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.

She Needs Wide Open Spaces....

Feels like ages since I've been on the water. I stayed close to home, opting for the bay on the heals of a good negative tide that landed at 7:30. I thought late morning would be a safe bet to ride the flooding tide so aimed for Eureka Slough.This seemed like an odd place for a patio but the view would be nice if they turned the chair around.

Zoom in to those big chucks of driftwood.

Peek-a-boo, egrets....I saw you.

I'm thinking that super-negative tide required more time to refill the bay because, after being caught off-guard by the shallows a few too many times when I wasn't paying attention, I returned to the harbor. I paddled around the docks until the fishing boats started coming in. Rode the wakes a bit then, when it became a little too bumpy out there, I called it a day. A good day on Humboldt Bay.

These Fragile Times Should Never Slip Us By...

It seems to me a crime that we should age
These fragile times should never slip us by
A time you never can or shall erase
As friends together watch their childhood fly ... Friends - Elton John

I remember my dad saying that one of the signs of aging is that your "wedding shoes" become funeral shoes. Those fancy black shoes he had to wear for the weddings of his children, were worn more and more for funeral masses and rosaries as he got older. Except for the aches and pains, I haven't really minded the actual aging process. It's becoming more apparent as time passes, however, that I'm not the only one aging. The worse part of getting older is that our friends and family, especially those even older than us, are also aging. And dying.

In February, it was Mark's brother Chuck. Last week, it was my brother-in-law, my sister's husband Richard Fairhurst. Rich had a few years on me and I loved to remind him he graduated from high school the year I was born. He was a water engineer for the City of Santa Cruz at a time when my sister, Mark, Mark's mom and I all worked for the City. Yeah, nepotizz! He was a big man (6'6"-ish?) that married my sister, Carol, just two months after Mark and I got married in 1975 which means they would have celebrated their 36th anniversary in September. He treated my sister like a queen. But when I think of Richard, I think of this trip.

1977. Richard and Carol in their pickup, Mark and I in our van. Communicating by CB on a road trip north into Idaho to visit my my brother and his family then on to Yellowstone. I decided not to clean up the yellow of these shots because, that's what thirty years in a magnetic photo album does to a photo. But the memories are clear. Richard and I each took at least a dozen shots of this woolly beast. He and I crept closer and closer, taking a shot each time we stopped while Mark and Carol stood by the cars.."You guys...that's close enough. Watch out....he might charge you....you GUYS!". Rich and I were sure we could get just one more shot. We can get closer.....click...click...click. Finally our common sense must have told us Mr. Bison could actually catch us though, more likely it would catch ME since Richard's legs would have surely out run mine. We got back to the cars and laughed.....

The top photo? Can you guess where? Yep, Idaho border. The sign was apparently out for repair leaving us without a photo op at the border so we improvised with Richard being the obvious choice for the panhandle.

This adorable child would be Monica with her Uncle Richard. He was loving. And kind. A giant of a man and a cheek-pincher. I know my girls and their cousins will miss Uncle Richard's cheek pinching. I know we all will miss him terribly. I do already.

The Water Was Cold, the Beach Was Empty But For Us

With a minus tide promised at a reasonable hour, I convinced the Old Man to accompany me out to the Lost Coast. Of course, to make it out by 9:00 we had to leave by 7:30 but this view as we approach "the Wall" heading down to the water is always worth it.
The rocks were exposed giving us a great place for climbing along with poking and prodding the marine residents.

Can you see him? He's tiny.

The view looking south at an empty beach and the King Range was phenomenal.

See Mark. See Mark tempt fate by chipping away at the berm of the Mattole River as it converged with the sea. See our little pinniped friends as they surfed the wash that churned them from three directions. They kept a close watch on us but continued to enjoy the romp. As did we.

Glory....in the Eyes of A Young Girl

If there is a sculpture in the next race called, Parenting 101, I know who WON'T be piloting it. Here is a letter I wrote to the Eureka City Schools Board and Supervisor:

Mr. Haulk et al,

Is it true that, during this year’s Kinetic Grand Championship, a Eureka High School sponsored EAST sculpture was piloted by students under the age allowed by the rules? Were false documents really provided by parents, condoned by teachers, so that said students could participate? Really? Wow! If you are not familiar, please feel free to follow this link to the Lost Coast Outpost where Hank Sims lays it out. Note near the bottom of the first article, http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/may/11/descrambling-todays-kinetics-brouhaha/ a comment by “The Original Race Baby” who admits to be being a teacher. Yours? Wow all over the place.

While you on the Board and the administration of Eureka High ponder the budget and why parents are pulling their students in favor of charter schools, I will remember a day when Rob Taylor, band director for EHS was not old enough to legally drive his own students on a band trip. Guess he didn’t know about this option or he could have provided a fake ID as well.

Should you pull the records of these two students and discover that they were of legal age to be piloting the sculpture, please let me know and I will be sure to apologize and presume they were just not responsible enough to bring ID as promised.

My involvement comes from being the mother of Monica Topping who was beat up publically as the figurehead of the Race organizers. She had to deal with these people, was threatened and intimidated on the Arcata Plaza in front of Arcata Police Sgt. Dave Brown and with “EHS” emblazoned on the sculpture. I’ve been a Glorious Spectator of the Kinetic races in all of its incarnations for the sixteen years we’ve lived here. This took a real ugly and evil turn in a way that I’m not sure even the Great Razooly would approve.. But it got ugly with Eureka High’s permission. This is how you raise the responsible kids of the future?

