Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

A year-in-review post that doesn't require me to actually summarize or write anything substantial, via the first sentence I posted here each month:

Yesterday's discovery is that on a really clear day, I can see Mount Rainier from parts of Bellevue Downtown Park.

This was an "I don't have to want to exercise, I just have to do it" morning.

roadnotes came over this afternoon for tea and conversation; we ate some apple cakelings I'd made yesterday, and I made a second batch.

Well, I have seen the dentist and gotten my teeth cleaned.

So, for tonight's dinner I took out the leftover simmered lemony chicken from a couple of days ago, added a bit more cooked chicken (since I had one leftover baked chicken thigh), some tomato paste, quite a bit more ginger paste, and some more garam masala.

Inspired by padparadscha's post about seeing one, I have uploaded three more photos of the fire rainbow (aka circumhorizontal arc) that I saw out the bus window last Saturday afternoon.

pantryslut posted a Reading Wednesday, and reminded me that I haven't in a while, because I haven't been getting through a lot of books.

I visited roadnotes in the hospital yesterday, and again today.

Update: As of Friday morning, I'm getting email again, but isup.me still thinks panix.com is down.

julian_tiger is still at the vet's until at least tomorrow, getting IV fluids and such, but they are encouraging us to visit, have him sit on our laps, and so on.

So I posted about the memorial to my own Facebook page (as long as I was there to post to Velma's wall), and got a few replies from people we'd know in high school, the first of which was "Velma Bowen?" and then, when I said "yes, that Velma," some kind, sympathetic notes.

Yesterday, I was thinking I wanted to see people, so I put the location of this month's Vanguard into my calendar.

cattitude came back from the Asian grocery store with some small apricots, a large package of nori (dried seaweed, in snack form), Okinawan sweet potatoes, and a bottle of Moxie. We had an apricot each, which were good enough that I happily ate another. Then he offered me a taste of the Moxie. I was hesitant, with a vague idea that it was a strong flavor that would overwhelm the taste of the apricot, but he said it wasn't that strong, and was vaguely floral.

It may not be very strong, but I didn't like it. I gave him back the bottle, and got another apricot. I don't know whether it would appeal more if it had been chilled more, or if I was in a different mood; I suspect I'm not going to find out, at least not soon.

cattitude made Okinawan sweet potatoes as part of our dinner tonight. Okinawan sweet potatoes are purple inside, and they stay purple when cooked. So that's an advantage, though it might not be if I was using them in soup.

He bought them on the general theory of "this looks interesting" at Uwajimaya, the big Asian grocery store, yesterday. After a bit of googling around, he decided to roast them: peeled, cut into eighths, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and cooked them in the oven at 350 (180 C, gas mark 6) for 45 minutes.

They were tasty, but a little mealy, meaning that for roasting I think I prefer our usual orange sweet potatoes/yams*. Next time we'll probably boil and mash them, either with butter and maybe milk (like potatoes), or maybe with coconut milk as some web sources suggested.

* Root vegetable names are a hopeless tangle; go to different islands of the Caribbean and you get the same thing of one root having two or three or more Spanish names, and the same name meaning two or more kinds of roots.