Merry Christmas Eve

It's snowing here. Again. For about the 7th time in a week and a half. We have about a foot, with something between one-half and four inches predicted for today. Our buses haven't run since last Wednesday. Really.

Day one: It snowed all day. Big beautiful flakes that Ukiah fell in love with. "This the snow I've always wanted," he explained. We ran giggling through alleys to friends' houses, played at the playground and of course, sledded to our hearts content.

Day two: More snow and sledding. All fun and games until Aslin and Ukiah borrowed an inner tube from some friends and rather taking it down the hill into the pillowy nest of the now frozen wading pool, they plowed right into a basketball hoop post. Ukiah rolled, the tube popped, Aslin crashed and a crowd of adult-strangers pulled out phones, 911 on speed dail. Meanwhile, a crowd of child-strangers returned to sledding. Aslin's recovery was aided by hot chocolate at home.




Day three: Realize that there will be no Christmas gifts, for anyone, that don't come from within walking distance of the Owlhouse. Spend hours on lovely urban hike, note ice accumulation on side walks. Stop for afternoon wine and coffee before picking up as many groceries as can be carried down steep hills of ice.

Day Four: Bake fantastic ginger drops and almond cookies with intention of sharing with neighbors and possibly the mechanics who fixed the truck last week for no charge. (Truck does not handle snow, sorry mechanics. Maybe new year's cookies?) Loan wooden rail sled to neighbor who needs transportation.

Day 5: Wonder if it's too late to mail order gifts for assorted friends and family. Reality check, $15 priority shipping is too much for a t-shirt. No mail delivered for next two days. Get crafty. More sledding with improvised sled surfing. Cocktail hour with neighbors.

Day 6: Wonder if it might be time to shovel the steps and sidewalk. Wonder if we'll make it to Tacoma for Christmas. Wonder if the mail will come today. Walk to the international district then down town. Get a ride home with friend. Spend more than an hour traveling approximately 26 blocks by car. Appreciate quality catching up time, no longer hold so much frustration about lack of buses.

Day 7: Finally mail a handful of cards. Sparkly little penguin cards bringing cheer to the holiday season. They'd have gone out earlier, but I wanted to include a picture of the kids. Of course, not having planned ahead, we didn't have a proper holiday photo. Not "proper" in having them dressed in complimentary outfits posing (naturally candid) in front of an evergreen tree, merely "proper" in that they are both smiling and in focus. You know how this story goes. I waited, sure that the right photo opportunity would present itself. Then, we would find addresses for friends we'd lost touch with and send wonderful best wishes/catching up greeting cards, complete with lovely photo of the ever talented/interesting/charming children. I forgot, remembering only occasionally and always at the least opportune moments.

So, we looked back at the year's photos- thinking a collage of sorts, delived as a pdf file, might make up for the lack of planning. Pictures of spring and summer camping are sweet- the beach, the river, the campfires... The kids dressed up for the B and A's wedding ... The kung fu performance...





My personal favorites of the year include the box series, accordion evening and choir concerts ...



In the end, we didn't find the perfect photographic expression of our year and the formatting of the would be e-card would not cooperate. So, we walked through snow to the drug store to print wallet-size copies of this gem...

Ukiah and Aslin in Santa's chair at the Christmas tree farm.

And if you didn't receive a sweet parade of penguins sliding down a snowy hill, please know it's solely due to our complete disorganization. Love and wishes for the new year!!

eggplant plus

Tofu Robot loves eggplant.

And we love Uwajimaya for the rice noodles, smoked tofu, lychee ice cream, tea cup collection, and Kinokuniya Bookstore. Here, we found the books for Ukiah's Japanese class and the t-shirt for Brad's birthday.


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In unrelated news, I have a special appreciation for the state patrol officer who last week assured me that it was fine to ignore the "park closed" sign. We'd driven an hour plus, into the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, only to find a rope denying access to the Hyak snow park. An unexpected complication for the dozen of us who meticulously checked avalanche reports, chain requirements and hot chocolate availability before heading out for a day of sledding.

"You won't ticket us?" I asked.
"I won't. Doesn't make sense that it's closed," he answered, pulling the shovel from his trunk.

