siouxcityjournal.com Sunday, november 3, 2019 | F9

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019

Keep your emotions in check and your mindset on what you want to achieve. Sit in the driver’s seat and direct the traffic around you to suit your needs. Unity and transparency will enrich whatever you decide to pursue. This is a year of growth, prosperity and change.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) — Listen to oth-ers, but don’t give in to someone using emotional tactics to take advantage of you. Temptation should not play a role in the deci-sions you make. Do what’s right.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) — If you put your energy where it counts, you will come out on top. Don’t let anyone mislead you. Disillusion-ment will stand between you and what you want.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — If you intuitively size up situations, you’ll offset a problem that could lead to a disagreement. Your time is better spent on love and romance.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Channel your emotions into something entertaining. A positive change to your appearance

or image will give you a new lease on life. Make plans with a loved one.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) — Use your intelligence when dealing with people from your past. Don’t let anyone corner you. If you don’t want to do something, don’t do it.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) — Helping others will make you feel good. A fi-nancial gain or gift is head-ing in your direction. Share your thoughts with a loved one.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — Take emo-tions out of the equation if you want to make a sound choice. Stay focused on what’s doable and on whom you want to include in your plan. Romance is in the stars.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — You can reinvent your strategy. If you share your thoughts with a loved one, their suggestions will help you put your plans in motion.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — Try something new and exciting. A change will expand your mind and encourage you to make personal changes that will improve your relationship with someone important.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — Activity should be your priority. Sign up for a phys-ical challenge. An emo-tional matter will make more sense once you’ve had time to mull over the facts. Romance will enhance your life.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — An incident will en-courage you to get involved in something you care about. If you volunteer your skills and services, you will make a difference and leave an impression on someone influential.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) — Spend time with friends. Refuse to miss out on something you want to do. Do what’s best for you, and ignore someone trying to control your life.

DEAR ABBY: I have been divorced for 26 years. I have been

engaged a couple of times since, but never made it back to the altar. My ex-wife has now perma-nently sep-arated from her second husband. I

have helped her financially and emotionally through a couple of stressful situa-tions in the interim due to her second husband.

I became available again myself about 18 months ago, so I have been consid-ering inviting her to din-ner to help her relax and give her someone to talk to other than family. The problem is, she still seems to regard me as “the en-emy.” She will speak to me, but it’s just bare-bones conversation. I have never stopped loving her. Should I ask her to dinner or just let things be? — STILL LOVIN’ MY EX

DEAR STILL LOVIN’: I wish you had mentioned what destroyed your mar-riage 26 years ago. What-ever it was, because your ex still seems to regard you as “the enemy,” in spite

of the fact that you have helped her financially and emotionally, I don’t think what you have in mind is feasible. Sometimes it’s safer to love someone from a distance, and this may be one of them.

DEAR ABBY: We live in the downstairs apart-ment of an old Victorian house that has been con-verted into three separate apartments. We try to be good neighbors and do our part keeping up with our neighborly duties. However, lately we’ve been finding ourselves the only ones doing our part.

Every Sunday evening, we roll out the garbage, re-cycling and compost bins for the Monday morning pickup. Currently, there is only one other tenant living here, a man who has been here for more than a year. Not once has he bothered to roll out these carts that he uses as well. How should we handle this without coming off as nag-ging or rude? — PEEVED IN PORTLAND, ORE.

DEAR PEEVED: Your neighbor isn’t a mind-reader. He may think you are doing this as part of your deal with the landlord. If you haven’t discussed this with your

neighbor, you should. If you do, you may be able to agree on some sort of schedule.

DEAR ABBY: I gradu-ated from law school sev-eral years ago. I didn’t pass the bar, and I now have a non-law-related job. I am fine with it, and I really do not aspire to be in the field of law. My parents didn’t help me with law school tuition, nor am I saddled with debt.

My problem is, some family members — and a few acquaintances — seem to think me almost a novelty. I get comments such as, “Hey, how’s that degree working for you?” and “Are you ever going to use your degree?” and “Do you regret going to law school?” I find it really annoying. How can I put a stop to it? — NOT A LAW-YER AND FINE

DEAR NOT A LAW-YER: Tell these “curious” individuals that you do not regret going to law school because knowledge of the law is valuable when it’s applied to other fields. As to how that degree is working for you, tell the questioner it’s working so well you are now consid-ering going for a degree in astrophysics.

HOROSCOPES

Man still in love with ex is tempted to test water

DEAR ABBY

FEATURES

SEE SOLUTION AT RIGHT

CRYPTOQUIP

NICHOLAS K. GERANIOSAssociated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. — They call it the Cosmic Crisp. It’s not a video game, a superhero or the title of a Grateful Dead song.

It’s a new variety of ap-ple, coming to a grocery store near you Dec. 1

Cosmic Crisp is the first apple ever bred in Wash-ington state, which grows the majority of the United States’ apples. It’s expected to be a game changer.

