Good morning! While I've been spending more time over on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/ruth.temple
and appreciating the micro-blogging scene at twitter:
http://twitter.com/RuthTemple

I'm thinking it may be useful and amusing to dust off this weblog and say hello here once more, or at least more often.

Are you still there?

Pancakes, with fresh figs
bacon on the side
St. Paul London Breakfast Tea (a nice assam)

life's good.

Well, the old desk-jet that hit the floor on moving from SF to RWC is, and has not been for a while, in good shape. So I'd been looking around to see the current price on a laser printer, and was pleasantly surprised to see Moore's law (faster-better-cheaper) has been at work since last we bought one. Thought I'd go in and be happy with a B/W HP for around $100, and stopped on in to Office Max this morning, and walked away with a clearance Epson color WorkForce 500 for $60 (pre-tax; not including the USB cable and the extra ink cartridges and some paper, of course) and am Inordinately Pleased with the world.
It also does OCR, and photo-quality printing. Happy.

We took a picnic lunch and met up with other former-dancer long time friends and Spectated at the massed dance stand at the California Ale 2009, the UpSc'Ale in Santa Cruz on Saturday the 15th of August.

Some photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtds/sets/72157622050375524/

Claudia Schmidt is heading your way, and performing Saturday, April 11, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 7:30 pm.

Phinney Neighborhood Center
6532 Phinney Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 783-2244

http://www.phinneycenter.org


Concert Series: Saturday Night on the Ridge
Co-sponsored by the PNA and the Seattle Folklore Society

Saturday nights are packed with music and song when the Seattle Folklore Society and the Phinney Neighborhood Association continue their concert series, Saturday Night on Phinney Ridge at the Phinney Neighborhood Center Community Hall, in the brick building.

Concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are usually $12 for PNA and SFS Members; $14 for nonmembers, $6 for kids.

From the Folk Alliance website:

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge
Claudia Schmidt
Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $14
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

NOTE: FRAGRANCE-FREE CONCERT PLEASE

SFS will present the one and only Claudia Schmidt on vocals, guitar and dulcimer on April 11, 2009 at the Phinney Neighborhood center.

Michigan native Claudia Schmidt has covered a lot of musical ground, beginning with a stirring rendition of "Tammy" at age 4 around a neighborhood bonfire. Then came years of choirs, a guitar, a dulcimer, and some theatre thrown into the pot. Thirty-some years as a touring professional have found her traversing North America as well as Europe in venues ranging from intimate clubs to 4,000 seat theatres, and festival stages in front of 25,000 rapt listeners.

She is familiar with the mediums of radio and TV, including regular stints on Public Radio International's "A Prairie Home Companion" in its early incarnation, and starring in an hour-long documentary called "I Sing Because I Can't Fly," produced by KTCA TV in St. Paul. She participated in the delightful Les Blank movie "Gap-Toothed Women," contributing a song as well as an interview. She wrote an award-winning score and performed in the Goodman Theatre's Chicago production of Brecht's "Good Person of Szechuan." She has recorded eleven albums of mostly original songs, exploring folk, blues, and jazz idioms featuring here acclaimed 12 string guitar and mountain dulcimer playing. Recently, she collaborated with the New Reformation Jazz Band on a dixieland gospel recording and a tribute to Gershwin and Ellington in celebration of their hundredth birthdays.

Claudia's release on Red House Records -- Wings of Wonder-- features many new songs with instrumental support by Dean Magraw and Peter Ostroushko. Her most recent work in the Jazz field 'I Thought About You', is her second leading her own swinging sextet - Claudia Schmidt & The JumpBoys. In 2004 she released ROADS - A Spoken Word Collection. This 17 track CD features some of the poems and writings that have been most requested from her renown performances. In March of 2006 her first folk/acoustic release since 2003 - SPINNING - hit the streets.

A musician who has always hated categories, she describes herself as a "creative noisemaker," which has irritated some critics but delighted many audiences, who learn to expect anything at a Schmidt concert, hymn, poem, bawdy verse, torch song, satire, and the gamut of emotions. Her live performances are not to be missed. Her musicality is astonishing. Her joy and love of performing are contagious. She can weave the elements of music and stage into a program so unified and full of life that one critic has described a Claudia Schmidt concert as "....a lot like falling in love. You never know what's going to happen next, chances are it's going to be wonderful, every moment is burned into your memory, and you know you'll never be the same again."

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.


All you *really* need to know is that she's one of my favorite singers on the planet. Those of you who know me in person know how deep that simple phrase runs.
Go hear her, you'll laugh, you'll tear up, you'll get to sing along...

