Buzzing Around

HAPPY BUMBLE: Above is one of the dozens - or perhaps even hundreds - of bumblebees that visit our yard on the daily. This one loved our lavender. You can see it has been packing pollen onto its 'hips.' 

FRIDAY NIGHT STROLL: On July 15, CJ and I went for a Friday evening stroll through parts of  Seattle's expansive ( ) Volunteer Park. Our first stop was the Louisa Boren Lookout.

It's at the northeast corner of the park, and offers views of Lake Washington, Husky Stadium, and the Cascades. There were a number of people there enjoying their dinner al fresco. 

Oddly, the city of Seattle Parks' Website doesn't offer any information about who Louisa Boren is or was. I'm guessing she was part of the Boren family that is now a  major street running through the city, near now Interstate 5.

A quick Google search told me there is also a Seattle Public Schools building named after her (it's in West Seattle). Per the school's website, Boren (1827-1916) "was one of the Washington Territory pioneers and a founder of the city of Seattle."  

We also strolled the historic Lake View Cemetery. I could spend hours there. There are so many stories there. One of them involves an expansive terrace where members of the Denny family are buried. Interestingly enough, Louisa Boren's mother was widowed young, and she remarried into another Seattle-famous family, the Dennys. Interestingly, Louisa ended up becoming a Denny, as well, by marrying her step brother, David Denny (and her sister Mary Ann married a Denny step-brother, as well). 

Per the bio, in addition to being a teacher and a mother of eight, Louisa Boren was an early suffragette, and and advocate for the Chinese workers settling in Seattle.

In another part of the cemetery, one towering monument certainly captured our attention. Upon closer examination, we  learned it is to honor American soldiers of Japanese heritage from the Seattle area who died in World War II.

I love the FDR quote on it: “Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart. Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry.”

We definitely had to stop by to pay respects to Bruce and Brandon Lee, who rest side by side. It's hard to believe Bruce Lee died 49 years ago. Wow.  And Brandon was killed more than 29 years ago.

It's hard to read in the photo, but the inscription on Brandon's grave reads, "Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." 

Definitely food for thought. ...

Caticorn Cake

FUN ONE: We try to do at least one Birthday Dreams cake a month. For July, Annabelle selected a  request for a caticorn cake from the wish list. 

"What is a caticorn?" one might wonder. Well, we figured it was a hybrid of a cat and a unicorn. We did some Googling and saw many a cute caticorn example. 

Our resident sculptor, Annabelle, shaped the creature's body and head out of modeling chocolate.

Below is what our table looked like on Wednesday night about 11 p.m. You'll see a few horns strewn about the workspace. Annabelle made probably 5 before she was satisfied.

Here's the horn that made the cut. Notice the tiny gumpaste flowers on the crown and collar. A nice touch, don't you think?

There is also a little heart on the caticorn's hip, just for fun.

We decided to cover the sides of the cake with sprinkles, because in our minds, sprinkles and caticorns just seem to go together. We made our own colorful sprinkle mix, blending 8 or so different tubs and jars of sprinkles we had on hand. The child's favorite colors are teal and purple, so those figured prominently in the mix.

We always send a little write up along with our cakes, explaining a bit about how they were made and warning people to look out for things like, "The caticorn is edible, but watch out for toothpicks in the horn and neck area." We also include instructions  and photos, like the one below, about how to handle the cake topper and put it on once it's party time. 

We were really happy with this cake. It was colorful, cute, and custom. Annabelle used her Cricut to cut out the child's name (which has been altered in the photo at the top of this post, for anonymity). 

We hope the birthday girl loved the cake and that she has a special day.

Father's Day and Fireworks

DAD'S DAY: Turning back time here for a recap of Father's Day festivities last month.

If the Mariners are playing at home on Mother's Day or Father's Day there is a very good (like 90+ percent) chance we'll be at those games. This season we spent Mother's Day at the park, and were there on Father's Day, as well.

Father's Day happened to coincide with a celebration of Juneteenth. We'd never seen the Juneteenth flag before. It's the rightmost one in the photo below.

It was so cold in our seats in the shade (yes, in mid-June!), that before the game, we walked around to find a sunny spot in the stadium. We wound up standing by the ROOT Sports broadcast team for a bit. Below, former Ms catcher-turned broadcaster- waves at us and says, "Happy Father's Day!"

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot to cheer about on the field. The Ms lost 0-4 to the Angels. But a bad day at the ballpark is better than most other days other places, so it was still fun.

Afterward, we drove down to West Seattle and got some Hawaiian take out food for dinner.

But back to the game ... During the game there was a little 'excitement.' The stadium-wide emergency alarm went off. 

