The Cat and the Christmas tree

At Bianca's house Honeysuckle has taken up a permanent watch of the family Christmas tree and appears to be mesmerized by its beauties and the temptations of the dangling, shiny baubles. 

 

 

baby its cold outside

OK, so it is not Russian winter cold.  But it is a real cold spell for Seattle. Not getting out of the 20's during the daytime is almost epic.     I have the good fortune to have a great hair stylist who is from Russia.  We were talking coats the other day.  She said that coats are very, very important there.  And expensive.   People take out loans to buy coats like we do to buy cars here.  We are talking thousands $$ .  She showed me the beautiful coat she wore that day.   It brought back to me the scenes from Dr. Zhivago.  I always loved that mink coat and hat that Julie Christie wore.  . 



1950s the street in front of my house

I used to go out to play in almost the same outfit that Omar Sharif has on.  Sadly no picture. I would come home from school, put on a very similar tweed coat and as a final touch belted it.  Then I felt ready to role play almost anything in the snow piles and ice of a Yakima winter.  I don't know why I liked that outfit so much.  Maybe it was a subconscious manifestation of my Germans from Russia DNA.
                                    
                                        Brrrr...

frozen in motion fountain in West Seattle

Friendly Encounter






 I've heard of the Cat in the Hat but a cat on a leash?   This 5 month old kitty was being taken for a walk in the busy Junction area of West Seattle.   It looked so comically wrong.  She was slinking low to the ground, ears flat,  looking really, really uncomfortable.  Definitely not walking to heel.   Bianca couldn't resist saying hello and I was reassured by her human companion that kitty's claws were clipped.   Oh the degradations of being a city cat!!   But what a lover.  Friendship was sealed and the cat  'Abigail' even put a paw around Bianca's shoulder.   I've seen a cat on a leash once before at Alki and thought it was one in a million.  Maybe this is a new trend and cats will evolve to love strolling with their humans along city streets... or not.

This is how the baking goes followup for Bianca

School was out yesterday so Bianca and I got to spend the whole day together.  I promised her a baking day.  We made a good start measuring and leveling dry ingredients.  Remember Bianca using the knife to level the flour and sparkly sugar?  Then smelling and aahing at the scents of lemon and vanilla?    Then the mixer which she did quite well considering the size of her and the size of the mixer in her hand.  We got very little batter otherwise than in the bowl.  Good job!   Then the dough was rolled into a log but my  hands were oh so sticky with too wet dough.  I gave her a dire prediction that the cookies might not come up to expectation because grandma probably overdid some ingredient in my excitement of having a baking helper with me.
The rolled dough was placed in the fridge for a few hours until ready for cutting up for cookies.  But we got busy playing!  Then out for lunch and shopping!  When we came back no time!  So this morning I finished the cookie preparation and here for you Bianca is the rest of the story


the cookie dough ready now

cutting into cookies

ready for the oven

done and looking good

I'll save you some

Seems like yesterday

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy.  Everyone from that time can say where they were when they heard the horrible news.  So this is a day for remembering.

This picture was taken 50 years ago by a fellow student and boy from the neighborhood, Peter Mon Wai who was an amateur photographer.  I remember this day too.  I was a junior at Davis high school in Yakima.  While waiting at the bus stop on a school morning, he asked permission to take a picture.  He did a good job.  There was no digital help and post photography processing to fix things up like now.  I think I see an aura of adolescent attitude or maybe it was just the sun in my eyes.

