rusknoun \ ˈrəsk \
a sweet or plain bread baked, sliced, and baked again until dry and crisp
biscottonoun bis·cot·to \ bi-ˈskät-ō \ plural biscotti\ bi-ˈskät-ē \
a crisp cookie or biscuit of Italian origin that is flavored usually with anise and filberts or almonds —usually used in plural
[Definitions from merriam-webster.com]
I sometimes buy biscotti at Whole Foods, but they don’t always have it.
The best bet for me, when I want a special treat to dunk into my morning coffee, is to go to British Pantry in Redmond. They usually have some of Ouma’s rusks, an import from South Africa.
Ouma’s* ‘three seed rusks’. This box is going to be gone in a week .. or less. :). The box depicts storage of them in a traditional glass jar. And what are the three seeds? Pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower. The rusks come in a seedless buttermilk variety as well. *Ouma is Afrikaans for grandma.
There was a little rain on the ground this morning, and still enough to hear it patter down the gutter from the roof, as I opened my back door.
Sticky blobs of rainwater, magnifying the fine stripes on the dark burgundy leaves of my ‘Black Adder’ phormium flax plant. The dry lawn grass below should start to green up now that the rain is coming back.September should bring some 2 in. of rain.
On Saturday, both President Bush and President Biden acknowledged that what has happened in the years since, has only challenged the notion that Americans prized coming together over choosing to grow hostile to one another’s differences.
– Katie Rogers reporting for the New York Times
Lower Manhattan in New York City, seen from the Staten Island Ferry. The main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan is called One World Trade Center (formerly Freedom Tower). It opened on Nov. 3, 2014. [Picture by Todd Heisler/The New York Times]
I watched most of the Djokovic-Zverev men’s semifinal match tonight— just not all the way to the end.
I could not get myself to watch Djokovic triumph over Zverev. No one can deny that the man plays great tennis, but I am not a fan of him otherwise.
Watching tennis on my 4K big-screen TV, popcorn and all. Alexander (Sacha) Zverev (Germany, 24) took the 1st and 4th sets, but lost in 5 sets against Novak Djokovic (Serbia, 34), in the end. This is the streaming feed from the ESPN+ app on my TV. ESPN+ is a subscription video streaming service for sport, owned by Disney company. It offers both live feeds and on-demand recorded sports events ($7 per month, unsubscribe at any time). It has been worth it to me 20 times over already, just for watching US Open tennis.
This is not some new “dictatorial power” President Biden is assuming. This is how the government works. Wake up.
– Rachel Maddow @MaddowBlog on Twitter
Excerpts from reporting in the New York Times by By Katie Rogers and Sheryl Gay Stolberg:
President Biden announced sweeping actions today to vaccinate tens of millions of American workers against the coronavirus, including private-sector employees, health care workers and federal contractors.
Experts say Mr. Biden has the legal authority to impose vaccine requirements on the private sector, through laws that require businesses to comply with evidence-based federal health safety standards.
One thing Mr. Biden cannot do is require all Americans to be vaccinated; in the United States, vaccinations are the province of the states.
‘Our Patience is Wearing Thin’. Well —my patience is worn out. Average deaths per day in the US is now back at 1,500. The virus keeps smoldering and mutating among the 80 million unvaccinated Americans that go about their daily business, and infecting other unvaccinated people (and a few vaccinated ones). [Front page of the print edition of the New York Times for Friday Sep 10].
I found a new version of Scrabble to play. I play against Zoey.
Zoey is a program, and I select her ‘Grand Master’ level. There is no point in playing her at any other level, is my reasoning.
Still, sometimes it really feels as if she cheats.
Examples: putting down 7 letters* for words such as GAZUNDER and spelling UMIAK as OOMIAK.
*Using all 7 letters earns the player a 50 point bonus.
