Bali. The very word conjures so much, both for those who have traveled there and people who imagine it.

Travel in Bali is somewhere between a soft dream and a harder reality. My daughter and I came back from spending 14 days there over two weeks ago (though I keep saying “just came back” because I am still feeling the effects of being there) and had a very layered experience. Mostly positive, but often surprising.

I have ideas for several blogs related to this trip, but first off, I wanted to comment on some of the contrasts and contradictions that we encountered.

Nusa Dua area – Beach and Beyond

The first place we visited was the Nusa Dua area in the south of Bali. Nusa = Island and Dua = Two, so this is apparently on two islands technically, reached by a long causeway. It’s a beach destination for many, and has a plethora of toney resorts that are a world onto themselves. But real people live here too (just not right on the beach, obviously, since the prime beachfront has all been sucked up by the tourist trade). Our first hotel was modest and located in a neighborhood, not within the exclusive fancy resort area. Which was a much better approach to getting the idea that people actually really lived in Bali than going straight to a beach hotel (and much cheaper). We could walk to the beach in ten minutes, but along the way we got a taste of local life, dodging motor bikes and stray dogs down a narrow lane and peeking over people’s home complex walls. (And – bonus – there was an in-home massage place just across the lane from our hotel. So if you don’t mind hearing chickens and dogs in the yard along with the soothing massage music, that was marvelous on our jet lagged bodies and significantly less expensive than the resort spa treatments.)

Ubud – Behind the Busy Street

Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali, and the place everyone says you must go. The textile tour we joined spent two days in Nusa Dua (staying at one of those crazy sprawling beach resorts, though venturing out to a real neighborhood to do a batik workshop) and then traveled the 25ish miles to Ubud. (This took a good 3 hours by bus, sinceBali traffic lived up to the warnings on many travel sites.) We soon learned, by observation during a very slow crawl in our bus through downtown Ubud to our hotel, that the main street is packed with the entrances to hotels, restaurants, massage spas, karaoke bars, and souvenir shops, with a small margin of sidewalk by which to plow your way through the crowds. But beyond the entrance to these establishments, you can quickly transition from the hustle and bustle to a quiet retreat backing up to a ravine, garden or rice field. (Ubud is actually built around a series of ravines, and many flat spaces are devoted to growing rice – it’s a small island and land is at a premium, so none of it seems to be wasted).

One night, I had a hankering for some of the legendary pork ribs, so we braved the busy street for a ten minute walk along the main drag (and past the Sacred Monkey Forest, which I may talk about further in another post) to a restaurant advertising “the best pork ribs in Ubud.” The ribs were delicious, but a bonus was the view of the rice field the restaurant backed up to. Even though it was a little drizzly, it was still a serene and unexpectedly beautiful setting, which seemed “far from the madding crowd” which roiled just outside the front door. Sipping a fresh coconut, it was a perfect evening, until we had to walk back among the throng.

Road Tripping – Expectations and Surprises

In Bali, it is pretty cheap (to most foreign travelers) to hire a driver for the day. If you do, it is fine to have destinations in mind, but also to keep your schedule a bit loose. Most experienced drivers in Bali have a wealth of information and ideas for what their passengers might want to do, and where exactly they should do it. On our second full day in Nusa Dua, we hired a driver for the day. First, we visited the very interesting (also very strange in ways) Garuda Wisnu Kenana park, the central feature of which is a 300-foot statue (fourth highest in the world!) of Lord Visnu riding his trusty birdlike conveyance, Garuda. Along the pathways to tour the statue, there are lots of other things to see and do, but still a couple of hours there is enough for most people. I was figuring longer. And, so, we had several hours to kill before we planned to go to see the sunset and the cultural show at the Uluwatu Temple.

Our driver, who was just hanging out with fellow drivers while we visited the park, was happy to suggest how to fill the time, and took us to nearby-ish (though Bali traffic makes everything seem further) Jimbaran. There are a string of restaurants that specialize in local seafood, and serve it right on the beach within view of a fishing fleet of small craft (and also the airport). How to choose one? No problem, our driver had one in mind, and did not steer us wrong, though I suspect a similar meal and experience could have been had at any of them. We spent a couple of unanticipated hours lounging on plastic beach chairs, the legs of which kept sinking into the soft white sand, and taking turns dipping our feet into the surf. Oh, and eating a whole grilled red snapper bathed in Balinese sauce accompanied by a huge pile of rice and a tasty spinach-like veg, of course. This relaxing sojourn gave us the courage and sustenance to brave the crowds, and the monkeys, of Uluwatu. But that’s another story.

