Vashon

Nice time at Vashon with son & daughter-in-law, visiting, reading, relaxing, listening to this, the best Saturday night program ever. Son/chef made sourdough bread, a vegetable-and-smoked salmon frittatta, and a salad with greens & beets. Lots of the ingredients fresh from the farmers' market that morning.

Later we checked out the hot tub, listening for splashing out on the water that might or might not be marine mammals. You never know. (One Christmas we were entertained by four harbor seals that cavorted and vocalized near the beach.)

Best wildlife sighting this trip came when DIL and I had to slow the car to let a cock pheasant strut across the road this morning.

It was very early - we were on our way to the 7:10 a.m. ferry, so we could be on time for choir practice and two services. This is true devotion to music!

Spring - finally?

Snow is NOT predicted this weekend -- at least not here! It may at last be possible to put away the silk long johns and Smartwool socks.


I'm celebrating by heading for Vashon Island, a place close by but a little removed from ordinary life because you can only get there by ferry. World War II interrupted plans for a grand system of bridges to link Vashon to the mainland and then to the Kitsap Peninsula. Now no one suggests this kind of construction (though a few new ferries would be nice!)

Chickadees have definitely moved in. For a couple of weeks they have been flying back and forth, in and out of the box, but I could never see that they were carrying nesting materials. Today one of the birds paused on a favorite perch - a handy potted privet - long enough for me to see the piece of fluff in its beak.

From my bed, I can see the the chickadees approach the box, then watch it swing while they busy themselves inside. Sparky does a lot of birdwatching from her cat tree (safely indoors), making chattery hunting noises.

Part of blogging fun is to check all that fascinating information out on the web. I am always attracted to stories about archaeological excavations, especially when the finds include jewelry. This necklace is from Peru - read the story here.

Catching up with Transylvania

This morning I got e-mail, the first in a very long time, from a friend who lives in Kolozsvar (Cluj Napoca) Romania.

I first met Rozsa five years ago, in Torockószentgyörgy, a tiny Transylvanian village where her family has lived for longer than any of them can remember, or even guess. She was one of our "scholarship girls," a handful of bright, ambitious students who studied English diligently enough to be our interpreters during week-long stays in the village.


(Why Transylvania? Why a week-long stay in a village that isn't even on most maps? Long story, most easily summed up like this: The Unitarian Church was established in Transylvania in the 1560's, and has hung on, through war, famine, pestilence, and countless changes of government and borders. Today, most Transylvanian Unitarians are Hungarian by ethnicity and inclination, Romanian by citizenship, a double minority. Before WW2, a few American, Canadian and English Unitarian churches had connections to some Transylvanian churches. After the fall of the Ceasescu regime, in 1990, American Unitarians re-established partnership with Transylvania. Because of the strong interest of our former minister, my church became one of the earliest partners. More about the UUPCC here. Since 1999, our Partner Church group has sponsored a trip to the village approximately every two years. )

So - Rozsa. Torockószentgyörgy. In contrast to our other scholarship girls, whose goals ranged from "work in tourism" to "communications" and "computers," Rozsa had a specific vocation in mind - to be a pharmacist. "My family had to sell a cow to pay for my first year," she said. "I have to be able to find a job."

She finished her training and found work in a pharmacy in Kolozsvar. The work is hard, and even with credentials, life is not easy in Romania. This morning she wrote, "I'm still working in the same pharmacy,but I have so much work to do,and learn a lot of new things. At the begining of December the program it changed a lot. . . now at the begining of this month the prescriptions for the patients changed,and now I have an extra thing to do, cause they are mking huge mistakes,and we are talking about a human life. Like everything in our country is going backwards."

Last year Romania entered the EU. For the villages, this is good news and bad news. Good, in that EU funds have been available for several years now to make needed improvements to infrastructure. Bad, because EU agricultural rules create huge difficulties for the subsistence farming culture of small Transylvanian villages. This article says it better than I can.

Transylvania is a beautiful place. Ignore the Dracula babble - the attraction, for me at least, is this "pre-industrial" (to quote the article) landscape. There is little sprawl, there are woods and green fields and hills and twisty mountain roads that snake through villages where people have mined for gold since the Romans. And incredibly hard-working, resilient, hospitable people.

Here's one of the local landmarks. "14th century," someone said - but who knows? It commands a splendid view of the village and its valley.

Poetry class.

Every Monday night since March 17 I've attended the poetry class, and I'm already sad about the conflict that will keep me from it next week.

It's a diverse group, that includes some experienced poets, some experienced writers who have not previously tried poetry, and one or two who seem new to both writing and poetry.

Everyone has something interesting to offer, and now, well into the class, we're comfortable enough with each other to bring very personal poems to class. Tonight one of the good poets, a woman in her 70's, said, "I never thought I would write a poem that referred to breasts and nursing."

But she did it. Very well, too.

The other amazing poem was a three-part, three-page elegy, called a choreography, for a daughter, born three months premature, who lived three days. I marveled that the poet could read it without tears - I could not have begun to get through it aloud. (I could barely offer a comment without feeling tearful.)

