Great Wide Open

AIR OUT THERE: We're not quite all 'green' here, smoke in the air wise, but I'll take 'moderate,' and so out we went into the morning sunshine and blue skies!

Kubota Garden was our destination. Just a couple miles north of our house, it features 20 acres of immaculate hills and valleys, streams, ponds, waterfalls, and amazing plantings. It's a gem of a park.

 There are lots of little bridges. Here are the kids and their pups on one.

And on the bridge below, on our very first trip to Kubota, for whatever reason, Laika (the little black one) thought it would be a great idea to jump into the water. :0 Fortunately, she had a harness on, and I fished her out.

We came around one corner and found this light chocolate bunny in a meadow. It wasn't at all bothered by our presence - not us, or the dogs. That shocked me. All I could figure was that it has grown up in the park and doesn't think of humans or their furry (on leash) friends as foes.

At one small corner of the park, there are bare tree trunks. I told the kids to "go stand in the U-s" and they knew what I meant immediately. I love seeing Spock peek out from the trunks. 

We passed by a number of ponds today where we expected to find koi based on a past visit. However, they were fish free. I speculated to the kids that was because the water was too low and they'd be too vulnerable to predators.  

Eventually, we happened upon a nice big, deep pond and found many a koi there. Call it their summer home. :)

They came right over to us. Clearly, they're used to humans as their food source.

This duck wanted in on the action, too.

 And honestly, as slow-moving as this turtle was, he made his way toward us in hopes of food, too.

 All in all, a lovely day in the out-of-doors.

 There were some pretty flowers along the way. 

 Fortunately, a family member informed me they're Cleome. 

 And below, some lace leaf hydrangea. 

This shrub below was interesting to me. The south-facing end of it was SO much whiter than the rest. I don't think the discoloration was a new-growth thing. I think it was sun bleached. 

Smoke on the Water

SMOKED OUT:  Friday we found ourselves taking a last minute/hasty trip to the Olympic Peninsula to pick up some building materials (specifically about 60 used glass blocks at a cut rate price). 

After getting some VERY bad advice from navigational software Waze, and getting a bit lost, we eventually found our mark and picked up the blocks.

As soon as we were back on our way, I told the kids that the blocks 'smelled like the '60s.' In other words, they reeked of cigarette smoke. I did NOT want to spend an hour plus in a car with that, and we had to have the windows up because of the forest fire smoke.

We quickly went to Plan B. I had the kids use their phones to find out when the next ferry was leaving Southworth. Fortunately, it looked like we had time to get to the dock and catch that ferry, so that's what we did.

So, instead of commuting with nicotine, we got to enjoy a nice ride on the ferry. We'd never taken the Southworth to Seattle run before. It makes a brief stop on Vashon Island.

The kids and I couldn't help but notice how tiny the ferry we were on was, relatively speaking. Named after a Suquamish tribal Chief in the 1800's, the Issaquah class ferry is 328' long, and can hold a max of 1,200 passengers and 124 vehicles. 

Compare that to a ferry like the Puyallup. The Jumbo Mark II class has more than three times the horsepower of the Kitsap. It's over 460 feet long, and can hold 202 vehicles and 2499 passengers. 

It was a downright serene ride. I'm kind of happy the glass blocks stunk so much.

The only drag was the smoke was still so thick that the normally stunning views were hazy landscapes (see the photo at the top of the post). 

HOME WORK: We continue to work away at the long, Long, LONG "to do" list around our new (to us) old house. This weekend CJ helped with wiring in the basement bathroom, where a couple of new recessed lights were installed.

Upstairs, today's work involved installing a new (to us) dishwasher. We bought it at a building materials salvage store. We were there looking for something else, but I spied the nearly-new looking dishwasher (complete with fancy stainless interior), and so it came home with us.

Installing it meant making a few modifications. Fortunately, Christian is super handy, and, once again, CJ gave him a hand. 

PETAL PUSHERS: Over the weekend, Annabelle and I worked on some cute little centerpieces for a back-to-school breakfast.

We made some cardstock flowers with colored pencil stems. Annabelle cut the flowers out with our awesome Cricut machine. Love that thing!

 We were really happy with how they turned out. We made six pots in all.

Open Wide

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES: This time yesterday, we were cooped up, sweltering and crabby from being forced to stay indoors with windows and doors closed due to the mega unhealthy air outside due to all of the wildfires in the region. I've lost track of how many days it was that way. It felt like the new, miserable, permanent normal. 

