Cloud Catch-Up

9/27/2011 (Tues)

(I wish I'd gotten a better image of the glowing pink spots...if you enlarge ^this^ one, you can see them better, but it's nothing compared to what I was seeing in 3-D.)

09/28/2011 (Wed)

10/04/2011 (Tue)

Zoom in! Sorry for the blur, but the crazy glowiness had to be documented on here...even if it's just a mere shadow of it's full momentary glory...

Yesterday's Sky Porn

As always, you can click on the pics to enlarge them.

Sunrise:

(Sorry about the big metal bars in the following photos...I took the pics on the bus, as we were going across the I-5 bridge in the express lanes.)

Afternoon sky...check out the mountains (just at the visible horizon) that are peaking over a layer of clouds...about center in the first photo, and a little to the left in the second.

Transitions

The last couple of weeks have been chock full of changes. As certain parts of my life shift around, I've been rearranging my room and helping to reconfigure the common spaces in our house. I feel like I'm really settling into my bedroom this time around...things feel good in the places I've put them and I've started a steady process of decorating.

I took out my drawings from the art classes I took in high school/community college...I used to have them covering the walls of my last home, a studio apartment I was inhabiting alone. Some of the drawings surprised me, as I didn't remember them being so 'good'...others looked unfinished somehow, as they did before. But this time, I realized that I could just...finish them. Smear a background in here, redefine the shadows and highlights there...and then they're fit for wall-hanging. Easy as that.

Today was my last day of funemployment before classes start tomorrow. Instead of staying home doing my habitual cleaning/organizing/blogging/cooking thing I've been doing since my job ended, I drove down to retrieve my keyboard. A year and a half ago, I found this keyboard on craigslist for a ridiculously good price, considering its original retail price and the practically perfect condition it was in.

The timing worked out perfectly for me to drive north of Seattle in a borrowed car and purchase it with the savings I had at the time. I thought I was about to embark on the musical career I've always dreamt about. A year and 3 months ago, I was madly i love and rushing a move from my studio into a house already full to capacity with some of my favorite people. I gave most of my kitchen things away to friends who needed them. And I brought this keyboard over to a friends' house, where she would have more space and use for it than I did at the time.

Today, the timing worked out perfectly for me to drive far south of Seattle in a borrowed car to retrieve it from the aforementioned friend. She's given it lots of lovin' and I could tell she was sad to see it carried out of her bedroom. I felt bad for separating her from her newfound love of the keys...

And, at the same time, I was so ready to have it back. I'd already cleared a space in my room. Gotten my yellow leaf paper lamp out. Put my drawings up. I'm embarking on a new life journey tomorrow--culinary school--and I need to secure these old passions from this previous life before I take the next step.

In Love with the Sky: Wednesday, Sept 21, 2011

I'm going to start labeling these sky photo posts "In Love with the Sky"...cuz, well...I am. In love with the sky, I mean. I really can't help it. When I took an Intro to Atmospheric Sciences (aka Meteorology) class two springs ago, I started a habit of looking at the sky any time I was outside or near a window. Originally, it was to study the clouds and learn how to tell what the weather's doing by the forms they take. But my desire to learn soon melded with my love of aesthetics, and thus, a sky/cloud obsession was born.

Today, the sky was full of soft, icy blue clouds...all day. This afternoon, I found myself near my favorite sky-watching spot, Lakeview Blvd. Close enough to walk down and get a bigger picture of what I could only catch glimpses of between the apartment buildings on Capitol Hill. Naturally, I snagged the opportunity for more sky-lovin'.

Oh, and Blogger just announced that photos are now available for viewing in their full size. Which is handy, because in this series, I used the panorama setting on my spiffy camera phone for the first time. So if you want to see any of these in a larger format, just click on the image! :)

This first set was taken on the Lakeview Blvd I-5 overpass. It seemed like I was standing there for ages, jaw gaping in awe, camera clicking away. But according to the time stamps on my photos, I was only actively taking pics for 20 min. Time perception is a fickle thing.

Sept 21, 2011 - 7:00am

"You should come look at the clouds!"

Best way to get up in the morning.

I'm here. Now.