It was a brilliant piece. The poet, a former singer, writes operatic verse - I imagined this elegy, full of musical references, being sung to a huge audience that would have remained quiet to the very end, for fear of missing a single note.

Both these ladies are utterly humble when offered praise. It is hard to convince them they have knocked our collective socks off.

"Waiting for Godot"

Last night I had the pleasure of watching my son fully inhabit the part of Vladimir ("Didi"), one of the two main characters in Beckett's well known play. It's a challenging part in a challenging play, and all four actors got well-deserved applause at the end.

I enjoyed the play far more than I expected (and not just because my favorite actor was in it!) Years ago one of the local professional theaters did "Godot," with a Famous New York Actor as the star. The production seemed so pointless and distasteful that I left at intermission.

In this fringe theater staging, I could finally see the humor - and real pathos - inherent in the play. Anyone who has ever tried to communicate with an Alzheimer's patient will get reminiscent jolts from much of the second act interplay between Vladimir and Estragon ("Gogo.")

The venue is a classic "black box" theater - an irregularly-shaped basement space, furnished with second-hand ranks of seats, enlivened (?) by ambient noise from the restaurant upstairs. (Rumor has it that the theater bought felt stick-ons for the restaurant chairs and tables.) The foyer, separated from the performance space by black curtains, has enough room for small cabaret performances. Last night its collection of miscellaneous chairs was distributed along the walls. On the most comfortable-looking one, a hand-made sign said "No. Don't sit here." In an alcove, strings of muliple white Christmas lights outlined a tiny bar.

The things we do for love give us our full humanity.

Knitting with Cats (while listening to French pop)

(Or perhaps "Knitting in spite of cats.)

When Sparky was a kitten, it was impossible to work with yarn when she was awake. Now that she is older, she often seems content to leave my knitting alone, provided she can sprawl across my lap. Aside from forcing me into some rather cramped knitting positions at times, this is progress. Sometimes she even ignores yarn running under some part of her - until she suddenly wakes up and decides it's time to attack.

Tonight I think she just wanted to keep warm. Outside the temperature is in the low 30's, and earlier in the evening we had snow, sleet and hail, as a major cold front blew in. More snow may fall tomorrow. This weather is wearing everyone down.

I've been playing music by my favorite French pop singer, Francis Cabrel, whose songs I first heard in 1993, during a month spent studying French in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Music of all sorts played a big part in classes throughout the day - teachers often started class by playing a favorite song, as a way to focus student attention. A couple of staff members were professional musicians, who could sing along with their favorites.

Listening to French songs is the best way I know to learn the subjunctive - if you can sing the line the conjugation sticks in your mind forever! Cabrel's songs take on the world - from love and family life, to depopulated French villages, to the life of immigrants, to the melancholy of a seaside resort "hors saison" - out of season. One of his biggest hits is "Corrida," a description of a bullfight - from the point of view of the bull.

Bits and pieces.

First, a bit more about public radio.

-- KUOW reached its pledge goal in a bit less than a week, and, as promised, immediately cut off the drive. Reassuring that fund-raising went so well in gloomy economic times.

-- Daniel Schorr continues to make trenchant, forthright analyses of current events. Someone suggested a few years ago that he be named a National Treasure (as the Japanese do for eminent persons of advanced age.) Just in case you didn't hear it the day it was broadcast, here is a commentary on the urgent need for oversight and regulation and adult supervision in our current government.

And an enjoyably snarky article about M. Sarkozy,aka "President Bling Bling." The most recent issue of Paris Match was packed with pictures and adulatory prose about the visit he and Carla made to London a couple of weeks ago. Example: a cover line: "Carla wins the Battle of Britain." It's just as silly in French.

Reward for reading this far: a link to my favorite web cam - in Venice.

Happy imaginary voyaging.

"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past."

Faulkner's line covers an immense number of situations (just a few words of it also generate an astonishing number of Google hits - I checked.)

Last week the past popped up at Fremont and 34th, when city crews scraped off a substantial layer of cracked, uneven paving. Underneath, the intersection was partially paved with bricks (very common here), but the real reason for lumps in the old asphalt proved to be - train tracks.

Making a smooth curve from 34th to Fremont, right past "Waiting for the Interurban," was a section of the old Interurban track. To the west, a tangle of tracks was a reminder that this part of Fremont, now given over to office buildings, condos and retail, used to be filled with mills, workshops and marine businesses of all kinds.

Unfortunately (but a good thing in terms of traffic!) I didn't get back with the camera before new, thick, smooth paving went in. But it's interesting to know those tracks are still there.

Our lovely spring lasted one day, and is not coming back for a while. At least we got a glimpse of what could be - and the rhodies are emerging, even in the cold and rain.

Public radio

My public radio station (yours too, I suspect) is fund-raising right now. One morning last week I spent 4 hours answering pledge phones, enjoying conversations with listeners and the company of other volunteers in the studio. Our station, KUOW, treats pledge volunteers very well. We get a comfortable place to answer phones, lots of staff help when needed, tempting food and drink, and plenty of thank-you's. These people know how to motivate volunteers!

