On the third day of Christmas...

We finally have the great meltdown. My street is 99% clear, and even the BMW that was parked in the illegal spot opposite our building for over a week has disappeared.

Dirt-encrusted snow boulders still line the plowed streets, but they will go away eventually. Now the danger is flooding and avalanches. At mid-day there was a 5-mile backup on I-90, as traffic was halted for avalanche control in the pass.

At Christmas I like vintage. The wreath is actually a 4-inch metal ornament we've had around for years. None of us can remember where it came from or when - it's just there, in the decorations box. A few years ago I started hanging it on the front door. Who said a wreath had to be huge?

And here's a vintage Christmas greeting, from "Private Screening," an elegant second-hand shop in Fremont. The image is embossed on heavy paper, with the name of the senders engraved inside.


Posting it is an excuse to link to my favorite Christmas poem, Eliot's "Journey of the Magi." Even when you know that Eliot borrowed some of the best lines and images from a sermon on the Epiphany, delivered by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes on Christmas Day 1622, it's still a moving poem, full of wonder and sadness and regret and imagination.

A very happy Christmas -

Thanks to a diligent gate agent in West Palm Beach, FL (who worked over an hour last Sunday to re-book L & D after their flight home was canceled) and their trusty Dodge pickup, we were all together for Christmas.

Yesterday morning I looked out the window, early, thinking it would be nice to see a blank spot across the street where the truck had been parked since the 16th.

The truck was gone. Just to make sure, I went to the front door and confirmed that a large clear spot was all that marked where it had been.

L & D got in from Florida, via a non-stop from Atlanta, late Tuesday night. Yesterday they came by about 4:30, to give me and some Christmas presents a ride to I & Z's. As we got farther north, farther from main streets, road conditions got worse - but thanks to their 4-wheel drive (the old-fashioned kind that requires the driver to hop out of the cab and twitch something on the hubcaps into position) we made it safely.

Three other friends made it over to the house for an evening visit. People talked, or played with the latest Wii apps, or knitted, or embroidered. When the visitors went home, I prevailed on those still up to listen to the late Alan Maitland on CBC, reading my favorite "ghost" story.

Although it rained yesterday afternoon and the prediction was for the great meltoff to begin, there was also a caveat: "Perhaps an inch or two of new snow overnight."

We woke up to at least an inch of new snow, then watched as more fell - and fell - and fell. After stockings and presents, L & D headed north to another family gathering, and the rest of us kicked back for a peaceful Christmas day. Eventually, the snow stopped, turned to rain, and we even got a brief interval of blue sky before the sun set. L & D gave me a ride home on their way back to Vashon.

There are still piles of snow everywhere - especially on the main routes, where snowplows have pushed up ridges that narrow the lanes, but the forecast is - finally - for all the snow to melt in the next couple of days.

Two days before the First Day of Christmas...

Here's a great post-modern Christmas tree, mounted in what looks like an underground parking garage. It seems appropriate for this odd, torpid, unusually snowy holiday season.

Snow hasn't melted yet. L & D are still in Florida, so far as we know. This is the day they hope to get back, so we are thinking positive thoughts. The airport is slowly getting back to normal, according to radio reports.

I'm going to I and Z's house tomorrow night, taking along an overnight case (besides a bag of presents - that should make me the least popular person on the bus.) Current forecast is that we'll get more snow - or worse, freezing rain - just in time for Christmas Eve.

However, it's warmer than forecast already today, and weather in the PNW changes in the blink of an eye.

Yesterday I caught a bus home from downtown, after watching a string of Metro buses squeeze by an articulated coach that was stuck at a stoplight. SRO, but a nice Willie Nelson lookalike insisted I should let him "be nice for a change" and gave me his seat.

One reason I ride the bus is for the stories. On yesterday's ride, a man standing nearby told me about his uncles, who once upon a time, during a long-ago hard winter (sometime in the 30's, he guessed) pushed a Model T from one side of a completely frozen Lake Sammamish to the other.)

"They were smart enough not to drive - but I'm sure they were both drinking."

Lake Sammamish is not small. That must have been a notable winter.

Happy (Winter) Solstice

When the light is supposed to return. Here in the northern hemisphere, light needs all the help it can get.


Instead of seeing the snow wash away in the next couple of days, we're likely to have it off and on all the way to Christmas. I'm not sure I've ever seen this much snow on my deck (and there's more now - the photo is from early this morning.)


Z. sang one "Messiah" yesterday afternoon, but the evening performance was canceled. That meant she could be at home for The Swing Years' Christmas show, perhaps in time to hear Eartha Kitt sing "Santa Baby," my all-time favorite guilty pleasure Christmas song (except for Elvis singing "Blue Christmas," of course.)

Today she had to mush through the snow and compete with Seahawks' fans for bus space, because the Sunday matinée went on as scheduled, with a reduced, but valiant chorale. Raise up a toast to what we do for love.

L and D are still in Florida, probably for another couple of days. Just as well, since their connecting airline has canceled all flights into and out of SeaTac tonight.

This morning's snow was light and powdery. Now it's heavier and wet - perfect for snowballs, as I discovered when the "neighbors" in the new condos across the street used my front door as a target tonight. Life is never dull.

PS: We almost NEVER get icicles in Seattle.

More weather to which we must pay attention

Snow began falling about 3 p.m., right on schedule. This time it's the tiny, serious flakes that pile up without your noticing until suddenly there's a 4-inch layer over everything.

I took a long, careful walk before the new storm started, grateful for the occasional cleared sidewalk and most of all for well-sanded steps that lead down to the main road from our icy narrow street. I got back just in time to thank the man we call our "guardian angel," a resident who changes light bulbs, keeps an eye on all systems, and annually puts up barriers and caution tape in front of the building so we don't find cars parked illegally on July 4. Today he was spreading de-icing granules and sweeping the sidewalk, so the new layer of snow will at least land on bare concrete instead of ice.

