Fragaria Gone Wild

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Ultimate Beach Party Scene, Otaria Z. californianus

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Otaria Z. californianus

California Sea Lions enjoying the

Ultimate Beach Party Scene

This sea lion harem doesn't need to slather on the #50 sunblock I would need if I were going to hang out with them in this perfect fantasy of a California beach day. Not for them the importance of personal space. They prefer the flipper to squid-smelling-jaw safety of absolutely sisterly closeness.

I didn't realize until recently that sea lions can, and do, live in fresh water for short periods of time. They have been spotted snacking on salmon as far as 200 miles up the Colombia River.

My idea of the perfect beach-going lunch to share with this truly comradely bunch of girls?

Sea-Lion Favorite Monterey Bay Sandwiches

* Fresh sourdough baguette

(just tear it with your flippers)

smeared with

* Artichoke and Cream Cheese Spread (Trader Joes has a good one)

* Thinly sliced japanese cucumber marinated in some rice wine vinegar for a couple of hours

(the girls on the beach would probably prefer SEA cucumbers)

* Slivers of smoked salmon

(the gals might prefer theirs raw)

Some sparkling lemonade for me and some brined bubbly for my friends

(photo altered with Photoshop CS4, photocopy over dry brush filters)

Globe Lily, Calochortus albus (CA Wildflowers)

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Calochortus albus is also known as "fairy lantern"

I spotted this fairy-friendly flower in Edgewood Park, San Mateo County on the San Francisco Penninsula

Megaptera novaeangliae, At Home in a Larger World

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Cordata (vertebrates)

Class Mammalia (mammals)

Order Cetacea

Sub-order Mysticeti (baleen whales)

Family Balaenopteridae

Genus Megaptera

Species novaeangliae

Common Name - Humpback Whale

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What am I in a humpback's world? Does she concern herself with the idea that there is life aboard the noisy machines that invades her feeding grounds? Are we something beyond a gust of bubbles and a funny oily smell? Is somebody bigger than a brontosaur, aware of me as a fellow-creature, a presence or with any kind of interest?

I encountered this gal as she was feeding out in the Monterey Bay. We also saw a minke and four distant blue whales, that looked like low-rising dark rocks coming out of the distant bay waters. These are both rare sights. But the humpbacks were all around us. They were lunge feeding, rolling on there sides, flipping their tails up and down, and so close we could hear their glorious trumpet breathing and smell the krill-laden breath that hovered over the water after they dove back down for more underwater chupas.

The krill are populating the bay in higher than normal numbers right now, so there are an awful lot more whales there than we would normally see at this time of the year. Our boat captain said we made forty sightings, of humpbacks. Here’s a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle about this unusual chance to see so many whales.

Araneus diadematurs, At Home in a Smaller World

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What am I in a spider's world? A cloud that passes over her sky? A tremendous gust of air? Is something smaller than the bud of my ear-buds, aware of me as a threat, a presence or with any kind of interest?

I encountered this little beauty hanging out on one of her own silky threads on the bathroom wall. That's usually where I meet up with her kind, right about tooth-brushing time.

She's commonly known as a "Cross Spider". I was so pleased with myself because I recognized her. That's because one of her sisters came to visit my porch on Halloween night. My trick-or-treat Cross spider was much, much bigger than this little darling. I was able to see her markings with my own eyes, but for this babe I couldn't tell what she was until I enlarged the photo in Photoshop. A magnifying glass would have done the trick as well.

I posted pictures of both these girls to the spider identification web site, where both were identified by entomologists who frequent the site. (It's a very to join this site for free, and to post your photos there .) This tiny lady was verified by a charming man, "Bug Eric". He has a great blog (http://bugeric.blogspot.com/) that really brings out the romantic side of insects, spiders and other arthropods, and the people that work with them.

* One of the tricker-or-treaters pointed her out and after that all the kids came to see her.

