Of Cigars and Tea

"It's not so much a pleasure as the crown and hallmark of pleasure."
Stepan Arkadyich in Anna Karenina said this of cigars, but I think it's equally true of afternoon tea.

Baking Success

The week before last I had a hankering for gingerbread. I haven't seen molasses in the grocery store, so I had a friend order me a bottle of molasses off of "taobao," which is sort of like a Chinese ebay, except it's always "buy now."  You can get almost anything.  A few weeks earlier, I had bought a camera bag that I love for a good price, and it wasn't even knock off.  It arrived the day after I ordered it. The molasses didn't arrive until the beginning of last week, so I made the gingerbread this weekend.

My confidence in baking with our toaster oven ebbs and flows.  I made the Whole Wheaton Banana and Dark Chocolate Muffins again, which turned out quite well, but I don't think the beer bread I made last weekend was very nice.  However, my gingerbread tasted very nice if I may say so humbly.  I used this Favorite Old Fashioned Gingerbread recipe, but followed the advice of some of the comments and doubled the spices, added 1/2 cup of applesauce, and baked it for 45 minutes instead of an hour.  It was very flavorful and pleasantly moist.  I made one batch Saturday night, and another Sunday morning, but I realized that the recipe calls for a cup of molasses, and the bottle only held about 1 2/3 cup.  For the second batch, I substituted a bit of brown sugar and honey for the missing molasses and tripled the spices because I was worried the extra sugar would make it too sweet.  I think I didn't bake it quite long enough, and tripling the spices might have been unnecessary, but it was still good.  There was some left over from this morning, so I'm excited about tomorrow's breakfast and tea time.

A preview

Pictures from my trip with Mary to Seattle and British Columbia are coming!  (eventually)

Oh Snap.

Earlier this summer I inherited my grandpa's Nikon D70 camera, which is a very nice DSLR that is capable of taking excellent photos.  I, however, have been been taking mostly under-exposed, over-exposed, and blurry pictures.  It takes a little while to get the hang of it, I guess.

It's been interesting how having a much nicer camera makes me much more critical of the pictures I take.  I couldn't have taken pictures like these with my old point-and-shoot, but instead of focusing on that I notice, "Oh the image isn't sharp, or the colors are dull, or I didn't make the depth of field deep enough" and get myself discouraged.  I guess photography is a bit like cooking.  I really want to do it well, but I don't like all the mistakes I have to make on the way to learning the skill.

I like how I can make the fence behind the flowers intentionally fuzzy.  The blurriness of the flowers further from the camera's lens is not intentional. 

I had fun following this monarch and another swallowtail around the butterfly bush.  I didn't notice the yellow jacket until I saw the picture though.  It's a nice thing to have a telephoto lens.

This goofy girl is my friend Grace.  We play with our Nikons together. 

Did I mention I moved to China?  Shoot me an email if you don't know why, and you're curious.

A Smattering

I just discovered, I'd rather not know how many months after the fact, all the cool things I could do with Scattered Wits if I upgraded to the new blogger editor.  (Why didn't you tell me, Kate!)  I don't like this current template so much, but I do like the way it allows me to make the pictures bigger.  Expect some design changes to the blog in the coming days or weeks if I have a bit more time.  

William is the epitome of semi-formal.

Grandpa's memorial service was a Sunday evening in June, so after worshipping at Blacknall together we had Indian food at the Hawkins' and tea at Raspberry Ridge before the service.

One of the many sweet reunion this summer was a quick visit with Katelynn, my freshman year suitemate, who transferred to a school in Virginia.  I got to meet her fiance too.

This little black dog is my newest canine friend, Luke.  After the VBS program one Friday evening in July, we saw him wandering on Farmstead Road behind the church. His tags didn't have a phone number and no one in any nearby houses was home to claim him (I carried him from door to door), so we brought him back to church and called the police department.  They gave us his address and phone number, but his owners weren't there so we brought him home with us because I couldn't imagine leaving him to get struck by a car in the dark.  He really is a very nice little dog.  I brought him back to his home the next morning, but it was a bit anticlimactic because the guy who answered the door hadn't realized the dog was missing.  So much for being the hero.

I post this picture just because I like it.  Apparently the red shirt is a favorite one.

The APs and Mary and I spent a lovely day down the shore at Ocean Grove and then had dinner overlooking the riverfront as the sun set.  

One day with Megan wasn't enough -- but it sure was nice.  

 

Virginia!