Those are only some examples of the ways Bali can surprise, delight, mystify and at times frustrate a traveler. More to come as I explore a few other topics. Here are pairs of photos to illustrate the above!

The Mid Atlantic region stretches down the seacoast from New York to Virginia, inland to Pennsylvania and West Virginia; encompassing the Chesapeake Bay, several mountain ridges, and along some major rivers. To say the landscape and culture is varied is an understatement.

For several purposes, though, including dividing our folklife community into sections of the U.S., it is a useful concept. This region used to gather folklorists for regional meetings and retreats under the auspices of the Middle Atlantic Folklife Association, once its own 501(C)(3) organization, but through a process that is best left unexplained here (because it is way too convoluted and not that interesting anyhow), we have now come together as the Mid Atlantic Folklife Section of the American Folklore Society.

I live in the middle of the Mid(dle) Atlantic, just a relatively short drive from most portions of the region, which is quite nice! We frequently travel up to the Pennsylvania mountains and valleys, and not so frequently but a few times a year, head to the Chesapeake or Delaware Bays or the Atlantic Coast. In the past month, I’ve been on some explorations in both directions, which I shall endeavor to summarize in this blog. It may seem like apples and oranges, but it is just two views of the Mid Atlantic.

The first, and most brief, took place in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The small city or big town of Chambersburg lies along the busy Interstate 81 corridor, and we often go there from our cabin near McConnellsburg to go shopping. Strung along State Route 30 (aka Lincoln Highway), it is the country seat of Franklin County, and the home of Wilson College, and a number of historic markers note it’s connections to the Civil War.

One day a few weeks ago, we were in Chambersburg and decided to look for a place to go walking. My husband found a nearby park which we had never heard of before, called the Franklin County Eco Park Tree Trail. (I would link to a website that would actually send you there, but it is pretty illusive.) After much confusion of our GPS, we found a parking lot with the sign indicating the park was in a certain direction, but when we followed it, we found instead the Partick K. Gass House. But, that wrong turn was very educational… who knew that this handsome stone house was the boyhood home of a hero of the War of 1812 who distinguished himself as a young man on the Lewis and Clarke Expedition?

After some more roaming around the grounds, we finally located the entrance to the Eco Park and had a pleasant walk along a wooded stream, reading about the various trees along the way. There also seems to be a sort of fish breeding area nearby, which is totally uninterpreted. And, an agricultural museum maintained by the Franklin County Extension Service, which might merit a visit when it is actually open. All in all, worth part of an afternoon and illustrative of the combination of history and nature one can enjoy in the Mid Atlantic region (some sleuthing required).

My second Mid Atlantic adventure took me in a totally different direction. My folklore colleague and friend Lora lives in Rehoboth, Delaware, not far from Lewes. This is about two and a half hours away from my home in Arlington. (Lewes is a charming town with Dutch roots, beaches and a historic canal, well desrving of its own blog one day.) We had vowed to take a journey on the ferry that travels between Lewes, DE to Cape May, New Jersey to scout out some ideas for a future retreat of the Mid Atlantic Folklife Section, and here we were.

Despite threatening weather which caused some rough seas, we braved the crossing (which only made me mildly nauseous). We were rewarded with dolphin and pelican sitings, fresh sea breezes and dramatic skies. We met our friend and colleague Marion, our chauffeur for the afternoon, on the NJ side.

First stop, lunch at the iconic Lobster House. Which, really might more accurately be called the Clam House since lobsters really seem more a New England thing, but… well, who are we to suggest that? The Lobster House is located adjacent to the fishing docks, and has a fish market as well as a restaurant, and a bar area on an old fishing schooner, the American, which is docked alongside the restaurant.

The decor is dark wood and nautical antiques, with historic photos lining the wall on the way to the bathrooms. The menu, which probably has not changed significantly in thirty years, features chowder, mollusks and byvalves dressed up in various ways, and other delicious fresh seafood.