I only took 13 seconds of video, but it went on for more than a couple of minutes. It was rather disconcerting, to say the least. 

We didn't feel an earthquake. We didn't see or smell fire. So ... what's the emergency? Because we live in modern day America, my mind immediately went to an active shooter, of course. Fortunately, we didn't hear any gunfire, either.

Play was stopped and the managers and umpires got together to talk things over while the alarm continued to blare. There were no instructions or explanation on the big screen or PA for guests. No 'Stay in your seats while we investigate' or any such message. I kept scanning the crowd, looking at people to see if anyone was streaming for the exit. We had seats right on the main concourse and were close to an exit, so we stayed put, but I'm hear to tell you, if we'd been up in our usual nosebleed seats or were somewhere where egress wasn't easy, we would have been out of there.

Meanwhile, CJ was working an escalator across the stadium from us. Come to find out he has never had training what to do when the alarm goes off (rather MAJOR OOPS! if you asked me). He recalled reading in an online training module that in an emergency, escalators should be turned off, so that's what he did. He also advised guests not to enter the stadium until the cause of the alarm was determined, which seems prudent. 

Eventually, the alarm was turned off, but no one was ever given an explanation of what happened. CJ sent an email to one of his supervisors, requesting that there be training for what to do in an emergency and suggesting guests should be informed, as well. 

As of this writing, a couple weeks later, CJ still hasn't had any training about what to do in the event of an alarm, but when the alarm went off  again earlier this week (early July) apparently there was a PA announcement with information that it was a false alarm, and CJ's supervisor told him his email helped  make that happen. So bravo, CJ!

FIREWORKS: Just two days before Father's Day, we were hanging out on the streets outside of T-Mobile Park. Our primary reason for being there was to pick CJ up after work. However, we enjoyed some pyrotechnic entertainment while we waited.

It was Star Wars night at the game, and after the game, there were fireworks set to Star Wars music.

I took a couple of crappy cell phone shots of the rockets' red glare.

And a short video of the finale. I assure you, Star Wars music was playing, but all you can hear is the booms!

Teen Feed Times Two

In my dearth of blog posts, I have failed (until now) to chronicle the last couple of Teen Feeds we hosted. Let me fix that. ...  

CAMP OUT: This past Saturday, we had a summer camp out theme as our inspiration. Saturday was (finally!) a hot one in Seattle, and we were hopping in the basement kitchen at University Lutheran Church LC to put together the meal multiple people helped make happen through their sponsorships and donations. 

I usually publish our wish list a couple of weeks before our fourth Saturday of the month service. And I usually have a good number of people sign up to help post haste. But not this month ... it was crickets. The wish list was lonely, asks unfulfilled. This prompted me to recall that historically June is a *really* hard month for Teen Feed. There's so much going on with end of school stuff, people traveling, etc. that something has to give for people and often that 'maybe next month' is Teen Feed. 

I'm not gonna lie, this month was a bit of a bear - other than our own family, only one volunteer signed up to actually make something this month. That's an all time low, for sure. The good news is, we had plenty of sponsors, it was a pretty easy menu and I had the time and tools to get the stuff made! Thank goodness for my Instant Pots! 

The main entree was BBQ chicken, and I came up with a good system for getting a bunch of it cooked quickly. We seasoned the chicken with a BBQ rub from Costco, and then seared the skin on the chicken in a cast iron pan with some oil. I got it good and crispy. Next, into the Instant Pot the thighs and legs went for nine minutes, followed by a 'quick release' of the pressure. Then, it was into foil pans, slathered with BBQ sauce and put under the broiler for a couple of minutes - just until it started to get a little char on it, so it looked barbecued. We just reheated it on site for the teens. It worked great! 

We've never served BBQ chicken at Teen Feed before, and I'm hear to tell you, it was a hit! Kennedy, another volunteer and I cooked up about 44-plus pounds of bird, plus we had savory BBQ seitan cutlets as a vegan option, as well. 

I used my Instant Pots to cook the corn on the cob to perfection.

It was drenched in butter and covered in cotija. Yum! 

You can't have a summer camp out meal without beans and weenies, so we made 55 hearty servings worth! 

Another camp out must is watermelon. I got lucky and bought three of the most beautiful watermelons I've ever seen. They were *so* red and juicy and sweet! Annabelle expertly cubed the fruit into bite sized pieces for guests, who gobbled it up out of 12-ounce serving cups. One diner came for seconds, thirds, and fourths before we finally just gave him a big ol' bowl of his own. :)

At the last minute we had an extra task added to our plate: Teen Feed requested we use up several enormous heads of lettuce that were donated from a local grower. We turned that gift into 30 big Caeser side salads that Kennedy's friend Megan boxed up for ROOTS (an overnight teen shelter) and we had two enormous bowls for our dine-in guests. I'm happy to report, they ate it all! Veggies for the win!