It's been a week or two of gorgeous summer weather here...which is actually welcome here in Seattle. I imagine that the inhabitants of other areas of the country have been praying for the rainy season for a good while now...especially those in Texas.
I am soooo grateful for where I'm living right now. The sun is shining, the air is warm (but not too warm), and there are plenty of ripe blackberries for instant snacking everywhere I go, it seems.
This sky-centric photo is a bit unusual for me...I mean...there are only like...4 whispy clouds in it! Who wants to gaze at a blue sky for longer than a minute, right?!
Well...I do. Today, anyway. I'm feeling what's here, and appreciating the present. Or trying to, anyway...
Some people run every morning, some treadmill at lunchtime, and others sit in silence each night before bed. Whatever you like to call it (exercise, clearing your head, releasing energy, meditation), it gets you back in your body and focused on the present moment. I don't have a have a regular activity like this scheduled for myself. I am now realizing just how beneficial it could be for me, though. A daily ritual, even if it changes form from time to time, would have more potential to keep me grounded than sporadic unplanned bike rides across the city.
Seems logical, anyway.
So today's get-out-of-my-head exercise is a long bike ride. Tomorrow's will probably be something else. And as long as I have a core commitment to myself (and my sanity), I'm ok with some uncertainty.

Sunrise, Sept. 8, 2011

Sunrises and sunsets are probably my favorite part about living on this planet. But really, the sky, in general. And clouds. Especially when large bodies of water are also visible beneath the sky.

These are images of this morning's sunrise, which, as always, don't do the real thing justice. My jaw dropped when I got my first glimpse of the eastern glow. The way the light was hitting the clouds made them look two dimensional and exaggerated their shapes...so much so that it reminded me of paintings and drawings that I've seen, but which I always considered to be exaggerations and romanticizations of what was actually seen and what was actually possible in the sky. Unfortunately, I didn't get a very good shot of the clouds, so you'll just have to take my word for it. ;)

7:03am

8:00am

Sunrise, Sunset...

Pax and I went camping at Deception Pass (on Whidbey Island) last weekend. I use the term "camping" loosely...as we had our car nearby (as did the people at the other 200-odd campsites) and there were towns and shops within 10 min of the park.

This park is very significant to me, as it was our annual camping spot for most of my childhood. Here, I learned to scamper across the driftwood on the beach and climb wet rocks at low tide. I poked sea anemones and listened to barnacles whistle in the wind. I honed the calluses on my feet by refusing to wear shoes on the stoney beach. I built driftwood forts, collected crab shells, and giggled in the dim light underneath an upturned canoe. I grew up there. Or, rather, it marked different stages of my growth, more significantly than my parents' house because my time there was less and my visits spread out.

So I experienced some closure last weekend, unsurprisingly. It's been about 5 years since the last time I was there, and I've matured (and otherwise changed) quite a bit. I'm grateful for Pax's willingness to humor me in my semi-conscious quest. It was fun to do the things I used to love doing...and funny to see how different things actually are there compared to how they were in my memory.

This is a video I took while we were on the beach watching a stunning sunset. The silhouette of the fisherman was too picturesque to not document, and he even caught a fish while I was filming! Unfortunately, the camera was actually turned away from him at the moment of catching...but no matter. I love how much you can see, with only the outlines of shapes to go off of. And, really, I can't get enough of gorgeous sunsets, especially on the water. Watching the sun set is one activity I will never grow out of.

Deep Breaths...

Here's a non-comprehensive list of things that I'm so grateful for in this moment...

-Love, in all the ways I'm lucky enough to experience it
-Lattes
-The last 2 days I have of my stable day job, and the last 7 financially stable months I've experienced because of it
-My smile, and how easy it is to find it in any situation
-My tears, and how easy it is to find them in any situation
-All the clothes that I've been lugging around for the last few years, that are always there in my closet, ready for me to wear, no matter how many times I decide I'm sick of them
-My parents' medical and dental insurance, which I'm still young enough to benefit from
-Urban development and skyscrapers, which give my ho-hum data entry job the fun perk of a lovely view of downtown and the sky above Capitol Hill
-Milk, and all milk-based products (especially cheese)
-"Big Business"/the corporate concept, which allows me (and many others) the anonymity to make mistakes in my job that won't ever be traced back to or blamed on me
-Compassion, which, when others choose to exhibit it, tells me that when I make mistakes, it doesn't make me a "bad person"
-Supportive friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, and strangers
-Animal noises
-Human noises
-The wonderful people I've met in unlikely places
-Communication, in its most clear and most failed applications, plus everything in between
-My heart, both the physical organ that keeps blood pumping through my veins, and my internal concept of a container in which to project all my ideas of emotions and feelings and compassion and all that stuff that supposedly makes me "human"
-My digestive system, and how it's put up with all my shit this whole time (pun intended)
-My birth mother, whose fateful decision to give me up was the first of many paths taken that make up the journey of my life
-Giggliness
-Lightly sauteed broccoli with garlic, potato samosas, and sandwiches that are so beautiful that they uproot any other lunch plans I may have
-The cardboard-box-robot I saw today, walking around downtown with ridged limbs and "So long, earthlings" scrawled on the back of his head.

