Dad does sushi

Today is my dad’s 83rd birthday – yay Dad! Last night Tim and I, along with my sister, went to visit my parents and took them to a Japanese restaurant for dinner, to a new place recently opened in their fairly small town.

I’m the only one in the family who eats sushi. Tim prefers sashimi – leave the rice out of it and bring on the raw fish, please. My sister likes tempura and veggie sushi, but no fish, thank you. Mom and Dad haven’t explored Japanese food much. So Dad told me to order for him and Mom.

What a feast! For appetizers, we had a veggie sushi roll and shrimp tempura, which were both delicious. Sis suggested getting a veggie roll to introduce M&D to the sushi concept without involving raw fish, and that worked well, both for her and for the parents. We showed them how to mix the soy and wasabi, and my dad even began to get the hang of chopsticks.

Our entrees came with miso soup, so M&D had a taste of seaweed and tofu – and enjoyed. Next came salad with that yummy ginger dressing, which wasn’t the best I’ve had but was fine, and they liked. Then we had our main course, four hibachi steak platters (with filet mignon) and one sashimi boat for Tim. Dessert was a refreshing sherbet mix.

The restaurant has devised a deep-fried tuna sushi roll, hoping to enlighten the palettes of eastern NC diners with some fried fish. They served us a complimentary roll, and it was delicious! A crunchy texture with some cream cheese, ala Philadelphia  roll.  Everyone loved that dish.

Dad told me to write down all of the new foods he tried so he can tell his coffee-club buds. But he was kidding – more or less, anyway. They’re not bumpkins, but they are, at this point in their lives, fairly “set in their ways.” (As I am, for that matter, lol.) But I’m happy that they’re still willing to experiment and broaden their culinary horizons. It’s never too late to try something new!

 

Feeling the love, missing the island

 Click to enlarge and see the entire collage. Busy Islenos!

On Autumn

Autumn Movement by Carl Sandburg

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

 

The Autumn by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them –
The summer flowers depart –
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, –
Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
Look out o’er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them –
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold –
Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne’er be desolate.

 

As Summer into Autumn slips by Emily Dickinson

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
“The Summer” than “the Autumn,” lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved –

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life’s Declivity.

 

 

  

 

 

 

To Autumn by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

‘The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

‘The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.’
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

 

 

Catch me now I’m fall-ing

dogwood

not mushroom at this table

better a porch pumpkin than a couch potato

 
time moves ever faster

sometimes it’s better to rust

Update: Mystery Plant Identified

One of my coworkers says the red foliage is Virginia Creeper, a vine. I googled and found a darn close resemblance here:

http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Virginia_creeper/virgcree.htm

Looks almost like poinsettias, doesn’t it? Pretty!

I learned that the vine is often mistaken for poison ivy in autumn, but it has five leaves, not three. I suppose it’s too far away and too high up to know for sure which it is.

Walking around campus

Every day that weather permits, I walk with two of my co-workers.  I took my camera to work with with me today, but of course, I forgot it when we headed out this morning. So when I got back to my office,  I took a few photos of – and from – my little space. Click on photos to enlarge.

WTF are the red things way up in the pines?

I’ve wondered about the red flowers or berries up in the trees ever since I noticed them last week. They are far away, beyond the treeline and well to the other side of the four-lane road behind it (Western Boulevard), and this was taken through a dirty window. I don’t have binoculars, so a zoom lens seemed a good way to view them. But I still don’t know what they are. Do you?

 

 I have watched that tree through my window for two years now. When it has leaves, my office has filtered light. But in winter, when the limbs are bare, I must close the blinds in the afternoon, as tree has no help with shading the setting sun. The lawn outside is a lush green in summer, but now, not so much. Soon the grass will go dormant and be completely brown.

My bamboo plant is very happy here.

I brought the bamboo from home because it was growing out of its space. It’s happy in its new home, don’t you think? Viewed between its foliage are Mr. and Mrs. Drum Dude, purchased at a shop on Hidalgo in Isla Mujeres.

Old furniture looks cool again - I found this chair in storage.

The photo on the left, without a frame, is dry-mounted on foamcore. (Sorry, no TM symbol available.) It appeared on my first independently edited magazine, Green Pages. My sister won a print of it at an art auction many years later. The abstract painting is an original, painted by a friend of Tim’s family. It’s lovely, but it needs rematting and reframing.

