Sunset, sunrise

Destin, Florida

We're about as far as you can get from Seattle and still be in the continental United States.  Needless to say, a day's journey to the Panhandle of Florida is a mighty long one from the Northwest.  We were lucky yesterday.  The planes leaving on time, even arriving slightly early in Pensacola. Then a long but uneventful drive in a rental car to our condo on the Gulf coast.  But gosh, we were sure happy we didn't have to make that trip after dark. The travel deities were in a favorable mood.

The weather is tropical.  Which means it is warm and humid, and changes every few hours, as does the forecast. In Seattle, we can see the rain fronts approaching days in advance. Here, no one seems to know whats going to happen.  And whatever happens, doesn't seem to last long anyway.

Before we left I made myself slightly crazy checking weather.com. every few hours. The forecast looked awful!  It rained several inches on Monday, with thunderstorms flash floods predicted for the week.  By yesterday afternoon, sunshine, and nothing left but some puddles along the highway.  And a beautiful sunset to greet us last night.

Can you see the humidity?  We knew we were in the tropics because our glasses steamed up when we left the air-conditioned grocery store. The daytime temperature is close to 90, with almost 100% humidity. I'm afraid my Seattle lady-friends would be unhappy here. Every day is a bad hair day.

It's going to be a busy few days, with a party and beach wedding on Thursday night.  Today we're looking forward to catching up with family.

Spectacular

The super moon and full eclipse put on a great show last night. We had to wait a little longer to see the moon rise from our back deck, due to all the new apartment buildings that have popped along California Avenue east of us.  We never noticed them while the bamboo still lived here.

On the bright side, there's more sun and open sky in the backyard, but also more lighted windows looking back at night.  So it goes in the Urban Village.  The moon managed to rise above it all.

There were lots of beautiful classic Seattle photos on the Internet this morning, like this one of the Space Needle from Scott Sistek's local weather blog.  I'll leave you with this picture for a couple of days and check in when we reach our destination later this week. 

This is how it should look on the Gulf Coast, but unfortunately not today. Hopefully by the time we blow in, the rain and clouds will have all blown away. 

Coconut craze

I bought this little expensive jar of virgin coconut oil at Uwajima, the Asian grocery store.  Might as well have the best, although Costco sells it in great big tubs.  It looks like a cosmetic and indeed, people also smear it on their hair and skin.

Once a villain fat, coconut oil is now considered the healthiest saturated fat on earth. It has many proven benefits, such as increasing good cholesterol and lowering abdominal obesity.  It also contains an immune boosting fat called lauric acid (found in breast milk) and is supposedly good for the thyroid.  Of course it's high in calories like all fat, but 2 or 3 tablespoons a day is enough to do the trick.

It tastes amazing, that is, if you don't mind your food tasting like coconut.  I thought I'd give it a try with a shrimp and vegetable stir-fry.

I always cook shrimp first, then set them aside.  They leave a nice flavor in the pan, and don't get all soggy while everything else is cooking.

The coconut oil smelled great and foamed a bit, just like butter.  And like butter or olive oil, coconut oil burns with searing hot temperatures-- the only disadvantage.  

A dab more oil, and the vegetables go in to stir-fry quickly.

The last step is adding the sauce, a handful of raw cashews, and the cooked shrimp.  In about a minute, the sauce thickens and it's ready to serve with brown rice.  There were no leftovers last night.

Super moon, lunar eclipse

 Free show

On Saturday night a super moon combines with a total lunar eclipse.  That hasn't happened since 1982, and won't happen again until 2033.  This is also the Harvest Moon, the name given to the full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox.

Check your local times. In Seattle, the event starts before the moon rises, but it will be above the horizon when the full eclipse begins at 7:11 p.m. The moon will stay in eclipse mode until 8:23 pm and then brighten back to its normal super moon self at 10:22 pm. 

