FAKE NEWS: Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you a bird started a nest atop the tarp atop our folded up ping pong table but abandoned it? Yeah, well, I was wrong. She ended up making the nest a little more robust and for the last three days or so, she's been in it non stop. So maybe we'll have multiple birds atop our ping pong table soon. She is a sweet house guest. Doesn't make a peep. And she doesn't even seem miffed when I have to press myself up against the house and precariously stick an arm behind the ping pong table to turn the spigot on so I can water tomatoes and more. She just calmly watches me, blinks a couple of times, and stays put. Can't wait to meet her chicks! MIDDAY SUNSET: Annabelle had another Art to Go session through Gage Art Academy at noon today. Today's project was a pretty in pink sunset scene. Here's an in-progress peek.
SHAKY START: The kids were supposed to spend 90 minutes this afternoon learning all about The Bard via a King County Library System-hosted event. Unfortunately, the Zoom broadcast was spotty, the audio was hard to hear, and a lot of the video was pixelated, so they tapped out about twenty minutes in. Bummer.
KANJI: Japanese is still on the daily to-do list. Here is a page from CJ's workbook from a couple of days. It's all Greek to me. ;)
WORKING AT THE CAR WASH: Academically speaking, the kids worked on history and Japanese today, and Annabelle read some more of Michelle Obama's "Becoming." Their to do list also included non-academic activities, like washing the car. I heard just a little bossiness and bickering from my view on high (out my bedroom window, while on a multi-hour Skype call as part of my newish job). But for the most part they worked well together, and for the most part, the car was clean.
DEBUT: Today, our "ice" plant produced its first flowers of the year. They are absolutely electric. This photo isn't filtered or altered at all. The flowers are neon pink. The hardy plant "(Delosperma) is a succulent, perennial ground cover with daisy-like flowers," per gardeningknowhow.com.
The plant isn't hardy against the cold. It gets its ice name because of the way the flowers shimmer in the sunlight.I absolutely love them. Another superstar in our garden is the rhubarb. This will be our third summer here, and this year, the plant is even bigger than its usual gigantic self. Look at this leaf as compared to Annabelle's hand. We pulled off four stalks for a friend. They were the size of Annabelle's forearm.
NO GO: Today we were ready for the historic launch of a SpaceX rocket with a couple of NASA astronauts atop it in a Dragon capsule. Lift off was supposed to be just a bit after 1:30 p.m. I turned pre-launch coverage on NASA TV by 8 a.m. :)
It was exciting watching the pre-launch activities. We saw astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken ready for flight. They said some goodbyes before hopping into their custom Tesla to head to the launch pad.
One of the goodbyes was from SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Others were from their families.
According to businessinsider.com, "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seemed to get emotional on Wednesday when discussing the astronauts his company is about to launch into space. Speaking on NASA live TV two hours before the scheduled liftoff, Musk said he felt responsible for the astronauts who were inside his company's Crew Dragon spacecraft. ... 'I felt it most strongly when I saw their families just before coming here,' Musk said, pausing for a few seconds and appearing to choke up before continuing. 'I said, "We've done everything we can to make sure your dads come back OK.'" ' "
On CBS This Morning just ahead of today's scheduled launch, Musk said, "I'm the chief engineer of this thing, so I'd just like to say that if it goes right, it's credit to the SpaceX-NASA team. If it goes wrong, it's my fault."
ANOTHER ABORT: Annabelle was scheduled for an online art class this morning but there was trouble with the link to the Zoom meeting, and once it finally worked, the class was so slow to get going, she grew frustrated with the wait. "I'd rather be watching NASA," she declared. Naturally, I told her to forget the art class, the launch was a much bigger deal in the grand scheme of things.
GARDEN SCENES: Now that I'm working full time (albeit at home) whenever I can, I pop outside for some fresh air. Here are a couple of scenes from our 'campus' today. I posted a few rockrose photos before. They were bushels of pink blossoms on bushes along our driveway. Their 'real' name is Cistus is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae.Lately, a few white ones have shown up on the mix. So pretty!
I headed down the stone stairs on the west side of our house to check out the foxglove that has just blossomed. As I got closer, I could hear the plant was abuzz. Upon closer examination, I found that many of its bell-shaped blossoms were filled with pollinators. Can you spot the bee butt in the photo below?
The whole plant was a like a bee hotel with hardly any vacancy.
Credits: NASA/ Bill Ingalls READY TO ROLL: These two guys have a pretty 'to do' list for Wednesday. They're leaving the planet atop a rocket launched from Florida's Space Coast. In the photo above, NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken, are wearing their brand-spankin'-new SpaceX spacesuits in a pre-launch dress rehearsal. They are scheduled to lift off at 1:33 p.m. Seattle time.
