Ava Gardener

"How could anyone look that good?"

Sometimes I'll read a book review in the New Yorker magazine that's so dense and satisfying it leaves me with no desire to get the actual book. Now that's fine writing.  I guess amateur writers are easily seduced by the New Yorker's smart, sophisticated, show-offy tone. That $80 a year subscription costs more than all our other magazines put together, but I like it as much for the clever writing as the actual content.

Out here in Lumberjack Land we can't take advantage of "Goings on About Town" in NYC or fight to get a reservation at the "Tables for Two" featured restaurant.  But that wild food review is the first thing I usually read, which is probably better than actually eating a $50 beef shin bone stuffed with snails and glazed with truffle extract. Or whatever...

Anyway, there's a new book out called "Ava Gardener: The Secret Conversations."  In 1988, Gardener was living in London, in poor health and running of money. She approached Peter Evans, an English journalist, and asked him for help with her memoirs. He worked with her for months and she gave him some juicy material before the 3 am "interviews" abruptly stopped.

It seems that Sinatra, still alive at the time, disliked the writer and thought she was revealing too much, so he may have paid her the equivalent of what she would have been paid for the memoir.  Evans died last year, before he could turn the manuscript into a book. With the blessing of her estate, these juicy Old Hollywood tidbits are now revealed.  If this is your cup of tea, looks like a good book.  Then again, you can always just read the New Yorker review in the August 26th issue.

Canning is done

I was on a roll yesterday.  After the tomato-pear chutney (one batch of anything is usually my daily limit) I just keep going:  Plum jam and then plum halves canned in syrup.  Everything was out, the kitchen was already trashed and I figured I'd rather clean it once than three times.  A long day of work, but the reward of seeing all the tidy jars lined up at the end.

There's always a few annoyances you'll understand if you're a home canner.  I spilled sugar on the floor first thing in the morning and felt like I was crunching around on it all day. Then (this has never happened to me before) one of the jar bottoms cracked in the canner, spewing plums and syrup into the clean boiling water and making a big sticky mess. Which means starting over again...

Oh well, that's one less jar to worry about.
Here's a cute little poem:

~My Canning Jar~

To some it's just a little jar,
To me it's so much more.
I have to go in search of these,
~From store, to store, to store.

I fill them up and give them free,
With fruits and so much more.
I wish that I could get them free,
~But canning jars don't grow on trees.

I've worked real hard to fill them up,
And it has been such fun.
`Twould be a special gift to me,
If returned when you are done.

By- Vickie Decker

Happy Month

Now that the month is almost over, I just found out that August is "Happiness Happens Month," according to the Secret Society of Happy People.

A scientific study on PBS This Emotional Life said that 40% of what makes us happy is in our control. But maybe the real secret to being happy is not thinking about the other 60%?  There are some good tips in that study on how to be happier, but my favorite one is so simple and so hard: Act the way you want to feel. 

Yoga

Last time Nova was visiting, she liked to flip around on the rug twisting herself into a pretzel while yelling "Nana! Nana! Can you do THIS?"  (Well, no-- Nana could not, most of the time.)

Nova went to a yoga camp this summer, and in a few days learned advanced poses that an adult Swami could only dream about.  I can't think of anything more gratifying for a yoga teacher than instructing 3 year olds. In the right mood they will try anything, and their bodies are as flexible as young cheetahs.

Now, when you add 60 or so years it's a different story.  But supposedly everyone can still benefit from yoga, and we're all expected to like it these days.  I'm a bit of a gym rat, and yoga classes are some of the most competitive I've ever taken. Despite all the advice to "work at your own level" it's impossible not to glance around and compare yourself to others.  That's what got me in trouble. Remember that ankle injury in January? (Eagle pose.) Not being able to walk around pain-free for months put me off yoga. Although I can still be tricked into doing yoga when they just call it "stretching."

But this gave me a wonderful new appreciation for plain old walking, even on the boring gym treadmill, although Fitbit is constantly goading me to do more. The goal is 10,000 steps a day, which I rarely make unless a horse helps me out.

There's a good poem by Robert Frost called The Woodpile, where he writes about that moment in a every walk when we have to decide whether to forge ahead or turn back towards home.     
 

Bumper crop

We finally had a little rain yesterday.  Not nearly enough to water the parched garden, but it sounded pretty and smelled so good sprinkling the dry-as-straw lawn.  Listen to me. I'm usually whining about rain (or something else) but this cool and cloudy week is the first since early June, so it feels like a novelty.

Here's another thing I'm not complaining about-- our bumper crop of perfect plums. But what to do with them?  Farm girls don't waste their home grown fruit, and it's been years since we had a nice crop.

