my big fat greek food fest

Today was the Greek Festival on Glisan. We always go. We wait for this all year long and arrive like starving people. I've been eating sugar competitively and feeling the hangovers and thought the Greek Festival would be a fitting end to compulsivity. We'll see. I've tried other such tricks before and not been able to outwit my psyche or my appetite. Its tricky.

Showing uncharacteristic restraint, we started with meat and salad, mine a stick of soulvaki and a greek pasta salad, my sweetie's two gyros and an olive and cheese plate. Then, onto the spanikopita and finally, or almost finally, the loukapalousas. I made that up. I don't know what they're called: little dough lumps drenched with hot honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. Huge people wandering around with huge paper buckets full of them. Fat in, fat on. It was obscene. The soulvaki was excellent. Then onto the bakalava. Oh my god. That stuff can't be legal. I took two bites and gave the rest to Kurt. I also got some feta custard or something that wasn't very good. It's still in the fridge.

You can tour the sanctuary and look at the history of the greek orthodox community in portland, complete with costumes and diahramas depicting orthodox activities I don't understand, but similar to Catholicism, they seem to favor Mary.

Tonight we will go to our favorite blues bar and see Curtis Salgado. He's an okay local guy, from Eugene originally. Trail's End Saloon. There's a tunnel under the bar that goes all the way to the Willamette. Which isn't far because it is in Oregon City which is right on the river. We will listen to the music, maybe get up and dance off one or two of the luokapalousas.

nada

I am so disappointed that the vice presidential debate wasn't a train wreck. I waited, stomach in knots, for Palin to dissolve into a puddle like the wicked witch of the west, but nothing happened. I think if the election goes to the republicans, it will be because Americans want a charismatic personality on the ticket. They want a movie star. They want to be entertained. Biden is not entertaining, Obama is not entertaining. Like Al Gore, they are so doggoned serious, wink wink. Golly gee whiz. It was like watching a beauty pageant contestant answer a question about world peace. Say it ain't so.

I should take Sid to that republican boot camp. They can train pitbulls.

knee deep

All of this political shit is mother's milk to me. I love it. I can't turn it off, let alone tune it out. I may be whistling past the graveyard, but I am enjoying the shit out of seeing wall street twitch. I have no idea how it will eventually effect me. I don't really get the whole market thing. It seems like play money to me. People loan each other money that doesn't really exist and it goes back and forth and round and round, and now, those who played too close to the edge have fallen off. Well, that happens. I have a little bit of actual money, and a little bit of money in stocks, but not much. I'm not even thinking about that -- in fact I don't intend to look at it for several years, and if its there when I get older, fine. I'm not counting on it though.

And then I think, hey. The only people who are going to be really hurting are the ones who didn't have real money, who only had play money anyway, and who are going to now have to do without what they couldn't afford anyway. I'm not sure that is so bad. What would it look like if we didn't need a new car each year, new furniture when the old is out of season, clothes and clothes and clothes. What if we lived within our means? Revolutionary.

I think my point of view is fairly common. If the government wants my money to help out the banks and financial markets, I'm really not very willing to donate. If it wants some of my money to directly help actual people, that would be okay with me. Just not the suits. If I messed up my job so bad they had to close the doors, they would send me home with a final paycheck as small as legally possible. No bonus, no deals. Go home. If the system is actually broken, let's see for once what really happens. Or twice. There was that other depression. The great one. I wonder what was so great about it.

I really don't know shit.

truthiness

john mccain is unbearably full of shit.

coronation

I am the queen of Tomato Pie. Here's the recipe as best I remember it:

Ingredients:
crust
tomatoes
garlic
italian spices
basil
salt + pepper
parmesan, shredded
feta, crumbled plain
sliced provolone, torn in 1" pieces (I used 5 slices total I think)
mayonnaise

How to:

Crust:
One frozen Marie Callander's pie crust. (I am not the queen of pie crust. Marie is.)
Thaw it for awhile.
shredded parmesan cheese
press some of the parmesan cheese into the bottom and sides of the crust. poke holes in the crust with a fork and bake at 425 for ten minutes.
Let cool.

Filling:
slice several firm tomatoes and lay out to drain on paper towels for about 2 hours.
sprinkle tomatoes with salt, pepper, italian seasoning and basil. Fresh if you have it.
layer tomatoes with shredded parmesan, feta and torn 1" pieces of sliced provolone
more tomatoes, more cheese...
Fill the pie shell 'til rounded.

Topping: Mix together:
1/2 c. mayo
1/2 c. shredded parmesan
1/4 c. feta
chopped garlic - at least one large clove.

Spread topping over pie. Bake 35 minutes at 350. Let stand 1/2 hour to set before serving.

It is so much better the second day.

Yummy

rain and pain

I don't miss the heat, but I will miss the light. People were out driving with their lights on at midday. I felt like I had my sunglasses on. We've been out to see movies, in to see movies, (Burn After Reading; the Fall) both mediocre but worth a watch. Something to pass the time as the dog days of summer cool and liquify.

For those of you who have been reading along and are not among the very few to stumble by unannointed, my shoulder is hurting again, same shoulder, same thing. The surgeon said if it made bone spurs once, it could again. And so my body is manufacturing misery in ways I cannot interpersonally. This time of year as most do, like bears do, I draw in and don't want to go out. The projects that pressed so on my everyday every minute, now seem irrelevant and I could easily live with spotted turquoise linoleum were it not for Sid's feet.

I know that didn't make sense. Even I can string words together better than that. The thing is that the turquoise floor is in my bedroom, and when I am napping, Sid is tapping. Tap tap tapping while I'm napping Sid is tapping, ever tapping, tapping on my bedroom floor. Quoth the Raven, nevermore.

I wake up, having never slept, murderous, shoulder hurting. I need a throw rug, something to still the savage beast. The surgeons says don't sleep on that arm. Oh. Okay. Great Idea. I have little control over what I do when I'm awake, let alone asleep. I turn onto my left side like a muslim toward mecca. I just do. I guess I could line my bed with broken glass or something. I don't want to have surgery again. I really don't. I'll try accupuncture this time.

So the rain comes down, the tv is on, and I'm making tomato pie. I'm not sure about this project. I also want to make a peach cobbler. Fall brings it out in me.

not very sunday

If I were to post this morning, I would have to cover the following subjects:
Obama headquarters
Asha's visit
Grandboys
Motorcycle riding
Things I am not doing
Bladder infections
Hair
Painting things blue
The beginning of fall
the backyard
bladder infections
But I have a floor full of people, and the fact is, I like to be alone in the morning. But I don't mind them, I just don't like the idea of weekends dedicated to anything but gathering my wits for another week of work among the dying. I'm going to a conference beginning tomorrow, and having coffee with my good friend Dan, my old boss. The conference is work, and social networking, which I am not very good at. I am not looking forward to it except that it sort of seems like two days off in addition to the weekend. There are workshops, all of which I could teach because I have been in the long term care industry for so many years. But I don't teach them. I've never written a proposal and taken the time to tell what I know. Remember: I don't care. I sit and listen and pass the time writing (note to self: bring paper) amused at the idealists who believe they will never grow old and die, who think that the next speaker will tell them some new thing to forestall death--something to make it seem like dying is living. This is how we market the industry: sign up for the good life! Pay five thousand dollars a month for Quality of Life in a Homelike Environment. Doesn't it sound great?

I am a cynic. Sue me. If I was to put a workshop together, what would I call it? Real Death and Dying: A Primer for the Idealist.

So, I will go to get my hair retouched this morning, come home, and continue to recover from possibly the worst bladder infection I have ever had. It came on so suddenly I had to practically run out of work and to the doc's. Big pain.

But, due to the miracle of modern medicine and a new pill that turns my pee blue instead of the usual pyridium orange, I am on the mend -- if a little woozy.

I got to spend a couple of hours yesterday with BOTH asia and asha. You should envy me. We sat in my beautiful backyard on probably one of the most perfect Portland afternoons we've had this year -- not too warm -- and covered most of the important topics. Including what the hell is asha thinking going on a three month backpacking trek in the rainy season where there are druglords and terrorists and wait -- that sounds like north portland! But I do worry about the globetrekkers and their minimalist ways. I envy the desire to leave the vortex of the sofa and explore something besides the internet or the nearest shopping opportunity.

So, as I sit on my sofa, cartoons in the background, I begin another Sunday morning on Clinton street.

at work not at work

There is a new family on my horizon, and they are bringing Dad to stay with me. They are bringing him bit by bit, as though they can't bear to bring the whole man. And it isn't that they don't trust me, I think they do, but if his wife actually left him overnight, it would mean it was true, that life as she knew it is over, that she is alone, single in a giant house that he built. Heck, he built the road that runs in front of the house. He was a great man. He still is by my standards. Sailed to New Zealand when he was seventy. I took his big hands in mine, squatted down in front of him, and said, "Its gonna be okay." He looked right at me and said, "Its gotta be." And we were off.

His wife doesn't know what to do. She asks me for advice then changes the subject. She's good at that. But I don't know what to say to a woman who doesn't know how to be alone. I know how. I'm good at it. Its living with other people that trips me up. Her daughters try to convince her to start having fun, to go shopping, to the casino, kick up her heels for a change. But she tells me she knows she can't run from it forever, that slot machine pulls will only stay the inevitable for so long-- the inevitable fact that her husband is gone, and yet not gone. That he, the subject of better or worse, is worse even than that. That she cannot fulfill her end of the bargain. That's how she sees it. There should be a disclaimer in the wedding vows: unless s/he gets Alzheimer's.

