Lakeside

BREATH OF FRESH AIR: Increasingly, it has felt like the walls are closing in around us as the COVID era persists, especially as the days are getting shorter, the weather is colder, and we're even more cooped up than ever.

So, when I saw blue skies this morning, I decided we were absolutely going to get outside for awhile. I opened a map of parks not too far from us and decided we'd head to Seward Park. I have no idea why we've never gone there before! It's less than 5 miles from home and is absolutely marvelous.

Turns out we weren't the only ones who thought going there would be a good idea today, so we had to park a few blocks away. Of course, that was OK, because our primary point in going there was to get a good walk in. 

We headed down the hill to the park, which is a peninsula jutting out into mammoth Lake Washington, and were treated to the view below upon entering. We decided to follow the pathway leading north, not knowing where it would take us or what we'd see. 

On our way back, we saw the map/marker below. That would have clued us in to some of the park's paths. 

There is a swimming beach and some steps near the entrance of the park. I'll bet the place is packed on hot summer days!

We walked along the shoreline. There was a nice, wide paved path. There were lots of people in the park, but it's so big and the path is so wide, it felt absolutely safe. Fortunately, almost everyone was social distancing and wearing a mask, which was good to see.

There are lots of towering trees in the park. Annabelle noticed a sign way up high on a couple of them. The weather-beaten sign looked to be decades old. It warned readers that "beer and other intoxicating liquids" were prohibited in the park.

Annabelle speculated that when the sign was initially hung, it was at eye level, and that it has traveled upward along with the tree's growth. I'd estimate the sign's currently at about 20 feet off the ground.

We also saw more than one tree on its side, including this log, hosting a whole bunch of mushrooms.

As we made our way up the west side of the peninsular park, we came to a forlorn-looking swimming hole. All of the diving boards and stairs to platforms had been removed. 

Here's what Annabelle had to say about our excursion today. ...

Seward Park is a Seattle city park near Mercer Island. The park takes up the entirety of the small peninsula there, with dozens of hiking trails and 2.4 miles of walking path around the perimeter. While we didn’t visit any of the hiking trails during our outing to the park, we did walk a good portion of the outside area.

One of the most notable features of the park is the variety of incredibly tall trees, some of which are even growing on exposed cliffs in a manner that allows you to see their roots snaking downwards. The wildlife in particular is also very diverse – we saw dozens if not hundreds of American Coot birds in massive groups along the waterfront, diving underwater and feeding.

On the park's website, there's a neato high tech feature that is a companion to walking the loop around the peninsula. The park features an environmental learning center and 

The park even has an Audubon Center! Unfortunately, it's closed because of *&^%$ COVID. We look forward to visiting it in better times. After our visit, I found a PDF on the center's site that has a birding checklist for the park. We'll have to print it out and take it with us on our next visit.

I also found an really informative blog post on Scientific American's website about the geology of the park. So we'll have to scope out those points of interest on a future visit, as well. 

Busy Days

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: Today, we spent a fair amount couple of time  working on a video about CJ's involvement with nonprofits that fight hunger and homelessness, like Teen Feed and Birthday Dreams. 

It was actually quite a lot of work, compiling the photos and making 4 short videos. Funny how it takes hours and hours and hours to make a four and a half minute video. I'll share a link to it in a future blog. It's not *quite* done. 

ELVES IN TRAINING: Yesterday, in an email from the city of Renton, I saw a notice that the Elf Academy was looking for new recruits. Of course, I just had to sign CJ and Annabelle up!

Now, we're awaiting the official Elf Academy Kit to arrive via mail. The announcement promised the kit "will have all the supplies and instructions needed for the academy."

Once the kids have completed the elf activities, they have to fill out a survey (before December 17). Upon receipt, "Santa and his HR Elves will review each Elf’s resumé of completed tasks and crafts that were included in the kit."

If they meet muster, they will be invited to attend a special drive-thru Elf Academy graduation experience at the Renton Community Center. Graduation will be held on Saturday, Dec. 19, 9–11 a.m., and the promo says special guests will be on hand "to help kick off your call to kindness and fun this holiday season." Sounds like big fun. There's been a dearth of that in 2020, so this is a welcome development. 

ANOTHER RUNNER: We've been so busy working on next year's college plans for CJ, filling out applications, sending transcripts
and such. However, we can't forget that Annabelle is college bound next September, when she becomes eligible for Running Start. 

With Running Start, you get to choose your school, and I pointed out to Annabelle that although CJ chose South Seattle, she didn't have to do likewise. I suggested that if she was interested in a contract, she should check out Bellevue College. 

