Guide Dogs for the Blind

I take a "functional fitness" class at my gym on Monday and Wednesday mornings. It's a combination of yoga, stretching, weight training and whatever else the instructor feels like doing to us. People come and go, but there's a core group who have been there for the last few years. We don't see each other outside class, but know each other by name and it's nice to see familiar faces early in the morning.

Some of these faces are sweet canines, because one of the women in class is a volunteer puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind. She has each puppy for about a year, and as part of their training they go just about everywhere with her, including church. She always brings them to exercise class, where they become the mascot. They are beautiful dogs with quiet dispositions, but she is also a wonderful teacher: kind, firm and consistent. So within a week or two, even the youngest ones are sitting quietly or sleeping while 15 or so people roll around on big balls and do other weird things.

Marilyn usually only has one at a time, but right now she's overlapping a new puppy with the more mature one. The baby in the picture is the daughter of her last lovely dog called "Sunset" who left a year ago. When the dogs leave the raiser's home and start advanced training in Oregon, occasionally an exceptional one like "Sunset" is chosen for breeding. This in an honor to the raiser, who then has the option to take one of the new puppies for the next year.

I admire Marilyn for doing this, because not only is raising a dog for a blind person a generous thing to do, puppies are a lot of work! I've really enjoyed learning about this great program from her.

January nights

This time of year, it feels good to stay home at night. Why not just come out and say it: January is a dull month, and we're almost as dull. A plain pasta dinner, a few glasses of wine, a TV series on Netflix and there's our typical weeknight. We're slowly working through a series called "The Story of India." I'm enjoying it, but India is on the list of places I'd like to go someday. However, it would take a pretty big crowbar to get John off to India. He calls the program "that India thing" so you get the picture. But if world history is your cup of tea, the historian Michael Woods does a good job, although his effusive style can get on your nerves. You have to admire him though for having so much energy running around in the heat and dust.

We're also working through the third season of the Inspector Lewis British crime drama series. It is beautifully filmed in Oxford, and even though it follows the usual who-dun-it murder mystery formula (older, damaged detective paired with young ambitious partner) the characters have depth and adult complexity. Sometimes the plots are too convoluted, and if you can't catch the quick Oxford accent, you can miss the entire story. When that happens I just daydream through the rest of the program, thinking about the characters and looking at the beautiful scenes in Oxford. Everything is explained in the end, anyway.

The New Yorker Magazine

I started a subscription to the weekly New Yorker magazine, and now I have to find the discipline to keep up on those long non-fiction articles. They're always worth the effort in the end, but it takes time to plow through an issue, cover to cover.

The New Yorker fiction is fun, and I read that first. A story called "Trailhead" in the January 25th issue was one of the most beautifully written, engrossing short stories I've ever read. Believe it or not, the story is about ants. Of all things. I've never read anything quite like the way it blurs the line between non-fiction and fiction. You would think a story about an anthill would be boring, but the incredibly complex life in there has parallels with human social behavior and history. The New Yorker story is taken from a first novel called "Anthill" which was written by a biologist and is due out in the spring. I'm looking forward to reading it. If you're curious, an interview with the author, E.O. Wilson is on the New Yorker web page.

How is Sizzle?

Some of you have been asking about Sizzle, and I wanted to thank you for your kindness. Unfortunately, she still isn't used to her new "correct" bite. Since food is her favorite pastime, the problem hasn't been the desire to eat, but rather the mechanics. In other words, normal now feels abnormal. Everyone says she'll eventually figure it out, although it's been dragging on longer than usual, and my vet has never seen anything quite like it. But Sizzle is old and set in her ways, and despite all we think we know about them, horses are still a mystery. One reason why we love them so much. In the meantime she isn't hungry, and can eat her favorite foods: pellets and soft alfalfa hay. (Most horses are crazy about sweet alfalfa-- it's as addictive as McDonald's is to kids.)

But more trouble was on the way this week. She suddenly became colicky, requiring another vet call and some scary moments. Colic just means a bad belly ache, which sounds trivial but is serious in horses. It works like this: what goes in the top end must travel a very long way and come out the other, and much can go wrong along the journey. If things get blocked up-- well, you get the picture. Did you know horses cannot regurgitate? OK, maybe a little too much information. She pulled through, everything else is normal for a horse her age so I guess the rest is up to her. John always likes to say if you don't have enough trouble and worry in your life you should get a horse! He may be right. Keep your fingers crossed...

