The deal I posted about the other day is real -- the girls and I stopped by Bliss this evening and loaded up on gorgeous soaps on a 2-for-1 basis. I chatted with one of the owners for quite a bit, and he confirmed everything in the e-mail and then some.

If you are around Capitol Hill in the next 3 hours -- they're open until 8 PM --  or feel like navigating their confusing website and placing an order today, you can load up on gorgeous soaps for half price.

I got this post from the fabulous domestinatrix . She relays something that is not-so-fabulous, but that could be redeemed by getting turned into even more fabulousness.

The e-mail that BLISS sent out to their mailing list:


10/29/2009

Dear Valued BLISS Soaps Customer;

BLISS Soaps has unfortunately fallen victim to a fraudulent business deal. Many local customers may recall a large soap, lotion, facemask and eye cream order that we were working on as they came to visit the store. The order was made, delivered and distributed to the Cruise-line executives ahead of schedule. Emperors Essentials, the company that commissioned BLISS Soaps to fulfill this contract fraudulently reversed ALL of the payments that were made to us. After researching the company, we discovered that the couple who own Emperors Essentials; Robert Friend, Jr., and Shao Mei Wang operate 4 charities in Gig Harbor, Washington. 1) National Association of Disabled Police Officers. 2) American Veterans Coalition. 3) (Childrens) Cancer Assistance Network. 4) Disabled Firefighters Foundation. All 4 charities are fictitious and an estimated $5,000,000.00 was raised for the charities and around 2 cents per dollar was used as assistance. If you hear of these in the future, DO NOT DONATE.

The devastating to BLISS Soaps came at such a time that we may not recover the funds in time to maintain operations.

In an effort to make this a win-win situation for both of us, we are offering this 4 day only Internet, call-in and walk-in special in an attempt to earn pre holiday revenue.

All orders over $50.00 will be doubled and the next 5 future orders over $50.00 will be given a $15.00 credit.

All orders received in the next 4 days will be filed and a VERY special future offer will be offered to you in our Dec E-mail.

ALL orders place in the next 4 days EVEN orders under $50.00 will be given the Special December offer.

To call in your orders, please call 1-206-322-SOAP 7 days 4-10 Pacific Time
Internet orders, please only order ½ of what you would like as we will simply double the order received.

Thank, you for your past and continued patronage and hope to hear from you soon.

Phil & Chuck
BLISS Soaps

This afternoon I took the girls to the carousel at the Woodland Park Zoo. I had $4 in change in my purse, which was enough for one ride for each of them, and the wren is short enough that I needed to ride with her to hold her on. We all had a wonderful time, but the girls didn't want to leave. The wren, in particular, had to be physically pried off the horse at the end of the ride.

I managed to get them to spend some time on the lawn, but when the carousel started up, they ran to it and gazed wistfully through the bars as it spun around and around to the tinkling music.

Someone from behind me asked me something. I turned and saw four adults, gesturing towards the carousel.

"Oh, I'm not in line," I said.

They looked confused. The man said something to the woman in (I think) German. Then she clarified, "We have tokens for this ride, and we don't want them. Would you like them?"

Sure enough, they had four cute little wooden tokens that read "Historic Woodland Park Carousel." I asked where they were from and how long they were in Seattle, and they said Switzerland, and Just until tomorrow. They didn't need the tokens.

I asked the hypermuffin "Would you like to go on the carousel again?"

"YEAH!!!" she cried with great enthusiasm, making the Swiss people chuckle.

We took the tokens, and the girls each said "thank you" very nicely. And it turned out that the special wooden tokens were worth twice as much as the metal ones, so that each token was good for one ride instead of only half a ride. So we got to go on the carousel twice more, for a total of three times this afternoon. 

All thanks to the Swiss. Thanks, Swiss people! And sorry for assuming you were German!

On the way home from the birthday party for autumnbottom and scifisy 's adorable toddler today, Andrew and I saw a house for sale. Since we're "that way" about houses for sale, we pulled over to grab the flyer.

Check this baby out!

