Halloween Have a Go

Cut and paste this verbage skeleton into the comments section and tell your Halloween Tale. The Chows will judge them at midnight tonight, announce the winner and award a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant of your choice. Let's hear your story!

It was a dark and ____ ____ [adjective for Northwest weather] Halloween night.
At home in ____ [The 'Kan EWA neighborhood], ____ [name of person in room] was listening to ____ [overhyped indie band], drinking ____ [cheap hooch], debating whether to wear ____ [hideous early ’90s clothing fad] and go as ____ [Saved by the Bell character] or a rumpled ____ [article of clothing] and ____ [comfort shoe brand] to go as ____ [local prominent real estate developer]. Suddenly, he/she heard a ____ [spooky noise] in the basement.
With visions of ____ [low-budget slasher movie] and ____ [early-career Jack Nicholson character] in mind, ____ [same person in room] grabbed the ____ [overpriced but brilliantly marketed cell phone/PDA model] and went to investigate.
Peering into the darkness, he/she yelled “____!” [gangsta rap lyric] and punched the air like ____ [aging action hero]. Startled, ____ [name of other person in the room] screamed and dropped his/her ____ [unspeakable and unusual prop].
Clearly, both thought to themselves, this was going to be a ____ [salacious adjective] Halloween.

The End.

~h/t Daily Candy

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

It's a beautiful day here in The 'Kan EWA and no finer day for a ball game. The Chows are doubly excited because it's Saturday night in Denver where the dream lives on. So the game here at Bellemaison is being played even as I write; this is the backstop where the catcher stands. Those of you who have partied here with us will recognize the wash tubs that I bought over in Vinegar Flats at a garage sale and the old baby's bathtub I bought at the Paris flea market; of course, the last time you saw them they were full of ice, beer and champagne. The Chows have put them to a better and higher use. They are pretty keen, those Chows. And believe that you can party anywhere, particularly in the Rocky Mountains.

Anyway, getting back to the ballgame at Bellemaison, if you're gonna play ball, you stand downpool by the pool slide and pitch up the pool deck into the back stop. While each player enjoys their unique defensive and offensive strategies, essentially the game is played with some people standing at midpool so as to try and snag the ball in the air while others stand down at the back stop or even to the side of the backstop at the diving board, hoping for a ricochet and a clean catch. In any case, the person who catches the ball gets to chew it hard all the way back down the pool deck to the pitcher where they drop it and trot uppool as everyone reloads. Is this a game or what! And the party starts in Denver at 5 sharp!

~a special shout out to those believers down in Oregon who live on the BOSTON side of I-5

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

O the Horror

Sylvie Ruth ran up to me and whispered in my ear that the Chows are not voting for David Hession. When she told me why they had changed their minds, I couldn't believe it.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

The Chow Nation has a good snicker going. There has been a lot of running around in The General, what with fall here and all. Green Bluff, Hayden Farmer's Market, Egger's for good brats, all those places the Chows go to get their apples and pumpkins and gourdes and the things they need to do the entertaining they do once the weather turns fall. You know, tailgates and all.

Anyway, they saw a series of signs all over town last weekend that looked like this:

The Chows love this commando campaigning and think it's a far better nasty than the TV commercials and She's A Liar stuff on the front page of the morning paper. They think the hate boxes on the corner are better because if you're gonna be snarky, why waste money in the process? You could donate $40,000 to Catholic Charities, get you some boxes at the liquor store, take to the street corners and be just as snarky as you could with air time on Q-6. As Do' says quite matter of fact: You don't need an ad agency to go mean. Look at Jane Hession: she just hip checks 'em.

Do' always plays to win and sometimes forgets it's just a game of ball. I guess that's why she's not the Alpha Chow.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

There's much talk these days about fishing on the Joe. Even the New Yorkers are some kind of experts about fishing on the Joe. My grandmother used to fish the Joe and wash her diapers in the Joe, no small feat in winter. I fished the Joe as a child and had a knack for pulling out the big ones. Entirely clairvoyant on my part, I can assure you. Seems the truly great women of the Great State of North Idaho fish the Joe with fine success, as seen here:

(see above)
Clearly, it's all in the pants.