CJ, Annabelle, and I made 55 servings of indoor s'mores. 

And since it was so hot out, we made sure to bring bags of ice so the teens could have nice, cool drinks with dinner.

It's always gratifying hearing feedback from diners. 

"Your food is delicious!" raved one Teen Feed staffer. (Teen Feed staff often sit and dine with the guests so as to create more of a casual, comfortable connection with them as they share info about services that can help the teens into stable housing, health care, and more.)

One teen's comment was kind of heart-melting. He said, "This reminds me of home." 

The food was such a hit, there were hardly any leftovers, but we did send a few meals to the nearby Community Fridge at University Heights. 

Part of the work we do for Teen Feed involves thoroughly cleaning the kitchen after every shift. There's a list of things every meal team is supposed to do every time they're in the kitchen, including mopping the floor, old school style. CJ takes on that task and does a really good job. I can't prove it, but based on the color of the water in the bucket almost immediately, I'm predicting most teams must not see the 'mop floors' directive. ;)

OPA!: In May, we offered a Greek themed-menu for the first time at Teen Feed. It was an absolutely beautiful meal with lots of bright colors and big flavors.

I found a really great recipe online for chicken gyros. The meat was absolutely delicious! It was served in toasted pitas with lots of veggies (chopped tomatoes, cucumber, Romaine lettuce and diced red onions. 

We made a gallon-plus of homemade hummus from scratch. I soaked the chickpeas overnight, cooked them in my Instant Pot the next day, and then followed a solid recipe and used my food processor to whip up the hummus. Kennedy made a gallon of tzatzaki for the gyros. Of course we had lots of cucumbers, carrots, feta and kalamata olives to go with.  

We also served up tasty little triangles of spanikopita, and the dolma absolutely made one in-person diner's day. When he came back for seconds all he wanted was more dolma!

Sweet treats came in the form of Greek butter cookies, which my friend Emily and I made.

Peach and honey Greek yogurt smoothies were another dessert in liquid form.  

All in all, a really great meal that is now a family favorite.

Slaying It

DOUBLE DEMON: Regular readers know we have been making birthday cakes for kids in homeless shelters for years now. We tend to gravitate toward the cakes we think other volunteer bakers won't take on, due to the topic requested. This means we end up doing cakes decorated in themes ranging from Tupac Shakur to an astronaut Godzilla to an artistic cat.

Recently, we saw a request for a Demon Slayer themed cake. We knew that to be a Japanese anime, but nothing else about the franchise. It seemed like that might be a request that went unfulfilled, so we signed up, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. Naturally, we turned to the Google. 

According to the Wikipedia article about the series, "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (鬼滅の刃, Kimetsu no Yaiba, "Blade of Demon Destruction"[4]) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge. It follows teenage Tanjiro Kamado, who strives to become a demon slayer after his family was slaughtered and his younger sister Nezuko turned into a demon."

Well, that sounds rather dark ... But apparently it's popular. As of last year, there were more than 150 million copies of the manga in circulation and the movie "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train," released in October 2020, became the highest-grossing anime film and Japanese film of all time.

The story features several colorful characters, so we didn't really know which direction to go with the cake. We asked Birthday Dreams if they could find out which character was the child's favorite. We were told it is Zenitsu Agatsuma, an honest and kind boy with self doubt but special talents.

Given that, we decided to make a modeling chocolate sculpture of him as our cake topper. And by we, I mean Annabelle.

                                       

ROUND TWO: It seemed like no sooner had we delivered the first Demon Slayer cake than CJ received an email from Birthday Dreams asking if we would take on another one. Um, sure? 

We wanted to go a totally different direction this time, so it was back to the Google. After some poking around, I found myself wondering if cookie cutters for these characters existed. I turned to Amazon and found a set featuring eight of the characters. But the cutters were super tiny - just a couple of inches tall apiece. I thought that might be an OK size to make fondant versions of the characters and have them on the sides of the cake. But then as Annabelle and I talked more about it, we pivoted to the idea of making little cookies to put around the cake. And then that morphed into making cupcakes with the character toppers, and a petite cake with the child's name in the Demon Slayer font/logo style.

One thing we had to do was figure out who each of the characters were, and what they looked like. What would we do without the Internet?

In the end, our vision came together in a most pleasing manner - well, at least to us. We sure hope the birthday child liked it (name changed to protect anonymity).