From NASA:

The seasons shift

Today the Autumn Equinox marks the beginning of Fall.  The daylight hours will dwindle until we reach the Winter Solstice in December, the shortest day of the year.  Fall happens every year, but the transition is always a bit surprising.  For summer lovers, certain things help.  The purchase of a new sweater or a seasonal drink, for example.

The Pope got the national news share this morning, but did you know Chinese President Xi Jinping landed in Everett yesterday to kick off a week-long visit to America?  Anyone who has to drive anywhere in the Puget Sound region is painfully aware of the fact.  As a visiting of head of state, the freeways are closed without advance warning for his giant motorcade, as he criss-crosses the area visiting important companies and people.  

It looks like a grueling schedule, but he brought along an entourage of 1,000 to attend his needs. I wonder if anyone will buy him a pumpkin spice latte?  Starbucks is planning a massive expansion in China and they're altering their stores and products to adapt to Chinese tastes.  

For example, the Chinese Starbucks sells mooncakes, a "must eat" treat during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In case you didn't know, a mooncake is a round pastry, usually made from a combination of sweet and savory ingredients.  For example, bean paste with a tasty center of salted duck egg.  

Everyone should try a moon cake-- once. But leave it to Starbucks!  They've developed a Coffee Verona and a Lychee and Raspberry Mooncake that don't sound half bad.

A second spring

The light was nice yesterday afternoon so I took these flower pictures. When the September rain starts, gardeners in the Northwest enjoy what they call a "second spring."   This summer wasn't just dry, it was a record-breaking drought, and not a great year for flowers in our yard. 

Everything is making up for lost time.  The roses have a final bloom and the dahlias are at their peak.  The biggest one is over six feet tall. Oh boy, I can hardly wait until that flops over in October and has to be dragged off.  But right now, spectacular.

The grass that looked so totally, utterly dead a month ago is green as can be. The weeds are growing too.   Ditto the bamboo roots.  It's my job to snip off the culms as soon as they appear, so I go on bamboo patrol with my clippers every couple of days.  They are sneaky and fast. The roots invaded most of the back yard, but now they've been "disconnected" from their monster nourishing mother plant.  According to Bruce (the bamboo expert) the roots will eventually give up and die if the new growth is thwarted again and again.  So you see, this a battle of wills.

There's also a saying that "autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower." Our society is all about youth and beauty, but how do we embrace the autumn of our lives and and find inner beauty with age and experience?

Pictures tell the story

 The Stray Threads Quilt Guild semi-annual retreat.
 Camp Huston, Gold Bar, Washington.

The sweet camp dog.

A short walk on Friday afternoon before getting down to business.

The kitchen served hearty, family-style meals three times a day in this beautiful dining room. Who knew sewing worked up such a big appetite?

Our workroom.

My goodness, everything hauled from home.

Fabric!

Tools and attachments galore!

Of course, thread!

One of the "design walls."

Adorable fabrics...

And more adorable fabrics :-)

Beautiful designs,  carefully laid out.

Color artistry.

A lovely lady with her lovely handmade quilt.
One of many masterpieces.

Thinking of taking up a new hobby?
Warning: the devil is in the details.
You need a patient teacher.

Speaking of that, here's my first table runner project.

It slowly came together with the help of great teachers.

Thank you, Julie and Susan!

And proof I can actually sew-- a bit. 

Especially on this fabulous borrowed Bernina machine. 

More thanks to Julie.

And home on Sunday afternoon, five pounds heavier,  but with a little treasure to remind me of an amazing weekend.  It was inspiring being part of this incredibly talented group. Thank you everyone,  for the warm welcome and hospitality at Camp Huston.

 

Summer is over

Snail and Dwarf

Martin Wiegand

The transition from spring to summer is a slow process in the Northwest, but the change from summer to fall is more abrupt.  By October it feels like a dark curtain has been pulled down-- the cue to start hunkering down in our houses. Weeks and months go by without a glimpse of neighbors, other than getting in and out of their cars. 