After lunch, Lora purchased four dozen little neck clams for a dinner of linguini and clams, then we set off to take a walk around downtown Cape May to work off some of that seafood. Mother nature had other plans, though, as the sky opened up to a deluge just as we were searching for a parking space, and didn’t let up.

Since we were short on time, we drove around admiring the colorful Victorian gingerbread-bedecked houses, and eventually found an ice cream shop. Lora and I had water ices, which is not a NJ thing at all but brings us back over the boarder, refreshingly and aptly, to Pennsylvania with its Philly Italian roots.

Soon it was time to head back to the ferry dock and board our return ride, so we had enough time to get those clams going for dinner. Watch this space sometime next year for a follow up if we actually get our retreat together. But, meanwhile, enjoy some snaps of the Mid Atlantic “scouting” trips!

NOTE: This post was experienced, and jointly written, by my friend Sue Eleuterio and I (though I wrote most of it, but she approved and edited, and added the “coda”)

It started as a simple, three and a half hour drive from Sue’s house in Highland, Indiana near Chicago, to Bloomington, Indiana, with a planned stop to have lunch with our friend Peggy just north of Indianapolis along the way… But, like the “three hour tour” of Gilligan and his boat mates, it turned into an entire 14 hour adventure.

The star of the show, or the villain of the story, or the creator of the storm that blew us off-course, was Sue’s brand new all- electric Toyota SUV. The delay factor was five (or, wait, six) charging stations that we had to find and juice up at along the way in order to make it to our destination. There was laughter. There were tears. There was vegetable soup at the self-serve cafeteria of a scary, post-apocalyptic rural hospital – subbing in for the delightful-looking French bistro that Peggy waited for us at for an hour and a half before giving up on us. And, there was an episode of the PBS Masterpiece Theater version of the Count of Monte Cristo, with commentary from Sue’s English-accented GPS.

This was truly a trip to remember, which rivaled the Odyssey in scope (and length), as we wrestled one-armed beasts (with adapters), and other nemeses along the way.

Charger #1: The Tesla Dilemma

There are many phone apps that help you find, and in theory pay for, charging your electric vehicle. Unfortunately, we soon found out, they may send you to “chargers with an attitude.” The first row of chargers we found, somewhere north of Lafayette, were Tesla-centric. They looked like they were going to work, but really ended up thumbing their noses at Sue’s Toyota. We loudly and impolitely cursed the CEO of Tesla, He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken.

Charger #2: Car Dealership Bingo

The second row of chargers we found were at a car dealership. In Indiana, car dealerships are not open on Sundays, apparently, which is unfortunate, because we were hoping that nestled somewhere within the cushy salesroom we could find both a bathroom and a friendly salesman to explain how to use the chargers. Sue chortled in triumph when the connection worked and the car started charging. We didn’t realize, however, that is was a “slow charger” which took about a minute to gain us each mile’s worth of juice. “A mile a minute” sounds fast in most contexts…but in charging language, that is painfully slow. We had already exceeded our deadline to be “fashionably late” for lunch with Peggy, and she was being a sport about it, but we had to break the news to her that we were not likely to get enough charge to get to our meeting place for at least another hour and then some. We ended up talking to her on the phone for over an hour, and finally had enough of charge to go about 50 miles, so we set off, after disappointedly deciding our lunch was doomed. We were still hoping to make it to Bloomington for a 5:45 dinner with colleagues, as it was “only” approaching 2 p.m. by then!

Charger #3: A Sticky Situation

Since we were rather hungry at that point, and also way overdue for a “bio break,” we stopped at a gas station (how quaint!) with a convenience store. Here we refreshed, and I bought some snacks to tide us over until a “real lunch” could be procured: Fritos, ginger ale, and – surprisingly – Punjabi sugar cookies. (Gas station convenience stores in rural Indiana are apparently run by Punjabi aunties, or at least this one was, and I had a pleasant chat with her.)

