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BASEBALL'S BACK: Today is a happy day at MPA, as it marks the return of Major League Baseball. 

COVID made for an atypical season last year. It was short, and no fans were in the seats. This year, stadiums* are letting a limited number of fans in, and are taking mega efforts to keep the situation safe (*unless you're the Texas Rangers, who are inexplicably filling every seat).

Tomorrow night we'll be attending a (socially distanced) baseball game in person for the first time in over a year. We're so excited! 

This week, my Facebook "Memories" are full of us attending opening day Mariners games. So many fun memories. Sure, the Mariners usually lose, but a bad day at the ballpark is a better day than most others. 

GARDEN STARTERS: Recently, we spied a news story about Lowe's offering free garden kits each week during the month of April. We missed the first one (April 1), but there are three more days coming up:

• April 8: Garden-to-Go kit sponsored by Miracle-Gro with exclusive recipes from professional cook and food stylist Amanda Frederickson.
• April 15: Lowe's Mystery Garden Pinata with mystery seed packets.
• April 22: 500,000 tree saplings given out in honor of Earth Day.
• April 29: Lowe's Butterfly Quest which helps families create a butterfly garden. 

According to the story, these Garden-to-Go project kits can even be picked up curbside/without leaving your car. You can register each Thursday this month to pick up the next week's kit.

Speaking of gardens, we're caring for our starts daily, but no signs of life just yet.

FUTURE FLIGHT: NASA is inviting the public to sign up to (virtually) attend the SpaceX Crew-2 mission (exact launch date to be determined). 

Registrants will receive mission updates, information on the virtual NASA Social interactive opportunities, and a stamp for their NASA virtual passport following launch.

All resources, participation, and registration are free. Here's the website where we signed up: https://go.nasa.gov/2PLguzL

Meanwhile on Mars, Curiosity, no longer the newest rover on the Red Planet, sent back a spectacular selfie last week. Using a robotic arm, it took a photo of itself in front of Mont Mercou, a 20-foot-tall rock formation.

Some 2,600 miles away, the helicopter that caught a ride to Mars on Perseverance set down on Martian soil for the first time. 

Ingenuity is stretching its legs, so to speak, and is preparing for its first off-planet, independent  flight. Exciting!

COURT TV: For the past few days, we have had Court TV streaming all day, watching the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on George Floyd's neck for over nine minutes, while Floyd became unresponsive and died. And then he kept on kneeling until he was told, by a paramedic, to get off the lifeless man's neck.

The trial is hard to watch, but it's also a 'can't look away' situation. We are mortified by much of the testimony, understandably. However, this trial is, undoubtedly, an educational moment. The kids are, for the first time, seeing the mechanics of how a real trial works - the examination and cross examination, the sidebars, the objections and overrules, et cetera. Let's hope they - and all of us - will see justice is served in the end.

Back in the Saddle

DIRTY WORK: We are a little late to the game this year, I believe, but we finally got seeds into soil today. 

Since our tomatoes under-performed last season, we're mixing things up a bit. We'll see what sprouts and flourishes - or doesn't. I'm hoping the tomatillos go gangbusters. If so, I see salsa verde in our future. If the sunflowers flourish, most of them will be headed to Mukilteo, for the park grounds around the lighthouse.

KITCHEN DISASTERS: So, we have half of the pretty new countertops installed, but the balance of the kitchen is pretty much a disaster. We're tearing the floor up, all the way down to the original framing, since the ugly old vinyl was so massively adhered to the particle board subfloor. 

Oh, and while we were doing the countertops, we decided we really should remove the upper cabinets on the north wall, so we could insulate behind them. Fortunately, that's done and buttoned back up. Once in awhile I wish we weren't so thorough with things, but in the end, doing the right thing is worth the extra time and effort and money and mess.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all of this, we somehow keep on cooking. In fact, this weekend was Teen Feed, so we were cooking up a storm. The main dish this month was a hearty rice-based entree of the chef's choice. 

We were in charge of making 30 main entrees, each consisting of about four cups of rice apiece, plus at least a half pound of protein each, and tons of veggies.

We decided to adapt Nonnie's fantastic tortilla casserole recipe to a rice dish. So we made about a gallon of red chile sauce, used about 14 pounds of boneless chicken, and five pounds of corn, plus a small mountain of olives. That all got mixed in with a ton of rice and it turned out great!

We also decided to make a spin on chicken pot pie, with rice as the starch instead of a pie crust. We mixed cream of chicken soup, sour cream, milk, about 5 pounds of mixed veggies and about 6 pounds of chicken for 8-10 servings. We added thyme, sage, garlic powder, salt, white pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. ] Let me tell you, it was delicious -and a huge hit with the Teen Feed crowd, per the post meal report.

Fresh fruit and homemade cookies were also on the menu. And, as always, we had vegan and no onion options. 

But they're was one thing we didn't plan for. "Do you have any non-rice options?" the Teen Feed coordinator asked me, about a half hour before service.

I was glad I was wearing a mask, so the guy couldn't see my jaw hit the floor.

"We have one guest who is frustrated when it's a rice dinner," he explained.

So, my friend and I scrambled to come up with a non rice alternative. And we worked it out but, what a heart stopper.

What's ironic is that apparently Mr. Frustrated Rice Dinner Diner got over his frustration when he saw our protein-laden options. Everyone who donated main dishes did a great job of making them super hearty and heavy on the non-rice elements. I can totally understand someone getting frustrated by nothing but mostly rice for sustenance. That would get old real quick.

A couple of photos of our cookies and the tortilla rice dish.

RALLY TIME: Sunday morning, we piloted our Mariners blue Honda toward the Mariners' stadium for a drive through rally. 

We didn't really know what to expect, and didn't really care. The stadium is close to home and we were happy to get out of the house.

There was a wheel of fortune station. Imagine our thrill when we won four Kyle Seager bobbleheads.

Not too long ago we got rid of four more Kyle Seager bobbleheads. Oh well, I rehomed them on our Buy Nothing group today.

We also 'won' four Mariners backpacks. Midday today, we took those to a low income elementary school near our house and donated them to their closet for kids who need clothing and school supplies. 

Perhaps our favorite stop on the tour was local burger joint Dick's serving up free burgers.

Yes, please!

MORNING REPORT: While the kids aren't in a formal Japanese class at the moment, they continue to learn more about the language and culture. They sat in on a class this morning. CJ can tell you more about it.

This morning, I watched an online event hosted by the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington (JASSW). The event, titled Virtual JIS Workshop: Tōkaidō, was centered around the former location of the same name in Japan.

Tōkaidō was a road connecting the cities known in the modern day as Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan's eighth-largest and first-largest city respectively. Tōkaidō is sometimes considered a figurative "road from ancient to modern Japan," as it connected Kyoto, Japan's historical capital, with Tokyo, Japan's current capital.

Perhaps Tōkaidō's most significant quality as opposed to other roads between Kyoto and Tokyo is that it went through rivers in Japan. Travellers who seeked to avoid getting their feet wet could even hire an on-foot taxi, carried by a quartet comprising the human taxi's "wheels."