As I remember that morning in 2nd period French class, the overhead intercom speaker suddenly came on with its scratchy start and then - 'the president has been shot'.   In the classroom there was a group gasp and our teacher's face drained of color.  But the speaker message was disjointed with starts and stops and then just as quickly as the speaker had come on it was  turned off.   We sat silently for a  moment and then someone suggested that the message was somehow about our school play maybe.....   The drama club was in the production of "The Mouse that Roared"  (see here) a .story of a tiny country that starts a war with the USA.   We all grabbed on to that idea.  Oh yeah, that must be what it was.  There was an uneasy peace with the decision to take that meaning from what we had heard and we continued on with class.   I wonder what our teacher was thinking.  She was an older lady  (at least to our teenage view) who had been in the underground in France during WWII where she met her husband to be.   She had seen some things and I doubt if she brushed off that message as easily as her young class was ready to do.  
Then on to 3rd period which was typing class.  Everyone busily clanking away on the manual typewriters when we got the message.   President Kennedy, our handsome and popular president was shot and is dead.  The sound of silence when all the typing stopped.  But in the real world there are Neanderthals lurking who laughed and said things about how it was a good thing.   We were dismissed from school.  I was glad to get away from the jerks.
Stunned, shocked, sad my best friend Sandra and I drooped while we walked home, talking quietly trying to process what we had heard,   The rest of the weekend was spent with family watching the television, glued to the unfolding events, the tragic details and heartbreaking pictures.  My mother appreciated TV and the way it allowed her to see the world.  She never expected to see what happened two days later.  I had left the living room and the TV coverage for just a few minutes.  When I came back in, mom says she had just watched Oswald being shot on television.  What!  I couldn't believe her at first.  Was the world going crazy?  Eventually life came around to normal again but we  never forgot.

Two of a kind

 

What a find!  I've been hitting the jackpot at my favorite 2nd hand stores in West Seattle lately.  There have been sales upon sales.  One day a 50% off sign was the siren song that drew me into the Discovery shop's annual antique sale.  I found this handmade doll with its set of adorable homemade clothes.  The soft doll was like new and nestled with her wardrobe in an old time Nordstrom Christmas Box.  There was even some pretty material included that the original owner must have planned to use for making future outfits for the doll.  I tried to imagine who was the lady who had sewn all these things that showed so much loving care in the making.  And who was the little girl she had in mind when  making all these beautiful little things.  In its charming presentation it showed how much it meant to the owner.  I'd wished that the person who had done all this would know how much it was appreciated and how it would be cared for.  In her new home, she has been named 'Lessy doll' by Bianca and they do seem made for each other and are even a bit of look alikes.

 

An Old Orchard

Piper's Orchard apples

 

On Saturday, I enjoyed another summer walk of discovery with Joanna.   While having a wonderful picnic at beautiful Carkeek Park with a happy VM group, we walked to the secretive little Piper's Orchard.  It is not so little as it is home to about 50 fruit and nut trees.

 But it remained a secret for years by heavy overgrowth that kept it hidden from view.   After taking a pleasant little trail, the sweet orchard appears as a place out of time and timeless.   With its old trees and heirloom apples, it is a living museum of sorts. 

 

As Joanna described  here, the apples were obliging by falling to the ground and it was a game of keeping your eyes on the prize as we followed a rolling apple to its resting place on the ground.   As we headed out, I must have made quite a sight with my pockets bulging with found apples.  

Admiring my find before tasting

 

Close to Nature

 Across the street from my house is a world away.   I enter the zone of  bubbling creek, riparian plants, forested trails and the creatures who make it home.   Being in Nature is good for kids - the old ones like me and the young ones like Bianca.  
 


A fine feathered pair of neighbors

                 

 

Flowers are sooo exciting

 

Trees are so calming

 

Happily worn out after nature collecting day

Tuesday at the park

                    
I had a grin as big as theirs while watching these three little girls gravitate to one another and soon enjoy a spinning swing together.  There was lots of high pitched screaming as the toddler swing became a wild ride of twirling and lurching goodtimes.  I should have sold tickets.

I don't know why but I'm always surprised to see children do things as they were always done.  The ideas of childhood, the imagination and creativity seems to be something that floats in the air.    They catch on to it and make it their own.   Didn't we all look at swings and think of ways to alter and heighten the experience? 

           

          
           

More spinning and I was the one getting dizzy by now.

                                        
                                              Reaching for the heights - Hurrah!


                           At rest for the briefest of moments

                           

Saturday activities

Ready for the Concert

Matthew & Erika

     Last night was the Paul McCartney concert at Safeco field.  The reviews are coming in and I received the first hand account from Matthew & Erika when they returned home.  Sir Paul  is not only supremely talented, he puts on a fantastic show giving his all in a 3 hour performance.   I was one of those who swooned watching the 1964 Ed Sullivan show  introduction to America of  the Fab Four.   They sang one of  their hits that year "I Saw Her Standing There"  with the lyrics of the first line being 'Well she was just seventeen'.   I was seventeen at the time so I was probably imagining they were singing to me.   He was definitely a heartthrob for me.  And he is still pretty cute at age 71.
Who knew at that time that they would develop their talent into a legend and  that this one Beatle can still draw a passionate audience 49 years later.
   