We had a plan, which was about the fifth plan we had had that day. Sue had found a charger in the middle of a small town that also had a pretty highly rated Thai restaurant, within our mileage range. Armed with two different adapters, we discovered the larger, much more convoluted one, fit this charger. Hallelujah! Our celebration was premature…it would not start charging no matter what we tried. Giving up, Sue attempted to disconnect the contraption, and it was stuck! This was the first time she actually broke down in tears, though not the last. (Before this, she had just apologized to me profusely, and I kept reassuring her that I was not upset in the least, which she did not believe.) Call to Toyota support number was not helpful in the least. Call to the charger support was much more successful, and Sue practically nominated the guy on the phone for sainthood as she managed to wrastle the adapter out of the connection and replace the anaconda-thick (and just as hard to handle) hose back into the unresponding charger.

Charger #4: The Haunted Hospital

But, wait again, we still had a big problem. Number one, we were getting dangerously low on mileage. And, number two, those Fritos and Punjabi cookies were wearing off. The GPS helped navigate us to the next nearest – according to the phone apps – charger. But it seemed to be sending us way out into the countryside, with nothing in site except a new Lilly Pharmaceuticals plant which was still a building site. Could there be a charger in their parking lot somewhere, we reasoned? After circling around this remote road twice, and realizing that’s where the GPS was sending us, we had a not very friendly encounter with the guard keeping non-Lilly trespassers at bay. She basically said we had to leave or we would probably be arrested. By the time we admitted defeat, the afternoon building shift got off work and suddenly a stream of hard-hatted workers were getting in their cars and exiting the same way we had to go, slowing down our retreat and using precious dwindling minute-miles. (Needless to say, Sue was beginning to weep again.)

The next nearest charger was several miles away at what turned out to be a rural hospital. Luckily, no one else was using the charger, it fit the car, and it started charging with little fanfare. No one else was using it, because there were virtually only three or four cars in the whole sprawling parking lot complex. Apparently, like car dealerships, rural hospitals are also closed on Sundays in Indiana. As the car charged, we circumnavigated the hospital, trying door after door and finding them locked. Doesn’t anyone get sick on Sundays in that town? Finally, we turned the corner and found the one unlocked door – the ER. Miraculously, there was also a self-serve cafeteria within these walls. Truly, a lifesaving discovery. Still thinking we might make it to Bloomington by dinnertime even if we were a bit late (ever the optimists?) we indulged in dubious “light” fare, including not too bad vegetable soup that I had to heat up myself in a nearby microwave, yoghurt, and some sort of evil snack mix with candy corn and chocolate covered mini pretzels. A far cry from either the delicious French bistro lunch we could have had with Peggy, or the Thai delicacies we had to also forego.

Charger #5: Another Haunted Hospital?

The charge we got at the haunted hospital brought us to just outside Indianapolis, where we located another charger at another abandoned-looking hospital. But, alas, that one connected fine but would not turn on. Running on the electric equivalent of fumes, we were so amazingly grateful to find a charger at another car dealership, blissfully located across the busy highway from a decent restaurant called Coopers Hawk. Leaving the car to its own charging devices, we braved about eight lanes of highway to get a real meal. We ordered way too much food, and the waitress brought me a free glass of wine since she could obviously sense the desperate look in my eyes. Sue had to abstain, since she was the designated driver (and totally exhausted by then) but I could tell she would have liked to down most of a bottle herself. (Note: You cannot buy bottles of alcohol after 8 p.m. in Indiana on Sundays, either, since Sue was going to get a bottle of wine at their shop to bring to Bloomington, but by then it was way too late.)

Charger #6: Last Rights and Down for the Count

My one set goal for the trip was to be in our hotel by 10 p.m. to watch the Count of Monte Cristo with my sister (she in South Carolina and I, wherever, but simultaneously so we could comment/snark about the show together via cell phone text as is our weird tradition). When Sue and I reached the “charged enough to get us to Bloomington finally” car, it was nearing my ten p.m. deadline. I tuned into the Count on the PBS Passport app, but wait – that meant I couldn’t text at the same time I was watching. What to do? We put my sister’s number into Sue’s phone. But holding the phone to watch the show, and texting at the same time on Sue’s phone was hard, so we started listening and responding through the speaker of Sue’s car, with “Nigel,” the GPS/text message reader with a posh English accent, interpreting the texts for us. Sue put my sister’s number in as “Betty’s sister Barbara” (logically). So every few minutes, when my sister made a comment, Nigel would pipe up, “Betty’s sister Barbara says the Count is really getting his revenge now” or some such, and I would respond something like “he is indeed” by voice command, which Nigel would interpret as “he has fleas” and ask if we wanted to send, and Sue and I would both yell, “No!” My sister was quite baffled at some of the comments which slipped through before we could convince Nigel not to send them, but meanwhile we were laughing hysterically.

