• Tag Archives Kate
  • Empanadas

    Samain                              Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Empanadas.  Kate and I came to enjoy this Latin perogi, or pasty, so we decided to make some ourselves.  This former baker did the dough while Kate made the filling and baked.  Cooking together is fun and I think we’ll do more of it as Kate eases in to full time retirement, possibly as early as March of next year.

    By making more than we need we can then freeze some and have meals later from one morning’s work.

    Whoa.  Ratcheted myself up about that presentation.  This happened because I agreed to do it before we left on our cruise, knowing I’d have barely a week to put it together when we got back.  It began looming as we hit Tierra del Fuego and turned north, the turn that in almost all my trips means heading home.

    That meant I came home ready to cram, which I did.  After years of deadlines in college, papers and tests alike, I adopted an I’d rather get it done ahead of time attitude, so I prefer a relaxed pace, finishing something like a week before a due date.  I didn’t have that luxury this time.

    The church did send me a nice e-mail a moment ago, so I feel good about that.

    Since getting back from the cruise, I’ve begun a short burst training regimen.  That entails working at maximum effort for 45 seconds to a minute, I run on the treadmill at about 6.5 mph at 5% elevation right now, then getting off and doing resistance work or stretching, getting back on 4 minutes later, going full tilt boogie again, then off, until 4-5 minutes of maximum intensity have accumulated.

    It’s fast and crams a lot of work into a short of period of time, plus, according to the literature I’ve read is much better than traditional workouts lasting much longer.  Even so, I also do a 50 minute low intensity treadmill workout on the off days.  I do the short burst three times a week.

    Now, if I can figure out how to cut my calories in half.


  • Distracted By The Future

    Fall                                                         Full Autumn Moon

    Just realized I’m going to have change my headings once we’re south of the equator. Seasonal reversal in the Southern Hemisphere. I knew about it, of course, but hadn’t factored it into the blog.

    These days I have my eye on the National Hurricane Center. Right now it says what I want it to say at least through a week from Sunday: no tropical cyclones. This is the hurricane season, so that could change.

    As our embarkation approaches, I find myself withdrawing from now in anticipation of then. A violation of the be here now idea, I know, but it seems the pull of vacation exceeds the adhesion of home. Based on previous experience, this process will reverse itself about a week before the trip ends.

    Why did we choose a vacation lasting right at 6 weeks? Because we could, of course. But, why a cruise?

    I just read a remark by Simon Winchester, author of Krakatoa and most recently, Atlantic, in which he dismissed large ship cruising because it takes away the direct experience of the ocean. He has a purist point, I suppose; but, some of us were born to sail the ocean blue in small craft, appreciating each swell and squall, but another large chunk of us can neither afford that nor desire it.

    Here’s what appeals to me about a cruise. Being on the ocean, cosseted or not, puts us on water, the element that covers 70% of the earth’s surface. That experience, perhaps not as dramatic as Winchester prefers, has a magic of its own. Sort of like traveling through space instead of our atmosphere. A primal difference.

    Kate finds the unpack and pack once part of cruising a primary benefit. In cruising the hotel goes with you from country to country, eliminating the schlepping of luggage from train or plane or car and back again.

    Relaxation comes as a corollary. The less schlepping, the more relaxing. Relaxation alone makes cruising a wonderful vacation. You have a cook, a maid, a ship to explore, few demands. That means time can be devoted to reading, drawing, exercise, enjoying your partner’s company, sleeping. Here, the ocean adds a good deal. Contrary to Winchester, the ocean’s presence cradles the ship and, when the weather is good, rocks us to sleep. There is, too, something about being on a ship, on the ocean, away from everything land bound that frees the mind.

    Cruising does limit the kind of in-depth exposure to a culture that many people enjoy. Shore excursions, except the priciest, tend to stay with driving limits of the port. Still, even when I have traveled hotel to hotel, unless we rent a car, our excursions are limited and even with a car, you can still see only so much.

