Daily Adventures

"I thought we were in Seattle.  What is that huge bright thing up in the sky?"

It's been cool here, but sunny.  Ordinarily, it is sunny here through September and into October, the long Indian summer is almost always a part of Seattle weather, but it's fun to talk about, especially since all the weather reports had been predicting rain for most of the days we were to be here.  60's as a high and clouds all the way down the ten day forecast.  But it's been remarkably clear and sunny here while we've been here, and I've been enjoying it a great deal.


I really enjoyed sitting on Isabel's back porch.  I read, I sketched the geraniums, and I waited for these guys to come to the hummingbird feeder.  There were hummingbirds who had staked out the feeder and it was always something of a thrill to hear the thrumming of their wings.

Our time with Isabel is something I think I'll just hold private.  It was good and helped me heal from some things I'd been holding. She's an amazing person, and I do love her a lot.

We also did some of our usual things, going to the Pike Place Market, hitting Uwajamaya and the bookstore there.  We found all kinds of small treasures, including a pen case for me, a Porco Rosso puzzle, origami paper that had old fashioned Japanese paper on one side and a different color backing it.

There was also this.  A Taiyaki.  *laughs*  I've been looking for them ever since I saw them in My Hero Academia.  All Might's mentor had them in his freezer and he nuked them to warm them up before he ate them, and I have been looking for them ever since.

Best of all Isabel has a two-slot toaster, so I was able to drop them into the single slot and toast them until they were crisp on the outside, and the adzuki bean filling was warm in the middle.  They were amazing, and Uwajamaya's supplier (or they might make them on site?  I don't know) was really good about getting the filling to conform to the outline, so that these fish were beautifully filled from edge to edge. The interesting thing was that the paste was lighter in color than the canned red bean paste I get from the store, so they might make that as well.

Another find was an ice cream place in Redmond called Molly Moon's Handmade Ice Cream, which had many of the usual flavors, but surprised me by having a Lavender Honey ice cream and a huckleberry topping.  The ice cream itself was redolent with lavender and the honey only added to the floral bouquet so that it felt like I was eating the essence of flowers. The huckleberry topping was fruity and almost citrusy with acidity.  I loved it.

Redmond has also gotten two interesting Northern Chinese restaurants. One of which we were able to visit.  Tian Tian noodles had the very intriguing dish of "Stir fried shredded pancake" in their noodle menu, which really reminded me of a dish my mother used to make that took day old scallion pancakes and fried them with various leftovers that turned out a bit like soft chow mein, but so much tastier.  But the other place, the Dough Zone, had the Shanghai style soupy bao (xiao long bao), so we had to go there.  *laughs*  And it was well worth it.

As you can see, we kind of dove in before I even got to snap a picture or three.  The sweet and sour cucumbers were crisp and exactly as advertised.  They were Japanese style cucumbers cut in a spiral and harder to pull apart then they looked like they might be.  The shredded ginger in the dish to the right was what really sold me on the place.  They got that right. It's what the xiao long bao shops in Shanghai gave you, and you were supposed to pour black vinegar in them to season the vinegar before you dipped the bao into them (or drizzled the vinegar into the soup spoon with the dumpling). That's a touch not a lot of places get right.

The xiao long bao, themselves, were amazing.  The skin had that perfect give, and none of the bao had holes in them so they were all filled with soup and the meat of the dumpling.  They were savory, so hot we could barely taste them to start, and then mellowed to a tender perfect example of what these are supposed to be.  The picture on the left is that of their "spicy beef roll", something we'd only ever gotten at the Taiwanese barracks food restaurant in San Diego... and it's slow-cooked spicy thinly sliced beef in a roll of scallion pancake.  And they'd done their scallion pancakes super crispy on the edges and the beef was good and spicy and beautifully tender.

I highly recommend them.  A review said that they had no ambiance, but that also meant that I could talk to John across the table without having to shout the way we'd had to at the more famous dumpling outlet in Bellevue.  It was a very successful visit.

Fall was in the air, and these maple leaves were the size of dinner plates.  We had one morning when it just rained for an hour or two before the sun came back out, and one night I could hear the rain and I went to sleep more peacefully than I have for quite some time.  I still miss the rain.  And it was so good to just walk in the trees.  We visited Marymoore and the dog park and were very happy about the one dollar parking fee that maintained the trails, and did a lot of improvements there that were good to see.

It was a good time, and we had to go on Friday to get home before Tuesday, as I had things scheduled.

It's raining tonight.

The soft hiss of water on the pavement, the spatter on the windows, and the coolness through the house. The sky was a riot of fluffy clouds, shadows, and curtains of water being blown in from over the mountains.

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We went to a reception for the wedding of one of John's high school friends, and it was pleasant. Second marriages for them both, so they asked that no one give them gifts, just be present, and it was nice.

Since it was in the south end of Denver, we, of course, hit Ikea, just to look, and came out with a small armful of things. Went to H Mart and came out with a whole cart of food, including Jet's favorite meal when John's busy for an evening, grilled eel. They always remind me of Jin, in Samurai Champloo trying to kill eels in the woman's cart.

We came home tired, had a quick dinner of BBQ chicken, wok-seared green beans, and chibata from the Farmer's Market with a quick dip of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a few fresh tomatoes from the garden. So good, so quick. And then we went swimming in the neighborhood pool, and it started raining as we walked, and droplets pocked the surface as we swam, quickening until the sky lit with lightning and the ground shook with thunder. Everyone was called out to go home in the sudden downpour.

The air is tinged with the bite and coolness of fall, though it should still be hot, yet. I'm so used to late July and August being 90's, that a day in the 80's hints of the darkness to come.

...and the living is eeeeeasy...

Though completely stuffed full of things to do and people to see and things to make and paintings to sell and consultations to fulfill. And it's good. I've also started The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler that sophiap recommended for me, and it's made for some really amazing workouts.

We're swimming nearly every day in the neighborhood pool, and the heat's been averaging in the low-90's, but today it was in the 70's and raining so hard it nearly put out the fireworks stand fireworks we were using at our neighbor's party. We also had a friend from Callahan's days (Johanna) show up at our doorstep and they're staying for the night before going to a family reunion.

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Last night in the middle of the night, I heard a crack of thunder and saw the room lit with a flash even though the curtains had been drawn in the bedroom. The window of the bathroom was open, so I hopped up and went into the bathroom to close the window; and just as I managed to get it closed and battened down, the rain started pouring down as if someone had turned on a faucet.

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The four days out at the Oregon coast were wonderful, mostly overcast, one brilliant day, and we ended with a real soaker, which was exactly the right time for it. We camped with John's parents, whom I was very impressed with, and his brother and his wife, whom I've always admired. It was a lot of fun to be with them, and Walt's cooking made me fascinated with Dutch ovens. The rainy day was good in that we could pack up, tour the Tillamook plant, have ice cream, and just go home, get everything hung up to dry, and have a wonderful dinner at Yeh's Wok.

The only problem is that, during camping, my Visor spazzed when I put new batteries in it, so I've now lost contact information for just about everyone. Also, given how full John's made our social calender until we leave on Sunday, I'm not likely to get to visit with any more folks, realistically. *sigh*. Sorry about that, Kirby and others. I apologize for spazzing on that.

Yesterday John and I wandered the new Bellevue Square and Lincoln Square and then got to see Pirates 2. ARRGH! I say, "ARRGH!" It's great but there's another movie coming, which should be great. I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Then I lost my voice as we went to the old Rosehill Ale House (which is something else now) and celebrated the retirement of someone that had joined Data I/O a year before John had. And, consequently, met up with nearly 30 people that we haven't seen for nearly a decade. It was astonishing. The pub was, as usual, quite loud, so I pretty much lost my voice trying to talk with far too many people.

It was odd, though, in some ways. Meeting and greeting folks that I hadn't seen for that long. I felt distanced, but also like I *should* know how to act with them, but also knowing that that really wasn't the case. It was very cool, though, to see Patricia Blair, the wife of Nello, whom we used to work with. she's now Mrs. Washington! Hee. She won a beauty pageant!! And is now the traveling Mrs. Washington with engagements, parties, and doing judging at beauty contests herself. Lots of charity work in there, too, which is making her very happy. That's very cool.

I had enough voice left, when I got back and had a mug of tea, to read Jet his good night books, and that was very good indeed.

We now have 22 pounds of carrots, big, fat, juicy, short stubby carrots, some of them four inches in diameter in our garage refrigerator. John went out in the rain, yesterday, and pulled them all up, pulled off the tops (yes, I know, some folk use 'em in soup, but we don't. ;-)) and I tossed the tops into the compost. I had a rather visceral reaction when I heard John dumping his buckets of root veg into the sink to scrub the mud off of them. The thumps are unmistakable.

Given that the seeds were about 79 cents, and, locally, carrots are about 79 cents a pound if you don't buy the bags of baby carrots, it's a pretty good deal. Kind of like Jet's gallon of sunflower seeds that we're cheerfully munching through, raw, recently. The birds might like 'em too, during the winter. And all of it was pretty much raised organically because I was too lazy to spray with anything (and they didn't need it) and after the compost dig I didn't feed that often as that seemed to stand most of the plants in good stead.

Isabel showed me how to make raisin salad last night, too. It's easy! Grate carrots, add raisins, spoon in enough mayo to moisten and, wah la! Even the huge around carrots tasted sweet enough that it was a great salad for eating with dinner (a melange of onions, sweet peppers, whole garlic cloves, and browned chicken that I de-skinned after browning and getting the good bits into the pan, and half a cup of white wine just to clean everything up into the broth. All on rice with freshly baked Rhodes cracked wheat rolls on the side). Yum.

( The weekend was good. )

Rain rain rain, I'm so glad of rain. The swoosh and spray of cars slicing through black topped streets with standing water on them; the infinite variation of the sky; and the soft white noise of the water hitting the roof are all the things I love about rain. The air is soft with humidity, no longer sucking every drop out of every breath I breathe in, and it's an easement against my skin.

I so love the rain.