Nothing too scary here

Amanda and Tom took a well-deserved parent's weekend away while Nova and Maya stayed in Seattle and had a sleepover with their cousins. They were here on Saturday morning for some play and Halloween crafts.  We had a great time.  And they gave my selection of trick-or-treat candy a big thumbs up. 

A vintage Halloween

And you thought clowns were scary?

Ha!

 Just wrap your head in plastic.

Your guess?

Nice  kids, just a bit weird.

Party down.

 I won't even go there...

Creepy little man.

Costumes too wonderful for words.

Devil boy wants candy.

A bevy of fine witches.

Midsummer's Nightmare?

Little brother...

Bad Moon Rising

I see the bad moon arising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
I see those bad times today

Don't go around tonight,
Well it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise

I hear hurricanes a blowing
I know the end is coming soon
I fear rivers over flowing
I hear the voice of rage and ruin

Well don't go around tonight,
Well it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise, oh right

Hope you got your things together

Hope you are quite prepared to die

Looks like we're in for nasty weather

One eye is taken for an eye.

 John Fogerty

1969

The leader of my ukulele group sent out some Halloween songs on the group email to play when we meet Monday.  That "Monster Mash" is a tough one, with awkward chord changes and rhythm. We'll butcher it.

"Bad Moon Rising" is a simple flowing melody with just three easy chords (C, G7 and F.)



The perfect song for this scary season, don't you think? That jaunty music makes it sound happy, but the lyrics are bleak and describe a coming apocalypse.

I was never a big Credence Clearwater Revival fan, but John Fogerty nailed this one. He said the lyrics were inspired by an old movie called "The Devil and Daniel Webster" in which a hurricane wipes out a town.  Of course the counter-culture picked it up, and it became the theme song of the demonstrators during the People's Park riots in Berkeley, California, in 1969.

Speaking of spooky, I made weird Halloween sugar cookies for John to take to work today.  Hey, isn't yellow+red food color supposed to make orange icing? These pumpkins turned out creamsicle pink.

Doctored up curry

I never buy pasta sauce in the jar, but I'm not above using canned curry sauces. Some of them aren't bad, especially if you doctor them up.  This Jungle Curry is from Kroger's, but Trader Joe's also sells a pretty good one.

I'm lucky because I always have a supply of Kaffir lime leaves in the freezer.  These are also called "curry leaves" and are essential for Thai, Cambodian and Indonesian cooking. A Cambodian lady John works with has a potted tree and she often brings in bags of leaves to share.

Apparently the plants aren't hard to grow in pots, other than the fact they need hours of bright sunlight-- a problem around here in the winter. I don't know how fast they grow, but the mature leaves are torn or tossed whole into stir fries and soups, adding a lemony-spicy taste that you can't get with plain lime juice or any other spice.

I browned chicken breasts for this curry along with plenty of peppers and onions. We like our curry pretty spicy, so I used sliced jalapenos without removing the seeds.

You can also use these wildly hot red chilies they sell in Asian grocery stores.  John also brought some of these home from work recently. (Honestly, it sounds like a big cooking fest in that shop.  I don't know how they find time to work on airplanes!)

And of course, a couple of the magic Kaffir lime leaves.  Let it all simmer for a half hour or so, and you have an easy and tasty Indian dinner.  Don't forget the chutney.

Little Nordic skier

The Methow Valley has the nation's largest cross-county ski area, with over 120 miles of groomed interconnecting trails.  Nova joined the Nordic Junior Ski Team this year, with athletes from age 6-18. We love that speedy new parka and hat.   Go Nova!

A midwest sojourn

We're home from our weekend trip to Ohio, jet-lagged but otherwise none the worse for wear.  All four American Airlines flights and connections went like clockwork, a small miracle in itself.

It was rainy and windy on Friday in Columbus, but cleared out by evening. So we enjoyed two days of bright, crisp autumn weather.

On Saturday afternoon the family gathered for a memorial at the beautiful Resurrection Catholic Cemetery.  Mom's remains are at rest here now, in the bench beside her beloved Johnny.

We shared tears and laughter remembering Mom's long life, and mourned the recent loss of Rachel's husband, our dear Ted. 

After the memorial, in honor of Mom and Dad, we had lunch at Bob Evans, their favorite comfort food restaurant. They would have approved. 

And it felt like they were with us in spirit, Dad eating his chicken and dumplings with the "big spoon" he always asked the waitress to bring.

John with his sisters, Rachel and Janice. Our time together was brief but very special. 

On Sunday afternoon, John said he planned a surprise to see one of the "greatest natural wonders of the world."  

Now don't get me wrong, parts of Ohio are quite pretty. But as we drove miles out into the countryside, past neat farms dotted with Republican yard signs, I wondered how this great natural marvel could suddenly pop up out of nowhere?

Of course it was right under our feet. Ohio is famous for limestone caves, and Ohio Caverns is the granddaddy of them all.

We shuffled along on the hour long tour, taking bad pictures with everyone else and admiring the crystal stalactites and stalagmites.  

 

The impressive and rare columns that form after thousands of years of tiny drips, when stalactite finally meets stalagmite.

 And the world famous, aptly named Crystal Carrot, the largest stalactite in the cavern. 

