Beowulf

While I usually avoid using a blog for ranting - I feel I have some worthy diatribes built up over the last sixteen hours or so.
First off - In celebrating my friends Catherine's completion of the Capital City Marathon (go Catherine!) I managed to make myself sick on one half of a normal sized margarita. I don't have the highest alcohol tolerance in the world, but that is really ridiculous.
Then, Ariel and I watched what truly might be the worst movie I have ever seen, Beowulf and Grendel. It was much, much worse than the last Star Wars, and made 300 look like an Oscar winner. Beowulf is supposed to be a monster movie and the first rule of all monster movies - DO NOT SHOW THE MONSTER! Especially if you are a low budget film and your Monster is just a big ugly guy with a bushy mullet. Even worse - do not give your monster a back story where they only eat people because of childhood trauma. Monsters are evil and we do not need to understand where they are coming from. Also, they had a woman in the movie say "I know he is not so bad.... because he only raped me once". That is so offensive on so many levels I just can't psychologically deal with it. Finally - if you are going to have actors speak with an accent, please, please, please have them all just pick one and go with it.

Last, but not least, our family had quite the adventure today - it began at 5 am when we all got up to got Immigration and Naturalization Services. We had an appointment to be fingerprinted for our adoption process. Two and half hours after our appointment and three long lines later, we emerged intact - although we still have no idea why on Earth they needed our fingerprints to process the adoption.

It's a girl!

After many roller coaster moments, which I luckily didn't post about, we have accepted our refferal. We are going through with adopting Shakur, 6, and Hamada 4 1/2 from Ethiopia. They are actually Somalian refugees, but we will be adopting them from an orphanage in Ethiopia. It will be from between 3-5 months before we go and pick them up there. In the meantime, I think Ariel and I are both going through a bit of shock, wondering if we are completely insane. I just know we just can't imagine what it will be like to have four children and to welcome them into our family, but I know I can't wait to find out.

Salvaje

The Perfect Loaf

I have been baking bread on and off for about ten years or so - a few times I have gotten ambitious and made my own starter using Nancy Silverton's methods in a quest to make fancy European style rustic bread - it was never worth the effort. But now I have fallen for this lovely bread recipe, which makes flawless perfect loaves each and every time with almost no effort at all, just a little planning. Thanks to Mark Bittman and Jeffery Steingarten for publishing the recipe.
3 cups bread flour
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. instant yeast 1
1/2 cups water at room temp

Combine the first three ingredients in a 2-quart bowl. Pour in the water and and mix for 30 seconds until a wet dough has formed and all flour has been absorbed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap adn let sit at warm temperature for about 18 hours (you can get away with ten-24 hour raises).
Invert the bowl onto a floured surface, and stretch the dough into about 10 inch per side square. Fold the square into thirds, like an envelope. Let rest for 15 minutes.
On a dish towel spread flour and wheat bran on on ehalf of the towel. Fold the dough into thirds again, so that the dough looks like a cube. Stretch the top layer of the dough over the seams of the bread. PU thte dough onto the prepared towel and cover it up. Let rise for 2 hours.
One hour into the rise turn on your oven to 500, and place a heavy casserole dish (I use a clay pot with a cover) into it. After the dish has been in the oven for one hour, pull it out and invert
the loaf into the casserole. Cover the casserole and bake loaf for 30 minutes. Uncover the casserole and bake for 20-30 minutes more. Remove and cool until it is barely warm.

Procession of the Species

Olypmia is a weird place. A lot of the people who live here drive volvos with Dennis Kucinich bumper stickers, and someone is protesting something at least every week somewhere in the town. While I often mock the overt tofu-iness of the town, I must say most of the time I like it here; we have a really good film society, a nice farmers market - and two used bookstores.
Instead of a normal parade we have Arts Walk and Procession of the Species - a fairly loosely organized collection of dancing people in homeade costumes, paper mache animals, and some people that just seem to jump in and walk around because they feel like it.

Procession is the last part of Arts Walk - a weekend where downtown stores host local artists, the symphony has a musical instrument petting zoo, and lots of street performers (including Leif, everyones favorite juggler). I don't actually get to go inside and see the art because you don't go anywhere near a store with a bulldog and two young boys.
The whole day was lots of fun - Chester was extremely popular, and he ate it all up. He stopped for every random person to pet him and take his picture with their cell phone. The boys got
to run around and draw in the streets, and they love the parade.
Here are a few pictures from the parade itself to give you an idea of what it looks like.
It is just fun to watch - mostly it is people dancing around in bright costumes with their kids. There are groups, but other than the samba and belly dancing groups, it is a little hard to figure out who they are. It is definitely all very weird, but there is something very fun about watching a 65 year old belly dancing her heart out, really not caring that it isn't an appropriate thing to do, but having a good time all the same.

You're the best

If you ever find yourself needing some excitement, may I suggest watching The Karate Kid with a few wound up young boys?? I am just glad if we don't end up in the ER tonight. Elias (2) is running around house screaming wax on/wax off and Isaac just showed me his moves to break some bones.

Rodrigo y Gabriella

Today I am feeling a bit sorry for myself - I have a cold and find myself a little overwhelmed with the amount of homework I planned on slogging through while Isaac is at school today....so what better way to spend my time than blogging?
On Monday Ariel, Aimee, Mike, and Ruth (my in laws) and I headed to Seattle - Ariel and I go to one concert a year, and he had bought tickets for Rodrigo y Gabriella, an instrumental guitar duo from Mexico City (via Ireland). I was way less than enthusiastic - I didn't know them very well, I had a cold, lots of school work, and just wanted to stay home. We ended up having a great time, we ate at one of the best restaraunts (food wise, not $ wise) in Seattle -Wild Ginger, and the concert was wonderful. I posted a link if anyone wants to see them play - they play a very cool hybrid of Spanish/Gypsy guitar influenced by heavy metal (umm, my opinion anyway). I know absolutely nothing about guitar music, but I think Gabriella makes Eric Clapton look like a wuss.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G8dPso79Z9I#
And some young girl passed out right in front of me (the club was standing room only) and I rushed to her side all ready to do CPR, but she woke up first.