• 3,361 square feet
• THREE separate living areas that can be closed off from each other -- all three with separate entrances, and two of them with kitchens
• 2 decks and a patio
• master suite has three closets and a balcony
• 2 fireplaces
• 5 bedrooms, possible 6th
• Sun/bonus room
• View of Lake Ballinger and golf course
• Mother-in-law suite has two bedrooms, full bath, laundry room, and separate entrance in the back, with its own deck.
• In addition, there's an Accessory Dwelling Unit.
• tatterdamelion , the ADU in this house has two bedrooms, full kitchen, hookups for its own washer / dryer... and a Jacuzzi. Aw yeah.

Andrew kept reading the amenities to me, and I kept boggling and saying "Wait, how many rooms does it have??"

All this could be ours for the asking price of $550K, which seems pretty darned good to me. The housing market is definitely slanted in the buyers' favor right now. However, we don't really want or need to upgrade our house. Maybe if we find ourselves expecting twins. 'Cuz then the au pair could live in the MIL... since if we ever have twins, we're definitely selling our souls so we can have a live-in au pair.

It's the season for free fruit. The house on the corner to the south of me has a sign offering free yellow plums, U-Pick. (jessicac and domestinatrix , take note!)

Should I take the girls and walk down there to pick some plums? :-)  One supposes it would be a whole lot easier if one had a wheelbarrow. One does not. Or maybe I could get the girls to carry them back to the kitchen, one by one? 

This would all seem much less daunting if we hadn't just taken a 2.5-hour walk to the produce stand and back. The produce stand is 5 or 6 blocks away, but small children experience distance in a different, quantum state. The shorter the distance and the prettier the day, the longer the entire thing takes. :-)

Definitely on the agenda for this afternoon: Replenishing the crock of sauerkraut, putting away laundry, and resting just as much as Steve on Blue's Clues will let me get away with. I may also start some fermented millet, because I am crazy like that.

Yesterday I was out and about with the girls when they demanded ice cream. Andrew had recently finished off the chocolate chunk ice cream in our freezer, and we were out of popsicles as well, so when I drove north and saw a coffee shop that advertised "ICE CREAM" in the window, I turned in.

Cafe Keffa was completely empty, and I wasn't even sure they were open. (I had just come from attempting to buy food at Plaka Estiatorio, and failing because they were closed between 3:00 and 5:00, although both doors were wide open.) But it turned out to be open after all, and I acquired three scoops of ice cream and an almond Italian soda for myself. I tried to buy a spinach and feta croissant, but they were all out. The decor was rich with dark woods and deep reds and golds, and it looked like a nice place to hang out on the soft couches and enjoy. The music was quiet and classical, and the one barista was very accommodating and chatty. Now, if only they'd had some pastries...

Today I tried out Cloud City Coffee in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. It had a carpeted toy and book area, which was a big hit with the two kids. Their pastry case was by no means empty -- lemon cream cheese muffins, Italian coffee cake, and many other sweet delicacies met my eye, as well as protein-rich food like turkey and swiss sandwiches, BLTs, roasted red pepper soup, and what I ended up getting: the BBQ pulled pork sandwich (with free bag of chips). The music was a bit on the loud side and was decidedly not classical, and the square footage was a bit on the small side, but overall, Cloud City Coffee definitely wins over Cafe Keffa.

Still, there's something to be said for a coffee shop that advertises ICE CREAM and does, in fact, sell ice cream. Yay for truth in advertising!

Andrew's schedule was unusual this week, and he ended up with Tuesday and Wednesday night off. So last night we were able to put the wren to bed, leave the baby monitor with tatterdamelion downstairs, and take the hypermuffin to the July performance of "Lullaby Moon."

Their blurb: "Lullaby Moon is a year-long invitation to Seattle to explore a world of dream. A celebration of the night sky, the series of performance events brings bedtime whimsy and wonder to parks and other public spaces throughout the city, enlivening and enlightening the dark time of each month.

Andrew and I had gone a month ago, on my birthday, and had a magical and surreal experience at Seward Park. The July performance was to be held at Gasworks Park's Kite Hill... a place where, surprisingly enough, I had never actually been before, despite living in Seattle for 10 years now.

