Happy New Year

“May Light always surround you;
Hope kindle and rebound you.
May your Hurts turn to Healing;
Your Heart embrace Feeling.
May Wounds become Wisdom;
Every Kindness a Prism.
May Laughter infect you;
Your Passion resurrect you.
May Goodness inspire
your Deepest Desires.
Through all that you Reach For,
May your arms Never Tire.”

D. Simone

A stranger in a strange land

Apologies to my little group of followers who check in on the blog daily and have been greeted by a stale piece of fruitcake. This old dog is trying to learn new tricks and I haven't been able to write.

You know how it feels to land in a foreign country where all the familiar things you take for granted have changed? I suppose your zest for adventure and new learning depends on how weary you are when you step off the airplane. (I'm post-Christmas beat.) People are suddenly speaking a language I don't understand and doing familiar things in different, perplexing ways.  What was once second nature is suddenly baffling and complex.

To make it worse, the new computer is talking to my iPhone behind my back in a frightening way.

And so it is, traveling to Apple World after 30 years in Windows Land.  Like people, computers are all the same under the skin--they just wear different clothing and speak different languages. For example, Restore the files you accidentally deleted is now called Put Back in Mac talk. Causing moments of panic. And so on, over and over again.  

After my photos were transferred to the new machine, I was surprised to see 11,000+ images stored on Viao going back almost 10 years.  All of them organized in lazy librarian default according to the month and year they were taken. Not a horrible arrangement, but pitiful now considering the astonishing tools available on IPhoto and Photoshop. (That is a project for another day.)

It's all very perplexing. I just want things to stay the same (don't we all?) and upload pictures into my blog without writing down item numbers, dragging things into new temporary folders and straining my eyes staring at miniscule thumbnails.  Wait!  That sounds like one of those sad Windows workarounds! I need some help from a Genius, and not the one who lives in this house.   My first "Getting to Know Your Mac" lesson is tomorrow at the Apple Store.

There's a big adventure ahead in a dazzling new land. But for now, this tired blogger is signing off on the old Hewlett Packard.

National Fruitcake Day

National Fruitcake Day celebrates the rock hard, fruit filled holiday cake. While fruitcake was popular in the 40's and 50's, we are not sure if anyone has ever eaten this weighty, gooey, sugar laden cake.  Scientists have been unable to penetrate deeply into a fruitcake, and therefore, have failed to uncover its exact composition. Its density has also hampered their ability to use carbon dating to identify the age of a fruitcake. Unconfirmed rumors suggest that some fruitcake are hundreds of years old.  From Weird and Wacky Holiday Calendar


I once made a pretty good brandy-soaked fruitcake, or maybe I'm just fooling myself because I don't remember anyone actually eating it except me and an old English friend who called it "Christmas cake" and loved it.  Fruitcake is much more popular in Great Britain. 

When my brother went on wilderness adventures in the 1980's he would take some of my fruitcake along in his backpack as emergency "survival" food.  That was before energy bars had been invented. My grandmother who never threw anything out kept hers in the refrigerator for years.   Despite all the bad jokes, I still think a thin slice of well-made fruitcake is pretty good with a cup of tea.  Anyway-- enough about fruitcake! If you have one, December 27th is the official day to pass it along.

The Second Day of Christmas

Before the storm

The Twelve Days of Christmas is largely forgotten in the United States, except for that song that I don't care to hear again for another year.  This time of winter was once a wild, twelve day period of non-fasting celebration. In the olden days, the holiday was just getting started on December 25th.

I always like Boxing Day because after a whirlwind of work and craziness I have a chance to contemplate my gifts-- both material and spiritual.  This can be almost as overwhelming as Christmas Day. On the highly material side, there was a new MacBook Pro under the tree.  Yes, that means in 2014 I'll leave the aggravating but familiar PC world behind forever.

And what a good world it was. Thank you, Microsoft for all the highs and lows of a long relationship. But nostalgia only goes so far and apparently new wonders, ease and luxury awaits. Perhaps the best part of the gift will be a year of one-on-one lessons with a smart (and hopefully very patient) Apple Smartperson. 

My Viao will be taking a last, sad walk with me to the Apple Store where its insides (thousands of photos and documents) will be unceremoniously removed by an Apple Genius and installed into a sleek new machine. Just like going from a Ford Taurus to a Ferrari. Thank you, John!

And to all, a Good Night

Some special moments today when Nova played with the old wooden toys that were once Amanda's. For me, Christmas Eve Day tradition always centers in the kitchen.

A pitcher of fresh lemonade is a once-a-year-treat made with fresh Meyer lemons sent up from Las Vegas in an expensive package.

Thanks, Marji!

Quiche Lorraine ready for Christmas breakfast

And a Manhattan-style cheesecake for dessert after ham and scalloped potatoes tomorrow. Whew.

But tonight, a quiet dinner at home and maybe a walk around the block to look at the neighbor's lights. And it isn't raining!

We send love and Christmas blessings to our family and friends tonight.

Sleep in heavenly peace. 

What's easier?

Q: What's easier than taking candy from a baby?  

A: Teaching a baby how to use an iPhone.