I know we are a country of wimps. But this guy is six foot five, weights 280, and she is tiny. For her to have cared for him at home this long exceeds any vows I've ever made.

So I am thinking of them today, and I should be thinking of non-work things, but it is all too real sometimes, and when she wanted to take him home again, just once more to pretend this isn't all happening, that her husband of 63 years hasn't been abandoned to the care of strangers has he? I just nodded, and told her I understood. But truthfully, I cannot imagine leaving Kurt and walking away from him even if I knew beyond doubt that he wouldn't even know I was gone. I'd know.

meditation

I've never really understood how to get to that zen place, the quiet mind, transcendence. I'm not even sure how to spell it. But yesterday, picking blackberries, I had a moment, in fact moment after moment, where all that mattered was getting the next perfect berry without dragging the soft underside of my forearm across poison thorns. Three gallons later I feel compelled to share my expertise. It doesn't take much.

The pie was okay. It was actually a tart. I guess it tasted fine, but I had just made french onion soup and couldn't wait and ate my first bite too hot and the melted provolone on my tongue diminshed my abiltiy to taste ever-so-slightly. But pie is pie. And as my son was fond of saying throughout his teens: its all good.

So today I am having coffee with asia, grandkids for the afternoon, and working at Obama Headquarters in the evening. It is just around the block, literally, and were it not for this ultimate convenience, it is unlikely that I would get quite so directly involved. I mean, I may ask them if I could just have a line routed from my house. I'm that lazy. Walk two blocks? Don't they know who I am?

Seriously, I'll try this time. This race. Its that important. I'm not sold on Obama, but Michelle seems bright and she likes him. McCain seems to have lost his mind, not that I would have voted for him anyway. Sarah Palen? Okay. I guess she killed a reindeer and has spent time near Russia so qualifies for office. I'm sure she's a nice person, and I don't know much about all this, but it seems like political suicide to me. Which is fine--anything that lessens his chances. I can't imagine that the women of America will rally behind a soccer mom. And if they do... They won't, will they?

I do worry for Obama and the threat of assassination. I grew up in Southern Oregon where the KKK held meetings in the grange until I was in my early teens. I remember Bud Peebler driving his tractor through the orchards up to the grange hall. They didn't wear white caps, but they didn't have to. They were there and we knew it. There are many nameless citizens who would happily give up their lives to stop a black man from holding this office and be known for it. Still.

I hate to blog about politics, but I do love to watch 'em run for office. I may break my rules from time to time, especially if I end up spending much time in Obama Headquarters. I can tell you right now that the signs are awful and its a mess out front. Its a good thing I'm heading over there this evening. But like the sign on my office wall says:

"If things don't get better around here,

I'm going to have to ask you to stop helping me."

So there it is: blackberry meditation and political commentary all in one place. You can't beat that.

day

I am home. I usually go out saturday morning and it was so good to just stay home, get the house in order, start some laundry, fold clothes and eat some oatmeal. It feels much more like a weekend when I start the day this way, sleep in a little.

But the reason I stayed in be is because I didn't sleep because it seems like once again I am on the cusp of bladder despair. Cranberry pills to the rescue.

Just back from a tough morning of yard sales and berry picking. Complusory yard sale items: a Billy Bass and an Ab Lounge. I pointed this out to the man running the sale and he didn't get it or didn't like that I wasn't going to purchase either one.

Then on to pick berries. Urban berry picking is much different than country picking. Urban berries are often found in places where the homeless folks roam, and while I am not so very far removed from the memory of homelessness, I am not a city girl. I could never have survived the streets. So we look the area over and pick away. I think we got about three gallons today. The pies I made last week were the best yet.

My husband always reaches for the furthest berries, the good ones just beyond safety. Me? I stay in one spot until there are no more, and only go in as far as I absolutely have to. I risk my fingers, he risks his life. There seem to be more than one variety of berry, smaller or larger. In the end we wound up in some nice big berries with great flavor. I'll make pie tonight.

Mother in law is in a nursing home after a hip replacement, and I'll make her a nice tart and hope it improves her mood. She's not going with the flow. I tried to explain the nursing home experience to her, but there just isn't any explaining it. It's awful. She's pretty freaked out. But its where they send people after surgery for rehab. Her son, my husband, says things like, How's it goin in the rest home??? I don't think it is helping.

Anyway, I'll bake something for her.

Here's the recipe:
For the bottom crust I use Marie Callendar's frozen. They are so good. Then for the top I use Pillsbury rolled crusts, cut in strips to weave the basket top.

Berries enough to fill the pie pan and a bit more.
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp lemon juice
dabs of butter under the crust top.
a bit of salt.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then 350 until done.

quick camp

We spent the night at Metzler Park, cooked hot dogs and beans over coals and nothing else. Except cantaloupe, and vinegar and sea salt chips, my new obsession. I needed to get out of the city after a long week of decorating. It was not a Martha Stewart camping trip, as it had been a Martha Stewart week, but I found a new bedspread for our room and a big tin-type of Multnomah Falls, which is one of my all time favorite places if all of the tourists would leave.

It is now the end of the week, Thursday, and I haven't finished this lousy post. It was a nice night out of the city, stars in the sky, cool in the morning, smoke in the air. After four days off, back to work wasn't quite suicidal, and really, the cast and crew are all good. Sometimes it seems like a little hospital, and I guess it is, but life coasts downhill predictably to the end.

falling

In the midst of 103 degrees I can feel it: the coming of fall. This final burst of heat, a valiant attempt to forestall autumn's arrival, is futile. Fall will come.

Each year I await the arrival of fall with open arms, black turtlenecks at the ready, levi's and boots waiting for their time. I complain about winter, and I complain about summer -- but fall and spring... mmm. I love those seasons. I'm not sure what it is that gives it away. The first chill morning? It doesn't even need to be cold. It is just different, as if the angle of the sun has passed its prime, waning toward winter and the long cold nap. I long for short days and cold mornings, the coming of big holidays in the warm grasp of my family

oh, wait.

I forgot who I'm related to.

Anyway, while I may indeed dread the holidays, I do love autumn. Believe it.

This weekend I only have one day off. I don't like that very much, but am taking a couple of days off next week to make a long weekend before the long weekend. I want to camp for a couple more nights, or at least go on a picnic. I have spent the not-quite-so-hot day in and out of my new closet, trying to get things arranged to my liking. It is a little less like Christmas than I had imagined, but probably because I only have on day off and don't like to rush through this. I guess there is no need to hurry. It is a small space, but it is mine, and comfortable and finally, I can unpack after nearly five years. Enough.

paint

Let's review: I wasn't going to paint anything that perfect shade of not-quite-white again, was I? Dammit. I just couldn't figure it out, and had all of these partial buckets of leftover paint.What's a girl to do? But I did something absurd and bought blue drapes. Blue. I bought all I could fit in my basket, all they had on the shelf. I love freddy's. You can get anything there. I go to Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn, and all their stuff has black polka dots, and maybe I'm behind (likely) but I don't want those Go Mod things all over my house again. I did it in the, what? sixties? seventies? I was drunk. I don't remember. I think I was young, so, probably the sixties.

But I had to paint the surfaces or I couldnt' hang the curtains. If I can't hang the curtains I can't hide the shit. If I can't hide the shit, well, I think I've pretty well beaten to death the concept of keeping shit in view. So, the curtains are purely ornamental. Sue me. First, I slapped a layer of joint compound over an old panelled wall to make it look magically like stucco so I can pretend I'm in a new house in Mexico instead of an old house in Portland. It took all of my self restraint (of which I am in notoriously short supply) to let it dry overnight before painting it. And I think I should have washed the panelling first because when I rolled the paint, it pulled the stuff right off the wall, so I had to paint it with a brush, which I have a hundred of, because I always forget where they are and buy new ones. This dilemma of hiding things from myself doesn't only apply to clothes, you see.

So it was an okay day in work land and I came home a little early to work around the house. The painting is pretty much done, but it is also never done. I have miles to go before I am through. I didn't paint the ceiling the last time, and it is glaringly not done. But it is tough to paint the ceiling in an occupied room. I will probably learn not to see it. I'm good at that.

nests

Long time no post. So much has happened since Bozo died it is hard to know where to begin. Every day something happens that I view through my own lens, and think, hey, what a great post this will make when I get home to my computer. But my mind leaks. Memory fails when the dishes and the job and the dog and watering the yard get in front of everything.

Nicole moved away, which left a pretty big space in the house, and made her father sad. But it is a normal sadness, the empty nest. I've been in my own empty nest, sitting alone at night with the loud and insistent unemployment of childlessness, wondering how they can possibly get along without you, but they do. Because Nicole doesn't speak to us, or at least to me, it is hard to know her reasons and motivations, but she wasn't happy here -- that much was clear. I think most kids want to leave. I know I did. Having lived with her for nearly five years, and loving her in that uncomfortable, incomplete, never quite enough but always too much, step-mother way, I still hope for her eventual happiness and comfort in her own life, as it unfolds under her feet one step at a time. It is hard to be young, and easier by far than being old, but still just the same, I am happy to have been on the periphery of her small life for awhile.

