Category Archives: family

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Summer sunset

I still don’t stay up much past nine most nights, but my young adult offspring talked me into a beach walk the other evening. We went down to Fort Worden and the Point Wilson Lighthouse. The sunset was glorious. I went back to the car for a jacket right away because the water temperature is around 51 degrees. It cools down quickly. The tide was coming in, so we only walked about half a mile, but it was gorgeous. This is looking north from Point Wilson towards Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands…. over the kelp beds.

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Morning coffee

This is for Photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #62. I have a Little Free Library built into my fence. There is a bench that goes through the fence. Sometimes I put out a carafe of coffee. On the back is a small table that folds down. Now that the sun is getting up so early, I am often out there watching the dawn….

The red rose has been there for years, but never bloomed until this summer and last summer, because the deer ate the buds as fast as they formed. The deer have come in once when we left the gate open, but we’ve been careful since then.

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Katy B’s Fruit Torte

Katherine White Burling was my maternal grandmother, and this recipe is attributed to her. I still have the small three ring binder that my mother gave me when I was in high school, explaining that my sister and I had to do some of the cooking. We told her what we wanted to make and she would write the recipe in our book and help us. I wrote this recipe out in the 1970s.

preheat the oven to 350 F

cream: 1 C sugar
1/2 C butter

while the butter is softening enough to cream, cut up fruit: apples, pears, peaches, rhubarb, or use berries…

Add: 1 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
salt
2 eggs

Spread in in a buttered, floured pan. Cover with chopped fruit: apples, pears, peaches. Today I am using rhubarb and a peach. I particularly like the tartness of rhubarb.

Sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice
Dot with butter on top.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
Cook until browned a little in the part that rises around the fruit, and when a toothpick comes out clean.

mmmmmm

For a while I lived at 7500 feet and had to alter recipes:
subtract 3 tablespoons sugar
use 3/4 tsp baking powder

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Nipple of Knowledge

After the graduation ceremony was over, we wandered around the  Washington State University campus to take pictures. My son explained that the window on the top of the library is called the Nipple of Knowledge, an important photography destination.  Hooray for all of the graduates and many thanks to the font of learning!

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Advice to young people

My biggest piece of advice to young singles and young couples is: put half of each take home salary away. Married or not married, and I don’t care how committed you are.

I know people who lose their house when one half of a couple is sick, and the other can’t pay all the bills on one salary. We don’t want to think about illness or cancer, but it happens. Young parents, with one very ill and the other with a job, children and a sick spouse. Having a reserve is way more important than keeping up with the Joneses, unless you happen to inherit like Mr. Trump.

If you each put half of your take home salary away, then when life throws surprises at you, you will have a reserve. A big reserve if the surprises hold off for a while. Divide that half into retirement and half into money that you have access to in emergencies.

I listed the top ten causes of death in the US in 2012 here, but lets look by age: http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2012-a.pdf.

From age 1 to 44 the top cause of death is accidents, unintentional injuries.

Suicide is second from age 15 to 44.

Cancer takes over as number one, malignant neoplasms, at age 45 to 65.

After 65, the number one cause of death is the heart, and that is where the biggest numbers are. But if a younger cause of death affects your family, it feels unfair, wrong, as if we all expect to like to age 78 or beyond.

Untintentional injury, that is, accidents, are broken down here: http://www.cdc.gov/injury. When I do physicals on teens, I ask them what the number one cause of death is for teens. They all know the answer, even if they have to think for a moment: motor vehicle accidents.

But lets look at accidents in the age 25-65 age group: poisonings. What? Poisoning? And NOT intentional…. what is going on there? It is drugs, legal and illegal, but more legal. Sedating drugs in combination are effective at sedating people enough to stop breathing and die. Alcohol with benzodiazepines (valium, ativan, etc.), opiates and opioids, sleep medicines such as ambien and sonata, withdrawal from methamphetamines, cocaine, crack….people die. And supplements may be contributing as well.

75 years of US mortality data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db88.pdf#x2013;2010%20

At birth now in the US the life expectancy averages 78, but not everyone reaches that….some people still die younger and some live longer.

The age of death is rising, world wide. In the US, many of us have a world envied standard of living and yet we have a significant number of people who are anxious and depressed and way too high a rate of substance abuse, alcohol, opiates and opioids, benzodiazepines and yes, marijuana is addictive. How do I reconcile this? How do you reconcile this?

Keep your reserve, young singles and young couples…..

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-age-and-gender
As of the day I am writing this on 5/2/16:

POPULATION
318,857,056

Numbers to be corrected, first set was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I took the photograph yesterday evening: there were the most amazing Maxfield Parish clouds…. life and death are a mystery.

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X is for xenophobic

X is for xenophobic.Have you ever felt xenophobic?

How would I know if I were xenophobic since it is an unreasonable fear or hatred? How do we tell the difference between a reasonable fear or hatred and an unreasonable fear or hatred? Or is it only other people that can tell?

From dictionary.com:

xenophobic

adjective
1.
unreasonably fearful of or hating anyone or anything foreign or strange.

Origin of xenophobic
1905-1915
1905-1915;xenophob(ia) + -ic

Contemporary Examples

    His most ardent and xenophobic political ally, Umberto Bossi, looks all but ready to bail.
 Already Vulnerable, Berlusconi Weakened by Election Results Barbie Latza Nadeau May 30, 2011

    The committee should avoid foreign ownership questions which will make them sound parochial or xenophobic or both. 9 Questions for Rupert Geoffrey Robertson July 17, 2011

The article raises repeatedly reported statements by some opposition candidates that are “bigoted and xenophobic.”  Will Scandalous Videos Topple Georgia’s President? A Rebuttal Tedo Japaridze September 23, 2012

    We are almost certainly hard coded to be xenophobic, which is why hunter gatherers often have such extraordinary homicide rates. Racism Isn’t Natural. But I Suspect Xenophobia Is. Megan McArdle October 17, 2012

    “Unfortunately these kinds of xenophobic attacks have happened in Libya before,” says Bouckaert.   Libya’s Hysteria Over African Mercenaries Babak Dehghanpisheh March 5, 2011

    Oh, and their attitudes towards Arabs and promised land are even more insular and xenophobic than most settlers. How Yair Lapid’s Gambit Ends Bernard Avishai March 6, 2013

    I started hearing rumors about xenophobic attacks in early April. Will the World Cup Start a Riot? Gretchen L. Wilson June 9, 2010

    Meanwhile, politicians like Tom Tancredo led an ugly race to the bottom to see who could be most xenophobic.    Bush Was Right Mark McKinnon April 27, 2010

Word Origin and History for xenophobic
adj.

1912, from xenophobia + -ic.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

It seems that xenophobic is something we say about other people. Not very nice of us, and judgemental.

Batman at the beach. A younger child at a party, dressing as Batman, a powerful archetype.

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And he catches one of the other children.

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She escapes.

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Batman is on his own.

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He starts to enjoy the beach.

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Batman wading.

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By the end of the party, he takes off the hot costume. He was comfortable enough that he didn’t have to be Batman any more.

I took the pictures in 2006.