I've listened to NPR forever, and it pleases me that my children, instead of reacting against their early brainwashing, now are dedicated listeners themselves.

An interesting new wrinkle is HD. This little radio mysteriously brings in not just KUOW, but also two other channels (when the blue light stops flashing.) One channel offers various NPR programs KUOW doesn't carry, as well as an interesting selection of CBC and European radio programs. Third channel is BBC World Service - a treat to hear during the day instead of the middle of the night.

On CBC, I've now heard two parts of a 3-part discussion of Don Quixote, which may be just enough to encourage me to finish the fat paperback version (Edith Grossman translation) I bought last year. (It's one of too many fat paperbacks stacked on the bedside shelf.)

The program is worth hearing just for the classic British take on the title - "Don Kwixoat." Spoken in the best of academic accents. The Canadian host and all North American and European scholars interviewed all spin out impeccable Spanish.

Spring for a day or two -

The Skagit Valley Tulip festival has been in progress since April 1, with or without tulips. Word is that they are finally appearing, so visitors should be able to anticipate scenes like this:



Years ago, a nurseryman we knew said northwesterners are like houseplants - they complain if the temperature is much above or below 60 degrees. Obsessed? Perhaps. But this year, after the coldest spring in memory, it's more than usually welcome to hear that tomorrow is supposed to be our warmest day in 6 months!

Next week the cool wet weather returns, so I'll get a few more days wear out of the scarf I finished earlier this week. Its official name should be "Plan B," since, after knitting the entire back section of that sweater (see post #2) I had to face the fact that there definitely was not enough yarn to finish. (No chance to buy more - not only the yarn but the company that produced it disappeared several years ago!)

So - I can look forward (?) to another evening of ripping out part of a garment. This time I'll even wet the yarn and hang it to dry with weights, as the Vogue Knitting Book instructs. Somewhere there's a pattern that will work!

Meanwhile, I had so much fun making the brown scarf that I immediately started another, this time in some blue/green cotton yarn by Manos del Uruguay.

Sunday market

The Sunday flea market is getting bigger each week, a sure sign that warmer weather is ahead. We have the market all year, thanks to a handful of diehard dealers who are willing to bundle up and spend 6 hours outside under minimal shelter - and the ones who are able to stake out space in a big parking garage that's turned over to them every Sunday.

Because of construction and space requirements, the market has moved around during the past few years, but it seems quite firmly landed now. A year or two ago, market operators were sued by clients of a nearby health club, pushed out of shape (no pun intended - I think!) because they had to walk farther than a few steps from their cars to their workout. The suit was dismissed, not before it generated some derisive letters to the editor.

It's a flea market - you can buy Peruvian hand-knit hats, old magazines, 70's clothes, new clothes made to LOOK like 70's clothes (good grief!), shoes to go with them all, dishes plain and fancy, pictures of vaguely Mediterranean scenes painted on old windowpanes, odd hanging objects made from straightened out and shined up silver forks and spoons - that sort of thing. There are coin and jewelry dealers, and a table full of old typewriter keys and Scrabble tiles.

The French call it "brocante," and a dealer from Paris would feel right at home in this market. Occasionally you find a real treasure.

Best after-market stop is a favorite coffee shop, located conveniently nearby.

More reunion thoughts.

Responses to the reunion mailing are beginning to come in. We're hoping for a big turnout, but wonder just how many people are out there. I worry when envelopes come back with a yellow "undeliverable" sticker.

After so many years away, it's easy to think of our town as it was in this picture. (One of my classmates swears he knows who owned the two-tone green car in the foreground!)



However, another classmate, who still lives on her family's farm, reminds me that things have changed. In the past few years, her neighborhood has suffered from wild parties and drug trafficking, and she says only the snow that blanketed the area from December to March calmed things a bit this winter. "You knew the town at its best," she says.

Not that it was ever a perfect place. I remember an afternoon in about 1954 when a veteran, bored or suffering from flashbacks, spent an hour or two firing random shots out the window of a ramshackle apartment building about two blocks from the house I grew up in.

There's a novel about our town, based around a murder in 1901 and a double suicide in 1902. The house where the murder happened still stands - across the street from the church involved in a shooting last spring.

Why I like living here --

A few years after I moved to Seattle, the marina just below our building went through a major remodel, including the addition of this clock tower.

It's nice to be able to see from my window, but twice a year I wait impatiently for it to spring forward or fall back.

This year it was nearly three weeks before the clock changer came to visit (I always imagine that scene from the Harold Lloyd comedy...) but at last Julie's Landing is in sync with the rest of the street.

The snow finally stopped, just in time for April Fool's Day! Really. We had snow, or mixed snow and rain (depending on location) on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. In some places 4 inches accumulated - and stayed for a day or two.

Finally the weather is warming up - not before everyone is ready for it. Best thing about the cold March is that flowers lasted for weeks. Now leaves on the early-blossoming trees are cautiously venturing out.