Swimmers

This picture must have been taken around 1945. My sisters, cousins, friends and I are all decked out in our great looking swimsuits, on grandpa's beach, as we prepare to head for the bay. Two of the little girls were the children of one of my dad's good friends and fellow shipmate.

Christmas Kids

Christmas morning at my house.

Morning mountain

This is what Mt. Rainier looked like early this morning from high on the hill above the harbor. From where I sat, all I saw was thick, thick, thick fog and with the temperature in the 20's, I nearly skated to my death as I walked across the street to my neighbors for a quick cup of coffee. Little did I know there was such beauty just a few feet above my head.

Merry Christmas

Home at last

Finally, sis has her own pad....... a basement of a home....the sink is for washing hands/teeth, etc. First door is her shower, outside kitchen is beyond and the door to her apartment is the door with glass at the back. Course we all know where the hole in the ground is :o)

Well, what a difference a year makes!! Who would have thought last year as I gathered with my family on a snowy day in Tacoma that this year I'd be 1/2 a world away with a totally different "family". Yes, how quickly your fellow volunteers become your family. I very much miss those at home, but know that they will have a great time without my creamed onions!! I just hope the Christmas box makes it there either for Christmas or in general!! It cost 79 manats ($100) to send and over 1 1/2 hours at the post office (gotta love the post soviet bureaucracy!!). I had put everything in a nice box (actually the box my water filter came in) and when I got to the post office, I either had to re-box it in the "official AZ postal box" or wrap my box in white fabric..yes FABRIC!! Well, since fabric isn't a word I know yet, that left only one alternative...their box. A very tight, bulging fit and lots of interest from those around me as to what was going into the box....it's all a team effort here!! And we are just so strange...Anyway, enough of the mail system. It is enroute to the US and may make it one day!! I'm now settled in a lovely town high in the Caucuses called Zagatala. It's a really great place, could remind me of Whitefish, Montana.... I went south to my assigned town but had a terrible asthma attack (don't know yet what caused it...) so said "I quit". I panicked... couldn't breath, couldn't communicate, just couldn't see myself staying there for the rest of my life which I determined would be very short if I stayed. So the Peace Corps got me back to Baku, I saw the dr. and we decided to try a different location. I'm still having a problem with all the wood smoke but I'll keep trying each day to make it work. I have a great little basement "apartment" in a home. It has hot water registers so no additional wood or gas burning in the house. My things will come up from Baku (8 hour bus ride) on Monday. I've been wearing the same things for 10 days. Good thing I have hot water which is such a treat so I can hand wash things. Cold water is so hard on my delicate hands!! Every morning I get to say hi to the chickens in their pen as I dash out to the toilet in the back corner of the yard. I've learned to take those holes in the ground with ease...actually, not bad at all if they are clean. And things just move so much better...plus I have the thighs of a 20-year old now...Wish the rest of the body was so strong!! tee hee hee. I've started "work" at the bank. I will do a lot of English conversation and business english. A few have taken English but are reluctant to use it. This certainly won't help my Azerbaijani since I'll be speaking in English all the time, but what the heck...I'll keep trying. Today, Christmas Eve, I'm going to a neighboring town (1 1/2 hours away) to join many other volunteers in celebrating Christmas. There will be about 30 of us coming from all corners of the country. I'll sleep on the floor in a friends house (thank you again Aran/Stacy for the sleeping bag!!). There isn't any snow on the ground yet in the towns, but the mountains are beautiful.

Growing up

School is out for 2 weeks so Bergen and I finally got to spend some quality time together yesterday. She will be 6 in less than a month and I am amazed at how grown up she has become since starting school. We made cookies which was great because her great aunty Pat and uncle Ted stopped by for a bit and we had tasty treats to serve. She has met my younger sister, but didn't know I had another who lives way up north in Port Townsend.
We cleaned out all the little crystal containers on the windowsill above the sink and found a gazillion little packages of extra Christmas tree lights. We opened them all and put them together in just one container. I doubt I will ever use even one because I seem to have to replace the whole string each year. I think congress needs to investigate :o) Better that than the ridiculous health insurance mess they are working on.

Christmas Sweaters

I have two Christmas sweaters. One for dressier occasions and one for more casual. This morning I read a column stating that anyone who has one should make this the season of joy by giving them to the garbage man !!! I used to think that way, but as I get older, I enjoy seeing folks dressed in their brightly colored tops. I bought both of these at year end sales and heck, who knows, I just might check the racks after Christmas and see if I can find another. I do know there are some really great buys at Value Village and the Goodwill :o)

Flute friends.

