One last hike in the mountain pass

Snow is falling on the mountain passes already so we thought we'd better get out there for one last hike before the trails become impassible. The leaves are turning and falling; the alpine meadows are bright with color. The air is crisp - just beautiful...

(You know those TV or movie sound effects that take you abruptly from 'good' to 'bad?' The ones that sound like a needle scratched over an old phonograph? Insert one of those here.)

We got charged by a vicious dog on the trail. Why do these things always happen to us? Mark says they happen to other people too but...

They were around a corner, quite far away really, when the dog heard our voices and started to run at us, barking angrily. She ran around the corner at full speed and just kept coming, flanked by two slightly smaller versions of herself. Mark started yelling at the dog to stop - still no sign of the owner - and no sign of the dog stopping or backing down in any way. Mark pulled out his knife (where was the pepper spray?) in what seemed like the only possible way to deal with the situation of a big, angry dog attack... still no 'responsible person' in sight.

The dog finally stopped, only 5 or 6 feet from Mark, teeth bared, still barking and growling, then slowly advanced again with her head down, feet apart - fighting posture. (Mark, it must be said, was by that time in his own fighting posture, reaching for the second knife with the left hand, reluctant to hurt the dog, obviously, but finding other choices to be increasingly limited. And me? The only thing I can say is that I wasn't screaming - too afraid to put Mark in more danger than he was already in.) Finally a man peered around a corner on the trail, silently, no effort to help, just sort of looking to see if there was blood yet. Mark yelled to him that he needs to call off the dog NOW and the guy finally started calling. No response from the dog. I mean, really! (Remember, there were three dogs - the full-grown female and two mostly-grown pups. The pups ultimately seemed harmless but the female was quite decidedly not - and in any case, three very large dogs charging together in a pack basically is just not a reassuring scene.)

It took the guy several minutes to get the dog under control. Then he acted like he thought we could just walk on by them while he stood there on the trail with the dog on its leash, finally tethered as it should have been all along. Once he looked up at Mark, though, he seem to realize that we weren't really in a trusting mood and backed his menagerie off the trail enough for us to go safely by. Good grief.

One other negative here - boy am I sore! I have those MBT shoes that rock and roll and wobble so as not to put too much pressure on your feet - which actually works - but they cause you to balance yourself using your inner thigh and abdominal muscles instead of your feet. Six and a half miles of that...

Maybe it's a good thing winter is coming.

Reunions

I received one of those forwarded emails from an old high school friend (maybe I should have said "a friend from years ago in high school?") regarding an upcoming high school reunion. They are starting the planning for next year - 'our' 40th.

Amazing.

I, of course, disregarded it immediately. I was part of a graduating class of many hundreds (over 1000?) right in the leading bubble of the baby boom. There were so many people crowding my high school hallways that I didn't know a soul. Or so it seemed at the time. Evidently I did know someone, though, or I wouldn't have this "old friend from high school" to contact me about a reunion. Still, a reunion with a cast of thousands? I don't think so.

I only recognize the names. I can't remember if I actually knew any of these people... or more disturbing, if any of these people would have known me. I think I was a quiet kid without a lot of 'star' quality who drifted through those years with very little impact. Certainly my lack of lasting contact with anyone from that time is a testament to that notion.

(Even so, I did get a notice for the 20th reunion, somehow. At that time they wanted to prepare a 'yearbook' sort of thing with notes from everyone about what they are doing now. I was going to write in to say "I am alive and well and living on an island in Alaska" but even that seemed like too much trouble with not enough interest... so I didn't. I still wonder how they got my name and address.)

I might have been friends with a few people in Choir. I probably talked to kids in my art class and knew a few of the people in various other classes. But I wasn't 'popular' and I don't think any of the people I knew would be the type to go to a reunion either. As far as I know, none of us is now famous. We probably wouldn't even be considered 'successful.' Honestly, I just don't remember anyone particularly.