Beach Day

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When my daughter was young, one of her favorite books was a 'Little Golden Book' called 'Beach Day'. It was written by Fran Manushkin in 1988, and you can still find it used on the web. The story is big on the sensations of going to a beach in, it looks like, the Florida Keys. I think my daughter may have also liked the fact that the little girl in the book was an only child, like she was herself. She gets the full on attention of both parents, just as Mollie did. I'm partial to the book myself, particularly the way the little girl falls asleep in the car on the way home. Something I've always enjoyed since I was a little girl myself.

Fran Manushkin has a really nice bio web page, with references to a lot of her children's books, including a number of books Jewish children might like.

I took this photo on a recent day trip to Monterey. The altered picture is composed of multiple versions of the same image. The top layer is a partially transparent "mosaic filter".

Dona Nobis Pacem, All Hail the Peace Rose

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Dona nobis pacem, pacem.

Dona

nobis

pacem.

Thanks to my neighbors Chris and Jeff, who first brought Peace Roses to my attention, and were also kind enough to share some extra pots of these beauties with me.

The altered photo is from one of those rose gifts. The score is a snip from a free download at the free-scores.com site.

Just One More Daughter outta' Elysium, Singing in Beethoven Ninth Symphony

I studied Russian and Romance languages in school and had no appreciation for the emphatic first syllables of the German language, before I first sang in Beethoven's 9'th. Though the words to this music are gorgeous, performing this work with a mass of other voices goes beyond words. Luckily for me, the Stanford Summer Chorus* is singing it this summer. Every Tuesday night I can hop on my cruiser bike, pedal on over and become a part of the vocals behind it. No matter what else is going on, once I get there, Alle Menschen once more werden Brüder. And pedaling home through the darkness of a California summer night, I'm just one more daughter outta' Elysium.

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Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber binden wieder Was die Mode streng geteilt; Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. * Peninsula Cantare is my normal chorus

Joy, beautiful spark of divinity Daughter of Elysium, We enter, drunk with fire, Into your sanctuary, heavenly daughter! Your magic reunites What custom strictly divided. All men become brothers, Where your gentle wing rests.

Spain, Pensamientos finales

Is this Segovian Cupid waving Hasta Luego,

or simply thumbing his nose at me?

It’s time to bring my illustrated journal about my trip to Spain to a close, and return my blog to it’s regular form, as an art-journal of my daily life here in California.

The pieces I wrote about my trip are short themed entries, and are not intended as a blow-by-blow description of my trip. I've listed them below, with links for each entry. Or you can locate them by clicking on particular calendar days above the "About Me" section on this web page.

Each short piece I’ve written since I returned, includes one to four photos that I took there early in July and than brought home to alter in Photoshop. The details in these altered photos show up much better when you CLICK ON each individual PICTURE (try it with the cupids above).

It was hot and I learned to deal with that like a Spaniard. I increased my Spanish speaking confidence and reminded myself that there’s always some way to communicate what I need to – even if that means using ten words instead of the one I don’t know. The colors reminded me that I wasn't at home. When you find a good park, stick with it, and go back as often as you can. I’ll always remember visiting with a group of Madrillenos at the turtle pond at the Palacio Cristal. I gained a new appreciation of sola, when I traveled to Segovia.

Sincerely yours,

The Simple Romantic

• De Colores, On the Colors of Segovia

• Patrónes y formas, Patterns and Forms in Segovia

• Modern Edificios y Negocios of Madrid - Buildings and Businesses

• A Bit of Beauty from the Alcazar Palace(A printable luggage tag I created from an altered photo)

• The Mystery of Trenta

• Historic Edificios of Madrid

• Hace Calor, One Woman's Survival Strategy

• Enjoying the Frutas y Verduras of Madrid

• Getting Neighborly at El Palacio Cristal

• The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain, Language Survival

De Colores, Segovia

Y por eso los grandes amores 
De muchos colores 
Me Gustan a mi.

(De Colores, Traditional Children's Song)

PLEASE CLICK on each of these altered pictures to see much beautiful, colorful detail

Patrónes y formas, Segovia

Roman Aqueduct in Segovia and Companion Buildings with traditional decorated walls

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It’s hard not to be awed by constructions that are this old. Especially for an American who’s accustomed to seeing only a few man-made creations even a hundred years old. Yes we do have missions in California, but they're an exception. According to Wikipedia, this Roman aqueduct still works and is the best preserved such structure on the Iberian Peninsula. It’s construction likely dates back about 1900 years.

Modern Apartment Building

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What really struck me in Segovia were the artful patterns on the walls. You see them everywhere, from the walls of the centuries old Alcazar palace, to clearly modern designs on buildings and above doorways. They’re cut into plaster with molds or simply pressed in with a firm instrument by hand.

Modern Detail above a Doorway

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View of the Tower from inside The Alcazar Palace

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I managed to communicate my interest in the artistic formas en las paredes to the woman who sold me my ticket to the Alcazar Palace. She replied in voluable Spanish, the gist of which I picked up. (I smiled when I understood her and repeated a lot of words and phrases to make sure I got her main points). She indicated that this is a local art form, specific to the that area. I replied that when my parents built a house in Ventura, California the one thing they did pay someone else to do was to form beautiful patterns in the plaster that adorned the house. We speculated that perhaps some of the ancestors of those artesanos Mexicanos might have come from the area around Segovia.

* As my parents had done a number of other times, they built that house with their own hands – they didn’t pay someone else to build it

The Alcazar Palace

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CLICK on the picture and Check out those walls!

Modern Edificios y Negocios (Madrid)

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Modern buildings and city businesses in an unfamiliar country, are just as intriguing as the historical ones. They look so similar to the ones I know at home but, then again, something tells me that I'm not in Kansas any more.

A Bit of Beauty from the Alcazar Palace, Segovia (printable tag)

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The tag prints well on postcard stock and can be used for a gift, organizational or luggage tag.

I created this tag from a photo I took of a ceiling medallion at the gorgeous Alcazar Palace in Segovia. I wrote a bit about my day trip to Segovia in a previous blog entry, "The Rain in Spain, Stays Mainly in the Plane". The Alcazar is, of course, the palace where Queen Isabella retreated for safety's sake, shortly before she was proclaimed Queen of Castille. Modern western people tend to remember this queen more than others because she was the mother of Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, as well as financier of Christopher Columbus.

Isabella is one of those gals about whom I have mixed feelings. She sounds like a pretty strong woman, a good example of feminine power and strength. But she was also one of the main instigators of the Inquisition, a centuries long event of genocidal terror bent on stamping out religious tolerance among Spanish Jews, Muslims and Christens. Isabella wasn't the first ruler to think that her way was the only way, but she was a terrible crusader for her own cause. She left a legacy that continued from her time, in the late 1400's, in one form or another up until the 1800's.

The Mystery of Trenta (Madrid)

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Window of Horno La Santiguesa

I looked all over the web for a recipe for a wonderful little braided sweet bread I found at this bakery on Calle Meyor, not too far from Palacio Real.* It's called 'trenta' (not treInta - the baker in the panaderia edited my hand-written note).

The only recipe I found was one for some Slovakian bread that is totally different. I know it was kind of like brioche but not as rich. It also had a little cinnamon twisted in.

the mysterious trenta

My search on recipes for "spanish bread" did turn up a wonderful recipe for camote, a sweet potato bread (recipe below). It was NOTHING LIKE THE TRENTA, but it is delicious. I found it in a great blog called Kusina ni Manang, which is a lot of fun to read. The author describes her entries as, A Filipina's unabashed chronicle of her adaptations in the American kitchen. The bread is extremely good. I made the dough - only, as I always do, in a two-pound loaf bread machine, then shaped it in pans, let it rise once more in a 200 degree oven, and baked it in a regular oven at 350 degrees. With the alterations I made to the recipe (removing the butter and increasing the sweet potato, changing milk and water to buttermilk) it baked very fast. Two loaves done around 25 - 30 minutes after the oven rise.

