A Tulip is a Tulip

My friend Chris has a theory about the Tulip Festival - you only need to go once. From then on, just look at the pictures; every year it looks the same. I've wondered about this since living in Seattle and attending the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival each year for the past 3 years. But this year really was different - the sky was blue! And each year they rotate their crops so that the flowers are in different fields with different views behind them, so there is some variation there too. In any case, we were suckered in again - just can't help it. If there are flowers in abundance... well, you just have to go see!

Some Humor

Today is Ryan's birthday (Happy Birthday, Ryan) and I thought I'd pass on some 'wisdom of the ages' here - since he is also graduating from college and probably needs good advice... (These are from one of those un-attributed email thingies that spread through the internet. Sorry - I can't give credit where, obviously, much credit is due.) Anyway...

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.

It is always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably a wise investment.

Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

If you ever think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Duct tape is like "The Force." It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

And finally:

Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.


(Another milestone: this is my 600th posting. A whol' lotta nothing, as they say...)

... and again!

Snow. To be honest, we are getting tired of it. Seattle has broken all records for snowfall this year, including one we just made yesterday. This is the latest in the Spring we've ever had snow. And it just keeps coming. I tried to make the best of it. But do you know how difficult it is for middle-aged fat people to roll big snowballs for snowmen? I'll tell you: Very. Much bending and stooping is involved. Who knew?

And poor Squirrel! He needs peanuts - fat and protein - not carrots. (We got the message.)
So I am still burning a fire in the new fireplace and still trying to talk myself out of cookie-baking (on account of the aforementioned difficulty with bending and stooping) but which somehow seems obligatory to me on snowy days.

Sigh. We were going to garden this weekend.

Finally, a Spring outing

We actually had beautiful spring weather on Saturday and took advantage of it! We drove out to Carkeek Park, a Seattle urban gem right on the waterfront with several miles of great trails. The spring flowers were out, the birds were chirping - and best of all, we actually got there early enough to get a parking place! Amazing.

More about birthdays

Two of my nephews have their birthdays today - Happy Birthday Brent and Kyle!


You'd think that, even if there weren't enough names to go around in this family so we didn't have a bunch of repeats, there would at least be enough dates to not have duplicates. But no. Brent and Kyle were both born on the same day, albeit 2 years apart. I bet this happens a lot. Randomness can look so un-random-y sometimes.


Hope it is a good day for both of you!

Wasting time

I spent most of the day yesterday trying to avoid cleaning out the garage. It was time well spent.

On the Internet, I looked up Hillary's voting record, read an article about actresses 'who look like they smell bad,' (the Olsen twins) and found out that you really CAN visit Machu Picchu even if you are too old and fastidious to take the 6 day hike without shower availability. Of course it will cost you about $5000 each to do so, but...

The sun came out so I went outside to peer at plants and see if they were showing any sign of buds. They are. Very gratifying.

While outside, I also moved some stuff that was interfering with my pleasant view outside my back windows - which I was also looking out of while not-cleaning-the-garage.

I scratched Frik's neck. A lot. (He was being very attentive.) Then we had to go looking for Maddie so she could get equal time. I wrote a blog post about chicken. I watched a wonderful show on the travel channel called "Walking the World" which is what led me to the investigation of Machu Picchu. (That series also has an episode on Kilimanjaro and the Grand Canyon - fabulous photography! But not, evidently, available for purchase by DVD - which I also checked out.)

I finally took down my 'winter' wreath from the door and unwired the beautiful pine cones from it before throwing it out.

I munched. I downed more than a few Diet Cokes. Started a load of wash. Finished the load of wash, actually. More Frik scratching. More gazing out the window. Played a little ditty on my piano. Looked out the front windows too - just for good measure. Emailed Mark. Checked out the high school reunion website to see who else had written their 'bio' for the record.

Good grief. I can waste time with the best of them.

I actually did get the garage cleaning started too. A day well spent.

Roasting chicken

I've been a (fairly) competent homemaker for a whole lot of years. Almost 40, as a matter of fact. That's a lot of years of cooking and cleaning and laundry... yet there are some things that just don't seem to get better with practice.

Take 'roasting chicken' for example. I can't.

I usually cook chicken parts. They are smaller, cook faster, and you can make only as many as you need and buy only the ones you like. But lately 'parts' have been tasteless and I got tired of the disappointment. So I decided to try roasting a whole one. Surely it can't be THAT difficult.

I've tried this before. Over the 40 years I've been cooking, I'd guess I've tried this, on average, three times a decade. I never get it right. I always end up with raw meat. Since I am a stickler for having the whole meal get done - and served hot - at the same time, this is a disaster for me. And it is never a matter of 'just a few more minutes' but rather a matter of a couple more hours. How can this be? How can so many whole chickens simply refuse to cooperate? So I go for years just making chicken parts and then something triggers the thought that, surely, a roasted whole chicken would be good. And I get disappointed again.

But this time I thought I had it figured out. According to several magazines and The Barefoot Countessa (I always research things to the 'n'th degree) you are supposed to start cooking a whole chicken at a high oven temperature and then reduce the heat. You aren't supposed to stuff it. Or even cover it, particularly. And for good measure, I even left the legs 'untrussed' so they'd flap around in the heat on their own. And put celery and carrots and onions on the bottom of the pan for the chicken to rest on and be up off the bottom of the pan a little bit. For heat circulation. Or something. And after 30 minutes at 425 degrees and another 45 minutes at 350 I started cooking vegetables and got out my meat thermometer, fully expecting success as defined by 180 degrees in the thigh.

First problem: On a whole chicken - where is the thigh, exactly? I can see the leg but... Truthfully, I can barely distinguish the back from the breast when a chicken is raw.

Second problem: Only 140 degrees had been attained. Maybe I hadn't hit the thigh actually?

So it went back in the oven. I turned the oven up a few degrees. Every 20 minutes I tried again. 150. 155. 158. Good grief.

(I had even warned poor Mark that he better be home on time because I didn't want this to overcook! By the time we were finally able to eat it he'd been home and snacking for 2 hours!)

Finally it was done. I had already mashed potatoes. The vegetables were gray and mushy. I made the gravy while Mark carved.

Third problem: The gravy tasted like vegetables, not like chicken. Celery gravy just doesn't measure up. Very disappointing.

I can't roast chickens. Can anyone help?

A little more hopeful

Finally, a few more signs of Spring.

Garden Tools

I've been waiting for spring for a very long time. We've had some nice weather, but then some snow; some plants are coming out, but the trees are still bare... A very long time.

So I was thrilled with a new Garden Tools catalog that came the other day. (The seed and bulb catalogs haven't found me yet, I suspect. Or maybe they all went out of business like all the airlines this week.)

Specialty catalogs are always amazing. It's worth the time to peruse them. It seems that there are some real 'specialty' items among garden tools in addition to the usual suspects - pruners, loppers, garden gloves, and how-to books. A "Sunlight Calculator" for example, "designed for use during the growing season" to measure the duration and intensity of sunlight falling at a given spot over a 12-hour period. So you can tell if you have the right growing conditions? (This is something I need. Even though I've lived here for 2 years, I really don't know how much sun my side yard gets.)

There is also a great selection of "Ergonomic Stainless-Steel Digging Tools" - shovels and spades, actually. They are photographed against a beautiful background and paired with both a chart (name, length, head size, weight) and a multiple-paragraph treatise extolling their virtues. Quite a spread! That all justifies the prices I suppose. No one would pay that much just for a short-handled shovel.

There is a Rock Rake, rolls of UV-Resistant Tape (for patching greenhouses and bundling products for outdoor storage, we are told,) a "Gripple Trellis and Fence System" that I really didn't understand. Or a transparent vinyl decal printed with a spider web to put on your windows so that birds - who "will naturally recognize this as a hazard" - don't fly into them. (I'll probably pass this up and just not wash the outside of my windows some more. "It's the ecological thing to do" is what I'll tell anyone who wonders.) There are Gutter Brushes, Power Rakes (not really distinguishable from regular rakes) and Indestructible Nozzles (ha!)

I better hide this catalog from Mark.

The Boys of Summer

Baseball is back. The boys of summer are out to play.

I'm not much of a sports fan, but there is something about baseball that is more compelling to me than other sports. Baseball is laid back and quiet. I can usually follow the action (though not always) and sort of understand the rules. The announcers have time to say the most ridiculous stuff while there is nothing going on, thereby increasing the general amusement potential. And there is usually a lot of time for people-watching. (I'm big on people watching.) There is just something universally appealing about the crack of the bat and the ridiculous organ music. And peanuts, of course. Hot dogs too.

Baseball is nice. Baseball is long leisurely afternoons in the sun. Baseball is playing hooky from work.

Baseball is weird, too. There is, for example, all the spitting. That can't be good. And all the bizarre superstitions about streaks and curses and winning-because-of-dirty-socks. There are Sentimental Favorites that are loved by fans no matter how many times they don't make it to the World Series.

And, weirdest of all, the odd statistics/trivia that is bantered about:

• What NL rival knocked the Astros out of the postseason three times in a five year span, from '97-'01?


• Who holds the record for most career home runs for an outfielder?


• Who is the only player to hit at least 30 home runs in his first four major league seasons?


• Who hit over .300 in the most consecutive seasons?


• Who was the first to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season?

(And I'm betting that Todd and Greg, at least, know the answers! Probably Brent too.)

But most endearing are the mascots.

Hooray for Baseball!