The two days went by so quickly. On Sunday evening before heading home we had dinner with our friend Mark at a historic tavern in the town of Dublin.   Thank you everyone for the warm welcome and hospitality. 

Don't fence me in

Traveling light

I'm parting ways with my laptop for a few days while we travel to visit family.  I'm not nimble or patient enough to tap out posts on a smartphone, so Feathers and Flowers gets a little rest this weekend. Have a good one.

Something to ponder in the meantime. Who was smarter, Trigger or Roy?

All for what?

Life is short, and you only get to live it once.  October 19 is "Evaluate Your Life Day."  The simple but hard advice: Accept it or change it.

I stopped at Costco yesterday on the way home from the museum to pick up paper towels, etc. and a rotisserie chicken for dinner.  It's a depressing place if you actually pause and look around at the stressed-out, anxious people piling up carts with too much of everything.  Well, no one forces me to spend the precious remaining hours of my life at Costco.  If only their mixed nuts weren't so darn good. Ha!

But really, without getting too heavy, here's something to think about today. Are we sometimes just going through the motions, complaining occasionally (or often) about our lives?

How often do we sit down and evaluate our whole lives, every aspect?

White concord grapes

The grapes are ripe and smell delicious when we walk by to the car.  I always eat some when I'm working outside, but more for the nostalgia.  They smell and taste exactly like fall on a farm.  Kids would gorge themselves back then on whatever was in season.  Just like the West Seattle raccoons, who will throw a messy grape-eating party soon.  They wait for that one night of perfect ripeness.

This grapevine was the first thing I planted here over 35 years ago. It's never had a single pest or disease, and stood up to years of abusive pruning.  Being a thrifty, housewifely sort of person, I always feel guilty for not doing "something" with them. I'm not into fussy, messy canning with jelly bags, pectin and such. Throw it all in one pot for chutney is more my thing.  Hey-- maybe the Brit's have a recipe for that?

Fun facts about grapes:

Grapes are one of the world’s favorite fruits, regularly listed in the top 10 (other are mangos, bananas and tomatoes).

Around the world there are more than 8,000 varieties of grape. There are 7 different grape colors: red, green, white, black, purple, blue and golden.

Grapes have been thought to have healing properties since ancient times. In China, wine was mixed with frogs, snakes and other animals to create a cure for illness.

America’s oldest grapevine is 400 years old and is in North Carolina.

Wine has been made from grapes since 5,000BC.

About a quarter of the grapes used in the US come from Chile.

While grapes are 80% water, when they become raisins the water content is just 15%.

You can get about 15,000 glasses of wine from an acre of grapes.

With more than 200, California’s Napa Valley has the world’s highest concentration of wineries.

Hansel and Gretel

A different sort of Witch

We went to the opera yesterday afternoon to see Hansel and Gretel. The opera preview podcast had prepared us for an interesting and "edgy" production. Instead of a gingerbread cottage in the forest, the witch's house was a supermarket stack of junk food.  Hansel and Gretel lived in a cardboard box.

 
The opera music was composed in 1893 by Engelbert Humperdinck (not be be confused with the pop music star of the same name) and the libretto was written by his sister, based on Grimm's fairy tale.  Everyone knows that old story, but the opera is loved for its beautiful music, sometimes described as "Wagner lite."

When the frightened children are lost in the dark forest, they say their evening prayers and fall asleep after a visit from The Sandman.  What follows is one of the loveliest and most famous orchestral interludes in all of opera, the Traumpantomime.  If you have time, here's a performance by The Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Fourteen angels come out and arrange themselves around the children to protect them while they sleep. In a traditional production, the staging might look something like this-- just a dreamy and quiet interlude for the music.

But as our children slept yesterday, fourteen TV screens came down from heaven, and instead of angels hovering there were videos of greedy little mouths eating donuts, cake, candy, cookies and so on.  Of course it was funny, I snickered too, but it was hard to appreciate the opera's musical highlight when people were howling with laughter.  Sorry I don't have a picture.

During intermission when John was in the restroom, and elderly man came over struck up a conversation.  (I guess that's how it's going to be from now on :-)  He seemed baffled by the production, and asked me what I thought.  I admitted I was a traditionalist, and liked seeing the same old operas done in the same old way.  But I tried to keep an open mind, and understood the need to bring in a younger audience to replace us traditionalists. The casting and singing was excellent, the most important part of an opera, anyway.  So we had an enjoyable afternoon.

The only thing we missed was the Seahawk game, but sounds like that wasn't a big loss.

The storm that wasn't

 Ha ha

Well, the weathermen have egg on their faces this morning.  All week their scientific models predicted one of the biggest windstorms to ever hit the state, whipping a few million people (myself included) into a state of fear and anxiety as it got closer.

Just a few hours before the storm stuck yesterday, the forecast was still for 70 mph wind gusts and widespread damage in Seattle.  And a catastrophe along the ocean coast.

What happened?  A violent but short rain squall blew through, followed by a stiff breeze for a few hours.  End of story.  John's worst nightmare, that the power would fail in the middle of the Ohio State game, did not happen. Everyone in Seattle can take a deep breath again. 

Boy oh boy, it's wet though. We had more rain just this weekend than is typical for the entire month of October.  That's really saying something.  Everyone needs a bit of sunshine and good news for a change.