It wasn’t only Nigel we were laughing at, of course, it was the whole absurd but adventuresome day. By the time we rolled into Bloomington it was past eleven. I remind you, we had started from Sue’s house at about 9:30 a.m. And so ended the saga of Sue and Betty’s crazy adventures, the Tale of Six Chargers. It was not so much a learning curve as a learning roller coaster, but it made for a great story, and, in retrospect, a great time with two great friends spending the day making memories. And that was, in the end, worth every mile and minute.

Coda (by Sue)

The learning curve/coaster was long, and I can’t say it bent towards justice, but it did bend towards knowledge. (and some hysterical memories of the Count of Monte Cristo as interpreted by a British accented robot helper). The hotel we stayed at had a wonderful fast charger and a friend who owns an electric car helped us map a return trip which included a lunch break and a fast charger (and the “secret” of how to make it work!). After downloading the Tesla app, a kind man who was also not a Tesla owner showed me how to put my car into the app and successfully charge it. One of several lessons was not just downloading apps (I now have four plus Toyota’s own which only proved to be minimally helpful on the road trip) but being able to talk to humans. As we “drive” into the future, I hope we all realize how necessary human friendship, knowledge and humor remain in spite of our dependence on electric and robotic tools.

It’s been a rough year in many ways. Since last April, coming to grips with the death of a dear friend, Olivia Cadaval, and adjusting to a “new normal” after major back surgery, makes you appreciate the little things in a weird way. In this case, getting out of the house and meeting an old friend for some botanical therapy.

My friend Cathy and I made a date a couple of months ago to visit the latest Smithsonian orchid show which is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture this year. She has been through her own medical and personal traumas the past couple of years. At the time, winter was still hanging on and, though we talk frequently on the phone, we had not seen each other in person in ages.

Like most things these days, “we penciled the date in.” Would we feel up to it, physically and mentally? Would the weather behave? Some days, even venturing the relatively short distance to downtown DC seems beyond energy and motivation levels.

We made it, though. Over mac and cheese and black-eyed pea salad at the Sweet Home Cafe, we caught up with family news, spent the least time possible talking about our ailments, shared memories of our mutual friend Olivia, and laughed.

Then we wandered through the orchid exhibition, marveling at their beauty and utility, and the interesting connections to African American researchers, collectors, growers, and celebrities who have orchids named after them. (Having worked with her tangentially, I was glad to see one was named after Bernice Reagon Johnson!)

As we walked (slowly) back to the Metro to head home, we congratulated ourselves. We did it! We survived the winter, our various aches and pains, and other possible obstacles, and had an outing that made us feel – well, a bit exhausted, but also happy. We are planning another downtown “date” soon. Meanwhile, enjoy a few snaps of the orchids, and catch the show yourself if you are in DC and haven’t already!

Bright colors are an antidote to the end-of-the-winter blahs. Today, my friend Shoira and I had two-part, colorful Washington, DC adventure, all for the price of our Metro tickets.

First stop, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. If you don’t know SAAM, it is actually one-half of the grandiose, Greek Revival Patent Building, built back in the mid-1800s, and saved from destruction in the 1950s. The other half is the National Portrait Gallery. In between two parts of the building is a fun place to hang out, the Kogod Courtyard, with its splendid glass ceiling.

Currently, on the third floor of SAAM, you can walk among wooly mammoths. Well, kind of. You can actually walk around and through an imaginative world created by artist Nick Cave, which not only features various fanciful itinerations of elephantine ancestors, but installations literally dripping with bright color. This includes a wide table of artfully arranged found materials – glassware, plastic flowers, marbles, walking sticks, wigs, objects made from beer cans – and a whole wall draped with what looks like thousands of strings of Mardi Gras beads (see featured image above).

