Vancouver, BC

I took a day off from blogging yesterday. We're actually in Vancouver enjoying a short vacation-- despite the proximity to Seattle, we rarely visit so it's fun being tourists in a familiar "foreign country." A highlight was the view (above) from the balcony of our hotel room on the 27th floor, looking out on a sea of condos. We soon got to know he comings and goings of our rich high-rise neighbors across the sky. And within 24 hours the seagulls were cruising the railing for crackers and cheese at happy hour. I could get used to life at this elevation. Just don't think about the Big One.
Oh yes. This is a PR shot of Vancouver sparkling in the summer sun. Vancouver does not look like this in March. Not that many years ago, this landscape was a rain forest. The rain is still here, only the forest is missing. But gray skies didn't stop us from seeing the sights: Chinatown, Blodel Conservatory, Capilano Suspension Bridge, Stanley Park. I'll post some highlights after we get home today and sort through the pictures.

Elizabeth's bathtub

In the flurry of stories about Elizabeth Taylor last week, I heard Richard Burton's favorite poem was read at her funeral service. The poem is called The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo by Gerard Manley Hopkins. He wrote wonderful but obscure, difficult poetry. This one is about the loss of youth, love and beauty:

"Nor can you long be, what you are now, called fair..."

Listen to this old recording of Richard Burton's great voice rushing through the poem. It's incredible, especially if you follow along with the text:



Burton made his share of Hollywood movies, but he was also an accomplished stage actor. His life was dissipated and short-- like the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Burton was buried with a copy of Dylan Thomas' poetry tucked under his arm. Fitting for a man who reportedly smoked a hundred cigarettes and drank three bottles of vodka a day.

In 1964, Puerto Vallarta was a rustic port town with about 10,000 inhabitants. Elizabeth Taylor tagged along while Burton was filming The Night of the Iguana. You can understand the attraction of this isolated place for a celebrity couple hounded by paparazzi. There was plenty of secluded partying:

Shortly after the movie was made they married, and Burton bought a large villa called Casa Kimberly in central Puerto Vallarta as a gift for Taylor's 34th birthday. She held on to it through their two marriages and even after his death in 1984, although they say she never visited again because of the painful memories. When she finally sold it in the early 90's she left everything behind-- magazines on tables, photographs, clothing in closets. It was turned into a bed and breakfast and sort of a living museum.
A few years ago we were on vacation in PV and walked around the convoluted, scorching streets looking for Casa Kimberly. We had a lousy map but eventually found the little pink bridge. Burton had also bought a house across the street from Kimberly which he called his "dog house." He probably spent frequent time there, since they fought like cats and dogs. The picture above is a view from the balcony of Casa Kimberley looking down on the bridge that connects his house with hers. You can just imagine him slinking over there with his tail between his legs.

At that time you could take a casual self-tour of the villa for a few pesos. When no one was looking, I jumped in Elizabeth Taylor's heart-shaped pink bath tub and John snapped a picture.


I recently read the museum and B&B is closed and the house has fallen into ruin. John's brother Dan winters near PV and can perhaps confirm this. The lover's little bridge is apparently still there but peeling and neglected in the damp, hot climate. A sad ending to one of the world's greatest love affairs. Modern condos are going up in the area so I'm glad we saw it when we did. How many people can say they once sat in Elizabeth Taylor's bathtub?

Thai cucumber salad

Those spicy light cucumber salads in Thai restaurants are so good. The other day I bought an expensive cucumber and thought I'd do something special with it-- the problem was I didn't have any fresh basil or peppers. Who does, this time of year? The recipe called for both but I substituted with red pepper flakes and dried basil. It was fine, and this salad is easy to make with what you probably have on hand. The only "must" is rice vinegar.

A nice change from that prepackaged cabbage salad we're been eating around here all winter.

Thai Cucumber Salad

4 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. rice vinegar
1/2 c. water
2 cucumbers
2 scallions or pearl onions
1 chopped jalapeño (or 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes)
1 tbs. chopped basil (or 1/2 tsp. dried basil)

Whisk the sugar, salt, water and vinegar together until dissolved. Chop the onion and pepper. Peel the cucumbers and with the tines of a fork scratch the exteriors (just for looks.) Cut the cucumbers lengthwise, then scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon. Cut the cucumbers into thin slices. Stir everything in the bowl, and cover and marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Speaking of spring

Primavera, Allegory of Spring
Sandro Botticelli

Botticellli's Primavera is one of the most famous and controversial paintings in the western world. It was commissioned by the Medici's in 1477. Primavera is basically an allegory for spring showing a group of mythological figures doing things in a lush orange grove. It's a complex composition which gives the art critics something to sink their teeth into, so opinions differ on what else it "means." But here's an interesting fact: there are over 500 identified plant species and 190 individual flowers in the painting.

