Always the face of the program

My daughter is very charismatic.  She's likely to show up in the newspaper picture or posterabout things she participates in.  She was the face of Shorecrest softball.  The face of Oregon softball.  And look here, we got the annual report for University of Alabama, Birmingham School of Health Professionals.  Look who's in the picture on the top of the page?  Yup, there she is, now the face of UAB Occupational Therapy.  Who knew?

I still can't hardly believe she went there and graduated from that program.  Took a lot of guts and commitment to take that on.

Booties, back in business!

I was getting real low.  Then Naomi got busy and started knitting and now I have a bunch of booties to give away.  Keep those babies coming!

In case you didn't know, my mother and grandmother knit these baby booties.  They're the best, they don't come off.  This is major in baby bootie land.  They're from a 1901 pattern.  My mother always supplied me with booties to give away.  Every baby we heard about needed to have a pair of baby booties.  Every one.  Period.

It was literally my mother's dying wish that Naomi learn to make baby booties.  And she has.  So now she's our source.

Adult children - stuff

Like many people in our age and situation, especially those of us who have lived in a house for a long time (since July 1987, going on thirty years), we realize that we just have to get rid of a ton of items if we ever hope to move.  To say nothing of things associated with our four grown children.  Actually, most of that's gone.  The only person still storing things here is Susanna.  She came over yesterday to go to the Democratic Party Caucus with me and stayed behind to go through some of the boxes of her own stuff.  I think she got rid of quite a bit.  Here she is, working away.  Dennis supervised.

But, in June, Naomi returns with plans to go overseas.  She's been living in Arizona these past two years.  Guess where all of her living and classroom stuff will live for awhile.....

Yeah.

Rabbi Koch - SCORE

I'm going to have a much better version of this picture.  In fact, I paid $35 for a custom scan.

Because I want it.

Today, I went down to the MOHAI (Museum of History of Industry) resource building down in Georgetown.  Didn't know such a thing existed.  Do you know they have a research library there?  That they used to be the Seattle Historical Society.  I did not know.

The librarian had found several pictures for me, nothing too exciting, some exterior, some interior.

But this is the one, the interior, the white torah coverings indicate the High Holidays.  And there's the little torah I'd hear about.  If I can remember who mentioned it.  Who's the man?  It's not Rabbi Levine.  Of course, the obvious, the business suit,the bald head, it's Rabbi Koch!  In his synagogue.

It's a Seattle PI picture, the date on the back is unclear but it could be 1926 or 1928,  Would match this picture.

I love having an interior and I love having people in the picture and especially important people.

The flowers are little over the top but they really knew how to do flowers back then.  Great big bouquets cascading!

Jane Sanders Stadium opens its doors

The University of Oregon Softball team has its own stadium!  Yeah!  They built it in only ten months on the site of their old field.  Now I've spoken often of Howe Field.  It had its charm.  Kinda.  The players loved the field.  But really, it was time for the bulldozer on that thing.

The new place looks fancy and overdone, like they do in Eugene.  But it opens right now for their games with Stanford.

Sorry I'm not there but we're going next week for the UCLA series.

So glad they have a great place to play.  I'm sure there will be things to straighten out etc.

Picture taken from the Oregon Softball Twitter feed.

An embarassment of riches

Look what came in the mail today!

A whole big box of used tennis balls.  I think Teddy knows what we might do with them.  He didn't grab any but when I picked one out and offered it to him, he took it right off and went to the door so we could play fetch in the backyard.  Some dogs REALLY like to retrieve and he's one of them.  Known as a ball dog.  He'll bring it right back to me and drop it at my feet.  I did not teach him that.  He just know that's what you do.

We bought a big bag of used balls some years ago meeting somebody in a parking lot.  But they get lost or destroyed or go sailing right over the fence.  It happens.

We were getting kind of low.  But now we have lots!

What?

When I got home today, I saw evidence of something chewed up by the dog.  But what is it?  It's rubbery and something that was a sphere or half of a sphere.  This picture taken by my phone, not in very good focus.  The inside is brown and th outside seems to have some whice highlights.  Maybe a blue rim across the top.

When  figure it out, I'll probably be really mad.  But I don't know (neither does Dennis) what it is?

Susanna's coloring page

Here's an adult coloring page that my daughter Susanna made for an Occupational Therapy conference.  How does she do it?  She's such a sure hand with her drawing,  Everything is perfect.  I cannot imagine being able to make everything so crisp and in perspective.

She's always been able to do it; she's just gotten even better over the years.

Synagogue Restoration Porn

I realize that term may be a little edgy, a little tense.

One question I've asked in this project is ... What have other groups done.? Have there been other synagogues that have been restored by community groups?  How did it turn out; how did they do it?

The obvious example is the Eldridge Synagogue on the Lower East Side of New York City.  I have a semi-promotional book that tells the story and all of these fabulously tricked out pictures.  Sumptuous scrumptious, larger than life.  Like a well turned out air brushed breast.

Here's a few, there is some distortion because two of them were double page spreads.

The book is "Beyond the Facade: Museum at Eldridge."