    The bigger limit than nearness to the port is time. A cruise ship is rarely in a port more than two days. That short period of time makes serendipity almost impossible. This is a big downside for me, but compensated for by the relaxation.

    Cruising is a particular kind of vacation, not the kind I would prefer every time, but for a celebration together with an emphasis on relaxation, it’s the perfect post-retirement mode of travel.

     

     


  • Bee-Keeping, The Third Year

    Fall                                                         Full Autumn Moon

    Our revels now have ended.  The very last of the year’s harvest, four-foot long decorative squash and birdhouse style gourds, Kate brought in yesterday. 

    The bees are done for the year.  Two colonies will die over the winter and the third, with luck, will survive.  Even if it does, this is my last  year for overwintering colonies.  The part-time, small quantity operation we have here doesn’t justify the extra work of mite treatments, concern over various ailments only caught by colonies that survive from one year to the next and the inhibited production of the colony developing as a parent colony.

    Artemis Hives now has two honey harvests under its belt in this, the third year of bee-keeping here.  Kate and I have developed a work flow.  She takes care of wooden ware, uncapping frames and bottling while I put foundations into the frames, manage the colonies, remove the honey supers and bring them to the house and insert them in the extractor.

    Three hives, or even two, will make honey enough for us and our friends.  The process is more straightforward after three seasons, now heading into the fourth.  The bees have become part of our life here, like the perennials, the vegetables, the orchard and the dogs before them.

    We also have the beginning of a label collection with 2010 and 2011 labels designed and produced by Woolly Mammoth Mark Odegard.


  • Untamed and Primal

    Fall                                                Waxing Autumn Moon

    Warning:  weak stomachs should not read further.

    Kate yelled, but I didn’t hear.  Rigel, let inside after breakfast and a morning’s romp in the woods, came in, lay down on our small oriental rug, and, as dogs sometimes do, threw up.  Gross, I know, but after a while with dogs, many dogs as we have had, this becomes part of the experience.

    In this particular case however, it was not eaten grass or clumps of cloth (some dogs love to shred and eat cloth), but most of a recently ingested rabbit:  the head, a hind quarter and much of the softer parts.  Since none of breakfast came up with it, this was a post-breakfast hunt, likely followed by bolting because three other dogs Vega, Kona and Gertie wanted some, too.

    Since we have about an acre and a half of woods with many brush piles, which we create intentionally for the purpose of harboring wildlife, our dogs always have hunting options, but we’ve not seem many offerings brought up on the deck in recent times.

    Since our dogs are all sight hounds, or at least half sight hound coupled with half coon hound, they come equipped at birth with the instinct to hunt and kill on their own.  We’ve had various levels of skill among our dogs, but some have been exceptional.

    Rigel is one.  Sortia, our Russian witch, a female Irish Wolfhound who weighed around 180 and was never fat, was and remains the champ.  She took down a deer by herself during an interlude at the breeders.  She brought us raccoon, ground hog, many rabbits and, to our chagrin, the occasional neighborhood cat who strayed foolishly over our fence.

    The whippets are no slouches either.  Kona has killed many a rabbit, one time bringing a very fresh head and dropping it at the kitchen door.

    Long ago I slipped over to the Farmer McGregor attitude toward rabbits so I have no problem with our dogs keeping the rabbit supply on the thin side.  They’re protecting our vegetable garden.  I imagine their presence also keeps out deer.

    It’s not why we keep dogs, but it is a good side benefit.

    All this hunting reminds us, too, that beneath the cheerful, loving persona our beloved dogs show to us, there is still within them an untamed and primal beast, a carnivore not really so far removed from the wolf.


  • Back to the 50’s

    Fall                                          Waxing Autumn Moon

    Kate and I had dinner tonight at Jax.  Instant 1950’s.  Even the crowd seemed largely–though not exclusively–from that era.  Including us of course.