John wants a baked plum kuchen, and I have an old Gourmet magazine recipe for a tricky but delicious plum jam. Or, if I feel ambitious, I could can some in pint jars with sugar syrup-- good on yogurt or cottage cheese for breakfast in the winter. And my friend Candi once gave me a recipe for plum ketchup -- and so on. All of this of course is a lot of mess and kitchen work.

Over the weekend I brought the heavy bucket in the house to finish ripening, and along with it came a Biblical plague of fruit flies jumping into our wine glasses and spiders weaving webs on the furniture.  Guess that's the price you pay for "organic."  Well, they're back out on the deck tonight, and if the raccoons don't eat them?

Practicing for vacation

Columbia Winery, Woodinville

Saturday was a day of non-stop chores around the house: I cleaned the kitchen, including all the dirty knick-knacks on the top shelf.  John pulled off the greasy range hood and I sprayed it with icky 409. Then we fired up the ghastly "self-cleaning" oven for the yearly blast--  the manual advises you to take pet birds outside to avoid the fumes. You get the picture. Ugh. 

While the fans were roaring and the oven cooking away at 700 degrees, John ran errands around town and I escaped outside to cut off the dried-up perennials. No wonder I woke up so groggy on Sunday morning I thought it was already September.  Maybe it was the chemicals, or just wishful thinking because our California vacation is a few weeks away.

So we needed a little outing on Sunday, and drove up Woodinville to visit Columbia and St. Michelle wineries.  Good practice for the Napa Valley, where this is a familiar sight: John at the cash register buying wine and/or food. 

In this case, two flat bread pizzas-- nothing like lunch in the sunshine to put you in the vacation mood.

Then a short stop at Chateau St. Michelle, just across the road from Columbia Winery.

The immense trout were still swimming around in the pond. Always a relaxing sight. Maybe this is the same one who bit Amanda's finger when she was 7 years old?

Begonias

The begonias are beautiful right now.  These tubers from Costco wintered over fine in the shed last year, which is always a nice bonus.  There hasn't been a drop of rain to ruin the fragile flowers and break off the heavy, moist leaves.

After such a long string of warm, dry days (just look at that "grass"!) we're all wondering what the coming winter will bring. The weather gurus predict another El Neutro winter (neither Nina or Nino) which can mean just about anything. We're overdue for one of our epic, paralyzing Seattle snow storms. But who knows, maybe I can squeeze another summer out of these begonias?

Begoniaceae is one of the largest flowering plant families with about 1500 different species and hundreds of hybrids. The genus is unusual in that species throughout the genus, even those coming from different continents, can be hybridized with each other, and this has led to an enormous number of cultivars.  In other words, the begonia breeders have gone crazy-- they're as bad as the fuchsia nuts!   Like fuchsias, the range of begonia flowers, foliage colors and sizes are incredibly diverse, and spectacular. 

I've always thought of them as "old lady" flowers, but The Grateful Dead once wrote a song called Scarlet Begonias.

She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes
And I knew without asking she was into the blues-
She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls
I knew right away she was not like other girls.

Well I ain't never been right as I ain't never been wrong,
As everything works out the way it does in this song.
'Cause once in a while you get shown in the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Words, words, words

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,

 such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,

splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

Notes on the Art of Poetry
by- Dylan Thomas
 

Tea box wisdom

The early mornings have been incredibly beautiful this week.  No dreary overcast or fog to burn off-- just a perfectly clear sky with an enormous moon setting in the west and the sun coming up behind the Cascade mountains to the east.  We're getting into that nice time of year when the hours of daylight and darkness are about equal in length.  It's healthful for the body clock in regard to sleeping and eating.  I'm sure this is one reason why tropical vacations near the equator are so relaxing.

I seldom turn the TV on in the morning anymore to catch the local news, a small thing that makes me happier. Anyway, a couple taps on the phone gives the weather and says if it's safe to go outside today, or if the world came to an end overnight.

I also have a app called Today's Step that gives a short quote and a theme to think about.  After I downloaded it, I realized Today's Step is slanted toward people in drug and alcohol recovery. But what the heck?  I like it-- and who doesn't have something they would like change about themselves?

This was the nugget for today:

Theme: Freedom
We all have a choice in how we start the day.  In my perfect world, my day begins with coffee, meditation, a quick check of email, a walk, and a practice.
Try this: 
On these days when you just aren't into it, go outside and take a deep breath and stand there anyway.  It won't be long before you say, "I'm already here, I might as well keep going."

Oh yes, some good news about dad.  As of last night, the plan was to release him from the hospital today.  He's doing really well, but instead of going home alone he decided to spend the next few weeks at the Cripple Creek Care Center. We're all happy about this. He and mom will share a room, and he can get some rest and therapy until he feels confident to live on his own again. 

