Rain, rainy, rain.....

Third day of rain in a row.  good day to bake brownies, which is wot I am doing.  The 1-bowl brownie recipe inside the Bakers Unsweetened Baking Chocolate package is my favorite.  Famed Minnesota baker Beatrice Ojakangas has asserted in the past that a good (baking) recipe has only 7 ingredients.  This one has 7, though I wound up with 8 because I didn't have 3 raw eggs...just two raw and one hard-boiled (drat!).  So I looked for egg substitutes in baking, and found four, all of which I had:  1/3c applesauce, 1/4 c. yogurt, 1/2 mashed banana, and 1/4 cup vegetable oil.  I used the applesauce, since I made that a while back, and it's been sitting in a jar in the fridge.  The brownies are out of the oven now and cooling on top of the stove.  They tested a little undone, but so what?  I blame it on the applesauce.

No frosting for this batch. 

Happy Wensday, all, rain or not!! 

Meanwhile.....

Phantom Planter brings beauty again at Dupont Circle....



I've printed out his letter (in above link) to Metro here:

Dear Metro Officials:

As you may not know, after considerable expense of my time and money and at some cost to the peace in our home, I planted over a thousand flowers at the Dupont Circle Metro North Station.  Metro ordered me to Stop.  If I stop, the flowers may die before they bloom.

I was stunned and saddened by your Fed Ex response that I would face "arrest, fines and imprisonment" if I continued to tend to the thousand flowers I planted at the Dupont Circle Metro North Station.

Your Order that I "cease and desist with this activity immediately" seems a little inappropriate for this situation.  The previously abandoned and filthy terraced garden squares had been neglected.  They did not appear to be high on your list of priorities, in spite of the considerable efforts Metro expends elsewhere to make their properties attractive.  

Out of the goodness of my heart, last Fall I planted over 100 bulbs in the very same neglected garden squares.  Months later they bloomed, sharing their joy and beauty with fellow Metro Riders.

This Spring I returned.  I weeded and two trash bags were filled with more than 300 discarded cigarette butts, shards of glass, wads of gum, tree branches and assorted fast food restaurant garbage.

But when your representative writes that Metro wants to explore "affordable and sustainable" ways to improve the station's appearance, I wonder what you have in mind and on what time table?

What could be more "affordable" to Metro than an artist who gives away a garden of a thousand flowers?   What could be more "sustainable" than an artist who's willing to provide the  labor this Summer and Fall to water and care for the garden and then clean up when everything is brown and dead after our First Frost?

Gardening on those terraces is no more physically challenging than hiking on the Billy Goat Trail near Great Falls, MD or Old Rag in Virginia.  I respectfully disagree that this performance art piece "endangers not only yourself but the public as well."  Nevertheless, I offered to sign a waiver to hold Metro harmless as I recognize your concerns are part of the fear filled society we currently live in.  But flowers are nature's way of affirming how beautiful life can be.

During this time when our country faces numerous challenges, it does not makes sense to discourage and delay the creation of something beautiful.  Nevertheless, I understand your reluctance and am willing to forgo re-entering the site and installing the whimsical sculptures and trellises for the flowers to climb up and cover.... if I can merely have watering rights.

As a working solution which will create a win win situation for Metro, its riders and the flowers, I propose to stand outside the four foot tall concrete wall that encircles the station and water the flowers from the flat sidewalk that everyone walks on.  A local vendor has volunteered to share his truck which can deliver 400 gallons of water at a time.  

I have received assistance and moral support from many individuals and organizations.  People I don't know have offered heartfelt thanks, notes of appreciation and offers of assistance.   A Swiss Embassy official thinks I should "get an award".  Someone at the National Gallery of Art understands. The Downtown Cluster of Congregations, the Israeli Embassy, GlobalWaterDances.org, Marylee Hardenbergh, an employee at Razoo.org, Mike Barnes, David Catania's staff, Bob Halligan, Joanne Newhouse, Dan Oran, Leon Wieseltier, Barry Louis Polisar (the person who wrote the theme song to the movie "Juno"), Jackson Carnes of the Dupont Historic Main Street organization, and even a Hollywood Producer so far.