It's all supposed to wash away (or perhaps turn to sleet) late tomorrow. Meanwhile, Z packed a change of clothes and her sleeping bag to take to Benaroya Hall, in case she can't get home after tonight's performance of "The Messiah." So far they've delivered every one, to intrepid, enthusiastic audiences. For all this effort and dedication, the instrumentalists get paid - chorale members are volunteers.

L finally got out of Las Vegas, 36 hours after arriving, and has touched down briefly in Boca Raton. Tomorrow they come back, late. To distract myself from useless fretting, I decorate, and wrap presents.

It still feels strange not to be singing a Christmas program tomorrow.

In between storms -

The sun came out this morning, not for long enough to melt all the ice off the streets and sidewalks, but certainly enough to be cheering. I went for a long walk, for exercise and errands, and was happy to catch a bus home. Walking carefully on icy slushy streets is very tiring.

We're snow wimps here. It's all those hills, and our usually mild climate - no need for snowplows and sanding trucks during winter rains. An inch or two of snow shuts down everything, especially when the temperature drops enough to freeze the not-quite-melted slush.

Z's office closed at noon yesterday, and did not reopen today. Nevertheless, the Messiah went on as planned (with a much-reduced chorale and orchestra, and a small but hardy audience well rewarded for its fortitude.) Four performances to go.

More snow is coming tomorrow and Sunday. Today an e-mail announced that church is entirely closed this Sunday - a wise decision, since the building sits at the top of a steep hill.

This is not a black-and-white photo...

Snow has fallen all day, and now that it's getting dark, and colder, the slush is going to freeze. Buses are running very late, if at all (also not going up or down hills) and freeway ramps are treacherous.

L. made it safely to the airport, but her plane was delayed, and she is now stuck in Las Vegas, trying to get home if she can't go on to Florida.

Choir rehearsals for tonight and Saturday afternoon canceled - as is the Sunday morning program. First time THAT has happened in my 30+ years in the choir (including a couple when we mushed through snow to get to church on time. But with the weather that's predicted for the weekend, it's the wisest decision.

Here's Sparky, checking out this morning's snow -



- and there she went!

Thunder! Snow!

Really! About 5:30 this morning we had two huge rolling reverberating thunderclaps, loud enough to send Sparky dashing for cover. Snow, which began falling around 4:30, was just beginning to accumulate.

Two weather systems colliding, says the meteorologist. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

"Thundersnow also known as a winter thunderstorm or a thunder snowstorm is a rare thunderstorm with snow falling as the primary precipitation instead of rain. It commonly falls in regions of strong upward motion within the cold sector of extratropical cyclones between autumn and spring when surface temperatures are most likely to be near or below freezing. Variations exist, such as thundersleet, where the precipitation consists of sleet rather than snow."

L. left for the airport at 5:35, walking up the hill to meet her ride. I've checked airport sites for Seatac and her arrival airport - Seatac says her flight departure is delayed, the other airport still shows it as an on-time arrival.

Sparky went out on the deck about 6, and left a random pattern of footprints. Two hours later they were completely filled in.

And it's still snowing. Later I'll go out for a walk, to give my new boots a proper workout.

Snow!

Always cause for exclamation marks around here. So far it's only sticking on top of the plant pots, but the first flakes lasted long enough for Sparky to pounce as they hit the deck.

Weather is supposed to get colder, but the forecasters are hedging about the extent and duration of the snow, unable to give precise boundaries because of the many micro-climates in Puget Sound. Only occasionally do we get a convergence of weather that brings snow everywhere.

Decorated boats are parading toward the marinas at the end of the lake, after an evening cruise. Inside it's a good night to read - I'm nearly to the end of a dense, fascinating history by David Levering Lewis called God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 - 1215. For a tangentially related article, check out the December 4 entry on this blog - the one called "Nobody expected this!"

What is Christmas without carols?

Tomorrow night I'm going to the Symphony Chorale's Holiday Singalong, for a chance to sing Christmas music (warbling carol fragments around the house doesn't always count.)

Ordinarily the church Christmas program takes care of my need to voice the season. This year our minister decided that because December 21 (the Sunday closest to Christmas) is also the beginning of Hanukkah, the choir should sing Hanukkah music.

"A minor Jewish holiday," said our alto soloist (who is Jewish.) Her other church job is as a cantor, so she is superbly equipped for this program. We're lucky.

It's all very Unitarian. We're singing some choruses from Handel's "Judas Maccabeus," and various traditional and modern Hanukkah pieces, accompanied by a better than average pickup orchestra. Singing with an orchestra is always a treat.

But it's not Christmas music. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey (oh why not?) I reserve the right to grumble.

Meanwhile, Sparky is purring in my lap, and the Charlie Brown Christmas special is on TV. Yesterday the Sousa Band played for a Christmas festival at a community center, and while we didn't deviate from the usual program of Sousa, Carl ("the march king") King and Henry Fillmore, our Sedentary Majorette handed out bells so the audience could play along with the "Liberty (Jingle) Bell March." It was all very good fun. (Here's a photo from last year's gig.)


Now I'm going to put on "John Denver and the Muppets," and sing along to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Nothing like a good grumble to improve one's outlook!

Pike Place, revisited

My first visit to the Pike Place Market came just a week after moving to Seattle, in 1965. In those days it was threatened with demolition (the grand plan was for ring roads all the way around downtown Seattle, with huge parking lots replacing the Market, Pioneer Square and other "eyesores.")

That was then. Now the Market is a beloved and famous treasure, and even in this time of economic jitters, we just passed a bond issue to fund needed repairs and upgrades.

