The Saturday Morning Post: Halloween Day and Creativity

I have to admit, I have been a bit mystified by adults who are infatuated Halloween.  In my journey to explore creativity this year, maybe I get it, maybe I understand why. 

Celebrating Halloween as an adult allows adults to do, say, and create things that break the rules of being an adult. They can dress in theatrical way, and not be seen as weird. They can decorate and be creative - there are few rules about what is an acceptable Halloween decoration - it allows adults to be comfortable being creative. It allows the freedom to be wicked, to be naughty, even a little devilish. 

Most of us, allow society's norms, to constrain our creativity. For some Halloween is an exception, they are free from the shackles of daily adult life, and can be as strange or weird as they want to be for a day or two. 

In our creative lives we need to give ourselves permission to be weird all of the time. Paint the weird painting, create a drawing that breaks all of the rules, sing off tune, write what you think, sentence fragments and offbeat punctuation, that reflect what flows out of your mind. We discover what we can do, by doing things that break the rules, things that ignore the norms. 

Use Halloween as the perfect excuse to be weird and offbeat, and treat every creative day as Halloween. 

Foodie Friday:Taming Grandma's Fire Water

 

A couple of years ago we were in the liquor store and Sweet Bear noticed bottles of Silivocia on the shelf.  He remembered his grandmother keeping bottles of this at hand, and drinking it. It is a plum brandy, this one is made in Croatia. It is unaged and 80 proof. 

I bought a bottle, and tried it. It will knock your socks off. I don't know if grandma downed it in shots or sipped it slowly, but either way she had to be one strong woman. It was relegated to the bottom shelf in the liquor cabinet for a couple of years. 

Recently I wondered if I could make something drinkable of it. Hmm? 

I decided to try cinnamon and sweetness. I had a bottle in the spice cabinet with three cinnamon sticks in it. You buy them, use one, and the others slowly get old. I dropped a couple of them in a small saucepan, added 3/4 of a cup of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of water, a dollop of corn syrup and put over a medium low heat. I dropped the remaining cinnamon stick in the half empty bottle of fire water. The corn syrup changes the molecular structure of the simple syrup, making it less likely to crystalize.  I heated and stirred a little until the sugar had dissolved, not quite to a boil.  I fished the cinnamon sticks out and dropped them in the bottle, and then funelled the sugar syrup into the bottle, capped and shook it up. I shook it a couple of times over the next 24 hours, then sampled a little bit. Oh my, it tastes like apple pie. It brings out the fruit in the brandy and adds that wonderful cinnamon bite on top. I shake it each day, it picks up just a little more flavor, and it is drinkable. And probably 60 proof.  I have tamed Granny's fire water.  

How good was it? It is all gone. 

The Thursday Ramble: A Glorious Cacophony

With the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts closed by the orange menace, the NSO sought out alternative venues.  Planning for a symphony season takes years, the NSO had mere months to scramble and try to find available venues around the area.  Ticket sales are a mess, with different venues using different ticketing sites, sadly there were a lot of empty seats in the hall last week. 

Two of the three works were from living composers, including one by the conductor Leonard Slatkin. It was wonderfully modern, mixing old school classical music, with thunderous modern percussion, and two harps on stage. The second piece was by a living woman composer, who was on stage to introduce the piece and then along with the brilliant saxophonist to play a brilliant encore. The final piece was old school classical. 

It was a wonderful show. It was nice to see many of the loyal patrons there, the old guy wearing jeans with the long whitebeard was in the middle of the second row, his favorite place, just like at Symphony Hall. 

I do hope that the NSO survives the displacement. Many symphonies are suspending seasons, or failing. The temper tantrum of a failing leader, has put the future of the NSO at risk. 

It would be a great loss to the world to lose the glorious cacophony of a yet another world class orchestra.  

My World of Wonders: October 29, 2026

Where have I been this week? The National Gallery of Art, Northern Virginia Community College performing arts center, the Farmers Market, a long walk, Dyke Marsh, the drug store, the library, Mt Vernon, another long was around the neighborhood. 