But, back to this email that I got. It quoted one of the people in 'our' class as saying:

We were a part of changing generation, historical events, and a camaraderie that seems to have stuck. We were a part of a very special time.

Well. That's the part I missed. Yes, I technically grew up during the Viet Nam war, civil rights marches, the onset of rock and roll, the assassination of a president, the Cold War, and avocado green appliances. But I never wore a flower in my hair. I never marched for anything. I spent summers reading and being in a church youth group. I spent evenings with my family. I learned to love PG Wodehouse and Kurt Vonnegut Jr and chocolate parfaits in pretty little dessert glasses instead of politics and feminism and activism.

So I'll give this a miss. I have enough trouble with self-concept without going to a reunion to admit that mostly what I did with my life was indulge my sweet tooth and move around a lot. I only have bragging rights to two spectacular successes in my life - my son and my third marriage. (And there's just a hint of farce in that last bit, isn't there?)

OK, yes. I am being too hard on myself - call it literary license to make a blog point. Yes, I have reasonably respectable personal as well as professional resumes. But the classic reason to go to a reunion of a bunch of people you probably didn't know very well 40 years ago is one that just doesn't appeal to me: to boast. To impress someone. To see if you turned out better than they thought you would.

I'm sure it would be different if it had been a small group in the first place. But all I can clearly remember of high school is those crowded hallways full of strangers.

I just don't know how other people do it. But in any case, they'll have to do it without me.

Mark watching Maddie watching Squirrel

Rats!

We've added a new species to our backyard menagerie. The competition for peanuts and other 'critter food' is becoming intense. Demand is ever higher. Frik and Maddie have their noses pressed to window from the inside most of the time - and the squirrels have theirs pressed to the outside of the window looking for more handouts. The jays hover on the roof and surrounding trees and are never more than 2 seconds away from swooping down on the latest treat when it appears. There are peanut shells and bird poop everywhere.

And into this mess, a newcomer. Yes, a rat.

I should have known better, you'd say. And you'd be right. Now I have to clean up the deck and remove the pan with the critter food in it and send all my 'friends' off into the world to fend for themselves.

A rat. Good grief.

Government Buildings, all lit up

Just one more Victoria picture...The inner harbor in Victoria again, this time looking toward the government buildings which were sort of behind us in the previous inner harbor picture. It's all lit up for the evening stroll.

Birthdays

I don't really pay much attention to birthdays anymore. I can't seem to keep track of them. The family grew so much, I was away from the invitations to cake that would have reminded me of them, so many birthdays came and went (and a few husbands and their birthdays came and went...) Well, I can come up with a lot of excuses but they wouldn't matter. I just don't keep track.

Hallmark is missing a lot of revenue because of me.

So today might have come and gone, in the usual scheme of things, without the realization that it was my father's birthday. Very few days come and go that I'm not reminded of him, but why it should suddenly pop into my head that today is the 21st of September and that is a significant day, I don't know. Last year and the year before I wrote about him on his birthday and here I am again, thinking the same thoughts. That people we lose are never really 'lost' is a very comforting notion to me. My dad is in my head, just as he has always been.

I had the honor of speaking at his memorial service. This is what I said:

We’ve been sorting through family photos – looking mostly, of course, for pictures of my father; frozen moments in time that capture his life and passion and loves. One of my favorites is of him and my mother sitting together at Beth’s wedding reception just a few years ago. My mother is laughing and looking back over her shoulder at him – and he is entirely focused on her with an adoring smile, as if she filled his whole universe, which she certainly did.

Another photo is of him standing next to his 200 pound halibut on the dock in Alaska, his face a mixture of pride, pleasure and disbelief. He mostly dredged up bizarre creatures when he was fishing (as opposed to real fish) since he always let his hook drag on the bottom – but this halibut was a true prize. In the picture you can just see him savoring the moment.

There are probably a whole bunch of pictures of him off-roading in the jeep with Carl Jr. and his boys in Yuma and other back roads of Arizona, but the Sr./Jr. photo that says it all for me is one from years ago. They were working together on a soapbox derby car, in the carport of the house on Kenyon Drive. The pleasure of doing “guy” things with his long-awaited only son is unmistakable on his face in that picture.

There is a picture of Gail and Janet and I – this is one he resurrected from the family archives and reproduced a few years ago to send out in Christmas cards. We are standing together in choir robes and were maybe 3, 4 and 7 years old. He loved the photo because, to him, we looked angelic– which I really think is the way he saw us. Even though it isn’t a picture of him, when I think of it I see him as he looked at us – with love and pride. It still makes me want to do my best. I heard him recently telling a nurse that his “littlest angel” was coming to pick him up. She seemed a little surprised when I showed up, but that’s the thing – I was always that, in his eyes, even if time has altered the perceptions of others.

Pictures abound of him with his grandchildren and great grandchildren – laughing with them or making faces at them. He was determined to teach Todd, at a few months old, to blow bubbles with spit, of all things. One photo is of the two of them, face to face, with lips pursed, popping bubbles at each other. Another is of he and Ryan standing next to each other – the difference in height is significant, to say the least, and I’m not sure which one of them looks more amused by it.

A picture I don’t actually have, but can see in my mind’s eye anyway, is of him standing in front of a billboard on Palo Verde Rd., when he’d hired it out for the sole purpose of informing all of Tucson that Herschel Sowers had turned 50. “Good grief” it probably said. Under the bushy eyebrows I can just see his eyes twinkling in mischief.

There is another picture, one I took myself just a few months ago, of Daddy with his almost-life-long friend, Terry Smith, standing together on the front porch, arm in arm and smiling for posterity, a record of a solid friendship.

The pictures are testament to the life – a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and friend. How GOOD he was at all of it! He was a whole package of love, laughter, commitment, intelligence and integrity. His interests ranged from astronomy and geology to politics and cactus growing. Actually there were very few subjects that DIDN’T interest him.

My father expected to live until he was 140 years old. He always said he didn’t want anyone standing around grieving for him and figured that by the time he reached 140 whoever was left would be glad to see him go. That at 79 years old he considered himself to be in the prime of his life explains a lot about his passion for living.

He wasn’t able to finish his novel, and the gazebo that he started to build in the back yard isn’t done. Since he was building it from the sky down, instead of the ground up, he alone knew exactly how it would go together. (Frankly, it’s led to a lot of puzzlement from the other builders in the family.) He wasn’t finished teaching his grandson Mark how to run his old lathe. Fortunately Janet paid attention when he showed her how to wind his antique clock. There is a lot more politics to argue about with his sister Betty and another Literacy building to put together, and he probably had something cooking with the folks at Truly Nolan again. He had yet to perfect his pit barbeque technique – ask anyone downwind from him in the neighborhood about burning turkeys – and never did get to Africa, which he always wanted to see. And I’m sure Kyle can attest to his need for more bowling practice – they were in league play together one year.

On the other hand, he survived being the youngest in a rowdy family of 6 kids during the depression, served in WWII, soloing in an aircraft (a Steerman biplane) that one could probably, at this point, find in the Smithsonian. (He’d give me a grin and roll his eyes to the ceiling at that comment, I know.) He nourished and sustained a marriage and family while earning an Electrical Engineering degree. He was actually in college at the same time Gail was! He ran his own successful business which he built on the pride of his name and the integrity of his character.


He and my mother once traveled to Tahiti. And, of course, he spent a bunch of time in Alaska. He never saw a pretty girl he didn’t stop to appreciate. Or a blueberry pie he didn’t love.

He named a street after Jill – his first granddaughter – when he was building in Pennsylvania. He was enormously proud of Brent and Ty for serving their country in the Navy and Marines. He beamed with pride at Girl’s Chorus concerts when Beth, and then later Lauren and Carolyn, sang. And when great grandchildren started to arrive – Brevin, Rainy, Brandon and Baylor – he was thrilled to start all over with babies; a whole new crew to teach spit bubbles to. He built trusting, confident relationships with his children-in-law – Greg, Render, Mark and Kathy. He treasured his adopted grandchildren, Thanh and Danh.

He helped create a large and loving family, and we will carry him in our hearts as long as we live.

He told me a few months ago that he hadn’t done enough with his life. He thought that with his IQ he should have found the cure for cancer or improved “new math.”

But, really, I can’t imagine a life better lived than his. We love you Daddy. You will always be with us all.

Can't resist...

You know I can't resist showing some pictures whenever I have new ones. I printed up 23 pages of 'vacation' photo collages - not even a record for me for a 4-day trip. So here are a few of my favorite from the Garden.

Afternoon tea

One of Victoria's grand traditions is Afternoon Tea. Celebrated in style, it is attended by all us tourists as if this is something we always do... take a long break in our activities to pour and sip tea, and snack a little on cucumber sandwiches and scones. Ah, elegance. Ah, Victoria.

We had to!

So we had tea at the Butchart Gardens, resting our weary feet and replenishing our very souls with the sheer decadence of such wonderful delicacies. Cucumber sandwiches and all. There were 'sweets' and 'savories' and 'scones.' There was a tiny little shrimp quiche, a sausage inside a pastry, a smoked ham roll and an egg salad sandwich - with watercress, no less. There was Devon-style cream to go with the scones, a fresh fruit cup with yogurt citrus dressing... and then the desserts!!!

But I do go on. It was lovely.

Language issues

My last posting was supposed to have spaces between paragraphs and no matter how many times I try to correct the formatting, I can't get the spaces to happen. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I use paragraphs a lot and this loss of spacing is making me crazy. You can't convey meaning precisely without paragraph spacing! It just looks dumb. Or something.

Which reminded me of some other 'making you look dumb' observations of late, having to do with written English language. When we visited the state fair last month we noticed a big banner stretched across one of the main walkways that said "We're glad your here!" I wasn't sure what my 'here' was or why anyone should have been glad of it, so this just didn't make sense. Could they have been trying to say they are glad "you're" here?

On the ferry ride from Victoria yesterday there was another sign that invited us to "visit anyone of our 8 stations. "Anyone?" "Any one?" (For that matter, "no one" is two words as well - not "noone.")

After we got back to the Seattle area via the Kingston-Edmonds ferry, and being, thus, in Edmonds, as it were, we were greeted with the request of the city fathers of this fine city to "See Edmonds future; Be Edmonds future." Where was the apostrophe? I don't know what kind of future Edmonds could possibly have without an apostrophe. Even my spellchecker knows that is just wrong.

If I publish this and no paragraph spaces come out in it... well, I just don't know WHAT I'll do.

Ah, Victoria!

We just got back from four glorious days in Victoria, BC. (Well, one of the days was rainy but glorious, nevertheless.) The Garden City, it is known as, and it was a garden that we mostly went to see: Butchart Gardens. I have pictures galore of the flowers to share...

Too bad we have to get back to work!

(More later, as I get time to process pictures.)

More Pet Peeves

Maybe I just have too much time on my hands, but I'm developing a new list of pet peeves:

• Products that you can't open because of aggressive packaging. Or the corollary: Products that are ruined when you try to get the price tag off
• Fees and new taxes for things that my old taxes are already supposed to be paying for - park entrance fees, sewer plant renovation fees, bond issues for school and fire department operating costs, road and bridge tolls...
• Bureaucrats, who evidently my taxes ARE paying for, sitting around making the stupid decisions to charge me all those fees
• Discovering a product I really like and then trying to find it again - only to be told it's been discontinued
• Getting Tuesday's mail - with nothing but sales flyers that have to just be thrown away

This is added to the usual of life's irritations - traffic jams, getting in the slowest check-out line - and just means that I'm particularly annoyed this week and in need of a vacation.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what I am going to have, this weekend. We are going to Victoria, BC for 4 days. Very exciting. Can hardly wait.

