Working It

HOW IT GROWS: It's been a minute since we've updated the growings on in the MPA garden.

We have our first tomato with color - a chocolate cherry tomato. It is a superstar, given that there's almost NOTHING else going on with our tomato plants. They're leafy, and a few blossoms, but I don't think a whole lot of fruit is in our future.

There are a couple of bright spots, however. Our kohlrabi seems to be doing really well. 

Sure, something's eating its leaves, but the bulbs or whatever they're called seem to be growing well.

Have I mentioned we have NO idea what to do with it? I've never touched a kohlrabi until I impulse bought this as a much smaller specimen. 

We have some 'summer squash' that is blossoming. I hope we're overrun with zucchini, but I'm doubtful.

We have some pretty basil that's flowering. I just need to remember to use it when I'm cooking!

I'm not sure that we've ever successfully grown a pumpkin. We have a blossom this year, but I'm not super optimistic about it. 

And perhaps our biggest under achiever (oxymoron, anyone?) is our eggplant. Look at the puny, pathetic little things (foreground). They're no bigger than they were in May, in their little seedling start pots. 

COMET CHASERS: Yesterday afternoon, the kids watched a program all about NEOWISE, a comet that was recently discovered. It has been putting on a show in the Northern Hemisphere, including over Seattle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFn4-kQPjzk#action=share

Upon learning that this comet only comes around about once every 7000 or years, spotting it immediately went to the top of our to do list. 

In hopes of seeing it, we needed a pretty much floor-to-ceiling window of ground level to Big Dipper. 

The kids and I wove in and out of streets on the west side of our hill for  a half hour plus right after sundown.

Finally, at about 10:30, just as we were about to give up, Annabelle's young eyes spotted the comet, below and to the right of the bottom of the Big Dipper's ladle. Oh, happy day!

We have no photos to prove it - just our memories. :)

Skies and Sweets

RAINBOW CONNECTION: A couple of evenings ago, there was a magnificent rainbow to our south. It was pretty darn close to the house (especially the right side of it), and it had such an arc, it felt like we could see more than 180 degrees of the colorful arc.

When I was taking the photos, I knew that they wouldn't do the 'bow justice. But they're still pretty pretty. 

CAKE CRAFT: We're so happy that Birthday Dreams is accepting cakes from volunteer bakers once again. They stopped back in March, when there were still so many questions marks about how COVID is spread. (Originally, 'experts' were saying it was primarily contact-spread. Turns out that's not true - aerosol is the biggest danger.) Anyway, we hopped back into the cake baking game.  Annabelle chose a 14 year old who wanted a Minecraft-themed cake.

Minecraft is an online game where you build most anything you want in a blocky-looking world.

As soon as she saw the ask for a Minecraft cake, Annabelle suggested making the literal Minecraft cake. 

So that's what we did. It was three layers of chocolate with fluffy chocolate filling with mini chocolate chips. 

It was crumb coated in vanilla buttercream, and then wrapped in homemade marshmallow fondant, which we decorated. 

Annabelle made the birthday girl's age out of modeling chocolate, in the style of a Minecraft torch and fence. 

It's not our fanciest cake ever, but it's definitely a Minecraft cake. We hope the birthday girl likes it.

ANOTHER CASUALTY: Every summer, the kids look forward to their one and only annual 7-11 Slurpee, when the store gives them away on July 11 (7/11). 

Well, add a free Slurpee to the list of COVID casualties. 7-11 canceled the event because they didn't want crowds in their stores during COVID. Smart move.

I didn't want the kids to feel too disappointed, though, so we went ahead and bought them each a Slurpee. It only set us back $2 - not free, but not bad. So at least they got their one Slurpee of the year.

FIRE IN THE SKY: Perhaps you've heard, Comet NEOWISE is dazzling in the evening skies. I've tried to spot it a couple of times, to no avail, but I'm not giving up!

Comet photo from NASA

Perhaps after tomorrow's NASA news conference, we'll have a better chance of spying the stunning celestial visitor.

NASA experts will discuss and answer public questions about Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE during a broadcast on Wednesday, July 15. Per NASA, "The comet is visible with the naked eye in the early morning sky and starting this week, after sunset."

The NASA Science Live episode will air live at noon on Wednesday on NASA TV, as well as on their Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope, LinkedIn, Twitch, and USTREAM channels.
Following the noon broadcast, there will be a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday. The media teleconference audio will stream live at: https://www.nasa.gov/live

The participants of the teleconference will include:

Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer and program executive of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA HeadquartersEmily Kramer, co-investigator on the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) science team, NASA's Jet Propulsion LaboratoryAmy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator, University of Arizona

For information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, including its Near-Earth Object Observation Program, check out:
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense

Early Summer Scenes

JUST ONE: Our solo sunflower bloomed this week. It's not big, and it's not strong (it falls over all of the time), but it is pretty.