Bianca and I held down the fort.   She sorted through an extensive DVD collection to find a movie in which we could console ourselves for not going to the concert.  She settled on 'Puss in Boots'  which I actually had on my mental list to watch someday.  It is one of those clever animated movies that has something for everyone.  There is just enough innuendo that is over the child's head but very funny for the adult with love interests and sexy flamenco and tango type dancing by two hot cats.   Sword fighting, crashing and falling & leaping to satisfy those who want adventure.   And just the total, utter cuteness of the animated characters and settings that makes adults and children ooh and aah throughout. 


With Antonio Banderas as el gato's voice.  Purr-fect

  There is just something about a pair of nice boots that brings out the best


Pink cowgirl boots for 5th Birthday -

                                                          

Just whose garden is this anyway?

 

I planted a vegetable garden this year and even though I don't get much sun, there has been a rather tremendous growth of beautiful and tasty things to eat.  For some reason, I didn't think about critters being a problem in the city.  I have a friend who lives near the woods and can't grow a single thing that isn't devoured by the beautiful but pesky deer foragers who delicately ramble through her yard munching at fruit and flowers to their hearts content.  But back to the city.  I had been watching and waiting for my strawberries to turn red.  One was almost there but I left it for the next day when it would reach its perfect succulent ripeness.  My mouth watered in anticipation.  Alas, the next day it  was gone and as the days went every single ripe strawberry has disappeared. 

  Finally I found the evidence.  Whoever was eating the strawberries  outdid themselves and couldn't even finish this tasty morsel.  There must be a real fatty out there somewhere. 

I spotted this likely culprit across the
street and I think she might be the one who took the big bite out of my strawberry.
 Has a wee bit of a guilty look
don't you think?





I've heard of Angry Birds but this Robin was a bit of a 'go ahead and make my day bird'.   Boldly making eye contact with me, she  swooped down and then flew off with a juicy blueberry held in her beak.

I dearly love the creatures.   But it is every creature for themselves in the world of nature.  I'm determined to get my share.  I'll  resort to netting for the strawberries.   My plan for blueberries is eating.  Every time a berry turns blue, I plan to pop it in my mouth.  There is nothing as good as a sun warmed berry straight off the bush.   I felt a little guilt of my own while tilling soil for more planting.  I kept digging up peanuts.  No doubt they are winter provisions of that little squirrel.  I felt bad that she would come looking on a hungry day and they would be gone.  Nature is tough business!

This neighbor kitty showed up to watch my doings in the yard and found a sunny spot on the patio.  I wouldn't want to her to eat any creatures but she makes a beautiful deterrent,

A favorite flower








Wilderness in the City

Bianca and I went to Camp Long -  a hidden gem of a wilderness!  It is so hidden that I forgot that it was so close and convenient to me.   Tuesdays with Bianca in the summer means finding great outdoor activities.    I  said we were going to Camp Long.  Yeah!!

Begun as a park in 1937 it is 68 acres which includes forested nature trails, a lovely large expanse of green lawn called the parade ground,  very old and rustic scout cabins, kids science and environment classes and much more.



Polliwog Pond



A 5 year old can only take so much walking in the woods and admiring plants before she must liven it up somehow.  Lets play tag!  Her words not mine.  Much to my chagrin I wasn't pretending not to catch her.   I used to be a runner now my feet seem glued to the ground.  I'm not sure when running got so hard.  It sort of snuck up on me.  She was all pumping arms and flying feet

                                            

                                 Back at the lodge with the day's collection


Displaying a feather and pinecone from the trail

 She is becoming quite the little master with my iphone camera.  Self portraits to remember the day,

Bianca's latest pearl of wisdom.  "Doing stuff alone is boring"  I had to agree today.  I went back to Camp Long to complete the tour,  It wasn't near the fun on my own. 

                               I did see Schurman Rock though and now I'm looking forward to going back for a little rock scramble with my petite climbing partner.

There is a very interesting history of this climbing rock in Camp Long.  /West-Seattle-climbing-structure-


The easy side