So, with Nicole gone, I have created a walk-in closet for my clothing. We live in a small Victorian with tiny rooms and now I have some hope of organization. I have been living on three floors for four years, and it has been challenging. Now, for those of you have have been following the bouncing ball, you will understand that this organization myth is merely a hope, and has as little chance of materializing as, say, the Easter Bunny. I have, however, moved beyond plastic. I am now intstalling things that require drywall and spackle. I am renovating. Oh, did I say I am renovating as though it involved effort on my part? That was a lie. My husband is renovating. He is renovative. So, I have a closet where there was a wall, and shelves and other furniture that will house, but not hide, my many many articles of clothing and accessories and getting-ready supplies, which is another industry and another story.

I mention 'not hiding' because I have learned that putting clothes in opaque drawers and boxes is like sending them to storage. Only the storage is in Europe. I never see them again. And because they are not visible, I forget which item (say, summer capri-length pants) is in which large plastic storage container, and there they sit, years on end. The upside of opaque boxes and drawers is that it is like Christmas when I open them, and for awhile I am releived of the oppressive need to shop because I am wearing all my old clothes that I had cleverly hidden from myself. I blame my job, because I have to look competent every day, and I interpret this to mean I can't wear the same thing twice. How this relates to competence I can't explain. Don't make me try.

I had a dream last night that I had, in my organizational efforts, discovered a whole 'nother room of clothing and had decided to have a yard sale. I had advertised it on craigslist and said something like, "I'm selling some really nice stuff so don't expect to pay a quarter for something that cost me 89 bucks," because as you may know, I think everything at a yard sale should cost a quarter. So, the morning of the yard sale came and I was having it inside my house (which makes it technically not a yard sale). I had this plan to only let three people in at a time to minimize theft -- first come first served and all which is the craigslist m.o. -- but as the doorbell rang, I realized I hadn't even sorted through the clothes yet, or priced anything, and this guy who was first in line (for MY clothes, what's that about???) said there were 147 cars lined up around the block and that I'd better get organized.

Fuck. I have too much shit.

And my husband got a HUGE new motorcycle.

We all handle empty nests in our own ways.

I decorate.

memorial

Bozo the Clown is dead.

I am not alone, I am certain, in admitting he made me a little nervous. Its not that I'm glad he's dead, or that I wished him any ill for being the embodiment of the scary clown, just thought that since I made a big deal about Captain Kangaroo, I should give Bozo his due.

Bozo was the seed of many a cruel remark: what a fucking bozo, etc. And the esoteric firesign theatre album, We're All Bozos On This Bus. Under the right pharmacological conditions, and during the early seventies, I enjoyed that album for a minute.

Anyway, that's that. What a clown.

chewing glass

It is the last day of my 20th year. Tomorrow is 21. Legal. I sat in front of Mulligan's Bar and Grill on Hawthorne last night, considering the days, the years, that have passed. I do that on anniversaries. I sit in or around bars and remember things best forgotten.

This morning I took my scooter down to the meeting place, wind in my hair and all, listened, came home to make oatmeal with walnuts and green apples, wait for my husband to get home from a bike ride, and watch as my day unfolds under the rare Portland sun. I need to have another key made for my scooter and I must go to Freddy's to talk about glass shards in the frozen berries, then off for coffee with a writer in hopes of structuring my fucking book.

I know the part about glass was tucked in there as though just another moment in my always zen-like existence, but seriously. I've been eating broken glass for breakfast. It started last week.

Sunday morning, like any weekend morning, I made oatmeal with frozen blueberries. I prefer frozen to fresh. On weekdays it is yogurt and berries. I usually mix frozen cherries in with the blueberries for the sweet. So there I was, shovelling down the oatmeal when I discovered some broken glass in my mouth. I fished around in the bowl for more glass and finding only a couple of pieces, cautiously ate the rest of my breakfast. The next morning I dumped my yogurt and berries together and headed to work. At about 8:30, I open my pack and take out my breakfast, finding partway through it that again, I have glass in my mouth. Bummer. This time it feels kind of like I may have swallowed some and this concerns me. I fish around and find a little more, and toss the rest of my breakfast, sad and desperate, and eat some cold scrambled eggs. By this time, I'm guessing the blueberries are the culprit rather than the oatmeal, either that or Nicole is trying to murder me, which is entirely possible.

So, next day I open a brand new bag of frozen cherries, both to rule out the blueberries and the murder theory. I am certain it is not the cherries. NOT THE CHERRIES!!!. So I make my breakfast, go to work, sit down after the initial blur of physician's orders and employee complaints as well as one of my patients yelling, "Get away from me you sons of bitches and I don't mean daughters, either!" to eat my breakfast, and begin shovelling the cherries and yogurt down my throat with relative abandon, considering the events fo the past three days.

This raises some questions for me. And I would understand if it also raised some questions for you. Why? You may wonder, does she keep eating this food when she could die a ghastly death bleeding from the inside out?

Its a fair question.

Well, I really like cherries and I have a smallish but significant disability when it comes to, well, living in reality. My behavior would suggest that I believe the laws of physics don't apply to me, such as: glass cannot be digested safely. I don't believe this consciously, I am not an idiot, but my actions do not support my beliefs. I live outside of integrity when it comes to food. Now, I don't think that is such a big deal, really. I've been worse and lived.

So, yes. I'm certain you are hanging on by a thread here, wondering if there was glass in my cherries. Yes. Dammit. There were large shards, kind of flakes of glass, throughout my breakfast for now the fourth day in a row. So, I don't need a brick wall to fall on my head. Again, scrambled eggs.

I got on the phone and called Fred Meyer himself to explain to him that he has a small problem in the frozen food aisle. I saved the glass and the bag the cherries came in and am heading down there today to bring in the evidence, and report that should I, in any way, have gastrointestinal problems due to ingesting glass, Freddy is footin' the bill. Period.

vacation part II

So there we were, all packed up and ready to head inland when my husband stepped on the clutch and nothing happened. Not one thing. Had we been on minimally level land, that would have been one thing, but we were about a mile down a spiraling 14% incline, towing a small but significant U-Haul trailer. Russian Gulch is about a mile north of Mendocino on Hwy 1. A beautiful campground surrounded by ferns and just the minutest bit of stinging nettle, which I managed to steer clear of, but my husband did not. Left up to me I would have unwittingly picked a bouquet to grace our table, but he was the first one out of the truck and into the campsite. I guess it stings--thus, the name.

We are such grown ups now that we have AAA.--Triple A for the unititiated. (I could refer you to previous posts about my 65 Dodge Polara with a plywood back seat and a starter that had to be beaten with a shovel each time I turned it off, but I'll leave that up to you. ) Ah, poverty, that fount of revisionist memory.

So this ranger shows up to see who the flakes are who have broken down in his campsite. He is clearly from Mendocino based on the tan and the 150.00 haircut. To be fair, he was very nice. Rangers are very nice, as a rule, aren't they? Have you noticed? For instance, this one came up to us while we were walking toward the beach to let Sid run around for awhile.
My husband says, cleverly, upon meeting the ranger, "Sid! Where is your six foot leash?"
The ranger says, in perfect tour guide inflection, "Say, Do you know where the Rite Aid is in Fort Bragg?"
I think, What the hell? Does he need bandaids or a prescription filled?
So my husband, knowing we are about 9 miles from Fort Bragg, says, "Sure." And he's thinking, like I am, that this guy needs directions to Rite Aid and has a medical problem of some kind.
The ranger says, "Good. Well, there's an off-leash dog park down toward the water from there." and goes on to explain the directions in minute detail.
We consider admitting to the ranger that Sid is usually on his leash and no one is around anyway, but don't. We just stand there like the guilty campers we are.
The ranger, remaining tour guide-positive, says, "I was just thinking you might want to know where an off leash park was located."
Well, we really didn't at all. We weren't thinking how nice it would be to drive nine miles to walk Sid, who can walk just fine on an empty beach.
Anyway, I was just wondering if all rangers are taught to deal with campers in positive language only. Maybe some campers are a tiny bit unstable and will flip out if a ranger was to, for instance, say something like: "Put your fucking pitbull on a leash, asshole," or something like that. I wonder if there is a ranger school for manners.

We met this other ranger in Jedediah Smith State Park where we camped early. In campgrounds now there is evening entertainment and actual gift shops. It was the first Ranger Talk of the season when we were there. It was called "The Bear Necessities" and talked about bear ettiquette, like not spreading jam on your child's face or something if you happen to run into a bear on the trail. It was for idiots and flat-landers I guess. The plan was to have this blazing bonfire (which I thought questionable in the redwoods) but the guy ranger couldn't build a fire. It took him forever. It was decorative, the way he built this tipi out of wood, but it wouldn't take off for the longest time. At the talk, the ranger-gal handed around this necklace of bear teeth and the next morning, as we checked out of our campsite, there was a note at the entrance that someone had pocketed it and the sign said, "It is MINE."

When we finally made it out of Russian Gulch, we were towed by AAA inland to Willitts. It is a 25 mile winding road and we were in a huge flatbed tow truck driven by Kevin who has three children who have turned out well because they do things together as a family and he married his high school sweetheart and drives the road like he has lived there all his life, which he has, almost without looking. I believe we made better time being towed by Kevin than we would have on our own.

Willetts isn't much. We were pretty much hostage to the auto repair shop, and several hundred dollars later, were on our way up 101 and toward home. I should report that Sid was really happy to finally make it to a hotel room with air conditioning and a bed he could call his own.