Here is an explanation of the unusual words on the board (unusual for me— my apologies for any insult rendered to the reader’s vocabulary): GAZUNDERverb, informal, British: (of a buyer) lower the amount of an offer made on a property and accepted by (a seller) at the time of final negotiations, as in ‘the couple have just been gazundered in one of London’s most expensive areas’ TYEEnoun, adjective: from Nootka Jargon tayi(s) < Nuu-chah-nulth tayi ‘elder’, ‘oldest son’, ‘older brother’, ‘senior’; allegedly resembles Inuktitut toyom ‘chief’ OOMIAKnoun, from Inuit umiaq, variant spelling of ‘umiak’: an open boat made of a wooden frame covered with hide used especially by indigenous peoples of arctic Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and eastern Siberia OEnoun: a small island NAVnoun: short form of navigation ODAHnoun: a room in a harem KEEVESnoun, plural: a tub or vat especially for liquids (as a bleaching kier or dolly tub) SETTSnoun, plural: the den or burrow of a badger; also: the particular pattern of stripes in a tartan
I ran out to the little second-hand LEGO store called Bricks and Wheels, in Bellevue, only to find it closed as I got there. It’s closed on Tuesdays.
That was actually a good thing.
1. There was no urgent reason to buy LEGO bricks TODAY.
2. I can use this little excuse some time soon again, to drive out there. 🙂
Here’s a still picture from my car’s dash cam video today, on the way to Bellevue on the east side of Lake Washington. I’m eastbound, on the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge towards Mercer Island. It’s a floating bridge that takes Interstate 90 across the lake. Construction started in Jan. 1939 and was completed in 1940. On the left is the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge with westbound traffic (also a floating bridge). This bridge was completed in 1989, and named for Hadley in 1993.
It was Labor Day here in the United States today.
Many workers — but not all — had the day off. The American economy is in a strange place. The Washington Post reports that there are some 10 million job openings, yet more than 8.4 million unemployed are still actively looking for work.
I guess this could be a job interview in the year 2500, after Mars and other planets had been inhabited by humans. [Cartoon by Jerad Berg/ bad oranges 2015]Writes Heather Long, Alyssa Fowers and Andrew Van Dam in The Post: There is a massive reallocation underway in the economy that’s triggering a “Great Reassessment” of work in America from both the employer and employee perspectives. The reassessment is playing out in all facets of the labor market this year, as people make very different decisions about work than they did pre-pandemic. Resignations are the highest on record — up 13 percent over pre-pandemic levels. There are 4.9 million more people who aren’t working or looking for work than there were before the pandemic. There’s a surge in retirements with 3.6 million people retiring during the pandemic, or more than 2 million more than expected. And there’s been a boost in entrepreneurship that has caused the biggest jump in years in new business applications.
There was no gay pride parade in downtown this year in Seattle. (It is held on the last Sunday in June every year).
A separate organization puts up an event called Pridefest in June—on Broadway in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. They postponed their event instead of cancelling it, and it was held today.
It turned out that the pandemic is very much with us, even though it is the end of summer. I was not too keen to rub shoulders with everyone out there.
Even so, I walked down to Broadway this afternoon, put my mask on, dodged the people in the street, and took a few pictures. The street was not very crowded, and many people were wearing masks as well.
This cute inflated unicorn was at Olmstead restaurant on Broadway. The weather is still fine, and warm enough to sit outside (75 °F/ 24 °C today).The stall of T Mobile, wireless network operator, outside their storefront on Broadway. Further up is BECU, a credit union originally established to serve employees of The Boeing Company, but now open to everyone.Here’s the stall of Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group and LGBTQ political lobbying organization in the United States. We have come a long way, but there is still a lot of work to do. LGBTQ Americans still face high levels of discrimination in public places, in school, and in the workplace.Several vendors had stalls as well, selling artwork, clothing or flags.
Let’s Go, Carlos! clap-clap-clap Let’s Go, Carlos! clap-clap-clap Let’s Go, Carlos! clap-clap-clap
– Rowdy Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, chanting during the Alcaraz-Tsitsipas tennis match at the US Open, Friday
World No 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas (23, Greece) was up against 18-year old sensation Carlos Alcaraz (Spain) and the spectators on Friday. (The crowd may have been a little tired of Tsitsipas’ lengthy bathroom breaks between sets. Andy Murray had said on Monday he had lost his respect for Tsitsipas because of it).
The epic match went 4 hrs 11 mins and the full five sets. I watched all of it.
Alcaraz was on fire during the first set. Alcarez 6-3.
He lost the second set. Tsitsipas 6-4.
Alcaraz then trailed 2-5 in the third set. Tsitsipas had 40-15, serving, and yet, Alcarez wrested it away from him, and the next two games. Level at 5-5. The set went to a tiebreaker, which Alcarez won. Alcarez 7-6 (7-2).
Alcarez must have been drained mentally at that point, because he lost the fourth set 0-6. Tsitsipas 6-0. Never mind.