He went to help dig out an suv and we found parking in a lot maintained to suit the skills and tires of us city folk.

cheers!

Ukiah and I fell asleep on couch before 11, he exhausted by coughing, me drowsy after half Gale's Christmas Ale. DDR continued and apparently a new song was unlocked. I woke to watch the stuttering of Space Needle fireworks and am sure an effort was made, but don't remember what we toasted. The night ended with Dawn's intellectual and pragmatic dissection of Brad's and my decade old debate- what is butt rock? Share your opinion below or here (note- #7 is entirely wrong.)

After lentils for prosperity and the lighting of the Buddha, we at the owlhouse raised glasses of sparkling cider.
TO- monkeys; peace, love and understanding; Will Smith; inspiration and action; Bruce Springsteen; moving forward; smart people; hard work and fun; and you.

Our love and wishes for the new year.

that's not "church"

(story under construction)

48 days

It's the 3rd day of Kwanzaa and Christmas merchandise is 50% off. Holiday retail sales were not as dismal as predicted, but it appears there wasn't any "growth." And that's what it's all about. Drug stores and boutiques have pushed Santa aside introducing Valentine's cards as snowman and reindeer replacements. It appears the potential profit of kitch and cards celebrating New Years, Cuban Liberation Day, Al Hijra, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Candlemas, and Chinese New Year have yet to be fully recognized.
You have 48 days to pick the perfect Valentine card. Plenty of time to come up with something better than a dusty rose photo topped with

I love you for the person you are

in ornate non-union print shop calligraphy.

In other would-be sweet news that we found depressing, today, the shelter has no pet rats.

Hot chocolate + almond late + an hour out of the wind and rain = consolation.

cafe bella

You know what they say about pictures

In September, December held promise of down time. Lingering coughs, experiments in employment and a surprise trip to the ocean devoured every possibility of surplus time. So, we're considering sending New Year's or possibly Valentine's cards and wouldn't have it any other way.



We trust the pictures to tell the story. Consider it an Encyclopedia Brown/choose-your-own adventure type plot and feel free to write your ending.

winter wonderland

I've been thinking of Tucson. Or Maui. Or Greece. Somewhere a little warmer. Well, it's part cold, part wanderlust that has me thinking of other places. Topped by a bigger part that wishes to visit with friends. So, I'm torn between conspiring to travel- how 'bout a month in Alaska next summer? And really rooting here, where there's a new pea patch a block away and winter cupcakes are just up the hill.

Working parking for the Field Cup Tournament last weekend gave me plenty of time to consider the possibility of Mexico in February and also, I think, gave my cough and sore throat some staying power.









So I didn't ice skate. Ukiah and Aslin, who hadn't skated in years, held the wall for a few laps before finding balance and eventually speed. Ukiah lie down to make ice angles, Aslin learned to do turns and someone named the little walker Sherman.










I remember ice skating at recess in first grade. Mostly, I remember trying to tie my skates and being scared of the big kids who were so much faster than me. My elementary school, unlike the winter wonderland in the Center House, was not in a gravity-impaired alternate universe. Or maybe this teeter-totter is just frozen in the weighted, but up position. Waiting for the house to open for Peter Pan, we continued our I-Spy investigation of the Country Christmas Village. Aslin spotted the homeless men and the $10 horses. Ukiah saw a fallen skater, possibly with broken leg and the hot air balloon anchored by a single man. We all spotted a cat, lying in the snow- poisoned by the man with an outstretched hand hovering above him? Brad noted the gulch with a discarded wagon wheel and I spied a blacksmith with no goggles or protective gear, surely an OSHA violation.




Under tank-top, tee-shirt, long-sleeve, sweater-coat-and scarf, I'm cold. I sometimes feel cheated by the discomfort without benefit of romantic winter snow. A perceived climate betrayal that layered with hints of wanderlust finds me re-inventing our lives in other, warmer, colder or more charming places. But as the city's display master-story tellers make clear, under the idyllic presentation of life, it's the flaws that sustain our attention. And sometimes, like Peter Pan or the doll watching the miniature Victorian brass band, a person's head is disproportionate with the rest of their body, let alone the rest of their world.

fortunate

Before we ordered vegan Mongolian beef, before I dumped a cup of tea, before we noticed that our table cloth had doubled as a napkin for earlier patrons, the women across the room cracked their fortune cookies.