Although I'd hesitate to visit the Market on a summer Saturday, it's a bit less crowded in December. Christmas is coming, so the craft booths offer every imaginable gift - hand-carved boxes, jewelry of all kinds, T-shirts, baby clothes, Peruvian sweaters, organic soaps and cosmetics.

And you can still buy vegetables, on the high stalls inside, and from the organic farmers outside. Guess which picture is which?

Island holiday

Several families gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving with L & D on Vashon. It's unusually warm weather for late November/early December, so an afternoon walk was a pleasure. Their nearest neighbor has turned much of his acreage into a park, where we were welcome to visit. An authentic Thai temple is one of the most interesting features.



Old millstones make wonderful steppingstones through a wetland.


Best description of the new house - "The three-car garage and caretaker's quarters for a five-bedroom mansion that never got built." But the main room accommodated 11 around a festive table.

Happy Thanksgiving, continued

I was tempted to reference Christmas in the heading for this post, but resisted - never mind that it's now less than a month away.

Soon the Christmas ships begin four weeks of evening parades, a welcome brightening of our dark season. Many participating boats live in marinas along the lake below this building, so we get extra chances to check out their colorful decorations. Grand finale happens December 23 at Gasworks Park, at the north end of the lake. That night so many boats crowd close to shore that it looks, from here, as if you could walk right across the lake without getting wet.

Listening to NPR on the aftermath of the carnage in Mumbai, I realize that since 9/11 I've grown used to hearing an interesting group of international commentators from the Middle East and elsewhere. A few speak the measured, precise English that most Americans can't manage any more - others are more difficult to follow. It's all good ear training.

In Transylvania, we become de facto English tutors for our interpreters (especially for the ones whose English teachers give them time off because "you'll learn more from working with the Americans.") It's true - we correct past participles, tangled syntax and pronunciation when we can, all the while complimenting these ambitious 17 and 18-year-olds on their proficiency. I think English must be a fiendish language to learn, but our Hungarian/Romanian speakers just laugh and assure us that French and German (which they also study) are MUCH more difficult.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If this were Facebook, the first line would be "Julie wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving."

What I'm really wondering is if the two friends who are spending the holiday in New York City went to the Macy's parade. Reports on NPR this morning made it sound fun, colorful - and cold!

Here we have a light gray day, with the sun working hard to break through. "Light gray" is a term I borrowed from a long-ago workmate, whose children (raised on the sunny side of the Cascades) informed her that there were three kinds of days in Puget Sound - light gray, medium gray and dark gray. It's an efficient way to sum up the weather, especially in winter, although this year we've had more sunny November weekends than usual.

Later today a neighbor and I are headed for the Edmonds ferry, to join friends in Kingston for dinner. On Saturday, L is cooking dinner for everyone at their new house on Vashon. Today she gets a welcome holiday from major food preparation because the restaurant is closed and they plan to spend the day quietly.

Last night I made two different recipes of Liptauer cheese, as contributions for various Thanksgiving feasts. Radio news was 90% Mumbai disasaters (BBC World Service, thanks to HD radio) with some amazing on-the-spot reports from reporters and survivors.

One businessman who lives in Mumbai said security around the Taj Mahal hotel had been noticeably increased in the past few weeks. When my brother visited India with a group last month, their original plan was to work part of the time in Mumbai. However, after a quick sightseeing visit, local contacts moved them quickly to a smaller city, explaining that Mumbai was not very safe.

Thinking about travel, and holidays

On a travel blog I follow, a recent thread was, "If you could go right now..."

Answers ranged from walking in Italy to a weekend in Las Vegas to Christmas markets in Europe.

I would probably have chosen Paris, since I was there last November. Today I even found this picture (blurry, but evocative) of the 2007 Christmas lights on the Champs Elysees.



This is the view from any bus crossing top of the boulevard, near the Arc de Triomphe. The hanging blue lights were long tubes, that contrasted with thousands of tiny white lights wrapped around tree trunks and branches. At the far end of the grand boulevard a tall Ferris wheel glittered on the Place de la Concorde.

Northern Europe has long dark evenings this time of year, but Christmas lights begin going up as soon as the All Saints/All Souls holidays are over. No Thanksgiving turkey to get in the way.

There are plenty of places a homesick American can find a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Paris (biggest one is the celebration at the American Church) but I was quite content with roast lamb at the local bistro. Although I like Thanksgiving, I have never been locked into a prescribed celebration.

My Canadian parents never fully accepted a late November celebration of a holiday they had always observed in October. "Turkey is for Christmas," my mother said - so we sometimes had pheasant or ham.

My husband had no desire to replicate his family's traditional Midwestern Thanksgivings, so our celebrations varied widely. Sometimes we went to the movies before dinner, sometimes we were at Vashon, sometimes we gathered with other families.

The Thanksgiving everyone remembers most fondly was the year we took Chinese takeout to Makapu'u Beach on Oahu, sitting on the rocks to eat after a couple of hours of swimming and body-surfing. Hawaii was digging out from the first hurricane in many years, and on the way to the beach we passed more than one family making a barbecue Thanksgiving in the yard of a roofless house. The sun was shining, the water was warm, electricity was on for most of the time - all good reasons to celebrate.

I like Thanksgiving in Transylvania, which falls the last weekend in September. It's a harvest festival, celebrated in church, and one of only four times a year that Transylvanian Unitarian churches include communion in their service. Afterwards everyone gathers for a dinner that, if you're lucky, will consist mostly of food grown locally.

Winter on its way...

But fall isn't quite over. Bright leaves and flowers lasted into November, and before the pumpkins all turned to mush, they made cannon-ball bursts of color everywhere.

