VIVA LAS VEGAS: In what has become the new normal, I am woefully behind with this blog.
So behind that I have to go back a couple plus weeks to tell you about an adventure CJ had semi-recently.
He flew solo down to Las Vegas, where his oldest brother Rick lives with his wife Rachel and a pair of adorable Dobermans (or is it Dobermen?), Pretzel and Marzipan.
Marzipan is still a pup, and she took a shining to CJ.
Family and furry friends aside, another big magnet for CJ's trip was a death metal concert event called Psycho Las Vegas. It was held at the Mandalay Bay resort.
CJ was on his own for the event, and I was a bit surprised by his lack of planning. He was texting me saying he couldn't find various stages or the schedule, etc. So I found myself thousands of miles away, using the magic of the Internet to help him navigate.
I sent him screen shots of schedules and a map of the resort.
I also helped him navigate the airports from afar.
It didn't help that it sounded like the event was not the most organized. There were numerous cancellations, including on the day of the show CJ went to.
He did manage to finally find his way around the resort and to the various stages where the entertainment was taking place.
For a couple of sets, he wound up pretty close to the action.
He wound up making his way back to Rick and Rachel's via an Uber about midnight after 12 hours of metal.
Other highlights of his trip included food.
Lots and lots of food. Check out his ridiculous hot dog, below.
CAKE AND COOKIES: We have been baking and making a *lot* this past month. Our latest big project was a cake for a friend's son's birthday. He wanted a "Space Jam" theme (after the two animated movies of the same title).
The cake itself was pretty straightforward. Three layers of vanilla cake stacked, and then airbrush painted in blue tones.
The basketball atop it was a big Rice Krispies treat covered in our fondant. To support the weight of the ball, we had three straws in the cake tier, and then to help keep the basketball in place, there was a rod sticking up from the cake tier into the basketball.
For even more fun, we complimented the cake with Space Jam cookies. Most featured Looney Tunes characters, who star in the latest movie along with NBA star LeBron James.
Annabelle did the outlining of the characters and I colored them in. Isn't her LeBron amazing?
We hope the birthday boy enjoyed his cake!
HANDY: Annabelle is in her last week of work as a lunch program worker for Seattle Parks and Recreation. She'll be sorry to see it end. She has really enjoyed the experience, and I have no doubt they have enjoyed having her there. I'm pretty certain she's the only new hire that has actually been at work every day she was scheduled for the entire shift.
One of the things she's spent a lot of time working on is making how to videos for kids to complete crafts at home.
Below is one of the videos Annabelle and her team recently complete. It's about how to paint a Pokemon Jigglypuff character on a rock. (She wasn't pleased with the quality of paint she had to use, by the way.)
THE EYES HAVE IT: Nine days. I do believe this is the longest stretch I've ever gone without a post since staring this blog.
It's true that since COVID hit and we're not out and about nearly as much as we used to be that I don't post as often. However, this post is especially overdue because of my continued bad luck health wise. The latest challenge involves my left eye.
To sum it up, I'll just go ahead and quote the optometrist I saw yesterday. "You ripped your whole cornea off!"
Those are words you never want to hear from an eye doctor.
Fortunately, she was a tad hyperbolic. The *whole* thing isn't ripped off, 'just' the top half is severely torn/detached.
Talk about bad luck.
It is just bad luck. It happened in my sleep Sunday night/Monday morning. I just woke up in intense pain and it got worse as the day went on. By Monday early afternoon, I was walking around the house with my left eye closed, sunglasses on and a towel over my head, any light hurt so bad. Even laying on the couch downstairs in the dark basement, with sunglasses on and both eyes closed, when Christian switched to a different view on his computer screen to an image with a lot of bright white, I winced and groaned with the slightest of pupil dilations.
We decided an urgent care visit was in order. The first place we went was full (likely 'thanks' to COVID's delta strain), but I got into a new Zoom Care in Tukwila. The young PA put some dye in my eye, looked at it with a UV light, and said she could see an abrasion. She said she didn't have good eye tools though, and referred me to an eye doctor, and said to go within 48 hours. She gave me some antibiotic drops and I was on my way.
Unfortunately, things weren't much better by Tuesday, so I made an appointment for Wednesday at a place in Tukwila. The young optometrist pretty much recoiled when she looked at my eye with her naked eyes. And then after she put some dye in and did the exam with the fancy equipment, that's when she declared, "You ripped your whole cornea off!"
That was a little shocking. No wonder it hurt so much, ha ha.
Regarding the injury, I am going to go ahead and guess it had something to do with all the smoke in the air recently. I'm really sensitive to it, especially my left eye. That, and it has been hot, so we've had a floor fan in our room at night, basically pointed at my face. I'm guessing my eye got inflamed and dried out, fused to the eyelid, and then ripped. The optometrist agreed that was likely.