The fifth set went to a tie-breaker again, which Alcarez took 7-5. Alcarez 7-6 (7-2).
Alcarez def. Tsitsipas 6-3 4-6 77-620-6 77-65
Update Tue Sept. 7: The young Alcaraz made it all the way to the quarter-finals. Unfortunately, he had to retire today against Felix Auger-Aliassime because of a leg muscle injury. Fourth Round: Alcaraz def. Peter Gojowczyk (32, Germany) 5-7 6-1 5-7 6-2 6-0. Quarter-final: Felix Auger-Aliassime (21, Canada) def. Alcaraz 6-3 6-1 (retired).
Alcaraz about to put away a backhand volley in the first set against Tsitsipas on Friday. When I started playing tennis, my coach would say that it takes ’10 years’ to become a tennis player, and ‘another 10’ to become a champion. Well, that was 50 years ago and I guess we live in internet time now. Alcaraz at 18 has a mature game with a great serve, powerful & flawless groundstrokes, a deft drop shot touch, and great volleys. He is already a champion. He won the Croatia Open in July. He qualified for all four 2021 Grand Slam tournaments and won his first round matches in all of them. His coach is former world No 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero (41, Spain). [Video still from ESPN+ broadcast]The Alcaraz forearm shot that is a bazooka, shooting a tennis ball back at 90 mph. His backhand is double-handed. [Photo by Rhea Nall/USTA, posted on usopen.org]Match point* for Alcaraz (Alcaraz is up 6-3 in the 5th set tiebreaker; first to 7 wins). He lost this point, the first of his three match points. Score 6-4. During the next point, he hit a drop shot. With Tsitsipas up at the net, Alcaraz lobbed the ball deep. It was out by a hair. Score now 6-5. Second match point gone. The final point saw them exchange 9 shots, and then an inside-out forehand winner from Alcaraz got him the match after 4 hrs.
*Match point means one of the two players needs ONE POINT to win the game, with that win the set, and with that, win the match. In this case, leading 6-3 in the tiebreaker, Alcaraz could lose the point, but would have another match point at 6-4. He could lose that point as well, and would have yet another match point at 6-5. (Let’s get mathematical. So up at 6-3 in the tiebreaker means you have triple match point. Up 6-2 would be quadruple match point for you. Up 6-1 would be quintuple match point, and just to complete the math, being up 6-0 would be sextuple match point.) [Video still from ESPN+ broadcast]
I like the weather-beaten lettering on the Flowers Bar & Restaurant in U District.
The new U District light rail station is just around its corner. It is underground, and opens on Oct 2 .. and I will be sure to go and check it out!
Flowers Bar & Restaurant at the corner of University Way NE and NE 43rd St. The sign in the window advertises margaritas, mojitos and mint julep, each for $5. A separate sign says ‘Irish Car Bomb $8’ : a bomb shot of Irish cream and whiskey, into a glass of stout (thanks, Wikipedia). Do not order it in Ireland or in the United Kingdom, for that matter. It refers to the car bombings of Ireland’s Troubles. The name of the drink offends many Irish and British people, and some bartenders there refuse to serve it.
‘We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it. They say it’s foolhardy to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we’ve recorded a follow-up to The Visitors.’
– ABBA, at the announcement of their first new album in 39 years
The new album is due Nov. 5. This is the image of the cover on Amazon.
The suspense is over for ABBA fans, and hey! a whole new reunion album of their music is coming. (At first it was just a new song or two that were promised.)
As far as I understand, the 80’s supergroup made themselves into avatars for a virtual world tour, so that they would not have the hassle of traveling the world over in the flesh (and in a pandemic). Who can blame them for not wanting to travel for work? I do not.
Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson in a live-stream of the ABBA Voyage announcement at Grona Lund, Stockholm. [Photo by Fredrik Persson/TT News Agency / AFP]Looking good .. Björn Ulvaeus (76), Agnetha Faltskog (71), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (75) and Benny Andersson (74). Those are the high-tech costumes that had enabled the motion-captured visuals of their younger selves. Benny joked that he should have asked Agnetha and Anni-Frid if they can still sing before tackling the project (they can), and said it was wonderful to experience the camaraderie of collaborating on an album again.