"You will soon follow your heart's desire." The dark-haired woman crumpled her fate, pronouncing it "lame."

Four pots of tea later, Aslin arrived at the same fortune, finding it lame only for its lack of originality. She's inherited my tendency to collect the conversations of others and looks to the empty table where an hour earlier, her would-be destiny was discarded.

Fortune cookie superstition has us debating the proper procedure for the reading of fortunes. Split the cookie, eat half, read, finish cookie. No, read the fortune before eating any cookie. NO, don't even look at the fortune before finishing the cookie.

Ukiah- "You will meet someone famous."
Brad- "You will enjoy good health and financial independence."
Nora- "You will welcome many people with your smile."
Aslin- following you heart's desire? not lame.

I pocket the forecasts for an art project I would have finished years ago, except that I occassionally misplace my fortune reservoir and have to start over.


In the past month, we've been blessed by visits with butterflies. (A word of caution for the birds, the Heliconiidae of the long wing family, is brightly colored to warn you of their terrible, bitter taste.) Thanks to craigslist, we've got two new-used exercise balls ideal for video game seating. Plus, as a pirate and newspaper zombie/samurai/guy the kids picked up a ton'o candy trick-or-treating.




With the homeschool group, they helped NorthWest Harvest package a literal ton of chocolate and learned this bit of Seattle candy trivia-
FR edrick
A nd
N elson
G ift
O f
S weetness



And let's not forget the marvel that is pumpkin beer. Thanks to the brewers at Elysian for hosting us, and letting us take the empty pumpkin keg for pumpkin-cauliflower soup.

appropriate use of cheese cloth

"Do you have any cheese cloth?"
"That depends, are you going to use it make cheese, or adulterate it in some way?"
"Adulterate. But in a positive way."

It was three weeks ago when I paid way too much for u-pick blackberries only to come home and make a dreaded phone call turning down an inspiring job. Taking the misfortunes in stride, I headed to liquor store. Turns out a fifth of vodka is about 2 1/2 cups. To double the recipe I'd need 4, so I took a second walk up to 23rd and Union, wondering if I should avoid eye contact with the clerk who sold me my first bottle just a half-hour earlier.


I can't find my sewing kit. My guess is that it and the cheese cloth I remember packing away, are at the bottom of the closet I can't bring myself to dig through. Not until the hall is free of the bed frame and dresser and Goodwill box. No rush now that the man at Kitchen Basics approved our use of the cloth.

Yesterday, after a morning of soccer with toddlers, an almond latte followed by a sunny afternoon in the dahlia garden and climbing the camels at Volunteer Park, we strained the berries and toasted the birthday Joan Jett and I share.


Blackberry Liqueur

1 pt Fresh blackberries
2 1/2 c Vodka
1 Vanilla bean
1/4 ts Whole allspice
1/2 c Sugar syrup (2part sugar/1part water, boil, cool)

Select full colored and plump berries. DO NOT wash until ready to use as water causes mold to form. Rinse berries and place in a mixing bowl, lightly crushing to release flavor.
Add vodka, vanilla bean, and allspice. Stir and store in bottle in cool dark place for 3 weeks.
Strain mixture through dampened cheese cloth, squeezing as much juice
as possible.
Pour back in bottle adding sugar syrup to taste (1/3 to 1/2 cup
per pint) and age another 3-5 weeks.
Yield: 1 pint plus.

celebrate, matey!

Today be Aslin`s birthday. She`s been countin' th' days an' be thrilled t' finally b 11. Yesterday, at Izilla, she spent a bit o' her cat sittin' treasure on a gift fer herself. A new lanky cat. Mashimaro. Marshmellow. "Because three of her paws are white and the rest of it is the color of a toasted marshmellow, and, she's just cute and fluffy."

(We're still looking for a Japanese language class for Ukiah. In the meantime, he's teaching Aslin what he knows.)