[txtfromlaurel] May 20, 2011, 5:31pm

[txtfromlaurel] May 12, 2011, 5:36pm

[txtfromlaurel] May 9, 2011, 9:03pm

"The clouds are lavender."

[txtfromlaurel] May 3, 2011, 8:06pm

"Hey its a laurel and this is a sunset. A proper sunset."

[txtfrompax] Jan 4, 2011, 7:57am

"I love you..."

[txtfrompax] Jan 1, 2011, 4:51pm

"the sky is on fire..."

[txtfrompax] Dec 29, 2010, 4:22pm

[txtfrompax] Dec 22, 2010, 3:50pm

"bluesky"

[txtfrompax] Dec 22, 2010, 8:23am

"c l o u d s"

[txtfrompax] Dec 21, 2010, 10:48am

"xoxoxo"

[txtfrompax] Dec 21, 2010, 8:19am

"xoxoxo uuuuuu"

[txtfrompax] Dec 16, 2010, 9:34am

[txtfrompax] Nov 6, 2010, 2:08pm

"stopped by saint patricks cathedral"

[txtfrompax] Oct 6, 2010, 7:37pm

"in Russia today"

[txtfrompax] Oct 6, 2010, 9:35am

"looking south"

[txtfromtessa] Sept 10, 2010, 6:57pm

[txtfrompax]: Sept 15, 2010, 11:03am

[txtfrompax] Sept 15, 2010, 7:49am

"I missed you and the sky was on fire again. xoxo"

From Aioli to Egyptian Blue

One of those silly Wikipedia sessions where you start reading about something, then something else, oh, and then that other thing...then you're intrigued by an unknown term, and since it has a link conveniently embedded in the text to lead you to the article about that OTHER thing, of course you click on it to learn about it so that you can better understand that last article you were on...which was...wait...wait, no, the one before that, I think...wait, how did this all start again?

Today, it started out with dinner plans. I was thinking about making some grilled veggie sandwiches tonight, with feta and some kind of garlicky-lemony sauce thing. The word "aioli" came to mind. Having never actually learned the definition of or even read a recipe for aioli, I consulted the interwebs.

Aioli: "a sauce made of garlic and olive oil."*

I had no idea it would be that simple. Reading on, I learned about the other possible ingredients typically used in the sauce, like egg or mustard. Apparently, in Catalonia, they often put pears in their aioli. Catalonia...is...Spain? A part of Spain? All I can picture in my head is my mother (who happens to be a Spanish teacher) drilling into my brain the differences in pronunciation between Castilian Spanish and Mexican Spanish after coming home from my first Spanish class of 9th grade.

Catalonia: "one of the Kingdom of Spain's seventeen autonomous communities, the administrative divisions that represent the country's historical nationalities and regions."*

In simpler terms, it's a particular region of Spain, comprising of 4 provinces (including Barcelona) in the north-eastern corner of the country. Catalan is one of its 3 official languages...which I think I've been confusing with the Castilian dialect all this time...oops. Well, ok. Anyway...back to aioli! Or, rather, a sub-section of the aioli page...

Allioli: "a typical paste-like cold sauce of Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Valencia."*

The only difference between aioli and allioli is the required addition of salt into the basic garlic and oil mixture and the definite omittance of egg. "In the Catalan Countries, it is traditionally served with grilled lamb, grilled vegetables, arròs negre and paella..."* Paella! That tasty rice-and-vegetable casserole-ish dish my housemates sometimes feed me!

Paella: "a Valencian rice dish that originated in its modern form in the mid-19th century near lake Albufera, a lagoon in Valencia, on the east coast of Spain."*

It's traditionally made in a particular pan, a paellera, which is very wide and shallow, though the untraditional versions I've eaten were cooked in casserole dishes the oven. Paella was originally cooked with marsh rat...and I'm glad my experiences with it were NOT way back in the 18th century in the orchards just off the lake Albufera. I scroll down to the bottom of the page, and see a picture of what appears to be a very dark-colored paella.

Arròs Negre: "a Valencian and Catalonian dish made with cuttlefish (or squid) and rice, somewhat similar to seafood paella."*

It gets its black color from the use of squid ink. The thought of eating squid may make you cringe and/or gag...but it makes me smile a devilish little smile. Imagine a just-shy-of-nineteen-year-old Bre, studying abroad in Italy, on a class trip up to Venice and Florence for a week. Dining as a group of 20-something people, there were limitations. Once we found a restaurant that could seat us all, we would be given 2 or 3 choices of the evening's special - no substitutions, no special requests. On the night in question, we were sitting in the back courtyard of an osteria in Venice, and given a choice between spaghetti in a squid-ink sauce or some other pasta in a traditional red sauce. I, having just reached a point in my life where I actually ventured out to try new things, and was very enthusiastic about doing so, ordered the squid-ink spaghetti. And it was delicious.