They could take a lesson from the Colfax High team who managed to travel here with their sculpture and actually FOLLOWED the rules.

Sincerely....

This Killin Time Is Killin Me

I don't get out much. Traveling on my own is adventure but, on my own I make rookie mistakes. I forget things like pocketknives in my purse (no worries-TSA found it for me...). I forget my bag on the carry-on cart and feel the wrath of the tiny Asian lady who, I'm SURE had unkind things to say about me, had I understood what she was muttering to her friend after he retrieved my bag.

This trip is one I have undertaken for work, for an expansion of my job due to the unofficial freezing of vacated positions. Learning is good. Expanding my knowledge of the world I work in is good. Spending three days in Palm Springs with training managers from various law enforcement agencies, was going to be a great opportunity but, something coastal would have been my preference.

With the disappearance of airlines willing to serve Humboldt, my flight options were slim. I left Sunday evening, hopping through San Francisco to arrive in the land of golf courses around ten, threw open the door to my fifth-floor balcony and tucked in for the night. I checked into the conference in the morning and found myself with a cohort willing to wander town at lunchtime in search of a deli I had spotted on the way from the airport. After a navigational error, we found our way to Sherman's Deli, as did most of the employees from nearby businesses. No sooner did a killer hot pastrami on rye arrive, we asked for our checks and to-go boxes in order to scurry back through the blistering heat to not miss the next speaker. The evening meal found us on a lovely patio enjoying Chili Rellenos and me having a beer alone because she doesn't drink. I hate feeling like a lush.

Day two was more of an adventure. Lunch was provided to allow for"networking" so dinner away from the hotel was the respite we needed. We headed down the strip, checking out the menus being offered by the hosts, looking for something with outdoor seating and a reasonable menu. We decided on Azul when my companion was entranced by the gliding seats and attached tables. Two-for-one dinner Tuesday didn't hurt and the pomegranate Cosmo was the cherry on top for me. We sat near the entrance with her facing the bar. She noted the abundance of men. Okay...neither one of us was shopping so who cares..... "no really, there are a lot of men." And...? I looked around to find she was right...we were pretty much the only women. Then I saw her...him...gams up to there, turquoise heels and a bouffant to match, walking towards out table to invite us to the show that night. At that point, I looked away from the menu to see the display at our table for the "Judy Garland Show". Ohhhhhhhh. We found the Castro district of Palm Springs. Turned out my companion was less than "tolerant" and didn't get how these men weren't looking at women. Well....they don't LIKE women. "But the Bible says....". Yeah. We had to finally not go there when it became obvious there was a chasm that could not be bridged. I had a second Cosmo with a huge pile of mussels and we wandered back to the Hyatt where it became clear there were other issues, not the least of which was her use of the word "fornicate"...ewww!

So here I sit at the Palm Springs Airport awaiting my evening flight. I could be doing SO many other things not the least of which is celebrating Hope's 23rd birthday. Work is no doubt piling up on my desk. At over $9 for a beer, I can't afford to get drunk. It's 93 degrees outside, the terminal is filling up because weather in SF is delaying the flight before mine and others connecting to and from there. Soon, I'll find out if my flight will also be delayed. Considering I have a four-hour layover there, it matters little except the people-watching is far more interesting in San Francisco. As long as my landing in McKinleyville isn't later than the 11:59 already scheduled.

I just realized this was never posted because, although I'm getting better at using my XOOM tablet, there are a few skills needed for posting a readable blog and I'm not there yet - cut and paste evades me. Turns out I ate something I shouldn't outta `et at one of the airports and spent much of the evening and the following day with my gut gurgling and locating every restroom in the SFO terminal. Tummy still doing flip-flops and eating brown rice and smoothies to gently ease my way back into food.

You Don't Have To Go Home But You Can't Stay Here

It felt wrong to displace a mother on the day before Mother's Day. To spend time on Mother's Day weekend, of all time, destroying the nest of another mother. But, DANGIT, these pigeons are driving me nuts, eating the seed and keeping the finches away from the feeders.

This feeder is at eye level to the window in our laundry room. I can see the feeder as I stand at the washer and, in fact, have to fill it from there, through the window with a scoop mounted on a stick. Either that or it's a ladder operation which gets tedious, especially in the winter when the ground is soggy. In the past season, I've renovated my gazebo feeder progressively, to discourage what we see as flying rats. I've added horizontal strips of wood to make the entrance smaller. This only slowed their escape. Plus it made getting the scoop inside to fill it almost impossible. I added some chicken wire on the bottom half but that did nothing to deter them. This week, I've noticed one smaller pigeon sitting. In bird-talk, that means "I have made this my nest and I've got babies". Dammit! I had to get this opportunity closed off before it was too late.

So I waited through the week, chasing her out of the nest...I mean feeder when I saw her. I noticed that she had a companion that would stand guard on the roof and I finally figured out he was helping her build a nest. Dammit!

I decided the Farmer's Market should wait. The plan was to add vertical strips of wood between the uprights, making the openings too small for pigeons but big enough for the finches. I got the Mikita, the pliers (to remove the useless chicken wire), got a reminder on how to use the chop saw to cut the wood strips....after chasing her out a few times from inside, I decided to take a couple pictures, just for posterity. I climbed up on the washer and she flew out....leaving....an egg. DAMMIT!

I'll see you at the Farmer's Market, I guess.