We drove straight through to Port Orford and spent the evening with my brother Doug and his wife Joyce. The curry was excellent. The company, even better. It was good to see them.

brother, first and last

I started out with three brothers and now I have one. The eldest, older by about 12 years than I, is the only one left. I could tell a million stories about Doug because he is someone about whom stories are told, and will be told long after he is gone, which won't be long if things keep on the way they are. I love my brothers, not any one the best, and went through life being never myself but always somebody's sister. They were all treacherously handsome and drawn, all but the youngest, to trouble. The youngest (and I think we'd all agree, the best) died first. His heart was like his father's, doomed to beat for only about 35 to 40 years. Doug's has been beating longer, and likely harder, and is beginning to wear down now. The middle boy, silenced his about five years ago with whiskey.


When I was eleven, Doug taught me to play poker so he could beat me out of my babysitting money and play pool at Foss's Pool Hall in Medford. He told me to fold on the only royal flush I've ever been dealt. Lore has it that he painted his Navy commander's face with deck paint and nearly joined the Mafia. I'd believe anything. I have believed anything. I like a story and am a liar, this much we know. I remember people bringing Doug home from long benders, leaning him up against our front door, knocking, then running away. We'd open the door and down would come Doug -- passed out cold. I remember (or I may just be repeating a story I heard a hundred times) my brother hanging out the back window of a station wagon, the old kind with the seat facing backward, bottle of tequila in hand, spinning out of our wide gravel driveway with a carload of Mexicans bound for Tijuana, and this during a time when cars full of Mexicans were something of a rarity. Now, to say it outloud, or rather in print, it sounds rather benign. At the time it was the height of subversion, of rebellion, something he was known for. My mother never gave up on him.


There have been many years of my life when I didn't know him. He captained his own fishing boats and fished the Southcoast of Oregon for the past 40 years or so. When he found out I was shooting heroin he walked into the bar and slugged me, not really very hard, but nearly knocked me off my barstool. I tried to explain to him that it wasn't that big a deal, but he knew better. He knew. When I needed to kick, I went to him and camped inland from his mooring, and felt safer leaving my boy with him on his boat when I was sick and had to drink. He knew that one too. And still does. He is not a gossip.


He finally found a woman who could live alongside him, not exactly a pirate's wife, but something like that, who can't get too far from saltwater without getting nervous. She is a weaver and she has saved him twice now from the foibles of a body that is nearing an early finish. .



What Doug and I have in common is walking away from the rest of the family -- he more than I -- to live lives unapproved of by the Christians. We, me and K, visited him on our way back from this past camping excursion, and I didn't know if my husband would like him, but they seemed to hit it off, and for maybe the first time since I got married, I felt like family all together. Kurt said, "You never told me your brother was a real fisherman." I said, "Oh. Well, he is." I forget to tell him things about my family. I often forget I have one. He is my family now. Our counselor thinks I'm not a great communicator.


I am sad for my brother's failing health. I work in an industry where it is impossible not to know what it means to have a stroke, even if they get you to the hospital in time to bust the clot. I am grateful that he and I have lived long enough into this life to sort of know one another, although I will always feel separate from him, which is not very different than how I always feel.

One of the most significant memories from my very early childhood, maybe even the earliest memory of all, was of being awakened before dawn to hear him saying goodbye to me. I was in the top bunk, and he hugged me and ruffled my curly blonde hair. He still calls me Jude. He was seventeen and leaving for the Navy. It was that or prison I guess. I never did know what he did wrong. Maybe I should ask him. I've always wondered. But I guess he, or my Dad, chose the Navy. As you can tell with the face painting incident mentioned above, it didn't go well. None of my brother's took to the military. Or the military to them, it seems. Rebels, one and all.

vacation: backwards, in two parts

I can't tell where I'm typing. But this is Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. It used to be the city dump and now is literally covered in beach glass. People gather it in five-gallon buckets, so there isn't as much as there used to be. According to K, used to be you could see old Model-T's sticking out of the sidehills where they had been dumped and rusted. They are no longer visible.





Now we are in the Avenue of the Giants, although this happened in reverse. I can never remember to load the pictures in reverse order so they come out front to back. Ah, well. Use your imaginations. The route was this: Portland to Eliot Creek for a night; Jed Smith for 3 nights; Russian Gulch (Mendocino) for two nights; Willitts for a night; Port Orford for a night and home. There is much story to fill these gaps, but because I am a crappy blogger (albiet a decent writer) you will have to wait for your bedtime stories until a little later, kiddies.



More and more trees. I don't know what to say about the redwoods. A cathedral. We drove through Stout Grove across the river from Jed Smith, but the sun hardly came out the whole time we were there, so these shots are all from the Avenue of the Giants, which is somewhere further south along the Eel River.

More and more. The place to the left is where I peed. Just in case you were hoping for some significance. I mark territory like a male dog with prostate problems.

More Avenue of the Giants. And more....

I'm not very good at making the right words go with the right pictures. To the left is a view looking up in the Avenue of the Giants.

Our setup. The trailer has all of our gear and we sleep in the truck. This is from the Avenue of the Giants in California somewhere. (if this photo doesn't post, it is our white ford truck. again, imagination....)

Me and a big tree

The lighthouse at Crescent City


This is a giant redwood on a trail in Jed Smith. The chunks cut into the sides were for platforms for fallers back in the day. Coulda been my uncle or cousins, redwood loggers all.

This is camp #22 in Jedidiah Smith State Park. it was a great camp that they rented us by mistake and we had to move to #12, which was okay, but not as great. Sid, the guard dog, protects us from bears.

camp

Jed Smith to Russian Gulch at Mendocino. Very pretty. More later.

equipped

I am equipped to go camping. I am not as equipped as, say, asha and M. Lee, to trek about the unknown world with one spork and a napsack slung over one shoulder. Not like that. I am a campground camper. Not a trekker. I bring my stuff, a minimalistic version, decorate the redwoods as though that were possible or necessary, and sit there until I want to go home. I like sitting here. I like sitting there. Either is fine. I have my tent and my throw rugs so I don't drag dirt inside the tent. I have my shower bag and my bag of games with travel scrabble and dice and a cribbage board and cards; I finally caved and purchased blue speckle-ware plates. I found a full set of pots and pans at a yard sale for two bucks last year, so felt pretty good about buying 30$ worth of new stuff. I like having the camping gear all tucked away, year after year, so when we pull it out it is like christmas. Having a poor memory is delightful. And with perma-gear, there is less to put away when we get home.

This year, with my utter dependence on Silver Hills Squirrely Bread, I found a camp toaster for 1.93 at Walmart. I hate the W stores. But, as the impact of peak oil begins to affect me personally (ah, acceptance; ah, materialism gone awry; ah, shit) and the marauding zombie hoards begin to branch out from Winco and Walmart and Walgreens onto your front porch and mine, it makes a freakin' good case for camping gear and good locks for those gas caps. They (the zombies) were in rare form at Walmart yesterday. I really expected the biting to begin in earnest.

So I looked online for one of those fold-up kitchens, and, as with anything, you can take out a loan and get the top-o'-the-line, but I found the one I wanted for only 60 bucks. It's just a small aluminum set of folding shelves and a top rack for hanging utensils. Nothing burly like Coleman makes which is so cumbersome you may as well install an actual kitchen sink in the forest. I'm happy with my rubbermaid wash tub and tin pan. Some things are just right the way they are. Heaven knows I can haul water. I happen to know the exact weight of five gallons going uphill pregnant. But that, my friends, is another story for another day.

I have been reading this survivalist guide to packing your gear. This is a guy who is into the weight and volume of things. He's thinkin' about carrying his shit around. Not me. But there is a way to pack meat for the duration. He says you freeze it really good for a couple of days in the deepest part of the freezer, and then use in order: chicken first, then pork, then beef. That is the recommended order. I love to cook in the woods, so we will eat very well. I like to eat ribs and other barbaric things straight outta the fire. The first night, we will have blackened chicken breasts with whole green chilis and jack cheese ala clay's smokehouse. Yum.

We will prepare with rain gear and plenty of rope and tarps, and huddle beneath the redwoods for an early summer nap.

I hesitate to say I have enough, but I think I'm just about ready to go.

This post is

In memory of my brother Marc Dixon Kinney

Who returned from Viet Nam but never came home.

over and done with

Yep, its all gone. I chickened out and didn't sell the blue bouncy chairs. As a woman was prepared to hand me 100.00, I choked and found new resolve to paint them. I'm pretty much over the whole shabby chic thing and they are most definitely shabby. But they are so comfortable, and at some point, function does over-ride form. Doesn't it? Besides, I wander through all of the aisles of all of the stores and there is brown on brown and taupe on beige every friggin place you look. I don't want no fucking menopause-beige lawn chairs. I'm done with beige. You can't make me. I'm keeping my antiques. They will be painted white or red. I'm in a pretty red mood these days. Seems most of my shoes are red. I bought a pair of red pants.

Who cares?

So, I made about 60 bucks. But the important thing is that I got rid of a bunch of stuff I don't love. Impusle buys. And I'm willing to take the hit to learn the lesson. I resolved to only keep the stuff I really really like. And you know me.... I do like my stuff. Remember the old adage:

You can't have everything -- where would you put it?

