Busy Days

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: Today, we spent a fair amount couple of time  working on a video about CJ's involvement with nonprofits that fight hunger and homelessness, like Teen Feed and Birthday Dreams. 

It was actually quite a lot of work, compiling the photos and making 4 short videos. Funny how it takes hours and hours and hours to make a four and a half minute video. I'll share a link to it in a future blog. It's not *quite* done. 

ELVES IN TRAINING: Yesterday, in an email from the city of Renton, I saw a notice that the Elf Academy was looking for new recruits. Of course, I just had to sign CJ and Annabelle up!

Now, we're awaiting the official Elf Academy Kit to arrive via mail. The announcement promised the kit "will have all the supplies and instructions needed for the academy."

Once the kids have completed the elf activities, they have to fill out a survey (before December 17). Upon receipt, "Santa and his HR Elves will review each Elf’s resumé of completed tasks and crafts that were included in the kit."

If they meet muster, they will be invited to attend a special drive-thru Elf Academy graduation experience at the Renton Community Center. Graduation will be held on Saturday, Dec. 19, 9–11 a.m., and the promo says special guests will be on hand "to help kick off your call to kindness and fun this holiday season." Sounds like big fun. There's been a dearth of that in 2020, so this is a welcome development. 

ANOTHER RUNNER: We've been so busy working on next year's college plans for CJ, filling out applications, sending transcripts
and such. However, we can't forget that Annabelle is college bound next September, when she becomes eligible for Running Start. 

With Running Start, you get to choose your school, and I pointed out to Annabelle that although CJ chose South Seattle, she didn't have to do likewise. I suggested that if she was interested in a contract, she should check out Bellevue College. 

We checked out a video for Running Start students considering Bellevue. I was surprised to learn former Governor Gary Locke is the current Bellevue College president. 

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/440504569" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/440504569">Running Start at Bellevue College</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/collegechannel">College Channel</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

The Locke video is just a message from him, with not even a glimpse of the campus, so I suggested we check out other videos on the Bellevue College site. One about a day in the life of college mascot Brutus the bulldog was fun.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lftFNAxKWKo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We took a virtual visit of the campus here: https://www.youvisit.com/tour/bellevuecollege?pl=v

TO BOLDLY GO: Last night, we enjoyed a one hour presentation "The Science of Star Trek." The show was hosted by the King County Library System, and the expert on hand was Dr. Michael Wong.

Dr. Wong is a Post-Doc at the University of Washington where he studies planetary atmospheres, habitability, biosignatures and the emergence of life. He hosts a podcast, "Strange New Worlds," about science and Star Trek. We'll have to check it out. 

There was a good turnout for the presentation. Over 70 connections were streaming it, and no doubt those 70 represented multiple people in some households, like ours, where the four of us watched. 

It was a nice mix of Star Trek references and real life science. I'm super glad we tuned in.

COUNTDOWN CONTINUED: I mentioned here in November that we'd crafted an advent calendar to count down to the election. We have now repurposed that to a Christmas countdown calendar. Of course it features Frenchies in the center. :)

CUTE CARD: We wanted to send a little something to the Safeway on Queen Anne for helping us out with the chicken for last weekend's Teen Feed. Here's what Annabelle came up with. I love it!

Gobble Gobble

THANKFUL: We at MPA hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. 

We had a cooperative holiday - we divvied up the cooking to do list between our place, Kennedy, and my parents. We each made our own turkey, but we were in charge of cranberries, Chex mix and wild rice stuffing. Kennedy was the beans and potatoes guy, and my parents made cookies, pies, rolls and more. 

Thursday morning the kids and I met Kennedy by the freeway, dropped off our bag for him and picked up his bag for my parents. We proceeded to Mukilteo and picked up baked goods for us, dropped off our food and Ken's food for them, and then headed south. We met Ken just off the freeway again and gave him the grandparents' baked goods and he gave us our food from him. The masked and socially distanced choreography worked well. It was a nice way to share a little bit of the holiday together, and get lots of great food with not too much effort!