I dropped Andrew and the hypermuffin next to the park and stowed the car somewhere, with much trouble -- it was packed. We met up again on the very crest of the hill, with downtown, the water, and all the ships spread out before us in the sparkling sun. Over 1,000 people were spread all down the hill (Andrew overheard some of the organizers talking, and they had been counting). People in tuxedos were flying kites at the top, and way down at the bottom of the hill right by the water, there were a whole bunch of little kids playing with colorful hula hoops, no doubt provided for the occasion.

Andrew and the hypermuffin wandered off, and saw the giant bunnies approaching from the left; I didn't see them until 10 minutes later, because there were SO many people in the way. Over the next hour, we saw men out on the lake rowing giant wrapped presents around... people dressed as bunnies, dancing, leaping, playing with hula hoops, and trying to open the presents... ladies with parasols and hoop skirts and owl masks... the big white canopied bed, being towed out on the lake by a tugboat, with children inside it waving to us... a big paddleboat laden with characters -- horses, cats, and little kids with glowing clocks for heads... a wide variety of dancing... all to the sounds of live music that was piped through speakers so everyone could hear.

The sun was setting as all the characters came up the path to the top of the hill, right where we were sitting on the edge of the large circle. The hypermuffin was rapt as horses, cats, rabbits, and clocks whirled past in their costumes of white satin and gauze. They all filed down the hill away from us, and Andrew and I thought it was time to head home... since a certain 4-year-old we knew was flagging rapidly.

We made it back to the car and home, where she demanded lemonade and fruit salad before falling into bed.

"I want to see the clock costumes again!" she said, snuggling down into her Boppy pillow.
"If you close your eyes, maybe you will see them," I said.
She screwed her eyes closed with vigor. After a second: "I see them!" (pause) "And I hear music, too!"

Easiest. Bedtime. Ever.
Today, she's said, "I want to go and see Lullaby Moon again!"

Maybe next month... although if the last one drew over 1,000 people, I'm honestly not sure where they can go or what they can do to top it.

I took today off work, and Andrew only had to be at his job at 4 PM. Since the wren was in daycare, that left the bulk of the day to be spent with just us and thehypermuffin . She relished all the attention from Mom and Dad.

After lunch we took her to the Experience Music Project / Science Fiction Museum, where there was an exhibit of Jim Henson's Muppets. This was a good first introduction to Muppets for her. Since she was not familiar with them before, I'm sure she didn't get the same frisson that I did when face-to-face with Kermit The Frog inside a Plexiglass case. (In case someone wants to shoot him, like the Pope?)

The biggest hit inside the Muppet exhibit? The fuzzy walls. The hypermuffin found three or four fuzzy walls, and plastered herself against them, smiling blissfully as she nuzzled into them, HARD, trying to become one with them. She rolled around on them (vertically). She insisted that we lift her as high as we could and let her slide down the wall, again and again, until our arms were tired.

I had no idea the fuzzy walls would be such a hit.

We entered the EMP and spent a lot of time in the Sky Church, a large, architecturally open space with some sort of cool rubber floor and light shows playing constantly. She danced, danced, danced to the music, and ran back and forth across the space, and did proto-cartwheels, and attempted to invent breakdancing (I am not kidding you -- she was doing some breakdancing moves that she has never been taught, and has never, as far as I know, so much as seen before). She danced until I thought she was going to pass out.

After being dragged outside, she gravitated towards a large metal sculpture on the lawn. It was this sculpture, which a bit of Googling informs me is called the "Lightning Bolt":


Photo credit: cynthiacantor

You can't tell this from the picture, but the 45-degree incline on the far left is about 7 feet off the ground at the point where it veers to go straight up. She free-climbed that incline, once she'd kicked off her sandals. She free-climbed it again and again, gripping with just hands and feet. To 7 feet off the ground. Then she slid down in various inventive ways, one of which dinged her foot a bit.

Andrew and I were laughing and yet stunned and in awe at the same time as we stood to the side to spot her in case she needed it. (She didn't.)

She's just... astounding. She's just officially astounding, and possibly half-monkey, or destined to be a ninja.

We are in humbled awe at her amazing physical prowess. Gymnastics training is just the beginning, I'm sure.

While we were standing there stunned and incredulous, Andrew said, "Give her martial arts and criminology training, and she could be Batman."