While admiring the 'chocolate' sunflower, I couldn't help but feel a bit sad about my alien garden art standing next to it. Check out how the black paint on its eyes is flaking terribly.

I asked our resident artist (Annabelle) to see if she could do something about it.

She scraped off the bad black and simply used a Sharpie to make the statue look much sharper. It's *so* much better!

PUFFY: A few evenings ago, we were headed toward home under clear blue skies. However, to the south, we couldn't help but notice TOWERING clouds

They were cloaking Mt. Rainier entirely. In fact, it's obvious the mountain created the micro climate around it so that the clouds accumulated there. It was really pretty and really interesting.


TABLE TIME: This week, we made it a point to get back to some gaming. It seems like that pretty much stopped when the pandemic started. We played the easy and always fun UNO, the cute and competitive "Llamas Unleashed," and a looooong round of Zombie Fluxx (not as much fun as the other themed Fluxx games, in our humble opinions).

CANCELED: My morning Google calendar alerts have been like salt in a wound for months now. Every morning I have a notice about my upcoming events for the day, and every day it's fun stuff that's been canceled.

Tonight, CJ and Christian should have been seeing Ozzy Osbourne at the Tacoma Dome. And that's not a date that will be rescheduled. Ozzy has been diagnosed with Parkinson's, on top of a host of other ailments he already had. 

Today's COVID-19 casualty was the annual 7-11 day, where the store gives out free Slurpees on July 11.

They didn't want thousands of people streaming into their stores today, so no special Slurpee day. 

This photo was from 7-11 day back in 2012. 

I told the kids they would still get their annual treat, so Christian took them to a nearby 7-11 (with masks on, of course), and they got a socially distanced Slurpee. As the old jingle goes, "Oh thank heaven for 7-11."

Sign of the Times

KEYS TO THE CITY: Yesterday evening we were out looking for some good takeout (that ended up being an epic quest) and out of nowhere, CJ said, "There's the Key Arena sign." 

I had heard earlier in the day that the iconic keys and Key Arena signage were coming down. It didn't say when or where they were going, but lo and behold, when we were on Marginal Way just south of The Museum of Flight around 8 p.m., there the keys were.

Turns out trucks were taking them to Tube Arts, a neon sign business.

I wonder where they'll wind up. Maybe the MOHAI, the Museum of History and Industry?

Amazon bought naming rights for the remodeled historic Key Arena. The new name is Climate Pledge Arena. I'm all for climate change awareness, but that name ... on that arena. Awkward, at best, IMHO.

Click here to see cool photos of the keys coming down: https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/hockey/keyarena-no-more-watch-the-sign-come-down-as-climate-pledge-arenas-transformation-continues/

https://twitter.com/i/status/1281018885492203521

Per press releases, goals for the arena are to be 100% powered by renewable electricity by 2024. They're also for a zero-carbon footprint, produce zero waste, source food locally and all single-use plastics will be eliminated.

NO FAIR: Yesterday, the Washington State Fair announced this year's fair is cancelled for the first time since World War II.

We have so many fond memories of trips to the fair. And today, we actually tried to tap into that - there was a pop up "fair food" food truck at the Walmart down the hill from us. 

I was working and couldn't escape, but Christian took the kids down there midday. Christian reports it was "the longest line I've ever seen."

I thought that might have been a bit dramatic, but between social distancing and it being at a Walmart, it probably looked like that.

So, the family came home with no scones, but the fact of the matter is, they're barely glorified biscuits, and you can buy the mix at countless local stores. Also, The mix is available on Amazon. 

Red Rover All Over

Laboratory in Pasadena, California, engineers observed the first driving test for NASA's Mars 2020 rover on Dec. 17, 2019. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Activities today included Japanese, Algebra and mowing the lawn. The highlight of today was a one-hour live workshop presented by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories. It presented an in-depth look at how the Perseverance Mars rover will explore the science of the Red Planet, building on our understanding of the planet and preparing for future human missions. 

Experts featured in the presentation included Systems engineer Christina (Diaz) Hernandez and education specialist Brandon Rodriguez.

To date, the surface of the Red Planet has been visited by eight NASA spacecraft. Perseverance, set to launch on July 20, will be the ninth. It's the first that is expected to gather Mars samples for future return to Earth. 

If all goes well, Perseverance will touch down at Jezero Crater.

Here's what CJ had to say about the show. 

Earlier today, NASA's JPL broadcast a short livestream about the Perseverance rover, set to be launched into space later this month. The livestream gave a cursory overview of Perseverance's features, and what we should expect from the rover once if it makes it to Mars' surface. 

