Some excerpts from Scrapbook of a Year and a Day

Karen Molenaar Terrell's Scrapbook of a Year and a Day is, essentially, a compilation of Facebook posts written between January 19, 2020 and January 20, 2021. If I were to collect my FB posts, it would be very, very dull indeed, but Karen eliminated the silly cat videos, if she ever posted any, and has instead put together a moving and coherent account of the tumultuous year we all lived through and her personal experience of the year following the death of her father, Dee Molenaar. What I particularly love about Karen--and this book--is her perspective on things and her constant striving to live up to her ideals.

I'm really not a dog-earrer--I find it a vile habit--and yet I folded down the corners on several pages. For example:

August 25, 2020
Please do not tell me what I believe, feel, and think.
-Do not assume because I am a progressive and tend to vote for Democrats that I don't believe in God, "hate the Bible," and want to kill babies and take away your guns.
--Do not assume because I believe in God that I am anti-science, believe the earth is flat and the world was, literally, created in seven days.
--Do not assume that because I'm white, middle-aged and named "Karen" I am racist and want to talk to your manager.
--Do not assume because I identify as "Christian" I am conservative, opposed to LGBTQ rights, opposed to women's rights, travel heavily armed, and am voting for you-know-who.

I think that if we see each other in terms of stereotypes we miss out on some beautiful friendships and kinships with our fellow humans.

My biggest challenge right now is myself. I guess that's always my biggest challenge, isn't it? Stay kind, Karen. Stay true. Keep loving. Look for ways to bring humor to those in desperate need of a good laugh. Don't hate. Never hate. Be wise--but don't be cynical. Be discerning--but don't be cruel.

Love, help me be what you need me to be.
Amen.

October 17, 2020
{A lot of anecdote, involving buying shoes for a guy on the street, deleted here because there's only so much typing I'm willing to do. But it's a beautiful story.}

People WANT to do right by each other, don't they?

I felt like I was walking on holy ground today. I think . . . I think it all balances out, you know? --Good disperses itself throughout the cosmos--and I know that I'll always have what I need--there's no lack--there's no competition--there's no need to go through life clutching and afraid and feeling like Good is limited and finite, and if someone else has enough then I won't have enough.

Solace at the Cemetery
In these panicked times
In these fretful, frenzied, frantic times
I have found solace at the cemetery.
The shells of those who've lived
here and moved on
to whatever comes beyond
no longer need to distance themselves
from anyone, from me.
I find peace with them--the chrysalises
of my friends--Mike, Rachael, and Debby.

I wander amid the tombstones, snapping
photos of them, and the spinning wheels--
the bright spinners are the only movement
in the cemetery and I feel
drawn to the movement of their rainbow
spinning, faster and faster as I approach,
in a show just for me.

I'm allowed to be here. In the sunshine.
In the peace of the cemetery.
And no one disturbs me as I wander
through the final beds
for the shells of those who
are no longer scared of what lies ahead.

I'm not saying it's a flawless book--there are a lot of commas I'm itching to add to these excerpts--but it's a truly beautiful book, full of genuine goodness and kindness. These days, I'll really, really take that.

To have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others

I really can't say why this bit from Lolly Willowes appeals to me so, but it does. The book, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, recently reissued by NYRB, is an odd thing. It's a pretty standard Viragoesque novel for the first 150 pages or so, and then the protaganist realizes that the inhabitants of the village she has moved to attend regular Satanic Sabbaths (which seem to consist primarily of dancing). It's the sort of odd development that might annoy me, but in this case it's a bit like the prim English version of the final bit of The Master and Margarita. And it allows the title character to deliver this bit of social commentary:

It’s like this. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, and Puritans. In places seen from the train. You know. Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the time being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull. And on Sunday they put on plain stuff gowns and starched white coverings on their heads and necks—the Puritan ones did—and walked across the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. Sin and Grace, and God and the –” (she stopped herself just in time), “and St. Paul. All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. And on the way back they listened to more talk. Talk about the sermon, or war, or cock-fighting, and when they got back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner. I t sounds very petty to complain about, but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust is age, settling down. Settling down! You never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immortality about being settled down on by one day after another. And they think about how they were young once, and they see new young women, just like what they were, and yet as surprising as if it had never happened before, like trees in spring. But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and no one finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not be noticed. Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a housewife, and rouses them up—when they might sit in their doorways and think—to be doing still!”
. . .
“Respectable women keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch out your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and –what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny house-wifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led.”

-Lolly Willowes’ describes a woman’s lot to Satan Pages 211 – 215 of Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

As of August 1

 Today's piddly 2.04-mile roundtrip to the Farmers Market got me to my latest meaningless goal one day later than I'd hoped:

though I did, a least, get past 4,500 "lifetime" miles yesterday, thanks to some errands downtown to which we added a dozen miles or so in West Seattle looping back home with an assist from the water taxi. 