Meanwhile, back at MPA, Christian was working a little magic. He fired up our vintage GE Partio Cart to roast the Thanksgiving turkey.

Isn't she lovely?

Since we haven't baked in it before, Christian smartly used a thermometer to monitor the oven's temperature. It runs pretty hot, so it's a good thing he was watching it.

I can't help but wonder, how many people do you suppose cooked their Thanksgiving turkey in a Partio Cart in 2020? Is it 2,000 or 200? Or maybe 20 or 2? I don't think GE sold a ton of them. They were $600 back in the day (1956, when they came out). That translates to about $7,600 today, adjusted for inflation. Way too rich for our blood! Glad we accidentally bought it for a couple hundred bucks a few years back.

A BIGGER FEAST: What do you do on the day after Thanksgiving? Well, you get up and peel 30 pounds of potatoes, if you're us. That's because Teen Feed was the following day, and we had lots of stuff to do to prepare.

Once the potatoes were cooked, they were mashed, with lots of butter, garlic, sour cream, salt, white pepper and whole milk added in. (We try to pack in the calories and protein when making Teen Feed food.)

We also made about 28 pounds of bacony green beans, and a couple dozen vegan cornbread muffins. (We always make sure we have vegan and gluten free options for our diners.) I was super happy with how the muffins looked - they puffed up so nicely. (I didn't eat one, though, so I'm not sure about the taste.)

Saturday afternoon, we swung by a Safeway on Queen Anne hill to pick up 160 pieces of chicken (two for each of our 80 diners). They gave us their Monday "Cheap Chicken" price on Saturday, which we really appreciated. We'd never outsourced our main dish before, but thought we'd try it this month. We wanted to do a Thanksgiving like meal, but not serve turkey, as we'd heard the kids aren't wild about turkey. So, our group of volunteers made traditional Thanksgiving side dishes and dessert, and served the fried chicken, which the diners loved, so yay for that. 

POKER FACE: The other night we were doing our 'camping at the convenience store' COVID era entertainment. It's a picnic table outside of a store in West Seattle where Christian and I can grab a beer and the kids can have a soda and we can sit by ourselves, play a game and pretend things are kind of normal.

We were playing a game called Loot Letter the other night. It's important not to tip your hand in that game. Poor CJ, he just doesn't have much of a poker face. Below was his work-around.

Right on Time

HOLIDAY WONDERMENT: We've been marveling over how beautiful our 'Christmas' cactus has become this week. We thought it an early bloomer, but we thought wrong.

Christian Googled the plant a couple of days ago, and imagine our surprise when we learned it's not a Christmas cactus after all! It's a Thanksgiving cactus, which means it's right on time!

An article on the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach webpage explains it all. ...

"The difference between the three cacti is found in the shape of the leaves. The Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumgera truncata) has very pointed and claw shaped projections on the edges of the leaf. The Christmas cactus (Schlumgera bridgesti) has leaf projections which are more scalloped or tear drop shaped. The Easter cactus (Rhipsalidopsis gaertnerrii) has very rounded edges which are centralized on the leaf."

Illustration from Iowa State University Reiman Garden Pamphlet RG 308Thanksgiving

COOKING UP A STORM: Thanksgiving is just a day away, and we've been busy readying for that holiday.

We're heeding experts' opinions regarding this pandemic era holiday, not mixing households and keeping it home alone, so to speak. What we are doing, however is a cooperative Thanksgiving. Three of us (Kennedy, my parents and our household) will each be making our own turkey, but we divvied up the side dishes. I am making cranberries, Chex mix and wild rice, sausage and shitaike mushroom stuffing. Ken has the potatoes and green beans covered. Judy is making rolls and pies. We're going to swap side dishes outside, masks on, with social distancing. Though unorthodox, it will be a nice way to enjoy dinner with one another without sitting down at a communal table and sharing air. 

