RetiredForGood

I guess I was holding my breath for a miracle.

But January 20th came and went and I was feeling a little discouraged.... until Jan. 21, which turned out to be a Magnificent Day around the world when the miracle arrived!

Seattle, WA, as seen from the Bainbridge Ferry.

The Women's March outpost in Seattle brought over 175,000 folks according to a news station when only 30,000 were expected. And so it was around the world, even as far away as Antarctica. People, not just women, were peacefully assembling to stand up for themselves and everyone else. NO riots, no roughness, just holding up signs, having a few speeches and many wearing pink hats.

It was historic on so many levels.

I will not dwell on anything negative because my intent is to support progress, not slow that train down with logs on the rails. I am not putting my head in the sand, either, and there are some things occurring which should make all of us who are standing, walking or sitting in protest be prepared to take more action if necessary.

Let's remember... and let's stay aware and not let the energy of January 21 be defused.

From Wikipedia: The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler's Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776. The setting of the play is the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. 

It was my first-ever Northwest FolkLife Festival event in Seattle, WA this past weekend. It was everything it promised to be and more.

International flavors, foods, music, people.... I was looking forward to some non-stop dancing with other folks who love it as much as I do.

The first dance started at 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. with a break for lunch and I took another break of about an hour mid-afternoon when the English Country dances were taking place. 

It was like contra on steroids. Each line was made up of at least 160 folks and there were usually five or six lines... there was no way you ever made it to the top of the set if you started at the bottom.

But I danced with lots of wonderful dancers from Ohio, Calif., AZ and other distant locales. Some of them had established a tradition years ago to come for the entire weekend to dance and watch.

And there were folks from our local dance communities of Port Angeles, Port Townsend and Bellingham that I had danced with before as well.

Worn out after the last dance, I hobbled over to the Armory to watch tango demonstrations and then went to the car to take a nap until 7 p.m. when the Scandinavian dancing started.

Dancers from many different places came to Seattle for this weekend.

I enjoyed watching and doing a few dances, but I had realized it was just not possible for me to dance in the evening with the same energy I'd demonstrated earlier in the day.

And I missed seeing the Whirling Dervishes from Turkey, the Indian folk dancing, Hungarian musicians, African folk drumming and much, much more. But I had a great Greek 'hero' from Athena's.

Between walking and dancing, I took 17, 582 steps the entire day. According to my rough calculations, that is about eight miles.

Carol's husband said I had danced from Everson to Deming and back. Quite possibly, but the surface was considerably easier on my legs and feet than the roadway.

All I know is that by Sunday, I knew I could not dance any more... so I headed up to Bellingham to retreat and recover.

I enjoyed my visit with my very dear friend, we picked some cherries, laughed and suddenly it was time to head home to my cats who are less upset by weekend wanderings now but they still let me know how irresponsible they think I am to go away from them.

Next year I think I will have been in training enough to go the entire distance of dancing every day... at least that's my goal now. Wonder how many miles that will add up to?

The  61st Scandia Ball was at the Seattle Latvian Center in Seattle on Oct. 17, 2015.

61st Scandia Ball in Seattle, WA

It was my first time to go but not my first opportunity to dance some Scandinavian dances.

The ball begins with a Grand March around the hall.

In the N.H. town where I grew up there were a lot of Scandinavians: Norwegians, Finlanders, Danes and Swedes.

I first learned the Schottish at a New England contra dance.

Last night I danced many different versions of this energetic and lively pattern!!

Two friends from my contra dance group were here!

Today I am enjoying the memories of an evening with costumes and Swedish visitors... drat, didn't get to practice my limited Swedish on anyone, but had a wonderful 'vortexy' moment with a man from there: we were doing the

Långdans

 (mixer) where every seventh person was the one you were swinging... on the last connection, I met up with this charming Swede who recognized from my swing that I love doing it, it was an easy beat and that I am still imperfectly capable of swinging for a long period of time with someone else who is equally easy and proficient.

Musicians at play... interesting instruments!!

In his halting English he asked if I would care to do the next dance and I nodded and we started off on the Rørospols
 (which is a dance with lots of swinging, only they call that something else). We walked to the beat and then turned to swing and we just kept turning and turning and quietly laughing to each other in our eyes. When it was over, after many minutes of swinging, we shook hands and walked away... joy totally in that moment... joy in remembering it!

I learned the Telespringar, the Snoa, did a Familjevals, the Hambo, had several lovely Vals (Waltz both in Viennese style and Norska style) but missed the Godnatt Vals because my driving companion wanted to make sure we didn't miss the last ferry to Kingston.

Happily exhausted and looking forward to more dancing... tonight it's Country Western with Buck Ellard at the Sequim Prairie Grange...

Miss Pretty

Baby K in his dozing burghermeister pose.

Thanks to one of my more devoted readers and commentors, (I'm talking about you, Karen!) the twins have received nicknames that really seem to suit them right now. They also have other nicknames used en famille which are hopefully not going to stay with them forever so I won't use them here.

Holding Baby K's hands for a bottle feeding.

Baby K is a strong fellow. He is way ahead of the norms for strength and so giving him a bottle is like trying to wrestle with a small python... "No, I'm the granny, I'll give you the bottle." His forceful, unworded reply, "No, I'm the baby and I'm starving here, so I'll just take the bottle!" Sometimes he looks like a burghermeister about to give his ruling on the taste test for some rather nasty beer, and other times he smiles with such a winning and dimply smile my heart simply flips over and I know he is going to have that same effect on some vulnerable young lady years from now.

Miss Pretty's big smile.

Baby K trying to hold his own bottle with his papa.

Miss Pretty could easily be on all those baby commercials with her delicate pursed up mouth and an amazing smile that is truly given in recognition, not from gas. She was the leader in weight when she arrived, but her brother has out-distanced her by several pounds now. Not too surprising as once he started really eating, he is taking in 1/3 more at each feeding than she is. But it is her delicacy that has earned her this blog moniker, and when you hold her, (for all you doll people) she is reminder of those days when you played with a friend's life-size doll-baby and wished you'd get one of your own for Christmas.

Is there a Girl Scout badge for this?

Big Sis & huge cookie!

We took the children to a Girl Scout picnic where everyone got a chance to hold them, and two of the little girls in Big Sis E's troop took quite a bit of time away from the water sports to practice their holding skills. By my calculations, in eight years these two young ladies may be good candidates for baby-sitting and by then Big Sis may need all the help she can get!

Now comes the sad part, friends. I have to head back to Colombia for awhile and while Big Sis E has her moments of being frustrated with all the crying, shrieking, babbling, and flatulent noises that babies make, it has been made clear to me that I will be fully checked before leaving the house to make sure I haven't tried to hide one or both of them in my luggage.

So tiny those little feet...

Baby K on his daddy's arm.

I don't want to go, and this time with the family has been an awesome one. It was approached with trepidation, not knowing how much any of us could stand of the other being around ALL the time, but we have proved that we could manage the stress, the fatigue - and the joys - for the singular objective of giving these twins the best start they could have in life.

Baby K is growing exponentially daily...

Amazingly these two months have flown by and like so many life experiences, there will never be any like this again. I am glad I made the offer to be here and as it turned out, there were several times when it was clear it was Divine Planning for me to do so. And it also means this is the end of twin-shots until I see them again.

No tears... no wailing or gnashing of teeth. No long, drawn-out goodbyes, no special promises... just going. I will miss these two little rascals desperately and hope I am given the chance to return and to re-acquaint myself with them... it is up to the Higher Authority as to when that might be.

Mt. Rainier in the dusky light of sunset in September.

Apologies to Willy Wonka... but I have the very best Son In Law ever! Knowing my love for chocolate, he decided to make an appointment for a tour of the Theo Chocolate Factory here in Seattle and to go with me... that's sweet, isn't it?

As you will see on their website, their mission statement is "Proud to be the only Organic, Fair Trade, Fair for Life certified Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Factory in North America." (Like many public relations and mission statements, this is their statement, and I do not know if it is completely factual. There are lots and lots of chocolatiers in this area and in North America... can they really be the ONLY one?)

Isn't it amazing that there are people all around the world working together for the good of all concerned, and mostly what we hear about is those who aren't? Like the naughty children who get attention while the well-behaved ones seem to disappear into the background...

Last week for blueberries, but not beer...

But due to a variety of things, we decided to cancel it until my next trip out here. I have now put it on the Must-Do things when you visit Seattle. In looking at their website I learned so much about chocolate and growing the cacao and the importance of keeping your chocolate properly cooled - it's definitely not like those chocolate things you pick up in a rush which I will not dignify by naming. That would be like trying to compare a well-aged wine to something inside a paper bag.

The qualities of fine chocolate are just like those of fine wine... and like wine, when you are going to taste chocolates, there are some things to do first:
1) Make sure you have eaten something ahead of time. If you are taste-testing chocolates and you are hungry, you will gobble it and miss the fine nuances that going slowly will allow.
2) Not a good idea to have complicated foods beforehand... garlic and onion linger to affect the taste of chocolate. (I was such an uneducated heathen before that I thought that is why you ate the chocolate - to get rid of the onion after-taste!)
3) Have a pitcher of room temperature water and a plain cracker (saltines without the salt, for example) nearby to wash out your mouth between tastes. (Wonderful! As this suggests, you are going to have lots of different kinds of chocolate to test and taste... sounds like a really fun way to have a party, doesn't it?)

Did you know that chocolate can have a temper? (I have a temper tantrum when I cannot get good chocolate - LOL!) "Temper" (from the Theo website) refers to the crystalline structure the cocoa butter molecules form in the chocolate when cooling from a melted state (during production) to a solid form. The cocoa butter takes on a different structure based on the temperature at which it’s cooled, resulting in a chocolate that is soft, greasy and spotted (at the wrong cooling temp) or hard with a nice shiny, even surface (at the right cooling temp)." 

The proper temperature at which to eat chocolate is at 'room' temperature - about 75 degrees F; not pulled out of a bag from a hot car, or grabbed from the refrigerator, or horrors-of-horrors, eating the one that sat in your rucksack for three weeks being heated and cooled depending on where you were.

Like tasting wine, tasting chocolate requires some patience, some time, and plenty of chocolate options. I honestly think this tour helped to make me more of a chocolate connoisseur and further justifies my philosophy that good chocolate is good for me/you. The antioxidants and the theobromine, a mild stimulant similar to caffeine, are reportedly beneficial. But this is only in chocolate with careful processing because if it is overworked, all those benefits disappear. But Theo Chocolates take it another step by saying that eating and buying their products improve things worldwide... now that is a great reason to eat their chocolate!

Mt. Rainier in August on a particularly clear day...

All this information was gained from the website and you can read the details there. They also have some awesome recipes using chocolate. While I missed out on the chance to be a chocolate taster, my waistline is the better for it and hopefully on my next visit I will have had plenty of sleep and can fully appreciate the tour.

NOTE: There are over 50 chocolatiers in the Seattle area... this is only one of them, so if you are coming this way, perhaps you will want to take the Pike Market Chocolate Lover's tour as well so you can sample other decadent, delicious and dreamy possibilities. You can see why I love this area, can't you?

The red 'floral' is in fact a glass structure.

I am now in Seattle awaiting the arrival of the twins, and it was determined that an afternoon meeting up with an Intender friend was a safe bet, so my Intender buddy and I agreed upon the Seattle Center where the Space Needle and other entertainments are located... where we decided upon the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibits and ended up having lunch at the Collection Cafe which features a huge variety of things that Dale Chihuly has collected - everything from Mexican ashtrays to accordions. Plus the food was promised to be delicious, and it was, too.

Following are some of the incredible blown glass displays that are both inside and outside, some of which have been shown in other parts of the world at one time or another.

Neon gasses added make this a dramatic display of glass.

The artist's fascination with native American art is shown.

Formerly an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Chihuly collaborated with James Carpenter in 1971 to do glass in botanical designs. Thus evolved the "Glass Forest" which shows the delicate lines of growing things. Once out in the Glass Garden you can see many shapes imitating nature and the botanical additions make the stroll underneath the Space Needle quite fascinating.


The second 'room' is called the Northwest Room as it demonstrates the influence of the native Americans pottery and weaving on the work of Chihuly, who was born in Washington. The shapes and colors of the glass displayed mimic those of the early potters and weavers, much like glass that might have been tossed against the Pacific shores and then polished by the finder, in some of the pieces.

There was so much to see and there were a lot of people standing and walking so that it was sometimes a distraction to focus on one area over another. This entire collection is much more than just a display of glass art, but shows how the artist grew in his understanding of the medium, and how he literally stretched both the boundaries of the glass and the ways it could be presented.

Here is a glass ceiling you might not want to break through!

Passing through the spaces there was a room (Persian Ceiling) devoted to glass as a ceiling -- I loved it! If ever I have a chance to build a space where light can enter from above, this is something I will do. Although this had commercial lighting above, I can imagine such a space where the changing light would be an advantage.

Metallic tiles create color on a Center building.

The day started REALLY early... like 3 a.m.! A friend, an amazing friend, picked me and my travel buddy, Jeyhu, up at my apartment and drove us to the airport. Then it was kind of a blur until we got on the plane and the engines revved up. I want to tell you a story about this, but perhaps it can wait because I just want you to see some amazing pictures and then I can go off to bed. Because it is now another day here in Colombia and sleeping on the airplane just didn't cut it.

Mt. Rainier at sunrise. This is not very sharp due to the pitted windows. And it appeared larger to my eyes.

Atlanta was its usual hub of frenetic and orderly chaos and there were no delays until we got on the plane and were told we had to wait since the customer who had bags in the hold didn't show up for the flight. "It's a safety issue," said the captain, and it caused us a 25 minute delay, but he put the pedal to the metal and we got to Colombia right on time!

This is one of my favorite things to do when flying - to track our progress over the ground. This route took us over Cuba, but it was too dark by that time to see out.

Our route took us from Atlanta down I-75 essentially to Miami and the sky was so clear you could make out the highways from 39,000 feet! It was well after 6 p.m. when we got over the tip of Florida, so this was the last good shot of the day. I don't know what my internet access will be in Barichara this time, so don't give up if a few days go by. G'nite all.

We are over Miami, Florida, flying at over 500 mph at 39,000 feet. I was impressed that my little Sony digital travel camera could get this one. The sun was already setting at 7 p.m.

Pike's Place Market is a favorite spot for locals and tourists alike, especially on a sunny Sunday.

The Pike Market is well known for their Market Spice Tea which is available here, and online, too, if you care to order it. It was a big hit with our Colombian friends, so we made a special effort on Sunday to get down here and get some to take back with us. It has a strong orange and spice flavor; a black tea drenched in rich flavor. I have had it also under the title of "Russian Spice Tea," so that may be how it is found in other parts of the world.
A lot of flowers are available for sale here and since better than 80 percent of the flowers sold in the U.S. come from Bogota, perhaps we are seeing some Colombian flowers in this colorful mix!

During the winter a lot of local people come here to get their flowers and they are really priced quite reasonably. Seeing the sunflowers in the back row made me think about all the sunflowers we planted and watered while at the finca and I will be interested to see whether some more have been put in while we were away and how they have progressed.

To the left is a vendor selling every possible kind of rice,  pasta, spaghetti, vermicelli, etc. on the face of this earth.

Today was the last Summer Sunday in Seattle. This is when you can park for free in a lot of places - no dropping coins into slots - and there are plenty of street vendors, musicians, and lots of wonderful smells and foods... look at the crowd inside the market hall! Doesn't look like the economy is suffering here, does it?

The other great delight is finding all sorts of different kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Remarkably, Lorna and Mike, although they have a wide range of shapes and sizes, there was nothing to compare with your zucchini, though I looked long and hard.

Take a long hard look at the vegetable up near the center. I think this vendor has a sense of humor.

You can find champagne grapes (miniature and sweet), Chinese fruits, Mexican vegetables, and other worldly treats to address any recipe needs you might have. One of the vendors was slicing off bits of a ripe and juicy yellow peach for everyone to sample that was very tempting, but we were on a mission and could not be diverted by our taste buds.

Playing a lively composition, possibly his own creation?

What else might you be searching for? Italian sweets? Washington honey? French pastries? German sausage? Russian caviar? There are incredible restaurants - small and large - along the street. Books? Candles? Potions? Someplace in the market you can find it. Jewelry, clothing, hats, tattoos, spices for food, spices for life.

Seattle has such a variety of cultures. You can walk down this market street and hear voices from many lands, people dressed in a variety of national garb, music from every possible range: classical to jazz, banjo to harmonica, even a piano on wheels was being enthusiastically played by its owner, with CDs to purchase if you like what he's offering.

There are blown glass ornaments, wall hangings made from every possible kind of material, photographs, line art, incredibly lovely creative works by artists who silently watch you walk by and art by those who try to entice you with demonstrations, questions or simply shoving their works at you, hoping their technique will be the one to sway you to part with your cash or debit card.

A balloon creature creator sells his twisted art to all who will buy in the park that overlooks Elliott Bay in Puget Sound.

It is like a smorgasboard of light, sound and color which I am ill-equipped to handle for very long. Like an over-stimulated child with too many sweets from pampering aunts and uncles, I finally have to leave it all behind and head back to the relative quiet of Mukilteo - grateful that I have that choice.

So I leave you with a short video of one of the musicians we heard... enjoy!

And more boats... we went to the Shilshoal Marina, north of Seattle, for a boat show today. I have a MM friend who loves being around boats and water, at least as much I do, I've surmised. So I took some pictures with him in mind, because he has plenty of other things on his... These are for you, B...