Blog Archives - Bobbi Rubinstein

Tornado causes damage south of Seattle

9/30/2013

I must say, it's good to be home with the blue skies. Seattle rain was a nice interlude but there's something to be said for drinking morning coffee from your favorite cup.

And then I heard that we missed the excitement - a rare tornado.

According to the CBS News website, "parts of the Northwest got more rain in a day or two than typically falls in the entire month."

So the torrential downpour we had to walk through on Saturday was unusual? It just reminded me of a California storm, when we get them. It was the second wettest September on record for Seattle.

Whoa. Get outta Dodge.

Homeward Bound

9/29/2013

What does it mean to pre-board?
Do you get on before you get on?
~ George Carlin

Pack up, put dishes in dishwasher, dump the trash, make sure we put the furniture back where we found it. That means I have to move all the vases back. I used them as weights for my strength training.

Yes, I made sure I exercised on this trip. Wall push-ups, ankle balancing, vase lifts. And a fair share of walking. No buses, just the light rail to and from the airport. Quite civilized that was.

It's not raining which is good. I was wondering how I was going to handle an umbrella, suitcase and tote. Maybe I should practice that when I get home. Lunges and luggage pulls across the living room.

Sunless in Seattle

9/28/2013

I actually like this weather. I like the rain. What I like about Seattle are that people are so used to the rain that they still do stuff. They don't stay indoors, take antidepressants, and read novels. They just go out and get wet.
~ Augusten Burroughs

We got to experience true Seattle weather today. It rained. Part of the day it drizzled. Part of the day we used the umbrella. Part of the day, the part where we headed back from all our touring to think about dinner, it poured. And the wind blew the umbrellas inside out.

Wet was the operative word for the late afternoon. Wet shoes, wet jeans, wet coats. But I can't say I was too upset. Other than wondering how my shoes were going to dry out and the discomfort of water soaked jeans knocking my knees every time I took a step, I was truly enjoying walking in the rain.

I was also glad I didn't take the 'real' camera in this photo. I stuck the Nikon point & shoot in my purse to see how it would work out to capture stuff beyond vacation snapshots. Whew. Dodged a damaged camera there. And mostly I decided to experience life straight on today and not too much through a lens. When you're constantly looking for the shots, you're not experiencing the city. And I travel to be anywhere else but LA so grayness, buildings, sidewalks and people walking on them was what I had come for.

We did the Seattle Underground Tour which takes you through what were city streets below the current street level in Pioneer Square, old downtown Seattle. The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 had destroyed the business district. They rebuilt up to 22 feet above the level of the old streets but kept the underground space. Interesting, funny and well done presentation.

Except I forgot about my teeny tiny issue with claustrophobia. And we were really under the sidewalk surrounded by broken walls and pipes. Deep breathing and concentrating on the tour guide and not on the thought of earthquakes got me through the tour. Much like my forgetting about my fear of heights on my one and only time on a ski lift. Oops.

Then we had a wonderful Middle Eastern lunch and headed up to the Frye Museum. And I do mean up. Hills. Not like San Francisco but I could feel those leg and butt muscles pulling me up like a cable car.

The Frye Museum is small, free and wonderful. There was a truly amazing retrospective by Buster Simpson, a Seattle artist and "pioneer in the field of urban environmentalism and art in public spaces". Agitprop, process-driven art and site-specific were just a few other words the curator used to describe his work. I was enthralled.

And then in one of the exhibit rooms, some gentleman in a baseball cap was touching one of the pieces and chatting with what seemed to be his friends. I eavesdropped enough to wonder, was this the artist himself? At one point I got the group to look at me and motioned, are you...and one of the men said, yes, this is Buster Simpson.

I gushed all over myself telling him how much I loved his work and then I said it was like meeting Paul McCartney. Given that we were close in demographics, I figured he'd take that as the compliment it was. And my kids weren't around to let me know how much I had just embarrassed them.

Fishless in Seattle

9/27/2013

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly don't tell them where they know the fish.
~ Mark Twain

This morning I woke up to find "Fishless in Seattle", a New York Times op-ed piece, highlighted on my husband's computer. Timothy Egan, who writes about politics and life from the West, did an essay about playing hooky and going salmon fishing in Puget Sound. It seems every type of salmon have one purpose in the fall - "to spawn and die."