But as mighty as it is, the all time great fish story in our family is not about the Joe. Seems my grandmother, the same one who did her diapers on the banks in the icy waters of the river behind their house, moved to Coeur d'Alene at a point. She got in the car and drove down Sherman to 11th. There she parked the car--one: because the road ended there and two: because the trailhead to Fernan was there. She got her pole and her tackle out of the car and hiked down to Fernan Lake, caught her trout, hiked back to the edge of town, drove home to Third Street and cooked her catch for dinner. My grandmother used to pull dinner out of Fernan Lake and hiked down there to do it. Now just go ahead and tell me we don't own the universe.



JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

from lunch today:

Ego Tripping

I was born in the Congo.

I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the sphinx.

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

that only glows every one hundred years falls

into the center giving divine perfect light.

I am bad.

I sat on the throne

drinking nectar with Allah.

I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe

to cool my thirst.

My oldest daughter is Nefertiti.

The tears from my birth pains

created the Nile.

I am a beautiful woman.

I gazed on the forest and burned

out the Sahara desert.

With a packet of goat's meat

and a change of clothes,

I crossed it in two hours.

I am a gazelle so swift,

so swift you can't catch me.

For a birthday present when he was three,

I gave my son Hannibal an elephant.

He gave me Rome for mother's day.

My strength flows ever on.

My son Noah built an ark and

I stood proudly at the helm

as we sailed on a soft summer day.

I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.

Men intone my loving name.

All praises all praises,

I am the one who would save.

I sowed diamond in my back yard.

My bowels deliver uranium.

The filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels.

On a trip north,

I caught a cold and blew

my nose giving oil to the Arab world.

I am so hip even my errors are correct.

I sailed west to reach east and had to round off

the earth as I went.

The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid

across three continents.

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal.

I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.

I mean...I...can fly

like a bird in the sky...

~Nikki Giovanni

One of my old friends from IDAHO got the word week before last that she has double breast cancer and a few dirty lymph nodes. Just heard a few minutes ago that one of my closest colleagues in the business community will undergo heart surgery tomorrow, not exactly emergency but important enough to be scheduled after his MD appointment this morning. My mentor was just voted out of a business that he built and of which he has been a partner for 41 years.

I remember the week my dad died and the naif chapter of my life closed for good. I thought, is this it? You work hard, save your money, retire, get sick and die? For those that have seen it, that was the week I commissioned The Table of the Four Seasons. That was my response. I still don't have any more answers than I did then. But I have seen and tasted some fearfully beautiful, joyous, and wonderous moments since then. There is beauty all around me. And by God, I'm going to go out and find some.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

The mist was heavy in the garden this morning. Now it lays deep and still, entombing the clocktower and all of the park in its mystery. I have much to do today, again, and continue to tilt with those things in business, those problematic enigmas, that bore me, exasperate me, occupy me.

Not that I am without inspiration. I have great inspiration these days, in the form of the goings and doings of my friends.

One of my oldest friends is running for public office. Instead of mucking up the blogs and wagging her finger in the air when we have coffee, she is acting on her strong opinions and convictions. She's running for office. I hear from a mutual friend that things are going quite well and that she will, in all probability, win. She's a true patriot.

One of my dearest friends just retired after working for the Red Cross for 30 years. Never worked for anybody but them. The last chapter of her career included 9/11, Katrina and the tsunami. She touches me deeply. She's struggling as she moves into the new rhythm of her life.

One of my newest friends is going fishing on the Joe this weekend. There's nothing like fall fishing. How is it that autumn can be such a clean beginning on so many levels? This friend has great courage and is fully present in the pain that each day brings. She is going to be fine.

As I write, the fog has lifted from the park and the sun shines softly now, the orange and gold of the treetops in the park clearly visible from my window. All the best moments move so quickly.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Okay, get off. Let the emails, phone calls, wailing and gnashing of teeth cease. I'm here. I'm fine. It's all good. And we've all survived--how many days has it been?

Initially, I was at a loss to continue the Russian saga. It is so difficult to describe completely and fully. I was stumped. I put it off. I have decided that whenever the wind up of Russia 2007 is written will be just fine. I'm reading Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Maybe I will understand better why describing it evades me.

I am busy with work, with friends, and with the things that I enjoy.

I am training for the Vietnam bike ride in November.

I am living my life. It was a beautiful end to summer. It's fall now. Cool, wet, misty.

I am soldiering on with the things that continue to plague me and happy for the new and different things that surprise me.

More as I know it.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Tsarist Russia is so opulent , so gigantic, so sophsticated, it's exhausting. No small part of that exhaustion is the acute contrast of the squalor and poverty that accompany the splendor, that go side by side with it, like creme fraiche and rye with beluga caviar. So to speak.