In Fremont, there was even a Great Pumpkin, on top of a studio building. Why the Norwegian flag was flying I don't know.



Today I heard from a reader (how nice to know there are three or four of you out there!) that it was time to "get back to the blog." No more excuses - election is over, the world continues to whirl, unsteadily, and readers feel neglected. Music to my ears, of course.

Wednesday night the orchestra presented the winter program as an open rehearsal/concert at a big retirement home. We first had to move tables and chairs, since the concert hall is really the home's dining room, but setup went quickly, and it was nice to have enough space for stands, instruments and cases. We played for a small but friendly audience, the kind that talks cheerfully through quiet passages and applauds between movements of a suite. Most residents were involved in the bingo tournament downstairs.

Afterwards we moved all the tables and chairs back where they belonged, closely supervised by a staff member with a numbered diagram of the dining room. Amateur musicianship is a workout for muscles of many kinds.

Back on track, I hope

In the weeks leading up to the election, my internet life revolved around a couple of political blogs, with quick visits to Facebook for relief. (Not much relief there, as the cohort fretted as much over the campaign as I did.) As a distraction, I could worry about finances - ugh.

And now the election is over - but we still have a scary economy, and a frustrating interregnum, longest in the civilized world (let's not talk about Zimbabwe, where all parties are trying to sort out an election that happened last spring...)

Meanwhile, I turn to books (see previous post) and music. This fall I'm playing in a community orchestra as well as the Sousa Band. Some weeks that means three rehearsals - band, orchestra, and choir. So far this fall Sousa Band has played a couple of gigs (where we are usually squeezed into very small performing spaces, and it is a distinct disadvantage to play an instrument that you hold out to the side!) We have one more performance before going on winter hiatus. Orchestra and choir concerts are coming up.

My brother and I finally caught up this week. Reason we missed each other at the airport is that he took a different way out of customs in order to change planes. I waited at the top of the stairs where arriving passengers usually appear. Since I hadn't brought my cell phone (and he didn't have the number anyway) we never connected.

Their group had many thought-provoking experiences in India, especially in the orphanage where they did some work, and the "rescue house," a shelter for women rescued from prostitution (where some of the "women" were 10 and 11 years old.)

Their next trip is to Peru. I'm thinking of asking to be the token Unitarian among the Nazarenes.

For a couple of days it has NOT RAINED. Tonight I looked east over the lake in time to see the waning (but still fat) moon come up, bright orange behind streaks of black cloud. For a few minutes it resembled the saggy pumpkins decaying on front steps and balconies around the neighborhood. No time to get a picture - moonrise is swift.

Big anti-prop 8 demonstration in Seattle today. Counter-demonstrators were in place, promising fire and brimstone for sinners, but there were a lot of straight families out to support their gay friends.

Classics of all kinds

For the past couple of years I've been trying to focus on classics - books I had ignored or avoided for decades. So far this year I've re-read War and Peace, and tackled Anna Karenina, the Odyssey, and A Sentimental Education, among others. (Sentimental Education is wonderful, but I gave up on Madame Bovary, grieved, exasperated and furious at Emma's heedless, self-destructive behavior.)

As always, there's a big pile of books next to the bed. Some have place markers (wait right there, Moby Dick, I'll be back) and some have yet to be opened (The Anatomy of Melancholy.)

In between, I read mysteries. Thanks to an excellent Everyman's Library edition that contains four of his best works, I've just discovered Raymond Chandler, and his private eye, Philip Marlowe.

Marlowe is the archetype - a man with rough edges, a well-hidden heart, a strict private code of honor, a gun under his jacket, an ever-present cigarette, and a taste for trouble. (Garrison Keillor's "Guy Noir" is a direct steal - especially his frowsty office in the Acme Building.)

Not that you'd want to go there, but the stories capture Los Angeles of the 40's and early 50's so vividly that you could take a shooting script off almost any page. (Chandler spent several years as a highly-paid screenwriter - and quit when he had made enough to buy an ocean view house in La Jolla.)

Here, for example, is Chandler on "art moderne" decor:

"They had half the second floor of one of these candy-pink four-storied buildings where the elevator doors open all by themselves with an electric eye, where the corridors are cool and quiet, and the parking lot has a name on every stall, and the druggist off the front lobby has a sprained wrist from filling bottles of sleeping pills.

The door was French gray outside with raised metal lettering, as clean and sharp as a new knife...Inside was a small and ugly reception room, but the ugliness was deliberate and expensive. The furniture was scarlet and dark green, the walls were a flat Brunswick green, and the pictures hung on them were framed in a green about three shades darker than that. The pictures were guys in red coats on big horses that were just crazy to jump over high fences. There were two frameless mirrors tinted a slight but disgusting shade of rose pink..."

And so on. The books are period pieces. Women wear clothes to die for, prodigious amounts of alcohol are consumed, and cigarette smoke is pervasive as the LA smog. Be prepared for some jarring stereotypes - Chandler is anything but PC.

But how can you not keep reading when a line like this turns up on the first page -

"The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back."

Oh baby.

On a very important election night...

Polls just closed here, and at 8:02 I heard cheers, boat whistles and even firecrackers. It's New Year's Eve, a few weeks early.

I of course live in a firmly Democratic enclave, something I have thoroughly enjoyed after many years' residence in a Republican suburb (where two or three precincts could have their quadrennial caucuses in one average-size living room!) Now even that suburb is trending Democratic, at least in statewide races - who would have imagined it?

Tonight my only regret is that somehow my brother and I missed connecting at the airport, so I didn't get to hear about his trip to India first-hand. Although there is only one place that arriving international passengers can get to the baggage carousels, we still didn't find each other.

