... and Thoughts About Staying Home

When I lived in Alaska we joked about about having 2 seasons - Winter and the 4th of July. Here in the Seattle area we seem to also have only 2 seasons, but here they are definitely 'Winter' and 'Road Construction.'

There doesn't seem to be any way to get around our community these days without running into flaggers and delays. Every road is peppered with orange cones. Detours are everywhere. The road I usually take to work is closed entirely - for over a month. The alternative route had, at one point, no fewer than 4 other road construction sites along the way, this in about 12 miles of distance. Last weekend the main thoroughfare out to the 'Eastside' was closed. I-405 was closed a few weekends ago. Simply closed. The on or off ramps of Rt 520, I-405 and I-5 have all been affected at one point or another. You can't drive more than 2 miles in any direction without seeing a notice for the next closure. It's VERY frustrating.

Maybe it's a good time to stay home.

(Except for the other Seattle-area oddity - the fact that most of us don't have air conditioning. That's likely an offshoot of the fact that our seasons are Winter and Road Construction instead of having Summer. We are in denial, obviously.)

So, evening walks around the neighborhood are in order. So is garden puttering (I have beautiful bouquets of roses and sweet peas on my kitchen counters) and reading on the patio and futzing with projects. We are watching DVDs of FarScape from season one; eating berries and ice cream (it's too hot to bake!)

And with all of that, realizing that July is almost over already. Road construction just HAS to be winding down.

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Huge congratulations to Beth and Andy on the birth of their first child today!

Thoughts About Travel

Mark is traveling this week. He does business travel once in a while - under duress - and gets to go to such wonderful places as Detroit and Phoenix (in July!) I get to stay home with the cats and binge on cookies. A few comments come to mind about traveling...

Hotels provide shampoo and other 'condiments' so we seldom bother taking that heavy, potentially leaky stuff along ourselves, and count on using what is available. The last time we were in a hotel they provided 'herbal' shampoo that was made with a rosemary scent. We smelled like Italian breadsticks all day. Next time we go there (for the wedding - a warning to any of you who are attending!) we will bring our own. Made us just a little nervous walking around in the woods that morning...

Mark generally prefers to collect his own clothes etc. to take on a trip but I do his actual packing for him. He is the only person I've even seen whose shirt-folding technique results in a sphere instead of something flat and wrinkle-free for a suitcase. I'm not really sure how it happens, but the end result isn't pretty.

We have taken our cats with us on various of our roadtrips - mostly because we don't have anyone to take care of them at home while we are gone. Our little Frik has more miles on him than most people do. He has been from Oregon to California, to Tucson (several times) to Kentucky, Washington, back out to South Dakota and down to Tucson again. He hates it. He might hate getting left at home alone worse, but it's hard to know. Cats are notoriously bad decision-makers, a good reason in itself to not take them along. In spite of repeated admonitions to him to 'stay with Mama' when we travel he once wandered out of a hotel room into the hallway, and nonchalantly headed for the elevator. Like he owned the place and knew just where he was going. Yikes! It still elicits nightmares for both of us. What floor might he have gotten off on? And how long would it have been before he found the kitchen? (Likely not long. That's our boy.)

When Todd was little we took the ferry from Wrangell to visit Juneau a few times. It was always exciting to go to the 'big city' where they had things like 'alligators' where you stepped through a door that opened from the middle out to the edges and pushed a button, making the door close again, and when it opened you were somewhere else. On one of those trips we had taken some Ovaltine (powered chocolate milk mix, if you don't know) along in a sippy cup with a lid so that we could add it to some restaurant milk - just a little added insurance that something would be 'right and usual' on the trip - and somehow we managed to leave the cup on the table instead of getting it back home with us. Todd told everyone he met for many months afterwards that "I lost my orange cup in Juneau." I still use the phrase as an indicator that a trip didn't go all that well. Others don't seem to 'get it' when I say it any better than they did when Todd reported the fact all those years ago.

So as Mark heads off to Detroit today I am thinking about orange cups and hoping that he manages to bring his home.

Iron Goat Trail - Wellington

We went hiking today - back to our old favorite, the Iron Goat Trail. But this time we finally found the Wellington trailhead and hiked on a different section than we had hiked before... or actually came from the other end of the trail to a middle point that we had ended a previous hike at. So we saw new things, but ended up at a familiar point.

We have been so fascinated by the railroad construction remnants that are along this trail - in this area are the concrete snow sheds that were built to protect the trains from avalanches. The rails themselves were salvaged and removed years ago but the concrete structures still remain, many of the tunnels are still open at least on one end, there are iron spikes and rotted railroad ties... and flowers and green everywhere.

So, getting back, for a minute, to the "familiar point" part - the Windy Point overlook - I seemed to remember there being a potty. And being at a point at which a potty seemed particularly like a useful thing to find, we went looking for it, and sure enough, a sign directed us down a little side trail...

This whole railbed/trail business means that you are basically walking along a ledge on a very steep mountainside. And while the ledge is wide enough not to give you the heebie-jeebies, any little side trail is necessarily going to have to go either up or down, and pretty steeply at that. And so was the case for the trail to the potty. A downhill section, then a switchback and other significant down hill - right on the side of the mountain. Look up and the entire valley is before you. ALL of the valley and the whole of mountain on the other side - the highway, the active railroad switch yard below... what I mean to say is that this section opens up to God and everything. And there was the potty. Well, pictures say it best, from sign, to potty, to what I wanted to call your particular attention to, which is the view you would have if you were actually sitting ON the potty:

Painting

We are painting our house.

(Or at least I should say that the house is the intended target for the paint. After looking at Mark's shirt and my arms and hands I considered that first statement and decided clarification was called for, in all honesty.)

I'm not really sure how we got to this task though. We hated the color of the house when we bought it and knew we would like it to be a different color. But 'wanting' a different color and actually 'painting' it a different color are two separate things. Painting takes ladders and money and clean-up and, well, effort. Wanting just takes a sigh here and a thought there and a lot of 'intention.' 'Wanting' is a lot easier.

'Painting' is more satisfying though.

We got a new garage door last January and liked the color of that enough to want to base the new paint color on it - slightly darker perhaps, maybe a combination of a darker and a lighter paint for accent and dimension. I looked at paint samples for months. Everything was too green or too brown or too gray or too light. I wanted something more neutral but more current. (My neighborhood tends toward khaki, if you must know - it's that sort of place.) We finally found a possibility in an 'off' brand - another snag in the planning - but I got it 'color-matched' and bought a few little sample jars to try out and before I knew it there were several paint stripes on the wall next to the garage door and then the whole project had to go forward. You can't just have a few stripes and a mismatched garage door and call it good. There was nothing else for it. Paint had to be applied to the whole house, and soon.

Poor Mark. I don't think he'd really bought into the whole notion and all of a sudden he was up on a ladder. With a roller in his hand. And paint on his shirt.

Now I've confessed before to being a bit wussy, so it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear me say that painting is hard work for me. Wussiness and house painting aren't a good combination. I do want to keep up my part though, so I have settled on using a small brush that I can handle without hand-cramps or fatigue. And I've tried to get out there every afternoon for a few hours. Painting a house with a 2-inch brush and a fear of unstable ladders might not be the most efficient way to do things, but it is working for me and I'm actually enjoying the effort. The house is looking pretty good. And I think I'm doing my share. (Slowly, I admit.)

I think this is basically how I've always accomplished things. I mull them over. I plan and reconsider. I take baby steps. I back off for a while. And at some point I just jump in. At some point the doing becomes more interesting than the planning. And more plausible.

And before we know it - the house is a very nice color!

Oregon Coast

It is a long drive, but worth it.

We went down to the Oregon Coast over the long weekend, stopping in Astoria, Cannon Beach and Tillamook before heading all the way to Yahachts and the Heceta Head Lighthouse. The weather was wonderful, it wasn't as crowded as we feared and we had a wonderful time hiking and taking pictures and watching the waves.

Happy Anniversary to us!

(And a happy, happy Birthday to Janet!)