My computer screen looks small due to the angle, but it’s not, and my computer is only a year old.

My corner of the world

Now you know why I call my office a haven. It’s a sweet spot.

Halloween on Parade?

I love a parade as much as anyone, but who has a Halloween parade? The only one I know of is right here on our street. It’s a rag-tag event, but it’s so much fun. Why is it the weekend before Halloween, when the holiday falls on a weekend this year? Your guess is as good as mine.

The entire procession took about three minutes to pass our front door. I’m serious. Tim took a video, which I’ll upload later.  It’s a hoot!

After the so-called parade, there’s a street party two blocks down. Tim was our roving photographer today, and he captured these shots.

Becton rides again!

love those hula hoops

cat of many colors

101 reasons to be a proud grandpa

Pirate is hungry!

Food that does a body good - brain, hands, guts - oh my!

Kim's neighbor Orion and his mother, Ana, formerly our neighbor before she moved into assisted living a couple of years ago. Kim lives on the same street that we do.

plenty of pups

rush hour - outta my way - love the face in the loop

And finally - who's the scariest of them all?

I love these photos because they show some of the diversity within this little neighborhood.  Many ages, colors, and incomes here in Oakdale, a block outside of the historic district. But oddly enough, we seem somewhat united in our political persuasions, if election signs are any indication.

Happy Holdenween to all (yes, it’s really called that) !

Autumn nostalgia

A young Bonny and a much younger me

I had the most wonderful pet anyone could be blessed with – Bonny, my collie, who lived eleven and a half years. She was a birthday and Valentine’s present from my ex. (My birthday is also in Feb.) Bonny meant the world to me,  but you dog lovers don’t need me to explain when I say that she was this woman’s best friend. My dad was retired when Bonny became my pal, and Dad became interested in gardening. Somewhere along the way, he also began buying concrete garden statues and putting a verdigree coat on them. One Sunday afternoon, he made the one-hour trip from his home and presented me with a small, verdigreed statue of a collie.

Bonny the statue stood on the top terrace of our backyard for years. But one Sunday morning in June 2005, Bonny the dog could no longer stand up. I’ll never forget awakening early that morning and going out to check on her. In warm weather, she liked to sleep outside.

As soon as I opened the back porch door, I knew it was time to let Bonny go. She hadn’t been doing well for about a year. The vet and my friends assured me that I would somehow know when it “was time,” and they were right. One look into her helpless, hopeless eyes told me.

Much later that day, when the deed was done, I moved the little collie statue onto the front porch and put Bonny’s collar around it. I added her water dish (that dog could lap up some H2O), her favorite toy – a fleece mailman – and quickly made a flier, which I taped on the brick porch column above this makeshift shrine.  The flier had a large photo of her, her DOB and death, with the heading “Long May You Run.” Yes, I know Neil Young’s song is about a car, but it fit.  

 

before we added railing around the front porch

Although we have a relatively large (by urban standards) fenced-in backyard, Bonny loved sitting on the front porch more than anything, even though I had to keep her on a lead. Our home is only a few feet from the sidewalk, where there is always a parade of activity. Almost everyone in the neighborhood came to know and love her eventually, but Bonny was a BIG girl, and I had to keep her restrained for those who didn’t. Bonny and I spent her last day on the front porch. Several friends and acquaintances stopped by and paid their last respects.

 

at Radio Island with her summer haircut

I’ve been thinking about my girl this weekend, as cooler weather sets in. She thrived in temps I hated.  And although I have two sweet little dogs now – and have had them for three to four years each – I’ll never forget my gentle giant.

Feelin ooky

No flu, no nothing.

 Just feeling like yuk.

I want another day to sleep.  These short days drive me crazy.

The weekend: Paradise lost

We had intended to go to the beach one more time this weekend. I wanted to take photos of the full moon over the ocean. But then Timi’s mom got sick. Then Timi got sick. So we didn’t leave town.

But that was not such a bad thing. Granted, the moon rising over the city is nothing like when it rises over the ocean. But I admit to enjoying hours in my rocking chair on the front porch, reading and reading (see my book blog). A couple of friends stopped in, including one I hadn’t seen a awhile. And I visited with neighbors around the corner. I’m fortunate to find company right here at home.

The best part about my life? I don’t dread Monday. I like my job and my work, and I have friends there. My office is a haven that I look forward to seeing every day.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.