So to speak. But at any rate, after Swan Lake, the Nevsky Prospect, the Church of the Resurrection, the Admiralty, St. Isaac's Cathedral, The Smolny Convent, and the Cathedral of Kazan, each with its own awesome uniqueness, it was way past time to settle into the calmness and serenity of the great open air.



(I did not mention the stats on Peterhof: the "fountain" is referred to as the Grand Cascade is composed of three waterfalls, 64 fountains and 37 statues. Its system of waterworks has remained unchanged since 1721, conveying water over a distance of nearly 12 miles with of course, no pumping stations. He was not called Peter the Great because of his height.)

We embarked upon a journey to Moscow via a series of lakes, rivers and canals. We left St. Petersburg on the Neva River, enduring quite a middle of the night storm on Lake Ladoga, floating down the Svir River to Lake Onega. Here we entered the Volga-Baltic Waterway, an extended system of rivers, lakes and canals that link the Baltic Sea with the Volga River, with a total length of about 700 miles, St. Peterburg to the Rybinsk Reservoir. Here is the Dreamland, the Fairy Tale world of Russia.


It's this complex system of natural rivers and lakes, artificial reservoirs and canals that has made commercial travel between the two great cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg easy and commonplace and created the tourista bonanza that now exists here. Towns and villages once sequestered by the Iron Curtain now play host to the world, showing off exquisite and extraordinary monasteries, churches, museums and kremlins. Commercial investment in the west since perestroika is non-evident and the life of some of the people in these villages is not heart-wrenching, but troubling. Deeply troubling.


St. Petersburg provided us with one last OMIGOD moment after sailing; the city gave way to small settlements and dachas, with stand after stand of virgin timber and trees, the birch trees swaying in the soft summer air. Just as we burst upon immense horizon of Lake Ladoga, not only nicknamed 'The Street of Life' but also the largest lake in Europe, we sailed past Petrokrepost ('Peter's fortress'), a medieval fortress built in 1323. A man in a Scottish golf cap and camou stood on the rocks fishing, his bait in a plastic milk jug. It was not clear if this was real time, live or just a perfectly scripted, superbly cinematographed moment of sheer awe.

Because it was sheer awe.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

No real discussion of St. Petersburg (originally, 'Petropo', then 'Pieterburgh') is complete without a nod to and props for Peterhof. Peterhof. God, where to begin....

'Petrodvorez' was commissioned in 1714, built on a steep hill overlooking the Baltic, some twenty miles from St. Petersburg. Peter the Great built it as respite from summer in the city and it was his ambition to rival Versailles. You might remember the reign of Peter the Great was the turning point in Russsia's history. He was the Great Change Agent, building factories and schools and universities, whole cities even (St. Petersburg?) , raising the first Russian army and creating the Russian fleet. So Peter was not unaccustomed to doing anything in a faltering or tentative manner. Peter had big ideas and vast resources. Hence, Peterhof.

The baroque gardens feature the most beautiful of fountains; they are an hydraulic marvel, bringing water in from the Bay of Finnland in a purely genius manner to make a bold artistic statement that is unrivaled. The fountains of Peterhof are grandeur personified.

The house, the royal residence, is no less. The crystal chandeliers are massive, weighing over 10 tons. The wooden floors are exquisite parqueted. The silks on the walls luscious in weave and color and the paintings expansive as the grounds.

The Throne Room is smaller than the Throne Room in St. Petersburg; this IS the summer palace after all, but gorgeously appropriate nevertheless. We did a true double take when we realized the portrait that hangs above the throne is that of Catherine the Great on her horse; Catherine was just not short on anything it took to be a member of the Russian royal family or a tsarina of Mother Russia.

I loved this room, The Picture Hall, because I have never seen anything like it. The ceiling features a magnificent scene of Peter himself, powerful and wise, cavorting with the gods. Apollo, Mars, Juno and Neptune that I could recognize. The walls are covered in their entirety of portraits of young girls. It's wild! Actually it was Catherine who commissioned the girls--they are in different garbs and native costumes, perhaps, in a variety of poses. They are atheletic, educated, afficionados of the arts and sciences, home and garden; some mythological.