But, in keeping with those irritations I'm complaining about, we've already received the credit card charge for the hotel and we haven't even stayed there yet.

Sometimes life just runs right over top of you.

Fall Planting

We visited the nursery today (I think it is my 'happy place') and brought home some plants to put in our newly reconstructed back yard: some beautiful and thorny barberry and a wonderful grass of some sort and a bushy old-fashioned rose. Our landscaping plans are starting to take shape and we are making just a little bit of progress toward our long-dreamed-of back yard. With every addition comes the suggestion of the next step.

In our other houses, we've had a formal design plan, laid out on paper by a landscape designer - plantings and hardscaping both - as a starting point for our projects. (We tried to do that this time too, but ended up with the wrong person and have been afraid to try again. That sort of thing gets expensive!) This time we decided we'd take things one step at a time and see what happens. The drainage and removal of the big tree stumps resulted in an outline and elevation change that is just going to lend itself beautifully to terracing . And there is a big tree in the back (Squirrel's tree) that needs some terracing around it as well - which will nicely echo the lower part of the yard. The 'dry river bed' of the drainage means that there is a planting area already defined next to the house. The big trees in the back corner are just inviting us to put in a little patio for our Adirondack chairs and that will require a little bridge from the deck to the second yard level with a pathway besides. See? This plan is shaping up nicely.

And along the way I'm discovering something that I should have already been practicing in life: that the anticipation, and the planning of things, can be as enjoyable as the 'obtaining' of things. Who knew? I've been pretty impatient for most of my life. When I want something, I usually want it 'now.' And since this has worked for me, maybe it's an indication that I've also been willing to work hard for things. Mostly. In any case, in my middle age, I suppose it's about time that I came to this conclusion.

(Now Mark will argue that, since the average life expectancy is closer to 80 than to 110, I am pretty far past actual 'middle' age - but we won't get distracted with that here, since I feel that in my own blog I am within my rights to be delusional about some things.)

So, "Fall Planting" seemed like it covered both topics.

Squirrel update

Carl's comment regarding our squirrel on my last posting prompted me to provide a Squirrel Update:

We now have 2. And sometimes 3. (Leaving us to question the advisability of naming the original one 'Squirrel.')

Word gets around I guess. Free peanuts. The second squirrel is obviously a female and she is getting pretty aggressive toward our little original Squirrel, even to the point of going up his tree. He's intimidated, for sure. She is a little less sure around the jays though, and seems to like to have her peanuts doled out one at a time so she doesn't have to beat the birds to them. (I am, of course, completely trained to do this for her already...)

And I don't know for sure who the 3rd one is; when there are three around at once it is a little hard to tell who's who. Clearly none of them like the competition. They don't seem to be a 'family unit' at all.

While the female is on the porch, all but knocking on the door demanding peanuts, our old friend Squirrel is out in the yard, circling around with his nose on High Alert and digging up past peanuts to either eat or re-bury. (I did question whether he could actually find them again - but I guess he can! Clever Squirrel.) I'm not sure how that strategy is going to work for him later in the winter - but am wondering if he is trying to impress her with his ability to find them rather than wait for them to just appear. She doesn't seem to be noticing, if that's the game plan.

Endless entertainment.

State Fair

Very exciting stuff today... We went to the State Fair!

Observations off the top of my head?

• Pigs smell bad and have nasty dispositions.
• Goats are ridiculous.
• America really has an obesity problem.
• Ginnea pigs are the most adorable things in the world - unless you are looking at lop-eared rabbits, in which case lop-eared rabbits are the most adorable things in the world. (Except for pygmy goats, of course.)
• You couldn't PAY me to get on any of the rides at a fair.
• NASCAR races are really quite boring but make up for it in excessive noise.
• Watching a bunch of little kids wrestle pigs around in a show ring is worth the price of admission.
• Maybe next year I'll enter the photography competition. Or jam making. Baked goods? Quilting?

I feel like singing, along with Pat Boone, "Our state fair is the best state fair in our state."