One of the mechanical instruments highlighted the most during the livestream was named the "Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals," AKA SHERLOC (a backronym referencing fictional detective Sherlock Holmes). According to NASA's website, SHERLOC utilizes "spectrometers, a laser and a camera to search for organics and minerals that have been altered by watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life." Some NASA researchers even believe that microbial life may have existed on Mars over three billion years ago. Another tool used by Perseverance is appropriately named WATSON, another backronym, this time referencing Sherlock Holmes' fictional assistant John Watson. WATSON takes high-quality pictures, useful to NASA researchers back on Earth's surface.

And here's what Annabelle had to report. ...

NASA’s Perseverance rover has quite a few different tools and devices on it to help study the surface of Mars. The SHERLOC lens examines the particles in the ground for organic material, which is paired with the high quality WATSON camera to take pictures of what’s found. Another tool right next to these two on the rover’s arm is the PIXL lens, which can detect the elemental compositions of the soil. Mastcam-Z, located on the rover’s ‘head’ is sort of like the rover’s pair of eyes. They’re a set of 2 advanced cameras that can take both full-color panoramic pictures and smaller stereoscopic 3d images. 

In addition to these cameras, Perseverance has a few sensors that can get some very interesting readings from the soil in non-visual ways. The RIMFAX is an in-situ radar that can drill into the Martian surface and give us our first-ever look at the surface below! Most excitingly, MOXIE is an experimental tool on board that can superheat the air and potentially convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, meaning potential human astronauts would have a much easier time breathing on Mars!

You can watch a replay of the broadcast here ... 


Explore related education resources and events at https://go.nasa.gov/teachingspace

Road Trip

MANY MILES: This holiday weekend, we made a "quick" trip to Central Oregon and back to see some family. It's about 327 miles each way. "Our" mountain is Rainier. Above, Mt. Hood was our view to and fro this weekend. 

We left campus at 8:10 a.m. on Friday. Our first stop was Lake Oswego, to see Christian's dad and his wife, three hours south of Seattle.

Actually, that wasn't our true first stop - we drove through Papa Pete's in Ridgefield, WA, to pick up a couple of pizzas for lunch. :)

In Lake Oswego, we had a nice visit and watched water skiiers on the lake before heading south to Bend, another 3+ hours. It turned into 4+ hours due to traffic. It seemed like every other vehicle was some sort of RV. That definitely underscored our need to leave really early Sunday to try to beat most of those RVs home. 

Bend was fun, as always. We were able to spend cherished time with family, have some super good eats and enjoyed watching the local fireworks on the Fourth of July. Among other things, it's really fun listening to the different bird sounds. I was wishing I'd had my real camera (instead of just a cell phone) to snap some shots. Next time.

On our way up north, we stopped in unincorporated Hazel Dell, WA, for lunch. Good ol' Muchas Gracias, yummy Mexican comfort food served out of an old A&W in this location. As we sat in that parking lot, I had an urge to go see a place just a few blocks away where I spent countless hours as a kid. It used to be my mom's beauty shop on the left, and my maternal grandparents' residence to the right. Now' it's single family residential.

It's nice to see whoever's there now is house proud. The picket fence and flowers are sweet.

Upon arriving home, we found our Crososmia, a small member of the iris family, close to exploding.

Kennedy was kind enough to dog sit for us. Not an easy task on any day with our neurotic, IQ-challenged pups. Imagine how much more 'pleasant' that was during the Fourth of July weekend.

Below is a photo he took off the deck of our pandemic pantry.

Break on Through to the Other Side

TEAR DOWN THE WALL: The fun never stops here at MPA. This weekend's thrills included finally punching through the wall separating the kitchen and the living room/view.

We've wanted to do that since the day we moved in here about three years ago. Below is the monstrosity looking from the living room to the north.

And below is the ugliness from the other side. The hideous cabinets and oven have to go to, but one thing at a time. We removed the over-the-oven microwave and the upper cabinets will be torn out soon. 

The kids wanted to get in on some of the demo work. 

This isn't the first wall they've helped knock down, that's for sure. 

We only made a little portal for now. I was so fixated on opening the view to the south, that I wasn't really thinking that from the living room we'll now be able to see the kitchen. We're going to have to up our kitchen cleaning game, I'm thinking. 

HOT AND COLD: Meanwhile, in other home improvement fun, this weekend we poured a new concrete pad on the west side of the house. It will serve as a new platform for the new heat pump we hope to have installed within a couple of weeks.

That will be a game changer - no more oil furnace and air conditioning on demand. Hooray!

LOVE BUG: Daises are blooming all over our yard right now. There are hundreds of them. 

I cut some that had been knocked down by a rainstorm and stuck them in the cute little Volkswagen planter Renee bought for us. 

Perhaps not too surprisingly, it turned out there was a bee on one of the flowers.

Speaking of bees, we've had another swarm take off from the western hive. Crazy. That's three swarms this year already. It's actually a good sign regarding the bees' health. The colony is thriving to the point that they grow to a point of overpopulating the hive and take off!