The Advent calendar

Today is the first Sunday of Advent and the start of the liturgical or "church" year. This is a time of waiting and preparation for the Nativity.  Advent has been celebrated by Christians from about the year 480.

It's easy getting caught up in the mass consumerism and expectations of Christmas. Don't get me wrong,  I love family traditions, but as you get older all the Christmases seem to blend together into one. Of the 60+ I can remember now,  just a few stand out. The simple childhood ones on the farm are etched on my mind forever.  And later, those rare times when we traveled on Christmas or did something completely out of the ordinary.

Despite that, I still do pretty much the same things each year.  There is also comfort in that, because as time goes by we realize things can't always stay the same. 

The point of Advent rituals such as lighting candles is to slow us down. To make us to reflect and wait patiently. Germans love their Advent calendars and the vintage ones were beautiful.  We always shared a paper Advent calendar in December, and opening the door together each night was a little family event. The un-shareable chocolate ones like I give Nova and Maya hadn't been invented.

Black Friday adventures?

Fortified with pumpkin cheesecake and turkey, the younger generation will venture out and brave the streets of Seattle today.

Maya looks up for the challenge-- she showed me her muscles yesterday in the kitchen while I was cooking away.

Any shopping Nana and Grandpa do today will likely be on the device I'm using right now.  This afternoon we'll eat leftovers and watch the Apple Cup, the classic rivalry game between the Cougs and Huskies.

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.  I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy cooking. And eating.
And eating.
And eating.

King tide and beaver moon

We had a quick, wild windstorm yesterday afternoon.  Not the typical damp wind from the south, but dry, freezing air funneled straight down through the Frasier Valley in British Columbia.  In a couple of hours, it scoured out every trace of fog and clouds.  When this happens, the world suddenly stands out in sharp relief, like taking off dirty glasses. You go outside and have a breath of fresh Arctic air.

At the same time, we had one of the highest tides of the year, making for impressive waves on Alki Beach. The video is from the West Seattle blog. "King" tides occur naturally in the winter when the sun and the moon align, causing an increased gravitational pull on the Earth's oceans. The meteorologists say this is just a sneak preview of global warming.

A spectacular full moon rises tonight, right in time for Thanksgiving. November’s full moon was called the Beaver Moon, because it was the time to set traps before the waters froze over.

My hunting and gathering is done for Thanksgiving. Today is the day to avoid all grocery stores. Now comes the cooking part. I'm making a gluten-free dinner, and for dessert a pumpkin cheesecake recipe I found on the Internet.  It's kind of hard to go wrong with the basic ingredients of cheesecake, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding.  And Cool Whip hides anything.

This clear, cold weather is supposed to last the entire weekend, but the rest of the country is not so lucky.  God speed and safe travels to our family members on the road today-- Amanda, Tom and the girlies coming over the mountains late tonight, and also Brian, Julie and their boys driving down to Las Vegas from Utah to visit Marji. 

For Mom and Dad in Cripple Creek and Mom in Ohio, we send our love and hope you have a nice Thanksgiving tucked up at home. I wish you could be here for a piece of cheesecake.

The rush is on

If you still want some fancy paper napkins with a turkey on them, good luck.  You should have bought them in September, because now the stores are already crammed with Christmas. Thanksgiving has become just a little bump on the holiday road. (Of course I have to complain about this every year. It's tradition.)

Long before the days of turkey "lunch meat," a Thanksgiving dinner was a really big deal.

(I want what she's having)

Losses and gains

Nova lost her first tooth this weekend! After many long weeks of loose tooth drama, Amanda said it finally fell out while Nova and Maya were eating a bowl of popcorn.  The tooth went missing in action.  Unfortunately, it dropped to the bottom of the bowl, or maybe someone accidentally swallowed it?  Oh well, they wrote a detailed letter of explanation to the Tooth Fairy to leave under the pillow.  I'm sure she understood.

We went to the Symphony yesterday afternoon and had a break from Sunday football.  Instead of staring at the TV, we listened to Mahler's Tenth Symphony, which runs about 90 minutes long without an intermission.

To Seahawks fans, a Mahler symphony probably sounds as painful as watching their team play this season. However they won yesterday, and in fact we were home from Mahler-land in time to watch the final quarter and eat sloppy joes. It was a good weekend.

Fog and sun

Makes a beautiful combination on a cold morning in Seattle. 

Happy Beautiful Day

November 20th is celebrated worldwide as "Beautiful Day." No one knows the exact origin of the day, it just exists, like other lovely things we forget to appreciate.  Today is a good day to turn off the computer, TV and smartphone and remember our world is still filled with beautiful people, sights and actions. Not to mention, horses, birds, good dogs, flowers, food, children, warm beds and so on...

I'm going to the barn this morning for a ride, although we probably won't get very far on the trails after the windstorm brought down branches and trees.  But it will feel good be outside after a long week of bad weather and appointments that kept me close to home.

Everything is covered in frost this morning. Speaking of beautiful, we're headed into a long stretch of dry, bright days that might last through the Thanksgiving weekend.  Now that would be a gift.  The Terrible Turkey is officially in defrost mode.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Winter sunrise in Seattle

Sharing the wealth

This week I was driving along a West Seattle street I don't usually take, and noticed someone had recently planted chunks of mature bamboo along their front property line.  It was chopped in pieces, stuck in the ground at regular intervals and then tied to the fence for support.  All things considered it looked happy, and ready to take off in the spring.  Good grief. In a few years, goodbye sidewalk.