Recipe: Meyer lemon cardamom ice cream
January 16, 2008

Total time: 35 minutes, plus chilling and freezing time

Servings: 8

5 Meyer lemons

1 tablespoon cardamom pods, crushed

1 cup half-and-half

1 cup sugar

1/2 vanilla bean

6 large egg yolks

3 cups whipping cream

1. Peel 1 lemon with a vegetable peeler, taking care not to cut into the bitter white pith. Place the peel in a nonreactive medium saucepan with the crushed cardamom, half-and-half and sugar. Scrape the vanilla pod seeds into the pan and drop in the pod. Heat over high heat to just under a boil. Remove from the heat, and allow to steep for 10 to 15 minutes.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks, and then pour in some of the hot half-and-half mixture, stirring constantly. Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it coats the back of a wooden spoon, 4 to 5 minutes.

3. Pour the mixture through a strainer into a bowl. Finely grate the zest of 2 lemons and add it to the mixture. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

4. Add the cream to the mixture. Juice all 5 lemons and add the juice (you should have about three-fourths cup) to the cream mixture. Chill thoroughly.

5. Freeze in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. (Makes 1 quart.)

Each serving: 490 calories; 5 grams protein; 31 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 24 grams fat; 24 grams saturated fat; 287 mg. cholesterol; 52 mg. sodium.

http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/food/la-fo-lemonsrec16ajan16,1,5953799.story



Thanks be to cousin Kristen who loaned me a bagful of meyer lemons...

Folks are having interesting conversations over at Alyson Stanfield's blog http://www.artbizblog.com/2009/03/podcast-turn-the-conversation-around.html about one of the interesting questions that folks ask artists who are showing and selling their work: the one that goes "How long did that take you to make?" and all the avenues of thought that this question could be (and has) come from, onward to how to open the conversation to the levels of research, study, and practice that go in to any particular piece of work.

It reminds me of some of the other kinds of questions that artists are asked by Their Public. My favorite question, collected by Reva Myers at a Renaissance Faire in Northern California some years ago (for those who haven't worked one, let's just say they've been a well-juried show of handcrafters in this part of the world since they began in the 1960s):

"Is that real or did you make it yourself?"

No kidding, perfectly serious, earnest young thing asking because she wanted to know. And no, it wasn't about one of the under-$10 silver or bronze castings of the original carvings, it was about one of the $200 - $5000 range amber carvings in the fancy case. a-yep.

Those? At some level, you just pass the story along and laugh...

I think once she could talk for laughing, Reva responded, kindly, that personally, she only carved real things, herself. So as to make it sound like a preference over carving, say, fake things. Her querent didn't appear to get it. When passing the story on to friends and fellow artists, we all looked at one another, shrugged, and one person quipped, "Prop. 13, what's to expect?" (Prop. 13 is the anti-property tax law in CA that basically killed funding, thus arts and music and science field trips in CA schools, for about a generation and a half, now).

People don't know about art on this basic, basic level, of it being a thing that people do, or might possibly be able to do as a livelihood, themselves, so I take these sorts of questions, from timing to reality, whatever avenue of thought they arrive on, to be pretty genuinely innocent (in that ignorance is innocence-of-knowing kind of way).

In the interest of building back up some stamina (I remember having stamina!) I've been puttering in the garden some, so far today. Another couple of square feet weeded at the street line; photos of various plants in their current state, to be posted to my journal at Dave's Garden later; some watering done.

Bush peas planted in the front bales; a 6-pack from Wegman's from a few weeks ago; ditto a 6-pack of Bibb lettuces, and I planted in the five 4" pots from OSH: green and yellow bell peppers, and the two relleno peppers. Added in some extra potting soil, around and on the straw-bale plantings. Very satisfying.

Thinning the lettuces in the back bales (volunteer deer-tongue lettuces from last year's boltings that re-seeded; very tasty) and cut-and-come again thinning on the red chard, which wants to be a perennial here.

So, a great concert March 6; delightful weaving demo March 7; 103°F fever spiked all in a hurry between 8 - 8:30 Saturday night March 7, and I've been down and recovering since.
A 10-day course of antibiotics and I'm feeling better, but glad I have a week yet of time off from the active part time work; went and got garden supplies today (tomato cages, the Tall square ones, for $4.40 each at OSH, and plastic netting for beans and peas to climb on, in a roll to slice off into sections to tie to our 8-foot bamboo poles, set in a V of three poles and two lengths of the stuffe.
Three raspberry canes from Wegman's for Lise's birthday, now in the ground for the good of their roots; Pole beans x 12 into the ground once their lattice was set up.

Also gotten today, to plunk into bales and/or the ground later:
a 6-pack of Calahara (dark green) zukes (we'll be glad to give some of those away, ahem);
a 6-pack of a Mamma Mia tomato, looks like it'll be a little larger than a Roma;
a 6-pack of Armenian yard-long beans (speckledy ones that are good in the pod or as beans);
4-inch individuals a little farther along of:
- Ambrosia Cantaloupe (we'll see if we can save it from the earwigs who got last year's two attempts, harrumph)
- Yellow Bell Pepper
- Green Bell Pepper x 2
- Relleno Pepper x 2
- 1 pear tomato, because I adore the little things.

