Poppies and Pandas

CONTEMPLATING POPPIES: We have *so* many poppies on 'campus' this spring, and that's no accident. Last fall, when the kids and I were cleaning up the garden, as we were plucking spent poppy stems, we vigorously shook them to expel poppy seeds all over. 

As we've been appreciating the poppies arrival, we've noticed the changes they undergo as they bloom. 

They start off with a yellow 'fuzzy' center, as pictured up top.

During the next phase, a green center emerges from the yellow.

That green 'head' turns into what's pictured below - a purple-striped structure.

Eventually, the poppy's petals fall off, and all that's left is this purple head, underneath which is a kind of megaphone-shaped pod which holds all the poppy seeds.  We'll be shaking those again this year. The more poppies, the merrier!

GOOD CALL: I was happy to read today that the University of Washington will be requiring all students to be immunized against COVID-19 at all of their campuses come fall. In a post called "Protecting our community’s health by requiring students to be vaccinated (University-wide message)," UW president Ana Mari Cauce announced the decision on May 3. UW joins the growing list of colleges requiring students to be vaccinated for COVID before coming to campus this September.

In other UW news, CJ and I spent an hour or so checking off items on his 'to do' list in order to be able to register for fall. For example, he had to go through a four part lesson on the Federal Student Aid website and pass a test to prove that he knew about student loans. He also had to upload data for his UW student ID, and notify the financial aid office about his scholarships. It's quite a process to navigate before the real learning starts. I sure don't remember it being this complicated with Rick and Ken, not to mention myself way back in the day.

KITCHEN DOINGS: We continue to play with our food for fun and sustenance purposes. This weekend, we cooked up some bagels. I think they're cheater bagels, because aren't real ones made by boiling the batter?

Our version uses silicone doughnut molds with batter piped into them.

Even though they're not authentic, they're 100 percent delicious. The texture is great and the flavor is on point. We even threw in some nutritional yeast this go round to boost the flavor.

Each little element of the 'bento' box had to be made, most of them out of gelatinous type ingredients.

Honestly, it was kind of a complicated process!

By far, the hardest part was getting the little black seeds to stick where they were supposed to on the panda parts.

While they had fun making it, the taste left a lot to be desired. They each had one tiny bit of it and then threw it away, in favor of a scoop of ice cream for dessert.