I suppose all bamboo is pretty much the same, but something about this looked awfully familiar.  Remember the Craig's List "free bamboo" feeding frenzy in August?

The gift that keeps on giving...

Big Precious

The wind didn't blow us away and it's a slow news morning.  This isn't the biggest piggy in the world, but Chinese farmer Zhang Xianping decided to keep "Big Precious" when he reached 1,323 pounds-- more than most horses weigh. He is 3 feet high and 9 feet long.  Precious is completely unafraid of humans, and in fact Zhang rides him like a horse around his home town.

In porcine news closer to home, it sounds like little Amy Trotter is all grown up. I heard she weighs "about" 100 pounds now, but that hasn't been confirmed. No girl wants to admit her weight.  Amy still attends weekly canine obedience classes with Lori, although due to her mature figure, the weaving action has slowed down quite a bit.

There's a rumor that she will perform at a local horse show soon.  That might be interesting.  Horses don't like pigs for the same reason they don't like wild boars and wolves. Carnivores. 

Windy!

Windy Day

Vladimir Gavrilou

The wind is really howling this morning. I have to work at the museum later,  but I'm glad I'm home this morning making chili. A big storm is blowing through and it will strip the last leaves from the trees. It happens every fall, but suddenly seeing all those bare branches is always an abrupt of change of view.

After this storm, they say we might get a break in the weather over the weekend.  I like to get the white lights up on the arbor before Thanksgiving. It's a cheerful sight from the kitchen all winter. 

The big eating holiday is coming up fast. Amanda, Tom and the kids are planning to come over.  John is getting nervous because he doesn't see a turkey defrosting in the fridge.  Time to get busy.

A Windy Day

Jean Beraud

Crossing the Heath on a Windy Day

Paul Poole

Windy Day

Karen Llari

Beach

Joseph Edward Southall

 Windy Day

Gaetano Bellei

Windy Day on Clear Island

Trudi Doyle

Home weekend

What an awful irony to write about "World Kindness Day" on Friday morning and then watch the tragic news from Paris the same evening.  Sometimes you just want to hide your head under the covers and stay in bed.

It's been snowing like crazy in the mountains, which is good weather news for the Northwest after the long drought. Down here in Seattle, it rained without cease on Saturday and then got dark about 3:30.

We had some plain old comfort food for dinner.  The price of beef makes it somewhat of a treat these days, doesn't it?  I roasted a nice big medium rare "joint" with mashed potatoes and gravy.   In England, they call that "hot meat and two veg."  A traditional Sunday lunch served with red wine, of course.

The Wine Drinker

Unknown British artist

On Sunday afternoon the storm front blew through and it was kind of shocking to suddenly see sun and blue sky.  People emerged from their houses again, and there was the sound of raking leaves all over the neighborhood.  The next storm is due in on Tuesday.



I did some yard work and then played outside in the bright light with my new iPhone 6s.  The camera is supposedly "better" than my old iPhone camera, which basically means I have a new learning curve.  I kept inadvertently taking movies and bursts of 20 pictures at once.  Oh well, digital film is cheap (so to speak.)

One of the most difficult photographs is the simple bird-at-the-feeder shot.  I don't why, because our feeders are swarming with gobbling birds all day long.  That is, until they see me sneaking around with my scary iPhone.  

Cropping the photo afterwards makes you look like a better photographer.

After I gave up on wildlife photography, I threw the ratty geraniums in the compost and made some fall arrangements just with greenery from the yard.

John gave me a nice compliment when he said it looked like Martha Stewart had dropped by.

My new camera also has a slick panorama feature.  Look at that big yard! Now I see how they take those appealing pictures on Realtor.com.  You drive out to look at an expansive home, but instead find a cottage on a postage stamp lot.

And the panorama shot makes our teeny, weeny kitchen look like a palace.
Gee!  I wish I lived there!

And so another fall weekend passes by. With much to be thankful for.

World Kindness Day

November 13th is World Kindness Day.  It was introduced in 1998 by an organization called the World Kindness Movement and is observed in many countries.  World Kindness Day is intended to "build a kinder and more compassionate world."

One kind word can change someone's entire day.  Give it a try today.

The definition of that old word "gracious" includes kindness, but graciousness is more than that.  Google tracks these things, and usage of the word "gracious" has declined over the years.  This is the chart:

Gracious living and gracious manners are old-fashioned. These days, how many people would you describe as gracious?

Marked by kindness and courtesy-
Marked by tack and delicacy-
Characterized by charm, good taste, generosity of spirit-
Exhibiting the tasteful leisure of good breeding-
Pleasant and easy in all social intercourse-

We should remember that being kind (or gracious) doesn't take up much time.

1. Courteous greetings: A moment
2. Please and thank you: A second each time
3. Listening and not interrupting: A minute or so
4. Punctuality: None
5. Respect for others: None
6. Apologizing: 10 seconds
7. Helpfulness: 5 minutes max
8. Road courtesy: 30 seconds max