McCain is better than his supporters, who just booed when he said he had called to congratulate Obama. Later, the people at the Biltmore actually applauded. Still, McCain is rising above the level of his campaign. Let's hope the civility continues.

I liked the echoes of MLK in Obama's speech. For those of us who vividly remember 1968, tonight is the kind of leap into the future we never expected to live long enough to see.

Here's a link to a very nice post about voting in person, from my son's blog.

Five days to go -

And I've at least done my part, by sending off an absentee ballot, adding to what is becoming a flood, according to the elections department.

I used to vote in person, but that was when we lived in a suburb across the lake, and the polling place for almost everyone was the school you could see from the deck.

Now that I live in the middle of the city, the polling place for my precinct is a couple of miles away. Go figure.

In the midst of election anxiety, I got a good laugh from this post on Peter Pereira's blog.

Read it and giggle.

Juke box Saturday night...

It's actually the Bose radio that's pouring out those classic "Golden Age of Radio" songs, on "The Swing Years," the Saturday-night program on the local NPR station. If you're out of range of KUOW, the program streams on the web.

It's a good playlist. A little Spike Jones ("The Black-and-Blue-Danube Waltz,") some better-than-average Rosemary Clooney (a knock-out version of "There Will Never Be Another You.")

Now if Amanda, the host, will only play some Blossom Dearie, my evening will be complete!

So much chaos out there that it's hard to settle to a blog post. At choir the other night one woman said her brother-in-law, in Massachusetts, can't decide what is causing him more anxiety - the election, the economy, or the Red Sox!

(As of tonight, the Red Sox are doing just fine. Any good news is welcome!)

Z. reports fall foliage in Connecticut is lovely as advertised. As a New Englander born and bred, she will also be happy about the Red Sox.



Weather is beautiful here, too.

Facebook is much too fascinating at times. Although the fragmentary posts make the average e-mail message look like a full-fledged essay, they can be informative, incisive, amusing, mysterious, or just bracingly silly.

Silly gets you through a lot.

Family is scattered this weekend. Z is at Wesleyan, I and L are in Portland, D is holding the fort on Vashon.

And my brother, a retired nuclear engineer, just called from SeaTac, where he was about to board a plane for London, on the way to Mumbai. His group will spend 2-1/2 weeks working at an orphanage in a smaller Indian city, returning Election Day.

On the way home they have a layover in London that's long enough for an express trip into the city and a bus tour.

In the past couple of years he has participated in projects in the Ukraine (once) and Argentina (twice.) Before that, he and his wife went on a number of church-building trips to Mexico. Now she stays home with the kitty and listens to his stories when he returns.

Here above the lake tonight, it's Sparky the cat, Mae West (singing "Come Up and See Me Sometime") and me.

R. I. P. Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello

Who knew Eurydice was born in Pittsburgh?

Certainly I didn't, when I first saw "Black Orpheus" in the 60's. Here's more information and lots of links.

At the time, true cinephiles (and self-important student movie fanatics) dismissed the film, preferring Cocteau's "Orphée" (if you can sit through that one without falling asleep, let me know. Even the motorcycles woke me only briefly.) "Black Orpheus" won a prize at Cannes in 1959, and the music never went away - thanks in part to Vince Guaraldi's jazz version. In a later capsule review, Pauline Kael called the film "greatly admired in its time," but concluded that Marpessa Dawn was worth a trip to Hell.

A couple of years ago, I went with two 30-something film fans to see a refurbished print of the movie at the Seattle International Film Festival. From the first scene, a crowd of samba-playing carnival goers departing a ferry in Rio (why can't Seattle ferry trips be more like that?) the audience was caught up. At the end, one of my companions said, "You could live in that movie."

Another Sunday market

Best Sunday farmer's market is the one in Ballard, a short bus ride or longish walk away.

Yesterday it was crowded with people enjoying the sunshine and the abundant produce. Among my favorite stands are the cheese makers (especially the one that features small fat drum-shaped crottons of fresh chèvre, plain or herb-crusted.)

Vegetables were definitely the stars yesterday. Here is one I had never seen before - a white eggplant.



And what better picture subjects can you find than tomatoes and peppers?

And it looked like a thousand ...

I admit to exaggerating. According to Z., surveying the stage from her place in the Chorale, there were only 400 + musicians on stage for last night's Seattle Symphony performance of Mahler's 8th, also known as the Symphony of 1000. (Besides the Symphony and the chorale, another adult choir, a boy choir and extra musicians in almost every section of the orchestra took part.)

Also included: four trumpets and four trombones stationed in a left front box in McCaw Hall, adding their volume at two points in the 85-minute work. (No intermission, so pre-performance lines in the WC were formidable!)

At times volume was ear-shattering, but the piannissimi were as passionately intense, and the audience was as attentive as any I have ever seen at a concert. It was a treat to hear some long-time Seattle Opera singers among the eight soloists, especially Vinson Cole and Jane Eaglen.

Z's sister was here from the East Coast, enjoying Seattle's sudden return to sunshine and warmth. L. took the evening off from settling into her new home on Vashon to join us for dinner and the concert.

Friday night we we paid her a visit at work, as we crowded around a tiny table at Txori. It's her last Friday evening shift for a while, so we weren't the only friends and family to stop by to eat and say a quick hello. Txori features small plates and piquant combinations of flavors. As a starter, L. sent us a plate of small slices of soft ripe goat cheese with a few slices of sautéed apple. From there we managed our own orders to a point, then said to the waiter, "Please ask L. what else we need."

That brought out dessert - a miniature orange-saffron flan and a two-bite dish of chocolate mousse, sprinkled with a few hot pepper flakes.

