Done

Really.  It's time to quit this.  I am no longer giving it the time or energy it requires.  I don't lie awake nights composing the next post or casting about for new topics. I don't look at the world in quite the way that I'd need to, any longer, to do this right.  Not sure why - mostly "life gets in the way" is the reason for that sort of thing.  I am busy with work again - and too many 'cycles' are devoted to other things. I read. I garden.  I work. I take day trips and look for opportunities to see new things. Working in the financial planning business means I do a whole lot of planning for retirement. 

It seems like I am really no longer 'without a plan' at all.

But unfortunately I DO get bothered when the days go by and I don't add to the blog, or when a month goes by - as this one has - with no addition to the archives.  So I'm giving it up.  It's silly, really, to keep it going. Social Media went in a different direction in the years since I started doing this. And I didn't want to go with it.  So there you have it.

My new 'plan' is to review all the past blog postings and pare the whole thing down into my own favorites and actually publish it in my own little book for my own little library.  I might, in the meantime, add something... if something occurs. But I won't count on it.  While I probably won't 'unpublish' it and delete it entirely - yet, at least -  I AM giving myself permission to call it quits.  I'm done.  

But it WAS fun.  Thanks!

Leap Day

It's Leap Day.  A gift from the gods (and the scientists) and a day that should be treated with the respect that it deserves for keeping us all aligned with the cosmos.

At my age any extra time should just be treasured.  And since our local weather experts predicted that we'd all wake up today to snow I thought it would really be a day I could use to best advantage.  But how?  Planning needed here!  Think!  (I thought.)

What special day would be complete without baking?  And if it's a snow day besides? Perfect!  I have a fabulous recipe for cinnamon buns that works into an hours-long project.  What a great start!  I could sit by the fire with my Sherlock Holmes book and read while the dough rises.  I could catch up on laundry and floor cleaning for a bit - feel like I accomplished something. But that wouldn't take up too much time because I'd want to play with the cats, print up some photos, look through some old magazines to see if there was anything to keep, maybe even take a little nap.  What a pleasant thought. What a great day!

I woke up this morning and it hadn't snowed after all. 

I had to get up and go to work.

(Cinnamon buns aren't really good for the diet anyway.)

A Little Trip - a Few Oddities

I just got back from Arizona where I soaked in the sun and took in the warmth of family - it was a great 'winter fix.'  Now I'm back and looking through pictures, most of which are disappointing because, of course, it was still winter in Arizona too.  But there's always something odd to see and this time it was cactus:

I'm not really sure what these guys were thinking, but for the most part, they aren't supposed to look like this.

Snow disasters

It would seem that there has been a bit of ribbing from the rest of the country about how wimpy Seattle folks are in the snow.  This is me, to a tee:

Cold

Worried

Afraid 

Isolated 

Anxious about what I am missing

We got snowed in.  We lost power.  We lost phone service.  We live on a steep hill surrounded by ice. 

We feel like we live in a 3rd world country!

Our Favorite Pemco Insurance Ad

There is a local insurance agency, Pemco Insurance, that produces simply wonderful ads saluting its Northwest clientele.  My current favorite perfectly describes me this week (in which we've been snowed in!) 

Check out "First Snowflake Freakout Lady" on YouTube here.  (I do live on a hill!)

(While you're at it, check out their 'Goat Renter Guy' ad and the 'Super Long Coffee Orderer' ad - they have a whole bunch - just double click on the one you want to watch.  We love these guys!) 

Comparative analysis

Mark is a psychologist. He may dabble in usability issues in software and websites in order to make some practical application of all that education, but at heart he is an experimental psychologist.  And that often means measuring things that are not easily measured - values, likes/dislikes, beauty, happiness.  One of the ways of honing down such otherwise unmeasurable 'stuff' is by making a comparison - which is better (or worse,) which do you want more, which would you rather be/do/live with/drink...