Maya and I spent some quality time today while Mom ran errands and visited with friends.  I had that little finger swiping the screen in no time. Building airplanes is next.

Now, tucked among Nana's old Christmas treasures, Nova tells me there are some "scary" things. Like Amanda's big wooden Pinocchio (really??)

And this fat elf--

Because Nana has to stay one step ahead of her bright granddaughters, she put "scary elf" up on her desk.

It's called "natural child deterrent."

Ode to Joy

Well, we almost made it all the way through Ode to Joy...I hope you're having fun too this busy weekend!

Oh Christmas tree

Christmas sure is a lot of work!

The new solar year

 This is now the winter time,
My merry gentlemen
Yule logs are burning in your hall,
Fair forms are circling in the ball,
And cups are filled with purple wine
To aid the pudding and the chine.

This is now the winter time;
Remember, gentles, then,
That none shall starve while you dine;
That none shall thirst who grow the vine.
Yet give no alms in mean award,
But spread the just, the well-earned board.
This is now the winter time,
My noble gentlemen.

Goodwyn Barmby

(1820-1881)

Just when it feels like the days can't get any shorter - it's true. Today is the shortest day of the year. The Winter Solstice has always been a pagan festival of rebirth, celebrated for thousands of years. Every year hundreds of interesting people still gather at Stonehenge to watch the sunrise.

It must be quite a scene. But you don't have to be a druid or belong to a coven to want to celebrate the longest night of the year.  The Winter Solstice means the return of the sun, and each day it will give us more light. The sun is at it's southernmost point and begins the long, six-month journey north. Winter may be just beginning, but it also feels like the hope of Spring.

Our Seattle snow is a distant memory this morning. Godspeed Amanda, as you make your way over the mountains today with the little girls.  

Snow

It was snowing this morning when we woke up at 4:30-- the first Seattle snow in about two years. Snow is a very big deal here.  John got to work OK leaving at his usual ungodly hour, but the morning commute quickly turned into a nightmare.  I was looking forward to hitting Southcenter Macy's One Day Sale for some early morning "doorbusters" but guess I'll have to content myself with on-line shopping. Oh well. At least Macy's makes that easy.

The more disappointing news of the day is that Amanda and the little girls won't be here until sometime tomorrow.  With 18 inches of snow forecast on the passes today, she wisely decided to wait to drive over with the kiddos. It will be snowy tomorrow too, but hopefully the main dump in the mountains will be cleared away by then.   Just rain in the forecast for Seattle.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was first published on December 19, 1843. The book hasn't been out of print since then and the story has been adapted to stage and film countless times.  The perennial favorite in this house is the 1970 musical Scrooge starring dreamy, handsome, young Albert Finney. We watch it almost every year.  I know the dialog by heart and like to blurt my favorite lines with the actors, making other viewer in the room sigh and turn up the sound.

Jacob Marley:  I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?

A Christmas Carol helped restore the season as one of merriment in Britain and America, after a long period of somberness and sobriety following the Protestant Reformation. It presented a more secular (fun) vision of the holiday, celebrated with family gatherings, seasonal food and drink and a generosity of spirit.    The phrase "Merry Christmas" was popularized following the story, and "Scrooge" and "Bah! Humbug!" entered the English language.

I found some vintage book illustrations by an artist I'd never heard of named Jake Hartz.  There is another Jake Hartz out there, apparently very famous for photographing male body-builders, and his pictures hog up the first pages if you search on that name.  (Google at your own risk.)

Jake Hartz is certainly multi-talented if he's the same person who drew these charming illustrations!  It's confusing because Fine Art America links the body-builder photographer to the Christmas Carol drawings they offer for sale as cards.  Well, the Internet is not perfect and some things should remain a mystery. This librarian is too tired and busy this morning to dig deeper. Enjoy.

 

Cookie day of reckoning

No dilly-dallying around on the computer this morning for me. John's pot luck is tomorrow and I have to transform the above cookie chaos into something that looks more like this from last year:

"The whole world again marvels"

Fly me to the moon

Could you see the beautiful full moon last night?  We're socked in again with freezing fog this morning, but last night it was clear for a while after an early sunset at 4:10. December's full moon is sometimes called the Cold Moon or Long Night Moon.

It didn't seem to get much attention in the media, but the Chinese successfully launched and landed a rover on the moon this week, leaving the first wheeled tracks on the surface in nearly 40 years.  From the official statement:

“Now as Jade Rabbit has made its touchdown on the moon surface, the whole world again marvels at China's remarkable space capabilities,” said Xinhua, China’s state news agency, in an article following the landing.

Here's a poem by May Sarton.

December Moon

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged

While the moon rose and shone.
Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we’ll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

God rest ye, merry gentlemen

Tijuana c. 1970

All the Christmas treasures are set up in the lighted china cabinet again, and it looks magical at night. Nova is old enough now to enjoy hearing stories about old family things.  Everything, including Celluloid Santa, survived another year in the attic crawl space.

The only minor casualty among the nativity sets was a donkey's ear.  The white Mexican crèche is as perfect as it was 40 years ago when I bought it in a Tijuana souvenir store on Avenida Revolucion.