We had a fun afternoon at one of the retirment homes in Tacoma today.

The father of the gal on the right lives there and her mom lives in another one down the road where she doesn't need as much care. She is still able to drive so she visits him each day.

I think they enjoyed our music and I could really hear them singing out when we played our last song and my favorite Chistmas carol, Silent Night. I am so thankful that mom got us kids started playing an instrument because I know we certainly brightened up some lives today.

Global Warming Lesson

Have a listen to astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon and climatologist Dr. David Legates as they separate out elements that leave us with a totally different understanding of how, why and what things are occurring in our climate. Long live CO-2 .

Smoke on the water

The cold just keeps on keepin on and we've been greeted each morning with the most beautiful 'smoke' curling up from the bay. There are lots of frozen pipes and plumbers are going to be very happy once things start warming up. Kind of their Christmas bonus from mother nature.

Oh, and Happy Hannakuh to our jewish friends. I got a kick out of an article in the Seattle paper. One Seattle family will be lighting the menorah together with their family in Philadelphia ,thanks to skype. And to think that as a kid, I dreamed of having a radio that would fit on my wrist like a watch so I could listen to soaps in school.

Happy Birthday Sis

Well, today is my baby sister's 63rd birthday and today she will move to the town where she will be working.

It is inland from the Caspian Sea and is a city called Salyan. It's about 4 hours south of Baku and 3 hours north of Lankaran. It is in the bend of the river Kur which travels from Armenia to the Caspian Sea. She'll be working with Access bank which is a micro finance bank. Her assignment will be organizing corporate social responsibility projects (i.e. opportunities for the branch to support community development activities) She'll also provide basic business and computer training to staff (customer service, sales, marketing,etc.) assist with english language skills through daily contact and conversation clubs and classes, assist the head office in Baku with various assignments including edits to English language documents (press releases and marketing materials) as well as share information on US business practices. This will be a very exciting opportunity to help others improve their skills and grow their future. The city of Salyan is the center of a very large agricultural area. They grow cotton, wheat, melons, vegies, etc. There is a 54373.5 hectre national park in the area.

Candy canes

Ingrid helped me finish trimming the tree yesterday. I had hung most of the ornaments, but saved a few, plus the candy canes, just for her. She will be 3 in three months and it took me back to when I was her age and the times we kids spent with grandma Dawn. My favorite memory is when my older sis and my two cousins and I ..all girls, would sit in her living room, each in what seemed an enormous chair at the time, and she would ask us about our babies. She talked to us as if we were as old as she and it was as if we truly had our own little ones.

She died not long after my third birthday, but those memories are ever so clear still.

I hope my little ones will take with them a few special memories that last them a lifetime.

Mindstorms NXT 2.0

My goodness....a toy for 10 year olds....what a change from the toys a 10 year old had when I was a kid and only 269.95 !!!

Take LEGO to the next level with MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0. Combining the versatility of the LEGO building system with a microcomputer brick and intuitive programming software, this building kit enables you to construct robots that see, speak, feel, and move. Designed for ages 10 and up, the 2.0 robotics tool set features everything you need to create and program your first robot in approximately one hour. After that, you can create an endless lineup of robots that do what you want--if you can dream it, you can build it.

Concert

Our December 19th concert is quickly approaching and we are all doing our best to practice, practice, practice and get the many other things done that need doing this busy time of year.

My sister, Pat, is going to be playing with us this concert. She plays violin and viola , lives in Port Townsend and has played in the Port Angeles Symphony for many years, but took this year off. She will be playing her viola and it's kinda fun being the other sister group, as there are also 2 sisters who play violin and french horn . If I were to listen to either combination, I think flute and viola might be a tad bit more pleasing than french horn and violin.

Visit our website and you'll see what we will be playing. I know you're gonna love it :o)

Father and Son

Jacob is now 6 months old/young and the apple of his daddy's eye. So sweet seeing them together :o)

Advent

Today is the first day of Advent (from the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming"). It is the beginning of the liturgical year in the western Christian church and the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus; in other words, the period immediately before Christmas. In the Roman Catholic and Lutheran calendars, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before December 25. Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a dual reminder of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting that Christians today endure for the second coming of Christ. Many people make use of Advent wreaths during this season, with one candle representing each of the four Sundays of Advent. Western christians use purple and rose colored candles, lighting one each week, with the rose candle lit on the 3rd Sunday of Advent. It is usually burned at the family evening meal each day. During Christmas Day, four lit white candles are used.