"Chinook, the mighty kings, are returning to the Columbia River in numbers not seen in decades," according to Egan. My husband likes to fish with his brother, who he called and told about the run. They commiserated with each other that they weren't out on my brother-in-law's boat. I could hear the sighs through the phone.

Today as we walked along the pier, I caught him looking in the water, muttering, "I don't see any salmon." I think he actually expected to see hundreds of fish feeling sorry for him that he didn't bring pole and willing to leap into his arms as some kind of compensation.

My husband loves fish. On our second date he cooked me some kind of white fish. Whenever we are in a fish related city, he eats salmon. The first time we were in Seattle I was almost 7 months pregnant with our first daughter, walking up and down hills, which is what I remember. He remembers being on some island eating salmon.

Our first day in Seattle on this trip we went to Pike Market and bought smoked salmon. Yesterday we went across the street to the lower rent district and bought more smoked salmon simply as a taste test I was told, to see if the less expensive batch was equally as mouthwatering. It was. I am not a connoisseur, especially when little bones are involved.

Tonight we stopped at a restaurant for dinner and he had halibut and I had aki tuna. I hesitated over the lasagna with homemade noodles. He went back to the open kitchen grill to ask the chef how he cooked the halibut. With vermouth, which we don't currently have in the pantry at home but was instructed to write on the grocery list tacked to the fridge immediately upon landing.

Aye, aye captain!

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain

9/26/2013

I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.
~ Katherine Mansfield

I love the feeling of concrete in the morning. There's nothing I like more than to grab breakfast and head out on a walk around the city, any city. As long as it's walkable with interesting buildings and people going about their business, I'm in heaven. Snap, snap, I would never think to mute my camera. The click makes it real.

I don't care about the weather. Sunny is good but rain is a treat. Locals always apologize if the weather's bad, especially when I say I'm from LA. But I say it's not a problem for me. I'm on vacation, I'm here to experience anything that's different than home. And it doesn't rain in LA, at least not a lot the last few winters.

I brought my black multi-colored striped umbrella purchased on Granville Island in Vancouver at the Umbrella Shop. It's medium size. Doesn't fit in my purse. But I don't care. I didn't bring the ugly beige one that was all that was left at the market at home which was bought for a previous trip to a rainy clime. Like I said, an umbrella shop in LA is beyond a joke where as the Vancouver shop had florals and stripes and solids and all sizes and colors and fabrics. It was hard to choose.

I'm going to use my pretty umbrella tomorrow and I'm really excited. It's supposed to rain the next few days. Must find a coffee shop to read and write in. Perhaps the Seattle Art Museum will have a cafe. Make my day.

I like the Pacific Northwest

9/25/2013

Nothing like a 6am flight out of LAX to wreck havoc with your biorhythms. But 'Ship!' is my new motto, so here goes.

I'm in Seattle, a city I've been to many times and really like. We're staying in some kind of business apartment rentals which is like staying in a trendy Zen hotel with no people and a kitchen. I think it will work out but thank goodness for taped delayed shows on the Internets. The TV only has one station and it's local.

We're just a few blocks from Pike Market, touristy but ok for now. I've already found my go-to cheese shop, bakery, French bakery, wine shop and produce vendor. My husband's favorite smoked salmon place is more pricey than the shops on the other side of the street. Live and learn.

After an oddly placed nap from about 4 to 8pm, I'm almost ready to take on the day, uh, night. Meaning I'll stay up reading Tabitha Tablet and hope that tomorrow I'm back on track. My husband says if we leave really, really early, we get a whole day wherever we're going. I say not if our bodies have been tackled by a linebacker.

I've already started snapping photos which I will share when I get back. In my mad dash to get ready and general technophobe approach to newness, I have yet to try downloading photos to Tabby and working on them. I will have to set up a morning back home when I'm adequately caffeinated and into beginner's mind to take on this challenge. It will be met and I will win ... but just not tonight.

When autumn leaves start to fall

9/24/2013

Getty Museum Los Angeles, 2011

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
                                    ~ George Eliot

Fall is my favorite season. It doesn't really start in California till November. But lucky me, this season I get to spend some time in places that have fall when fall should be. A real proper leaves drop, sweaters come on, the light is low and golden.