You can find mission coverage live on NASA Television and the agency’s website, as well as numerous other platforms (like YouTube, for one). Here's a schedule of events for Wednesday afternoon. They're all listed in Florida time, so adjust accordingly. 12:15 p.m. – NASA TV launch coverage begins (continues through docking) 4:33 p.m. – Liftoff (1:30 West Coast time) 5:22 p.m. – Crew Dragon phase burn 6:05 p.m. – Far-field manual flight test 7:05 p.m. – Astronaut downlink event from Crew Dragon
ROCUMENTARY: CJ is thoroughly enjoying his Rock History college course, and so are we. Once in awhile for extra credit, he is instructed to watch a documentary about some aspect of rock and roll and write a report about it. Recently, we all watched "ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke." (We found it on Netflix, but it's available on other platforms.) Here's a trailer for the movie.
And here is some of what CJ wrote in response to questions (I've paraphrased) his professor posed about the film.
Q: How much did you know about Cooke before watching the film?
A: I knew very little about Sam Cooke prior to watching ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke. I knew that he was an African-American civil rights activist and popular singer, but had no idea about his story beyond that.
Q: Can you think of any contemporary artists who are scrutinized by intelligence agencies the way Cooke was?
A: I don’t think there are any figures in contemporary (as in, the last ten or so years) popular music that I would compare to Sam Cooke. I doubt that even contemporary politically outspoken African-American artists like Kendrick Lamar are under any sort of surveillance, let alone the sort of intense FBI and CIA surveillance that Sam Cooke was.
The only musician in my lifetime I am aware of who was widely reported to be under the watch of the FBI was rocker Ted Nugent. It wasn’t very hard to surveil him, as he made his bombastic threats to murder then-U.S. President Barack Obama very loud and clear. Nugent threatened, “Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Make no mistake: Sam Cooke and Ted Nugent are in no way equivalent in their societal import. It’s just that Ted Nugent is a relatively recent example of a popular musician who was under surveillance, at least briefly, by the FBI. According to CNN, Nugent was interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service in April 2012 for his threats of violence against Obama.
Going back further in time, it’s also worth noting that late rapper 2Pac attracted attention from the U.S. government. In 1992, Texan Ronald Ray Howard fatally shot and killed Texas State Patrol trooper Bill Davidson. At the time of the shooting, Howard was listening to 2Pacalypse Now, 2Pac’s debut album. Immediately afterwards, then-Vice President Dan Quayle demanded that the album be banned. This had the opposite effect that Quayle intended, propelling a then-unknown 2Pac into superstardom.
In a way, Cooke’s and 2Pac’s cases could be considered opposites - Cooke attracted government attention because of his fame, while 2Pac got famous, in part, because of his government attention.
Q: Do you think the killing of Cooke was part of a conspiracy?
A: According to the finding of the court, Sam Cooke was not murdered. Rather, the woman who shot him, Bertha Franklin, was found not guilty of murder due to acting in self defense. Despite the ruling, there are a number of conspiracy theories surrounding Cooke’s premature death. Predictably, many of them assert that there was some degree of government involvement or there were financial factors in play. That said, while the law enforcement investigation into Cooke’s death was woefully lacking, and the press did an inadequate (at best) job covering the killing of Sam Cooke, to date, no one has been able to prove that Cooke’s death was part of a conspiracy. For example, music journalist Peter Guralnick, who wrote Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, a book about Sam Cooke’s life and times, told an NPR interviewer the following in a 2005 interview: “The central tenet of every one of those [conspiracy] theories [about Cooke’s death] is that this was a case of another proud black man brought down by the white establishment who simply didn't want to see him grow any bigger. I looked into this very carefully. I had access to the private investigator's report, which nobody has seen and which filled in a good many more details. And no evidence has ever been adduced to show--to prove any of these theories. But, you know, it's--the love that people felt for Sam Cooke, I think, is far more significant than the circumstances of his death. But in the research that I did and also all the people who were closest to him, I don't know anyone who doubts the official story, as much as they might wish that it were otherwise.”
In the period leading up to Cooke’s death, his best friends in the documentary reported he was “changed,” was a heavy drinker, was flashing cash around, and was a womanizer. His last night on Earth, those things seemed to combine for a disastrous outcome. It could very well be that the two women (allegedly a pimp and a prostitute) worked together to rob Cooke, and, like some robberies, events escalated and he wound up dead, which could result in a murder charge. (The fact that Elisa Boyer, the woman he was with in the motel room, went on to be found guilty of an unrelated murder in 1979, certainly makes her innocent victim act on the witness stand even less credible.) However, the alleged involvement of Klein and others is unproven.
The bottom line is, Cooke’s death was a tragedy to his family, community, a loss to the music world, and a blow to the civil rights movement, regardless of the circumstances surrounding it.