So, there you have it. I felt really good about pricing things low, and selling to people in my neighborhood who loved what they found. And in the end, the rest went to goodwill and the free chairs left on the street. It was sweet to see this little boy who wanted this idiotic black beanbag chair and ottoman that I HAD TO HAVE at one point. I was certain if I had this certain beanbag chair that I would write more. Well, not only is that a crock of shit, it was so uncomfortable. And because I had made such a thing about getting it, I had a hard time (me!) admitting what a waste of 20 bucks it was. So, I finally drug it down the thin stairs and put a 10$ price tag on it. This kid really wanted it, sat on it, hung out, but his mother wouldn't cough up the cash. When we put the free sign on it, he came back. When we left for dinner, he was camped out waiting for his mom to pick him up.

So, my load is a little lighter, and that always feels good. A trip to the redwoods on a light tank should be nice. I only want one thing: one of those camping kitchens. They're cool.

but before we go...

Gotta do the Yard Sale. I'm tossing things down the staircase, and if you recall, it is a bit narrow. One stuffed chair got stuck and in pushing it through I nearly followed and would have spent my redwood adventure on crutches. But I caught myself in the nick o time and am saved.


Anyway, I am looking forward to selling my shit for money. Please come and buy some. I'm selling the blue bouncy chairs, L. You know you want them. I'm over shabby-chic.

Ginormous Yard Sale. One day only.

redwood bound

We are in the serious planning phase of our May/June vacation. We leave next wednesday and will be in the valley wed nite, then off to Jedediah Smith State Park in the heart of the Redwoods. A cathedral of trees nourished by the pristine Smith River which, by Mighty Columbia standards, barely qualifies as a creek. Its a beauty. Jade pools and dark overhangs of moss and rock and ferns and wild Rhodys and Azalea and Trillium and and and. I love that place. Haven't camped there since I was a girl and it was free.

We will take, along with everything we own, a propane heater because it is looking a little chilly there under the trees. Ah, more fires. More and more and more.

fine dining

I have been looking and looking for a dining room set that will fit in my bay window. Oh such are my struggles. The trials and tribulations of judybluesky in the big city. So many choices and craigslist too. So I finally settled on a nice black set from good ol' Freddy's. I love Freddy's. You can get about anything there. So, I rearranged my junk, made a yard sale pile, and next week, if the blazing spring sun obliges, I'll sell all my shit that I don't want anymore. I may change my mind. I will, no doubt, many times over. My husband finds this behavior curious. He admittedly wouldn't change a thing, inside or out, until the house looks like the set of Psycho, stuffed mothers and all, but not me. I'm for a bi-annual clearing out. You should show up. It'll be a good one. I'm trying to think of a good name for it.

Cheap Crap
Spring Cleaning Extravaganza
The Best Yard Sale Ever
Multi-Family Yard Sale (a white lie)

But whatever the title, it'll be one day only. Period. I'm not one for dragging things out. Either they sell or they don't. And I am usually surprised at what doesn't sell. My treasures usually sit unnoticed and unappreciated until I run in the house to use the bathroom and return to find that my husband has sold my 50.00 crate and barrel oil and vinegar set for two bucks. Usually, you can count on things made of wood selling fairly well. I will not have a christmas table. I will not sell wax items that have been sitting in the sun. I will not purchase things at stores and resell them. I will sell my piles of large clothing. I will finally rid myself of my old primer-rust chairs and a bunch of other shit. I'll probably sell it all too cheap and, as my husband says, "...spend the year buying three thousand dollars of shit and selling it for twenty five bucks." Sounds good.

Ah well, its something to do on a Saturday afternoon.

canby in the mist

So much for forecasters. I never trusted them anyway. I did hope, however, that I'd be able to shop for great plants in dry if not warm weather. Liars.

No worries, though. The Canby Master Gardner plants are there for the taking if you have PLENTY of money. They seemed a little pricey to me. I only spent about twenty bucks, so got off easy.

We bought a wagon (a Gorilla Dump Wagon) to make the trip. I had no intention of going without one. I looked on craigslist for a kiddie wagon cheap, but didn't get the one that was listed. So we went shopping late Friday night and found one at Freddy's. Its great. Too bad we really have no room for it. It is much better than a wheelbarrow, with four fat tires and a dump-able bed for less shoveling. So, K put it together for me and pulled it around the garden party. I do love my flowers.

This year we bought two pale coral bells, a maidenhair fern, three tomato plants and a black viney thing. Now, I can happily go to some other place and buy pony packs of lesser plants for filler.

4

Happy Anniversary to us! Four years. I feel more married this year than I have in the past. I was trying to explain that to my husband over sushi at Todai--nasty salty snow crab, no creme brulee for me--I just feel more like I think other [normal] people feel when they are married. I held my breath for the first two years. I couldn't believe my good fortune. I was afraid I would wake up and find, once again, that I don't get to keep what I have.

I went through life that way for the longest time. I was always sure that the gods would see that I had a wonderful life and eventually, send someone to tap me on the shoulder and say, "We know who you are and we saw what you did." And just like that, in a fingersnap, it would all be gone.

And it could have been, and could still be. But it isn't. And a fabulous life takes maintenance and cooperation and that hardest of all things, the word escapes me... it means to split the difference, to give and take, to... to... COMPROMISE. That's it. Ah. To willingly suspend the need to have it my way. Not my best thing. I spent so many years getting good at making people think it was their idea. Then, just moments later... their fault.

Naw. Not really. I'm not that mean.

Anyway, Happy Day. May Day May Day. Silver heart with wings for me, stargazers for him and a star in heaven.

southland in the springtime

We went down to see Haley and her NW Youthcorps crew in the hills outside of Tiller yesterday. I don't think I've been up to South Umpqua Falls in 20 years. It is a little different, I think. I think the fish ladder is newish. We were looking at campsites for our upcoming vacation the first week of June.

Ah, vacation.

We were planning a trip to Yellowstone and finally got clear about our unwillingness to spend 600.00 on gas. What a pisser. But we did clarify our mission, eventually. I asked my husband what he wanted to do for a vacation, and he said, "Whatever you want, my love," which I must admit has a damn nice ring to it. But that was not the point. Then, he talked about spending time with his father, who isn't getting any younger either, and we agreed to camp in the southlands.

For me, it is agreeing to camp in the southlands again. Since he grew up in the backwoods of Southern Oregon/Northern California, camping is a foreign thing. Live in dirt on purpose? He's pretty new to it. And me, being the queen of camping, owner of all camping things, it is all a vacation is to me. There is nothing else. What do I want to do on vacation? Camp. What do I need? A book and a tree and a chair. That's it. And water tumbling by. And maybe ripe blackberries. That is it. Oh, and no eighties rock music blaring from bad car speakers. That's nice too. So I may be a tiny bit picky.

So, southbound we are. For those of you who know it, we will be at Hutton on Eliot Creek from May 29th until about June 2-3, something like that. C'mon up. Bring a chair and your own damn book. I'm re-reading the Thornbirds for the thousandth time. I love that story. Tortured catholics. Don't know why.

So we spent the day with Haley, who is a burly little thing, with her dreads and rag clothing stitched together with fur and carpet remnants, giant bones stretching her ears into skin hoops, carving trails where there were none, moving boulders from rockslides along the Rogue River. Children guiding children to learn the value of good hard work. I think it is okay. Go NWYC. They work harder than I ever could or have. Or would.

Today, I shopped early to get the Winko trip out of the way. I went to the one on 82nd, and let me tell you, 82nd is a scary place 'long about 7:30 on a Sunday morning. The humans that roll out from under bushes and parked cars and those tiny little hooker motels are a mess. As the sun comes out, so does everybody else.

Then we went yard-sailing, and found some unnecessary shit including a Frank Zappa CD . When we popped it in the CD player, a song came on and I knew the words to it. It was such a strange sensation to know the words to "Hot Rats." Clearly, I was in a coma for way too long. I do know about his logo and what it is. If I knew how to post drawings, I'd show you. If you know it, and can post drawings, WAIT! this is the age of the internet. It MUST be out there somewhere..... be right back... okay, here's the logo. Okay, well obviously it is at the front end of this post. So, return to beginning and look at it. Do you know what it is?

Well I do.

So, apparently I did have some interest in Frank Zappa. I know his children are called Moon Unit and Dweezel. Memory surprises me sometimes--the storage capability of my brain and the absence of recall. But once triggered, a cascade of useless trivia is momentarily available to me. And I make it available to you, my readers.

Anyway, we went for a walk as evening approached and saw a UPS guy walking his dog. We were going to follow him to see if he made only right turns but got bored and went home.

politic

To maintain my right to bitch, I kind of have to dedicate one post-- one lonesome, provincial post-- to this historical election. Having worked for and with government agencies (local, state, county, but not federal) I am not much for conspiracies. I think they are too complex and the need for clear communication beyond governmental ablity. That being said, if I WERE a conspiracy theorist, which I am not, I would say that the Republican Party is nicely positioned to win in November. We are running a well-liked white man against an idealistic black youngster idolized by our attention-fractured youth, and an old white woman who nobody likes very much but they can't really remember why. I don't think there could be a more perfect duo to feed the huddled masses longing to be whatever huddled masses long to be.