Simple Gifts

The Black Swedes band

The cool-looking young guy second from the left is my music instructor, Matt. The other day I asked what he does when he's not teaching senior citizens to play the ukulele.  He smiled (it's hard to make Matt laugh-- he's very serious) and said he's busy performing and recording with several bands, one of them called the Black Swedes.

I looked them up of course, and see that Matt is a rock guitarist and songwriter-- no wonder he can strum a lively Oh, Susanna with one hand tied behind his back. The Black Swedes perform at night clubs and music taverns around Seattle and Portland. The kind of places we never go, because they're just setting up about the time we're going to bed.

Matt and I obviously live in parallel Seattle universes, although at the most basic level music boils down to just one language: notes on a page. So I take him folk song books and YouTube clips of songs I'm yearning to play. Sometimes he doesn't immediately recognize a famous tune like Fur Elise (which makes me secretly smile.) BUT if he has the sheet music, he can work almost anything into ukulele tablature.  (For novices, tabs are much easier to read than music notation.)

That alone is worth the price of a lesson. He's already done Ode to Joy, Amazing Grace and Scarborough Fair, and this week I'll take in the old Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts.  

Simple Gifts is lovely on the ukulele but it isn't "simple" to play at all. Getting the right rhythm and timing is difficult no matter how many times you've heard it. Practice, practice, practice.

The photographs on this beautiful video remind me of the Pennsylvania farm county where we grew up.  Our wonderful dad in Colorado looks at the blog first thing in the morning, and he would love this if he could only see it today. Please hold him in your thoughts and prayers.  Dad is in the hospital this week in Colorado Springs, but we're all very hopeful after rest and therapy he can be back home soon with mom in Cripple Creek.

Peek-a-boo

We saw lots of this over the weekend. Maya will soon be walking, because she already pulls herself up and stands alone for a few seconds at a time. What a delightful, happy (most of the time) baby she is! The time flew by, and Amanda and the girls are headed home today. 

Busy day

Serious fairy garden cultivation...

A trip to the park...

Lunch at Micky-D...

A stop at the grocery store...

A new pet...

A break for wine and sippy cup...

Then a belated birthday celebration...

Hanging with grandpa...

And precious little Maya has already hit the sack, with Nana right behind her.  Whew. Have a good weekend!

Change in the air

NOAA's monthly map shows the statewide ranks of how their month's rainfall totals stacked up against the record books. Oregon had the driest July ever. Washington wasn't far behind at 8th, but there were enough stray thunderstorms too bring our state average off the bottom. Green tells the rest of the soggy story. I'm sorry for you on the east coast.

But a change is in the air here after weeks of dry, warm weather. That first Pacific frontal system of the season is bringing in clouds and some (welcome) light rain over the next few days.

Amanda is visiting with the little girls for the weekend, so we'll be busy in a good way.  Maya is full speed ahead now-- she actually crawled up the entire flight of stairs from the basement (with Nana close behind.)  Nova is going to the beauty shop this morning for a haircut.  Pictures soon...

Get your Borgia on

I'm almost embarrassed to admit we're watching The Borgias, a Showtime TV series now out on Netflix DVD.   Jeremy Irons is one of my favorite actors, and I thought his venerable presence in a "historical drama" might elevate it above the usual trashy level of cable TV.  Ha!  The Borgias is as lurid and violent as anything you can imagine, and more people are murdered than on the Sopranos.  Honestly, I don't really recommend it.  But the problem is, once you start watching, you get hooked by the good acting and story.

 Pope Alexander IV (1525-1605) 

Jeremy Irons plays the depraved Pope Alexander, although after reading a bit of history, he might be getting a bad rap.  (Just because he fathered at least 6 children, doesn't mean he was necessarily a bad church administrator. Things were different back then.)

The same is true of the notorious and beautiful Lucrezia Borgia. She was married off starting at age 13 to a series of husbands in order to form political alliances. No one really knows if the poison stories are true.  There are so many portraits supposedly of Lucrezia, historians aren't even positive what she looked like.

 

It's interesting that this painting by Dosso Dossi called Portrait of a Youth is believed to be the only true image of Lucrezia Borgia.

Summer cake

We lived in Germany for about a year when Amanda was a baby.  In the months when fruit was in season (this was before you could buy any kind of fresh produce year-round) our elderly neighbors made a daily cake for their morning kaffee trinken ritual.  And of course they never wasted food from the garden, so this was a simple Kuchen with fruit baked on top, always eaten on the same day it was baked. 

I have a similar recipe for a "plum tart" from an old Sunset magazine. John loves it.  It's an easy batter recipe with no special ingredients, and works for all kind of fresh fruit:  peaches, apples, nectarines and of course, plums.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. grated orange peel (optional)
1/2 tsp. almond extract
pinch salt
3 large eggs
1 cup flour
About a pound of thinly sliced fresh fruit

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs, salt, almond and orange peel-- blend well, about 2 minutes.  Add the flour and beat on high speed for about 4 minutes.  The batter will be thick.