 

I love the way my mind registers that orange oblong thing as my water bottle.

For whatever reason, I'm compelled to note that I've been recording my miles on love-to-ride for only a few years now--and actually recording every ride for less than three--so the lifetime in question is probably that of my current front light, and certainly not Bessie's lifetime (she's been old enough to drink for years now).

Birthday Week--Mostly Bakeries

Not so much Waiting for the Interurban, as waiting for the photographer

It's Thursday evening and I confess I'm a bit tired so this post may be heavy on unedited photos, Google-willing, with minimal text content. But who can say? (Well, I could, if I were to go back and edit this introductory text after I finish with the rest of it, but what are the odds?) 

Scott and I have taken the week off, ostensibly to celebrate my birthday in relaxed fashion, but it's been a pretty hard-working several days, with some rat slaughter (Scott), recipe testing (me), and yard tidying (both of us). We have nothing planned for tomorrow except picking up our bikes from the repair shop, which is something of a relief. I'm hoping for some quiet time in an Adirondack chair. We'll see how that goes; last time it led to sawing off some lower limbs of the magnolia and lilac. 

So then. For my birthday proper we realized my dream of bicycling to several bakeries. Scott would tell you that "several" means "more than one," but in this case it means seven. It was, blessedly, a cool and somewhat misty morning when we set out for Sugar on Queen Anne:

which, as it turned out, was the only bakery at which we sat down to have coffee and share a pastry. It was excellent:

Sadly, they're still not offering ceramic cups, but these were at least compostable

 Fortified, we coasted our bikes down the sidewalk on Mercer to meet up with the bicycle path that leads to South Lake Union and on to the path around the west side of Lake Union and thence to Bakery #2 of the day, Byen Bakeri:

The panniers would only get more loaded from here on.

 Scott waited outside and snapped the bikes and signage, while I went in to see what they had on offer. Once the first booty of the day was stored in the pannier, we headed toward Fremont where we visited the first new-to-us bakery of the day, Sea Wolf. (Note: there are no photos of the rest of the pastries purchased on the day. The quantity is downright embarrassing and really, very few looked their best by the time we got home. Restraint is not my thing when it comes to bakeries, and even carefully loaded pastries don't benefit from several hours of bumping over Seattle's mean streets.)

Sea Wolf currently has only a walk-up window, but some nice outdoor seating  is just up the stairs. We didn't loiter, however.

 Back on the Burke Gilman, post-Sea Wolf, we went our longest distance between bakeries. We left the trail at Rainier Vista on the UW campus where the vista was not so much mountain as Canada Geese, dozens upon dozens of geese, going about their goosey business of eating the grass. They were ever so charming but, oddly, I took no photos of them. We looped around the eastern edge of campus (so much more pleasant than riding straight up the Ave), encountering a little grove of large trees I had no idea existed though it must have been there decades ago when I was on campus daily: 

Bessie pretending we're miles from the city

We left campus and continued on the pleasant streets beyond Greek Row until, eventually, we reached the two great delights of NE 65th: Sod House Bakery and Bagel Oasis:

I had to wait a few minutes at Bagel Oasis for the fresh pumpernickel bagels to come out of the oven. Sadly, we did not eat them on the spot, but they were still fine several hours later. 

We did a little route-finding in order to avoid riding back up busy 65th given that it has no bike lane, discovering a cute little neighborhood park/green space just north of the bakeries. When we went that way on Bookstore Day Week we somehow missed that there is a path through the park. It was still followed by a bit of a hill climb, but on quiet residential streets where we could hear what sounded a lot like young eagles. After a few missed turns we worked our way back to 65th and so to Ravenna Blvd and the wide, smooth, separated bike lanes around Green Lake. Last time we were there, the lanes were still being worked on so we rode on the street, but now it was the dedicated lane for us. Nice while it lasted. We crossed Aurora and rode up 83rd, past the lamentably closed-on-the-day Coyle's Bake Shop, down Phinney to the second new-to-us stop of the day, Celine Patisserie. They had some nice tables on their wee patio outside, but we didn't loiter, since I was getting anxious about time.

Phinney does not lack for fine bakeries; we cruised down a dozen blocks or so to get to Fresh Flours by the zoo. It's nothing like so charming as our Fresh Flours in West Seattle, but what is?

Fresh Flours, North Seattle Edition

Well, there's always our final bakery stop of the day, Cafe Besalu, which was a lovely long coast down the hill to Ballard. Miraculously, we were able to cross 15th NW without the benefit of traffic lights. That never happens, except, apparently, on my birthday. Oh, my beloved Besalu:

Bessie just looks so at home here . . .