I'm tired. I'm tired and just a tiny bit negative about the notion of electablitiy, which has been (imho) discussed/diluted to innoculate the public against giving it any credence, when, in fact, it is seriously the point. I don't believe that the American People, in the privacy of the voting booth, elect a black man to the highest office in the land. And I know this is not a rare and special insight. It is a common thought, often stated. Is it a "sad commentary about middle America"? Yes. I think it probably is. But no less true. And Hillary, who asha refers to as "neocon lite" is not my idea of a dream candidate, and I don't know that it matters all that much. I don't know that she'd do much better than Obama in a general election, but better is better. As much as I'd love to throw my considerable weight behind the fresh new guy, I don't think it wise. As truly as it is time for a change, it is also time for prudence and caution. We cannot afford to lose. And the assumption that "anyone is better than GWB" is naive and ignores history. We said that last time and lost.

katerina's purse

Katerina has a port wine stain covering the left side of her face that she used to cover with theatrical makeup. That was when Johnny was alive. In her purse are two copies of the same cherry chocolate cake recipe, a AAA card she holds up proudly. Twenty five years, she says, like it was an award. Maybe it is. She finds a small snap purse that opens to be a sewing kit. She looks at the buttons stuck to a length of tape, and tries to fit the tiny scissors back in the pocket but her crooked fingers can't help her anymore. "I sewed these buttons," she says. "Well, not these buttons." Then she unfolds a small piece of notebook paper. "My list," she says. A grocery list? I ask. She looks at me, serious. "Cosmetics." Then she pulls out a photograph of three people sitting on a sofa, the fat man in the middle with his great arms around a younger Katerina and some man. "Oh, there's Frank!" she exclaims as though he had just walked into the room. "He's dead." She smiles up at me, matter of factly. She has no idea who I am. You don't live to be ninety and not gain some familiarity with death. "Frank drank more than he should have," she said. I nodded. Who is this man? I asked. She held the snapshot in both hands and squinted through glasses that could have used cleaning. "That's my Johnny."

She remembered the names of all of the plants on her narrow sill, an african violet, tulips, roses (they were actually carnations, but from her vantage point, I gave her credit) and a lily. She asked me if I would care for the violet. I told her my mother used to raise them and all I knew is that they needed an east facing window, which it is in.

She is new to me, Katerina, and I hope she lives long enough to recognize me. I am senseless to wish these things, memory being what it is in my world.

come saturday morning snow

Once again, the Northwest Stormtrackers missed. The sun is streaming in my window and I know it isn't 70 degrees, but it is a blindingly beautiful morning on Clinton street. Maybe in Hood River they lost some apples, but I don't know. It was unseasonably cold, as promised, but no precip.

Loretta is at the coast by herself. I remember the first time I went anywhere alone after raising kids and being coupled. It was a constant challenge to grant myself permission to move about the planet freely. I got good at it after awhile.

Today was "date night/day". No children, no grandchildren, no mothers in law, we went out to breakfast, went to see 88 Minutes (Al Pacino movie) then out for a steak dinner at Saylers. We wanted to try Ringside downtown, but they wanted about 40 bucks for a steak. Seemed like too much money even for date night. So, I ate about half my stuff and came on home to a sugar free ice cream bar. I remember Asia's Thai friend who almost ate that 72 oz. steak a couple years back (eat the whole thing and its free -- don't and its 50 bucks.) Well, I saw the steak. Its still there. People still try, but only on weeknights. I think K would have gone for it otherwise. Anything for free food.

Hey, turns out me and the Pope have something in common. Looks like we both wear red shoes. His are Italian leather and mine are Keens, but still, its something.

nothing

I am planting things again in the hopes that the sun hasn't forgotten us completely. I have been biding my time, waiting for that Gardener's Mecca: the Canby Master Gardner Fair in the first week of May. I had been biding my time, that is, until the sun made a fair showing on Saturday and I went to Freddy's for just a very, very few plants. Just a few dozen. My husband, attempting to be caustic and unfair, laughed as I, in his words, replaced all the things that didn't make it from last year. I tried to explain that annuals don't make it, aren't expected to make it. Just color for the springtime. So there.

I planted tons of lobelia and verbena, columbine (which will be back next year just you wait and see) and a bunch of succulents along the side of the deck, mother hen and her chicks, stuff like that. Spineless cactus. Leave no dirt un-planted, I say.

It has been a long, wordless winter in my world. I seem to be running out. I keep saying they will come back to me like I am Capistrano, and some evenings and some early mornings I hear them clattering at the windows, asking to be let in out of the rain, but I won't do it. I won't.

Not yet.

easter

Went for a walk down our street yesterday. It was a beautiful day. My husband is a garbage hound and is always snooping throught the free shit that lines the inner SE Portland streets.
"There's money in this one!" he exclaims.
"That's not real money," I said, looking over the edge of the trash can and into a cardboard box.
But it was.
"It is!" I shouted, master of the obvious. "That's the real deal."
He reached for it.
"Don't!!" I yelled. "It's wrapped around dog shit."
And it was. Dog poop wrapped in money. That's our neighborhood. Just three blocks from Obama-Central. White paradise. Where we have such abundance we clean up the shit from our 600.00 pure bred dogs with cash money.
I won't bore you with my reminiscence of all the times I searched for quarters deep in the sofa, risking life and limb and hypodermic needles, to do a load of laundry.

Ah... those were the days.

Then, we went for a drive up the Washougal River to Dougan Falls and Naked Falls. Wow. Great slabs of sandstone with rushing green water pouring over them. The sun was out for a rare weekend appearance, but I had a stomach ache and threw up on the way home. Stress. I'm looking for a new job.

Now, it is Easter Sunday.

We, after much debate, attended a baptism for one of the grandchildren at a Lutheran church in Cornelius. It was a small congregation in a small town in a newish church with bad stained glass. I love good stained glass and would convert to Catholicism were it not for the glass ceiling.

So there we were, in the front pews against my better judgment. The pastor called Jacob and his (duelling) parents and the custodial grandparents, up to the bapitsmal, and asked him point blank: Do you want to dedicate your life to Jesus?

"After I get the eggs," Jacob replied.

He has his priorities, that boy. Eventually, of course, they had their way with him and dumped water on his head and made the mark of the cross on his forehead with something holy. It was a bit primitive, really. The familiar rituals of my childhood conducted in the light of adulthood. It all seemed held together with tape and white glue -- faith a thing that evaporates with time.

I hadn't been in a church on Sunday in a long time, and never in a Lutheran church. It was alright. A bit lackluster, much like described ad nauseum on A Prairie Home Companion. You really can't picture them dancing much.

yard sales and scrap heaps

Heading out to accumulate more shit. I have a placque behind my desk that says, "You can't have everything, where would you put it?" And still I try.

Today I hope to sort through a pile of picture frames and frame some photos of our collective children and make a family wall of sorts. Was a time when I hoarded frames, bought them at yard sales and fretted over which ones were best and which pictures to put in each frame. I spent days sorting and changing and polishing the glass and tacking the frames together, antique and flimsy, to make a home. Now, I have this pile of frames and glass and photographs and very few family photos on the wall.

There are many many many to sort through. Last weekend I completed a scrapbook for Pieper, my neice, and now on to this.... it is the year of scraps for me. Fragments. Remnants. Tying up loose ends. Now, with all of the family photos, it makes less sense to frame and hang them as it does to find yet another couple of photo albums and get the photos preserved, framing only a very few for the wall.

again

I awake to the sound of birds in the laurel outside my window, the lilac still bare but hopeful, the refuse of autumn cluttering the waking soil.

I am skipping school today. Calling in sick. Nothing makes me feel better than not doing what I am supposed to do. Rebel with a clause. I feel like crap right now and am hoping the eventual call in will help with that. I skipped a meeting last night and now this... what will the future hold?

It is supposed to be a beautiful day today. Once again my husband planted grass seed in the back yard. Last year, if you'll recall, we used sod. It failed after a couple of months. I think because he cuts it too short and because our back yard is shady and you can't purchase shady sod. It died rather dramatically. Suddenly, long about october, there wasn't a blade of green to be seen. This time we hit all the elements: dug deep, added lime to the soil, used lots of shade mix seed, tamped it down gently, sprinkled a thin layer of mulch on top, watered daily, and now we wait... but we have been waiting now for three weeks. I'm accustomed to grass that springs up after 8-9 days, but not this stuff. Yesterday, finally finally, we began to see tiny little green hairs here and there. I say we, but it's all HE.

Everybody has an opinion about growing grass if you bring it up. You should do this, never do that, only use this seed, never start before May, blah, blah, blah. I think seed grows if you water it, pretty much. There seems to be some wisdom about not cutting it too short, only one-third of the blade is to be cut, and I can't be sure about the mower and uneven lawn, but generally leaving it longer is better. The lazy person's method of cutting it shorter and less frequently is probably why so many of my lawns have failed.

Well, that's your gardening lesson for today, one of the first really nice days of the year. I am holding my breath for spring and the Canby Master Gardener's Fair. I don't know if I'll be able to wait that long. I do want to see what all comes back before I start jamming new stuff on top of sleeping plants. I really can't wait for my poppies. I'll be out in the yard today to see what is pushing back through the soil for another run at life on the upside. I'll move aside dead leaves and clean up the decay of another year spent in hiding. In so many ways.

I made the call. I am free. Ah, worklessness. Hooray. I should be unemployed.

fake money

Louisa is probably a millionnaire. She looks like one. Even at 96 she holds herself in that post-debutante manner that just drips with having.

I have enough now, but add up the years... and I have rarely known enough. Eventually the balance will come... those days of enough balancing with the many years of lack. For now, I notice the differences.