Advent is a journey from darkness to light, lighting the first feeble candle in the shortening, frigid days as we begin the vigil of waiting, and then sense the first glimpse of longer, lighter days with the lighting of the rose candle. What Advent is, really, is a discipline: a way of forming anticipation and channeling it toward its goal. There's a flicker of rose on the third Sunday—Gaudete!, that day's Mass begins: Rejoice!—but then it's back to the dark purple that is the mark of the season in liturgical churches. And what those somber vestments symbolize is the deeply penitential design of Advent. Nothing we can do earns us the gift of Christmas, any more than Lent earns us Easter. But a season of contrition and sacrifice prepares us to understand and feel something about just how great the gift is when at last the day itself arrives.

This, by Joseph Bottum is worth reading.

Thanksgiving

It was all we could do to get Ingy out of her jammies and into her street clothes for dinner yesterday. With a bit of coaxing, her big sis and I lured her upstairs and with only a small amount of brute force, she was transformed into a rather charming little girl as she poses with her mama's mama :o)
After dinner we played Wii bowling and Len was thrilled when he got a strike, though the 5 year old in the house managed to beat us all, twice.
As kids we used to head for the basement after dinner on holidays and play ping pong, now we can bowl in the comfort of our living room without worrying about breaking a lamp or tossing a ball through the window or wall. I often wonder what we'll be doing 10 years from now :o)

Less than a month

Only 27 more days til the shortest day of the year...we're hangin in there and getting the wood dry for a good winter solstice celebration.

I thought this was interesting as we approach Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Toilet

At last...a picture of a toilet. Okay, I know my world must be very small if all I can focus on is a toilet, but is there anything more important in one's daily life???? It must be an absolute spectacle using one of those contraptions . Now my question is, do they flush? I see what must be a water line going somewhere. More questions.

Bathroom ala Azerbaijan

Sis sends me a picture of the bathroom at her school and still I can't see what one looks like. She also sent a pix of sheep eating outside the door of her house and now I understand why people there take off their shoes and slip on house slippers before entering.

Here's her description of the bathroom and life in general...

If you go to the right there are 2 "stalls", with holes in the floor....try to hit that!! Behind the door, is another hole in the floor.. You don't linger in the bathroom. No mirrors, hot water, etc. You just do your duty and run!!

Yucky here today.....dreary, grey, misty... and I guess it's like this most of the winter. We have lots of mud/puddles, etc. In fact we had to talk about our route to school "turn right, go two blocks, turn left, etc. (no one has addresses cause they don't recieve mail) directions are very important!! So, Judy and I had fun with "go two blocks, through the potholes, over the garbage ditch, etc" Life is interesting. Showers are seldome, pooing standing is a treat, wiping your backside with one leg in the air to be able to reach, etc... funny. You just roll with it. People are clean, so I guess they can do it better than me!! Today I'll stop by the bazaar and get some carrots and make a salad....usually it's just soup with some meat and potatoes, for dinner........ then there is always LOTS of sugary things. Everyone has gold teeth. Maybe I'll come home with a "gold grill".

Today, if I do nothing else...I am going to clean my toilet til it sparkles and thank God that I live in a land where we are king of our castle and all have a "throne".

Something completely different and so sweet.

Jacob Loves Stolling

I think the smile on Jacob's face tells us all exactly what he thinks about the fancy new stroller he wheels around town in. It's one of the dandy three wheelers and I'm talkin big bouncy wheels. Heck, I wouldn't mind riding in the darn thing.

Lunch On The Boat

Ingy got to have lunch on daddy's boat yesterday. What a lucky girl.

Gustavo Dudamel

I got a kick out of the review given Gustavo Dudamel and Martin Frost, a clarinet player in Gothenburg Synphony Orchestra and the orchestra in general. I can't imagine anything more exciting that playing under his direction. This video of the young people in the Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra in Argentina seems to agree and this was the system that produced Dudamel.