 I was, by this time, somewhat ravenous, and I do love hanging out on the bench in front of Besalu and yet we just added a croissant or two to the pannier and continued on because our final stop of the day was La Carta de Oaxaca, now open all afternoon and evening, with plentiful outdoor seating. Oh, Oaxaca, how I have missed you!

While we ate outside, I love the interior decor so that's the snap I post here.

And, okay, maybe we drank outside too.

 In yet more happy news, the Ballard Locks are (is?) again open to bicycle traffic so we were able to avoid the Ballard Bridge and cross the water by way of the locks. There's a bit of uphill initially on the Magnolia side of things, followed by about a mile of downhill coasting in, again, a dedicated bike lane--blissful, it was, as was the rest of the ride along the waterfront and even Alaskan Way. But by the time we'd reached Harbor Island, I was dreading the final few miles uphill in West Seattle so we put the bikes on a bus and multi-modaled the final leg. I justified it by pointing out that we'd have to get back on the bikes to take them in for their tune-ups after we off-loaded the panniers anyway. 

 The bakery tour was just shy of 33 miles, plus 2 miles to drop off the bikes and then the walk home. Not quite the Camino de Santiago, but something, right?

Even the bathrooms at bakeries offer positive affirmations

1,000 miles

Oh, it's the little things and for me, today, it's that updating my love to ride numbers with this week's lousy back-and-forth commute miles has gotten me to exactly 1,000 miles just shy of mid-July. Sadly, I expect that my overall numbers for the remaining five and a half months of the year will be lower. Biking to and from the office means my miles three days per week will be just over 4 rather than the 6 or 7 that was fairly consistent when Scott and I were going for after-work "fun and fitness" rides around the neighborhood but still. I'm pleased about this:

Because I'm just that shallow, or just that easily contented, depending on one's perspective. And, I hope, we'll get a few longer rides in over the remainder of the summer and early fall. Good lord willin'.

Apricot - lemon preserves, 2021

 

Domesticity with Apricots: 12.5 cups total

We bought apricots last week and also harvested close to twenty more from our very own tree, but it wasn't until today that we actually made a move on making this year's apricot preserves. Like the raspberry jam, it's pretty lemon forward which we both like a great deal. Whether it's everyone's cup of tea is another question, but then few people are as enthused about apricot preserves as I am. This year's batch is particularly deserving of its "summer sunshine in a jar" code name.

 After more calculating than one might think called for, we ended up weighing up 7 pounds of pitted apricots and cooking them in two separate batches. (That one of the burners had some sort of meltdown yesterday made things just that much more challenging.) We divided the apricots into two batches of 3.5 pounds each. For each batch we put

about 2.25 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of water

into a large pot and brought it to a boil before letting it simmer a bit until it became clear. While Scott was busy stirring that so it wouldn't stick and burn, I was chopping up the apricots into smallish bits so they'd cook faster and generally break down better. I added half of that chopped apricot (so about 1.75 pounds) to the sugar water and we cooked it over medium heat until it was all getting nicely melded and cooked down--about twentyish minutes, I think. The remainder of the apricot (another 1.75 pounds) then got added to the pot and all that cooked, again at mediumish heat with a lot of stirring and minimal neglect, until it all became a pleasing consistency--a mostly smoothish texture with some interesting chunks still--close to another half hour of cooking probably. When we thought it was close we added lemon juice and lemon zest. I had zested and juiced most of two lemons. I used probably 4 or 5 tablespoons of juice and half  the zest in the first pot and about the same in the second pot; we had a fair bit of lemon juice left over for the evening's cocktails.

The ladling into jars went pretty smoothly, aside from the time I was mistaken about having screwed the lid on properly; I'll just say that could have been much worse. Scott opted to give all the filled jars a water bath just to be thorough while I concentrated on quality testing with crackers and chevre.

Gradka would not have approved of snacking testing on the production floor.

But she would, I think, be pleased with this year's jewel-like tones.

Raspberry-Lemon Jam 2021

 

The essential, traditional test

 Another brief post to record life chez Aurora. We took advantage of this morning's cool temperatures--and having invested in several boxes of berries at yesterday's farmer's market--to make a batch of raspberry jam. We did not skimp on the lemon juice and zest so it's nicely lemony. This year's recipe mirrored what we did in 2019:

For each pot:

6 cups of rinsed berries, mashed and cooked over medium-heat for 15 minutes. 

Add to raspberries and then cook for about 10 minutes:

4 cups of granulated sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of one large lemon (about 3-5 tablespoons)

Use cold-plate test to determine that jam is ready to go into sterilized jars.

2 pots of jam = 14 jars (aka 13 cups) of raspberry delight

The apricots we bought yesterday need a few days to ripen a bit before we can move onto this year's apricot preserves.