Seven Swans A-Swimming

Happy seventh day of Christmas!

It's also New Year's Eve. I will have my parents over, and the three of us will try to stay awake until midnight. We both have church services at 7:00 p.m., at our respective churches, both are communion services. I have some snacks to put out for us afterwards, including olie bollen that I have on order at the Dutch Bakery here in Lynden and a stick of banket that I bought there last week. Olie bollen are kind of like donut holes, only with raisins and tastier and bigger. They are a traditional Dutch New Year's food. Banket is an "almond stick"; pastry around a very rich almond-paste core. It's traditional, at least among the Dutch in Lynden, to eat banket during the Christmas season. The Dutch Bakery will be a crazy, jumping joint today with people lining up to buy olie bollen. I ordered and paid for mine yesterday, to make sure I have some.  I am scheduled to pick up my order at 2:00 p.m.

If you ever are in Lynden, Washington, do go to the Dutch Bakery, which is located at 421 Front Street. In addition to olie bollen and banket, they have donuts, cakes, pies, bread, rolls, coffee cake, and other goodies, plus deli-type lunches of sandwiches and soup. It's just good, plain, wholesome food, emphasis on good. It's always the busiest place in downtown Lynden.

Well, speaking of restaurants, after seeing Voyage of the Dawn Treader on Monday, my folks and I stopped at the Hilltop Restaurant, which is more or less half way between Lynden and Bellingham. I have a friend who lives in Bellingham, and we typically meet there for brunch on a Saturday so that neither of us has to drive to the other one's town. It's a nice family restaurant, but I had a minor complaint on Monday. We were seated at a table directly below a speaker that was piping a local radio station into the restaurant. I found it too loud and asked the waitress if it could be turned down. She said she did not know how it worked, but she would pass my request along to those who did know. I assume she did, but there was never any change in the volume, and it was a low-level, constant irritant to have that noise occurring while my parents and I ate and talked.

I will acknowledge that I have a lower level of tolerance for noise than average, at least judging by the noise level in many public places. I really don't know why we have to have background music in so many places. When that restaurant is full, you probably can't hear the music at all over the sound of plates, cutlery, and people talking. When it's empty--we were there at an off time--the music is obtrusive. Almost every restaurant has music blasting, and I don't appreciate it, especially if it's rock music, even "soft rock." I like a lot of rock music but it's not music to dine and socialize by. If we must have music while we eat, let it be something instrumental, light and pleasant, like Handel's Water Music. Even Muzak would be preferable to the often hoarse voices lamenting betrayals, broken hearts, sexual misconduct, and general angst accompanied by pounding drum beats and electric guitar riffs and interspersed with commercials and inane DJ chatter.



Turning to the topic of seven swans a-swimming. Today in Lynden, they could swim in the creek, where the water is flowing, but still water is frozen over -- my little deck pond and the bird bath in the back yard are both frozen. Yesterday and today have been bright, sunny, cold days. The sunshine is welcome. Around here, in the winter, cloudy days are warmer than clear ones. The clouds act like a blanket to keep warmer air closer to the ground. I do like rain. I like it a lot, and that's a good thing or I couldn't live in the Pacific Northwest, but I do appreciate a few sunny days to break up the pattern.

Rain in the northwest, by the way, is rarely a violent downpour and even more rarely a thunderstorm. It's often a gentle rain that is almost like mist -- "the rain you can walk in without getting wet." Sometimes it is a steadier, heavier rain. My dad says his dad, who was a farmer, would call a steady rain that occurred at the right time of year to water crops a "million dollar rain." My dad himself once commented how the sound of the rain on the roof is pleasant to him, reminding him of how it felt to have hay and animals safe in the barn and hear the rain on the barn roof.