And so there is often a conversation at our house about Denise Richards and Oprah Winfrey.  It appears that they are on the bottom of nearly every comparison.  One might 'win out' over the other on a given scale but just about ANY scale comes down to one or the other.  It starts as a simple comparison:

Who is more irritating to listen to -
Dick Vitale or Chris Berman?  (Dick Vitale) 
Dick Vitale or Larry the Cable Guy?  (Dick Vitale)
Dick Vitale or the guy on the Ford commercials with the very low voice?  (Dick Vitale, still)
Dick Vitale or Judge Judy?  (Judge Judy - by a long shot!)
Judge Judy or Whoopi Goldberg? (Whoopi)
Whoopi Goldberg or Rachael Maddow?  (Rachael)
Rachael Maddow or Oprah Winfrey?  (Oprah)
Oprah Winfrey or... nope, sorry, can't think of anyone more irritating than that.

OK...

Who is skankier?
Sarah Jessica Parker or Kelly Osborne? (SJP)
Sarah Jessica Parket or Drew Barrymore?  (Drew, according to Mark.)
Drew Barrymore or Brittney Spears?  (Drew, again)
Drew Barrymore or Carmen Electra?  (Carmen)
Carmen Electra or Denise Richards?  (Denise) 
Denise Richards or...  We're at the bottom.  Really - think Denise Richards trying to play a Nuclear Physicist in that James Bond movie, and partnering with Charlie Sheen!

(I didn't say we were nice people, in the privacy of our own conversations...  And in our defense, it's been snowing here for 2 days and we're a little wonky.)



PS - Happy Birthday tomorrow, Carl!

What to do?

It's the winter doldrums time.  The Christmas decorations are down and put away and now what?  Dark, cold, rainy January, that's what... which always leaves me wondering what to do with my time.  And I feel like my alternatives are becoming less and less appealing. 

My old refrain about there being 'nothing' on TV has reached a new low - HGTV has let me down with its near-constant focus on House Hunters instead of Candace Olsen or Sarah Richardson, my cable company has inexplicably eliminated the Animal channel, I have already memorized every episode of NCIS, and we are finding the local 'Evening Magazine' program to be just too 'fun' and 'bright' and 'cute' to tolerate more than once in a while.  And really, how many Republican candidate debates can one actually attend to?  I realized that if 'Say Yes to the Dress' was the only thing I could tolerate it was time to turn it off.

My options for reading at the moment seem to be with a 'second-in-the-series' book without the 1st, and a bunch of magazines whose singular focus on 'getting organized' makes me more tired than inspired.

Mark spends a lot of time perusing the Internet but I don't really know where to go there.  After so many 'headlines'  reading like 'Chaz Bono is Saving Up for Penis Surgery' and '6 Airports You Don't Want to Get Stuck In' and 'Woman Lives After Bungee Cord Snaps' I get discouraged.  And again, how many times can you read opinions about whether Romney can beat [insert name here.]

So - too early for gardening, too late for shopping, too fat for baking...  What to do?

The Year in Review (or not)

I thought this would be a great topic for a final blog post of 2011 - a summary of the year's events... putting it all in perspective sort of thing.  But I'm having trouble sorting out individual 'events' that happened this year.  Here at the end of the year, looking back, it seems like it's all blended together.  Didn't we have a lot of natural disasters?  Far too many reports of military personnel injured or killed in foreign lands?  Political messes?  Budget messes?  Over-the-top reality TV?  It's really not been a good year.  Possibly better left 'un-reviewed.'  Or at least left to dear Dave Barry to do.  (His 'Year in Review' is always hilarious - do follow the link and read it.)

One wonders if 2012 could be better.  Seems unlikely.  We don't have an optimistic outlook for the housing market, the stock market, the job market, or the presidential election.  Oil is up, stocks are down, food prices are rising...  Good grief!