In light of this spontaneous groundswell of support I intend to actively gather support with a petition.

I hope you'll accept a win win solution and allow me watering rights.  I do not wish my flowers to die when the inevitable heat returns to Washington.

I am willing to work with you to explore long term solutions to making the Dupont North Station entrance more attractive.

Sincerely,
Henry Docter

The world is not as bad as it is often portrayed in the news.  This is an opportunity for all of us to make something beautiful.

Sign the Petition by clicking here

Library Day.....

I go to the library almost every day, but today I had a purpose!!  To see if Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude that I'd put on hold was waiting for me.  No, it wasn't.  The MLK Jr. main public library here has 20 copies.  It'll be waiting soon.  

I checked around a bit, and brought home two books by Mario Vargas Llosa--Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (one of my all-time favorite novels), and The Time of the Hero--a book that Isabel Allende said got Garcia Marquez started writing fiction. (Actually, she said it was "a first novel published in 1963 by 'a young Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa," and the closest I could come to that publication date for his books was The Time of the Hero. 

It was my day to hit paydirt at the library.  Everything I searched for was in and available.  And I had great inspiration from Amy Goodman et al. on Democracy Now's interview with Isabel Allende about Garcia Marquez.   

I also lugged home (big, fat book) The Collected Stores of Lydia Davis and Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone.  The latter was v popular when I was in grad school but I had no time or inclination to
read it then.

Small flowers on the ground, Arboretum

Among the many wondrous sights on last weekend's trip to the U.S. National Arboretum, I spotted these little flowers growing in the grass.

In the upper left-hand quadrant:  whatever they are, they resemble grape hyacinth?
In the lower left-hand quads:  tiny little blue & yellow forget-me-nots

I don't know what the tiny flowers are in the upper right-hand quadrant. 

Here is a closer look:

This cute little wildflower patch has one forget-me-not peeping out in the URH corner, but I have no idea what this knobby flower is.  Cute but mysterious.... 

The Rowan Oak at the National Arboretum

On yesterday's tram tour of the U.S. National Arboretum, we passed this magnificent 150-year-old "Rowan Oak."  What is a Rowan Oak?   It's not William Faulkner's residence (now belonging to the University of Mississippi) and it is not an oak tree.  A rowan is a European Mountain ash or serviceberry tree. The Rowan Oak over time has gathered mythical properties of protection, strength.  According to Norse mythology, Thor himself was saved from a rushing stream when he grabbed a root/branch of a rowan tree.  Local lore has it that an area American Indian chief brought all of his warriors to stand next to this tree to absorb its protection and strength.  And Arboretum grounds crews have found buttons from Civil War uniforms scattered around this tree.

The Rowan Oak

 It's hard to find information about this particular tree, and I've been searching for hours, both online and in my tree books.  The Latin name includes "Sargenti", after the Botanist who identified it.

Welcome to Raving Pundit!

Through happy circumstance yesterday, I discovered a blog by an 87-year-old writer who lives in Kentucky and blogs as The Raving Pundit.  I've added The Raving Pundit to the list of "Blogs I love" that runs down the right side of my home page.  Her memoir Blue Streak was published last October and details her inspiring life of nonconformity.  The "Blue Streak" in the title refers to her beloved bicycle, which she rode around West Louisville as a kid. 

Welcome to XE,  Raving Pundit!!

technology will pick your poems for you!

The uses of technology continue to expand.  Got an email from a friend this morning telling me that the Poetry Foundation has a free app--"Poetry" for an android device.  You pick two topics, poke it, and whizzz.....you get a list of poems that include these two topics.  Something like that, anyway. My "android" device, apparently, doesn't do much of anything except run up a big monthly bill, and I don't have any fun with it.  Not even going to try this.  Hmph.

What would Emily Dickinson think?  And how many of the poems in the lists are by women? 

FAIL!

It doesn't behoove me to believe everything I read in a new cookbook, especially about cooking things I've done before.  The late Laurie Colwin, author of More Home Cooking, suggests slow roasting a 3-lb. whole chicken at 250-300F for two hours.  She says it will come out "completely moist and juicy, crisp and tender."  So i tried that last night, and it was pale and not even close to crispy on the outside.   So now I've got it back in the oven at 375F, which is the temperature I've always used for roasting whole chickens, and I must say it smells pretty good with 28 minutes to go and the skin is nice & crispy and a lovely brown color.  It has half a lemon inside the cavity, and I'm presuming this will add flavor.  But nothing else other than a modest amount of salt in the cavity, too.  We'll see.  No pictures yet.

reading vs home cooking

I have two great-grandsons, both about a year old.  Their "reading" material is far different from their parents' or their grandparents' or great-grandparents' first books.  If they pick up a magazine with colored pictures or illustrations, they poke the pictures--repeatedly--wanting them to move or do something other than just lie there.  Magazines are like broken tablets to them.  (And here's where the generation gap really shows up.  Tablet to the older generation is a thin, rectangular, paper pad we got when we started school.  We acted on it, it didn't do anything except record our work.  The tablets (electronic) the wee ones see first are magical items.  One poke of their little fingers, and they change--go from plain text to photographs or music videos.

This morning's WashPost has an interesting article on how reading online is affecting how we read offline.

There doubtless will be an article soon on how cooking (food preparation) is changing in the face of all the technology involved.  I predict, though, that cooking and cookbooks are here to stay.  In a moment of madness last weekend, I bought an egg salad sandwich and a bottle of green juice from Starbucks.  $6!!  OY.  Cook at home and save big money!!  More of us need to economise than can throw money around at restaurants and coffee shops. 

Home Cooking.....

I think I'm going to get into recipes and home cooking topics big time.  So hold your breath, possums.....I'm still thinking on this...

New Mayor (so far)

Photo from City Paper

Councilmember Muriel Bowser (D) (42%) outpolled Mayor Vincent Gray (D) (32%) in yesterday's DC primary election, although it's not exactly final yet.  Yesterday's election was a primary, not the last word.  That will come in November's general election, when DC voters will choose between Bowser and At-Large Councilmember David Catania (Ind.), a vote Bowser (and Councilmember/former Mayor Marion Barry) predict she'll win handily. 

The field included five other candidates:  Councilmember Tommy Wells (D) got about 13% of the vote. Twenty-three-year Council veteran Jack Evans (D) drew 5%, followed by Restaurant Owner Andy Shallal (3%).  Candidate Reta Lewis (0.43%) and Councilmember Vincent Orange (2%) each got a few votes.  Not all of the wards have finished counting the votes.

Other big news yesterday is that the zoo's panda cub, Bao Bao, got to go outside in his mother's pen. 

well, well.....we'll see wot tomorrow brings, eh?  a woman mayor in DC??  I wish I had voted for Gray.  He's done a good job so far.  So wot if he got tons of $$ from Uncle Fred??

April Fool's Day

aka "D.C. Election Day."  Who will be our next Mayor?

Vincent Gray (above) and "Uncle Fred"

Vincent Gray, present mayor who bought the last election with the help of Jeff "Uncle Fred" Thompson (who confessed all, chapter & verse, last week in a plea bargain after longtime denials)?

Muriel Bowser (squeaky clean)?

Jack Evans (too rich--represents Georgetown)?

My favorite Andy Shallal (owner of Bus Boys & Poets, popular watering hole and progressive cultural venue)?  Challenger David Catania (another favorite, but he will not go on the ballot until there's an elected Democratic Party candidate after today)?  Reta Lewis (friend of Hillary and tour organizer for Nelson Mandela's last visit)?  Tommy Wells--another likeable councilman who so far has stayed out of the pokey (I kind of like him, too)?  Vincent Orange, deo forfende?