Ash Wednesday

 

A day of repentance, marking the beginning of Lent. 

Heigh ho, heigh ho

 

Love this photo of Nova carting around one of the docile hens. Nova is terrific with all animals, and in fact, she just started an internship with a local small animal vet. 

    

Busy morning here. I got thoroughly acquainted with the Scandinavian Airlines website (not Alaska!) trying to select seats for our upcoming trip in May. (Much more on that later.) 

 

Now I'm off to Burien to have my Honda serviced for the first time- 6,000 miles, still a baby.

 

 

This is the uncropped photo. Kinda scary seeing those claws so close to her pretty face. Life on the farm.

 

 

Things Chinese

 

Benaroya Hall was all festive for Chinese New Year yesterday. Along with the decorations, a pre concert performance in the lobby.

The first half of the concert featured a work called "Iris Unveiled." It was composed in 2001, but heard in Seattle for the first time this week. 

Our Seattle Symphony music director, Xian Zhang, collaborates with the Chinese composer, who is a favorite of hers. (Our former conductor was French, and we heard plenty of French music during his tenure.)

In "Iris," the full orchestra performs the 40 minute work alongside Chinese instruments-- in simple terms, a fusion of East and West. There were visual effects also, namely a Peking opera star in full costume up in the organ loft. 

Peking opera is a highly stylized art form with bizarre singing, at least to western ears. 

Like Moon Cakes, an acquired taste. I won't repeat the unkind comparison made by the lady sitting behind us, but you can probably guess.

Anyway, off to Mother Russia for the second half of the program, featuring the rough and tumble Shostakovich Fifth Symphony. 

So, an afternoon of big contrasts, if nothing else.

We had a nice weekend. John gave me beautiful flowers and we gobbled down a steak dinner on Saturday, for the first time in ages. We eat more hamburger these days. 

Also, the afore mentioned coconut cake, which was a big hit. 

That recipe is a sure keeper, even better than the fantastically expensive little cakes from Metropolitan Market. I can usually resist cake no problem, but I've had a big, fat slice every night. 

Some days are just coconut

 

Way back in 2012, I took a coconut cake baking class at the community college. It was an evening class with a very chatty instructor, so it ran late into the night and I was tired by the end. Long story short, I forgot to take the recipe hand-out sheet when I left. 

Dang. It was an interesting recipe, made with sweetened cream of coconut. I have tried many other coconut cake recipes over the years. There are hundreds on the Internet-- all different and some better than others.

Anyway, I tried a new recipe this morning for John's Valentine present. The ingredients are pretty basic, although I substituted thick coconut cream for the coconut milk. The most expensive thing in this cake was the tiny bottle of coconut extract, which is sold as liquid gold. 

Oh yes. The plant in the background is from Trader Joes. Like Costco, I feel like I deserve a little reward for navigating that parking lot and store. 

It is a Stephanotis floribunda, or Madagascar Jasmine, and something you don't often see in pots. 

In another lifetime, when I worked in the florist trade, we made labor intensive bridal bouquets by wiring the fragrant individual blossoms. One sniff took me back to the 1980's Frederick and Nelson Department Store, and the little flower shop inside the front door. 

No one could walk by without exclaiming "how good it smells." Of course to us, the flower shop just smelled like hard work. 

Wishing you a sweet and hopefully fragrant holiday weekend. 

 

 

Year of the Horse

 

I bought this lucky bamboo plant last year at Costco...

It has grown considerably since then. These crazy things can thrive for years in just water and this one hasn't even had a bit of fertilizer. That tells you something about the strength and persistence of the rhizomes. Of which we have first hand experience. 

After our bamboo forest was ripped out, I spent the next 5 years cutting back the shoots until the mass of underground roots finally gave up. 

Chinese New Year is on February 17th, and in Chinese astrology, the Year of the Horse represents energy, boldness, and rapid change.  

Wow, quite the party in Seattle yesterday. Naturally, we have perfect weather on those few days when Seattle gets national media attention.

 

Guilty as charged

 

I needed new plastic pots for the window box to replace the groudy old blue ones. How hard can it be to find  7 inch pots?  Ha. 

Three stores later (Home Depot, Ace Hardware and West Seattle Nursery) and I found nothing close, at any price. Not to mention, wasted time and gas.

Came home, searched Amazon, and in a few seconds found exact replacements in a choice of 10 colors. A few days later they arrived on the porch in a box from Walmart, of all things. 

Many people for all the right reasons boycott Amazon. I admire that! The problem is they just make it too easy to find what you need.

Well, the Seahawks are the only local news this morning, as the city gears up for the largest parade in Seattle history. 

 

 

That's the last championship parade in 2014. This one is supposed to be bigger.