So even though she is well down the rabbit hole, well into the bermuda triangle that is dementia, she likes to carry money. She will also wipe her butt with it in a moment of inattention, so it is a casualty of the realm that I ask and I ask and I ask families please please do not give your crazy little mama daddy auntie any cash.

But they do.

And here are the girls, working for not enough, never enough to still the craving mouths of the many little baby birds at home, having to discover the money and make that critical decision not to keep it. Not. to. keep. it. I understand the depth of their decision. And when one of them leaves the cash in a little envelope on my desk and waits for me to find it and open it and get rid of it so the temptation can be gone because until we both know it is there, nobody knows it is there. Not really. And there is a star in heaven for Jessica tonight.

I went to the dollar store and bought some play money for Louisa. But that wasn't good enough. Her nephew found it, threw it away, and gave her the real thing.

When we found it on the floor I soooooooooooooooo wanted to give it to Jessica.

death and facials

There is no way I can catch up with all I have not written. No way. I can summarize day upon day spent in the pale yellow catacombs of death and depression, I can blame it on the gray of winter, the inevitable longing for blue sky. I can, as a true-born Oregonian, make an honest admission of cabin fever. I have not, it turns out, forgotten how to type, or what my address is here at bluesky. Perish the thought. Every single day something happens that is worthy of blognote, that makes its way past the mundane and into consciousness, the spark that says YES, that would make for a good post. But evening falls, never soon enough and always too late, and I am paralyzed on my perfect leather sofa, sitting in my corner where I always sit, and I digest the intensity of the day without hitting a key except to play mahjong.

There I was, Friday morning, lying in my bed, struggling to know the perfect will of Almighty God in my life and the voice of God speaks: "Why don't you go ahead and get up and get dressed and go to work and we'll see how that goes." Fine.

f i n e.

So I showed up because they pay me to, and left at noon just to bolster my precarious mental health. I am always on call, and I told them to find someone else to call this weekend and let me have a fucking break. Did I say fuck?

And later friday night we went to our second lesson in east and west coast swing dancing which you'd think would be fun, and it is, but my fun-o-meter is broken right now. I've lost my sense of humor. Everything seems so serious, but really, its only life and death.

So I awoke saturday morning, hips and calves sore from rock-lead-one-two-three-one-two-three... Before I could talk myself out of it, I wandered a few blocks down my street and met some friends. We talked, as we sometimes do, about things of a spiritual nature. We don't call it talking about religion, but that is essentially what it is. Turns out as long as you're not talking about Christianity, your'e talking about "things of a spiritual nature." Once Jesus comes into it, you're talking about religion and you're fucked. Anyway, I tell them how stressed I am, all of this time spent trying to divine what is next for me. Should I quit my job and work at a coffee shop or some other place where death is a relative anomaly? Shall I live off the proceeds from my house and write a blockbuster? What to do What to do? Still stressed to near breaking point, I came home from the meeting and Nicole, who is in beauty school, offered to give me a facial at 10:30. Now, I am so exhausted that even a facial seems like just too much to cope with. It would require me to get dressed and leave my sofa. But I'm wise to my own psychosis: it thinks it can kill my body and keep on going. So I say, okay. Okay. I will experience some fucking pleasure then if you are going to make me.

So I went to the beauty school and waited my turn. There were three massage tables, semi-private, curtained off one from another, and I was in the middle one. There was another facial starting at about the same time, and I had really been hoping for quiet. As I mentioned.... I was just the ever so teensy bit stressed. We, Nicole and I, settled into the nice smells and textures of the process until behind curtain number one, comes the conversation:

She was really in a lot of pain when she died. I mean, we knew she was going. My aunt is 91 and she wants to be cremated. Yeah, just yesterday. the pain was terrible and she's out of that so its really a blessing. So now we have to figure out what to do. My husband has his grandmother's ashes on their mantle. Yes we knew she was going, but you're never ready for that....

blah
b l a h
b l a h
b l a h....................................

Finally, we both just started laughing. Death is life is death is life.

I was reminded of that line from the beginning of Dances With Wolves: "Were it not for my companion, I would be having the time of my life."

ground hog's day

I don't know what is happening in Kansas or Nebraska or those places that are home to the ground hog, but it is raining here. And has been for ages. We are surrounded by snow, but none here. We tried to take the nice new little car out for a spin to see Multnomah falls turned to icicles, but no dice. The road was blocked from too many wrecks. That was last week, and still the snow falls all around us.

I celebrate this day because I am a huge fan of spring and of hope in general.

no promises

I'm aware of the cost of absences like this. I have been writing other things, not fiction, and I miss bluesky. When I am not writing creatively, I am ruined.

Pearl died. Nobody still living liked her very much, and I'd have to agree that she wasn't easy to like, but I liked her and she liked me. It was my desk that she liked. She liked knowing the boss. She was an elitist. A true snob with her millions intact to the bitter end.

Many of my people are dying again right now. The cycle is repeating, as cycles will, and those little souls who were wandering and kicking the cat and tearing the plants from their pots have begun to call out the names of their brothers and sisters gone on before them, calling for mama because push-come-to-shove that's who we want even if we're ninety. They're trying to get home to papa because he'll worry. This is dying -- going home at last.

There is one who is trying to pass, and her son doesn't want her to go just yet. She wants to die, says as much every morning when the sun finds its way to her reluctantly opened eyes. "Leave me be." And the son wants more anti-depressants and different anti-depressants to "perk her up." And I tell him, "Ain't no cure for ninety, pal." Ain't no medicine gonna get in front of the will to live once that place in line is taken. Nope. Not even with a strong faith in a misunderstood god. But what do I know?

I've cancelled my harp lessons. I love my harp, but I will not use it to make a living any time soon, and do need to move obligation to a far side in this short life. Obligation, too, is ruinous to me.

Ah, there. It is good to write.

requiem for my truck

I traded my big fat red truck for a shiny new Mazda. There. I've said it out loud. I am no longer a truck driver. Again. Primal AARRRGGGGHHHHH!

You may remember a time when I had a brief meltdown and bought a tan Mazda sedan. This Mazda is not like that at all. It is a pearly white five door hatchback. Almost a truck. It is small and oh so much better on gas. The sedan moment was a bit of an identity crisis, followed shortly and expensively by that shiny red truck that I love(d). At least it was paid for. The Mazda, on the other hand, is not.

So.

My brother Marc talked me into buying that truck shortly before he died. I don't think he could bear the thought of me being stuck forever in beige. Kind of like car purgatory. He loved to buy cars. I don't. I just told him to pick it out, get the paperwork together and I'd sign up. So that's pretty much what happened. When I showed up to get the truck, I was a little surprised that it was teenage-boy red, but when I started driving it, it fit me. I used to take Marc for drives near the end, him on methadone for pain, me not, playing old songs he loved like Wooden Ships and Somebody Robbed the Glendale Train. And we'd sing and sing like we used to do before everything went to shit.

Now he's gone. And the truck is gone.

So we bought the Mazda 3 together. I'm not sure why its a three. I don't get all that. But it has lots of airbags and safety stuff, and keyless entry, and electric windows. We needed a non-truck. We needed a commuter. It's mine, but we'll share vehicles now. His white truck, my white car. Much better. Its a new day in married land.

attention span

I am here. I would leave it at that, but there is more. I am distracted and busy and want to quit my job and have not done it. I want to work in a coffee shop where things make sense. And from the outside in, so much does make sense. Up close, the Peyton Place of life is distressing.

I am off to the Alzheimer's Association this morning to learn about something. I can't think what. There is everything and nothing to learn. The nature of dying does not change. They die. We die.

Humor is a prelude to faith
Laughter is the beginning of prayer
(Reinhold Neibuhr)


I need a pair of rose colored glasses.

upgrade

Happy New Year everyone. My first sip of coffee, a peek at asha's blog, and my day - my year - is off and running. We celebrated last night with like-minded people, and found our way from bad music to tables of sweets and coffee at midnight. It was good to be out and about, and good to be home with Sid as the rockets began to fire. I'm not sure if I've been clear enough about how much I hate eighties cover bands. I don't know who Pat Travers is. I hate-really, hate-loud rock music, with a few exceptions, such as the Stones. I love Van Morrison, and Tom Waits, and Sarah McLauchlan and nice melodic quiet music like that. And Green Day and Weezer. And I love the blues. And crosby stills and nash. Stuff like that. So, now you know.

Upgrade announcement: I bought my beloved an HDTV yesterday. It was his christmas present and took awhile to pick one out. It isn't huge, as those things go, but it is much larger and lighter than our former set.

As to resolutions, I will try to keep my eyes open, along with my mind. I wish I would write more, play my harp more, and stay off sugar. Little feels within my grasp at this moment, but it is early and I am hardly awake. I have six books brewing in the back of my mind. I have a harp sitting in the corner gathering dust, I have sewing projects and home decorating ideas. I want to paint my kitchen in five different colors.

I want it all. But you know what they say: You can't have it all. Where would you put it?

christmas present

Christmas in the present.

The gifts: A copper teapot, a pocket knife, a treadmill and a sock monkey to add to the clan. He's beautiful. Haley found him at an antique shop. He is handmade of real socks, not the acrylic type you see mass produced these days, and has a crooked handstitched smile.

Being present at Christmas.

All of these things.