NOT THROWING AWAY OUR SHOT: I listed 'exercise' on our list of things to do. "Just Dance" via the Nintendo Switch is an easy go to, but honestly, I don't love most of the very poppy music they use, and the choreography seems pretty random at times.

So, I decided to turn to YouTube for some inpsiration. I had been singing a song from "Hamilton" just moments prior, so I thought, "Well there *has* to be a 'Hamilton' workout."

I'm right. There is. In fact, there are many. We chose the top viewed one, and fired it up without warning for the kids. They were super happy about it. It was well done - great music and good exercise. We'll be back for more!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wE-6cSgrVMk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Takes the Cake

BAKERS AND MAKERS: Another birthday in our household this past week (Christian), so we baked a cake - and donated it to one of our favorite non-profits,

Birthday Dreams

.

The cake request said the recipient loved STEM-y stuff (science, tech, math), and the colors blue and green. So out of that info came the cake pictured above.

As usual, we started with a conceptual drawing of the cake that might be. Some things made the cut, others didn't.

CJ did the baking. The three-layered first tier of the cake is very vanilla, with vanilla buttercream icing and filling. There are some white chocolate pieces in the filling for a little crunch.

The top tier of the cake isn't cake at all, it's a big Rice Krispies treat. We draped that in a batch of homemade marshmallow fondant. It think it's our best drape to date! (We used to be so nervous about this step. Now it's old hat!)

The first tier was crumb coated and then covered in buttercream. Annabelle air brushed that lightly with green and blue, the birthday boys' favorite colors. 

The cake is surrounded by blue and green gumballs. I like the way they look - very festive.

Annabelle transformed the plain white tier into a lab coat. I love the little buttons on it. The photo below is before we added the pocket 'embroidered' with the birthday boy's name. 

A big part of any one of the kids' cakes is the little details. Like melting Jolly Ranchers so that you can shape them into little orbs that will look like bubble so you can put them into the lab flask 

Annabelle cut atoms and equations from sugar sheets.

CJ made the Jell-o to fill the cake topper, an Erlenmeyer flask. When we saw that there are little cups you can buy that look like the flask, we just had to get some for the kid's birthday party. We also bought club soda and some little drink flavoring liquids they could mix and match.

Can you guess how old the birthday boy is turning? The clue is on the front of the cake, the first tier.

By the way, I've completely altered the name on the cake to preserve the anonymity of the recipient.

We hope he liked his cake. :)

Sugar Rush

EXPERIMENTAL:  We've got another Birthday Dreams cake coming up. It's one we just *had* to sign up for - a science (!) themed cake for a 12-year-old.

We have come up with our conceptual drawing. It includes a beaker partially filled with gelatinous Jell-o atop the cake, with candy bubbles rising from it. Sounds simple enough ... but we thought we better do a trial run of sorts today. 

First, we used some "Unicorn Slime" Jell-o Play we had in the pantry. It was super simple to make - literally just add water. 

And then it was time for some stirring. 

It was thick, chalky and pretty darn hard to mix up. 

Before long, the mix turned into a gelatinous blob with the strangest viscosity. When you poked it and pulled your finger out, the void would immediately fill like nothing ever happened,

"Newtonian ***!" Annabelle declared. She also declared that it tasted likje 'strawberry pencil erasers." 

We think it will work for the bottom of our beaker. Next up, some candy bubbles. We were batting around ideas a couple of days ago. I suggested the top of a Dum Dum lollipop. (Or is it a sucker - what's the difference? Must research ... ) Anyway, somehow we hit upon the idea of maybe melting a Jolly Rancher and then shaping it into a pretty little ball. 

That involved a heat gun, a stainless steel straw and a steep learning curve. 

Once it was just the right temperature, CJ rolled it into a nice little ball, without burning his hands. 