Things that have been sproinging up on the kitchen side table for a little while already:
4" pot Chicory - golden - several little seedlings
4" pot of a Sungold tomato
2 4" peat-pots of Kai Laan, or Chinese Broccoli, several seedling in each; one got planted today, one's still on the table to continue sproutling
3 x 4" pots Stupice tomato
2 x Gregory's Altai tomato
1 x Siletz tomato


I have some of those 12" square coated wire shelving pieces with the plastic corners that tap on and can be set up in a bazillion different ways; I've used them for art show display units in the past. I'm thinking they could spend a season in the garden and take no harm from it, and hold up melons and zukes and possibly cukes: set up two sides in a V, with occasional shelves for heavier veggies to rest upon in the growing. Heaven knows they're sturdy enough to hold up to the weight and growth! Hmm. Indeed, hmm.

The Arlington Community Church in Kensington, CA presents an unusual and entertaining concert MARCH 6 at 7:30 pm on their Mini-Concert Series!

The New Medieval Ensemble CANÇIONER:

Tim Rayborn, lute, psaltery, harp, voice, percussion
Annette Bauer, recorder
with Shira Kammen, vielle
and guest singer Susan Rode Morris

Performs with the Chamber Choir IN BOCCA AL LUPO (20 plus voices!)

in a program of Medieval and Renaissance Music, including songs of Springtime, Birds, and Love, Miracle Tales, spiced with delicious Instrumental pieces

7:30 pm March 6

52 Arlington Ave., Kensington, CA

The complete concert series is available at 5 concerts for $50;
Individual concerts are mostly $15.00

You may purchase tickets at the door, or by calling the church office at 510-526-9146
between 10 - 3 Tuesday - Friday.

Parking is available and the church is wheelchair accessible.



----
Some of the ensemble and some of the music overlap the repertoire we sang in France in the summer of 2007: this is wonderful stuff. Come and listen!

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and a friend are putting together a sock summit weekend, and she just published their list of who they've lined up to teach, on her blog. And, c'mon, for levels of blogging and audience awareness, what more intro does Meg Swanson need than this one, piquant line?

When Meg Swansen was 5, her mother, Elizabeth Zimmermann, taught her to knit.

*sigh*
Ain't life grand.
Of course, she earns the rest of the info, too:

At present Meg runs Schoolhouse Press, publishes books, produces instructional knitting DVDs, teaches at Knitting Camp, has written four knitting books, designs for Wool Gathering, has a regular column in Vogue Knitting and continues to be obsessed by knitting. She lives with her cats in central Wisconsin.

but everyone else has their bio in just one paragraph. Hee!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working for over five years to force a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) onto American animal owners. NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers or prevent animal diseases, as tracking ends at animal's death. This program, developed to make things Difficult for smaller, sustainable-ag farms, totally shoots itself in the foot for being of any use by letting huge agriBiz tag by the herd.

Please join me in asking our congresscritters to stomp on this waste of time and money while doing no positive good whatsoever, over here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26665

Thank you...

Let's not have tea. White wine
eases the mind along
the slopes
of the faithful body, helps

any memory once engraved
on the twin
chromosome ribbons, emerge, tentative
from the archaeology of an excised past.

I am a woman
who understands
the necessity of an impulse whose goal or origin
still lie beyond me. I keep the goat
for more than pastoral reasons. I work
in silver the tongue-like forms
that curve round a throat,
an armpit,the upper

thigh, whose significance stirs in me
like a curviform alphabet
that defies
decoding, appears
to consist of vowels, beginning with O, the O-
mega, horseshoe, the cave of sound.
What tiny fragments

survive, mangled into our language.
I am a woman committed to
a politics
of transliteration, the methodology

of a mind
stunned at the suddenly
possible shifts of meaning- for which
like amnesiacs

in a ward on fire, we must
find words
or burn.

Artemis, by Olga Brumas
Beginning with O


Here is the Invitation to the Fourth Annual Feast of Brigid / Candlemas from them what started it:
http://branchesup.blogspot.com/2009/01/invitation-to-fourth-annual-brigid-in.html

Poem reprinted in recycled electrons for no commercial value without any copyright clearance. Olga, if you come across this, thank you so much for your work, and congratulations, decades later, on your Yale Younger Poet award. I found you at just the right moment in my younger life.
http://www.librarything.com/work/182980/

Poll #1335298 List Keeping
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

Do you keep a list or lists of Goals?

Where do you keep your to-do lists?

...and the folks from 43Things.com have written a book on it.

Seriously: d'you keep a List, or like me, Lists? I couldn't live without 'em; perhaps better to asy I'd stagnate without a good, often revised To Do list.