Nature's first green

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

(Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt)

Kinky Boots

Kinky Boots is a funny little British comedy film, done by the makers of Calendar Girls. The movie is actually based on a true story. After the death of his father, Charlie Price (played by Joel Edgerton, who looks like a young Albert Finney) inherits a failing shoe factory in northern England. The survival of the town depends on his saving the factory jobs, so he looks for a way to jump start the business.

Enter a feisty female impersonator named Lola (played perfectly by Chiwetel Ejiofor.) She has a flair for design-- specifically jumbo sized, luxury fashion boots for men. You get the picture! So the factory reinvents itself, and by the end Lola is strutting and singing down the aisle at Milan in custom red snake skin boots. Of course there is the usual love triangle with Charlie's girlfriends, and funny twists in the story as the conservative town embraces change.

The directors used the actual shoe factory for the set, along with some of the original employees.
Anyway, this isn't one of the those big movies, but if you like something quirky you might enjoy it. Like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, it had a great soundtrack. In fact we liked it so much John bought the European edition of the CD on Amazon, which he said was more complete than the CD released in America.

A good dinner helps

I'm always making recipes I can never exactly reproduce, and here's another one.

My brother Dave always brings us a big basket of gourmet treats for Christmas, and this year with a packet of goat cheese. We could have gobbled it up in one sitting with crackers, but chevre pasta sounded good.

I did this on the fly as usual, with what I had in the house. First I caramelized 1/2 onion with some sliced garlic and pepper flakes. This took about 30 minutes, then I took it off the heat and added 2 chopped Roma tomatoes and a few Greek olives.

I cooked some pasta, crumbled the goat cheese (4 oz) and mixed it in with the hot pasta and tomato, onion and olives.
The cheese melted instantly in the hot pasta, and made a delicious creamy sauce. Better and easier than Alfredo, and not nearly as fattening. It's been a pretty rough week, but a nice little dinner sure helps!

Best friends

Good morning my friends, whoever you are, wherever you are? Well, never mind that. Just the idle curiosity of an early morning blogger...

I do know of a certain person in Mexico who has a daily look. Howdy, Mr. D.T. I will get around to reporting back on the Swedish cookie dough whip you sent me (thank you.) However, I'm still baked out after my Christmas cookie orgy. Although as you say, I can also beat some potatoes into submission with it.

Here's a picture of Amanda and Tom's pets taking a nap together after playing: Roger and Chester. Best friends from the very start. He's a special dog, and Chester is a remarkable little guy. Thanks Amanda for the picture. Have a good weekend!

Eagle

I know, this photo isn't exactly National Geographic quality, but not bad for aiming a digital at arms length and shooting blindly into the wild blue yonder. The eagle was just a little speck against the sky, but I cropped the image when I got home so you can just make out the white head and tail.

It's always a thrill to spot a bald eagle flying over the city. They are almost always alone. I saw this one at the barn yesterday just as I was getting into the car. Amazing how eagles clear the airspace. Sometimes they're mobbed by a few crows or seagulls at a safe distance, but more often they're wrapped in their own vacuum of silence. Even the small birds near the ground are quiet, and Othello runs for the barn. The sudden silence or some subtle change in the air makes you glance up, and there they are...

Forsythia

Forsythia shrubs are not much to look at most of the year, but that first bright yellow is sure a welcome sight in early spring. I rushed the clock on this bunch-- forsythia is easy to "force" if you pound the woody stems and put them in deep, warm water. In a few days, free flowers!

There is a famous forsythia display at a park called Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC. They planted two large hillsides with a mass of yellow forsythia. I'd like to see it in the spring. My favorite garden writer Henry Mitchell (who wrote The Earthman column for the Washington Post) called the hill "that forsythia mess," but he was wonderfully cranky and opinionated.

He also said this:

Your garden will reveal yourself.
Do not be terrified of that.

Little valley girl

Life isn't always pudding, music and flowers. The suffering on Evening News (if you can even bear to watch it) is unbearable. And sometimes you get thrown a curve ball. Maybe you just weren't paying attention? And as for attention, even the very best intentions can sometimes backfire. Since her dental work last week, Sizzle hasn't been able to eat a pile of hay, and she should be back to normal by now. She's getting by OK, but the vet will be back today to see what the problem is. Wish us luck.