One of the best days of the summer was June 11 when several friends from Wheaton and I met up to hike in Virginia off of Skyline Drive. I hadn't seen Donna Grace since last July, or Becky since the previous May, so it was wonderful to spend that time together and meet Brittany, another friend of DG.

It was a hot day, but most of the hike was in the shade, and there was water too. Just gorgeous.

Becky wants to hike the Appalachian trail, so she trained by being our sherpa.

I wish I didn't have to wait another year til I see her again.

Graduation weekend

A bit of catchup . . . graduation was only almost 3 months ago.

Driving home, we take rest-stops for tea.

We took a detour and stopped at Niagara Falls, approaching it from the Canadian side from which you can get a clear view of the American and Canadian falls.

We looked down into the churning waters and watched cormorants diving.

My grandparents

Jack Manning Miner. March 27, 1919 - June 18, 2011
Wilhelmina Long Taylor Miner. December 28, 1918 - August 4, 2004

Fun with the scanner

Last week I rediscovered that we have a scanner, and that I can play with it. Here are a few pictures I uncovered in my room.

Adelle and I at Sandy Hook, NJ - September 1999

My first time fishing I caught a 19 pound salmon in Cowichan Bay, but that's just because Uncle Bill was my fishing guide. I didn't even notice when the salmon first got the line. Uncle Bill had to say, "Carol, I think you have a fish on the line." Within a couple moments of its fighting, he knew it was a salmon. I think this was probably summer of 2001, maybe '02, based on my eyeglasses.

I can hardly believe how little Daniel and Anna look in the picture! They've grown up so much. Here they are with Freya, my fifth puppy. I think this was probably summer 2005 (or maybe 2004?) I'm not much good at keeping track of when things happened.

Chaco ad.

They're the best.

Hot

I couldn't help but think of this passage from To Kill a Mockingbird today:

Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

7 weeks in 9 photos

I wanted it to be 7 weeks in 7 photos, but I couldn't figure out which picture to cut out.

Here with four dear friends - Erin, Sarah, Robin, and Amy - before senior banquet. We could have followed up the banquet with the campus dance, but Robin and I are old ladies so we tottered back to our apartment to collapse exhausted on the couch.

Shortly after spring break I house sat for a week and took care of two dogs, two bunnies, one chinchilla, one tortoise, and some fish. It was not so eventful as last summer's animal-sitting extravaganza but it was not without mishap. I wasn't expecting the 110 pound Mastiff puppy to go into season. It was great having a house to share with other friends. I cooked our regular Tuesday evening dinner there. It coincided with Sarah's birthday, so Susanna made a cake and we had a lovely meal together. Living in an apartment is much more wonderful than being in the dorms, but a real home beats a campus apartment any day.

Definitely one of the highlights of the semester was going to the Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago. Besides getting to hear rich teaching on teaching on preaching Christ and the gospel from the Old Testament, I got to hang out with Ashley and her husband and sister-in-law. This was the first of what has been (and will be) a spring and summer of sweet, if brief, reunions with dear friends.

This beautiful lady has become a dear friend this year. Sarah's getting married in September. Scott's a lucky man.



























Here's a bunch of us graduating seniors from the College Group at College Church. There was a special lunch for us one Sunday after church. A picture doesn't exactly capture it, but the College Group has meant a lot to me this year, and no less this last semester than any other. Such a great group.

My small group went out for breakfast together (instead of to my apartment) the last Monday of the semester. These girls astound me, in a good way.





Another happy reunion was with Laura, one of my roommates last year who graduated. We had lunch together because she was in town some time in the middle or end of finals week. Our time together is a bit of a dim memory, unfortunately, because I was so sleepy.



I found out that the the Wheaton Public Library has a partnership with nearby museums and similar places so that it's possible, with diligence and good timing, to get discounts or free tickets to those places. I wish I'd learned about this four years ago! This spring meant some said farewells as well as reunions. A spring time trip to the Morton Arboretum (partially funded by the library) was a great way to spend some last sweet hours with these two dear Wheaton friends, Julie and Allison. All the pressure of finals and packing melted away as we talked together, admired the flowers, and basked in the sun. We took a detour on the way home for a stop at Graham's for ice cream – a pre-dinner treat. These were definitely some of my favorite hours in the semester.

Liz, who was my freshman year roommate, came over for tea the afternoon of my last final exam. We hadn't seen much of each other since we lived together, so there was a lot to catch up on. She's wonderful – I couldn't have asked for a better roommate.