Who have a talk with this week? My sister, my sweet bear, Helga, 

What have I been thinking about this week? My oldest brother has cancer and is not doing well. He has largely isolated himself from the family for most of his adult life.  He is a complicated individual. I sincerely doubt he will survive this hospital stay. 

What artsy stuff am I up to? The current show comes down today, the new show goes up Friday. I have been doing all of the behind the scenes organizational things that this involves.  

What have I been reading? A so-so book on healthcare policy, an interesting book on Whisk(e)y, started a book about delivering mail in rural Virginia. 

Who deserves a slap this week? Anyone who thinks it is not worth their time to vote. In the USA, elections are lost based on turnout. If you are eligible to vote and you don't bother, five out of five slaps. Democracy not exercised, is democracy at risk. 

Thanks Debra

Who gets a hug this week? The musicians of the National Symphony for carrying on in the midst of chaos. I think we lost Oboe boy to the Pacific Northwest, I wish him well, he will be missed. 

What am I avoiding this week? Facebook for the most part, the political shitstorm is happening. I unfriended a high school classmate and decided that is enough. 

Travel Tuesday: Hawaii February 2015

The View from Lunch One Day

The North Shore

The night before I left for this trip, I discovered that my camera was broken, it had been in my messenger bag and had gotten crushed. These were all taken with a Samsung phone. It was an intense trip, five workshops, on four islands, in five days. A week of 14 hour days, in paradise. 

 

Monday Moods: Take a Walk

I got out for a walk Four times last week, to just take a walk. I needed that. 

Huntley Meadows is a couple of miles south of us, about 300 acres that started out 100 years ago as an airport, and airship port. During World War II it was filled with radio communications devices, the nature of which are still classified. After the war it was used for crash testing by the National Highway Safety Administration. Then it sat empty for a decade or two, and then was transferred to the County as a park. It is heavily wooded, with water flowing through it. The trails are well built and maintained, there is a long boardwalk over a large pond.  

Then I went into the City, for a stroll through the National Gallery of Art, then down across the Mall to the subway at L'Enfant Plaza. The Sculpture Garden at the Hirshorn is nearly finished, new pieces are being installed. 

Then I went down to Dyke Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. This is the swamp walk that kept me active and sane during COVID, I did this walk over 300 times in one year. It was clear, cool, and the trees are clearly showing end of the summer colors. 

And just out and around the neighborhood. 

The walks did my mood a lot of good. Fresh air, sunshine, art, and beauty. I walk in silence, no phone, no earbuds. I am always surprised by what I see, because I hear it first. Time alone with my thoughts. I highly recommend a silent walk.  

The Sunday Five: Old or Historic

1: How old is the home you live in? 

2: For you, what is the difference between an old building and a historic building?

3: When restoring a historic building, should we tear down the additions that were made 50 years ago? 

4: Have you ever moved into a new home? 

5: What is the closest "historic" site to where you live? 

My answers:

1: How old is the home you live in? About 40 years old.

2: For you, what is the difference between an old building and a historic building? To be historic, something important had to have happened there. 

3: When restoring a historic building, should we tear down the additions that were made 50 years ago? I am not troubled by this, Alexandria City Hall is removing the 1970s additions to a building dating to the 1800s. 

4: Have you ever moved into a new home? Three times. 

5: What is the closest "historic" site to where you live? The Fairfax Family mansion was where the front parking lot is, George Washington had dinner there a week before he died. 

Please share you answers in the comments.

The Saturday Morning Post: Feed the Creative Machine

I was looking for a travel Tuesday post, and realized how few photos I have taken since we returned from the grand adventure in May, then I was looking for a photo of a painting I know I did this year, and realized it was done before the grand adventure in May. I have only finished a couple of paintings since May, only one of those is one I am truly happy with. Hmm, a dry spell, the muses are away on holiday.

Then I got to thinking about what I have been doing to stimulate my creative juices. The music I had playing in the background was sedate, Sweet Bear had questioned how I could stay awake with it playing. My reading has been pretty typical for the period. I have been walking on the treadmill, inside, watching the same YouTube feeds most days. In other words, while my creative input has been low and boring and my creative output has been low, and for the most part boring, I have been living a quiet and boring life. 