I guess we'll have to create our own optimism.  We'll have to work hard, laugh a lot, get together with people we care about, eat well, save as much as we can and wisely spend when we can't.  We'll have to take ourselves and our politics a little less seriously, and our health and our finances a little more seriously.  We'll have to find new places to go and new appreciation for the places we've already seen.  And if we cuddle cats, watch sunsets, eat chocolate, sit in front of the fire, hike on beautiful trails, read great authors, and wear comfortable clothes..., well, life will be good. 

Happy New Year!

Ready?

The shopping is done, the house is decorated, the wreath hung on the front door. The gifts are wrapped, the cookies baked, the menu set for Christmas dinner...

It's only the 20th!  I was in a hurry; afraid things wouldn't come together.  You know the feeling.  But somehow it all happened.  I got a little lucky and a little organized.  I had some help and some inspiration. And now...  I'm sort of done.  With some time to kill. I don't think this has ever happened before.  It's left me in a bit of a daze.

Did you know that the Hallmark channel (cable TV) has the most insipid, sappy, poorly written, badly directed Christmas-themed, made-for-TV, tear-jerker movies, all in a big collection, shown ad nauseum for the 12 days (give or take) of Christmas? I know this because I've been watching them all. 

"You're a bit crazed," Mark would tell me, if he wasn't too polite to say. 

Perhaps.  But tis the season.

Merry Christmas to all! 

 

Slowing down for Fall

I haven't been keeping up here again...  I know.

Fall happened again and try as I might, I just can't seem to like the season.  And I know it has much to recommend it - especially here in the northwest:  crisp air, golden colors, crunchy leaves to walk in.  But the days get shorter too and all my glorious summer flowers die off and the rain picks up... and I don't really like to be cold.  Yuck, really.  I just find it depressing.

And I got a cold, of course.  That doesn't help.

We've had some ups and downs and a few big changes this fall as well, adding to the overall 'unsettled' feeling that current events - as in politics and world financial markets - are already creating.  It's just not a good time.  If Mark hadn't just changed jobs and I wasn't getting increasingly paranoid about my generation's general financial outlook, it would be a good time to go on vacation.  But he did, and I am... so we're not.

I'm settling for a pot of chicken soup and some pumpkin pie - and a stack of books. I even washed some windows this morning to get a little more of the dazzling fall light into the house.  Maybe I should get out a jigsaw puzzle. 

(I KNOW I should stop eating leftover Halloween chocolate.) 

It's Fall.  Oh dear. 

Who is Destroying the World This Time?

Maybe I've just been around too long. Maybe I have a 'slant' on things that is too skewed by longevity and skepticism.  But in my experience (considerable; you can grant me that) there is always some group whose singular focus and agenda somehow manages to really screw things up for the rest of us.  Maybe they weren't overtly 'out to get us' but they certainly succeeded, nevertheless, in doing us real damage.  

I used to think it was Lawyers who destroyed the world.  Thanks to Lawyers we have to print warning labels on plastic bags ("This is not a toy") and can no longer buy decent cold medicine.  And we have to watch TV commercials, ad nauseum, for their class action law suits.  Lawyers are the reason Doctors pay exorbitant malpractice insurance and we pay exorbitant medical bills.  I recently read that each US lawyer drains the national economy of $1million a year in productivity.  And they appeal to our worst instincts.  Don't even get me started on the fact that so many of them go on to be Politicians!

(I'm going to let that one ride - too hard on the old nervous system. Politicians are out to destroy the world in favor of their careers and protected health insurance plans that are only for them.)

I have to admit, though, that Lawyers sort of moved to the background for me a few years ago when Accountants stepped up to try their hand at screwing things up.  They changed the 'rules' and started helping people and businesses hide mistakes of bad judgement and greed and poor decision-making.  No longer were balance sheets something to 'inform' an investor - but something to trick an investor.  Hide the debt.  Cover up the bad investments.  Transfer the blame to some convenient sham corporation.  Accountants really, really messed things up.  They gave us Enron and mortgage-backed securities and the mess the US Postal Service is in. And a lot of them are intimately involved with the IRS.  Need I say more?  Yes, Accountants are bad.