The Chesme Hall features massive depictions of the naval victories over Turkey. These are awesome in the real sense of the word. They are so big that as you gaze upon the oil of 'The Burning of the Turkish Fleet in Chesme Harbour', it is like looking at it from a balcony, as if the harbor and this furnace of battle are 50 yards on the horizon. You smell the smoke. Then you realize, you don't. Awesome, as it's said.

Because the house was built by Peter, but augmented and expanded by Catherine, it is a tantalizing mixture of masculine and feminine taste. The Divan Room is divine. The walls are covered in exquisite Chinese silk, the floors are covered with beautiful wood from the Russian forrests laid in a geometric maze, and the room features large feather pillows and an immense Turkish sofa, hence the name. It's a Girlfriends' Paradise.

I do have to say my favorite room in the whole house is Peter's study. I loved his bedroom but walking through his study gave me goosebumps: just imagine what ideas he nursed and flogged to fruition here. What plans he laid and what revisions and and amendments he made as the updates became available. Such a thinker. Such an innovator. This was his private space. One of the world's all time great leaders.

As it's said, there's no place like home.

After all of Peterhof, the Hermitage, St. Peter and Paul and so much more to boot, we were sated. We were exhausted. We were ready to sail. We stocked up on Russian vodka and headed back to our boat. The crew gathered up the gang plank, put on the sailing music and we were off. Dreamland awaited.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

By now, much of it seems like a dream and the edges of the startling contrasts of beauty and ugly are softened by my memory. I would go back to Russia next week. It was that poignant, that exquisite, that haunting. St. Petersburg opened the curtain on the adventure of a lifetime.

We arrived in St. Petersburg expecting nothing; but still the poverty and the desolation of the streets blinded sided us and kept us off balance because the other parts of St. Petersburg were so damn gorgeous. What a town! The Rolling Stones had played there the evening before we arrived, nuts!, and the town was still a little buzzy after what I am sure was a supernaturally heady experience for the locals. Mick! Keith! They played here

which is the palace square of the Winter Palace of the Tsars, now a piece of the extraordinary Hermitage Museum. My dreams came true when we visited the Hermitage, initiated by Catherine the Great with a purchase of 289 paintings. These days the collection numbers 3,000,000 pieces acquired over 3 centuries. The Louvre, the Vatican, the Met pale by comparison. It was not only the art of the Hermitage, the Monets, the Delacroix, the Renoirs, the Pissarros, the Degas, the Cezannes, the Van Goghs, the Gauguins, the Picassos, the Matisses, the Rodins, the Kadinskys, the Rembrandts, the Da Vincis, but it was the house itself, the trappings of Tsarist Russia and their culture and faith, oh those Icons, that made it all that it was and more. So much more. And again, shocking details at every juncture. This art is hung similarly to how I would hang it in my living room, with wire and nail, and you can walk right up to it and get in the face of Van Gogh in his artistic fury. That's right. There are no ropes. There is no plexiglass. There is no security except for glaring Russsian women with thin, red lipsticked lips who squint and murmur, nyet, nyet, nyet. They sit in every room and examine each visitor with eyes of steel. Nothing gets past these women.

Russians, by and large, act like ladies and gentlemen; their culture not being graced with the beneficence of freedom of speech and other liberties assured them by their founding fathers. Their airports are like the American airports of our youth, when we used to breeze in 10 minutes before the flight. The Russians, of course, don't have terrorists hunting them down so they don't need to enact extraordinary measures of security. People wouldn't think of acting hostilely in museums because of the secret police. It's not what would happen to you if you defaced and damaged a piece of the collection of the Hermitage, it's what would happen to you and your family. So built in to the Russian culture are "safeguards" which allow them to live in remarkable freedom. Of a sort. We have different freedoms in this country, yet their life seems simpler on a number of levels.

We went to Catherine's Summer Palace outside of St. Petersburg and the singularly remarkable Peterhof, Peter the Great's summer residence. You decide for your self:

nice, eh? Those nouveau riche schmucks on Lake Coeur d'Alene don't know their front doors from their septic tanks when it comes to summering in style.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWa

More St. Petersburg

It's a challenge to pick just a few pictures; click on any of these to see the detail.

Italian Skylight Hall The Hermitage

Raphael Room The Hermitage

Raphael Loggias The Hermitage


the bath part i The Hermitage


the bath part ii The Hermitage

the Pavillion Hall of The Hermitage

the front door of the Winter Palace

(The Hermitage)

my favorite

The Green Dining Room

Summer Palace

Catherine The Great

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

MORE FACES OF RUSSIA

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA