore.)

Hooded mergansers swimming past, far enough away to be unperturbed about the dogs wrangling at water's edge.

Waterfall pictures all look the same! It's really hard to capture their amazing qualities.

Driving home mid-day we decided to stop at Salt Creek Falls, a place we've passed dozens of times but never devoted the time for a visit. That's because once we have our destination, it's hard to pause and go off-course; we're like old trail horses who, once they are turned towards the stable, are positively unstoppable.

I am so glad we stopped this time. You know what's cool about this veil of water? Behind it, on a ledge in the vertical basalt wall of rock, lies a nest. There are probably several nests, but because this is completely inaccessible, nobody knows.

Image: whatbird.com

That place beyond the fall of water is home to a beautiful rare bird, the secretive Black Swift. Black Swifts choose to live behind waterfalls, where they lay one egg each year. The adults disappear high in the sky before sunrise, and return at nightfall, feeding their young at that time. When the fledgling is old enough to leave the nest, the family flies away to...nobody knows for sure...Colombia?

Wow. I wonder what other stupendous things we've missed by never veering off-course.

First class

2011-08-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago today I got off the plane in Barcelona, Spain, feeling the oddness that comes when you step into an airport in a country you have never visited.

A shift has occurred when you do that, and now you are in different territory. You look around, a little dazed, and wonder what are those funny little juices in the vending machines?

Airports themselves have an other-worldly feel, with thousands of people passing through this space with its artificial light and shops selling outrageously ugly handbags and jewelry. Luckily for us everything went smoothly on our trip to Spain and Germany, and we spent a minimum of time in airports that feel vaguely like enormous casinos.

There was a tight connection in Amsterdam on the way home, and a moment of fear as I gaped at the ticket agent while she ripped up my boarding pass and tossed it away, "You'll need different seats" she said. Oh. No.

But the new seats turned out to be in Business Elite class. That's right! Me, with a button missing on my shirt, my sweater grimy from its surprising amount of use in chilly Europe, and the socks which I belatedly realized were mismatched, that's me being offered cold champagne and warm towels. That's me in a gigantic plastic seat with its 16 different functions, including two types of back massage.

Coming into Portland: Mt St Helens and Mt Hood

Just before we landed, a flight attendant asked me if I had liked the wine with dinner, and I said that yeah it was good and I hadn't known that they made white wine in Bordeaux. Then she gave me a parcel: "There's a bottle here that is down one glass; I've re-corked it and wonder if you'd like to take it home?" Why, yes, thank you! She must have known from my schlumpie appearance that I would be delighted to be offered a partial bottle of wine, and not think twice about accepting it.

When I got it home, I took it out of its bag and saw that she had wrapped it in a clean white cloth, and fashioned a bow out of plastic. First class.

***

OK, enough about air travel. I have to look at my photos, all 944 of them.

Random stuff while I'm out

2011-07-25T03:54:00.000-07:00

I'm in Germany right now, but just for fun here are some random items that were rattling around before my departure.

If you didn't know better, you might think Reub is the most confidant, mellow dog that ever was, and here is a 10 second video to prove it, taken in obedience class recently. The things you can get a dog to do if you don't feed him for 11 hours! There was no distraction in the world that would make him take his eyes off the possibility of trading a "sit" for a piece of chicken.

This girl was right next to our garage, with Eddy barking furiously at her from inside the house, 20 feet away. She's really worried, as you see.

The jazz band that John plays with, swinging hard at a recent gig.

Speaking of guitars: in case you want to check out a Google logo from the past, there is a way to do it, and you should begin here, the best logo ever because you can run your cursor over the guitar strings and play it:

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

It was June 9th, on what would have been Les Paul's 96th birthday. (He did live to be 94; that's OLD for a musician!)

Now go play some guitar, and I'll see you in a week or so!

To Spain and Germany

2011-07-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

As you read this I am on a trip with John to Catalonia, Spain, and to southern Germany. While John tackles issues surrounding global warming, I will wander around with my camera and soak up the surroundings. Can't complain about that.

Random food thoughts

2011-07-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

I love the English language. In an attempt to make you feel okay about buying something other than organic, the local grocer has a word for tomatoes grown with pesticides: conventional. At least they're locally grown; that's good, right?

This is what the birds had in their bird feeder this morning. Pretty attractive.

This is what I had this morning. I feel cheated.

I'm pretty sure that Pringles actually wanted to be in the tennis business, and cream cheese manufacturers in the, uh, wallet industry? These packets are just strange.

I just realized (duh) that the mint overtaking my garden makes great tea.

I made this twice in the past month: udon soup with pork meatballs.

You have to buy an armload of fava beans to have enough; they have to be husked twice, and that hardly leaves anything behind.

Reub believes that lying down is going the extra mile, while Eddy knows that maintaining a sit is what I'm after. But basically Ed and Reub will do anything for a carrot.

King birds?

2011-07-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ed and Reub and I were out walking in a rolling, brushy open place here in western Oregon when I was mesmerized by a pair of hovering birds. They were like smallish hawks hovering high above the hillside, then dropping straight down to get something in the grass. Flycatchers flying that high? King birds, slightly out of their usual countryside? They were silhouetted against the sky, so it was difficult to see markings, but I thought there might be a yellow cast on the belly of one. A king bird? Just not sure because I've never witnessed this hawking behavior before in anything but a hawk.

Small-Medium-Large

2011-07-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

Our farmer's market is in full swing. Quince jelly, anyone?

And I just can't get enough of the daisies all over the place right now. Or the buttercups.

Practice your photography and share your town:

Friday My Town Shoot-Out

Eye of the day

2011-07-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of the day,
The emprise, and floure of floures all.

Geoffrey Chaucer

"'Days-ee:' the eye of the day!" Now that is an apt description of the lovely, lowly daisies abounding in the roadsides, fields and meadows right now.

These little flowers have a light of their very own. If you ventured out on the paths behind our house this past week when the moonless sky was lit by stars alone, you wouldn't have needed a flashlight to see where you were going. Their mass of bright faces illuminates the way so nicely that you would swear they each contained a tiny torch, together lighting up the dark night.

I suppose daisies are invasive species, but I find it easy enough to forgive them.

They blanket the hillsides for three weeks, and since the weather is predicted to be quite warm this week (a whopping 85˚F or 29˚C) I suppose they will soon give way to the Queen Ann's Lace that always follows. I will have to carry my own light when I go out at night.

Friday My Town Shoot Out: Simplicity

2011-06-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Ah the challenge for this week's shoot-out is a mighty one.

Rhododendrons are finally on their way out. The dark background here is a window in our house.

Not only should our pictures reflect the uniqueness of our town, they should also show that we learned something from reading Rebecca's suggestions on simplicity of composition.

Last weekend John and I attended the nearby Inavale Horse Trials, which attracts several hundred amazing riders to our town every year.

It was tricky to get pictures that weren't too far away and didn't have fences, posts, or spectators complicating the background.

Last week we also had a wonderful canoe ride on the Siletz river. This is somebody's swimming hole rope, resting on the surface of a pool.

Part of an old-style fuel tank on a nearby farm.

Daisies cover the meadows right now. It seems a shame to convert their bright colors to black and white, doesn't it?

But black and white is the simplest thing I can think of, and the daisy still looks like a daisy.

All photos shot in Corvallis, Oregon
Exercise your photography skills and show off your town; join us next week:
Friday My Town Shoot-Out

Fairy scientist

2011-06-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

Today, June 29th, is St Peter's Day, and according to my Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, by Charles Kightly, it is the tail-end of fairy-catching season:

Fairies being particularly active in the period between Midsummer and St. Peter's Day, now is a good time to bind them to your service: but if you do see the fairies, be sure you never tell.

Kightly describes the best way to catch a fairy, and it involves a large crystal, hazel rods, holy water, and the blood of a white hen...um...no thanks! I think I'll let the fairies run (flit?) free.

There is a video that was locally famous last year, the scientist in it being a Corvallis school child of 8 years old. I think her grandfather was the videographer. The two of them made the local paper when Disney (just coming out with Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue) took interest in little Lydia's project: fairy research. Having just read Knightly's description of fairy hunting, I had to take another look at Lydia's video. Was it as adorable as I remembered?

Yep. It is:

Reub, the door bell, Jehovah's witnesses, and obedience class

2011-06-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

After two years of escalating and unpredictable aggression towards other dogs and a few people, Reuben continues to be our 'project" dog.

He has begun his second month on Prozac, and this week will be his second trip to intermediate obedience class. It's helpful to keep writing about it because it keeps me on track with the training program.

I've been working with Reub to lower his over-the-top reaction to the doorbell. Oddly, he suddenly stopped caring about it. He wouldn't even raise his head from a nap.

"It's just Kerry with her stupid little sweet potato treats," is what he was thinking, "I'm gonna wait for a real enemy."

You know, he was right. Truth is, hardly anybody has come to our door since I started this training. What's up with that? How can I train this dog without an Enemy Delivery Person, Evil Utility Worker, or Alien Girl Scout Cookie Seller? I can't.

That's why last week I was ecstatic when a Jehovah's witness rang the doorbell. Unlike the FedEx guy, who just dumps the package and runs back to his truck, she was perfectly happy to stand at the door. Reub, realizing that an actual Other Person had rung the bell, went from 0 to 60 in no time flat. I took the time I needed to claim the space by the door, backed him off firmly and treated him when he sat. Then I went outside, thanked the Jehovah's Witness, chatted briefly about dog training, and took her leaflet.

You know what happens when you thank a Jehovah's Witness? They re-visit you! Yes. This time she knocked on the door, another huge trigger for Reub. There was a tiny part of me that was a little sorry when he didn't come barreling up the steps on high alert; in fact he was a total no-show. I took the leaflet (without thanking her so warmly this time) and, hugely proud of my good dog, went to reward him. Damn, turns out I had left him sleeping in the sun in the back yard, completely unaware.

However, he did seem kind of interested in the topic: WILL HUMANS RUIN THIS EARTH?

This is an interesting tidbit from last week's obedience class:

This 30-second video demonstrates an exercise designed to teach Reub to hold back when he is in a "sit." Our trainer does not believe in the "Stay" command. That's because "Sit" is supposed to mean sit-until-you-are-released. Reub first sits, then the leash is pulled taut; when he holds back-a natural reaction-he is rewarded. We should practice this more frequently than I have been doing, but at least this is a good start.