But...along comes a little sight to make the world right again. Thank you Amanda! Here's Nova taking a nap in her stylish new shear-ling snowsuit. You are just beautiful.

Panettone pudding

I had a hunk of panettone bread still in the freezer from Christmas, so I got out my old Betty Crocker and made a small dish of bread pudding. This is the same old battered book I taught myself to cook with when I was 17.
I never make bread pudding, and Betty C. in 1966 never heard of panettone. Her recipe for plain bread pudding looked like it would feed a farm family of eight, so I cut it in half. There are fancier recipes for panettone bread pudding on the Internet, but I was in a hurry. Anyway, bread pudding is easy-- you just dice up the bread, cover it with some beaten egg, warm milk with sugar and melted butter. Also some cinnamon or nutmeg.
Like a custard or flan, it gets baked for 45 minutes in "water bath."
Not a fancy looking dessert, but tasty if you eat it warm with some vanilla ice cream. I liked the raisins and bits of citron in the panettone. John drizzled some leftover Christmas brandy over the top of his, and said that was even better yet!

Out on the town

We usually go downtown to the symphony on Sunday afternoon, then drive home and call it a day. But yesterday we were culture vultures! Out of the house by 10:00, starting with the Seattle Art Museum, lunch, then a pre-concert lecture, and finally the concert. Whew!
Seattle Art Museum has two special exhibits going: Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act, and Michelangelo Public and Private.

The Michelangelo exhibit was built around a few original drawings in pen and red chalk. Not wanting to appear imperfect to the world, Michelangelo burned most of his sketches, making these scraps especially precious. The most interesting by far was a menu he scribbled on the back of an old letter, showing pictures of exactly what he wanted for dinner that night. He probably gave it to an illiterate servant at some work site.

You see mobiles everywhere now, and Calder mobiles have been reproduced so often you have to remind yourself these were once incredibly original creations. The exhibit filled three large galleries, and they were beautiful and elegant. Just about the entire exhibit was on loan from the Jon Shirley private sculpture collection. The Shirleys' have a big old mansion in Medina, but still it's hard to imagine the domestic space to show off all those big those mobiles (along with his vintage Ferrari collection.)

After the Museum, on to the Rock Bottom Brewery. Here is John waiting patiently for his lunch.
Everything we did was in walking distance, so after lunch we strolled off to Benaroya Hall for the pre-concert lecture on Baroque music. This time the talk was an interview between the guest conductor Nicholas McGehan and the locally based art critic/writer musician/chef Bernard Jacobsen. (If you want an inferiority complex, just read Bernard Jacobson's bio.) Both men are British, so it was a lively interchange and funny talk, considering the "egghead" subject matter.

The concert was all Baroque music which I enjoy, but to an untrained ear (like mine) much of it sounds the same. But this program had variety, with two Handel organ concertos and some opera "incidental" music by Purcell and Rameau. The guest conductor McGehan is often referred to as the "energizer bunny of Baroque music" so it was fun to watch from the 4th row.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Winter trees

January Morn
Bare branches of each tree
On this chilly January morn
Look so cold, so forlorn.
Grey skies dip ever so low
Left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
Waiting for each who wait to see
New life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
Like magic, unlock spring sap to flow,
Buds, leaves, then blooms will grow.

Nelda Hartman

Wet, wet, wet

Yesterday on the local news I learned a new weather term: atmospheric rivers. That means the fire hose of warm storms aimed at us right now, stretching out from Seattle to...oh, about the middle of the sub-tropical Pacific Ocean. The world sunlight map on the cool website die.net does a great job of showing the big picture.

Are you thinking I'm in the habit of snapping photos (and doing other bad things) while I'm whizzing down the freeway? Don't worry, we were all just crawling along I-5 through downtown as usual. I was bored and took a quick one of this gloomy winter view.

But tomorrow we're looking forward to a big day out on the town-- more later.