FEEDING TEENS: Saturday night we actually went somewhere for a couple of hours - a rarity in our pandemic existence. We headed to the U District to man the kitchen for Teen Feed, our monthly gig. Because of COVID-19, the service is now to go instead of dine in. And we can only have one family helping out in the kitchen, where there used to be 4 or 5 families helping. We arrived on site at 5:30. Kennedy showed up soon after. Then, one by one, three friends dropped by with donations. By about 6 o'clock, CJ and Annabelle started bagging up fruit, desserts, cutlery and napkins, while Ken and I figured out the burrito making process. Ken was stationed at the stovetop, heating tortillas, and dishing up meat and rice and beans atop them. Then they'd come to me and I'd add sour cream, grated cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. Then came the tricky part - rolling the burritos and wrapping them in foil. Turns out burrito rolling is not 'in my wheelhouse.' Fortunately, I did get better as the hour went along. We ended up making 40 dinners for guests during the 1-hour Teen Feed window, plus another 40 dinners for the overnight ROOTS shelter. Plus we had copious amounts of leftovers, which the Teen Feed staff quickly made plans for to feed another large group the next day, so hooray for that! CONSTRUCTION ZONE: Of course, we were back and building this weekend. Hanging drywall was atop the to do list for our new storage space. CJ and Annabelle installed many of the screws to make it stay in place.
IT'S COME TO THIS: "Thanks" to the pandemic, there is still a dearth of live sports programming on television these days. That is how we found ourselves watching the finals of the 2019 Marble League circuit on Saturday night. Yes, I'm serious.
I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty darn entertaining. I loved the marbles in the stands, the awards ceremony ... it was well done. If you want a little look at it, check out this link.
IT'S ALIVE: This was as momentous weekend. It was the weekend we (finally!) got the Partio Cart fired up. Once upon a time (like 7+ years ago), I was looking for a vintage stove for our kitchen in our last place. While perusing Craigslist for that, I came across a listing for an outdoor electric oven. I was immediately sucked in by its novelty and mid-century modern stylings. I *had* to go see it. We drove up north of Seattle and checked it out on the deck on a guy's house. It had been his dad's and his dad passed, leaving this guy with a big ol' weird, outdoor oven that he didn't have any interest in. Well, I was certainly interested, and it came home with us. Christian and I wrested the oh-so-heavy beast up the hill at our old place, parked it in our mid-yard under a cedar tree for the next several years. Instead of bringing me joy, it sat there making me sad. With all the work we had to do on that place the Partio Cart never made it to the top of the to do list. This weekend, that changed. As part of our pantry project, Christian was checking out the electrical situation and discovered a big fat 30-amp wire ran along the entire backside of our house, from the breaker box in the west end all the way to the east deck, where there used to be a hot tub.
Immediately, he proposed using that fortuitous line to try to get the Partio Cart going. I went down to the hardware store first thing Sunday, and a wonderful employee there (a female former electrician) helped me find a receptacle, new head for the Partio Cart plug, and an outdoor-rated outlet box and cover. A couple hours later, we plugged the beauty in. I placed my hand on the griddle, and turned the control on. "It's hot!"I excitedly proclaimed, removing my hand.
We then set about testing the rest of it. Both burners worked!
We turned on the oven and waited about a minute before opening it up to find it warming up.
The broiler worked, as well! Honestly, the cooktop and oven look like brand new.
The other side of the cart is a charcoal grill (which will, of course, work). There are a couple of rotisseries over it. We flipped a switch and those didn't work, so that's one item for the to do list, but overall, we're just thrilled with.
We've already bought an umbrella for it (there's a hole in the top of the unit for one). We will definitely put this beauty to use when we're baking cakes. Our oven capacity just got significantly bigger!
Originally these carts retailed for $800, which was a good chunk of change back in 1960, when they were produced. Here's an image from a vintage Partio Cart ad.
And here's the front of the original manual. I'm pretty sure a manual came with ours. I have
We think we paid around $225 for ours. One article I read says they typically go for between $2000 and $8000 these days. Wowza. Apparently President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a Partio Cart at his Palm Springs estate back in the day. It sold for over $20,000.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS: We did spend some time outside this weekend. I pulled a bunch of weeds, and the kids mowed part of the lawn.
While working in the yard, I saw many a bee. Some were 'our' honeybees, eating local.
Others were interlopers, like this bumblebee.
On Saturday we rehomed some of our tomatoes, giving them to a friend of mine. On Sunday we delivered several tomato and eggplant starts to the Kitsap Peninsula and their new home there. A lovely raised bed was awaiting them in Olalla. We had a nice visit with my aunt, marveling at the beautiful evergreens all around her property. I counted at least seven difference kinds from where we were sitting on her deck.
SOON, SO SOON: Everything is still go for the manned SpaceX launch on Wednesday afternoon (May 27). Below the two-man crew goes through some pre-flight paces. A final 'dress rehearsal,' if you will.