Annabelle had seen a video or two about trying to blow 'glass' bubbles from semi-melted Jolly Ranchers. You know we had to give that a go.

By getting the candy super hot and by blowing hard, CJ got a big ol' bubble. 

After a few misses, Annabelle managed to blow something semi-spherical.

All in all, it was a good experiment session. We learned some things we'll definitely put to use in the future.

Contact

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins of NASA,peers into the SpaceX 

Crew-1 capsule from the ISS. Photo: Me, via NASA TV

ON STATION: Last night, we watched Crew-1, SpaceX's Dragon capsule, approach and dock with the International Space Station. Once the connection was safely made, there were drawn-out opening the hatches operations. 

Eventually, the four 'newcomers' (NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi) were welcomed on board the ISS by the current crew of three (Rubins, as well as  Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos).

APPLYING OURSELVES: For the past few days, we have spent hours and hours and hours contemplating what's next for CJ. He is on track to finish his associate's degree this June. He had initially thought about taking a 'gap year,' - a year away from college to work and adventure, but, well #pandemic. 

College seems like a good place to park right about now.

So with that in mind, suddenly we find ourselves eyeball deep in college apps, online orientations, transcript requests, the FAFSA app, countless emails, acquiring letters of recommendation .. the list goes on and on. And everything is made a little bit more 'interesting' given his nontraditional educational journey.  He doesn't always fit neatly into boxes and bubbles. 

All that said, we're plugging away and exploring options. Stay tuned for further developments. 

Up and Away

NASA/Joel Kowsky

LIFT OFF: This evening, after watching the Seahawks go down in flames, we watched flames shoot from the rocket boosters as Crew-1 took off from the Florida Space Coast. These four (NASA's Shannon Walker, Mike Hopkins, and Victor Glover, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) were on board.

Photos: NASA and JAXA

The launch appeared to go without a hitch and the four will be on board the International Space Station tomorrow. SpaceX even nailed the landing of the rocket stage on the barge in the Atlantic Ocean, 

NO SHOW:  Friday morning, in anticipation of this weekend's big launch, we tuned into the STEM in 20 Facebook page. We were expecting to watch a program with NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, who  spent 141 days on board the International Space Station back in 2015. However, Lindgren was nowhere to be seen. Turns out he got called into work. And when NASA calls, you probably better answer the phone. So, the hosts filled in as best they could, but it was all just general space stuff the kids and I have heard dozens of times before, so we tuned out. The program is available online in case you want to see a special featuring an astronaut with no astronaut.

UP AND COMING: I recently received an email with a ton of (online, of course) events that I found interesting. I hope we can check some or all of them out. 

For instance, the National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, MD is offering free virtual field trips. They feature a variety of different themes each week. Many of the tours are  related to WWII topics, and they have a number of talks coming up. They even allow people to schedule a private online tour for groups of 6 or more. Eventbrite is an easy way to sign up for the tours.  

There are over 100,000 points of interest in the Historical Marker Database. It is a catalog of outdoor historical markers and commemorative plaques from around North America, complete with photographs and descriptions. Using the search function, you can see if there are any historical markers near your locale.The site also includes a link to an educational component, a  downloadable history project idea geared for 7th and 8th graders (though anyone of any age who enjoys learning could likely get something out of it). 

I mentioned a couple of posts back about virtual escape rooms. Turns out King County LIbrary System has posted an Olympic National Park digital escape room. Per the library's promo, "Someone must maintain Olympic National Park's trails to ensure safety. Are you up to the challenge? Try our virtual escape room Operation National Park. Solve puzzles and answer questions using logic, math, and map skills. This escape room was created for ages seven and older, but everyone is welcome to give it a try. You can work on it individually or as a team. The most important thing is to have fun.” Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfzUssNdq4g-FyIjpM4nKt__JtGAavtHWxM77MWhJ6itlHuIg/viewform.