My nephew lives near Gothenburg. I wonder if he got the chance to see him direct. He will begin this fall as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Hmmm..maybe a trip to LA is in order:o)

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Gustavo Dudamel conductor.

Martin Fröst clarinet.
Ravel, La Valse Anders Hillborg, Clarinet Concerto (Peacock Tales) (UK premiere)Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique
Huntley Dent
August 14, 2008
Wunderkindfest. Unless you are a stubborn opinionator, performances can confuse you at times. I was flummoxed last night at the Proms by Gustavo Dudamel and his Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, in a concert I was expecting to enjoy, though not to the utmost. The Berlioz Symphonie fantastique wore out its welcome many years ago, and only a brilliant performance can redeem it for me. That Dudamel did not deliver. Sparkling as he is in the bright media limelight, the skyrocketing young Venezuelan has to have the goods, too. In this case, his reading was flat, disjointed, and plodding, with a drawn-out Scene aux champs that lasted long enough for Madame Defarge to knit a quilt. The guillotine movement that followed was coarse and blatty, which is how the whole reading went, either in slow mo with exaggerated emphases or sped up recklessly. Dudamel’s inability to sustain tension in soft passages, one of the most blatant failings in a bad conductor, shocked me.
Good conductors can inspire indifferent orchestras to shine (listen to what Leonard Bernstein did with the Danish Radio SO in a stunning Nielsen Third Symphony on Sony from the early Sixties), but I’ve rarely heard a professional ensemble as ragged and dispirited as the Gothenburg band. On the podium Dudamel isn’t as spontaneously choreographic as Bernstein – he stands erect and unbending in the didactic German fashion most of the time – but his face and hands are animated and encouraging. The orchestra responded to his coaxing like thick pea soup. In addition, the first-chair players in the wind and brass sections simply aren’t very good their playing stiff and emotionless. In the opening work, Ravel’s La valse, there are several interpretive approaches one can follow. The mood can be slinky, satirical, diabolic, or suave. The parody of Viennese waltzes can be sharp-tongued or good-natured. The execution can be bravura or relaxed. This La valse was none of the above. The score unfolded like a computer printout, despite some nice phrasing from Dudamel. When the time came for the tidal-wave climax, where waltz decorum collapses into harsh chaos, the orchestra couldn’t deliver a real fortissimo. Much of the evening, in fact, the musicians dawdled around mezzo forte, refusing to risk very soft or very loud playing except when Dudamel absolutely demanded it.
To cap off a strange evening, the finale bravos from the Prommers were deafening, as a beaming Dudamel walked through the orchestra, embracing some musicians and lifting every soloist, however bad they had been, to a personal ovation. The spectacle seemed absurdist in the extreme – would you reward a sea lion for dropping the ball off its nose? We also got two encores, the first a maudlin slow melody that I didn’t recognize despite its Elgarian contours, the second a familiar South American carioca tune that I can’t name, either. The brass players took off their jackets and horsed around in the second encore, a gesture in the direction of Dudamel’s famously gyrating youth orchestra, the Simon Bolivar, but what is charming from a bunch of super-talented kids wowing sedate audiences isn’t so charming from tired middle-aged Swedes earning a long evening’s pay.
The middle of the concert was occupied by a new work, a clarinet concerto subtitled “Peacock Tales” by Anders Hillborg, a composer unknown to me. It was a spectacularly trashy piece, featuring a skilful soloist, Martin Frost, who was required to wail and riff for over half an hour to no purpose. But in addition, he pranced around Pan-like wearing a tri-corn mask like a character at the Carnival of Venice while the lighting system tinged the orchestra blue or red, depending on the music’s shifting moods. Well, there was only one mood, actually, a kind of semi-frenetic minimalism cooked up with splashy chords. The composer hit upon one neat trick, however: the clarinettist played a low ostinato rhythm at the bottom of the scale while interjecting squeaky high notes, the overall effect sounding like two clarinets instead of one. Once you enjoyed this impressive gimmick, hearing it repeated thirty or forty times didn’t increase its delight.
So now what? I’ve fallen off the Dudamel bandwagon with at thud. I know his recordings and the best is a fresh, highly energized Mahler Fifth with the Simon BolIvars in great form; next comes a suave Bartok Concerto for Orchestra with the L.A. Philharmonic, one of his specialities. DG, who scored a publicity coup by signing such a wunderkind to the label, shot Dudamel out of the gate with a pairing of the Beethoven Fifth and Seventh, obviously trying to equal the splash made by the young Carlos Kleiber with the same two works in the early Seventies. But Dudamel’s versions are mostly sluggish and uninspired. His ideas about Beethoven, such as they are, don’t convince me. Now he’s on to the music directorship in L.A., which like the Proms will give him a hero’s welcome even if he plays the complete score to Mamma Mia! In foxtrot rhythm. The rest of us will sit back with arms folded and wait for some stiffer tests.