We checked out a video for Running Start students considering Bellevue. I was surprised to learn former Governor Gary Locke is the current Bellevue College president. 

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/440504569" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/440504569">Running Start at Bellevue College</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/collegechannel">College Channel</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

The Locke video is just a message from him, with not even a glimpse of the campus, so I suggested we check out other videos on the Bellevue College site. One about a day in the life of college mascot Brutus the bulldog was fun.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lftFNAxKWKo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We took a virtual visit of the campus here: https://www.youvisit.com/tour/bellevuecollege?pl=v

TO BOLDLY GO: Last night, we enjoyed a one hour presentation "The Science of Star Trek." The show was hosted by the King County Library System, and the expert on hand was Dr. Michael Wong.

Dr. Wong is a Post-Doc at the University of Washington where he studies planetary atmospheres, habitability, biosignatures and the emergence of life. He hosts a podcast, "Strange New Worlds," about science and Star Trek. We'll have to check it out. 

There was a good turnout for the presentation. Over 70 connections were streaming it, and no doubt those 70 represented multiple people in some households, like ours, where the four of us watched. 

It was a nice mix of Star Trek references and real life science. I'm super glad we tuned in.

COUNTDOWN CONTINUED: I mentioned here in November that we'd crafted an advent calendar to count down to the election. We have now repurposed that to a Christmas countdown calendar. Of course it features Frenchies in the center. :)

CUTE CARD: We wanted to send a little something to the Safeway on Queen Anne for helping us out with the chicken for last weekend's Teen Feed. Here's what Annabelle came up with. I love it!

Gobble Gobble

THANKFUL: We at MPA hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. 

We had a cooperative holiday - we divvied up the cooking to do list between our place, Kennedy, and my parents. We each made our own turkey, but we were in charge of cranberries, Chex mix and wild rice stuffing. Kennedy was the beans and potatoes guy, and my parents made cookies, pies, rolls and more. 

Thursday morning the kids and I met Kennedy by the freeway, dropped off our bag for him and picked up his bag for my parents. We proceeded to Mukilteo and picked up baked goods for us, dropped off our food and Ken's food for them, and then headed south. We met Ken just off the freeway again and gave him the grandparents' baked goods and he gave us our food from him. The masked and socially distanced choreography worked well. It was a nice way to share a little bit of the holiday together, and get lots of great food with not too much effort!

Meanwhile, back at MPA, Christian was working a little magic. He fired up our vintage GE Partio Cart to roast the Thanksgiving turkey.

Isn't she lovely?

Since we haven't baked in it before, Christian smartly used a thermometer to monitor the oven's temperature. It runs pretty hot, so it's a good thing he was watching it.

I can't help but wonder, how many people do you suppose cooked their Thanksgiving turkey in a Partio Cart in 2020? Is it 2,000 or 200? Or maybe 20 or 2? I don't think GE sold a ton of them. They were $600 back in the day (1956, when they came out). That translates to about $7,600 today, adjusted for inflation. Way too rich for our blood! Glad we accidentally bought it for a couple hundred bucks a few years back.

A BIGGER FEAST: What do you do on the day after Thanksgiving? Well, you get up and peel 30 pounds of potatoes, if you're us. That's because Teen Feed was the following day, and we had lots of stuff to do to prepare.

Once the potatoes were cooked, they were mashed, with lots of butter, garlic, sour cream, salt, white pepper and whole milk added in. (We try to pack in the calories and protein when making Teen Feed food.)

We also made about 28 pounds of bacony green beans, and a couple dozen vegan cornbread muffins. (We always make sure we have vegan and gluten free options for our diners.) I was super happy with how the muffins looked - they puffed up so nicely. (I didn't eat one, though, so I'm not sure about the taste.)

Saturday afternoon, we swung by a Safeway on Queen Anne hill to pick up 160 pieces of chicken (two for each of our 80 diners). They gave us their Monday "Cheap Chicken" price on Saturday, which we really appreciated. We'd never outsourced our main dish before, but thought we'd try it this month. We wanted to do a Thanksgiving like meal, but not serve turkey, as we'd heard the kids aren't wild about turkey. So, our group of volunteers made traditional Thanksgiving side dishes and dessert, and served the fried chicken, which the diners loved, so yay for that. 

POKER FACE: The other night we were doing our 'camping at the convenience store' COVID era entertainment. It's a picnic table outside of a store in West Seattle where Christian and I can grab a beer and the kids can have a soda and we can sit by ourselves, play a game and pretend things are kind of normal.

We were playing a game called Loot Letter the other night. It's important not to tip your hand in that game. Poor CJ, he just doesn't have much of a poker face. Below was his work-around.