The mythological figures in the painting are Venus, Zephyrus, Flora, Primavera, Mercury and the Three Graces. Details from the painting have have been reproduced on everything from tea trays (I still have one) to posters and mugs.

The Three Graces, detail

Venus is in the center of the painting with a a cupid above, and these dancing Graces accompany her. The ladies are wearing jewels in the Medici family colors.

Zephyrus and Flora, detail

Zephyr is the west wind, and Flora is associated with new growth. Flowers spring from her mouth as she comes in contact with the wind god. Why is her hair is blowing in a different direction from his?

Primavera, detail

Botticelli loved to paint beautiful women, and he had several favorite models he used frequently.

The painting's tempura colors have darkened over time, although it was cleaned and restored in 1982. We saw it in Florence in the late 70's, and all I remember is a big murky painting in an empty dim room. Nothing like the colorful reproductions in my art history textbook. Afterward, I went outside and bought a souvenir tray and some prints from a sidewalk vendor. Those were the days of carefree European travel, when tourists could just stroll in the Uffizi Gallery whenever they felt like it. Now (according to Rick Steves) you need a reservation and a timed entrance ticket to see great works of art.

It's the first full weekend of spring, and in Seattle more rain is on the way. That should make Flora happy.

Monterey cypress

It's hard to believe the delicate looking nursery plant is related to the gnarled, wind-swept tree that grows along the California coast. Both are Monterey cypress, although this one is a hybrid variety called Goldcrest:


You used see them occasionally at specialty nurseries, but now they turn up at ordinary stores. No wonder gardeners love them. The color is beautiful, the "needles" are feathery soft, it has a lemon scent and best of all-- very hardy. This year I left one outside during our miserable winter, and it survived just fine. So I bought two more at Home Depot last week for $12 each, which seemed like a real bargain. They look great in pots.

Candi, maybe you can find these in Missoula for your pretty patio garden?

Snow bunnies

Just when you think the babies can't get any cuter--- Amanda sent me this picture taken at the Loup Loup Ski Bowl. She went skiing there with friends a few weeks ago. The parents switched turns taking downhill runs and then pulling Nova and Adelina around the base in the sled. They love the sled, and call it the "boat." As the snow drifted down, both little girls fell asleep at the same time. I guess this adorable sight drew a circle of folks who stood around oohing and aahing. Soon these best friends will be giggling and headed up the chairlift together.

What's cooking?

You might have noticed a lack of recipe posts lately. That's because the cook is bored. The cook is in a rut. The cook is tired of heavy winter food (braised, roasted, stewed, boiled) but it's still too cold to grill. For that matter, the cook is afraid to even open the outside grill, which probably looks like a science mold experiment. I can't imagine anyone is interested, but a week of supper menus looks something like this:

Monday: penne pasta with Italian sausage and salad
Tuesday: chicken stir fry and Trader Joe's pot-stickers
Wednesday: pork chops with red potatoes
Thursday: bean soup (or beef stew) and cornbread (from a mix)
Friday: tillapia with cabbage salad (from a package)
Saturday: Thai takeout
Sunday: roast chicken with Stovetop and frozen vegetables
Monday: repeat, starting with leftover chicken/noodle casserole

Not horrible, but not exactly "Mediterranean" either. And there's no excuse for it, with a shelf of cookbooks and Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray magazines showing up in the mailbox. Tonight? Pork stir fry with pea pods, and you guessed it-- Trader Joe's pot-stickers.

So much depends...

When you order something big from a catalog, you don't really know what you're getting until the thing is actually out of the box. It just depends. This new blue bench arrived from Gardener's Supply Company last week. When John assembled it, I didn't hear the usual rant about the "idiot" who wrote the instruction sheet or forgot to send this part or the other. It went together fine, although it came with a stern warning of a total weight limit of 350 pounds. (Fortunately, we're not quite there yet.)

The color is the best-- a wonderful sky blue. And it's light enough to move around the garden. The prettiness more than makes up for the fact it isn't very comfortable. And it has already been rained on.