The exhibition makes you wonder, and also to appreciate how many hours it took to gather and put together all this stuff. The array of colors drew me in and cheered me up — the world has definitely lacked color and joy these past few weeks.

Second stop, Dupont Circle, to an outdoor celebration of the Indian holiday of Holi. The day was still gray, but the colors were flying! Holi is a Hindu spring festival, during which people throw colored powder at one another. The colors are symbolic, apparently, but mostly everyone has a blast getting festooned in red, blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow and green, walking rainbows with big smiles. The kids were especially joyous, and their moods infectious. (I mean, how often do your parents sanction covering yourself with what looks like crushed up sidewalk chalk?)

At the end of our day of color and playfulness, we were welcomed back to Northern Virginia by blue sky and sun. We had brought some color back to our world. Perhaps spring is not far behind.

As an Aquarius on the zodiac chart, I am drawn to the water. That is no surprise, and I have written about it before in many posts in this blog over the years. Since nothing too exciting is happening that I can report on (we’ve been semi-hibernating this winter), but wanting to keep my hand in writing, I have decided to use the theme of fish for this post.

As a child, I went fishing with my dad and great uncle Jim, usually on Lake Champlain. True confession: I never really liked fishing. Especially the part which involves impaling a squirming worm on a sharp hook, and then (if you actually catch a fish) taking that same nasty hook out of the poor creature’s mouth. I guess it’s no surprise then that I don’t really enjoyed eating most fin fish. I only really wanted to be out on the lake in a boat.

I don’t remember my first encounter with shellfish, I just remember always loving to eat them. Shrimp, crabs, lobsters, scallops, squid, octopus, (and the technically bivalves) oysters, clams and mussels, cooked in a myriad of delicious ways and preferably served near the water. Though I will take them anywhere that is not too far inland. Shrimp in Iowa? That seems wrong. (Sorry, midwesterners, you know I love you.)

That is why I was in seventh heaven when my partner in crime, Arlene, and I worked toward the Mid-Atlantic Maritime program of the 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. As soon as this idea struck me, maybe two-three years before we actually achieved it, I “had” to start doing research — which included eating lots of the native seafood of the region, on the seafront, around sounds and bays, and along riverfronts. From Long Island to North Carolina, the possibilities are almost endless.

Outside of the region, I have sampled the bounty of the New England coast, and further south in South Carolina, Florida and the Gulf. And of course up and down the coast of California, and last year, an amazing trip to Vancouver Island, BC. Even further afield, I’ve had highly memorable experiences eating local seafood in Mexico, France and Tunisia.

Ummmm, my mouth is watering just thinking this bounty and reviewing my photos of these culinary (and often boat-riding) adventures. They conjure up summery vacations and warmer, sunnier days to come. Enjoy this photo tour around some seafood eating locations, and let’s hope for warmer days full of luscious seafood and other foodways adventures!

To round things out, my attempt at a crab collage, in my more pictorial phase of collaging.

If you are in the DC area and you brave the cold this week, you can visit the National Museum of Asian Art (in the underground Sackler portion) to see the exhibition, “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” (until February 1). I visited the exhibition last Friday, when it wasn’t so cold. (Coincidentally, the Prime Minister of South Korean, Kim Min-soek, and his rather large entourage also visited that afternoon, but luckily I had been through the exhibition at my leisure before they showed up!)

The exhibition stretches over two floors and ten galleries, but the art work is well organized and seeing the whole thing didn’t seem overwhelming. I didn’t get nearly as worn out as a December visit to the Grandma Moses exhibition at the American Art Museum, but maybe because –pardon me, Grandma — that exhibition seemed like endless variations on a fairly narrow theme. I did learn a lot about Anna Mary Robertson Moses, her life and her art work, and I would not advise you against visiting. (It is also up for longer, so there is not as big a rush.) After all, the wonderful thing about Washington, DC is that there are so many world class free museums. If you don’t fancy something you set out to visit, or the whole museum for that matter, you only invested your time and can move on to another!

So, what kept me energized at the Korean exhibition? I guess I have always enjoyed interesting juxtapositions of art work, and the curators did a really interesting job of this. At the entrance, for instance, there is a whole wall dedicated to “moon jars” – including an actual ceramic moon jar, and then moon jars depicted in art work from various periods of time.