Time to change that up. Different background music. Nice long walks outside. More galleries and museums. It is time to feed the creative process. It is time to notice the things around me, and snap a photo or ten. It is time to start a fresh canvas, or maybe pull out the linocut materials I played with early in the year and trace an interesting doodle. But first, ramp up the inputs to feed the creative machine. 

Friday Relaxation: Sometimes We Just Need To Surf

 

Thanks Angus, I had to add this one

The Thursday Ramble: Origins

Origin is not destiny, but where we came from, shapes parts of who we are, as we move forward in life. I have landed on my feet a long way from where I started, and yet the history of where I started shapes a part of my life today. 

My grandfathers were farmers. My mother's parents had sold the farm in an early medical retirement by the time I was in school.  We lived on the same farm that my paternal grandparents lived on when I was born and growing up. My grandfather gave my parents five acres of the farm and they built a small house, settled in and raised a family. 

My grandparents raised a large garden, I spent many summer and Autumn days helping in their garden and helping my grandmother with canning and freezing the bounty of the garden.  We were surrounded by active farms, dairy, beef, pigs, and chickens. Fields of wheat, corn, and hay. The rhythm of the growing season is embedded in my being.  But it was a terribly isolating place to be. The house I grew up in is still over a mile from the nearest paved road. There were few neighbors, and my mother was not the most neighborly person.  

When I was in the first grade, the first time around, we lived in Phoenix Arizona for 4 or 5 months. The place left a magical impression on my brain. Changing schools a couple of times during that early stage, was a disaster. I spent another year in the first grade. That experience left me with a fear of failure. A fear that persisted through college, and graduate school, and passing the Bar Exam. I studied harder than most. It was an unhealthy fear that drove me to extremes, but it also resulted in doing well in school.  Maybe it is why I still read voraciously. 

When I was in the 8th grade, my parents started spending winters in Florida, the first winter in a large planned development north of Tampa named Spring Hill, then after that on the east coast, across the intercoastal waterway from the Space Center in Titusville, Florida. I had a bike, there were two shopping malls in town, I rode to and from school almost all of the time. It was a large town, really not large enough to be a city - more than I could explore in a day. 

Those early experiences continue to shape who I am. I greatly respect the countryside, and farms, but I have no desire to live in isolation again. That fear of failure, drove me to study more than most, something that probably continues to drive my professional writing. Those summer days helping my grandmother are the roots of my love of playing in the kitchen and of working with fresh real ingredients.  

I have landed a long way from where I started, but where I started shapes who I am here and now. 

My World of Wonders: October 21, 2026

 

Where have I been this week?  The pharmacy, Trader Joe's, the Farmer's Market, the pool, the treadmill at the gym, National Harbor in Maryland, the community center, the UPS store, the European market, Huntley Meadows, and Aldi. 

What has the weather been like? Changeable, 40 degrees and clear, 80 degrees and rain, howling wind, warm sun, it is that transitional time of the year when we have all four seasons in one week, sometimes in the same day. 

What did we do on our 34th Anniversary?  We went out to lunch at someplace new, Nan Xiang’s Soup Dumplings at National Harbor.  A soup dumpling is a Chinese dumpling that along with the usual fillings contains a hearty broth, you break it open and suck out the broth before eating the dumpling. It was a first for us. Very good. And they have a kitchen robot that to your table. This shot is the robot heading back to the kitchen. He plays music so hear him coming and going. 

What artsy stuff am I doing? I have sketched a figure to build the next painting, last week was the monthly arts committee meeting. I did a demonstration of how to prepare commercially made or recycled frames for hanging. I framed a piece of art that a high school friend sent me 50 years ago. I am sent it to her daughter. 

When am I looking forward to? Election day. Regime change starts at home, get out an VOTE the bastards out of control.  

What mistake did I make? I checked the box and ordered the large case of Kleenex, more boxes than I know how to store, such a great value. 

Travel Tuesday: Paris