    This is a place where they print your name on matchbook covers when you make a reservation and where the signature dishes are steaks, more steaks, and lobster.  It has a wood paneled dining room, a garden area with lit-up trees and a huge stone fireplace.  Linen napkins and too heavy cutlery.  Waitresses and busboys in black and white.

    The service is cordial, the drinks look generous and the dining room has a quiet, clinking atmosphere conducive to intimate conversation.  Rowdiness, back slapping, football on TV, foosball and air hockey just don’t belong here.

    We parked in Lobster Lane and walked across the street to this brick covered building.

    Our meal celebrated our time with my brother Mark and what we hope is a successful conclusion in Saudi Arabia.

     


  • Sunday

    Fall                                                             Waning Harvest Moon

    A gorgeous fall day.  A little Ovid in the morning, a nap, a flu shot, drop off audio books at the library, help Mark practice parking.

    The bonus of the ongoing visa madness is that he may be able to take, and hopefully pass, his driving test.  That would give him a driver’s license, a second i.d. and ticket to an international driver’s license.  He could then rent cars in Saudi, get around on his own.

    Kate bought four 10 pound boxes of peaches and has made peach pie, canned peachs, mint peach-raspberry jelly.  She also picked more of our raspberries and made two raspberry pies.  We’re going to freeze these pies.

    When I harvest the leeks, I will make chicken leek pot pies and freeze them, too.  That way, when we get back from the cruise, we’ll have some tasty home grown and home made treats ready for us.  Greeting ourselves when we come home.

    Time has begun to run down hill, gathering steam heading toward the Port of New York.  I’m excited, eager.  Ready.


  • Changes

    Lughnasa                                                  Waning Harvest Moon

    May I present Autumn?  It comes to us in russets and golds, grays and rain, with some chill and occasional warmth.  Autumn continues our seasonal review, following the spectacular summer with its heat and its emphasis on differing shades of green, a color wheel of blooms and food.

    Autumn, like our earlier season, Spring, is a time of change, the gradual transition from the heat and bombast of the growing season to the bleak outer landscapes of the fallow months.

    Autumn also marks the beginning of the academic year, a moment of new beginnings, a springtime of the inner world.  This part of the season has its own holiday, Michaelmas, the holy day for the Archangel Michael, and the traditional opening of the English academic year.

    In my life change has blown in with the cold rain.  Mark will leave us sometime in the next few days, before the end of October.  The growing season has wound down with only potatoes, beans, leeks and chard left in the garden.  A long vacation grows closer by the day, less than a month away.

    There is, too, a growing sense that a major life change may be imminent.  Just what it will be is unclear, though it feels like retirement may be in the cards, joining Kate in her journey beyond the world of work.  How would that manifest in my life, long ago cast off from the port marked Employment?

    Leaving behind the era of productive engagement with the world feels premature for me, but a new freedom may emerge.  It may longer be necessary to lash myself to the mast while sailing between the Charybdis of success and the Scylla of ambition.

    Mystery.  The once hidden ocean of mystery lies beyond the current horizon.  And I’ve already set sail.


  • Lemons and Very Little Lemonade

    Lughnasa                                                   Waning Harvest Moon

    So.  Yesterday I got up, got ready to go into the museum, got in the car and got no engine love.  Click.  Click.  Click.  Of course, I only had adequate time to get there since I never leave early.  What to do?  I put the charger on it and got back…wait for it.  An error message meaning the battery won’t take a charge.

    Anyhow we have that new Rav4.  I hopped in it and made it on time.  Or close enough.

    Got home after a long stint at the museum in time that Kate could go to work in the Rav4.

    What greets me at the kitchen table?  A nice note from the IRS saying they had checked our 2009 return, 2009?, and now feel we owe the government an additional $45,000.  Say what?  The letter of “explanation” did not communicate in any language I understood.  WTF?  OMG.  Well, a good thing we pay that accountant to handle this kind of stuff.  Could ruin a perfectly bad day.