After such a spectacular warm summer (too hot for most) there aren't many complaints about this cool, wet September. After such a bad drought, the rain is wonderful, unless you have to actually get somewhere on our gridlocked freeways. I'm glad I can hide under my mushroom this morning.

The teacher's strike is over and it's finally the start of school in Seattle, always a traffic nightmare day. On the 5:30 am news, there was already a eight-mile backup of unfortunates trying to get into Seattle on I-5.

In an hour or so, the school buses will roar by the house and our street will be full of the parked cars of teachers and parents waiting for their kids. I'll time my comings and goings to the middle school hours, otherwise I'll have to walk a block with grocery bags. Yes, it's fall.

I'm looking forward to a special weekend, and doing something very different.  My good friend Julie invited me to her Stray Threads Quilt Guild sewing retreat at a camp in Gold Bar.  I'm not a quilter, or even much of a seamstress, but I'm looking forward to meeting these talented ladies and getting inspired by their art.  John will be happy at home playing loud classical music, watching football and probably sharpening knives!

Oh yes, my computer is staying home too, so there won't be another blog until Monday when I hope to have some beautiful pictures to share. Have a good weekend.

This is my book

These days, it seems like I'm always running across "antiques" that I can remember using. Like these "rare vintage bookplates" for sale on the Internet from Antioch Publishing Company for $12.75, plus shipping.

Oh, these brought back memories of my little collection of books, hauled from apartment to apartment and shelved on boards and bricks.

I'd bought a box of these very plates for a couple of dollars in the 1970's. The Hobbit books were in fashion then, and this dwarf looked like Bilbo Baggins.  I carefully wrote my name (I had nice handwriting in those days) and attached them to all my books, some of which I still have today, albeit somewhat tattered. 

I pulled these off the dusty bottom shelf this morning, and there he was...

We have so many things now, and can buy any small thing we desire.  But this made me nostalgic for a time when a single book was a prized possession, a treasure you carefully labelled and carefully loaned.

Riding lessons

Yesterday Amanda sent these pictures of Nova taking riding lessons at Moccasin Lake Ranch in Winthrop. This fine horse is "Little Blackie," who apparently has over 30 years experience teaching young ladies to ride. 

The ranch horses were evacuated during the fire, but life is gradually getting back to normal in the Valley.  When I looked at the ranch website, I thought I recognized a certain favorite pink t-shirt.  Yes, that's our Nova on the top rotating banner!

Click HERE for a link to the page.

Elegant strings

We watched a Nova PBS show the other night called The Elegant Universe. It's about the idea that the fundamental ingredients of nature might be these unbelievably tiny stings of energy. The interaction between energy strings underlie everything that ever happened or ever will, from our thoughts to the entire universe.

It could be the "theory of everything" that has eluded the great physicists so far.  The brilliance of this theory unites the crazy small particle action in quantum mechanics with the laws of the large in general relativity science. 

This energy string, if it exists, is a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. To put that in perspective, if a tiny atom were magnified to the size of the solar system, a string would be the size of a tree.  I need visual analogies because physics is way over my head, unless an apple happens to fall on it! But I like watching these brainy PBS programs.

We live in an amazing time of discoveries, but one mystery just opens the door to the next...

Speaking of smart, did you hear about the 12-year old British girl who achieved a perfect score on the Mensa test?  That suggests she has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

She convinced her parents to let her take the test, because she thought she might be clever.  It made me happy listening to this delightful child.  There is hope for the human race.

Here's the interview from CNN last week:

Snugglebugs

Mountain weather

If you have a few minutes to relax, this is a nice time lapse video condensing one day of Mt. Rainier weather-watching.

Speaking of weather, they keep showing us this lurid water temperature anomalies map showing a "Godzilla" El Nino forming in the Pacific.   What does that mean for west coast weather this winter?  No one really knows...

In the meantime, summer is back in Seattle and the grasshoppers are playing.