Together we cleaned the house. I got everyone phoney fur throws so Nicole and I can stop battling over the zebra stripe. Sid even got one. He doesn't know what to think. It is on his bed, and it is soft, so he likes it, but it doesn't smell like him so he is suspicious of it. We are awaiting the arrival of the mother in law.

She is come and gone. Brunch of eggs and veggies, coffee cake for the normal people, watching Stardust and talking to all of the families on the phone. So many others, now. So many. My family grows and grows and at times like this, I feel like they know me.

drive by christmas

It was a good trip, the Drive By Christmas. I gave my son his scrapbook and he was properly surprised and pleased to have it. I think he even teared up a little bit. We drove house to house, leaving tiny gifts of homemade blackberry jam wrapped in red cotton dishtowels; red metal stars and red rubber spatulas that I found at Winco and love to cook with.

It was good to see everyone, and it is good to be home.

I like being a passenger, in so many ways, but on these trips south, then north again, I am able to reminisce as we pass places for the many-th time, places so embedded in memory that they seem at times part of a movie set. As I age, and as places age and change, I am moved at the impermanence of things: of the many tractors along the road, of Mexia's -- a roadside cafe or tavern or inn, one that captured my imagination every time I passed it on the freeway headed north. It was a tall white clapboard house with a vertical sign that you could just see through the trees. A poorly marked exit leads to it, but I have never taken that exit. I was always afraid to. Mexia's, in my imagination, was a satin-lined brothel, a roadside oasis, brownskinned women more beautiful than I've ever been, with ivory hair picks holding back flowing locks of black hair. As I passed what is left of Mexia's, I wondered at my memories, of my fear of beauty and its unwieldy power and my unwillingness to allow reality to alter memory.

Driving through the Applegate, seeing the barns that finally finally finally came down as though somehow they would not, that somehow they would remain, that my memories would be enough to hold the sagging timbers intact until I no longer needed to see them as they had always been, always and never falling for these long fifty years now, as though the landscape existed only for my entertainment. And we passed Roy Winningham's green house, built for him by his brother Dave who is in his 90's now, and Roy is gone I'm almost certain, the retarded younger brother, who lived in his own house on the edge of the meadow and helped tend the cattle across from McKee Bridge. I remember those old men. Dave, who talked slowly and could play horseshoes like nobody else. He was a patient man, as ranchers can be, men who live by the movement of seasons and light, who are not pushed by artificial time or held back by manufactured misery. Not modern.

But I always thought Roy's house would be there, and I always thought there would be people at McKee Bridge who remembered the stories Dave told. And they are mostly gone. As I packed away my son's scrapbook, and tucked the genealogy of these people, the Applegate pioneers, my son's people, into the back cover, I was glad I had made some record of a time gone by: loggers and ranchers, men who needed alot of room to live.

As I grow old behind them, it is terrifying to think that the time is passing, that I have lived in log cabins and hauled water from a creek and know how to use kerosene and clean a lamp globe without burning myself or breaking it. So much is behind me, and the terror, I suspect, is that there is less in front. I am in awe of my life, and the people and the history who have touched it. There is nothing to regret.

jane is gone

Watching her leave was hard. She stood in my office, shaking her fist in my face, cursing me with the words, "You, you have no love in you." And I don't know how far off she is. At that point, she was close.

Like so many of us didn't, Jane got caught being crazy. And once that happens, it is all doom from there on in. You become protected, and being protected ain't nearly as fun as living your own crazy little house, knee-deep in hoarded margarine containers and tin cans, setting up shop outside your own front door selling potholders and paperbacks for a dime.

Over the years, Jane had collected a whole bunch of dimes. Many many thousands of dollars worth. And now, now what good does all that frugality get her? Protection, that's what. She shook her shrivelled fist and hyperventilated, "You're taking my life from me. I want my life. Not YOUR life. You life is worth nothing!" her thin voice crackling across my desk like old lightning.

I hate social workers.

wintering

Every day I run out of time, and writing is lingering at the back of the pack of wolves that nip at my heels this time of year. So much to do. So much to do. I have listed the demands on my time, work and Christmas among them, and will not bore you with them again. Writing comes and goes and will come again.

At present, I am composing a letter to go with the scrapbook for my son. It must be carefully articulated as he does not suffer emotion easily or for long, and it was an emotional stroll down the dark alleys of this past life. I want to issue a blanket apology, something akin to David Crosby's "Sorry I drank thanks for the liver" statement, and let it go at that, but I won't. He will always know he was born to a writer, dammit.

My days have been full of cardmaking and harpplaying and housecleaning and treegetting and lightstringing and foodeating and moviewatching. I am lazing through the winter without apology. We head for the southlands friday for our Driveby Christmas, flinging presents into the yards of our families and on the road and home again.

For the politicos: I am waiting to see if Oprah can get Obama elected. Are we so asleep that he seems real? To me they are all cartoons so far. I don't know what will happen. Of course I don't. How could I?

history

I had dinner with my neice last night. We drove out the their farm of filberts and marion berries along the Willamette River. Two neices and their mother, and their families. To describe my family as fractured is accurate, and these girls were raised on the far side of one of the deepest breaks. A crevasse.

At some point, when her daughters (one my neice by blood) were about two and five, she took them away from us and never came back. The girls are now 40 and 43, and to be face to face with her is like looking in a rearview mirror. I see myself, my brother, my grandmother, perfected by the union of my brother and a beautiful but crazy girl some forty years ago.

They came to my mother's funeral some seven years ago, and even then, it was stunning to see her. She has become a good woman. She knows some of the tragedy of her young life, but wonders at her lifelong fear of poverty and places that are not clean, and I will not be the one to describe her childhood to her. She told me she used to make up stories about her family because she didn't have one.

I cried. I don't know what to tell her.

I'm not sure why we didn't see her again. I'm not sure why we didn't keep in touch with them. To protect her? But when she said, "There probably aren't any pictures, are there?" I had to laugh. Oh yes. We have pictures. Pictures we have. So today, I dug out pictures of her grandmother, and her grandfather, and her greats and great greats, and her father as a baby and her aunts and uncles and I will write her a family tree and make her a scrapbook, because I know how and because, fracture or no, we are family.

done

I finished the scrapbook. The fucking scrapbook, as it has come to be known. And here is a record of the process: (apologies to Nina for not posting scanned pictures. Turns out the scanner is so old it won't work.)

First of all, I had to sort through mountains of old snapshots, selecting those that wouldcouldmight have meaning for my son. He is not nearly as sentimental as I am, and I am not. So, I judge and I wonder and I choose this one and that one. There are my favorites, and all of the shit (did I say shit?) from his father. They are actually fairly nice photos, better than any I take, and as important for this document as mine are (hate to admit it, but it is true).

Then, I rounded up all of the undeveloped film canisters, 23 in all, and took them to Walgreens. Most were about 20 years old. Like I've said all along: I'm no historian. And honestly, I am such a shitty photographer that the ones that did survive move after move after move are unredeemably bad. Most were blank, whole rolls of purple, one roll of people I either never knew or have forgotten entirely. The latter is as likely as the former. It was somebody's wedding. Not mine. There is one picture of my wedding. One. So, of 23 rolls, I probably got 10 useable photographs. It was a relief to have them developed, though. Done is done. But there was one great, if purple, shot of my son and Spencer, the greatest dog in the world.

Having completed the monumental undertaking, my initial disgruntlement is not so much with my absence (I hate to have my picture taken) but with his father's presence. I may have referred to this in the former post and this is probably not the last time you'll hear about it.

So, we have picture after picture of Daddy with the Baby Boy as though he were the most thoughtful and present parent in the universe. If you look closely, however, you'll see the book he is reading to the adorable baby is Easy Rider magazine, and that the only thing under the Christmas tree for Baby's First Christmas is motor oil, and that baby's first birthday cake is really just a chocolate chip cookie with a candle on top.

I muddled through these resentments once upon a time. They may need just the slightest bit of review.

So, on I went, slogging through page after page of a not particularly idyllic childhood. If it were left to me to choose the chapters, they would be titled:

Jacksonville, before the escape
The Wonder years
On the run in Red Bluff
Post trauma in Bolder City
Coosbay, after the escape
Central point, the heroin years

As a writer, I had visualized this project as one requiring a fair amount of writing. I figured I'd write a brief commentary about each picture, talking about where and when and who, but I found myself speechless and unknowing. I couldn't get the school pictures in order if my life depended on it. I wrote things like "kindergarten or first grade?" How lame is that? What mother doesn't know that? I don't even really know if he went to Kindergarten, or if there was one. So, my comments are brief and tentative. It is a bit embarrassing, really. I have pictures from my side of the family, way back, and papa's, way back. There is an Ojibwa medicine woman named Naganook on that side. Mine? Texans and Coastal folk. Oregonians 5 generations back from him. But even that stuff I am unclear about. I know some faces that appear to age from frame to frame, from birth to death, all in celluloid permanence. And what difference does it make really? What if I just made it all up? Who would know, or care?

Still, it is a great scrapbook. Only I know what really happened. Then again, I have a revisionist memory. Ask anyone.

scraps

In the midst of Nanowrimo, I am working that scrapbook for my son. It is an emotional work, and difficult when I find so many years when there were no pictures taken at all. No record of his life from about 4 to 9, which was the bottom of my life. But there are also wonderful times recorded, the background apparent only to me. Like the one where we are sitting on the docks at Charleston, crabbing, my arm around my son protectively, the half-gallon of Sunnybrook just beyond the frame. I wish the pictures were digital.