On August 22, Tropical Depression Henri dumped 1.94 inches on Central Park between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., breaking the record for the most rain in an hour in New York City. Ida bested that record just 11 days later, dropping three inches of rain between 8:51 and 9:51 p.m. on Wednesday night. The intense downpour caused flooding throughout the city, as well as the first flash-flood emergency* ever to be issued in New York City.
– Matt Stieb writing in Intelligencer
*Emergency means the flooding poses an imminent, ongoing severe threat to life, and catastrophic damage.
Scenes from a disaster movie (only, it’s real) in the subway stations (before service on the subway system was completely suspended). The L Train coming into the Jefferson Street station in Bushwick (Brooklyn) with water just cascading onto the rails. Train stops. Passenger jumps out onto the platform, getting completely drenched (far right). [Stills from a video clip posted by Alex Etling @AlexEtling on Twitter]The platform is flooded. The doors close. The train departs. [Stills from a video clip posted by Alex Etling @AlexEtling on Twitter]The empty Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York City is soaked and the court is under water. No tennis at the US Open tonight. [Photo: dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images]
This is in Brooklyn, as well. That looks like at least 12 inches of water on the street surface. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chiding people that order food delivery during a flash flood emergency. (Grubhub is at fault as well. Hopefully the delivery person will be given an appropriately generous tip).
The gauge at Seattle-Tacoma airport recorded only 0.11 inches of precipitation for the month of August, far below the mean of 0.92 in.
The East Coast of America is getting soaked, and the West is dry as a bone.
There were a few drops of rain today— just a few drops. So I went out and watered the shrubs and flowerbeds at the front of my house. (I don’t water the lawn. It will green up again when the rain starts). ‘I like your new ride’ said my neighbor, when he saw me. ‘Oh yes, I love it’, I said, thinking he referred to my new car. ‘No, no, this one’, he said, pointing to the LINK scooter that someone had left in front of my house. ‘Oh THAT – I’m not touching the scooter’, I said. ‘Riding it can only be trouble’.
It’s official: America’s 20 year-long war in Afghanistan is over.
The last cargo plane from the United States armed forces had left at midnight Kabul time on Monday night. Someone on flightradar24.com noted that the United States military has ceased to provide air traffic control functions at Kabul Airport, and that the entirety of Afghan airspace is now without air traffic control.
‘Afghanistan has once more completed a cycle that has repeatedly defined the past 40 years of violence and upheaval: For the fifth time since the Soviet invasion in 1979, one order has collapsed and another has risen. What has followed each of those times has been a descent into vengeance, score-settling and, eventually, another cycle of disorder and war’, writes Thomas Gibbons-Neff for the New York Times.
Aug 30, 2021 U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, the last service member to board the last airplane out of Hamid Karzai International Airport. There were no civilians on this flight. The C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane’s handle is MOOSE94, and it was wheels-up one minute before midnight local time, on Aug 30. (So technically there were still 24 hours left before the Aug 31 midnight deadline). [Hand-out photo from U.S. Central Command, via Getty]Aug 15, 2021: Then there was this flight, crammed with some 640 Afghan evacuees, leaving Kabul airport for Doha, Qatar. The surge of anxious people had boarded the airplane, and the crew decided to just take off, even though the plane was not nearly designed to provide proper seating for nearly as many passengers. [Hand-out photo from U.S. Air Force]
Hurricane Ida is the ninth named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, and formed on Thursday in the Caribbean Sea.
A levee failed near Highway 23, resulting in flash flooding. I hope Monday will bring news that the infrastructure that had been added after hurricane Katrina, to mitigate the storm surge threat from the ocean and the bodies of water in the area, had done exactly that.
Mon 8/30 update: Reported by Reuters: A $14.5 billion system of levees, flood gates and pumps has largely worked as designed during Hurricane Ida, sparing New Orleans from the catastrophic flooding that devastated the area 16 years ago in the wake of Katrina, officials said.
Here’s the projected path of Hurricane Ida. It dumped some 10 inches of rain on the Louisiana coast, and will soak Mississippi with rain on Monday. [Map by New York Times online].A satellite image of the storm on Sunday morning. It’s a massive, massive system, more than 500 miles across. [Posted by the New York Times online/ taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration].
In the Northern Hemisphere, the winds in a hurricane go counterclockwise. The strongest winds are almost always found in the eyewall, at or near the right front— the forward—quadrant of the storm. The forward speed of the hurricane is added to the rotational wind speeds generated by the storm itself. [Graphic from Wikipedia].This is at the Walmart at Raceland, Louisiana, just off Route LA-1. I am guessing the wind speed is at least 80 mph here; Reed Timmer kept saying he is in the eyewall of the storm (it’s several miles wide), and trying to get to the eye of the storm. [Still from Facebook Live feed from Reed Timmer Extreme Meteorologist].