Then again, I do love a good “cabinet of curiosities” and the exhibition had a few examples of the Korean versions of this phenomenon. The entry to the museum features a preview of that concept, with a silhouette of shelving holding art pieces foreshadowing things to come. The next iteration is a painted screen depicting art work, books, decorative food, and other items that would have adorned a scholar’s space. (Scholars were actually revered back then.) Toward the end of the exhibition, the cabinet of curiosities idea is updated and reimagined on open shelves. You can explore an interactive of what is on the shelves here.

I found myself drawn to several other art works that invited me to look closer, drawing me into a game of “I Spy” – I remember these books keeping my daughter amused for relatively long periods of time. I spent a while examining several large scale paintings, exploring tiny vignettes and hidden-in-plain-sight images. It was a lot of fun.

Of course, there also was the Irworobongdo or “Five Mountains with Sun and Moon” screen, which gained a lot of notice since it had used briefly as a background for a scene in “K-Pop Demon Hunters” (which I had to watch on Netflix the evening after I visited the exhibition, causing a severe ear worm all the next day.)

I’m sorry I didn’t visit and report on the exhibition earlier, because I am giving it a big thumbs-up for these reasons and plenty more. It was a great afternoon out. Check out some of my favorite highlights in these photos, and spend some time “spying with your little eye”!

It’s that time of year to pile on the calories with buttery and sugary treats!

Almond Crescents are one of three types of cookies that have graced our family holiday cookie tray for as long as I can remember. (The other two, which require decorating, have been reported on here. ) I never thought to ask my mother where she got the recipe from, unfortunately.

Shaping these into “just the right” shape and size is always the fun part, as there are various opinions on what is “right.” My mother typically rolled hers into small logs and more elongated crescent shapes, or sort of like eyebrows. I sort of half roll and half shape mine and flatten the bottoms more. Daughter M.E. says mine are too big and makes hers smaller. She is also the one who usually rolls the warm cookies in the powdered sugar. The rule is that any that break during the sugar rolling process can be eaten immediately. Though I maintain they taste better after soaking up some of the sugar and mellowing out a bit.

We usually double or at least one and a half the recipe to have more. We don’t let my husband too close to these because he eats too many all at once. I tend to hoard some of them to eat well into January. Though I have been known at least once to forget where I put my stash and find them again around Easter. (They were a bit stale but I still ate them, of course!)

These cookies are a take on other kinds of butter cookies or shortbread involving lots of butter and nuts and rolled in confectioners sugar, similar to Mexican Wedding Cookies, etc. You may have your own version. If not, try these, since they are delicious! Keep scrolling beyond the recipe to see a collage of us shaping and rolling over the years. This year we had help from our German friend Amelie. (Last year, our mutual friend Franca got her own cookie blog!) Have a wonderful, butter and sugary holiday everyone!

Almond Crescents

1 cup of butter

1/2 cup of confectioners sugar

2/3 cup ground almonds (sometimes I add more!)

2 1/4 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt (I only put this in if the butter is not salted)

Sifted confectioners sugar to roll cookies in

Cream butter and sugar, add almonds and mix well. Add flour and mix (best done with your hands as it is hard to do with even the strongest wooden spoon). Form dough into small balls and refrigerate. Form dough into small crescent shapes and bake at 325 F for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom. Roll in confectioners sugar while still warm. Store in airtight tin.

The Octagon House, a historic survivor hidden in plain sight in downtown Washington, DC, has been in the back of my mind to visit “one of these days.” When I asked several people if they had ever been, it seems many had heard of it, but none had visited. My friend Claudia was game, so we set out for a guided tour last Saturday.

After a brisk and breezy ten minute walk down 18th Street from Farragut West Metro Station, I arrived and met up with Claudia, who had no trouble finding a parking space nearby. Surrounded by office buildings, the neighborhood has an air of desertion on the weekends. (Any nearby coffee houses and cafes are shut up tight, so if you are going on the 11 a.m. tour be sure to caffeinate at home or closer to the more lively area around the Farraguts!)