If there's really an economic downturn coming, no one in Belltown seems worried. On Friday night the restaurant was packed with the young and glamorous, and when we later walked Z's sister back to her downtown hotel, we had to weave through sidewalk crowds. Every cafe with outside tables was full, and a popular small bar had a pileup of people at the door, hoping to find a place inside.

(In reference to the previous post, I'm now cranky with Obama for picking up the "Main Street" tag. But I am still cheering him on.)

What am I doing right now?

Recently, prompted by curiosity, I joined Facebook. So far I've done nothing more to my page than post a couple of short notes and check from time to time to see what Facebook friends (mostly people met through my children) are doing.

Quirkiest thing about Facebook is a box at the top of the page that says, "What are you doing right now?" You can post an update, an observation, a reminder, a reaction, long or short.

"Throwing her hands up in the air as if she doesn't care," is the latest note from one friend, the mother of two lively, intelligent children under 5. Perfectly understandable.

What I'm doing right now is trying to work out why this week's constant iteration of "Wall Street vs. Main Street" irritates me so much, especially when it comes from John McCain.

Part of it is McCain's phony folksiness, his shameless pandering to any group that will help him get elected.

Only a person completely out of touch with contemporary America actually believes "Main Street" still exists, outside of Disneyland.

Let me expand. Once, every town, no matter how small or remote, had a business center - a downtown. Washtucna had a mercantile, a grain elevator, a post office and a drugstore. Wilson Creek had a square-built bank, and several stores. (Washtucna is on the way to Benge and Endicott. Wilson Creek is halfway between Stratford and Marlin. You need a good map.)

Moscow, Idaho, where I grew up, had a flourishing business district, as it was central shopping for the region's prosperous farms and smaller communities. Main Street offered three department stores, two drugstores, a men's store, a women's store, a sporting goods store, two flower shops, two or three cafes, a Chinese restaurant, a book and paper goods store, a furniture store, the state liquor store, a travel agency and at least two real estate offices. You could buy meat, office supplies, shoes, cosmetics, fabric and patterns, mail a letter, pay the electric bill - all within a few blocks.

Little towns lost their business districts to the automobile and population shifts. Bigger places, like Moscow, fell victim to the mall, which sucked major stores away from town centers.

Because it is a university town, Moscow still has a Main Street, of sorts. The largest department store long ago turned into a very dubious club, the book and paper goods store is now the University art gallery, the men's store is a coffee house, as is one of the former flower shops. There is a good book store, and a cafe I remember from high school days is still doing business in its familiar location. The Chinese restaurant never moved or remodeled - the owners have just updated the kitchen equipment and put fresh varnish on the vintage wooden booths and paneling. (The food is good, too.)

It's not bad - just different, and a bit frustrating if you want more than ephemeral fashion, a meal or a cup of coffee. It's also livelier, on most days, than either of the two malls that mushroomed out of former wheat fields sometime in the late 60's. Siphoning business from both malls is Wal-Mart, still further out of town - another familiar story.

So - Main Street, as the mythmakers imagine it, is gone. As a reaction to malls, old downtowns have developed new ways to attract visitors, and one very healthy development is the weekly farmers/crafts market. Old hotels become residences, and small businesses hang on. The tiny towns will never come back, but mid-size places - especially small university towns - remain attractive.

But I still want Republican politicians to stop going on about "Main Street" (unless they are prepared to spend money for infrastructure and education improvement.)

So far, that only happens at Disneyland.

Closer to the end of summer...

It was bound to happen (I like the French for this: "ça devait arrivé.) Late last week, gray cold weather returned, and yesterday we got rain. Today was mostly clear (fortunately for the Fremont Octoberfest) but serious rain returned tonight.

No pictures, unless I add this one, of the three buildings just below here, so heavily wrapped in plastic that they resemble tents put up for some colossal event. (This picture is from last weekend - now you see nothing but yards and yards of white.)


Under the plastic each building is having a completely new outer layer applied. Reason is the same old thing - dryvit, an artificial stucco. See this for some of the gory details.

My building is ALSO faced with dryvit, but so far (another great French expression here - "porvu que ça dure" - meaning, roughly, "let's hope we keep dodging this bullet,") we've escaped a major resurfacing. (We did have a falling tree that wiped out a couple of balconies, but that is another story.)

For something completely different, if you're an archaeology fancier, check out this blog.

And did you know there is a Facebook group called, "I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin"?

Difficulties about the moon ...

All I wanted was a picture of the lovely, almost-full moon rising over the lake. The result is not so spectacular as the original (the eye reads the moon as MUCH larger than it appears here) but it's a record, of sorts.

Our warm late summer continues. This afternoon a couple of my neighbors ushered at a sparsely-attended production of a new, somewhat impenetrable, play. They agreed it was much more interesting to talk about afterwards, over wine on the deck. On evenings like this, no one wants to go in, because soon enough there will be little incentive to sit outside.

Weather is perfect for the boat show this weekend, and for all the activities at the Center for Wooden Boats.


The center is adjacent to the new park at the foot of Lake Union, which incorporates a former Navy facility (including the armory.)


There is plenty of dock space for boats of all sizes - including my favorite, the Virginia V. She's a steamship, last of the so-called "Mosquito Fleet" that used to carry passengers all over Puget Sound, now restored and available for charter. The distinctive blast of her whistle punctuates summer weekends.

Not quite the end of summer ...

About halfway through Labor Day weekend, summer returned for a brief encore here in the NW corner.

All the better to observe a convergence of birthdays and anniversaries, most of them happy.

Best place for this is Vashon, where last weekend my son celebrated his 40th. Although I lost track of just how many friends filtered through the cabin during the weekend, I do know we set 17 places for Sunday night's dinner. Guests ranged in age from 3 weeks on up. Nice to have a couple of 8-year olds running in and out, taking semi-supervised outings to the beach below the house ("Stay where we can see you!") and returning with handfuls of shells and "really interesting" stones. Puzzles and games that have been on the shelves for 30-plus years still have power to attract, even when a TV and videos are available.