Reports said we were set to get some fresh, Pacific Ocean air this morning. I kept checking and checking and checking the air quality website. One by one, weather stations switched from maroon to red to orange to yellow and then green, glorious green!!! At that moment, every door and window in the house went open!

We celebrated the fresh air in a couple of ways, including doing about an hour of yard work. I don't love yard work by any means, but today it was phenomenal! It felt so great to be outside, ridding the yard of dried up, crispy flowers long past their prime.

We also took a car to get a bath. Local chain Brown Bear Car Wash was having their annual free wash day. The line was long, but it moved along. 

YESTERDAY, ONCE MORE: In an attempt to escape yesterday's air nastiness, we found ourselves inside IKEA, yet again, breathing that fresh Swedish air. :)

We 'enjoyed' a crappy (but inexpensive) breakfast of pasty Swedish pancakes, flavorless sausages and eraser-textured eggs. Mmmmm!  While we sat there killing time, we noticed a corner of the cafeteria was cordoned off as a crafting area. Once the activity for 'little' kids started, Annabelle headed on in.

IKEA provided free frames. The kids were instructed to make a painted on design between the two plastic picture holders.

In news that will likely surprise no one, Annabelle started painting a unicorn. 

There were also stickers for embellishment.

A quick, easy, fun craft! Annabelle and I agreed, however, than an abstract design would probably work better for this format.

CUBED: Tuesday, we completed a Minecraft-inspired cake project for a friend. 

Minecraft's world is full of pixels, so we had LOTS of squares to make. 

Guess how many covered the (smallish) cake and cake board. ... 

 If you guessed 631, you'd be right.

And yes, we realize it should be an even number since it was all about rows and columns. Let's just say mistakes were made, and it's SUPER hard cutting anything even close to a 'perfect' square out of marshmallow fondant.

Back at It

HAZY DIAMOND: Monday night we bravely (or not so smartly?) ventured out into the smoke to attend a baseball game. We did wear our masks while walking to and from the stadium, however, and we purposely bought tickets for seats that are walled off from the open air stadium.

Despite the unhealthy air, we went to the ballpark because it wasn't just an 'ordinary' game. It was an Alice in Chains game. 

In what sounds like an odd cross-promotion, the Mariners had a special event involving a local, longtime grunge band, Alice in Chains.  I'll have CJ tell you a bit more about the experience.

To promote the release of their new album Rainier Fog, veteran Seattle grunge band Alice in Chains held an album listening party in Safeco Field, before the start of the 20 August game. The listening party was held in the Terrace Club Patio, and was over-capacity. The party started at 5:30 P.M, during which various goodies were given away (a Rainier Fog CD and an Alice in Chains t-shirt.)

During the party, I got to experience what Rainier Fog is like:
First off, Rainier Fog is a very self-indulgent album. If I recall correctly, some of the songs stretched to over 10 minutes long, much of which was spent jamming or yelling from band vocalists William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell. Some of the songs are brain-numbingly slow, taking after a so-called "sludge metal" style. The album is noticeably heavier than the band's previous output. Nevertheless, it will please Alice in Chains fans, including myself.

After the listening party ended, Alice in Chains showed up on a small stage on the patio. I couldn't really see them, being buried behind middle-aged fans who may or may not have seen them back in their 1990s heyday. In addition, during the actual baseball game, a fan in the Terrace Club was quizzed as to the band's name (he obviously guessed correctly). After doing so, the members of Alice in Chains went over to him, after which they started walking to what I presume to be their private viewing area. I attempted to get a high-five from DuVall while he was walking back. Instead, I got a stinkeye.

So there you have it. CJ's brush with fame, ha ha.

I would be remiss if I didn't give props to Alice in Chains’ guitarist Jerry Cantrell for throwing a  perfect strike first pitch.


GLOSSY: On Monday afternoon, Annabelle and I headed downhill to the Learning Ex toy store in Renton Landing for a D-I-Y lipgloss lesson.

When we arrived, we saw these materials set out for the process.

I'll have Annabelle tell you how it went down. ... It was a super quick and simple process.

To make a simple DIY lip balm, take equal parts coconut oil and Vaseline and melt it, stirring until thoroughly mixed. Place 4 teaspoons of the mixture into your container of choice and add 1 teaspoon of any flavor of Jell-O for color and flavoring. Close the container and let sit overnight until the mixture thickens. Be careful – it will still be very soft, so consider putting it in a flat container as opposed to a lipstick tube.