And Bankers... (no - again, too hard on the nervous system to pursue that train of thought.)

I could easily get sidetracked here with Televangelists ripping off old ladies to support their lavish lifestyles (that God wants them to have!) or Kindergarten Teachers who got the whole "he disrespected me" business rolling for today's special brand of thugs and gang members.  Frankly the Writer's Guild has a lot to answer for, in my opinion, for the strike a few years ago that brought us all on a collision course with insufferable Reality TV and the Kardashians.  Realtors in cahoots with Appraisers in cahoots with Bankers tried their best to do us in as well - and may actually succeed yet!  

But now I'm thinking the prime candidates - those who are making MY world nearly intolerable - are Advertisers.  I am advertised at everywhere I go, in nearly every activity. Driving down the street I am subject to city buses that are billboards in and of themselves.  I am exhorted to patronize realtors or banks, or have my teeth cleaned, eyes checked or bones scanned by this or that 'professional' - a term used quite loosely these days - every time I drive, turn on my TV or open my mail.  Talk shows - and an alarming number of 'news' shows and 'news' articles for that matter - are simply advertisements for someone's new book or movie or TV show.   My email program tacks on three or four ads related to the  actual subject matter and content of my private (ha!) email messages and clutters my computer screen.  I can't just read a news article on the internet anymore - they are mostly videos instead, all of which require me to suffer through an advertisement before I can see what I wanted to see.  The whole "product placement" notion has gotten so out of hand that I am forced to watch commercials for cleaning products in the middle of decorating shows or commercials for cars in the midde of 'action/dramas' and, mostly, commercials in the middle of other commercials.  Ads for windows and water heaters come included in my utility bills; my milk carton is trying to sell me cookies.   We are in Advertising Hell. 

Is it worse than Lawyer Hell?  Politician, Televangelist, or Accountant Hell?

ArghhHHHH!!!
 

The Long Weekend

Weekends - particularly long ones - are all about reaffirming that things are OK - that maybe not all, but much, is right with the world.  It helps when your weekend takes in scenes like this:

We spent our Saturday walking in Seattle (lunch, of course) and Sunday out on the Olympic Peninsula at Port Townsend, the Point Wilson lighthouse (yes, another lighthouse on our list) and Hurricane Ridge.  Today is 'reading on the patio' day.  Hope your weekend was as lovely.

Mt Rainier, again

It seems that we are fascinated with this mountain, I know, but there is much to be fascinated about.  We had another clear day this weekend and headed off to see it from its neighbor peak, Crystal Mountain.  Crystal is a ski resort with a summer gondola ride up the mountain to a lovely restaurant and the most spectacular view of Rainier we've seen yet.  I've been reading about summers on Crystal Mountain for months and couldn't resist!

And we weren't disappointed.  The view of Rainier and its neighbor Mt Adams were amazing.  The restaurant was lovely and the food was fantastic.  The gondola ride was pure luxury and the just-warm-enough sunny weather was the icing on the cake.  Wonderful!

It turns out that it's about a 2 hour (plus) drive from our house to Crystal Mountain and another hour from there to Mt Rainier.  We, of course, didn't realize that the distance between the two was that significant, and armed with no actual distance/time information we thought to dash over there after we'd 'done' the gondola ride and a little hiking on Crystal.  We wanted to see if the snow pack had melted down enough to get the picture of the mountain reflected in the lake that had eluded us the last time.

It was not to be.  By the time we made our way to the lake a large bank of clouds was rolling in over the mountain, being pushed by enough of a breeze to make the lake a little choppy besides - not at all the mirror surface my 'dream picture' would require even if the mountain had cooperated.  Stymied again!  (Mark thought it was quite a bit more funny than I did, on the whole...)  Why is this so difficult?

