Show Time

The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop), all lit up for a party on Friday night, when I dropped the kids off at Seattle Center.

PLAYING AROUND: Friday night, the kids attended a play that Annabelle had a keen interest in seeing. It started at 7:30, in a theater in the basement of the Seattle Armory building at Seattle Center. (That would be the bottom of the building illuminated in the background of this photo.

I dropped the kids off about 7, and after the show, in what was a first for the family, they made their own way (almost) home. They hopped the Monorail and rode it to Westlake Center, and then they got on the lightrail and rode it to the Rainier Beach station, just a couple miles from our house, where we picked them up.  It was definitely nice not having to drive into town twice to take and retrieve them. But enough about the logistics. I'll have CJ tell you a bit about the performance. ...

Since its original publication in 1986, the British fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle has been read by thousands of people worldwide, and was notably the basis for the 2004 anime film of the same name. The basic plot of Howl's Moving Castle follows Sophie, a young woman who is turned into an ninety-year-old woman during her attempt to escape a dull life working at a hat shop. Sophie reaches an agreement with a fire-demon to return her back to her youthful self, but only if she can break a pact between the fire demon and the titular Howl - a powerful and notorious wizard.

In late November and most of December 2019, the Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle presented a musical adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. Each performance lasted two and a half hours, with a fifteen-minute intermission. My sister and I saw a performance of Howl's Moving Castle on December 13th.

The month-long production at the Book-It Repertory Theatre serves as a test run for a potential future production of the musical. The program notes that "Howl's Moving Castle" is a new musical in development. Song titles are subject to change," printed on the list of musical numbers. According to my sister, the musical closely followed the plot of the book. Since I haven't read the book, I have to take her word for it. In my opinion, the musical had significant issues with pacing (such as spending nearly five minutes on one gag that has no relevance to the plot), odd dialogue and songwriting, and a general lack of energy from the performers. My sister told me that reading the book probably made it easier to follow the plot beats, which is why she seemed to have an easier time understanding the plot and characters than I did. In my opinion, the musical is definitely not ready for prime-time.

In conclusion, I think that the production of Howl's Moving Castle definitely has some compelling ideas and ambition, but the production at the Book-It Repertory Threatre should probably undergo significant re-writes (and possibly some re-casting, given the lack of energy) before increasing in scale.

And now, Annabelle's perspective. ...

On December 13th, I went with my brother to see the Book-It Theater's musical production of the book Howl's Moving Castle. The theater was quite small, only holding a couple hundred people at maximum, and it was mostly full during the show. The show itself had surprisingly few set changes, but that was somewhat necessary with the small cast & large amount of content they had to fit into the span of 2 1/2 hours. The actors all seemed to be having great fun in their roles, and I was especially a fan of how the actor playing the fire demon Calcifer portrayed his character. There were many costume changes by all but the main cast due to the amount of locations and characters present in the source material. 

As someone who has read the book, I had no trouble at all following the plot, but my brother (who has not read it) seemed to have a bit of trouble. While I do believe there were some scenes and moments that didn't need to be made into songs, the fact remains that the play was a musical and thus had many of them. For a production that's still in the works, I found it very enjoyable in many ways, but my major criticism would be that actors need to work more on enunciating important names and places instead of focusing all their energy on the melody of the song.

Annabelle got her program autographed after the show. Looks like a sizable cast. ...

COLLABORATION: I wanted to make a holiday card to send to a friend down in California. I know the family likes Star Wars, so I immediately struck upon the idea of making a "Baby Yoda" card. In case you haven't heard, a young version of what looks like Yoda appears in the new series "Mandalorian," and he's taking the Internet by storm.

Annabelle and I collaborated on the card. I did the easy part - sketching young Yoda in pencil. Annabelle did the heavy lifting - inking the design and then coloring and shading it. 

I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

We still need to color the background, but you get the picture. 

JUMPY: I haven't mentioned it in awhile, but the kids and I continue to hit the gym two to three times a week. As you can see, it's plenty of fun. 

Science Friday

JUMPING JUPITER: Today we didn't make or bake anything. We did deck some halls, but more on that later. 