Pillow Sham Purse

It's amazing what one can do with a pillow sham. I love anything blue and white and when I found this quilted pillow sham at the fabric store, I had to have it and knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

This Martha Stewart collection would make a cool purse or jacket or whatever the imagination could come up with.

Andy Williams

I found this video of Andy Williams and the Osmond brothers plus Marie and just had to share. The sweetest part is when Marie dances with Andy. He is so loving. I kinda miss those days when music was kinder and gentler.

First Halloween

Looks like Jacob is quite pleased with his first halloween costume.

American Sovereignty

Lord Monckton is doing his best to warn us that our sovereignty is in danger. Let's hope our president has the brains not to vote for this insane treaty when he visits Copenhagen again in December.

On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN on the subject of global warming. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty that is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Cousins Finally Meet

What a fun day we had this week. Len and I drove to Chehalis and his cousin, whom he had never met, drove up from Portland for a family reunion of two. Their dads were brothers who both immigrated from Sweden as young men. Her dad came first at the age of 17, working his way from Ellis Island to upstate New York, through Canada to Washington, finally settling in Oregon.

Len's dad came later, but directly to Washington where he stayed at first with family in the Port Orchard area.

These two had never met and her mother who is 99 1/2, made her promise she would give Len the family pictures and items from the family home in Sweden. That she did this week and what a hoot it was seeing pictures of the home that Len's dad grew up in in Sweden, along with pictures of his siblings. Len's dad passed away when he was very young so of course he missed out on all the stories that could have been told !!!!

Solar Germany

What a fantastic competition. If I were a young person and interested in studying architecture and solar power, I would have loved being involved in this .

While I am mentioning things I found on the internet, take a look at this video. I was disturbed by what she said, but more disturbed by the constant movement of her mouth and tongue. She reminded me of a lizard trying to catch a fly !!!

Kids Truckin

Remember the good old days when you could ride in the back of a pickup and not land in jail???

Found this pix among mom's slides. It's a sampling of her offspring and their offspring. One of them will be having her 47th birthday tomorrow. Where does the time go. Happy Birthday Bridgett :o)

Jacob At The Patch

Here he is...his very first visit to the pumpkin patch. He is now 4 1/2 months and rolling around the house. How fast they do grow !!!!

I got a kick out of the steering wheel on his cap.

New Glasses

Well my precious little Ingy has herself a brand spankin new pair of glasses. This was her first day wearing them and she was doing pretty darn good. She was blessed with a lazy eye, astigmatism and is near sighted. Here's hopin she will wear them and they will get that lazy eye workin hard.

Hollyhock

Hollyhock is one of my favorite flowers. I planted a bunch of seeds this spring and only two managed to grow and only one managed to bloom. On the package it says they bloom the second year so I guess I got lucky. I can hardly wait til next spring cause I am going to plant a whole bunch more !!

Playing For the EMT's

Two weeks ago our orchestra conductor was asked if we might be willing to play for the 1st annual Gig Harbor Celebration & Blessing of Law Enforcement, Firefighters, EMTs and their Families. Of course we were, and yesterday we sat in the beautiful warm sun and at times very strong wind gusts and played out hearts out from Gray Middle School music books. He figured they would be easy to sight read without too many mistakes and still be nice listening. It was a fun afternoon.

Dudamel

Maybe you have a bucket list. I spose most of us do and I've been checking things off mine as I go, but there's one thing I'd love to do and doubt I'll ever get the chance and that is to play the flute part in Mahler's 3rd Symphony, 6th movement. If you watch the video at 2:11 you'll appreciate the wonderfully smooth transition from flute to piccolo. Okay... I know...the director...Gustavo Dudamel is a kick to watch. He is from Venezuela and was only 21 years of age when he directed this incredible piece. If anyone has conductor aspirations, this is a good watch.

Go to the bottom of the page and turn off the music, then click the video for a great listen.

Field of Pumpkins

We passed the most beautiful field filled with pumpkins yesterday while on our trip to Bainbridge Island. Give them another month and they will be perfect for Halloween.

I had to stand on my toes to take the picture because the tall rows of grape vines, heavy with ripening fruit, were doing their best to block my view.

Maybe another trip back to the island is in order.

Old Friend

I am looking forward to seeing a friend I haven't seen since we both graduated from Peninsula High School, 51 years ago. We went through 11 years of school together, but once he headed off to Fairbanks, Alaska for college, that was it. Alaska now owns his heart !!
He is "outside" attending a kyak symposium in Port Townsend and I will drive up to Bainbridge and pick him up at a cousin's place. This is gonna be a fun day :o)

Sisters Three

We three sisters said our goodbyes yesterday and tomorrow sis will hop on a plane and be off to Azerbaijan by way of Philadelphia and New York. Her Peace Corps committment is for 27 months, but her daughter is planning a wedding for July of next year which gives her an excuse to come home for a while.
I have her blog listed so if you are curious about life in a very different country, she will do her best to keep us informed.

Umbrella Girl

Ingy was practicing the art of umbrella while at my house yesterday. Occasionally I go into serious granddaughter withdrawals and have to have her come visit. She's 2 1/2 and bubbling over with mischief, but such fun to be with and.....I'm always guaranteed a good nights sleep at the end of the day :o)

Football Fans

Is it possible for a 3 1/2 month old to enjoy the sport of football on wide screen TV???? It sure looks that way.

Class of 58

The annual mega reunion of the 1950's classes was again, a whole lot of fun. My class and the class of 56 won with the highest attendance. It's held each year at the Gig Harbor Eagles on the second Saturday of September at 7:00 pm.

We toasted to life and that so many in our class are still among the living. Sad to say, the class of 56 easily won for having lost the most.

Genius

While on our Friday Harbor sojourn, I was tickled to see the Genius tied up at the marina. As I have mentioned before, it used to belong to my husband's family. They sold it to the Skansie family and Gerald Crosby, the husband of Bernice Skansie, fished with it for many years. Eventually it was bought by a young family who lived in Friday Harbor, with the intent of turning it into a B and B. That never happened and it was again sold. Whoever owns it now has let it pretty much deteriorate and I would definately question it's seaworthiness!!

Morning Coffee

My friend and I took a drive and a ferry boat ride to Friday Harbor this week. He had never been and I hadn't been back for 26 years. Not since my youngest was 4 years old and the older boys were fishing with their dad at the "salmon banks".

To my surprise, when I opened the drapes early in the morning to see the view, there, below us were my son's boat. I knew they were fishing on the banks two days before, but hadn't heard that they got two days, plus they were getting two more after a day off. Of course that meant they would just run into Friday Harbor to wait.

We made the long walk out to the boats and joined the fellas for a nice hot cup of morning coffee.

Starting Kindergarten

Big sis gives little sis a hug as she heads off for her very first day of kindergarten. When I was a kid, there was only private kindergarten and I didn't go. When my kids were young it was half a day and now it's full day and more like first grade. It is now more important than ever to be ready.

Daddy's Home

Jacob's daddy is home at last after two months in Alaska. When he left Jacob was so very tiny, but not any longer. He is a completely different baby and a whole lot more fun to be around as the two get acquainted once again.

Trees versus view

With the fog above the water, it really makes the douglas firs stand out and shows just how quickly they are taking my view from me. I have yet to ask the owner if he would be so kind as to trim them . I'm afraid he will say no and that I will do something drastic :o)

Blackberry Tongue

We picked wild blackberries yesterday afternoon, stuck them in the freezer for jam, but decided this morning that they would make a dandy treat. We feasted and this was the result. Life is so good :o)

World Record Flute Event

I would love to have been among the flute players in New York city on August 14th, when this record breaking event took place. Have a listen.

James Galway will celebrate his 70th birthday on Dec the 8th. I will celebrate mine 4 months later. Gosh, if only I had practiced as a kid, maybe I'd own a golden flute too.