Another friendly-looking panaderia window

The author of Kusina ni Manang says about this recipe, "Camote is very cheap in the Philippines compared to flour, and the soft yellowish rolls they create will probably boost up sales and profit.

"

I don't know about sales and profit but the soft yellow bread is sure good.

The following is my re-interpretation of this recipe.

I run the machine on the dough cycle and bake it in the oven, so it bakes and looks like real bread.

* Spray or oil the bread machine pan first. It's a sticky dough.

Put in the wet stuff.

3/4 cup 2% buttermilk (original was 
1 / 2 cup milk and 1 / 4 cup water
)

1 / 2 cup boiled and mashed sweet potato
 (this was about one regular sized sweet-potato, skinned and mashed with a potato masher)

1 large egg


Put in the dry stuff.

1-1/2 teaspoons salt


5 shakes from the cinnamon shaker (my addition)

3 cups bread flour (I ran out of bread flour and so did the grocery store. Regular unbleached works fine in this.)

Make a dent (well) in the top of the flour.

Fill with following yeast and sugar mixture

(sugar helps the yeast work, this position keeps yeast dry until wet ingredients are heated up to the right yeast-working temperature)

1/4 cup white sugar


1/6 cup brown sugar (not in original recipe)

2 tsp Fleischmann's bread machine yeast


* Let the machine run on the dough cycle

* Once the dough cycle has run it's course (1:30 on my machine), then shape into 2 greased loaf pans (or one loaf pan for a really, really high loaf)

* Put into a 200 degree oven and let them rise once more for 20 minutes

* Switch oven over to 350 degrees and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. A really, really big loaf takes about 35 minutes. I stick a knife right down in the middle to make sure they are done. Yeah, it leaves a hole but you know your bread is done. If you like to tap instead, go for it.

Very good with some healthy-type margarine and honey

* Yes, I carefully wrote down the address and location in comparison to other well-known buildings in the travel notebook I lost on the airplane home.

Impressions of Madrid, Historic Edificios

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Gran Via

As an American, I'm not used to seeing really old, ornate buildings right where I live. I wrote in yesterday's entry about scheduling my trip around early morning and late evening walks.

Hace Calor! One Woman's Survival Strategy (Madrid)

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Madrillenos have their own techniques for dealing with the heat of the city in July.

Those who don't have a long commute back home may still have a big midday meal and an afternoon siesta before returning to work until evening. But many do commute. I imagine they take advantage of air-conditioned offices as much as possible.

A tourist wants to see things, but when it gets to be over 100 degrees, she gets more than hot.

After I more-or-less got over my jet-lag I had forced myself to stay out all day. I was just miserable. After I came close to passing out on the metro, I came up with my strategy for beating the heat. I developed a modified Spanish plan. I set my alarm and got up at 6:00 in the morning to got out walking different neighborhoods, and taking photographs. In the late morning I visited any museums or other tourist attractions. Once it got good and hot in the early afternoon, I went back to my hotel room, showered off the heat, ate my yogur y frutas and whatever I had scrounged from the mercado. Then I had a REALLY LONG nap, really the second part of my nights sleep. I got up really late in the afternoon and went out walking again. This always included hanging out in El Parque el Buen Retiro. That's where the locals were anyway. Once I got tired of walking in the park, I sat on various benches and read or sketched. I also hung out at the turtle pond and chatted to people. (See my previous entry, Getting Neighborly).

Madrid stayed light until after 10:00 at night in July. Several times I stayed out until past 11:00. The Plazas are well-lit and, since I saw other home-bound women walking home at that time of night. From the style of dress of the people I saw, I guessed that the walk back to the hotel was relatively safe. A casual supper in my hotel room, a little English language news on t.v. and I got in another 5 hours or so of sleep.

Early evening at El Lago in El Parque de Buen Retiro