I made it a point to try to be more science forward today. To that end, can we share this really gorgeous photo of Jupiter (above)? 

If you look in the lower, right hand corner of the infrared image, you'll see a new, (relatively) small cyclone that has recently formed. 

The photo's from Jupiter's south pole. It was taken on Nov. 4, 2019, when spacecraft Juno was making its 23rd science pass of the largest planet in our solar system. (More information about the Juno mission is here: http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

The first think, or person, I thought of when I saw this image was Vincent Van Gogh. The swirls remind me of his "Starry Night." 

REPORTING IN: I had a meeting away from 'campus' today for a couple of hours, so I left CJ and Annabelle an assignment to complete. I asked them to pick up any one of a number of "Science News" magazines we have (thank you Gpa R), and pick any article that struck their fancy and write a short summary about it. 

Here's what Annabelle shared. ... 

The Science News article “Brain Waves Duel During Slumber” discusses a study performed by researchers at the University of California on how certain brain functions play a part in whether we remember or forget something during sleep. The scientists mostly looked at movement in the motor cortex during non-REM sleep in mice that had undergone training to move a waterspout on the previous day. They noticed that when “slow oscillation” brain waves were stopped before hitting out the area in charge of remembering how to move the spout, the mice had a harder time re-learning how to do it the next day. This seems to show that these slow oscillation waves help promote remembering information. On the other side of the coin, “Delta waves” were three to four times more common than the slow oscillation waves, and when they were prevented the mice retained the information better, meaning these Delta waves most likely promote forgetting. It’s still unknown how the brain chooses which things to remember and which to forget, but more research will me done to understand how we can use the knowledge of these brain waves to potentially help people in rehab and recovery after an event like a stroke.

Hmm. Interesting. I'd like to read the whole article. 

CJ chose to write about a long-range NASA mission.

In 2012, Voyager 1, a man-made space probe launched back in the 1970s, crossed the outer border of the solar system, thus becoming the first man-made object to do so. Six years later, Voyager 2 did the same, this time equipped with a sensor that measures the qualities of surrounding plasma in space. Voyager 2 nearing the border outside of the solar system allowed NASA scientists to closely study the composition of the outer solar system. An article from Science News described the first reports of the outer solar system from Voyager 2: "Somehow, contrary to expectations, the sun’s magnetic field lines up nearly perfectly with the local galactic field." NASA scientists will likely make more detailed findings from the Voyager 2 reports in the near future.

Well, well, well, isn't that interesting. I'm also intrigued - I didn't know that Voyager 2 had a sensor that Voyager 1 did not. I'd definitely like to learn more.

SILVER BOUGHS: I feel we're a little late to the holiday decorating game this year. We did manage to get our vintage aluminum Christmas tree up yesterday. I kind of like its juxtaposition against the forest in the background.

Making and Baking

KITTY CAKE:  We were due to make another donation cake for Birthday Dreams, so a few days ago, we checked out their website to see what requests were out there. The kids spied one for a 16 year old girl who loves art and cats. 

We bandied about a few ideas, and almost immediately struck upon the idea of having an artist cat atop the cake. He would be wearing a beret, of course, and painting a self portrait. 

Annabelle sculpted the cat out of modeling chocolate. I made the easel out of gingerbread first (a fail - too clunky), and then decided on black modeling chocolate. MUCH better. Annabelle painted the cat's canvas, and placed a paintbrush in his hand. Cake topper done (at a little after midnight on the day the cake was due).

The cake itself had two tiers. The bottom tier, which CJ baked and filled, was chocolate brownie with mini chocolate chip filling. It was iced in vanilla buttercream and Annabelle air brushed it with blue, the birthday girl's favorite color. 

The top tier, shaped to look like a paint can, was actually a giant Rice Krispies treat, covered in buttercream and then wrapped in marshmallow fondant. 

The bottom tier featured some 'fine art' cat portraits. Meowna Lisa, The Cat with the Pearl Earring and American Gothic, feline style. Annabelle hand painted each of those, food coloring on fondant.

 Here's a photo of the finished project. We hope the birthday girl liked it. 

DOOR DECORATION: On Tuesday afternoon, we stopped by the kids' former learning center on Queen Anne to do a little decorating. 