Anyway, ultimately Mark got better pictures of the day than I did - of which he is enormously pleased and anxious to have them posted here: 

You asked for it...

A Cat Scan of Maddie, who did NOT want her picture taken.

An anniversary missed

My first blog posting was August 3, 2005.  I was going to post an anniversary missive on the 3rd of this year, but forgot all about it.  That's been sort of the story of my blog for several years.  Life gets in the way and I keep forgetting about it.  So it's time to update.

I've been busy with projects of course - but the house-related ones are starting to wind down.  I'm finally willing to admit that maybe home improvement isn't really going to pay off in the long run.  Mark claims that my latest landscaping project is "the project that never ends" and he may be right - certainly adjustments have had to be made and new ideas for improvements have occurred to me on occasion.  It isn't done yet.

There are other interesting projects as well.  For example, I ran across a website that featured Cat Scans - literally having your cat walk on your scanner screen while it is scanning, resulting in interesting pictures of cat feet and 'undercarriages.'  Since I happen to have a cat with mutant feet and a very large and pendulous undercarriage, it was obvious I had to try that.  With mixed results.  My cats object on principle to doing anything I want them to do.

Anyway... other projects...  Oh yes! I'm also glad to report that my win-percentage at computer solitaire has finally crept up to 17%.  At long last.

We've had a 78-minute summer here in the Seattle area - with just 78 minutes of temperatures over 80 degrees so far this year - and that has impacted our vegetable garden and rose blossoms.  Unfortunately it hasn't impacted slug activity and our dahlias are nearly gone - before they really had a chance to get started.  The temperature, coupled with snowfall in the mountains over last winter of something like 52 feet, has meant that some of our favorite summer destinations are still under snow pack and not even going to be plowed out this year.  I'm thinking that means new glaciers are starting to form!  

Honestly, we've both been in a bit of a funk lately.  That 'life gets in the way' just isn't enough.  We are wondering what there is to keep 'old' people like us going.  We need things to look forward to.  Things to plan.  Goals.  Goals that don't require financing, considering the current state of things.  We need something more than the seasons rolling by and the gradual deterioration of our health and bank accounts (the occasional Cat Scan notwithstanding.)   And I'm just not sure right now what that would be. 

Now, more than ever, I need to NOT be 'Cathy, without a plan.'

Viewpoints

Anyone who has ever driven any distance with me on a road trip knows that I am a complete sap when it comes to 'Scenic View Ahead' opportunities.  I can't seem to pass them by - excitement mounting as I turn in, reaching for the camera...  What wonderful vista will open up before me?  Will this be the 'next great' photo opportunity? 

Unfortunately I've been having trouble with them lately.  I'm getting disillusioned.

Here in the northwest the view is nearly always obscured by trees growing ever taller, a phenomenon that must have been completely unknown to, or was certainly totally unanticipated by, the Scenic View Development Committee a few years ago, but with which I personally have vast experience. 

There is a great possibility for a world-class view on the highway to Mt Rainier (which, by the way, should be pronounced in such a way as to indicate that it is rainier there than most places - or perhaps snowier there, to be more precise - but it isn't.) This should be a view up a valley right to the mountain, following a river which tumbles dramatically from its heights in a deep ravine, complete with waterfalls flowing directly out of the glacier ice.  I can almost salivate in anticipation.  As we are climbing in elevation up the road we can see bits of it, but there is no place to stop and the angle isn't quite right.  Then suddenly there is the sign!  Scenic View Ahead!  I pull in.  Mark groans. (He is wiser in the ways of life.) 

But what do I see from this view?  Trees.  Nothing but very tall trees surrounding the turn-out.  And an interpretive sign. 

