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