The school was having a door decorating contest with a wintry theme. We ran a few ideas by the office staff, and settled on some cutesy birds and an education theme.

The focal point was a bluebird atop a signpost.

The signs are foam board covered in woodgrain Contact paper. Annabelle cut the letters and the snowflakes with her Cricut machine.  

The other side of the door featured a birdie conducting a science experiment.

We added a couple extra touches to a window adjacent to the door. (Apologies - I'm not sure why the photo is blurry.)

JUST SO YOU KNOW: We haven't complete forgone things like, oh, math and science. In fact, a couple of days this week, our soundtrack while making and baking was NASA TV. It's really great background 'music.' We heard updates about the International Space Station, ongoing interplanetary missions, fighting forest fires on Earth with NASA technology and more. So thanks for that, NASA.

Friday Flashback

CATCHING UP: How busy have we been this past week? I'm still trying to catch up with last Friday. That's the day we left home at 9 a.m. and the kids got home at midnight. Lots to recap!

Our first order of business that day was an art session at Seattle Center.

Annabelle can tell you more about the art workshop. ...  

The “Write Out of This World” Comics workshop at MoPOP Was a 3-week experience where home-schooled students could learn from experienced illustrator and D&D player Jen Vaughn. She taught us about panel layouts, character design, dialogue, and much more within the span of just 13 and a half total class hours.

Most of our class was spent drawing in a small hidden room on the first floor of the museum, with a visit to one of the many permanent exhibits after our 30-minute lunch break. We spent a lot of time during class studying how other comics and graphic novels structure their stories and art, and took inspiration from those to develop our own stories and characters. Overall, the workshop is somewhat hard to write about because most of what we learned must be put in context or with images for it to make any sort of sense.

That being said, I think I learned quite a bit about the comic-making process and how to apply those ideas to my own art and writing.

One of the things we learned about on the last day of class was "hatching" or "cross-hatching." It's a technique often used in comic books to fill in areas.   

CJ wasn't in the class, but he came to Seattle Center with us. Between 10 a.m. and noon, he visited exhibits in MoPop, and then we three met in the Seattle Center Armory for a Subway lunch. While there, we checked out the model railroad exhibit that is a holiday fixture.   

In the afternoon, CJ went to a movie at Pacific Science Center (more on that later). Annabelle and I continued our art class, which involved visiting the Indie Game Revolution in MoPop. 

We were there to check out games' art styles and story lines.

Our class let out at 2:30, at which point Annabelle, CJ and I emplored MoPop for a bit. 

I had to visit Jimi.  

I popped into the Hendrix exhibit and, for whatever reason, it immediately made me feel melancholy. I snapped this photo of the guitar he played at Woodstock and headed out quickly. 

We three checked out the Pearl Jam Home Show exhibit. We were fortunate to see the band last summer when they played at T-Mobile (formerly Safeco) Field.  

There's also a Prince display at the museum right now. Below is the blouse he wore in "Purple Rain." 

 CJ wouldn't fit into Prince's tiny shirt, but the replica Purple Rain motorcycle fit pretty well. 

About 3:30, I walked the kids to the monorail platform. They rode the train to Westlake Center, and then walked to the Fifth Avenue Theatre.  

CJ can tell you more about what they were doing there. ...  

The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle occasionally hosts "Fridays at the 5th," a youth program where students between the ages of 14 and 18 are given "the opportunity to create the characters, sing the songs, learn the choreography, and meet with the cast and crew for the productions on our stage," according to the 5th Avenue Theatre's website. On December 6th, 2019, the 5th Avenue Theatre hosted a Fridays at the 5th event for that night's production of Mrs. Doubtfire, a musical based on the 1993 Robin Williams film of the same name.

The main focus of the Fridays at the 5th event was the students learning how to quickly switch between character roles and voices - an important function in the play. The auditorium in which the event was held was packed, apparently to capacity. One of the activities we did was singing classic Christmas carols such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman," except that we had to change position and voice with each line. This activity grew tiring very quickly. We then repeated this activity, except with wearing gag props such as fake glasses or clown noses with each line. Right before we had dinner in the auditorium, there was a brief Q&A with the scriptwriters.