Summer read

I just finished a fascinating book called Shantung Compound by Langdon Gilkey that I highly recommend.

During World War II, all citizens from allied countries living in China were sent to an internment camp run by the Japanese and imprisoned there for two and a half years. The author of this book was a young, American university professor in then Peking who kept a journal during his years in the camp.

The prisoners, about 1500 in number, were a motley crew of all ages, social strata, and professions, from Catholic and Protestant missionaries, to businessmen, to prostitutes. Within the close confines of the camp, they were given relative independence in the way those chose to organize and govern themselves and make use of their limited resources. Gilkey writes compellingly about descriptions of their situation, vivid portraits of some of the prisoners, and, most interestingly, the moral problems that arose in the community and what he discovered about human nature. He's an insightful writer, and it's an excellent read.

"Downsizing"

One of my tasks this summer is to sort through all of the stuff I've kept in my desk and closet that I can throw out to make room for things accumulated in college (which I imagine I'll sort through and throw out a few more years down the road). Today I uncovered the top of my desk and went through all the drawers. Now there are piles spreading across the floor and a couple bags of recycling.

Some of the things that I once thought important to save are pretty funny to me now – for instance, the program to the 2003 Covenant College Graduation Senior Banquet. I've had a habit of keeping programs and playbills from events I've been to. Most of those I threw out, but I did keep a few that remind me of particularly special times, like seeing The Lion King on Broadway with Valerie and my 4th grade marionette play.

As much as I want to have few possessions, I find getting rid of stuff kind of difficult. I've had a bulletin board hanging over my desk for years with cards, tickets, pins, and photos stuck to it. It's not so much that I find it aesthetically appealing anymore, but it's been there so long and every object on it is familiar and has some story attached. Today I pulled everything off of it and took the board down. Most of the things on it I threw out or put away to file somewhere else, but a few things I didn't quite want to part with yet so I can stumble upon them again and think about the memories associated with them.
A sampling:
– my ticket to the Emmanuel Ax and the NY Philharmonic performing the Brahms Piano Concerto #2 on February 17, 2007
– my medallion for placing third in the something-dash at the 4th of July events in Colgate Park. The guy officiating the race had to chase me through the crowd because I didn't realize I'd placed. Then I got to accept the medallion and shake the mayor's hand. It was pretty special.
– my Presidential Physical Fitness badge from 5th grade. If I throw it away, who will believe me that I earned it?

Other gems that I discovered in the desk drawers include my 6th grade country report on the Czech Republic and several years worth of annual reports from the Seeing Eye. The former was saved for posterity; the latter are going to recycling.

Muffins

Oh, my poor neglected blog.
I need to post, but there are so many other things I need to do more!
For instance, this morning I had to bake muffins to use up mushy bananas. I used this recipe for Whole Wheat Banana & Dark Chocolate Muffins (I put in a little less sugar than it called for) and they are very good, if I do say so myself. I think it's a recipe to use again.

Tree Swallows

This Tree Swallow is my new favorite bird. On Wednesday, I went to the Morton Arboretum for a farewell visit with two dear friends (pictures to follow, I hope) and spent the loveliest three hours of the week with them. A sweet little bird like this one perched just long enough on a sign post for me to admire him, but not long enough to get a picture. I got very excited and hopeful that we could see him again, and we kept on walking and ended up next to a marshy area where there were at least a half dozen tree swallows swooping around. When they fly, they flash black and white and sometimes a splash of vibrant blue. It is breathtaking. There were also a few similar looking birds flying around too, but with tawny underbellies and darker upperparts. I haven't figured out what kind they were yet.

A crime

Do you remember these guys?


Do you think they were plucked because they didn't conform?

I wonder whose job it is to decapitate a tulip. I don't think you could pay me enough.

Birding

I spent Easter weekend this year with my friend Lisa and her family in Grand Haven, Michigan. It was a lovely weekend in every way, but at the moment what I am most excited about is the bird I saw on Easter Sunday. I wish this were a picture I took, but I couldn't get one because I was inside looking out the window, and he was a few feet away perched on the railing of the deck.

Yesterday, I described the bird to Robin and she, remarkably, said, "Oh, that sounds like a grosbeak." 7th grade natural science class finally paid off. Google provided this image, and Robin was able to identify my bird as a male Pine Grosbeak. Pretty sweet. Today, I googled the bird and found from this blog that the Pine Grosbeak is a rarely seen. I feel so special!

Maybe I'll become a birder when I grow up.