It made me think of this famous little masterpiece of a poem. I don't have a white chicken, but wish I did.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams

The vernal equinox

The world sunlight map says it all. Every person, penguin and other living creature on Earth will have approximately 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark today. The vernal equinox was yesterday, and this is the first full day of spring. Day and night are equally balanced, but about to tip over to the side of light as we head toward the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.

The Eternal Struggle
Angela Jayne Barnett

Easter will be late this year-- April 24th. Why? In 325 AD, the Church Council of Nicaea established the date for Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox. That is a mouthful. The date of Easter has been a source of controversy for centuries, but for most Christian countries Easter Sunday is observed sometime between March 22nd and April 25th.

Did you see the supermoon this past weekend? Rain and clouds are back today, but on Saturday the sun finally showed in Seattle. It wasn't warm, but at least bright and cheerful for the first day of spring.

Cloister Lilies
Marie Spartali Stillman

Super moons and earthquakes

There are so many potentially rare events,
one of them is sure to happen.
David Brooks
PBS Nightly News

As I'm sitting at my desk now, I see an enormous full moon setting behind the clouds to the west. If you're lucky and have clear skies tonight, look for this "perigee" moon as it rises in the east. It will be 14% larger and 30% brighter than the ordinary full moon. The moon is as close to the earth as it will get for the next 18 years-- this increases gravitational pull on tidal and (perhaps) tectonic forces. Some meteorologists believe a supermoon might cause earthquakes, although this idea is controversial. But how about this? The last extreme supermoon occurred a few days after the 9.0 Indonesian earthquake in 2005.

About the time Mozart was composing music, out here in the Northwest wilderness a 9.0 magnitude quake occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone. Geologists know the exact date and time, because this earthquake sent an"orphan tsunami" across to Japan, where they recorded damage and loss of life. There have been at least seven "megathrust" earthquakes here in the last 3500 years, which suggests return times of 300-600 years. Oh boy. Are we overdue?

We don't get rattled often by earthquakes, and so we become complacent. Subduction zones similar to the Cascadia have big earthquakes every 100-200 years, so the long interval here means stress buildup causes unusually large quakes. The other unhappy earthquake phenomenon in Seattle is "liquefaction." Our sandy soil will become the consistency of Jello, causing building destruction similar to Kobe, Japan in 1995. If that's not bad enough, the tsunamis produced by these megaquakes reach 100 feet on the coast. To put that in perspective, the wave that just hit Japan was about 75 feet high.

So, other than moving far, far away-- is there really a way to "prepare" for a natural disaster of that magnitude? So just pore me another glass of wine, and we'll enjoy looking at the moon tonight.

A spring ride

Thanks Dolly-- for trusting me with your nice horse. And Jen, for the excellent lesson yesterday. And of course, Mr. Spanky-- for being such a good sport!

Stormy weather

The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

The slow motion catastrophe across the ocean helps put the trivial into perspective. Trivial, as in having to get up an hour early. Or complaining about the weather. We have had a cold, wet winter-- one storm after the other rolling in off the Pacific like the bad news from Japan. Halfway through March, and Seattle has already had more rain that we typically get for the entire month (and that's saying something.) But it's great for the plants sending out new roots, and things are happening underground and above. When the sun finally comes out, the flowers will be glorious. Sunday is the first day of spring.

Between rainstorms yesterday, I pulled a marathon out in the garden and my back is reminding me this morning. It was worth it-- I planted 60 glads and 18 of the big fragrant lilies John can't get enough of. They're finicky to grow and peter out after a few years, but beautiful for a couple weeks in August. It's good I finally got them in the ground because they were on the verge of molding in the damp shed. Ditto for the begonia tubers which survived another winter of neglect out there.
Just looking at the packages makes a person feel hopeful.

Daylight Savings Time

The world is so dreadfully managed,
one hardly knows to whom to complain.
~Ronald Firbank

There isn't enough coffee in Seattle to get us going this week. Our usual early mornings have abruptly become obscenely early mornings. I don't have to leave the house, but poor John has to function at what was 3:45 am just a few days ago. As for how well he functions, who knows? There is no conversation in this house at that hour. Let's just say it's a good thing traffic is light when he heads off to work at 5:20 am. It's no surprise that there's an alarming increase in traffic accidents the Monday morning after the change.

Daylight Savings Time began during WWI as an attempt to save fuel. So why do we still do it? Some people claim they would miss the late evening light, but a similar number of us love the morning light and hate the inconvenience of resetting our body clocks twice a year. As if life isn't difficult enough, Congress passed a law in 2007 starting Daylight Savings time three weeks earlier and ending it one week later.

It takes John a grumpy half-day to reset all the clocks in our house. Apparently it costs U.S. companies billions to reset their automated systems for a change that only puts us more out of sync with the rest of the world time-wise. All for the unproven claim we save energy and "gain" an hour of daylight.

A tale of two kings

For the first time in American history, our generation was at risk of having a shorter lifespan than our parents. And it was because of what we ate.
Curt Ellis, KING CORN filmmaker

Corn is what makes fast food cheap, and Americans demand cheap food. Almost everything in the enormous biomass we eat contains corn. A documentary film called King Corn tells the story of two recent college graduates who decide to grow an acre of corn in Iowa and then follow the crop down the chain. Fresh off the stalk, their corn is inedible. Most American corn is processed into high-fructose syrup that sweetens just about everything on the grocery shelf. The rest becomes animal feed to make all those fatty hamburgers, along with chicken and pork. If you enjoyed Fast Food Nation, you'll like King Corn.


Now consider the French, with a completely different food culture. Sure McDonald's exists everywhere, but in general eating in France is more about quality than quantity. Are buttery pastries "healthier" than Twinkies? Who knows, but a fresh tart from even a humble corner bakery is like eating a miniature work of art.

The documentary movie Kings of Pastry follows a grueling three-day competition that takes place every four years. It's the world's most prestigious pastry competition, and the top chefs must create every confection from chocolates and cakes to delicate sugar sculptures. The team of judges hover, watch and sniff each step of the way. And when you see these incredible creations, you realize it isn't just about baking, but engineering and chemistry. The movie becomes a gripping drama when a devastating pastry disaster happens during the competition. You might need some chocolate afterwards to settle your nerves.

Crocus

"Like lilac flame its colour glows,
Tender and yet so clearly bright..."

Mary Bothan Howitt

The crocus is the first spring flower to bloom out of the bare, cold earth. The eighty species of crocus belong to the Iridaceae family, same as the iris. They are native to south-central Europe and Asia, and the name crocus comes from the Greek word for saffron: krokos. When the Crusaders returned from the Holy Land, they introduced saffron to the court of Henry I. By the time of Henry VIII, they were dying bed sheets with saffron to make them antiseptic. It was wildly expensive even then, and using saffron to color linen was eventually banned in England. Saffron has always been coveted, and a town called Saffron Walden in Essex produced good quality saffron up until the 1700's.

Saffron was used as medicine and flavoring for thousands of years. Homer made a reference to the crocus in 700 BC, and the Hebrew Song of Solomon mentions them in the Bible. On Crete at the ancient Minos palace, a fresco called The Blue Boy Picking Crocus is over 4,000 years old:

4400 flower stigmata are needed to make just one ounce of saffron. This little jar from Costco weighs 5 grams, which is about 1/5 of an ounce. So according to my sloppy math, are there about 880 stigmata in there?

Air castles

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;
That is where they should be.

Henry David Thoreau

No, I didn't run off with the circus yesterday. I spent my early blogging hour in front of the TV, mesmerized by the epic earthquake and tsunami. Life isn't always feathers and flowers.

We watched The Social Network last night, that movie about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. It's an interesting story, although it made me tired watching those Ivy League kids partying around the clock. I thought of Thoreau, who also went to Harvard in 1837. Surely another world then, although colleges have always been filled with ambitious dreamers and rebels. The legend goes that after finishing his courses, the frugal and prickly Thoreau refused to pay the $5 fee for a Harvard diploma. He didn't need it anyway, because the professions open to an educated person didn't interest him: law, medicine, business and the church. Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were misfits at Harvard, too. And as they say, the rest is history.

Thoreau is famous for the short Walden period of "living deliberately" and mulling over "civil disobedience." But he had a long and productive (if unconventional) life. His last dying words were: "Now comes good sailing."

The picture below is a replica of his Walden cabin. Zuckerberg's fridge is probably bigger.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau

Run away with the circus?

We're not exactly fans of reality TV programs, but we enjoyed the PBS series Circus. They went behind the scenes with the Big Apple Circus and for a year filmed what it's like to join, work, perform and live in a circus community. The documentary showed a cross section of jobs, from managers and performers to the lowest crew members-- with intimate details of their personal lives.
The filming of the flying trapeze acts was especially good, and this spectacular Russian act where two (large) men launch a (tiny) gymnast on a flexible barre 6 inches wide. There were dog acts, jugglers, and a spotlight on the angst of being a clown. And horses-- it wouldn't be a circus without horses.

Speaking of horses, I'm heading out to see Spanky today in Snoqualmie. His owner is in Maui this week-- lucky her. Our weather is rainy and windy so I may not take a lesson, but I can slip him some apples.

Little Girl Blue

"When you were very young,
The world was younger than you,
As merry as a carousel,
The circus tent was strung with every star in the sky,
Above the ring you loved so well.
Now the young world has grown old,
Gone is the silver and gold..."

Lyrics from Little Girl Blue
Frank Sinatra

Alliums

Alliums are the first bulbs to push up through the mulch in our garden. After all these years, it still surprises me when I see them in late January. Allium is the Latin word for garlic and they are related to onions, shallots, leeks and scallions. Like their rough cousins, alliums are easy to grow and multiply like crazy. The flowers bloom dramatically on top of long stems, and the bees just love them.

The bees will have to wait. The weather forecast this morning said rain and cool weather for at least the next 6 days. You need a good imagination (and some old pictures) to remember spring is just around the corner.

Tilting at windmills

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Gustave Dore

Everyone knows about Don Quixote and the windmills, even if they haven't read the long novel written by Cervantes in the early 1600's. The Spanish author Cervantes was a contemporary of English Shakespeare, and both are giants of literature. Don Quixote is considered the first modern novel and one of the greatest works of fiction ever published. The most famous lines in the book might be these:

Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all,
to see life as it is, and not as it ought to be.

And this:

Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading,
his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.

(Just substitute the word blogging for reading :-)

But along with all the Don Quixote movies, musicals and cartoons, there's also a rarely performed opera written by the French composer Massenet. We saw a new production of it yesterday at Seattle Opera. Despite the familiarity of the Don Quixote story, Massenet's operas Werther and Manon are much more popular. While it's fun to see something new at the opera, when you hear the words "seldom performed" and "opera" in the same sentence you wonder. Is the story lame? Characters shallow? Boring music? None of that was true and the music was beautiful, even though you don't leave the Opera House humming any big, famous arias. There is a soprano role, but the two leading characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Panzas) are both bass singers-- unusual. On the most basic level, it was a religious story with Don Quixote taking on a noble quest and dying a saint.

OK, I'll admit the highlight for me was watching "Millie" and "Desperado" from Branch's Quarter Horses in Bothell. They played Quixote's horse "Rocinante" and Panzas' donkey "Dapple." They were both perfect professionals, except for one call of nature on the stage, which you can't hold against them with the stress and all that. Especially when you think of all the things that can go wrong (but didn't) with a thousand pound animal carrying around a large, loud, singing man above the orchestra pit.

Hyacinths say spring

One...

Two...

Three!

But outside, the weather is cold and dismal. Amanda and I took Nova to Alki Beach yesterday, but she didn't seem to mind. We fed the seagulls rice cakes, which was pretty exciting. Tom will be busy painting today and it's coming along well. We're hoping for a little sun, or at least a break in the rain to get to the park with Nova.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Amanda, Tom, Nova and Roger arrived yesterday, after an uneventful drive over the snowy mountains. Tom will be painting our office room for the next few days, so it will be a working vacation for everyone (except Nova.)

After a long nap in the car, Nova hit the ground running. She tucked into her dinner and got busy checking out what's new at Nana and Grampa's house.

Stewed okra

I know, okra is the vegetable people love to hate. But John still raves about some cornmeal coated, fried okra he ate somewhere down south. I've never made it, but it looks something like this:


Just another way to make a healthy vegetable fattening. But stewed okra and tomatoes is a light side for chicken or fish. If you add shrimp and serve with rice, it becomes a gumbo. You can season as spicy as you like. You know I'm lazy when it comes to following exact recipes, but it's hard to go wrong with this general method:

Chop 3 or 4 slices of bacon and fry until crisp. Add about a quarter cup of chopped onion and a minced garlic clove. Add 1 can stewed tomatoes and an 8 oz. package of frozen cut okra. A dash of dried oregano, then season to taste with salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne pepper. Simmer about 10 minutes until the okra is just tender, not slimy.