Here’s a Google Streetview shot of the same location in Raceland, LA. There’s a Splash Carwash on the left (will not need THAT today!), with the Walmart on the right.
Downed powerlines blocking the road just a little further up in the road on LA-1 by Raceland, LA. (Stating the obvious: always stay well clear of powerlines!). Storm chaser Reed Timmer found a way around these, using the surrounding streets. [Still from Facebook Live feed from Reed Timmer Extreme Meteorologist].Ida made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane near Port Fourchon, Louisiana. The entire city of New Orleans was without power on Sunday night.
I watched a little bit of storm-chasing on YouTube and Facebook Live today.
Below are stills from the Facebook Live feed from Reed Timmer ‘Extreme Meteorologist’.
With Hurricane Ida projected to slam Louisiana on anniversary of Katrina, anxiety grips the region
People across Louisiana were deciding Saturday whether to leave or ride out what officials were calling a potentially “life-altering” storm as Hurricane Ida rapidly gained strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico — threatening to become one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the state since 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the region.
The National Hurricane Center was predicting that Ida would strengthen to a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph sustained winds before making landfall in rural Terrebonne Parish, southwest of New Orleans, on Sunday afternoon. The storm was projected to bring an “extremely life-threatening” storm surge, “potentially catastrophic wind damage,” and widespread flooding, and with Ida projected to come ashore on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, anxiety gripped the region.
– Emmanuel Felton, Tim Craig, Carmen K. Sisson, April Capochino Myers, Leslie Fain & Ashley Cusick writing for the Washington Post
The eye of the storm was in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday night. New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana are all but assured of hurricane force winds (potentially >110 mph) and a storm surge of up to 15 ft. [Graphic from NBC Nightly News]Rainfall exceeding 10 inches is expected around New Orleans. [Graphic from NBC Nightly News]
Batten down the hatches, close the gates
Today, a decade* after Katrina left 80 percent of New Orleans underwater and killed more than 1,600 people, the Big Easy has been reconstructed as a walled city. The Lake Borgne Surge Barrier is just one of a series of gargantuan structures and reinforced levees and floodwalls designed to defend the city against a 100-year storm—a Katrina-like catastrophe that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. This feat of engineering, prosaically called the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, forms a 133-mile enclosure around New Orleans and the 350 miles of canals that traverse the city—the canals the Corps had relied on to contain floods and that failed so disastrously in 2005. “We’re taking the fight to the storm instead of letting it come to us,” says Boyett.
-*From a 2015 article asking ‘Will the ‘Great Wall’ of New Orleans Save It From the Next Killer Hurricane?’ by Todd Woody
Inner Harbor Navigation Canal–Lake Borgne Surge Barrier. (Map: Google Maps; photo: ASCE/Facebook; infographic: Marc Fusco)Inner Harbor Navigation Canal–Lake Borgne Surge Barrier under construction in 2010. (Photo: Wikipedia)(Map: Google Maps; photo: Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; infographic: Marc Fusco)(Map: Google Maps; photos: Mary Grace McKernan; infographic: Marc Fusco)
Summer is dwindling, and so are the flowers to be found on my neighborhood walk. Still, I got these two beautiful dahlias tonight.
Centuries ago, dahlia tubers were grown as food crops by the Aztecs. This use of the plant largely died out after the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-21). The dahlia was declared the national flower of Mexico in 1963.
Reporting and map of the bombings from the New York Ties online. P.S. The Pentagon indicated later that there was in fact only one suicide bomber: the one at the Abbey Gate. There was no explosion at the gate to the Baron Hotel.
What a horrible day at Kabul International Airport.
The terrorist organization called ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan Province) claimed responsibility for the attacks. ISIS-K was founded by former members of the Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
ISIS-K sees the Afghan Taliban as its strategic rivals. It brands the Afghan Taliban as ‘filthy nationalists’ with ambitions only to form a government confined to the boundaries of Afghanistan. This contradicts the Islamic State movement’s goal of establishing a global caliphate. (From ‘What is ISIS-K?’ at theconversation.com by authors Amira Jadoon & Andrew Mines).