Strawberry tarts in January

We have an organic farmer's market in West Seattle year-round now. Nice as this little market is, it would take a very creative "locavore" to cook interesting meals in January. Basically, the local food movement means buying and consuming food that was produced within a 100 mile radius. It also requires cooking from scratch, which most people don't have time for, at least not every day. When we walked through the market on Sunday, there were plenty of root vegetables left, hard squash of all kinds, and last fall's apples. Of course local fish, cheese, meat, and preserves (all very expensive.) But nothing fresh and green yet, and certainly no strawberries like these I just bought at QFC:
The taste of these can't compare with our small, soft, local strawberries which come round for a quick season in June, but that first shipment of California berries is pretty good. And the price! On special at $1.50 for a two pound carton. It boggles the mind. Not only did someone have to plant, grow and pick them at exactly the right time, they had to be hauled all the way up I-5 in a gas-guzzling truck. And everyone along the line making a penny or two-- what a system.

We are so lucky. Here's how to put together a big carbon footprint strawberry tart, and make someone you love happy in January.

Cook up a box of Jello brand custard or vanilla pudding.

Spread it in a baked tart shell. The sides on mine collapsed in the oven.
Oh well...
Slice the berries and arrange on top, as fancy (or not) as you want to get. Heat some strawberry jam to a boil and then strain it; spoon over the top. That's it! A nice treat to help you think of summer.

Mom and baby ski outing

Here's a prettier sight than the inside of Sizzle's mouth. Amanda and a group of her friends took their babies cross country skiing in the Methow Valley yesterday. It looks like some lucky kids ride in high tech sleds, with their Moms in the traces doing the dog part. Too bad Nova couldn't hitch a ride!
Amanda carried her in a backpack, bundled up like a little Eskimo. She told me the ski trails were wet and soggy, but everyone had a fun and safe time.

Equine dentistry lesson

Don't be scared, no horses were harmed in the writing of this post! Sizzle had her teeth "floated" yesterday, a procedure which looks much worse than it is.

"Floating" is done to remove sharp points from the teeth, and it's important to keep horses healthy and comfortable. Especially old horses like Sizzle who will decline fast if they can't eat enough.

First, the veterinarian arrives in his truck, and your horse eyes it very suspiciously. Not only does she recognize his voice, but she knows the truck is filled with things that she doesn't like.

But no worries, because one quick shot later, and Sizzle has enough tranquilizer to send a 1,000 pound animal way off to la-la land for about an hour. Soon the harness is on, and the big, heavy, uncooperative head is hoisted up (grunt! pull!) and tied. Sizzle stays standing through the entire thing, but her thoughts are elsewhere...

Now the vet is ready to begin.
First, the examination. Not bad for an old mouth, plenty of teeth left. Those aren't cavities and fillings, but just the remains of breakfast, and that granola bar she ate before the vet arrived.
The "floating" is done with a round, rotating "float"on the end of a long pipe attached to an electric drill. (No kidding.)
The "drilling" makes a horrible grinding noise which bothers the owner much more than the horse-- they feel vibration, but don't have nerves in their teeth like we do. And of course a dose of horse tranquillizer never hurts when you go to the dentist. It's too bad my hygienist doesn't supply it!

In just a few seconds, the razor sharp "points" are off. A final polish on the front teeth, and she's awake and good to go.

Here's a little U-Tube video , for those of you who made it this far :-)

Font problems

Sorry for the small font on that last posting. Blogger is usually well-behaved, but occasionally has a little fit on me.

Seen any good movies lately?

It would take a pretty special movie (maybe a new Christopher Guest Mockumentary) to get us out to the theater these days; we watch almost everything on Netflix including most television programs. TiVo would be nice, but we don't have cable and get just a few crummy stations plus local PBS over the air. We aren't big TV watchers anyway, so it works out well for us-- not only is it "free" but we can watch DVD's at our own pace, delivered to the door by Netflix, without commercials or other interruptions like phone calls at critical moments in Masterpiece Theater! The only downside is we're months behind the rest of the country with network shows like Madmen, Deadwood, Weeds etc. until they come out on DVD.

