Blockheads

PARTY PREPPERS: For the past couple of days, we've devoted some time to getting ready for our neighborhood's annual block party.

We made signs for street poles and posters to put over sawhorses, which we used to block off the street at each end. 

And, of course, we made food. We test-drove a new-to-use mac-and-cheese recipe. It was amazing (thanks, in large part, to using pounds of Beecher's flagship white cheddar cheese).

And we made some cute little caprese salad bites in the form of ladybugs. 

They sat on a base of fresh mozzarella topped by basil we grew from seeds, some grape tomatoes sliced at an angle with a black olive sliced to nestle against the tomato. The heads are held on with little dollops of cream cheese, and we tinted some cream cheese black and piped on the spots. Fresh and fun and healthy!

Of course, we also made some cupcakes (strawberry lemonade, one of my favorite recipes ever), and then there was the matter of whipping up a few rainbow star pooping magical unicorn cookies ....

I saw a tutorial featuring these cookies a couple of months ago, and had wanted to give them a go ever since. We figured the block party was a good enough reason.

The first (of many, many) steps involved making six colors of dough. They had to be chilled for six hours, with the centermost one in the form of a long rope, as it would serve as the core for the log.

Then, one at a time, each other color was rolled out and wrapped around the rope. Obviously, the rope grew thicker and more colorful with each addition.

Then came time to cut the unicorns out. Take a look at the colorful leftovers! I made some tie-dyed t-shirt cookies out of them.

The cookie cutter we have has such spindly legs and a thin horn and tail, it's not easy to get the unicorns to keep their exact shape, which is important, as each finished cookie is really three individual cookies, stacked.

In the photo above you can see the three components - a left and a right side, as well as a (legless) middle. The middle part has a little void in it, to hide the magical surprise. 

I held the layers together with some royal icing. The photo above shows the bottom and middle layers ready for the final side. (Notice the star 'stuffing'.) Getting all they layers to line up was tricky, but I got better at it as we went along.

And finally, after many hours over a couple of days, we had magical unicorn cookies!

 A friend even gave me some amazing rainbow unicorn themed boxes to put them in for people who wanted to take one home!

Here's a little video of Annabelle demonstrating their magical 'power.' https://youtu.be/bjrnrbunXH0

COOL VIEW: Neat new animated video from NASA today! It uses actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard the DSCOVR spacecraft, one million miles from home.
https://youtu.be/DMdhQsHbWTs

It's cool seeing the (illuminated!) “dark side” of the moon that's never visible from Earth, isn't it?  In the images, taken overnight on July 16, the North Pole is in the upper left corner   
In case you're wondering, DSCOVR's primary mission involves real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

CERTIFIABLE:  Today, we thought to check in with edX to see where our certificates for a class we completed weeks ago, "The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture." Usually, we get an email or something letting us know they're ready, but not this time. 

However, we were happy to learn we each got 100 percent for the course, and the certs are now filed away in the kids' portfolios.

GONZO: So, CJ's bike has been stolen. It was parked in our carport, entirely under a tarp (but not locked, sigh). 

He had pretty much outgrown it, but we'll still miss it, of course. It was a sweet, vintage Sears Spyder complete with sissy bar and banana seat.

I filed a police report on the off chance that someone, somewhere connects some dots, but I don't expect any real help from SPD as it says in bold letters on their Web site "Most cases will NOT be investigated."  (Christian was told the same thing when we had a car stolen too, by the way.)

That's right, folks, it's always open season in Seattle, and the criminals know it.

Needless to say, the purchase of a good lock will precede the purchase of another bike.