Speaking of that, while wasting time this weekend Goggling "vintage Tijuana photos" I pulled up pictures of street scenes I remember like it was yesterday.  If that doesn't make a person feel like a walking antique, nothing will.

Living in San Diego back in the 1970's, Tijuana was a popular day trip for us.  It took a lot of energy, but we were young. Southern California cities were not so uniformly Hispanic yet, so everything was still more exotic right across the border: the food, language, cheap prices and non-stop hustling to buy stuff or get lured into the bars.  If you were daring you ate street tacos. If not, you drank beer or had soda at the Woolworth's lunch counter. No one was in Tijuana for the fine dining--it was all about partying and shopping.

And oh, that wonderful shopping!  It seems impossible, but I still have some pottery and crumbling flower pots from the 70's, now called "vintage Mexican tourist-ware."   The traffic was insane and we never drove across the border, so everything had to be hand-carried.

I think a nice trolley line will now take you to the border from downtown San Diego.  Back then we parked a long way off in San Ysidro (the further the lot, the cheaper) and trudged up, over, and then down a  grimy, spiral concrete ramp across the highway below.

 I imagine that pedestrian bridge is still there. Along with the street vendors, hustlers and begging children. Believe me, it was a long walk back to the car with all those flower pots, statues, huaraches, leather purses, baskets and nativity sets. It helped to have (grumpy) men along to carry the stuff.

Last but not least, there are some new Mexican kids on the block. Thanks Dan and Becky, for the charming folk art nativity set you sent us. The more the merrier!

A Santa picture classic

 

Maya! Tell us how you really feel about Santa...

But Nova has things to discuss with Santa.

The devil's cookie

Date Nut Balls

If you like dates, you will love this cookie.  My mother-in-law sent me the recipe back in 1999 and I was grateful because it isn't in any of my old cookbooks.  I adore Wilda, so my nickname for the cookie has nothing to do with the fact that it's her recipe. Ha ha!

I call it the devil's cookie only because the last step requires forming the sticky, hot-out-of-the-oven dough into balls.

Date Nut Cookies

3/4 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 c. fresh dates, diced
1 c. chopped walnuts
2 eggs, well-beaten

Mix the dry ingredients, then add dates, nuts and eggs.  Stir until blended then spread into a greased 11x7 inch pan.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. 

Don't overbake-- the dough must be soft and scalding hot to form the balls.  It is very sticky and I use a spoon and make the balls fairly small.  These are sweet as candy.

Finally, roll the warm balls in powdered sugar.  A Christmas treat for date and walnut lovers.

WInter fairy house

I'm a sucker for garden supply mail order catalogs (from look of our crammed mail box, they know this) so when Plow and Hearth had a new "blue thatched cottage" on their "fairy garden accessories" page it was a done deal.  Of course I'm not the only one in this house who likes to buy stuff on-line!  We should put orange cones in front of the house for the UPS truck.

Well, I don't know anyone who actually needs a new fairy house, but that's what keeps the economy going. I do know a couple of little girls who will go bonkers over it. As you can see, Santa is already on the chimney. And it cheers me up going in and out the back door. 

I was home all day yesterday making cookies (nut balls, pecan shortbread, gingerbread stars, snicker-doodles) and only went out once to Bartell's Drugstore in order buy some smelly remedies for my sore back.  How did I hurt my back?  Was I doing something fun and interesting like riding a horse?  No, I have no idea how or when it happened, which seems to indicate a certain lack of mindfulness while exercising.

The 30-something girl trainer at my new gym said I was "lazy in my old set routine" and gave me a lecture about "setting personal goals."  She said at my current wimpy level of physical effort, the best I could hope for was a "plateau."  I told her that a "plateau" would be just fabulous, if in 20 years I can still do what I do now. That fell on deaf ears.  Anyway, perhaps she planted a subliminal that made me try a little harder than I should on the weight machines.

WebMD is a website I look at sometimes but dislike, because they usually just recommend drugs, expensive tests and stressful doctor visits. In this case, they were not sympathetic at all about a simple low backache.  They did not tell you to rush to the doctor. Everyone gets backaches. As long as you can still walk, just go about your business for a week or so and it will probably get better by itself.  I haven't hit the Bengay or the Advil this morning, so WebMD might be right on this one.

David Woodlock

Old Cottage

National Noodle Ring Day

You know it's a slow winter morning in Seattle when I have to check my Weird and Wacky Holiday Calendar to find a bit of fresh news for the blog.

Yes, December 11 is National Noodle Ring Day. And what is a noodle ring? Basically it's a bundt cake of noodles glued together with eggs and served with a pool of mushroom sauce in the middle.  A bland but inoffensive old Midwestern pot luck dish, and the staple of mid-century cookbooks.  A recipe your mom would make if she was feeling especially creative.  Of course it must be carefully plated to avoid catastrophic noodle failure. The noodle ring is all about dramatic presentation.

Just in case John is worried reading about this at work, no noodle ring with mushroom soup sauce served here tonight-- just shrimp curry. Although I could always dump curry in the middle of a noodle ring for a multi-cultural exotic treat!