Being a jetsetter, someone who follows the ski season or the big waves, has never been on my bucket list.  A pied à terre in New York or Paris, nice, but not something I expect will ever happen. So getting to travel to a place that experiences autumn, or at least autumn like weather, is a treat.

I'm off to Seattle for a few days. Then later in October I jet off to Berlin and Israel. Okay, Israel is more like Southern California in its terrain and weather. But not Berlin!

So if Angelenos have a late blast of hot air, some Santa Ana winds whooshing through, I get to miss it. Sad, perhaps, not to be able to share it with all my friends. But I imagine I'll get over it.

To binge or not to binge, with apologies to Mr. Will

9/23/2013

Austrian Bakery, Chicago 2013

According to Wikipedia, a sacher torte is a famous Viennese chocolate cake invented by the Austrian Franz Sacher for Prince Wenzel von Metternich in 1832. It's made up of chocolate sponge cake, apricot jam and dark chocolate icing. For the rest of the historical yumminess,
click on the yum.

I want to eat a piece of said sacher torte RIGHT NOW. I've been working out every day this month with both weights and the treadmill, about an hour a day. But I'm willing to blow it all. In fact, unless I pull myself off the ceiling, I may have to binge on the Häagen Dazs coffee ice cream in the fridge since I don't have any sacher torte. in the cupboard at the moment.

Our oven, the poorly named Kitchenaid Superba, is acting up. I pulled out a casserole of healthy carrots, peppers, tomatoes and onions in a savory curry sauce and the probe light went on and told me it would not turn off unless I plugged it into something. Perhaps it was hungry for an early Thanksgiving turkey?

My husband and I have never used the probe and don't know where to plug it, though by that point I had a few nasty ideas I could suggest. We don't even know if we have one. But there you go, ordered around by a damn kitchen appliance.

The annoying thing wouldn't go off no matter what button we pushed. We checked numerous websites and it seems this happens quite often on this stupid model. Repair suggested? Call a technician.

Sorry, no can do. WE ARE GOING OUT OF TOWN, YOU PIECE OF CHEAP CRAP! And we have house sitters coming who expect to be able to cook themselves a hot meal.

So I'm googling up a storm, looking for help from fellow sufferers. My husband is getting ready for his regular Monday night tennis and also going into frantic WTF mode.

So he does what he usually does. He turns off the electricity in the whole house. Mr. Subtlety,
his MO - hit a fly with a hammer. Then he turns it on. Then off. Nothing works. All the clocks are blinking 12:00 now and will have to be reset. The television is dead and who knows if the usual, hold the button for a count of ten, will work, because it's finicky. I say to him, let me try this solution I just read online. PUT THE STOVE ELECTRICITY BACK ON. Seems in one of his fuse attacks he found how to shut off just the stove.

He turns it back on and I plain to try fiddling with something I read on a community help site about an old probe from something else and a bowl of water. But low and behold, when I hit Bake and Start, no stupid computer chip is telling me how to live.

By George, I think she's done it. I poke the Uverse box and voilà, Lawrence O'Donnell pops up.

For joy, for joy. I don't know what I did, which is typical with me and technology. So I won't be able to explain or repeat it. But I've saved the day so I don't care.

Okay, so maybe I won't binge on ice cream. I don't want to slip into bed while my numerous electronic devices are downstairs laughing at me and screaming 'gotcha, you stupid human!'

Hillary in Midair - New York Magazine

9/22/2013

Hillary Clinton at American Jewish University, June 2013

Back in June I saw Hillary Clinton speak at the American Jewish University. Bill Clinton was the first speaker when the lecture series started in 2000 and Hillary was the last as the program is being discontinued, so I've hear.

Great bookends, if you ask me.

My friend had emailed me before the tickets went on sale asking if my husband and I wanted to join her and her husband, two of our best friends, on a 'why wasn't it Hillary in 2008' outing.

Is the Pope ok with the gays?