We headed that way yesterday - around the 'back' way to the mountain - so that I could finally see the mountain above 'Reflection Lake' on the beautiful clear day we had.  We took an extra day off work just to do this - realizing that clear, beautiful days are hard to come by here in rain country.  (Not to overemphasize a point or anything...)  I've seen pictures of this 'view' in all kinds of places advertising the most beautiful sights in the world etc., etc., etc.  So what do we see when we get there?  Ice on the lake.  Completely frozen over still - on this, the 5th of July.  No reflection at all, of the mountain or anything.  And for that matter, very difficult to see the actual lake because of the 20 foot snow drift in front of it.  Mark takes a picture of the picture on the interpretive sign.  That is as close as we can get. 

So while I don't have spectacular shots of spectacular scenery taken from well-place Viewpoints - I will share a few pictures from a weekend of day trips.  We were in Blaine, WA to see the Peace Arch betwen the US and Canada borders, on Camano Island (home of the famous Barefoot Bandit) where we saw yellow lupine which we thought only grew on the shores of Pt Reyes in California, and of course to the Mountain that dominates our skyline:

Underwear Drawer

When I was a school counselor I used to have the opportunity to give a year-end 'lecture' to those of my students who were going off to college - of the 'stay safe, stay healthy, respect yourself and develop good habits' variety.  One of the things I suggested is that they keep papers, documents and other important things in their underwear drawer - because no matter where you go, how many times you move, or how much or how little space you have, you'll probably aways have a drawer (or equivalent) for your underwear.  I don't know how many of them followed this advice, but I always have!

So tonight I decided it was really time to clean mine out - something I don't do very often - since  it seemed like I was running out of room in it.  And I'm glad I did.  I found some real treasures. 

I found mother's day cards from my son with wonderful notes written inside.  I found Maddie's 'adoption' papers from the Humane Society.  And notebooks from Todd's 6th grade class when his teacher had all her students write weekly 'progress' notes to their parents and the parents write encouraging notes back to them - all year long.  There were 'cat angel' pins from Mark and Alaska Marine Highway pins from my first ferry trip to Alaska.  Mark's old passport with a wonderful picture of him from years ago was an especially nice find.  Todd's original vaccination record and baby growth charts nearly brought tears, and so did the piece of yellow wrapping paper (carefully folded) we'd had taped to the bathroom wall to put stickers on for each 'potty-training' success.  My 'key to the world' pin from high school commemorating a 'straight-A' semester was in a little box, along with a 'Ready Kilowatt' pin from my stint as a customer service rep with Tucson Gas & Electric in the 70s.  There was a walrus pin and and lizard pin as well - origin unremembered.  (Some things are bound to be!)  Of course there were old credit cards (from the days before shredders?) and lots of envelopes of 'extra buttons' from long forgotten new clothes, and some receipts for purchases I didn't even look through.  (I wonder why they ended up there?) 

And all the way at the bottom, a collection of diaper pins, from when I had a baby to pin diapers on.  Little yellow duckie ones.  So sweet.  I'm so glad I still have them.

I put it all carefully back in the drawer - still don't have a lot of room for actual underwear.  But that's OK - the important stuff is there!

Weekend Trips

We took off for the weekend again - this time to the Olympic Peninsula. It's not that we don't have enough to do at home - we do - but just that when the weather is spectacular (finally!) and you live close enough to truly spectacular stuff... well, you just HAVE to go, right?

Yes, there are two suckling fawns.  Amazing sight.

Time for flower pictures!

In all the excitement about gardening - fully clothed gardening - I got out for some pictures today of what is suddenly blooming in my yard:

Gardening

I was happy to actually get a couple of days of sunshine - and so was my garden.  Spring has been LONG in coming to the northwest.  And since Mark is out of town and I had the weekend to myself, I used yesterday's sunshine to get some petunias planted, spread some bark mulch, put in some stepping stones into a newly cut out section of yard-turned-garden and generally puttered around pulling weeds and clearing up, watering roses and peering at peony and lilac buds... you know - gardening stuff.  

Little did I know that yesterday was "World Naked Gardening Day." 

Missed an opportunity there...