They started with a large run-down ruin of a synagogue and restored it to its former beauty and beyond.  About the same time, that the  members of the community were trying to restore the Old Sanctuary.

But they had 20 million dollars along with Brooke Astor fund-raising for them.

The Old Sanctuary was never this grand.  But here on the upper left coast, the money wasn't there.

We can admire and appreciate their work.

Those cherry blossoms

The 'quad' at UW is full of older cherry trees.  That blossom at this time of year.  Cherry trees blossom around all over town about now.  But there's something very special about THESE trees.  I think it might be similar to Japan and cherry blossoms.  People congregate and sit on the grass under the trees.  Picnic.  Throw frisbees.  Take tons of pictures of the trees and of each other near the trees.  Even though it's 45 degrees with a brisk breeze and it's finals week, people are still out there.  Maybe it's that 'place' thing again.

Taken at the 'bottom' of the quad by Suzallo Library.

Shhhh

One of the most useful, gotta have it websites.

You know, the City Light Outage map.  Cannot live without it.

So, I wasn't paying much attention to the weather forecasts.  Not that it mattered.  But it was really rainy on our Uwajamaya run this morning.  Good haul for the food bank btw, probably 150 pounds, mostly produce.  Then it got rainy and awful.  Then I went to a team meeting kind of in the middle of Shoreline at this big grocery store.  Which I had actually forgotten, thank goodness for email reminders.  No power.  We sat by the window and had our meeting anyway.  Winds blowing like crazy everywhere.  Get out that outage map.  Yikes!  The whole west side of Shoreline out.

That bad feeling.  We always always lose our power.

Wind blows and blows.  We keep our power.  Check out this image of the outage map as of 9 pm.  We're slightly northwest of the north end of Lake Washington (the big lake).

All around us, power is out.  Except us.  This NEVER happens people.  I'm getting a case of survivor guilt.  Dennis suggests we turn out the lights and pretend we don't have power.

Pearls Before Swine

A friend told me about this comic strip in the newspaper.  I get used to reading my favorites and don't take the time to look at others.  I don't know about all of his weird characters but the slacking grandparents are hilarious.  There's a mom who always wants to leave her kids with her parents but then they don't do the job to her satisfaction and it drives her nuts.

The day before, she came looking for her kids, where are they?  Grandpa says they're riding their bikes around the block.  "Who's watching them?" she shrieks.  "Not us, we're reading the paper," he replies.

Today she wants to have a 'talk' about their non-performance....

Whoop! 1905 Bazaar pictures!

I know this is a scan of a copy of a scan of a microfilmed old newspaper article.  But other than that, it's perfect.  I went down to UW to check an article about the design of the old sanctuary that I found in Rabbi Koch's scrapbook.  Unattributed.  My guess was Seattle P-I 2-4-1906.  Same day that the Seattle Times printed an article with a lousier picture.  The people in the newspaper microfilm dept were very helpful.  Yup, there it was, just where I expected it.

It occurred to me that maybe I could get the P-I's coverage of the bazaar put on by the Women's Auxilliary in Dec 1905.  An untold story of women's contribution.  The women put on a weeklong holiday bazaar in December and made, according to them 8-9K.  They made a huge deal about it, called in every gimmick they could think of.  The total cost of the finished building was 36K.    Since when can you have a bazaar and raise 1/4 of the price of a new building????  So I started looking at the P-I articles and I found these pictures.  Pictures of the bazaar!  The doll booth and the flower booth!  It makes it so much more real for me to see the pictures.  I'm so thrilled.  I haven't looked at all the days.  There was no index so I just had to look through the film.  On 2 different unfamiliar machines.

Tub project

Here's a project I've been working on.  With my friend Trina!  Get busy Trina!!  The idea is every day (or so) fill up your tub with stuff that you are getting rid of.  How about an old rolodex from the early 1980s?  Crafty stuff when I'm not crafty?  Some old raincoats in the back of the coat closet that don't even look familiar.  Etc etc.  I'm not saying that things will get more organized but there will be less stuff.  Really I'm just filling up boxes on the table in the garage for Dennis to take to the Goodwill.

If you see something here that you gave me in good faith, I apologize.  I think I've done six tubs worth so far.  You can do it too!

Harvest Son

I haven't totally given up on this blog, just mostly.  When did I start it?  Spring of 2007.  I've written thousands of entries.

A shout out to this  book I'm currently reading..  Harvest Son by David Mas Masimoto.  My term for it, gentle-hearted.  Just read a few sentences about it on Amazon and they used the word 'lyrical.'  That too.  A memoir ot a man, maybe a little younger than us, not sure.  He grew up on a raisin and peach farm near Fresno and then gong to UC Berkeley he returns to the central valley and starts farming with his father.  Where he stays.  With commitment and fondness.

Gives me a sense in the validity of our own decisions we make about our lives.  And how, sometimes, we can do it, we can do what we intend and make it our own.  A fascinating view of a community that I didn't know much about.  I think it was a book assigned for Naomi's ethnic studies class and she left it around and I took it.

Also went to watch a little collegiate softball...