Already, growers have planted 12 million Cosmic Crisp apple trees, a sign of confidence in the new va-riety. While only 450,000 40-pound boxes will be available for sale this year, that will jump to more than 2 million boxes in 2020 and more than 21 million by 2026.

The apple variety was developed by Washington State University. Washing-ton growers, who paid for the research, will have the exclusive right to sell it for the first 10 years.

The apple is called Cos-mic Crisp because of the bright yellowish dots on its skin, which look like distant stars.

“I’ve never seen an ap-ple prettier in the orchard than these things are,” said Aaron Clark of Yakima, whose family owns several orchards in central Wash-ington and has planted 80 acres of Cosmic Crisps.

The new variety keeps for a long time in storage and in the refrigerator, said Kate Evans, who runs the breed-ing program at Washington State University.

And it’s an exceptionally good “eating apple,” she said. “It’s ultra-crisp, very juicy and has a good balance of sweetness and tartness.”

Cosmic Crisps are a cross between the dis-ease-resistant Enterprise and the popular, crunchy Honeycrisp varieties. The Honeycrisp, nicknamed “Moneycrisp” by some growers, was the latest ap-ple to spark a big buzz in the United States when it was introduced a couple of decades ago. It was devel-oped by the University of Minnesota.

“This apple (Cosmic Crisp) has a good opportu-nity to be a hit with a lot of people,” said Clark, a vice

president of Price Cold Storage, a company with orchards and fruit ware-houses throughout central Washington. “It better be, because we are going to have a lot of them.”

Apples are a $2.5 billion a year business in Wash-ington, which grows about 60% of the nation’s supply, or nearly 140 million boxes. The top varieties are Gala (23%), Red Delicious (20%) and Fuji (13%).

Apples are grown in the arid valleys and brown hillsides of central Wash-ington, a few hours east of Seattle, and watered by irrigation projects.

The state has around 1,500 apple growers and 175,000 acres of orchards. About 50,000 people pick some 12 billion apples by hand each fall. The fruit is exported to 60 countries.

With so much success, why was a new apple vari-ety needed?

“A new apple brings ex-citement,” said Toni Lynn Adams, spokeswoman for the Washington Apple Commission, which mar-kets apples internation-ally. “A new variety can reinvigorate a market and industry.”

Washington growers, who had watched the mar-ket share for sometimes mushy Red Delicious ap-ples plummet over time, were looking to replicate the success of the Honey-crisp, Adams said.

“It’s going to shake things up in a great way,” Adams said. “We’re expecting it to increase in volume rapidly.”

Adams could not specu-late on how much Cosmic Crisp apples will cost per pound.

“Better quality makes for better returns,” said Clark, the grower. “This is a for-profit deal, man. We’re try-ing to make some money with it.”

Remarkably, this is the first apple variety devel-oped in Washington state, which has been known for apples for more than a cen-tury.

Scientists at WSU’s Tree Fruit Research Center in Wenatchee spent 20 years breeding the desired ap-ple tree seeds. In addition to helping pay for that re-search, apple growers need a license to buy the trees and pay a royalty on sales of the fruit.

The trees take three years to produce a crop, said Kathryn Grandy, a mem-ber of the team marketing the apple.

“This will be the largest launch of a single variety ever, globally,” she said, and it’s backed by a $10.5 million marketing budget.

Consumers will not have trouble finding the variety, said Grandy, who works for a company called Propri-etary Variety Management and is based in the town of Chelan, in the heart of ap-ple country.

Work on developing the variety began in 1997, said Evans, of Washington State University. The process of cross-hybridization has been used to breed plants for hundreds of years, Ev-ans said, and is quite differ-ent from the more contro-versial genetic modification methods.

“The goal, in my opinion, is to get more consumers eating apples,” she said. “Ultimately that is the goal of any plant breeder.”

Move over, Honeycrisp: New apple to debut at grocery stores

BIRTHDAYS

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878), poet/journalist;

WALKER EVANS (1903-1975), photographer;

CHARLES BRONSON (1921-2003), actor;

MICHAEL DUKAKIS (1933- ), politician;

LARRY HOLMES (1949- ), boxer;

ANNA WINTOUR (1949- ), fashion journalist;

ROSEANNE BARR (1952- ), comedian/actress;

KATE CAPSHAW (1953- ), actress;

DENNIS MILLER (1953- ), comedian;

PHIL SIMMS (1955- ), foot-ball player/sportscaster;

DOLPH LUNDGREN (1957- ), actor;

EVGENI PLUSHENKO (1982- ), figure skater.

ELAINE THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS

a Cosmic Crisp apple, partially coated with a white kaolin clay to protect it from sunburn, is picked oct. 15 at an orchard in Wapato, Wash.