Butter and flour an 11 inch tart pan with removable bottom.  Spread the batter on the bottom, then arrange the slices of fruit on top. Sprinkle with sugar.  Bake in a 375 oven until the batter pops up around the fruit and the cake is lightly browned and beginning to pull away from the pan sides, about 30 minutes. Let it cool slightly, then dust with powdered sugar. 

This recipe is an easy warm weather dessert, served "mit schlag" (or vanilla ice cream) on top.

Classical ukulele

I was excited to discover on Amazon.com that my guy "Jumpin' Jim" has a book out with John King's classical arrangements, including Fur Elise and Greensleeves.   It's amazing how wonderful famous pieces by Bach, Beethoven and Mozart sound on a simple instrument, but it's sure hard to find good classical music transcribed for the ukulele.

From the New York Times:

The Journal of the Society for American Music last year called Mr. King  perhaps the world’s only truly classical ‘ukulele virtuoso.’ Mr. King’s death at 55 on April 3, 2009 at his home in St. Petersburg, Fla., sent shock waves through the ukulele universe, which has widened with enthusiasts now clustering on the Internet and at festivals around the country. His wife, Debi, said that Mr. King died of a heart attack, suddenly and completely unexpectedly.

Tom Walsh, a board member of the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum, said in an interview last week that Mr. King was “adored by the ukulele community,” most of whom faced an inescapable realization: “I could never possibly play like that.”

No kidding...but with Jumpin Jim's help, who knows?

Happy Birthday!

Amanda and Nova

2009

Nova's birthday is today, and Amanda's is tomorrow.  Happy birthday to our girls!  And what a wonderful four years it's been.  Nana and Grandpa send all their love across the mountains.

A nice job

Yea! We can forget about the hedge for another year. There were a few moments of suspense and drama yesterday. Of course I was peering out the window watching as they trimmed. I noticed the top edge sloping up on one side of the yard about 3 feet. Yikes.  They were only skimming the top. Lazy.

So the Wicked Witch of the Hedge went out to have a chat with Mr. Le, who declared it was not possible to trim evenly because the top was "too wide and the wood was too thick."  When have I heard that excuse?  I looked unhappy and told him to please do what he could, because we never wanted to have a twenty foot tall hedge again.  I went back in the house. Mr. Le went off for a coffee break.  I was not optimistic.

Well, of course it is possible to bring the top down, but that involves crawling through the belly of the monster and lopping by hand. 

I don't know what he told them, but his hard-working guys jumped right in. In just 3 hours they were done. Mr Le came back and pocketed his massive check.  But it was money well spent for a quality job. The hedge hasn't looked this good since Geraldo went back to Mexico. Best of all, the beast is tamed and the job next year will be a snap.

Catastrophizing

 
Turning nouns into verbs is called "verbing." We do it all the time in English, and it's just a way of creating new words like accessing, networking, blogging, impacting, etc.  Some of these words are annoying, but I do like the word catastrophizing, even though I can't pronounce it and spell checker doesn't recognize it yet.  Psychologists made that word up to describe what they call "cognitive distortion." It means to talk about an event or situation as worse than it actually is, or as if it were a catastrophe. 

Speaking of which, after spinning down the "I'm so stupid path" and feeling sorry for myself all week, I went back to the museum on Tuesday and had my spreadsheet in tip-top shape in about an hour.  In fact, the "save" mistake turned out to be a good thing, because I caught some inconsistencies I might otherwise have missed.  Several lessons to be learned there.

Today a new Mr. Le is coming (at least that's what he promised) to cut the hedge.  I'm trying not to catastrophize this, based on past experiences.  He is very expensive! But he says he is good at hedges, and although ours will be much work he will make it look nice. What could I do, but believe him?  I liked his lack of bravado, and folks seem to approve of a Mr. Le Garden Service on the West Seattle blog. Hopefully, I called the right Mr. Le.

Ghost story

High Gate Cemetery, London

I'm just finishing the novel Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger, 2009.  It caught my eye on the bargain table at the second-hand book store because she is also the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, a debut novel that made the book club rounds about ten years ago. Both novels have been described as "deliciously creepy" in the way they combine romance and science fiction.   

Her Fearful Symmetry takes place near High Gate Cemetery in London. There are over 170,000 graves and many prominent people buried there, most notably Karl Marx. There are also thousands of unidentified graves and it has become a de facto nature preserve.  Tours of the most famous graves are available, although visitors are no longer allowed to explore alone.  Still, a fascinating place to put on the bucket list.