The Ukes au naturel

Definition of au naturel. 
1 : cooked or served plainly. 
2 : being in natural style or condition. 
3 : nude.

Instead of meeting at the Senior Center yesterday, we were invited to a picnic at a country home on Vashon Island.  It was fun playing au naturel with the butterflies, birds and and bees. ( #3 above did not apply, but you could use your imagination ha!)

Well, the sun is back and after a blip of rain tomorrow, we're headed into another warm dry spell. Oh, my, it is so light now, with 16 hours of daylight.  

I was tired last night after a long day of playing around (poor me) and went to bed early with my book.  At 9:30 pm it was still brighter than the brightest December noon in Seattle. Children were playing outside, people were walking dogs and talking.  It seems a shame wasting these midsummer nights with "just" sleeping, but that 4:30 alarm doesn't cut us any slack. 

The rain revived the bamboo and weeds, so plenty of chores to keep me busy at home for the rest of the week.
 

Raindrops on roses

What a weird and wild weekend of weather.  One squall after another blew in from the Pacific, bringing heavy rain one minute and sun the the next. It was so chilly, the furnace came on.  Very unusual having such stormy weather in June, but the rain refreshed the dried out garden. The colors were beautiful when the sun came out, although the roses were so heavy with sodden flowers the poor things bent right to the ground.  They say roses like hot heads and wet feet.  Not the opposite.

Here we are, approaching the end of the school year.  Nova will be a 4th grader next fall and Maya starts kindergarten.  A big shout out to my brother Dave, who retires this week after 33 years of teaching high school math.  Now that's an accomplishment.

Can you hear the ocean?

Our Grandma had a magic seashell at her house, and we would take turns holding it to our ear to listen to the ocean.  She told us that it had been on the shore so long, the waves were caught inside forever.  What a nice memory. 

Speaking of the ocean, June 8th is "World Ocean Day." It was first proposed by the Canadian government at the Earth Summit in 1992. In 2008, a United Nations resolution made this holiday official. As the health of our oceans go, so goes the health of the planet, and we're are doing a pretty good job of destroying it. Plastic pollution alone kills more than one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals per year.

Well, the Pacific Ocean is sending us much cooler and wetter weather, just in time for the weekend. The rain is welcome, although the clouds and chilly temperatures are kind of a shock to the system after such a long warm and dry period.  See you Monday.

Fashion

I ran across this cool photograph of Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen. They don't make movie stars like that anymore. It was taken in 1968 on the set of "The Thomas Crown Affair," one of my all time favorite movies.

I don't claim to have ever looked like Faye Dunaway, but I once wore similar miniskirt and hat outfits, made from Simplicity patterns on our old sewing machine. I like shopping and I've gone through much clothing in my life. Too much, probably.

John, on the other hand, hates buying clothes. He still has a tan raincoat exactly like Steve's. He bought it  at Nordstrom several decades ago, and will probably wear it until he looks like Columbo.  

The month of roses

"Joseph's Coat"

Here's the formula for outstanding June roses:  Hard pruning in February, slow-release fertilizer in March, a record wet April followed by a record warm and dry May.

Named after the Biblical "coat of many colors," Joseph's Coat climber changes hue as it moves through the bloom cycle. Years ago, when we picked it out at the nursery, the snooty rose expert there said it was a OK rose "if you like that sort of thing."  Implying the color was somewhat garish, meaning:  obtrusively bright and showy; lurid.

Well, no-- meet the King of Rose Clowns. The seeds (if you can imagine growing a rose plant from seed!) are available for a few bucks on ebay, where everything in the whole wide world is for sale.  

"They are Not Long"
Ernest Dowson 

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Things we don't need

(But want anyway)

I've been collecting Blue Willow dishes my entire life. Our German Grandma Dutzie had a set, and I was entranced with the pattern as a kid.  Way back in the day, children had to sit quietly through long, slow meals, and I would imagine the story of the little figures on the plate while the adults talked on and on.

However, I'm at that stage of life when I should be scaling back on stuff and simplifying my life. Or so they say. (Have you heard of "Swedish death cleaning?")  

The West Seattle Senior Center runs a thrift shop and I always stop in on my way to ukulele practice. For the last month, I had my eye on this Blue Willow antique demitasse set.  They called it a "tea pot," but actually it's for coffee or chocolate. Each week, I hoped it would be gone and out of temptation. 

The pieces are stamped "Japan," so it was made right after WWII, when the occupied country was in shambles. The Japanese started producing mass export goods to rebuild the economy. "Made in Japan" was once synonymous with "cheap."

Anyway, the Senior Center store probably didn't realize it, but that stamp makes these pieces highly collectible. Yes, I finally succumbed and paid only $30 -- money to a good cause.  When I got home, I found an identical set (below) on ebay for $135.

Of course I don't throw hot chocolate, demitasse parties very often. So in the cabinet it goes with all my other pretty, useless stuff.  I'm thinking though, wouldn't it be fun to have a fancy lady tea party when Nova and Maya come to visit?