(Also April 26, 2011 is the 226th birthday of the Audobon. Check out google.com today.)

an Easter poem

Easter Communion
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking ships,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.

Irish Soda Scones Recipe

I made Irish Soda Scones this morning for my small group. Served warm from the oven with butter and jam or honey and a cup of coffee, they were quite good, if I do say so myself.

You just mix three cups of flour, a tablespoon of sugar, teaspoon of salt, and teaspoon of baking soda and then stir in a cup and a half of buttermilk. A tablespoon of white vinegar to a cup of milk worked just fine as a buttermilk substitute. That makes 6 large scones baked for twenty minutes (or maybe a little less) at 425 degrees. The only tricky thing about it was that the dough was very sticky and uncooperative. The recipe said brushing the scones with extra buttermilk and sprinkling with flour would make a "wonderful floury brown crust," but I forgot about that.

I think I'll make these again some time. Want to come over for tea?

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
"Winter is dead."
- A.A. Milne

Brave, aren't they?

Aslan must be on the move.

I've been yearning for the end of winter. There's something exciting and invigorating about the first snowflakes (preferably in December, not October), but I'm thoroughly tired of the cold wind and the overcast skies. In New Jersey over spring break, there were snowdrops and crocuses, and I even saw an early forsythia on the drive to the airport, but I mourned that there were no such hopeful signs in Wheaton . . . until Wednesday!

I was thinking on Tuesday about how the first crocus sighting of the season is sort of like D-Day of World War II. Winter has been dealt the death blow. It may not be over yet, but spring is certain. There is hope and raised morale to labor through the few dark, dreary days remaining that look more like winter than spring.

So I was exultant on Wednesday, when not only was it sunny and beautiful, but I saw crocuses too! On my way to pick up my canine friend Lucy for a walk, I ran into my friend Allison, and we walked together, with another canine friend, Gus.

a Very Good Day

Irony

My mother mailed to me the rain jacket I left at home in this envelope:

What were they thinking?

We come, we writers, paints, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.

"A Protest Against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel," Le Temps, 1887

Snow Day!

It seems a bit anti-climactic to post these pictures now since it's a sunny, warm 40 degrees outside, but there's still plenty evidence outside of the blizzard we had a week and a half ago.

The snow started on Tuesday (Robin's birthday) and by evening the conditions were treacherous and winds were strong and gusty. Tuesday night classes were canceled, and on Wednesday morning we found out that all of Wednesday's classes were canceled because of the snow, for the first time in decades - the second time in the history of the college.

It's a good thing too. I was kind of counting on a snow day when I went out for a walk with friends Tuesday night, just to experience the elements, and invited them inside for hot chocolate and cookies (that Robin made) instead of studying for my Art Survey midterm.

In the morning, Robin and I tramped around outside and played on giant snow piles. The friends that threw Robin's birthday party live on what may be the only hill in Wheaton - Blanchard Street. It hadn't been plowed completely, so we sledded down it, as well as jumped off the back deck into the deep drifts of snow.

Robin, age 22 and one day

affectionate snow angels

That wasn't quite enough playing in the snow for me, and I was pining for a dog, so my friend Sarah and I went for a long walk with Lucy.

Lucy is a little more than half the weight she will probably grow to. She's already way stronger than me, which was a little exciting because she was exuberant in the snow, and was only wearing her soft collar.

me and Sarah

I'm really glad that my bicycle is safely indoors in storage.

Even Oatmeal

Robin's birthday this year was on Faculty Development Day which meant that students didn't have classes. A couple friends decided to throw her a surprise birthday party and an early breakfast was the only available time. Here's a picture of some of us who love her enough to come to breakfast, even though we could have slept in. It was worth it. And yes, dear family, there I am with a bunch of friends eating oatmeal. Anything to please Robin.

Thank you, Wheaton College!

I am very, very excited because I just read this on Wheaton's library website:

Buswell Library has recently acquired a subscription to Naxos Music Library (NML). Here's a short description of it, taken from NML's home page:

Naxos Music Library is the world´s largest online classical music library. Currently, it offers streaming access to more than 46,000 CDs with more than 653,000 tracks, standard and rare repertoire. Over 800 new CDs are added to the library every month.

The library offers the complete Naxos and Marco Polo catalogues plus the complete catalogues or selected titles from over 250 classical, jazz and world music labels with more labels joining every month. Classic pop and rock music as well as Chinese orchestral music are also represented.

I have 85 days left with this privilege. What shall I listen to?!

Maybe we just better call off the picnic