(Thanks to Mary for the pictures!)

Patriotic interlude ...

Playing tourist in your own city is always fun, especially when you can reach some really nice places on public transportation.

Today I went to West Seattle, specifically Alki Beach, where a reduced-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty was unveiled as part of a community festival.


The statue was first erected in 1952, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Denny Party, first European settlers in Seattle. Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts raised money for the original statue, and they were present in force for today's celebration. Very important to the effort to recast and remount the statue was a man who took part in the original ceremony when he was a Scout. Today these Cub Scouts were intent on their beach catapult, lobbing small water-filled plastic bags at the troop members in the canoe! It was definitely a sanctioned activity - the bags were small, not many reached the canoe, and the cubs no doubt learned many valuable skills while building the catapult!

Near the beach, a wedding party drifted here and there. "We've lost our photographer," said the bridesmaids I met along the walk.


"We can't go on the beach," they said to the little girls. "We have pretty shoes on."

Because they were so decorative, I offered to take their picture.

And since this is Seattle, and a public occasion, and a lovely day, a troupe of cyclists wearing nothing much more than body paint and helmets whizzed by the crowd, drawing a few cheers (and a bit of eye-rolling.)

More about West Seattle here.

Is it November 5 yet?

I'm sorry, but this, the longest campaign on record, is beginning to lose me. Of course I'll vote, but until then could we please have some conversation about the real problems facing the country, as opposed to mindless shouts of "USA! USA!" Not to mention tiptoeing around the Republicans' VP choice because she is a woman. Any woman who refers to herself as a pit bull should be prepared for newspaper interviews, at the very least.

All week I've taken advantage of HD radio to avoid convention broadcasts. (What - it was on TV too? Amazing.) But last night, returning from choir practice, I flipped on the car radio, just in time to hear JM shouting above the roaring crowd, "Stand up and fight! Stand up and fight!" Commentators said other parts of the speech were offered to an audience almost reverently silent, but you cannot prove that by me.

Is this America 2008 or Germany 1933?

Earlier this week NPR flashed back to the 1964 Republican convention, and Barry Goldwater's famous assertion that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice..." Etc.

That summer I worked in SF, for a small film company. Our cadre of free-lance cameramen - all WWII vets, all passionate New Deal Democrats - worked the convention, and their unanimous opinion, after a week of listening to the rhetoric and being pushed around by overly zealous security people, was, "This is America's Munich."

Further adventures of Sparky.

Yesterday Sparky went AWOL, probably quite early in the morning, probably not intentionally. She often walks along the outside edge of our third floor balcony (as I hold my breath and try not to startle her!) and once or twice has slipped right off.

Fortunately, the ground underneath the balcony is spongy with ivy and dead leaves. After two previous "outside events," she appeared uninjured, and a little more cautious, but after such a long time (3 years) it's easy to forget.

Since I have always found her within a few feet of where she landed (but only when she wants to be found) I went through the usual drill yesterday - several forays around the building, calling, pushing aside underbrush and branches, thinking about leaving a trail of bonito flakes (her favorite treat.) Nothing worked until after dark, when a neighbor and I went out with flashlights. I shined the light into a tangle of roots and branches underneath a big laurel - and there she was, wet, staring-eyed, but unharmed.

Today I've kept the deck door closed. All day. And yes, I will finally find a way to block the place where she slips through the deck railing.

Worst part of searching for kitty yesterday was thinking I might have to add to the collection of "missing cat" posters accumulating on light poles around the neighborhood. Three local pets have disappeared in the last couple of months, and we're beginning to wonder just what is out there. Raccoons, which can be dangerous to cats, are a familiar sight, but now we wonder if the greenbelt is supporting a coyote. They've been seen in other parts of Seattle - with disappearing pets often the first sign of their presence.

As I trolled the perimeter of the building, I kept thinking about a major character in Kafka on the Shore - the one who returns lost cats to their owners - because he can talk to them. (Later he loses the ability, though the cats don't realize it.)

You have to read the book.

If you don't like the weather here - wait a minute...

After last weekend's rain, we're now getting a bit of really hot weather (well, it's hot for here - 89-ish today, and sticky.)

Tradeoff is being able to sit out much later than usual, and watch a huge round moon, the color of panna cotta, rise over the lake.

Finally finished Travels With Herodotus. While returning it to the closest branch library, I found (filed under "H" instead of "M") Kafka on the Shore, a Murakami novel I've been meaning to read for a year or two.

Murakami goes well with this.

Dog days are not so bad.

Because it rains here...

Even in summer (the real secret of Seattle weather is that there is NEVER a month without rain. Sometimes there isn't WEEK without rain.)

Yesterday I went to Volunteer Park, to catch my son's latest appearance (as Chief Weasel) in a theater-in-the-park adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows." After some preliminary sprinkles to which no one paid any attention, the skies opened up. Hardened rain-shruggers all, the audience pulled on plastic ponchos, opened umbrellas or dived under blankets - but finally the rain was too much for everyone, and the cast bade us a reluctant good-bye.

"Come back tomorrow!"

Of course. I have to find out how Ratty and Mole saved Toad from himself. This time I'll take a folding chair, to get off the wet ground!

The WWSRC (Wicked West Side Reunion Committee) met yesterday morning to swap stories and make notes on what we learned about putting on a 50th reunion. This could become a habit, as the stories (both old and new) get better with each gathering (even over a 9 a.m. breakfast at Denny's!)

Concert nerves? Not now.

But earlier today -- never mind. It's possible to play with shaking knees - just smile when you're finished and no one will ever know!