She said it's starting to heal, but because it's such a jagged tear, it won't be a nice clean scar, and I'll be more prone to doing that in the future. Super. She gave me some steroid eyedrops to help with the healing. Of course now my eye hurts again due to all the poking and prodding. 🙁
After my appointment I messaged my sister to let her know what happened. Coincidentally, she was on the way to her eye doctor for a routine check up. "I'll have to tell him this!" she declared.
Later, she reported that the very first thing at her visit, she and her husband had to fill out an eye dryness survey - something they've never done before. She said she told her doctor what had happened to me, and "he said smoke, dry air - especially from fans - are a real hazard for this exact problem now."
Bingo!
She also reported, "My doctor said there are more nerves there than anywhere else in the body and that the pain is worse than childbirth."
I would actually have to agree with that, as well. If we hadn't had some Tylenol 3 'in stock' (leftovers from a procedure where it wasn't used post op), I think I would have wound up in the emergency room. I have never taken Tylenol 3 before in my life, but in 24 hours I took three of them to try to help with the pain.
I am not gonna lie, I have been singing the chorus to this song over the past few days.
MORE, MORE, MORE: Our kitchen has been a mess for what seems like weeks now. There has been one project after another. The latest was a couple dozen custom cookies for Christian's dad's memorial this past weekend.
Per usual, the project started with a plan. We cane up with a dozen or so different designs to represent aspects of his life. He spent most of his years in Lake Oswego, Oregon, so that fact played out in butter and sugar.
He loved photography, so we made several little slide cookies. Annabelle painted tiny photos (a sunset, flowers, a boat on a lake, the forest, Mt. Hood and more) and I made Kodachrome frames to go around them, so they'd look like little slides. I wish I had a group photo of those cookies, up close. They were terrific. We also made some camera cookies. unfortunately, the detail on those don't show up very well, given that it's black on black.
He was an Oregon Ducks football fan, played the banjo, was a good cook, loved his vintage wooden boat and had some funny Danish sayings. So we tried to capture all of those things on cookies.
We probably each spent 10 hours on Saturday making them, so that's 20 hours combined. A lot of work, but time well spent. The cookies were a hit and disappeared quickly at the memorial, which was a lovely event on the shore of Lake Oswego.
While we were cookie-ing, Christian was cobbler-ing. We had a dinner party to go to on Saturday night, and one of our contributions was dessert. I wanted to take advantage of the fact we're surrounded by ripe blackberries, so I found a recipe for a peach and blackberry cobbler. Christian worked hard and made it entirely by himself.
The recipe was good, but it could have benefitted from some cinnamon and some corn starch in with the fruit, IMHO.
It certainly looked terrific!
DOUBLING UP: A couple of weeks ago, CJ received his diploma for his associate's degree from South Seattle College.
A couple of days ago he got a bonus diploma - his high school diploma, also from South Seattle College.
We didn't know this was even a possibility until a couple of weeks ago, when the Renton High School registrar let us know that CJ was eligible to get a high school diploma from South Seattle under the Revised Code of Washington.
Community or technical college—Issuance of high school diploma or certificate.
A community or technical college may issue a high school diploma or certificate as provided under this section.
(1) An individual who satisfactorily meets the requirements for high school completion shall be awarded a diploma from the college, subject to rules adopted by the superintendent of public instruction and the state board of education.
(2) An individual sixteen years or older or enrolled through the option established under RCW 28A.600.310 through 28A.600.400, who satisfactorily completes an associate degree through a community or technical college, including an associate of arts degree, associate of science degree, associate of technology degree, or associate in applied science degree, shall be awarded a diploma from the college upon written request from the student. Individuals under twenty-one years of age under this subsection are eligible for funding provided under chapter 28A.150 RCW."
Renton High School seemed very eager to be able to count CJ as a high school graduate, and it's certainly better to have an official high school diploma than not, so we were happy to request one, and had it within a week. So happy graduation to CJ again!
CENTERED: We have been (mostly) enjoying a string of hot weather, and one day last week we made a pilgrimage to the International Fountain at Seattle Center. That has been an annual tradition of ours for as long as we've lived in Seattle, save for last summer, when the fountain was off so as not to attract crowds during COVID.
CJ ran around exuberantly just like he did a dozen years ago. It's definitely one of his happy places.
Meanwhile, just west of the fountain, the new Kraken arena is nearing completion. We're season ticket holders and certainly looking forward to getting into building for some fun times ahead!
In another happy development, there is now a Wing Dome restaurant location inside the Armory on Seattle Center grounds. That's about CJ's favorite restaurant, so it was a great day for him.