Also celebrated today, International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

SLC potpourri

• Peanuts in the shell

• Walt Disney

• Taking out the garbage

• School Prayer

1-4, in that order. Ukiah's ranking for his hand of selections from Personal Preference's categories: food and drink, people, activities, and potpourri. Predicting none of his preferences correctly, I didn't move ahead on the board.

In Orem, outside SLC, we've spent days playing games, digging in sand, swimming at the neighborhood pool, meeting friends, and talking, talking, talking with my step sister and the cousins.






Our first tour of Provo, a failed quest for a coffee shop, ended in mall theater with Shrek the Third followed by a lobby photo op with the Simpson's. Yesterday, we missed the 7am dedication of the neighbor's new flag, despite an invitation complete with delivery of a dozen doughnuts, but made our second trip to Provo for the Freedom Parade. Lia's marching band was near the end, providing plenty of time to people watch and listen.

Young mom to younger children, "Look, it's the soldiers with their guns! (squeal) They have army trucks and shoot, shoot, shoot to keep us safe!"

"These colors don't run" stretched across a family of t-shirts in front of us.

The blond and bloated local news team waved from a jeep and the city of Lindon worked to lure us to their Celebration Days with a promise of "sugar and spice and everything nice" as demonstrated by girls waving from a purple float with a unicorn.

From sun drenched blankets set across the street from Cleo's White Moments, home of wedding and baptism gowns, we sympathized with the high school color guard marching in turquoise dresses worn over long black pants and sleeves. The herd of lamas, several bagpipe bands, a giant Garfield balloon and the Wicked Witch of the West brought the displays of military propaganda to an almost tolerable ratio. Lia's band, slated last due to a cross-town rivalry(?), was fantastic. More impressive then the Red Cross stretch-Hummer and at least as entertaining as the Kentucky Fried Chicken float.

The sound of the closing cannon was a sharp reminder of the multiple meaning of "freedom". We miss the nude cyclists of Seattle's Solstice parade and can't help but think next year's Provo parade would be much livelier if campaigning politicians were advised to demonstrate their commitment to freedom by either bicycling the entire parade route, replacing their star-spangled shirts and ties with body paint or limiting the scope of corporate infiltration of the event.

Our Fourth was rounded out by an afternoon hike deserving of it's own blog post and evening fireworks in the cul-de-sac and a brilliant hill top view of BYU's Stadium of Fire.











Earlier this week, we connected with Seattle friends for what we later recognized was an inspiring "reason to return home" type-visit. Our whirl-wind tour of SLC hosted by former-resident Bryan, opened at Salt Lake Roasting Company . After veggie lasagna, apricot torte and fantastic coffee roasted on-site, we headed to a city gem. Gilgal Gardens is a backyard showcase of the faith and ego inspired folk art of Thomas Child. In 1945 he began work on the 13 sculptures that "give physical form to his deep-felt beliefs." The garden, a secret treasure loved by high-school kids from across the county, recently saved from demolition, was preserved as a park in 2000.









Our tour continued with a stop at the weeping tree of heroine park and a walk through Temple Square. The Salt Lake Temple is a site to behold, fantastic architecture with details depicting the phases of the moon set amongst green lawns, fountains and symmetrical gardens. The visitor's centers offer education on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints and glimpses of westward expansion in the pioneer days. Greeters and tour guides wear name tags with the flags of the countries of origin- Italy, Australia, Mexico, Kenya. In the universal Jesus round room, we heard the words of the son-of-God in german and english.

If you're looking for dinner, the Rio Grande Cafe, housed in a historic train station (?), has impressive restrooms and an unreliable juke box. Vegetarians be advised, the rice, beans and enchilada sauce are made with chicken and/or lard. Ukiah highly recommends the guacamole burrito and Aslin appreciates the root beer refills. A drawing and caption version of the game telephone kept us at the table an extra hour and still we didn't hear Aslin's musical selection. Sweet Home Alabama. Amanda deserves a refund.


An ice cream night cap at Squirrel Brother's turned into dessert-theater in the parking lot as an unknown teen insisted his friends, including the employee with an arm cast, fight him. They declined. Adding insult to injury, they took his keys, insisting that they couldn't let him drive in that mood.