Everything went well. Our flute quartet performed about midway through sampler this morning. My three fellow performers were over some of their jitters because their other group was the opening act, at 8:45 a.m. Only (!) 48 acts total, and everything finished by noon, right on time.

After that it was box lunch, then final rehearsals, then some of us took a walk into downtown Walla Walla, where the main street was blocked off for a YMCA basketball tournament that seemed to involve about 1,000 very tall teenagers who had all their friends and family there to cheer them on.

Just before the final concert began, our 11-member Medieval Women's group (aka "Mea Culpa Chorale") finally had time to do the two numbers we've practiced since Wednesday - substituting the two-story foyer of the concert hall for a cathedral (not many of those in this part of the world.) We resonated beautifully - and probably got more attention than if we had been able to perform elsewhere.

Best surprise for the band came when our dapper director (who led the U.S. Navy Band for many years) stepped on stage - in full naval commander's dress uniform. This after telling us he would probably wear "nice slacks and a dark shirt." For the audience, the other surprise was that the number listed in the program as "March for the Class of 1907" was actually a new arrangement of "Anchors Aweigh." We were sworn to secrecy all week, and in dress rehearsal played only the very first section so as not to give away the real name of the piece.

Final event tomorrow morning is a gathering down by this lovely stream that runs through the Whitman campus. Then I get to go home!

Walla Walla Sweets

In Seattle, it's Rachel, the Pike Place Market pig. Five years ago, in Vienna, I photographed life-size models of Lippizan horses, fancifully painted and decorated. In Chicago, Mrs. O'Leary's cow appears on the streets from time to time.

Here in Walla Walla, they've incorporated their iconic onion into the art scene. Not pictured here is my favorite - decorated to resemble Blue Willow chinaware, complete with a picture representing pioneer life.

Music camp races along, as everyone prepares for "sampling" on Saturday morning (60 groups, each given a very brief time to perform) and the final orchestra, band and choir concert on Saturday evening. Adult music camps are full of the same people you knew at music camp in high school - those who practice all the time, some who never practice, the ones who would rather do ANYTHING than practice (but do it anyway.) At music camp everyone plays all day, and some stay up to play half the night.

"Best week of my life," said someone this morning.

Now I have to go practice.

Famous potatoes?

The Palouse is wheat country, not potato fields (those are in Southern Idaho, or the Columbia Basin of Washington) but at this time of year the Saturday farmer's market is filled with vegetables and fruits of all sorts.

The market has been going for about 30 years now. From a handful of farmer stands, it has grown to include arts and crafts, fruit and vegetables from a wide geographical area, local honey and preserves, and food cooked on the premises.

For breakfast last Saturday I had a fruit kebab and a borek from a Turkish food stand, followed by espresso and an Egyptian pastry. If you had suggested, 50 years ago, that such food would be available anywhere in the area, never mind an open market on Saturday morning, I'd have been astonished.

Some things in the old home town never change. Hollyhocks still flourish in alleys.

The dog ate my WiFi...

Not really, though the hotel connection was down all day Saturday. On Sunday, after the final event of the reunion (a well-attended brunch) I decompressed with a long nap.

Fine reunion. All the work the committee did was worth it, and those attending were lavish with praise. Having the Friday night gathering at our former junior high school (pictured above) was worth the cost just to see the building. Although it has been extensively renovated, there were just enough reminders of its former self to bring out the junior high stories.

Best memorabilia award goes to the committee member who brought his collection of every single issue of the high school newspaper, saved through who knows how many moves. He and a couple of others also brought high school dance pictures, for an unexpected nostalgia trip.

"Remember corsages?" one man said to another, miming the tricky job of pinning a corsage onto your date's strapless gown, with her parents watching.

Amber waves ...

Driving across Washington state on a summer Thursday is 300 miles of widely varying landscape. You start from the city and its suburbs and exurbs, drive through the forested coastal mountins, and come out on the other side at the beginning of the dry country. There are ranches and small settlements, with distant vistas of rocky peaks, and then, on the way down to the Columbia, the huge dry hills begin.

Across the Columbia is basalt country - bones of the earth, left after huge prehistoric floods scoured out this path to the ocean. Now the bones protrude from grass and sage-covered plateaus, their columnar structure speaking to ancient lava activity. High pasture land alternates with irrigated farms. Now and again a smell of mint fills the car (the reward for previous whiffs of skunk or feed lot!)

From the Columbia on, the road is 2-lane (there is a freeway, farther north, but those heading to the Palouse use Highway 26.) Yesterday most of the traffic seemed to be trucks and huge harvesting equipment moving from place to place. On an infamous 26-mile straight stretch from Othello eastward, the road sometimes disappeared into wide shiny mirages, the exact color of the sky.

In the Palouse, harvesting hasn't quite begun, and the hills are every color from pale green to -- honestly -- amber. If you grew up here, no one ever has to explain "amber waves of grain."

I brought two cameras. This morning I went outside a bit late to take good pictures of the hills, but there will be other opportunities.

A number of classmates arrived last night, and more are coming in today. Many of us are staying at the same motel/convention center, and we all walk around looking at likely groups of 60-somethings, wondering...

What I like best is remembering someone's name a split second after they have enthusiastically recognized me!

Greetings from Moscow

Just one of the many "other Moscows." There are at least seven in the US - but only one in Idaho, fortunately.

Admittedly it was odd to grow up here in the 50's, during the cold war, and go to Moscow High School, whose mascot was a bear and whose colors were red and white.

Now that we're here to make that 50th reunion happen, here's the latest incarnation of the mascot. A committee member suggested the medallion as a reunion souvenir, and found the design and a manufacturer that produced this highly satisfactory result.