Blogger's holiday

"He who would travel happily must travel light.”
Antoine de Saint Exupery

Just to let my daily blog friends know, I'm taking a little break and will be back at the keyboard when April showers bring May flowers. Have a wonderful weekend...

Anderson's Fairy Tales

This is the frontispiece of a 1945 edition of Andersen's Fairly Tales, illustrated by Arthur Szyk. We were creeped out by this very book when we were kids. Even before my brother and I could read, our older sister Marji would dramatically read aloud the grim stories until we knew them by heart. Of course each one had a lesson about what happens to selfish, bad people. You have to realize this was back in the Dark Ages of the 1950's, when simple book illustrations could engross kids for hours.

In the 90's, I found a used copy of the same edition at the Pike Place Market. Penciled on the cover I see it cost me $15, which was a pretty good sum at the time. It was worth it though, because I can pick it up and remember the exact feeling of being five years old and frightened by a picture. Boy, the synaptic mechanisms of childhood are powerful things.

"Great, fat, sprawling spiders spun webs of a thousand years,
round and round their feet."
from, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf

"I will sing to cheer you and to make you thoughtful, too."
from, The Nightingale

"I'm afraid he won't find any cattle."
from, Great Claus and Little Claus

Arthur Szky
1894-1951

And this is the sweet-faced man who created all those spooky illustrations. He was a Polish Jew who fortunately left his country in 1921 and lived most of his life in France and the United States. Szyk's drawings and caricatures were so important for the Allied war propaganda effort that Adolph Hitler put a price tag on his head. A glance below at some of his work tells you why Hitler was riled. Oh well.

Wake up, America.

Poor horses with the weight of the world on their backs...

My Week with Marilyn

Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

It takes a brave actress to play Marilyn Monroe, but Michell Williams won a Golden Globe award for her role in the 2011 movie My Week with Marilyn. I wasn't expecting to like this movie, but she does a good job portraying Marilyn's lovely and exasperating personality.

"Should I be her now?"

The film is about a week that Marilyn spent in Britain filming The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier. Her new husband Arthur Miller had it with her after a few days and headed back to the United States. Marilyn is escorted around the country by an eager young man who manages to get a job on the film set and writes about the experience of being with her.

We've been on a bit of a Marilyn Monroe kick since we watched it. Who can blame us? She was mesmerizing. If you're a fan, a must see is the 2002 documentary Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days. It includes the about 38 minutes of footage of her final and unreleased film, Something's Got to Give.

Sleep

Sleep and His Half Brother Death, 1874

That's a strange painting by John Waterhouse. And how's your sleep these days? In this house it takes two full weeks to get used the daylight savings time change in the morning. For early risers, that first week is ugly and then the "crabby-meter" slowly ticks down again.

Since I'm always complaining about the weather, you know Seattle has been cold and cloudy for months and months. Brilliant sunlight burst into the house at 5 pm yesterday, lighting up a vividly green world through the winter grime on the windows. It also lit up the house dust. It was almost a shock to see that spring really is here. Just hiding behind the clouds.

I think we take ourselves too seriously during our short jaunt on this planet. For example. I always buy bed linens in the off-season because they are discounted, even though it isn't much fun buying flannel in the summer and then tucking it away like a squirrel for the winter. And how much cloth can a woman cram into her little house?

The other day I splurged and bought full-price summer comforter cover from the Company Store. I put it on the bed. There's nothing subtle about these birds, but sleeping under them makes me happier, right now.

"Oh, give us pleasure"

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874. Here's a perfect little spring poem to start the week, compliments of the Writer's Almanac.

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Robert Frost

Spring?

Lucy "practicing" for summer

There's an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer saying that goes something like this: when the earth is warm enough to sit on comfortably with your bare you-know-what, then it's time to start spring planting.