On the other hand, PBS publishes their DVD's immediately, like the new Ken Burns National Parks series we're laboring through right now. I say "laboring" because this one is classic Burns. You know what I mean if you've watched his endless series: mesmerizing in a boring way, with a heavy voice-over and filled with corny sound tracks and still photos like the one below. Great for zoning out on a work night.
As for real movies, this weekend we watched Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep playing a wonderful and believable Julia Child. Is there anything this woman can't do? The movie had everything for me: cooking, blogging, writing, period settings, grown-up relationships. I think John liked it too, although it isn't the type of movie a man would admit being crazy about :-)

Amy Adams (below) plays Julie Powell, who cooks all the recipes in Julia Child's first book, and blogs about it nightly.

Baby food

It's been a real education learning from Amanda how different infant care is now, compared to the dark ages when I was a baby. Almost as soon as we came home from the hospital, our Moms' were told to lace our bottles with cereal to help us "sleep longer." Ha! I wonder if it worked? Most of us got our first solid food within a few weeks (no one completely trusted breast feeding) and it always started with cereal and tasty things like sweetened condensed milk, fruit and pudding. Infants were put on a feeding and sleeping schedule, and left to cry it out in-between. Somehow we survived, many of us even thriving on to the brink of old age :-)

But these ideas didn't always make sense. Nature intended babies to feed whenever they were hungry, and there's no particular reason why cereal is a better first food than anything else. In every culture throughout history, babies were weaned onto what their parents ate. John swears he was weaned on pasta fazool. Which could explain a lot!

The older generation might be surprised to hear that avocado and cooked egg yolk are now considered good first foods, along with just about anything else ground up. There's nothing wrong with rice cereal, except as Amanda points out, it has little nutritional value except calories. Her doctor suggested avoiding pureed fruit, because babies love it and can get a picky, sweet tooth if they have it first. But back to the avocado...did Nova like it? Nope, Amanda said she spit that first taste right out!

Winter work

"Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do - or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so."

Stanley Crawford

Yesterday was a day to give a gardener spring fever-- calm, warm and dry. After 30 years of Seattle gardening, it still takes me by surprise how early our plants start growing. This week the hyacinths, alliums and daffodils are just popping up through the mulch. (To my family and friends in the Midwest and Rockies, above picture is proof.) Depending on the weather, it will still be several weeks before the first flowers, but in the meantime it sure lifts the heart and gets you moving. Here's a line from a poem called "God's Grandeur," by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

For all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things...

So beautiful-- I think about that line every spring when I first go out. But the DARK side of an early spring is you have to stay ahead of the weeds, or all the pretty little things are soon choked out.

I've been on sort of a rip in the yard, sawing down some old, ugly shrubs and cleaning out beds for a fresh start. If you like to buy plants, you have to do this occasionally. But for a gentle person, I'm surprised at my own violent housecleaning! Yesterday I got out a ladder and started "pruning" a big overgrown photinia, then decided it would be easier to just chop the dang thing down. And so I did, and I was glad because I could see all that new light on my favorite flower bed.

New Mom support group...

Methow Valley style! Three good friends out for a sunny winter hike with their babies and dogs. Amanda and Nova are in the middle-- thanks for the great picture.

Museums and birds

We had a pretty sunrise yesterday in Seattle, and it was a wonderful sight after all the murky gloom. It's pouring rain again, but if you use your imagination there is a touch more light everyday.

I still belong to the Society of American Archivists, and yesterday the local chapter organized a tour at the Museum of History and Industry (where John and I went last weekend). I've been thinking about volunteering there, so I really enjoyed seeing their archive and library down in the basement of the building.

What you see in museums is just the tip of an iceberg, and I always think the most interesting part is behind the scenes. MOHAI has an enormous collection of artifacts and photographs covering local history from the earliest days of Seattle. Everything was donated by individuals and organizations, and the storage area is a wonder to behold! I found out the Museum is moving because of the eventual expansion of the 520 bridge, and it's a shame they have to give up their old home. I'm sure the new museum at Lake Union will be wonderful, but it will only have room for the public displays. All the storage and offices will be in another location, yet to be determined.

It was a nice afternoon, and I had a few minutes to walk out on
Foster Island.

The walk is a real contrast between nature on one side, and the roaring 520 freeway on the other. The trail winds along the shore of Lake Washington connecting small "islands" with bridges and paths. There are lots of platforms perfect for bird watchers.

I saw this "fisherman" right off the trail:

A Great Blue Heron!

There were lots of Mallard pairs:

And a lonely Common Goldeneye: