In A New York Minute, Everything Can Change

Oh how I wish I left work just a moment earlier. Instead of that one...last...thing.... Even so, as I headed home from campus, I could see the glow in the western sky. I had been warned all day by the flashing red of my Weather Channel desktop, alerting me to the heavy surf (and the "recommend you stay away from the beach" admonishments...HA!).

The spit is so FAR. It's so close I can SEE it but so far away when you want to BE there. I have to drive north to drive south again. Not sure I'll make it but I'll try. Traffic is in my favor as I go around the golf course and through town. Turning on to 255, towards the Samoa peninsula, I can see I'm not alone. I'm not the only one heading that direction, taunted by the warm glow in the winter sky. Not the only one for whom those "High Surf Advisories" is an invitation. Driving over the bridges, I sneak quick glances to see the enormous orange ball. Dropping. Too fast! Slow DOWN! Wait for me PLEASE!

As I sit at the stop sign waiting for the seemingly endless line of (four) cars to pass, I stow my purse and pull the straps on my shoes. No time to make it to the far end, to the harbor mouth where the final drop would surely be most spectacular. I pull into the parking lot at Samoa Beach, finding a spot easily, tear off my shoes and grab my camera. The howling wind convinces me to grab the raincoat I had taken this morning. I run. Through the cold sand, over the rise, JUST in time. The ball has dropped halfway into the water. The heavy surf roars but I'm sure there must be a loud sizzle as the cold water quenches the sun. I can't draw my eyes away from the orange sphere slowly.....slipping....

..under. The few of us at the beach watch the sky change from orange to dark, muddy blue. No doubt others were farther up the beach - this is a show not to be missed. We wrap our coats around our bodies, breathe deep. And head home. Lord I love this place!

You Get What You Give

How many refrigerators does it take to light an intersection? How many CDs does it take to fill a pothole? How many new cars does it take to buy a cop or a firefighter? I can’t help but wonder but am too lazy to research the concept of what we lose in government services when we are beckoned by the bony finger of “Cyber Monday” to shop on the interwebs.

I’m not immune; I’ve done my share of shopping online for un-obtainables but, as I’ve become more aware of the loss of government services I’ve come to realize that many of these items are more easily obtained than they appear. For example, for a recent birthday gift for a family member, I wanted a specific book. With the closing of Borders, we don’t have a new bookstore in Eureka. There is Northtown Books in Arcata but I live in Eureka and prefer to keep my money here when possible. This is an obscure book, not one even Borders would have had on the shelf, I’m sure. I looked it up on Amazon and could have put it right in my cart then and there but decided to check out local used book emporium, Booklegger in Old Town Eureka. They didn’t have a used copy but were more than happy to order it new. It arrived in a week and I was able to give love one a requested book while keeping my money where I live. Music? Same thing. I learned that Carole King has a new CD of Christmas music. The Works didn’t have it, but they've ordered it for me. I do this fairly regularly. Loss of instant gratification? A little. Would it be cheaper at Target, assuming they have it? Probably. But, think what you will about Larry Glass and his politics, the tax revenues will remain in MY town. I’m OK with that. I don’t have to grab the “No-Arkleyville” or “Dump Dave” buttons off the counter if I don’t want to.

I’m surprised by the people I know who work at government jobs that don’t get this concept. While fretting about “THE ECONOMY” (duh duh DAH!) they will drive to Santa Rosa or worse, Oregon, to buy big-ticket items. No offense to Oregon but it amazes me that the residents there are OK with paying higher income and property taxes while the residents of neighboring states come in to shop tax-free. Seems backasswards to me. At least shopping in Santa Rosa keeps the state portion of our sales tax in state but, shop in Oregon, California gets nothing. And, coincidentally, Humboldt gets nothing. And Humboldt has less to pay for roads, and lights and cops. And we can continue to complain about the lack of services “our government” isn’t giving us. What the heck? What am I missing here?!

Why bitch about WalMart if no one forces you to shop there? Why hate the big-box when you can simply shop at the business of a neighbor? Or buy the creations of our talented lot of local crafters. Or gift certificates to local restaurants. Big boxes won’t come if we prefer to shop elsewhere. In the grand scheme of things, we may save a little money shopping on the internet, but look at what we lose.

The Tide Is High and I'm Holdin' On

Tides have been running pretty high or, as we call it..."the ocean is full". Once again, it's been ages since I've been on the water and, as always, I wonder if I remember how. It doesn't take long being afloat when it all comes back. Paddling is relaxing for me and I do it for me. As much as I like it, it's not my only entertainment. I took a week off earlier this month and never got on the water, though I got in the garden and on the beach. On the beach, I tend to augment my walks with litter collection (you take a bag to the beach, too, don't you?). And like my beach walks, my paddles tend to be a opportunity to keep trash from endangering marine life. Not far from launch, I spotted something sparkling in the water. At first, I thought it might be the head of a harbor seal. Or a bobber of some sort attached to a fishing line in the rowboat that passed. As I approached, it became clear that it was a bottle...a 40-ounce beer bottle, bobbing happily. I tossed it at my feet in the boat...my first "catch" of the day.
It was a stunning day on the water. With the water level so high, it was safe to explore up Eureka Slough, behind Jacobs Avenue towards Murray Field, without worry of 'beaching' when I take my eyes and mind from what I'm doing. Wildlife was limited to a couple egrets and a heron who stood by only moments then left in a squawky huff when I dallied too long trying to loosen another bottle from the water's edge. After just a couple hours on the water, I ended up with two 40-ouncers (what is it with the people who drink 40's of Steel Reserve?!), a couple chunks of foam, a bag of/from sunflower seeds, a rubber glove, a small blue ball of some sort...and a cigarette pack. Could have gotten more, including a soccer ball but I hesitate to get too far into the shallows when I'm alone, lest I get stuck and have no one to pull me out.

I will leave you with one last shot, taken at the surface as I approached the railroad trestle coming home. A gorgeous October day on the water. If I did it more often, it wouldn't be as special.

There Are Places I Remember

Chilled autumn morning
Blanket of fog snuggled in the hollows along Elk River Road
Contrails, four, streak across the horizon, glowing pink in the sunrise
Frustrated southbound commuter
No place to take her photo
Must commit this morning to memory,
but content that I have satisfied Fred with a post, however frivolous.

If I Leave Here Tomorrow, Will You Still Remember Me?

My fingers are tender from carving back the sod threatening to envelope the lonely headstones. I have recently begun a real search for family history, spurred on by the deaths of the last remaining aunts and uncles. I started asking questions in the past but, when faced with ambiguity, gave up the push. Now loss of information looms and the lack, if left to it's own devises, may be the victor.

In my quest, I was led to Find-A-Grave, a website where cemeteries are surveyed and headstones photographed. As I began to search for the headstones of my relatives, I found an opportunity to post photos I had taken, and to volunteer to take photos of headstones of people in our local graveyards for family members living too far away to do it themselves. There are a few of us around here and everyone seems to have cemeteries with which they have become familiar so I held back from "claiming" requests for awhile, deferring to the experts, but when I saw no one taking up the challenge of Myrtle Grove, I made it mine.

Now, me and Myrtle have become friends and I have found it to be my favorite City park. Most weekends, I spend a few hours meandering the rows. Generally I'm looking for a specific grave as per a relative's request but often I wander aimlessly, taking note of the names. There are so many Stewarts and Fosters, McCanns and Hills. And because this was one of the original burial grounds for the area, there are Vances and Carsons and, of course, Buhne. Herrick. Glatt. Cousins. Everding. Albee.

Myrtle Grove was created in 1860 by a group of citizens. In 1958, the stones were surveyed and collected, the family plots cleared and previously upright monuments laid down for ease of mowing. That sounds so wrong, doesn't it? Rearranging the final resting places and beautiful monuments for "ease of mowing"? It even appears as if some stones, with engraving on both sides, were laid horizontal...putting the birth and death dates of one person face DOWN. Shortly afterward, the land was taken over by the City of Eureka which has cared for her ever since. The lack of a groundskeeping budget leaves Myrtle the beneficiary of only occasional passes with the mower and her residents' gravemarkers sinking away in the abyss of neglect. Slowly, many of the flat stones are being enveloped by soil and sod, obscuring the intricate dates and decorations. Alice's (below) seems to be encircled with roses... As I make my way around, I have found some contentment in carving away the creeping weeds and freeing the words to identify those that lay below. My fingers are sore but it seems a small price to pay for those who lived in this area so long ago. I can't help but wonder about their families. The sons of their son's sons. Their great great great great granddaughters. Do they ever visit?

As my knife carves around the stone, attempting to identify the perimeter, the shape of each particular memorial different from the last, I sometimes scratch the surface. The blade etches clean scratches through the accumulation of decades-old grime. My initial panic at the damage done was soon overcome by the decision that these people, these pioneers and elders of the community wouldn't mind someone tidying up a bit, allowing the sun and rain to touch a little more of their headstones.

Feel The Heat

Back to school time. No new binders, pens and dividers for me. These are my back-to-school supplies. Expect to be bored to tears with stories of my adventures in welding. Danny Walker has his work cut out trying to keep me from melting the hoses and exploding the world as we know it. But, dammit, I want to melt iron and build things or..."I'm gonna build shit with fahr"! I am woman - hear me whine when the sparks and random chunks of molten metal fly.

I am Strong. I am Invincible.

I am strong. I am invincible…. Actually, I’m pretty ‘vincible’ but I tried this summer to be less so. These are two of my sisters, as we took a walk on the "boardwalk" at the Resort in Coeur d'Alene on a choppy day. But first I had to drive there.

My first accomplishment was replacing two bathroom faucets. For the handy folk out there, this may appear a no-brainer and, in fact, I found it was not technically difficult since I simply reversed the process after removing the old icky faucets. Learning the function of a simple basin wrench? Priceless. Learning that the issue with retrofitting of fixtures is not the actual installation but GETTING in there? Also priceless. Laying there. Crawling. Sprawling. Reaching up while laying, back arched, over the edge of a raised cabinet. Reaching around existing pipes. I can see that new installation would be FAR easier. It probably took me hours longer than it would have taken Mark but I managed it. And now I know I can. BooYAH!

Going from my father’s house to my husband’s at 17 makes one the perennial passenger. My mom didn’t drive until she was nearing 40, not long before I was born so I don’t know that I ever recall her driving with my dad in the car. Heck, if there was company, my Mom took the back seat, deferring her passenger seat to a male guest. Don’t most families leave driving to Dad? I take the wheel occasionally with Mark in the car but distance driving, except in the exceptional cases, is left to the man and I seldom go any distance driving by myself. All this leaves me with little experience navigating in unfamiliar territory. I did drive to Santa Cruz from Carson City twice to visit my folks but it was a 7-hour drive and easily done in a a day. No overnights. I've even made this same drive to Idaho but had the kids along to navigate and keep my occupied. Never alone.

This summer I changed that by setting a course for northern Idaho, fourteen hours away, and driving myself to visit my family. Just making the decision was huge. Then I had to ponder my choices and decide on a route. In hopes of commandeering a spare kayak for a jaunt, I also loaded all my paddling gear. I synced the iPod, packed some snacks and set off. The world was my burrito.

It's odd that there's a real difference between traveling as a passenger and driving on a trip like this. No conversation. but LOUD singing. Although you can't watch the landscape as much as when you're riding shotgun, you see fewer things but you see them differently. You have to pay real attention to signs, both speed limit and directional. And traffic. The real joy would be stopping when I want and taking pictures. Mark is not unwilling to stop but...lets just say I hesitate to make him pull over after passing a caravan of Winnebarges on holiday, knowing he will have to pass them all again after I take a picture or two. But, by myself? Eh...I probably didn't do much passing and don't mind doing it again. So I stopped. I stopped along 199 to enjoy the turquoise waters of the Smith River. On the second day of travel, having spending the night in a Pasco motel, I stopped to watch combines working the wide open fields in southern Washington. Honestly, this area is mostly bland desert but there were stretches of ag land, tended to by behemoth sprinklers that catch my eye every time we head this way.
While in Idaho, I stayed with my sister. Wine was consumed. While wine was consumed, we sat and pondered the birds in her cherry tree and realized there was an abundance of cherries in that tree. She fetched the ladder and a bowl and I climbed. We picked bowls full before the birds beat us to them. I did not fall out of the tree. To celebrate, more wine was consumed.I borrowed my sister's kayak and joined my sister-in-law and the Coeur d'Alene Canoe and Kayak Club on an evening paddle up Wolf Creek, off of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Pretty area, known for resident eagles though just one golden sat atop a tree watching us. Nice people and warm enough to paddle in tank tops at 8:00 at night.
On the way home later in the week, while cruising south on 395, somewhere in the dreary miles of middle Washington, I spotted this train. We were headed the same direction but it was going backwards. The first time I spotted it, it was heading through an ag area and I thought a photo in order. Think about it...the perfect opportunity to catch the front if I got ahead of the back....got it? So, I scurried on ahead to find a good spot to pull over and wait. I grabbed my camera, jumped from my car waiting for it to pass and ...CRAP, dead battery. Argh! I change the battery but the train has continued on. Backwards. The direction I'm going. I charge along, finding spots to pull over but too much junk to make a good photo. Finally, my last opportunity before it ducked to somewhere away from the highway, I pull over, take my last shot at it, surrounded by sagebrush instead of grassy fields but, still, not bad. For a train going backwards...in my direction.

In Springfield, on the way home, I, booked a room and found I was just around the corner from the Hop Valley Brewery so I wandered over for a plate of catfish and a pint of Stout before hitting the hay for the final six-hour push home in the morning. All in all, a great trip. I found that I CAN do this. I drove without getting flipped off once. I pulled into motels without prior reservations. I didn't get too lost and, when I did, found my way again. I successfully located a number of card-locks so I could save a little on the fuels costs of a 1600 mile trip and THAT is no easy task since card-locks are not generally located in easily accessed parts of town. This may not seem like much, but this was an important accomplishment for me.