PARTY PEOPLE: It's so nice to be sharing news of get togethers. A year ago, that was pretty much a complete no go 'thanks' to COVID.
Friday evening we ended up having a dinner party on rather short notice. It just happened to work out that various family members were in town at the same time, so we decided to have a get together here. As a bonus, it is just a few days until my dad's 80th birthday, so we decided to celebrate that. The balloons helped make it more festive.
I thought some flowers were in order, as well, so I wandered out into the yard to see what nature offered up. I wound up with a big, eclectic bouquet.
For dinner, I made about 10 pounds of potato salad, and we sous vide 14 steaks.
We didn't have time to bake any thing special, and it was hot out, so I ordered an ice cream cake from Ben & Jerry's. It was a hit!
Of course, we can't forget that the highly contagious Delta strain of COVID-19 is very real, so we were mindful of safety. Everyone in attendance was fully vaccinated, and we spent most of our time outside.
On Saturday, Christian headed down to Central Oregon for the wedding of a family friend. He carried four pizza boxes full of cookies Annabelle and I made for the occasion.
The bride and groom are both musicians, so many of the cookies represented that fact.
We even made a couple of cookies with the logos of taverns where they regularly perform.
TRIVIAL: Recently, the Seattle Times asked mayoral candidates some Seattle-centric questions to test how well they know the Emerald City. The Times also shared that test with readers. I scored a 9 out of 10, not bad for a non-native, I think. If you're so inclined, you can take it here:
DELAYED: The first headline I read on Friday morning was that the International Space Station was 'out of control.'
Well, that will quickly clear the sleep from one's eyes.
Turns out there was a major snafu with the new Roscosmos' multipurpose laboratory module Nauka that had recently arrived on site. After it docked with the ISS, space station cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov prepared to open the hatch to the new module. During that process, Nauka's thrusters fired "inavertently and unexpectedly," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during a live broadcast of the docking on NASA TV. This moved the station 45 degrees out of attitude - kind of a big deal.
Fortunately, the ISS was able to get itself back into the proper orientation and orbit. However, the trouble delayed the launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the ISS for a few days, until Tuesday (Aug. 3). The Aug. 3 liftoff is scheduled to take place at 10:20 a.m. Pacific time. You can watch coverage on the NASA app, on NASA TV, or on their website: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive
SKATER CAKE: Last Saturday was all about Teen Feed. Sunday was all about Birthday Dreams, as we had a cake to deliver on Monday. The cake was for an 18-year-old boy who liked to skateboard. We went online to find some inspiration and found a cake we liked that had a silhouette of a skater on a ramp, and graffiti like letters for the name and age, so we went with that.
We made gumpaste by adding tylose to our homemade marshmallow fondant. Annabelle carefully traced a silhouette I found online, and cut out the skater. The tylose made the fondant dry stiff enough so that it would be able to stand. (There is a post running down the back side of his leading leg into the cake to help hold it upright.)
She used her airbrush to paint the letters. (The birthday boy's name is changed in the photo to protect his anonymity.)
The ramp is a big Rice Krispies treat covered in buttercream and fondant. He requested a vanilla cake with vanilla icing. We did add some blue sprinkles in the filling, though (blue is his favorite color).
We hope he liked his cake!
THE OLD BALL GAME: Tuesday night we took advantage of great ticket offer (only $18 for a seat on the lower level!) and went to the Mariners' game.
It was a beautiful night at the ballpark.
I couldn't help but notice this couple's jerseys - Griffey and Martinez, the two greatest players in the history of the franchise.
CJ was working the game, of course. He was able to join us for his half hour break, which was nice.
Unfortunately, the Mariners didn't win. The Houston Astros are tough to beat - so much power at the plate from top to bottom in their lineup.
PRODUCING: Our trio of sunflowers continue to impress. This one is our tallest, at about 5 feet. I'm always kind of amazed by sunflowers and how their single, rather spindly stem can support their weight.
Some neighbors gave us some zucchini. Annabelle use a handy tool to turn it into spaghetti noodles for dinner Tuesday night.
PRE LAUNCH: An email from NASA invited us to be their virtual guests for the launch of the 16th Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services Mission Launch.
Northrop Grumman is targeting liftoff of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft for no earlier than 5:56 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 10. These launches are always a little different to watch, as the rockets rise from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island.
Onboard Cygnus will be a variety of research experiments, including a demo of 3D printing in space using a material simulating rock and soil found on places such as the Moon. Also on board will be Blob, a European Space Agency investigation, which will allow students to see how slime molds’ behavior is affected by microgravity.
Space fans can participate virtually by registering online. Those who register will receive mission updates, interactive opportunities, and a stamp for your NASA virtual passport following launch.