She found a link to a tutorial, if you're interested: DIY Jell-O lip gloss

UP AND AWAY: This afternoon, we tuned in just in time to watch an Arianespace Vega rocket  launch the European Space Agency's Aeolus satellite. The satellite will study Earth's winds from space. 

     IMAGE: ESA
The rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 2:20 p.m. Seattle time. 

"Aeolus will use revolutionary laser technology to measure winds around the globe," ESA officials said in a mission description. "These near-realtime observations will improve the accuracy of numerical weather and climate prediction and advance our understanding of tropical dynamics and processes relevant to climate variability."

Smoke Screen

COMING UP FOR AIR: Sorry MPA has been missing in action. We have been both busy, and miserable, and by day's end, I don't feel like sitting in a hot, smoky room and blogging, hence our silence.

We've been busy making cakes and cookies for others, and miserable due to the terrible smokestorm we've been subjected to for too many days to count, now.

I check the Washington State Air Monitoring Network stats like some people check the stock market. The news is not good. We went from Good to Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (that's me!) to Unhealthy and are now firmly in the VERY unhealthy. 

Check out this video. It pretty much says it all. 

By Saturday a.m., I finally had to seek some medical attention, I was so beaten down by the smoke. I have three new meds in my daily mix (a couple of antihistamines and some antibiotics for a raging/worst of my life sinus infection). 

We also constructed our very own DIY HEPA filter after watching this video.

 Oh, and if you haven't checked your furnace filters recently, you should to that, too. ... 

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A year since we relocated, and we're still exploring our new neighborhood. Late last week, we finally made it down to the library that is actually built over a waterway. 

See the building over the river below? That's the super picturesque Renton Public Library, spanning the Cedar River.

From the library, we walked along a trail heading east, under the We found a few informative signs along the way.  To CJ's right is the Interstate 405, which we walked under.

After that part of our sojourn, we checked out another local trail, where the Cedar River meets Lake Washington. 

Cedar River Trail Park is right in Boeing territory!

I loved having the beautiful Boeing birds on one side of me, and the river and lake on the other. So cool!

The bridge in the above picture isn't open to the public. It's for moving planes from the Renton Boeing plant out to Renton Municipal Airport. I found a sign about it behind blackberry bushes and a chain link fence.

I looks like this bridge was built in 2014, in order to replace a 1944-vintage one. It looks like a (remarkable!) 14,700 planes crossed the old bridge between the factor and the airport. 

As an added bonus, during our walk, we were buzzed by some historical aircraft.

We had no idea why the vintage warbirds were circling overhead.

However, a couple of days after our encounter, a post by Paul Allen popped up. He owns both the Flying Heritage Museum and the Seattle Seahawks. Apparently he dispacted a few cool planes to circle over Seahawks' training camp, which is on the shore of Lake Washington in Renton. 

Paul Allen's photos of the event are better than mine. ;)


IN REVIEW: CJ recently completed reading a book he borrowed from the library, "Save Me, Kurt Cobain."

Here's what he had to say about it.

I recently finished reading Save Me, Kurt Cobain, a book from my local library. Save Me is a (fiction) book (primarily) about a teenager who discovers that the seemingly late Kurt Cobain is her father, over a dozen years after his real-world death. Most of the book is set in late 2006 and early 2007, though it was published in 2016. Save Me is the debut book by Jenny Manzer.

A page on Manzer's website describes the book as follows:
"Cavan has been an outsider since age four when her mother vanished from their home in Victoria, British Columbia. Now 15, Nico is determined to find her beautiful, music-obsessed mother. After glimpsing “Cobain” on a ferry from Seattle, Nico follows the man with the blazing blue eyes to a remote Vancouver Island cabin—and her life will never be the same."

The book has been noted for its unusual fusion of reality (the band Nirvana, the musician Kurt Cobain, Nirvana's concert in 1991 in Victoria, BC, etc.) with fiction (For example: Nico Cavan, Kurt Cobain's suicide being fake, etc.) Save Me is a relatively short read (~264 pages, is I recall correctly), and contains references to Nirvana's discography, from the obvious (Smells Like Teen Spirit, Heart-Shaped Box, Come As You Are, etc.) to the not-obvious, like Aneurysm and Territorial Pissings.