We're enjoying having Andrew's parents in town this weekend. This morning Andrew, his father, and the hypermuffinwalked up to Carkeek Park for the 80th anniversary celebration, while Andrew's mom, the wren, and I hit the grocery store. I was even able to take a nap before Andrew's dad called us from the park for extraction by car.

Lunch was hamburgers, and delectable black raspberry-chip ice cream sandwiches. Then the girls ran through the sprinkler, and then colored. Now "The Emperor's New Groove" is in. The wren requested it as "Noo Gof," which took me a few tries to comprehend.

The hypermuffin is currently engaged in signing her name while Andrew's dad runs him in to downtown for work -- his bus never came, probably because of the Greenwood Car Show.

All this and it's only 4:30 PM. If I were really ambitious, I would go to the Silent Auction for the girls' daycare tonight... but I just don't think I have the time (and budget) for it. :-P

Monday the 22nd was my birthday. Our friends Tom and Mandy kindly agreed to babysit for us so we could enjoy a much-needed evening out.

We started out with dinner at Bick's, the very good restaurant that's close enough to our house that sometimes we've even walked there. We tried an appetizer that was new to us, Thai red curry mussels, and loved it. I'm wondering if I can recreate the recipe the next time we go out to Ed and Charlotte's place on the Hood Canal, with its copious supplies of fresh shellfish.

My entree was hazelnut-crusted ling cod with chorizo rice and asparagus. It was very good -- anything with both fish and hazelnuts is a win for me. If only it had somehow included bacon! But the chorizo was close enough. ;-)

For dessert we split a Mocha Mousse in a Mug -- our favorite taste sensation there. It's divine. I have no pretensions of being able to recreate this myself at home. It's just too good.

After dinner, we went down to Seward Park for a once-a-month "event" / piece of performance art: "Lullaby Moon," which happens one night a month on the new moon. (Yes, my birthday this year was not only almost on the summer solstice, but was also on a new moon. Neato!)

The description of this event, from their website: "Lullaby Moon is a year-long invitation to Seattle to explore a world of dream.
A celebration of the night sky, the series of performance events brings bedtime whimsy and wonder to parks and other public spaces throughout the city, enlivening and enlightening the dark time of each month. Performances take place on each new moon for an entire lunar year beginning in October 2008."

I've been trying to get to one of these for months, but I have to admit that I didn't quite know what to expect.

We found parking with much difficulty and found a large group of people waiting for the show to begin, some on folding chairs but most seated on the grass. A white canopied bed was the centerpiece, on grass in front of the water, set off by lights. A string quartet and a portable keyboard were underneath another canopy, playing classical music. Down the path near the water were some women in white with white cat heads. The website later told me that these were "Alchemist Cats." 

As dusk fell, five adorable little children clothed in white gowns or white satin knickers came in. I say "adorable," although I don't really know that for sure, because their heads were enclosed in glowing clocks. It sounds creepy, but they were very sweet. (I bet the hypermuffin would love to be a dancing clock!) They danced a "clock dance" to the music, and then the two big clocks put the three smaller clocks to bed while the music changed.

Three tall figures slowly rode in from the right on huge unicycle-like apparatuses. They were dressed in white with large, surreal bunny heads as headdresses. They weren't actually on unicycles; two small wheels were down at the bottom for stability. After slowing riding in and parking their giant tricycles (which had lights on the axels), the rabbits did a leaping and jumping dance.

While that was midway through, Andrew leaned down and whispered, "There's something coming on the right." I looked around and saw four ghostly female figures in white Victorian dresses and giant horse heads, pushing perambulators, drifting towards us ever so slowly down another path. A glow came from their strollers, and they performed slow, gentle, synchronized movements of rocking the strollers and making courtly gestures. It was like a dream -- like white knights from a chessboard had come to life.

The next phase included the "Alchemist Cats," who slowly approached from the left during the final phase of the horses' dance, and then performed a cat-like dance while the rabbits hid behind a tree and then slowly crept up behind them.

All the characters then did the same "clock dance," and then a large circle dance to a rousing, folk-song-like number.

Then a soprano in a tuxedo sang "Lullaby and Good Night" as four rowboats out on the water with stars on top were rowed back and forth and in and out by men in tuxedos.

The characters came out into the audience at some point and scattered white rose petals over every child there. My heart was touched as I saw the baby to our left and the 2-year-old to our right in awe and wonder over these large, white, impressive-looking cats and horses and rabbits coming right up to them and scattering them with flowers.

The characters gradually left on the path to the right, and disappeared somewhere -- no idea where they went, because on the walk back to the car I was looking for them, and the woods were empty.

On our way back to the car, I felt a sense of beauty and of having been taken "out of myself."

On the freeway home, we passed four road construction vehicles in a row, moving slowly, with flashing lights. Both Andrew and I had the strange mental whiplash moment in which we expected them to somehow have giant horse heads.

Next month I want to try to find a way to go with the hypermuffin , and perhaps other people who appreciate the strange and the surreal.

I saw an article about a pharmacy near Washingotn D.C. that takes back people's unused prescription medicines. I want a local program like this, since I've never known what to do to keep these things out of the water supply and out of the landfills, while also not making them available to people who might use them awry.

So I wrote to the "customer contact" e-mail address for QFC asking whether they would consider implementing a program like this. I would love so much to just drop all the unused prescription pills in a big fishbowl back at the pharmacy and know they would be incinerated. I never use all the pain pills they give me, and just last month we picked up a prescription for antibiotics for thehypermuffin 's ear infection that we ended up not using at all because it went away by itself.

Today I got a personal answer from QFC's "Director of Pharmacy," signed with his name, office phone number, and mobile phone number (!!!). It reads: 

Hello Catherine,

 

Thanks you for your concern about our ability for safely disposing unused prescription medications. We have explored the ability to become a destination depot for customers and non-customers to bring us in their unused products for safe disposal. The only reason we have not doing this at this point is that our Washington State Dept of Health only has 2 'approved' disposal systems in our state at this time. They are pilot programs with Group Health and Bartells. At this time, no one else can do this until we have an Board approved program and they are not allowing expansion of this program at this time until their study is done. Our disposal company has a Federally approved program for safe disposal and they will start this program with us as soon as we get the green light. We here at QFC are in complete agreement with every effort to reduce waste, to safely dispose of the waste we must make, and to try to lighten the load on our environment. We believe that each tiny improvement we can make is critical, is doable, and reasonable. We are only waiting for our Board of Health to approve our program and we will start. Again, thanks for your concern!

Wow, it's neat to get a personal reply from a real person -- a real person with extensive contact information.

Srsly, while I find it charming that people still e-mail around their phone numbers to complete strangers, doesn't this sometimes come back to burn people in the end? What if I were a spammer who sold his cell phone number and he started getting calls to extend his auto warranty? But in any case.

I'm impressed.

I think they should change their store motto to: "QFC. We really care about proper garbage incineration. Also, we write back more than some of your ex-boyfriends."

I fell into conversation last night with the father of another girl in the hypermuffin 's gymnastics class. Coincidentally, his kids also go to the wren's daycare.

We talked for half an hour or so. During the conversation he mentioned he'd been in a rock and roll band for 30 years.

Towards the end of the conversation I finally asked what band. He told me it was called "Young Fresh Fellows," and it's still sort of together, although he's spending more time now in the duo "Chris & Tad," with the former lead singer from "The Presidents of the United States of America" (a band I have actually heard of).

I went home and looked them up. Sure enough, there are clips of Tad on YouTube, and there's even an article on Wikipedia about the band.

It's always vaguely disconcerting to interact with someone you can then turn around and see in the media. My life is not on YouTube and there is no Wikipedia article about me, nor is there likely to be one. And I'm really OK with that.

It's 9:30 at freaking night, and I just got a robo-call from the Seattle School District, saying that there is a suspected case of swine flu in the county, and the student goes to Madrona, although "he or she" (do they not know??) was not actually attending school at the time he or she was sick. (Was he or she suspended? For licking pigs? Inquiring minds want to know!)

So I am clear: I just received a phone call that was not a real phone call, about a student whose gender is indeterminate, who may or may not have had the swine flu, but who in any case was not attending the school at the time "he or she" may or may not have had the swine flu. Oh, and he or she was not attending a school that was not even my daughter's school.

If people are going to start calling me for dangers that are 20 or 30 degrees removed from me, I will shortly receive one million calls warning me about asteroid strikes, birth control hormones in the water, conflict diamonds, disappearing frogs, and rabid puffins.

And another thing! 9:30 is too late to call someone unless you are dating or immediate family, and you, Seattle School District, are neither a dating interest of mine NOR my immediately family. Unless there is a case of confirmed swine flu at my daughter's school, why call me? Why call me for a case that may or may not be a case, but that was definitely not at my daughter's school? Might as well alert me that someone with the flu might have passed through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Quick! Stop breathing now and save yourselves!

Rrrgh. Anyway. THANK YOU, Seattle School District, for covering your own a$$es in the most annoying way possible.

This evening while taking out the leftover food scraps, which can now go in the yard waste bin (thank you again, City of Seattle!), when a neighbor from the condo building across the alley hailed me. We chatted for a good 10 minutes about my daughters, the innocence of youth (she'd seen them running around in the yard half-naked), our weddings, varieties of tea, and various other things. She's awesome, and I hope we can find time to hang out sometime. (Shout out to you, Carmen, if you're reading this!)

I was stunned to hear that she was one of the few people who has seen the profile on my wedding, which was published a few years back in the local Seattle edition of "The Knot."

I still have some copies of that edition of the magazine in my closet, and it blows me away to realize that (1) someone else actually saw that magazine, (2) she actually recognized me. This is kind of amazing!

Yesterday while waiting for the hypermuffin 's bus, I crossed the street with the wren and chatted with the Love Lady. I call her that, although her actual name is Janet, because the word "LOVE" is painted on their big front picture window in white Gothic letters. She and her husband are very sweet people, former missionaries and always leading prayer groups and urging us to attend fish-related Norwegian festivals in Ballard. She was very interested in how the girls are growing and what they are up to.

Two nice interactions with neighbors in two days. It must be springtime, when people finally leave the house once in awhile.

I am a big recycling geek, not because I necessarily believe that recycling really helps -- I've read too many articles along the lines of "it actually takes more energy to recycle an aluminum can than it would to make a new one" -- but because, despite what the state of my housekeeping might imply, I do like everything to be in its place. It pleases me to put the glass in one bin and the cans in the other. I would probably make an excellent Japanese person. I hear Japan has very complex and sophisticated recycling regimens for all of its citizens to follow scrupulously.

I also think that human beings should be more efficient and less wasteful in how we exploit the earth's resources, so we can continue existing in our current form. Let's not soil our own bed -- let's keep on going, so we can give the gift of sentient consciousness to the universe for a few more millennia.

As a big recycling geek, I'm super jazzed about the City of Seattle's recycling changes that went into effect today! Glass no longer needs to be separated -- it can go into the main bin. (The two bins I had for glass have been repurposed to hold yard toys.)

There are many other changes, including: 

• Food waste can go into the Yard Waste cart to be composed -- including meat, fish, and dairy! NO WAY! I am sooo happy about this. Throwing away all the girls' leftovers every day was a knife in my heart -- or at least a papercut on the surface of my heart. One of those.
• Batteries can go into the garbage now! I have about 50 dead batteries that I've been stockpiling -- I had no way to get rid of them, since they were disallowed in garbage before. Time to trash those puppies! (Now what to do about that old baby monitor...)
• Plastic trays, plastic lids greater than 3" diameter -- including yogurt and cottage cheese lids -- plastic plant pots, and aluminum foil can now be recycled. YES! No more guilt over putting foil down on the bottom of a pan and then just throwing it away. My mom taught me to wash it off and reuse it later, but I don't always do that. (Her mom tied knots in broken rubber bands in order to reuse them...)
• Paper towels can go into Yard Waste to be composted. You really don't want to know how many paper towels we go through around here.

It's all nifty and I am extremely pleased, especially since it's for a good cause, like compost. Thank you, City of Seattle, for doing something right.

I've been a bit silent the past few days -- work has been crazy busy and Andrew has been sick. But I'm happy to report that our systems are mostly in place to be able to handle things. Laundry and dishes still get done, meals still get cooked, bills still get paid, and girls still get to go to their daycare and/or preschools at the appointed times. It's the fripperies and geegaws like posting to LJ every day that may suffer a bit. :-)

Still, with this post, I'm back! And here is what you've been missing.

---

During depressed times, what do people want (besides porn)? They want to snuggle up in blankets and they want a darned drink. Now you can do both at once, as reported by USA Today, in one of the "Snuggie Pub Crawl" events that are apparently sweeping the nation.

I must add that bar-hopping in a Snuggie, which is essentially a giant "sleep sac" for adults, would definitely relieve many people of their body image issues. That guy isn't checking out your booty. That guy can't see your booty, for it is swathed in meters and meters of fleece.

I do have to wonder what happens when you spill your White Russian on your Snuggie. How do you explain that at the dry cleaner's the next day? 

---

The life story of Alicia Koplowitz, Cuban-Jewish heiress and Spain's richest woman, who lost half her wealth (according to estimates) in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, would make an excellent Lifetime miniseries.

If I am ever rich like Dona Alicia, I will begin collecting Blue Onion Meissen china, because I think it is very pretty.

A Latvian mourns his country's population decline, and thinks that perhaps it's already too late to encourage vast influxes of Africans to make up for their demographic collapse. This is from June 2007, so it's kind of old, but I hadn't seen it before. It is comforting to me that as one culture declines, there will be others coming up to take its place.

---

Tomorrow is Pi Day! I will probably bake a pi(e) with the number "3.14" on top in extra pie crust. If I do such a thing, I will be sure to post a picture here. ;-)

Tomorrow is also the day when the youth group at University Unitarian Church is holding a "Waterless Car Wash." They write:

"Come to the UUC parking lot from 1:30 – 4:30 pm on Saturday and get your car cleaned, with No hoses, no water waste and no soapy runoff into streams!

Car exterior washed for $10
Interior for $10
Both for $15

All proceeds will be donated to Water First International. The group hopes to earn enough to sponsor the construction of a public water point serving 500 people in Ethiopia."

I think I may very well do that! The girls would probably enjoy running around in the church parking lot / playground while this is going on. And goodness knows my car could certainly use the help. Our backseat is like the Elephant Graveyard for Cheerios.

---

The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden up in Shoreline is probably looking for volunteers for spring garden work. If I had any time, I would actually work in my own garden, but maybe someone else is interested. They also offer free guided tours on the first and third Saturdays of the month, at 1 PM. If my girls were just a bit older...

Also coming up: Training events for the Breast Cancer 3-Day! autumnbottom , wanna hit Alderwood Mall with me on Sunday March 29th at 8 AM (whew, that's early!)? My legs aren't going to strengthen themselves. Not unless I walk with them, that is.

Note for future evenings -- rare, but not impossible -- when I can leave the house to walk somewhere in my neighborhood for dinner and/or a drink: 

Snoose Junction has opened a second location, and it's within walking distance of my house, down on the big Holman - Greenwood - Northgate way intersection, in the building behind the Jiffy-Lube.

I learned about it on the Phinneywood blog.

Excerpt: 

"Both the restaurant and bar open at 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. The restaurant closes at 11 p.m., but the bar is open as long as people are there, so as late as 2 a.m. Like its Ballard counterpart, most of the building materials are recycled. The tables were created from the bowling lanes of Sunset Bowl, and the lounge floor is Brazilian Mahogany from Garfield High School before its remodel."

It's Friday; time for a link roundup of stuff that caught my eye throughout this week.


I really like the pretty etched glass art at Bread & Badger. I bought some very  nice little etched glass magnets to give away for Christmas, but now I think I want something for myself. There is also an Etsy store, which is where the things on sale are... and coincidentally, the things I want are all on sale. :-)  So now I just have to decide whether I should get a deep ruby red sacred heart pendant, or a pretty, hand-engraved shot glass? Or both? That's still $28 plus shipping. :-P  Maybe if I wait they'll go down in price even more?

I'm leaving a comment on the Bread & Badger blog, "Badger Sandwich," for a chance to win two high-ball glasses, and if you like the look of them, you should too.


There's a plan to improve Greenwood Avenue, the big arterial street half a block east of our house, from 105th north through 112th. (We live about half a block north of 112th.) An overview of the plan is here; the page says that construction will begin this spring. I'm excited that we live in a neighborhood that's on the upswing and will be getting some attention, even if it's not directly on our street. (Honestly, I'm probably happier that it won't be directly on our street, because I'm worried they would "improve" away all of our vast parking area that we use when hosting parties!)


I had never heard, before this thread on ratmmjess 's LJ, of the Soviet Russian plan to reverse the course of several huge rivers to flow south through Central Asia. This is big-scale thinking here. I'm kind of glad it never happened. On the other hand... (Related article on Stalin's Plan for the Transformation of Nature)

I had also never heard, before this week, of Hélène Dutrieu, a "cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, stunt driver, pioneer aviator, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital." Wow! What a woman!

Excerpt: "On 25 November 1910 Dutrieu became the fourth woman in the world, and the first Belgian woman, licensed as an aeroplane pilot, receiving Aéro-Club de Belgique (Aero Club of Belgium) licence #27. Her appearances at air shows earned her the nickname the "Girl Hawk". There was a minor scandal early in her aviation career when it was revealed to the press that she did not wear a corset while flying." (Shocking! :-)


An interesting article in the January New Yorker titled "Baby Food: If Breast is Best, Why are Women Bottling their Milk?" As someone who has spent about a year and a half of her life pumping at work and carrying bottles of fluid packed on ice around the place, I was already well aware of many of the ideas and history brought up in the article.

An article from the New York Times about paying the nanny tax. I am so glad we didn't try to hire a nanny -- the costs seemed comparable to having both girls in daycare full time, but when you factor in the extra money for payroll taxes, etc., and all the administrative headache of accounting for it properly, it would have ended up being way more. We're lucky we can juggle our schedules so one of us is usually home with the girls. :-)


forthright has posted a poll about how people parse North American-style phone numbers. Feel free to hop over and answer the questions -- he says "the more the merrier!"


shimmerdance directed me to the community valentines_09 , where you can leave notes for your friends / loved ones underneath the appropriate letter of the alphabet. I don't have enough time to fill these out for all of you lovely people, but if this sounds like your cup of tea, have at it!


All right -- that should be more than enough links to satisfy even the most link-ravenous of readerships. :-)

Posted from the Phinneywood blog, a resource for the Phinney and Greenwood neighborhoods:

"Got thoughts on the city’s snow response?

January 11th, 2009 · 5 Comments

I've been here for 10 years now, and I think I can safely call myself a "real" Seattleite.

Today I worked at my confusing, yet charity-related, job at CharityUSA (we are neither a charity nor only in the USA), launching another Gift That Gives More (Fund a Microloan for a Mini-Taxi in India). Coffee was involved.

Today was our day for our cloth diaper delivery from Baby Diaper Service. Also, it was our day for our twice-monthly produce bin from New Roots Organics. My parents would never, ever have spent money on either of these services. Ever.

In the afternoon, I took my girls to their Ballard doctor, and then to gymnastics class at Seattle Gymnastics Academy, although the 19-month-old is probably way too young for gymnastics "really." (But she sure loves playing in the foam pit!)

In the evening I made roasted beet - sauteed kale and beet greens - caper - goat cheese salad, with beets and kale from my produce bin, salt-packed capers from The Shop Agora on Phinney Ridge, and herbed goat cheese from Trader Joe's. My parents would NEVER have made this dish. They would never have even heard of it (although my mother would have tried it, for sure!).

(I also made mini-pizzas, but since they were destined to appeal to the palates of little girls (and husband), no beets, sauteed kale, capers, or goat cheese made it onto them, only pepperoni and mozzarella. Probably just as well.)

Also today I saw a lingering trace of snow on a side street and was surprised. I'm definitely not a Minnesotan anymore...

* * * * * 
In other news, today we locked in our mortgage at a lower rate -- 1.25% lower than we had it locked at before. This lowers our REQUIRED cash out per month, just in case of job changes or other emergencies. We're still planning on paying the same amount as before, in order to pay down the principal faster. (J.D. at Get Rich Slowly says that paying down their mortgage faster was the best investment he made in 2008.)