I didn't even ask my friend how much the tickets cost. Sometimes it doesn't matter. In fact, I love the kind of decisions that take no brain power. These are the same friends we went with to see Yo-Yo Ma at the Hollywood Bowl. We are their 'ask the Rubinsteins, they're up for anything' friends. Which is great because we get to do something spontaneously, which doesn't seem to happen much after your twenties and the passing of singlehood.

Our girl Hillary was an hour late, schmoozing with donors at a special reception. She looked a little tired but the energy kicked in, especially because she was among FOH aka Friends of Hillary. It was fantastic to be in a huge auditorium surrounded by Democrats. The event was held at Universal City Walk and the restaurant we went to before hand for dinner was filled with women friends making the evening a special girls night on the town. The booths were filled with women all of 'a certain age.' Us Boomers were there to support and cheer on one of our own. We should have won last time. It was our turn.

That's how I feel. Our turn. My friend's husband said, don't worry. If she doesn't run or doesn't win, a woman will win soon. It doesn't have to be her. It will happen.

Wrong. I don't think you get it, sweetie.

It does have to be HER. See, I want to see one of my own as president, in my life time. If Angela Merkel can win three times in Germany, jeez louise ... I do believe American women were the champions of the latest women's movement in the 60s/70s. Not only do we not have the best health care in the world or the highest literacy rate, but other countries have had or currently have female leaders. What gives?

So I told my friend's husband, who really is a very pro-women kind of guy, that I can't wait. I didn't schlep coffee and pretend I could take shorthand when I first started out to be told don't worry, just wait, it will happen.

Enjoy the New York magazine cover story of the next president of the United States of America.

Does this blanket make me look like Putin?

9/21/2013

Mickey aka The Mickster 2011

Kiev Man Finds Dog That Looks Like Putin.
The newspaper article.

Rachel Maddow Does Funny Vladimir Bit

Photo On Left Is The Best Dog In The World

Thursday night I was at the gym, doing my walking workout, tweaking the incline, speed and time. I’m incrementally increasing my efforts from 30 minutes to 45, pushing the speed faster when the incline is lower and vice versa. I’m bopping along, plugged into Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, swinging my arms, checking my heart rate every few minutes. I love to see the miles and calories increase. In fact, I’ve been keeping a fitness journal for almost three years. I guess I can call myself a gym rat at
this point.

All is quiet on the treadmill front, except for the bam, bam, bam of the joggers and the hardcore rock that’s supposed to motivate. Every now and then, someone in the weight room drops a ton of dumb bells. Boom, scares me to pieces. Hey, get a spotter for goodness sakes.

The elliptical folks behind me enjoy a machine I just haven’t taken to. It’s exhausting and I feel like my feet are going to go flying off. While I’m walking religiously during the month of September, for the past three years I was a biker, images of the Tour de France racing in my head. I was a lean machine scaling the Alps, until I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrors. I read somewhere that women work out better when they can’t see themselves. I have experiential proof. I now rate my efforts only by how sweaty my headband gets.

Anyway, Rachel is promising us some chuckles at the end of the show, which means I’m committed to a long set. Finally she stops the teasing and presents us with one of my current favorite international leaders, Vlad the Impaler Putin. Does this guy practice mugging in the bathroom mirror while he
shaves? He has the ‘I may have to kill you, Mr. Bond’ stare down pat.

It seems that someone has found a picture of a dog that looks just like the Man from Moscow. The photo pops up on the screen and I break out in a guffaw. Remember, few people talk to each other when they are huffing away. So extreme laughter does not go undetected. The high school cross country teenage girl to my left looks at me as if I were her embarrassing mom. Believe me,
I know the look.

Rachel’s Putin pix continue. She overlays the photo of the dog on to Vlad’s face. OMG, the canine looks like the Head Honcho Himself. Her studio crew cracks up and I do Guffaw #2 which leads into #3 and #4.

I’m having the best time as I continue to pump those knees, but I don’t hear myself too well because of the ear buds. High School Track Star continues to give me the stink eye.

Definitely one of the high points of my day. Along with – wait for it – a full hour of walking mania just so I could see Comrade Putin. Rachel, I hope you have some high energy hijinks planned for my workout next week. Maybe Putin reading "War and Peace" while riding shirtless across the snow covered Russian steppes to the sounds of the love song from "Doctor Zhivago."