There's also the seasonal wisdom of old Golden Retrievers. Yesterday Dave sent this picture of Lucy testing the outdoor sleeping conditions, the first day in 2 weeks when it didn't rain or snow. We even had some blue sky in the afternoon. The daffodils are blooming and I spent a chilly morning outside, poking around at weeds and cleaning up. And dreaming about summer, like Lucy.

Nope, I did not give the ground the old "farmer test."

The Writer's Almanac

Erato, Muse of Poetry
Edward Poynter

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important

beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,
one discovers that there is in
it after all, a place for the genuine...

Those are the first lines of a poem by Marianne Moore, 1887-1972. Of course she does like poetry, but she is referring here to the type of poetry that is not sincere or honest. The kind of poems that are famous because of their obscurity. Poems don't have to be obvious to be good, but I think the best ones start out in a simple place and then transport us somewhere else.

For some very good poetry, you should listen to Garrison Keillor's the Writer's Almanac on Public Radio-- it's an understated little masterpiece of a program. He talks for a few minutes in his soothing voice about "this day in history" and then he always reads a short poem. That's it. But Keillor has a knack for selecting unusual and accessible poems. The poetry on the programs has also been collected and published in anthologies. I have a couple that John gave me as presents and I read them all the time.

Unfortunately, I'm usually not in the car at the right time to hear the radio program or I forget to turn on NPR at home. But the great thing is you can subscribe free to the Writer's Almanac and they will email the program automatically first thing in the morning, before it even plays on the radio. What a nice thing to see in your email queue at the start of the day.

When everything in the Information Age starts to sound like everything else, a daily helping of poetry is good for what ails you. There are some truly wonderful things about the time and place we live in.

It gets better from here

SeaTac Airport, too early yesterday morning

Even the most seasoned traveler can bottom out in a long airport security line. And if you're 2.5 years old and up early and wanting breakfast and wanting to see that airplane you've been hearing about? Well-- no harm in letting your feelings show. A little noise might even get that line moving faster for everyone.

From here on, it got better for Nova and Amanda. Nova liked flying and was a perfect traveler. After a long day and two flights they landed on time in Colorado Springs (with all their baggage.) It doesn't get any better than that. Our dear cousins Roger and Marylou picked them up at the airport and they spent last night at their home in Woodland Park. The next few days will be spent up in Cripple Creek visiting the great-grandparents. A special time ahead for everyone.

Peek-a-boo Nova

Donkey Tails

The Donkey Tail plants have had it. They want out of the house so they're dropping bits and pieces all over the floor. By the end of March I'm usually putting the hardier houseplants on the porch for the summer. But yesterday we had another full-on winter storm that dumped more snow on top of the 16 or so feet that has already piled up in the Cascades. The wind howled in Seattle all day.

The good news is today looks cold but relatively dry for Amanda's drive over the mountains with Nova. We'll see them tonight and in the morning they fly to Colorado for a visit with the great-grandparents. Nova's first trip on an airplane-- oh, boy.

Antique capital of the Northwest

Snohomish "then"

The town of Snohomish is about an hour's drive north of Seattle. It was founded in the 1870's as a rough ferry landing for loggers, but now it's been transformed into a lady shopping destination with dozens of antique shops and "country" stores.

Susie and Julia making friends with a witch doctor

I spent the day there yesterday with my friends Susie, Julia and Grace. After a nice lunch (thanks, again Grace!) the treasure hunt started. Were we looking for anything in particular? Nope. Did we buy much? Nope. Did we have a fantastic time? Yes!

Snohomish "now"

If you've never had the antique mall experience, I can tell you it's a warehouse maze full of individual booths, crammed with anything and everything. It is bewildering and wonderful. We looked, we touched, we laughed, we exclaimed at prices and snitched decorating ideas. Lucky me, being a Nana I had the best excuse to shop for old toys. Along with the memory of a wonderful day with three best friends, here's what I came home with:

Something interesting for the "lady doll" box, and the cutest Breyer horse I've ever seen.

Nova,
Grandpa and I can't wait to see you tomorrow--
a little horse is waiting for you in Seattle.

To every season there is a reason

Girl at the Window
Antonia Rzhevskaya
from, A Study in Contrasts

Think Spring: warm air, flowers, bees, birds, sunny skies? Not so fast-- in the Northwest the La Nina weather pattern has us in a cold headlock. The weather gurus are saying that April should finally bring normal temperatures and less precipitation. In the meantime, it was another wild March weekend with cold rain, gusty wind and snow showers. But never mind, the seasons they go round n' round, the painted ponies go up and down. The first day of Spring begins today at 10:14 pm PST.

The center of the Sun will spend a equal amount of time above and below the horizon, which means roughly 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark on Planet Earth. Day and night are the same length today, whether you're a penguin in Antarctica or a camel in the Sahara. If you stood like a human sundial on the Equator during the Equinox, the sun would pass directly overhead through its zenith and your shadow would completely disappear beneath you.
This is the time of year when the northern hemisphere celebrates (in wonderful and diverse ways) nature's resurrection and the victory of life over death. The ancient Zodiac enters Aries, the sign of the exaltation of the Sun, marking Spring when the days of light begin to outstrip the nights of darkness.

Aries
(artist unknown)

Rin Tin Tin

The first Rin Tin Tin

I'm reading Susan Orleans' new non-fiction book Rin Tin Tin, about the German Shepard movie icon. Orlean wrote another book a few years ago called The Orchid Thief that got quite a bit of attention. Although these books are "about" dogs and flowers, she weaves in history, sociology, personal stories and character portrayals so her writing is entertaining. The research is top notch--Orleans is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine which says it all.

The first Rin Tin Tin was rescued by American serviceman Lee Duncan a few months before the end of WWI. He was part of a litter of shell-shocked pups in a bombed out dog kennel in France. Duncan brought him back to California and got started in silent films. In his time, Rinty was as famous as the movie hero Douglas Fairbanks. His ability to show "emotion" and his athletic feats astonished audiences. Rinty could scale a 12 foot fence, climb up and down trees and leap over chasms. In his movies he was usually cast out by cruel humans due to some misunderstanding, but he forgave them (and was forgiven) in the end.

True to the breed, Rinty the actor wasn't very friendly, or at least he had that reputation. He fought viciously in most of his movies and Lee said he enjoyed it. I'm not sure male dogs can "pretend" to fight. If you have a few minutes, you can watch him in action in this YouTube silent movie clip. Ouch.



The person who founded the German Shepherd breed in the 1800's believed that dogs should bond only with their masters. He considered "excessive and promiscuous friendliness" (as he called it) to be a weakness in a dog.

Lee Duncan raised and trained Rinty exclusively and hardly ever let anyone else handle him. Was he mean? An unpredictable dog would have been hard to manage on the movie set, and Rinty starred in 22 films over 8 years. Not only that, he was fine around kids and was taken to orphanages and used at all kinds of PR activities.

Still, there is a reserve and watchfulness about the breed that makes them so well suited for military work and personal protection. They're intelligent and were once popular as guide dogs for the blind. My friend Marilyn, who is a guide dog puppy raiser, says that Labs are preferred now because people relate to them more easily, which is social advantage for the blind owner.

Speaking of guide dogs, this is Marilyn's latest puppy waiting patiently at exercise class a few months ago.

Here she is now. Who could be afraid of that sweet face?

A dog lover once said that the dog's greatest weakness is they don't live long enough. There were generations of Rin Tin Tins after the original Rinty died in 1932, and the bloodline continues to this day. Lee Duncan lived until 1960 and had other success with other German Shepherds in what became the Rin Tin Tin TV franchise.

But when we outlive our most beloved animal companion, nothing ever shines in quite the same way again.

Pretty, cheap things

Our miserable wet weather continues with no end in sight, even though the first day of spring is coming up on Monday. When the going gets tough, the tough...go shopping! It's amazing what you can find these days if you like poking around for bargains. I found this garden set at Marshall's in the piles of pots and tacky yard ornaments they stock this time of year. No, I don't really need another one but it was too pretty to pass up. And almost too pretty to use outside, but it will give me pleasure each time I look at it.

This William Morris pattern is called the "Strawberry Thief," and it's probably his most famous textile design. These are the kind of reproductions you would see in a museum gift shop catalog-- not a discount clothing chain.

The artist William Morris (1834-1896) was a Victorian Renaissance man who helped establish the Arts and Crafts movement. They embraced the philosophy that quality homes and furnishings should be available to all, regardless of means. Now we take places like Ikea for granted, but beautiful design used to be only for the rich. The Arts and Crafts movement caught on in America, and the result was thousands of bungalows built in the early 1900's. Most were not grand or fancy but just simple, solid houses with a few nice details.

Morris was also a Socialist, so maybe he wouldn't mind that his designs are being reproduced in China on tin pails and showing up in places like Marshall's for "the masses." The Marshall's tag had a Victoria and Albert Museum logo saying the product features a 1883 fabric from their collection. So they probably got a small cut of the profit. More power to them.

I searched the V&A collection on-line and here it is:

Furnishing fabric - Strawberry Thief - Victoria & Albert Museum - Search the Collections

The ides of March

Death of Caesar
Vincenzo Camuccini, 1798

Caesar:
Who is it in the press* that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music cry out, "Caesar!"
Speak. Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

*crowd

Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

At age 55, Caesar had been pushing his political luck for quite a while, but as far as he was concerned the ides of March was just another spring day. Ides comes from the Latin word idus which means "half division." The term was used for the 15th day of March, May, July and October. In months with 30 days, the ides was the 13th.

Thanks to Shakespeare's play and a gruesome murder at the Roman senate in 44 BC, The Ides of March phrase took on ominous meaning. March was named after the god Martius, and at the time it was the beginning of the year and the start of the military campaign season. And I suppose a fitting month for the warlike Caesar to meet his end.

Martius

Uncle!

Shivering olive tree...

We've had enough of winter in the Northwest. Yesterday the weather was wild bordering on ridiculous: near freezing temps, blowing snow, rain, hail, grapple and brief periods of sun. All within 24 hours. To add insult to injury, on the evening news we have to watch all of you back East loafing around city parks in T-shirts. It's now official that this is one of the warmest winters ever in the U.S. Except for the upper left-hand corner of the country, where we can't seen to catch a break from the weather pattern.

Blame La Nina and the jet stream-- the boundary between warm southern air and cold arctic that is stuck right over our heads. Click here for a nifty "live" graphic of the culprit.

Despite that, we do have one ripe olive for spring harvest...
break out the press.

Countdown to Trader Joe's

Driving home in the cyclone yesterday, I took a slight detour past the Trader Joe's construction site and got out to take this picture. The big red sign is up, the Hiring Now! banner is out, and after months of work and delays the inside of the old car dealership showroom is finally looking like a grocery store. Soon the goodies will be trucked in and TJ's fanatical customers in West Seattle will have a store of their own. In 30+ years of living in the neighborhood, I can't think of anything that's been as highly anticipated as this store opening, reportedly on April 13th.

In case you missed it the first time, here's the cute Trader Joe's video from YouTube, now approaching 1 million hits.

Adios, La Nina

The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when the wind and weather and everything else are favorable, is never master of his [her] craft.

Henry Ellacombe, 1822-1916

The good news from NOAA is that the abnormally cold, wet weather we've lived with for the past two years might be ending in April. They say the La Nina trend is finally weakening as warmer surface water emerges far out in the Pacific Ocean. It can't come soon enough, but in the meantime we have another depressing week of storms ahead. And an alarm clock that went off very early this morning.

The NW coastline has 60 mph plus winds today. These dramatic NW storms (called meteorological "bombs" by weathermen) don't usually make national news because they affect such a remote part of the U.S and Canada. If there was an easy way to drive to the coast from Seattle, we might head out there more often to watch the spectacular waves. On the other hand, when I think about my dream beach, this isn't what comes to mind:


Between the windy showers I still got quite a bit done outside this weekend. "Gardening" seems like too a nice word for this early yard work. It's not the fun, puttering kind like the lady in the white dress is doing. Think of mud-caked sweatpants and soggy boots. Still, outside work this time of year gives you the smug feeling of getting a head start on weeds and transplanting before your neighbors are even thinking about going out.

The robins were rooting around in the rotted leaf mulch I laid down last fall-- there are so many worms under there it looked like the Old Country Buffet for birds. Best of all, the neighborhood is quiet and peaceful before the lawnmowers and power tools start up for the summer.

In case you were wondering, John spent the weekend changing the clocks ahead and sharpening things down in the basement, including all my kitchen knives. In return I made him a nice roast beef dinner on Sunday night.

So far, so good

I've been busy putting my new gas oven to the baking test. This morning I made a double batch of plain old Betty Crocker white yeast bread that turned out fine. By comparison, my old Viking was like a blast furnace and I was always shifting things around to keep pans from scorching on one side. We're going to have fried onions and hamburgers tonight with those round buns.


Ah, yes-- back to cake. I was discouraged by my coconut cake class experience, and since I'd accidentally left the instructor's recipe handout at the college I had to start from scratch once again. No matter, this month's Saveur magazine came to the rescue with a cake issue. The recipe I tried had 4 eggs, a half pound of butter, etc. etc. Imagine all that food in just one cake. Then add in a 4 yolk pastry cream filling made with whole milk, toasted coconut and a carton of whipped cream for "frosting." But! The result was a dense, not overly sweet yellow cake. Unfortunately, the pastry cream cooked up as thick as scrambled eggs, so back to the drawing board on that part of the recipe.
John said it tasted nothing like a cake mix, which I should take as a compliment (I think) because I've made hundreds of them. Cake mixes, that is. This heavy homemade cake was actually better (moister) the second day.

It would be nice to have a decent company cake recipe (other than cheesecake) in my repertoire, but I'm afraid careful baking is never going to be my thing. My heart is not really in it.

On the other hand, roast chicken anyone?

Poultry encounters

Keeping backyard chickens is popular in Seattle, and I've been trying to find an estimate of just how many are tucked away on city lots. I don't think anyone really knows because they don't need licenses (yet.) You're allowed a maximum of eight. Not everyone is happy about sharing their block with "loud, smelly chickens" according to an article in the Seattle Times newspaper. I've been tempted to get a coop, but since I'm an old farm girl I know chickens need daily care and are a fair amount of work like any pet. Besides, we can get all the delicious farm eggs we need from Teresa.

I was at the West Seattle nursery last week and this pretty hen was hanging out by the plant stands when I snapped her picture. She has a deluxe two-story sleeping condo right inside the nursery. The cars were whizzing by a few feet away on California Avenue, but I guess even "free range" chickens don't range that far from home.
Speaking of free-ranging, these chickens were right along the edge of the Museum parking lot last Tuesday. The freeway was a block away. They were taking turns having dust baths under some dry bushes. MOHAI is adjacent to one of the nicest neighborhoods in Seattle, so these are not poor, homeless chickens. I approached slowly with my camera so not to scare them, but they just stared back at me like entitled, rich teenagers.
These pedigree chicks were for sale yesterday at the Issaquah Grange, and if they're lucky a life of urban luxury lies ahead. The staff was giving interested buyers detailed information on the costly prospect of raising them.

Times change. Back when we were kids, around Easter we'd come home from the feed store clutching a free chick that had been dyed yellow, pink or blue. We played with them until they got large and eventually ended up on the dinner table.