Cuttlefish, however, isn't even something I've heard of eating. I'd always heard the word as "cuddlefish" and hadn't even bothered to verify whether or not it was even a real fish.

Cuttlefish: "marine animals of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda."*

Apparently, they're not technically fish - they're mollusks. Scrolling down to the "Gastronomy" section, I learn that cuttlefish is very popular in Italy, and both cuttlefish and squid ink are often used in the coastal areas of Spain for their "marine flavor and smoothness."*

Cephalopod Ink: "a dark pigment released into water by most species of cephalopod, usually as an escape mechanism."*

Scrolling down to "Use By Humans", I read that both squid and cuttlefish ink were once used for writing.

Sepia (color): "a dark brown-grey color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia."*

Closing out of that tab, and back at the bottom of the Cuttlefish tab, "Cuttlefish ink was formerly an important dye, called sepia. Today artificial dyes have mostly replaced natural sepia. However, recently some Jews have resumed using sepia for the techelet dye on their Tallit strings."*

Tzitzit: "specially knotted ritual fringes worn by observant Jews. Tzitzit are attached to the four corners of the tallit (prayer shawl) and tallit katan."*

Disclaimer: I am not Jewish, and do not mean to imply that I am educated on the subject of Judaism, so if I (a non-practicing anything) butcher the beliefs of Jews (or any other religion, for that matter) in any of my writing, please do not be offended.

From what I gathered on Wikipedia (which I realize is not the go-to source for religious doctrine), certain strings of the tzitzit are to be dyed with "tekhelet", which is a specific blue dye, acquired from some long-forgotten sea creature. Since the source of the dye is no longer known or available, Rabbinic Jews leave their tzitzit colorless, because dying them with anything else would be a sin.

Tekhelet: "a blue dye mentioned 48 times in the Hebrew Bible...Its uses include the clothing of the High Priest, the tapestries in the Mishkan, and the tassels (known as Tzitzit) to be affixed to the corners of one's garments."*

The chillazon is the creature said to have been the source of tekhelet. The Talmud mentions several characteristics of the chillazon, describing its form to be like a fish and its body like the sea. In the 1880s, one rabbi concluded that the cuttlefish fit most of the criteria, and started using a dye derived from it for his tzitzit. Another rabbi, however, had the dye chemically analyzed, only to reveal that it was the common dye "Prussian blue", and that the cuttlefish hadn't supplied any integral part of the dye.

Prussian Blue: "a dark blue pigment with the idealized formula Fe7(CN)18⋅14H2O."*

I had no idea colors had "idealized formulas". In fact, most of the wiki entry was devoted to the chemical makeup of the color. Growing up in a modern world, where we can have ANY OBJECT in ANY COLOR, I've never even thought about the chemical process of MAKING a color. It was always just there, in the text color drop-down menu, y'know? But it wasn't ALWAYS there. In fact, Prussian blue wasn't actually synthesized for the first time until 1706.

AND, "This Prussian blue pigment is significant since it was the first stable and relatively lightfast blue pigment to be widely used following the loss of knowledge regarding the synthesis of Egyptian Blue."*

Egyptian Blue: "Egyptian blue is chemically known as calcium copper silicate (CaCuSi4O10 or CaO·CuO·4SiO2). It is a pigment used by Egyptians for thousands of years. It is considered to be the first synthetic pigment."*

Did you know that "Egyptian Blue" used to be a "thing" and that, even now, after achaeologists have gone back and studied it, no one knows exactly how the Egyptians actually synthesized the pigment? I didn't. But don't worry, because Wikipedia can tell you all about it. Srsly.

And that's when I leaned my face back from the computer screen and tuned my senses back in to the environment around me, only to become aware of the ridiculous cyber-tangents I'd just clicked my way through.

To recap, it was:

aioli>>catalonia>>aioli>>allioli>>paella>>arròs negre>>cuttlefish>>cephalopod ink>>sepia>>cuttlefish>>tzitzit>>tekhelet>>prussian blue>>egyptian blue

goddamn.

*These direct quotes are the sole property of Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

"First" Post

Sometimes I get homesick for the life I'm not experiencing yet.

And since what's "now" and what's "later" are such different things, sometimes it's hard for me to accept the bridge connecting the two. A steep transition lies ahead. If I weren't so caught up in being a linearly-focused human, I probably wouldn't be experiencing this gap. I wouldn't even see it, because it's not really there.

This sequential experience of events is fascinating. It's only been the last year or two that I've been able to regard it as an abstract concept...

And, yet, here I am, still surrendering to the convenience of referring to things in a linear sense...as if the span of my life really has a beginning and an end...