After the provided dinner, we got tickets to see that night's production of Mrs. Doubtfire. The basic premise of the musical is identical to the of the film: A divorced man poses as an elderly Scottish nanny in order to spend more time with his children. Rob McClure, the actor who played main character Daniel Hillard/"Mrs. Doubtfire," obviously had to meet a tall order in living up to Robin Williams' performance in the 1993 film. While I can't make a fair judgment on whether or not McClure lived up to Williams' performance, he certainly did a good job quickly shifting between voices.

One of the central elements of the musical was actor Rob McClure frequently shifting between the characters of Daniel Hillard and "Mrs. Doubtfire." Two other actors had to help him dress and undress during these sequences. In a brief Q&A session after the play, Rob told us that he eventually was able to shift in just 18 seconds.

Overall, going to Fridays at the 5th and seeing the play was a fun experience, and I look forward to the next Fridays at the 5th.

All in all a very busy, fun-packed Friday!

Oh What Fun

SLEIGH-ER: Last Thursday was the day. We made our way to Swanson's Nursery north of Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. It was our first and favorite nursery when we moved to Seattle 12 or so years ago.

A beautiful place, they have a lovely little cafe, a pond with enormous koi, oh, and plants and things. :) Come Christmas time, the place is rather splendidly decorated, and for as long as we've been visiting, there has been this little red sleigh. The photo below is from our first visit. Long ago, I Photoshopped a starry night sky behind the kids.

Fast forward a few years, and the little red sled isn't such a great fit. The quote today, from Annabelle, who had to try to wedge in after CJ, was, "It hurts! It hurts!"

Hahaha - happy holidays. ;)

They do have a bigger sleigh there. It's a much better fit.

I do hope you all are noticing that CJ wore his Slayer concert t-shirt for his sleigh ride. :)

While the Christmas camels have long since retired at Swanson's, the reindeer are still around.

And the sweet train set up continues to be a favorite. We love their random figurines. Below is Rey, from Star Wars' "The Force Awakens,"  and a whole bunch of trolls. 

 Godzilla was wreaking a little havoc on a castle.

 Meanwhile, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian were chillin' by the fire.

 And Santa and some elves simply had to be included, of course.

OH MY FRIDAY: It's gonna take a few blog posts to recap all that was Friday. We left home in the early morning and were gone for 14 hours. So much to tell! For now, let's just settle for CJ sharing with you some info about the documentary he went to see while Annabelle and I were in an art class. 

Last Friday, my family had a busy day. My mother and my sister spent most of the morning and early afternoon at MoPop, in Seattle Center. They were going for a homeschool class program. I went with them, but since I wasn't in the class, I did other things at Seattle Center. One of the things I did was see a documentary at the Pacific Science Center's Paccar Theater. The documentary was Superpower Dogs, which was released earlier this year.

In its 45-minute runtime, Superpower Dogs covers several different dogs, all of which serve provide valuable public services. The first dog introduced to viewers is Henry, a dog who works in British Columbia by saving humans from avalanches. Since the start of his career, Henry has saved several different people's lives in the snowy mountains of western Canada.

The second dog I was introduced to was Reef, a Newfoundland who works on the coast of Italy. Reef is the latest of a long line of utility dogs in her family: Many of her ancestors apparently went on voyages with Italian sailors. Because Newfoundlands have webbed paws and impressive musculature, they can swim for miles at a time. Reef has helped bring men overboard back onto boats.

Two more dogs covered in the film are Tipper and Tony, two dogs that work in a village in Kenya. Tipper and Tony's duty is to locate local poachers, and help bring them to justice. Tipper and Tony are brought to the scene of poaching crimes, so they can memorize the scent of the poacher(s). Since the dogs have a much more developed sense of smell than humans, they are able to infer rudimentary details from the scents. They can follow a "scent trail" left by the poachers, all the way back to the poachers' residence. After the poachers get sent to prison, many of the local villagers express their gratitude towards the dogs, believing them to have magic powers.

Overall, Superpower Dogs was an entertaining and informative documentary, and a decent use of 45 minutes.