Not that I've been out to 42Things in Quite a While -- time to revise, and add things, and 86 (or set aside for Later/Someday) those things I'm not doing this year.




I guess January New Year list=housekeeping landed a few weeks later for me this year, and that's fine by me.

Edited to add: I actually Hate, loathe and abhor the new site design over at 43Things; it's sloppy all over the page; they've added a "feature" that basically demands you comment about the things you're checking off your list, and THEN tells you you're Doing it Wrong. Kids, either tell me up front how much room I have, make it open-length, or get out of my way. I finally have a need / use for the lapel pin I've seen some dancers wear: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.
I've closed my 43Things account. There are so many better places to log life-lists and accomplishments, starting with my paper journal and the PDA in my pocket, where I don't have to be concerned about whether it's a chore task or a Special Something that friends might want to do too, or know about, or what.

Finely mincing the last pick of the green tomatoes - yes, this is mid-January! - and making mince, to can up in jars, for pies. Mmmmm!

Please nudge your congress-critters to not make the mistake of completely vitiating the rights of living copyright holders with the bill they're currently considering.

Dagnabbed lazy bill drafters, anyway.

to wit:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/
has a cogent outline and appeal, plus one-click get in touch with your congressional reps.

"An orphaned work is a work whose author has died or abandoned his copyrights. This bill would redefine an orphan as “a work by an unlocatable author.” This would radically re-define the ownership of private property."

Loud noises of indignation appear right HERE.

What artist needs to be saddled with constantly going to court to protect their livelihood?!

Tell them No, please, get the basic core definitions RIGHT, FIRST, and please to ditch this sloppy mess.

Dear hearts and co-conspirators in reading and writing:

I wish you a very happy new year!

singin' the Berkeley Wassail, by Jon Berger

With drum and with fiddle, with pipe and with bell
We bring our wassail, my friends, to wish you all well
Long life and good fortune to all who dwell here
God Bless you and send you
-----Gods bless you and send you
----------$deity bless you and send you
A happy new year!

Through weeds and through snow we have come to your door
And a small drop of porter is all we implore
And then we shall sing with all proper decorum
The yeast and the barley
-----The yeast and the barley
----------The yeast and the barley
Drive sorrows before them!

Some nutmeg and ginger to make us all merry
And whiskey and cider and brandy and sherry*
The virtues of strong drink our song will extol
Come bring us a bottle
-----Come bring us a barrel
----------Come bring us a tank truck
and fill up our bowl

Come join in our Wassail and lift up your voice
For now is the season to sing and rejoice!
Count up your blessings, the great and the small
Good friends and companions,
-----Good friends and companions,
----------Good friends and companions,
The Greatest of All!


*no, really, that's the recipe for the wassail drink. Whomp and fold in egg-whites and serve forth to your singers/dancers from a huge wooden bowl...

My Aunt Cece has passed; dad and bro' Mike will be off to the funereal memorial on Monday the 29th.

Here's the obit:
http://www.leadertelegram.com/obituary.asp?id=BINT3BC2HDM

She was a treasure. We did Thanksgiving with the Toftnus clan many years when we were growing up, I recall us baking turkey and stuffing and putting it all in a box wrapped in towels in a laundry hamper and driving the hour or so down to Eau Claire. Some of the cousins settled in St. Paul and Minneapolis and we got in touch at least every once in a while. I miss the annual reunions our family would host.

Some years ago, dad set up a yahoo group for the clan descended from his mom; it's pretty quiet these days, but it's nice to get birthday reminders and occasional real connections with these folks... it does tend to be a far-flung family.

Bless you on your journey, Aunt Cece!

takin' care of the schnoz

• elderberry C & zinc
  
• sleep
  
• letting Lise cook
  

Still, it's a jolly holiday:

• piles o' wrappings (we're into the little Silly Solstice Stocking Stuffers 'round these parts: pretties to unwrap by little to no fussin' around)
  
• good food laid in store
  
• got the extra leaf in the table
  
• moved the painted desk into the studio room again (thanks again, Mom!)
  
• did a mess of spinning on the brown roving - did I mention I so scored at the Blacksheep Handweavers' holiday potluck and giftwars swap this year? O My goodness. It's going to become a ruana for Lise, once it's spun and woven, there's that much to play with. I think.
  
• the place is clean! and festive!
  
• I'm breathing better than I was 24 hours ago, yea even 12 hours ago...
  

Still to do:

• lay a fire
  
• set the table
  
• pull the torchiere light into the main room
  
• bags are just about packed for Eve and Dinner here ("upstairs" to the extended family-of-choice) to be followed by AM-and-Day "downstairs" (that again, chez Bejeeber) — pressies, clothes, Whatnot.
  

I'd better go whomp the Whatnot.