Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

This just in from Evil Sister: she and her elder daughter are fine despite Hurricane Milton, and Gainesville, FL "dodged another bullet". I can't help but wonder how long that's going to last. I'm not even sure what my sister was doing there.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, I did my database monkeying for Lambert House last night at their newish temporary location: St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, an architecturally interesting church about a mile from the house.

I've been asked several times why the house has moved temporarily. It's having its foundation replaced; leaks had rendered the basement unusable and had imperiled the house. So, somebody's going to jack the place up and pour some brand new concrete.

How's the church, or rather, its carriage house? Swank! It's a lot of space, and it's in excellent repair; I had no idea the Episcopalians did so well for themselves. Our poor little house with its decades-long history of absentee landlords suffers in comparison. The move seems not to have deterred the kids youth from coming, which was the highest priority in the selection of the space. The IT situation wasn't quite ideal yet, but we made it work. Gotta crunch those numbers.

And another excursion: I went to the Blue Moon Tavern, which is an ancient dive bar in the U District with a venerable history of serving literati and pinkos, for of all things a house music night. Picture people, several older than I am, shaking their booties to old house on vinyl in a smallish, sticker-covered bar that predates my mother. That's why I live in a big city. I'll be back for "DJs in a Dive Bar", and preferably not alone.

La Fashionista, her semi-cousin C, and I were supposed to have a girls' night in last night, but I was the only one who wasn't feeling horrible from the smoke. But C had planned a potluck at her place, so I had bought ingredients for a blueberry cobbler.

What to do? Bake the cobbler and eat some of it, of course. So far so mundane, you think, except for this: it may have been the first dessert I ever baked all by myself in my life. You see, I don't bake as a rule because, to quote my father, I'll just eat it.

But bake I did. Yes, there were minor screwups like frozen butter and baking soda instead of powder. But you know what? Cobbler is forgiving. It's hard to screw up too badly when butter, sugar, and blueberries are involved. Nom!

Bonus: I have dessert ready for the Wendling when he comes for dinner tomorrow night. He may like it better than the usual bowl-o'-berries, but he better not get used to it.

And speaking of smoke, my P100 respirator that, believe it or not, I didn't buy for Burning Man has let me carry on with riding my bike as ever. My 1980s windows and 1950s front door are keeping the smoke out of the Devil Girl Pad. My fourteen African violets are busy turning carbon dioxide from me into oxygen as I type; they continue to bloom more often than in previous years in what I can only assume is a show of appreciation. I think all sixteen of us — if you include my son — are going to be OK.