Stewing

IRON CHEF: Apologies. It strikes me this has turned into a food and crafts blog the last month plus. It's not that we don't do science and stuff, it just that it has been less photogenic, I guess. 

Also, as much as I'd love to post a number of the things CJ writes for his history or psychology class, I'm guessing I'm not supposed to do that publicly due to concerns about plagarism. So, while this is about one of his classes, it's about (surprise!) food! 

Last night was his last Japanese class for the quarter, and students were asked to bring food for a potluck. We surmised that to mean Japanese food. CJ mulled his options and decided to make a soup, since he's an experienced soup maker.  

I'll have him tell you a little bit about it ...

For my last Japanese class at South Seattle College this quarter, I made a stew for a potluck being held in the class. In particular, I chose to make a "sumo stew," or Chankonabe. Sumo stews are named as such because real-world sumo wrestlers often consume them on the regular, as part of a weight-gain diet.

To make the sumo stew, I got a variety of ingredients from a local Asian grocery store. There were some ingredients that we already had, such as leftover Thanksgiving turkey and bone broth, that were both used in the stew. Ingredients such as shiitake mushrooms, carrots, daikon, a leek, soy sauce, and mirin were all used to add flavor to the stew. In most sumo stew, fish is also used. However, because I don't want to eat fish, it was omitted from the stew.

And that's all he had to say about that. 

In reading a whole bunch of articles about this soup/stew, it's clear the broth is supposed to be the star. It is supposed to have umami, of course, and be multi-dimensional, for lack of a better term. We started with turkey bone broth (thanks, Thanksgiving). To that, I suggested CJ add the stems from his shiitake mushrooms (to be added much later), and let the stems steep in the broth. He let that go for a couple of hours.

 To that, he added a bonito (fish) soup base, as well as some carrots, daikon and leeks he sliced up.

That went another couple of hours, and toward the end some white miso was stirred in, plus he added a *bunch* of cooked turkey, more carrots and daikon, and the shiitakes. He also boiled udon noodles and kept them separate, to add to the Instant Pot once he got to his classroom. Garnishes he took included raw sliced daikon, chrysanthemum greens, and enoki mushrooms. 

In the end, it made a beautiful bowl.

CJ's Japanese professor was impressed (per Christian, who helped carry it all in and out). She said that the stew could be sold in any restaurant in Japan. So that was gratifying!  

CJ said she also told the class about the history and importance of sumo stew. One interesting fact is that you don't want to put any four-legged animal in the broth - that's considered bad luck (sumos should be up on two feet, not down on all fours).

I was really glad CJ took a huge pot of soup (and bowls, and spoons and napkins), because as it turns out, he was the only student who brought something to the potluck. :0 The only other food was brought in by the professor. Wow.

FRUITY FUN: While at Uwajimaya (a Japanese grocery store) yesterday, we couldn't help but notice a sign in the produce section touting pink-on-the-inside apples. 

We bought a couple and the kids each had one for breakfast this morning. 

They were really and truly pink!

The kids report they taste somewhat like a Granny Smith.

As an educational note, once upon a time, Washington state exported lots of apples to Japan. However, nowadays, Northwest growers haven’t exported to Japan since the 2000-01 season. This is  largely due to that country’s high (17 percent) tariff and high export costs. Earlier this year, there was talk of a resurgence in Washington apple exports, but the inroads are slow so far.

According to a press release from Washington Senator Maria Cantwell's office, Stemilt Growers has shipped 86,000, 40 pound-boxes of apples to Japan in the last three years, and they were planning to ship 15,000 to 20,000 earlier this year. These exports ended a 16-year lull in U.S. apples to Japan.  It is noted that Stemilt was shipping the apples at a loss, in hopes of generating interest for Washington state apples in Japan. 

CUT IT OUT: Annabelle's Cricut machine has been working over time. Yesterday afternoon she made these festive place cards for a party her grandparents are having later this month. 

This morning she made me a new decal for my pressure cooker. Naturally, it's Freddie and Bowie, "Under Pressure."

And she also designed and cut out a ton of vinyl stickers to transform a boring one white mixer into an R2-D2-themed beauty.

Here's the before. ...

 And a work-in-progress shot.

And here's a side shot of the finished product!

 I love it!