Block Party

It seems folks are trying to squeeze in every last bit of fun before summer is over and kids go back to school. There was a band with dancing down below my place at one of the businesses last night, and also a block party at a home on the lagoon below Len's place in Rosedale. His grandkids and I were the only ones adventurous enough to check things out and what we discovered was that the place of the party was a small cabin on the water which had a new owner who thought this would be a great way to meet all his new neighbors. He put flyers in all the mailboxes about a week ago figuring that would be a great way to inform folks rather than wait til they heard the music and then try to figure out what was going on. The owner's sister sings in the band and from what I was told, they perform professionally at quite a few venues.

Len's 9 year old grandkids/twins are from the Chicago area and are loving this visit as the last time they were here was when they were only 3 and remember pretty much nothing of his place. The one thing they have loved is being able to see deer each evening eat the apples that fall from the tree each day, the little rabbit that appears each evening to munch on things and especially the slugs. I hadn't realized that there are no slugs in their area.

Before I left for home last night, the kids had donned their swim suits and were headed for a swim in the almost dark evening. Oh how Len is going to miss his family once they go home.

Babich Place

I went for a walk yesterday to visit a very dear friend. On the way home, I climbed over the fence and snuck through her neighbors yard so I could walk back along the water. I hadn't been that way for over a month and was surprised to see how nicely the old Babich place has been cleaned up. The home and dock were sold years ago, it was turned into a business and the yard was completely overgrown. Not any longer !!! How nice it must have been to sit on the front porch on a warm summer evening and watch the boats passing by. And how nice it must have been for Spiro Babich to walk out his front door and be at work in less than 30 seconds. There was a ways right next to his dock so he could ease his boats in at high tide and work like crazy at low. It would still make a great home, except for one minor detail. The Tides Tavern is right next door and it does get noisy in the summer when folks are outside on the deck. But still, I wouldn't mind trying to live there just for a bit. Think how easy it would be to hop in your kyak and go exploring.

Pearson Air Museum

Today my friend and I will be making the drive from the harbor down to Fort Vancouver and the Pearson Air Museum for a memorial service. The deceased was an avid pilot when younger and the museum is a great place for a gathering, so said his widow. I have never been to Fort Vancouver so it will also be a nice chance to explore. I'm just sorry we didn't make the trip when Clint was still alive and he could have shown us around. Doesn't it so often work that way.

Beads

The little girls are sure gonna love what I found this morning at the giant St. Nick's garage sale . Someone dropped off a bunch of stuff after all the workers had gone home last night and they hadn't even seen it yet when I arrived, so I happened upon a shopping bag filled with a gazillion beads sitting smack in the middle of the pile. The gal said "$2.00" and I said "$5.00?" We agreed and I hauled the tiny treasures home and can hardlly wait til the girls come over to play again. Are they ever gonna think they died and went to heaven !!!

Sisters

We have been in the grips of a heatwave and my granddaughters spent part of the afternoon yesterday at my house trying to keep cool with a dish of vanilla and sherbet ice cream. Kinda like a dixiecup without the cup. I don't have A/C like they do, and entertained the idea of taking them back to their place while mama was out doing a random act of kindness, but we managed to stick it out here until she rescued them. To wile away the morning, we took a walk over to St. Nicks where folks were busy sorting through acres of used clothing and furniture, getting ready for the big sale Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My heart goes out to all those trying to sort through all that stuff because the temp. is 97.2 and rising. If it stays this hot through the weekend, they wont have to use the BBQ to cook the hotdogs that they sell...just slap them on the sidewalk and they'll be ready in no time. All I can say is....drink lots of water !!!!!

Well Done or Medium Rare?

I-5 in Tacoma was covered with animal body parts yesterday afternoon in close to 100 degree sun when a rendering truck overturned. Traffic was backed up in the northbound lanes for hours.

The state DOT said the department responded to the scene with Incident Response crews, maintenance crews, a loader, a dump truck and two sanding trucks to clean up the mess.
"Crews reported the smell was horrendous."

Here is a comment in the paper by a driver who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

samr1984 @ 03:51 - Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
I had the misfortune to be driving along that stretch of highway about a minute behind the truck around 6:05-6:10ish. As well as the misfortune to be in the far left lane, meaning there was no way for me to avoid driving... through it. Yes, there is literally cow intestine stuck on my Camry at this very moment, which I am going to have power-blasted off tomorrow bright and early. On the plus side, I managed to swerve around the rib cage and the various large internal organs strewn about that the above picture just doesn't capture the full impact of. All told, probably one of the most disgusting experiences of my life.

Jacob Growing

Can you tell I am a silly grandma. Jacob is growing like a weed.