Below is the character that was featured on our first Demon Slayer cake. This was a smaller, cuter version. Annabelle said the art style is called chibi, actually.

The photo below shows that sometimes in life, you have to paint with a toothpick. This project was one of those times.

Here's a close up of four of the main characters. The one with the scar on his forehead is the main character in the series, Tanjiro Kamado.

Mum's the Word

MOTHER'S DAY: I know it's not ever mom's dream, but for me, there are few places I'd rather be on Mother's Day than the ballpark. And so, that's where we were on that special Sunday, with seats right behind home plate!

CJ was working the game, of course, so at one point I walked to the opposite side of the stadium to get him his favorite concession stand food, a burger from Lil Woody's, and say 'hi' to him while he had his lunch break.

It was an extra special Mother's Day for one mom, the mother of Mariners' rookie pitcher George Kirby. Kirby, 24 and from Rye, New York, made his first ever Major League Baseball start on Mother's Day, and his parents and a whole bunch of friends were sitting right behind home plate. In this crowd shot, if you look in the center, in the shadow, you can see a cameraman with a glowing light on his camera, which was pointed right at the Kirby rooting section.

Here's a brief video about Kirby getting notice of his "call up."

PRIDE TIME: One of the Mother's Day presents I received was a new pair of Doc Martens from Rick and Rachel, down in Vegas. They're part of Martens' pride line of shoes, which you can probably deduce from the stripes on the side, near the heel.

I thought the shoes would look even more pride-full with some rainbow laces.

So, I found some lace replacements on Amazon. They were perfect! The company, ULace, has all sorts of fun lace replacements. (You may have seen U-Lace on Shark Tank back in 2014.)

Annabelle just happened to match the shoes when she installed the lace replacements.

A PROMISE KEPT:  A few days before Mother's Day, I made sure to keep a promise I'd made to a friend, Jan. She was my supervisor when I worked for the Employment Security Department for a few years back around 2000. She was a strong, smart, kind woman who, sadly, succumbed to nasty cancer in December of last year, gone way too soon. 

Jan was a wonderful mother to a son she adopted as a single parent. My son Kennedy even babysat Jan's son one summer way back when. 

When I knew Jan's days were few, I was desperately thinking of a way to do something for her. I knew being a mother meant the world to her, so I thought maybe the best thing I could do is help her son remember he was loved and how great his mom was, so I got the idea to send him a card and a little pick me up once a year. I pitched my idea to Jan, and she loved it. I asked her which day of the year she'd like me to send it, and suggested his birthday, her birthday, his adoption day, or maybe Mother's Day. She *loved* the idea of a Mother's Day remembrance, and so that's what I did this year and will continue to do as long as I'm still kicking.

Pinball Wizards

 

FUN AND GAMES: Last weekend we were so happy to return to one of our favorite events of the year, the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show.

The show was on hiatus for a couple of years during the height of the pandemic and before the widespread availability of vaccines. But this year it was back and as big as ever. 

I spend way more time walking around and watching than I do playing. I'm always on the lookout for 'new' old pinball games I've never seen. A first for me this year was Teacher's Pet, dating back to 1965.

An apple for the teacher? It would be better if there was no worm, I'm guessing.

Another new-to-me pin is Gottlieb's Royal Guard from 1968. I suppose it caught my eye because of all of the Diamond Jubilee hubbub happening over in England at the time.

I've probably seen this 2001 game before, but this time I stood there thinking that the makers back in 1971 were not very close to predicting what 2001 would look like.  

The busy graphics on Roller Disco were ... something. 

I was surprised to learn this game came out in 1980. I thought roller disco was kind of passe by then.  Maybe the game was stalled in production for awhile. I actually played this game. Not a fan. 

I always enjoy checking out the super groovy Time Fantasy game by Williams. 

These mushrooms are definitely magical. According to the website TV Tropes, "Time Fantasy is reknown for its psychedelic fantasy theme, which has an anthropromorphic snail-like creature meditating contemplatively among a field of mushrooms in a surreal rainbow-colored landscape." 

It was created in just a couple of weeks in 1983, when Williams needed a game quickly, to avoid a production shut down.

Clint Eastwood caught my attention at one point. This Dirty Harry machine is from 1995. The movie came out in 1971. That's a bit of a delay.

The kids played a few Nintendo arcade games, of course.

Annabelle spent a fair amount of time in the expansive rhythm games section. 

Many of them have instructions in Japanese. That didn't slow her down. 

One game was attracting quite an audience. ...

That's right, it says The Simpsons Colonoscopy Party.

You use a joystick to make your way down (or up?) Homer's colon. 

Here's a little video for you. You're welcome.

All in all, it was a super fun day and it was so good to be back to that event.