    While I read this cheery note, Mark says, “Rigel’s bleeding.”  Uh, huh.  A small nick on the ear.  Unimportant.

    Earlier, I discover, the Saudi embassy wants Mark to take an HIV test.  Good thing we have a doctor in the house.  Kate circles the HIV results on the lab work already sent.  Oh.

    Also, some power of attorney for somebody for some purpose seems to be needed, requiring yet another communication back to Saudi, which will produce an e-mail to Mark, which he will then sign and Fedex to Travisa which will then hand it to the Saudi Embassy in Washington.  Geez.

    Other than that Mrs. Lincoln…


  • Life Lesson Learned

    Lughnasa                                               Waxing Harvest Moon

    Looks like Mark was more right.  Not sure yet, because all the data isn’t in, but he understands the culture of English language schools and I don’t.  Life lesson learned here.  The lesson?  20 years of experience beats book learnin’ and casual travel.  Sorta makes sense, doesn’t it?

    No matter what happens with the visa, Saudi situation, Mark’s time here will come to a close in the next few weeks.  We leave for our cruise in October and he doesn’t have a job here.  I hope he still ends up in Saudi.  We’ll see.

    Mark and I are here by ourselves for the next 5 days.  Kate got on the 7:40 am Northstar this morning, headed for the Hiawatha Line and MSP.   Having the Northstar close by has dramatically changed getting to and from the airport.  Now, we can board a morning commuter train, catch the light rail to the airport and when we get back, we can reverse field and end up within a short drive of our home.  Just like a big city.


  • Traveling

    Lughnasa                                                 Waxing Harvest Moon

    Another fine day with that clean blue sky we borrow from our Canadian cousins this time of year.  When my family used to go to Stratford, Ontario for the Shakespeare Festival, I came to associate these skies with those crown topped highway signs, the ones that always told me I was in a foreign country.

    Canada was my only foreign country visited until 1989 when I joined a group of folks who went to Bogota, Colombia in search of better ways to finance the work of the poor.  Not long after that trip I met Kate.  We honeymooned from the south of Europe to Inverness, Scotland and have been many places since then.

    Cruising has its critics, but the upcoming one will be our third and I’ve become a fan.  Yes, it’s true that there is only a brief and often very casual encounter with the countries on the itinerary, a shore excursion or a visit to a local market, perhaps a meal.  And, yes, the travel itself does not take you through a country’s particular geography (except in the instance of the Panama Canal and the river cruises in Europe and those lecture/trek based cruises like ones put on by the National Geographic or a University) though the coast line does offer some sense of the particularity of place.  Yes, you’re traveling in the company of a large number of people, though the actual size varies depending on the ship.  All these things are true.

    There are, however, compensations.  A cruise ship at sea moves through the waters of the world ocean, a primal experience not available in any other form of travel.

    I discovered on our first cruise that if I got up at 5:30 or 6:00 am, I could visit any part of the ship alone; especially, the Crow’s Nest, a bar/lounge on all Holland American ships set in the bow.  It provides panoramic views as the ship moves ahead, water curling away from the bow and often nothing in view, neither ahead nor behind, to starboard or port, just ocean.

    While at sea, too, I find the experience of being on board very calming, a certain zen time that allows for that other aspect of vacation, relaxation, that I so often miss on treks to museums and busy hikes, meals, historic places.  This long voyage will allow for a great deal of calm, a time to purge the system.

    Then, too, on this particular trip the ship traverses the wonderful Chilean southern coast line, filled with small islands, glaciers and historic passages like the Straits of Magellan, the Darwin Straits and below them all Cape Horn, places for which a ship is the best way to travel.  As Magellan knew.

    It is also time for Kate and me to focus on our life together, dining and relaxing, just enjoying each others company.

    This is a trip where the conveyance is a major part of the experience.