We joined several other intrepid visitors, including a multi-generation family who were interested in the ghosts reported to be lurking in various parts of the house. Another gentleman was more interested in the architecture. The tour did not disappoint on either score.

The first thing that I noted was the familiar face of the tour guide, Claire Morgan, who fairly recently joined the staff of my old office, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. I had no idea she did tours of the Octagon on the weekends, but was glad of it as she was an excellent guide. (Contact her if you want to donate any funds to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival or other parts of the work of the office!)

The second thing we all learned right off the bat was that the Octagon House is not quite octagonal, or at least symmetrically octagonal. If you count all sides (including the front portion as three) it sort of has eight sides, and has a symmetry, and certainly has a unique shape which was necessary due to the particular piece of land that the original builders had to deal with.

We also learned that the house used to have an amazing view of the Potomac River from its upper floors, which seemed highly unlikely now, but in the early 1800s was possible. One can imagine how the house and the surrounding area looked in the early 1800s, and in fact you can visualize this thanks to one of several paintings which “recreate” the house’s setting and how the rooms might have looked during their glory days (circa. 1800-1855). It was the winter town home of the Tayloe family, who had a massive plantation in the Tidewater. (Poor Mrs. Tayloe had fifteen children, we learned.)

Since the Tayloe’s left the house empty for much of the year, and considering its proximity to their domicile, it became a logical sanctuary for Dolley and James Madison when the British very rudely burned down the White House during the War of 1812. The second floor office became known as the Treaty Room when Monroe signed the Treaty of Ghent ending the war in 1814.

Along with a visit to the first and second floors, the tour includes a peek into the downstairs kitchen and housekeeper’s bedroom. (I admit to getting sort of creepy feeling in the small and cramped housekeeper’s bedroom, though no ghosts seemed directly associated with that space.) The Tayloes brought some of their enslaved workers with them in the summers, and they just slept wherever they worked, on palettes on the floor, in the outbuildings, or in the kitchen. The housekeeper had an actual bed, though it was one of those ones with the ropes holding up the straw mattress that had to be super uncomfortable.

One of the most interesting parts of the tour was learning about the material of the fireplaces facades, and the columns at the front of the house. These were fashioned from Coade Stone, an artificial composite stone which was all the rage back in the day. This stone could be put into molds and made into many shapes and forms. Manufactured in Lambeth, England, the Coade Stone company was run by Eleanor Coade, surely one of the most successful early business women of her day, which is an interesting story in and of itself.

The second floor also houses exhibitions of contemporary architecture, since the Octagon is on the grounds of, and now owned and maintained by, the Architects Foundation. If you visit, give yourself some extra time to view these exhibitions after the tour.

Here are some snaps of our visit, illustrating some of the highlights above. In short, the Octagon is worth a visit if you live here in the DC area, or are planning a visit from further afield, and want to play tourist on a Friday or Saturday.

A walk in nature is just the ticket right now, with the fall colors peaking and crisp air beckoning. i took a solo walk around Cowan’s Gap Lake, near our vacation cabin, on Sunday while my more ambitious companions climbed up the mountain to the overlook. I’m not ready for that yet post back surgery.

The lake path is a flat 1.5 mile loop which skirts this small but very photogenic lake in Fulton County, PA. We’ve been walking around this lake for 35 years (or more). It is the lake of our daughter’s childhood, as Lake Champlain (quite a lot larger but no less nostalgic) was mine.

This time, I sought to photograph several memorial benches that dot the lake. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, and one that is truly appreciated as I get older and need to rest along the way. There used to be just a few, very rustic, places to sit (mostly fashioned from large, felled trees, it seemed). Not sure when the park started accepting benches in people’s honor, but I thank them for doing so, and for the families that donated them.

As I read the inscriptions, I was taken with the range of ages of those memorized, as well as the different sentiments and styles. I didn’t know any of these people, and though I was compelled to try to find their obituaries online, I thought better of it. Just noting that they enjoyed the park and the lake as much as I have over the years made them my friends and compatriots.

I’m thinking of where around the lake I would want a bench, if I decide that is something that I’d like to be remembered by some day. Meanwhile, join me in commemorating lives spent enjoying the out of doors, as we approach All Saint’s Day/Day of the Dead.