Share Your World – July 16, 2018

After an absence of a couple of weeks, because I am so busy, you know (uh huh, sure) I’ve decided to join Cee in her challenge and share some more of my world.

Since we are approaching the hottest part of our summer in the northern hemisphere, what’s your favorite ice-cream, frozen yogurt or sorbet flavor?  (Those of you who live down under I’m sure you remember what it is like in the hot summer months). Ice cream – usually chocolate, the richer the better, although sometimes vanilla with fruit or chocolate syrup works for me too. It’s definitely a summer treat for me – the idea of eating something icey in winter just doesn’t work.

How often do you people watch? Whenever I’m around people. I also tend to people-listen too often, which I think is rude but if you’re out there in public and talking within hearing distance of others, maybe it’s fair game. I just have to be careful not to interject into others’ conversations.

If you had a choice which would be your preference salt water beaches, fresh water lakes, ocean cruise, hot tub, ski resort or desert? Salt water beaches, with fresh lakes a close second. I took an ocean cruise once, and enjoyed it – I think I’d like to do a river cruise too. My most favorite, most calming thing would be an ocean beach though. In my dreams, I will have an oceanfront house when I grow up.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. I have been enjoying time with my daughter and looking forward to time with my son later this summer. I have been being mostly very lazy, managing the house chores that shout for attention, ignoring the others. Kat, however, has been very very busy creating:

Oh, I have been doing some painting, so I might have something new to share with you in a day or so or more.

A close-up of one:

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Short Road Trip

I’ve been quiet for awhiile, busy spending time with my daughter, soaking up all the minutes while she is here. We did venture off on a kind of road trip to visit her new town, the Port of Arlington, in northern Oregon on the Columbia River.

Arlington is a small town, population of about 600 per the 2016 census. It’s a neat, clean town, with enough stores to fill basic needs. It has a post office

a combination hardware/liquor store

a restaurant, a deli, a gas station, a pizza place, a motel, a couple of other small shops. It has the Earl Snell Memorial Park on the lagoon that comes in from the river

with a dog park just round the corner.

We toured the residential areas on the hillsides, looking for a place for Kat to live. To find rentals in this town, you get a list from the City Recorder, find that it is somewhat outdated, but then when you talk to the woman at the front desk of the motel, you discover that the best way to find a place is to talk to the postmistress. Turns out the postmistress owns the hardware/liquor store, and when Kat went in there, she met Hayley and Lucas, who know some of the people who manage or own some of the rentals, and promise to give them Kat’s phone number – they also correct some of the numbers on the list that are incorrect. Everyone knows everyone.

We stayed for a couple of days without managing to make contact with the one person who appeared to have a rental still available. He called as we were heading home, but we lost the connection. After we got back home, Kat returned his call, and yes, he has one place left, a two bed, one bath apartment, just across the street from the high school, less than a block from the elementary school where she will be teaching.Now she has a place to live, sight unseen, because a bird in hand – you know that story. Next is finding furniture, then the move to a new liife.

Celebrating the 4th

The 4th of July has been aa quiet day for me for the past several years – I live in a pine forest, where fireworks are forbidden for obvious reasons, and I haven’t missed seeing them at all really. I think the days of Ooooos and Aaahhhhs have passed.

This year, however, we changed it all up. When Kat lived in Southern California, she used to join her best friend’s family at their longstanding block party – a neighborhood party that has gone on for many years. Teaching abroad for five years limited her summer freedom, and she has not attended now for 3 years – this year was the 33rd anniversary of their friendship and she decided that required attendance. So we flew down on Tuesday, Gep joined us Tuesday evening, and we had a great couple of days together.

Wednesday morning we took advantage of the loaned vehicle, and toured some “old neighborhoods” of years gone by, noting many changes, places where new things replaced those in our memories, detouring frequently because it was, after all, the 4th of July, there was a bike parade, and hoards of people heading to the beach. We finally found an open route to Seal Beach, where we had our breakfasts

across from the pier

Where we walked after we ate

And then headed to the party so Kat could spend more time with her BFF

And her brother

And I enjoyed time with all of them and her BFF’s mother

As darkness fell, there were fireworks

When the festivities ended, we returned to our hotel and flew back home the next day, agreeing the trip was well worth it.

And there were some Ooooos and Aaahhhhs.

Sunday Snapshot: for the love of mankind

And if we cannot love, perhaps we could at least tolerate.

Riddle from the Middle

“They say: ‘If a man knew himself,
he would know all mankind.’
I say: ‘If a man loved mankind,
he would know something of himself.”

–  Khalil Gibran

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One of Those Days

This is turning into one of “THOSE” days – you know, the ones that make you think you should never have gotten up in the first place? Yeah, that kind.

It started out just fine, until I tried to actually do something constructive. No, wait – I did manage to empty the dishwasher without destroying anything. At least nothing I’m aware of right now. Then – my first mistake – I decided I really needed to go mow that lawn I’ve been avoiding for too long. I filled the mower tank with gas without incident. I even filled the gas tank of the quad while I was at it – successes #1 and #2. The end.

First thing I did? Drive right over a sprinkler – the kind that stick up above the ground right where you can see them – if you’re paying attention. That sprinkler has been there for all the years I’ve been mowing the lawn and before, and I’ve always known it recognized it, and avoided it. Not today. Of course, it happened to be one of the ones I had just replaced the sprinkler head on which I did gather up in many pieces. Trying to hide the evidence. Of course, the fact that the pipe the water flows through to the sprinkler head is still sticking up above the ground a couple of inches wouldn’t be a clue, would it?

Can’t let a little thing like that deter me, though. The lawn still needs mowing, and I’m only on my first trip around it. I moved forward – for another one and one-half rounds. At which point I went very very slowly over a tree root that is partially above-ground – a root I have mowed over many many times. Not today. I think -although I don’t know for sure because I really can’t see much under the mower – I think I embedded a blade into that exposed root. In any case, the mower will not move. So be it. It’s Sunday and I’ll not bother any of my neighbors with my problem. Because, quite frankly, I’m afraid to try anything else. And frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn, right now.

It’s fitting, I guess. I mean, if the country I live in is falling apart at the seams, why not my own little part of the world? Negativity – that’s a very unfair very bad statement. My world is really just fine, and I have so much more than those people whose lives we’re tearing apart by destroying their families – all because they are desperate and want to have lives worth living.

Where has all the kindness gone? 

Are we really ready to turn off her lamp? #KeepFamiliesTogether #StatueofLiberty

I believe as Barb Taub does, The Lady must be weeping inside her heart. https://barbtaub.com/2018/07/01/are-we-really-ready-to-turn-off-her-lamp-keepfamiliestogether-statueofliberty/

Barb Taub

They’re not keeping “them” out. They’re keeping “us” out.

Millions took part in over 600 marches across America to protest immigration policy. [image credit: nbcnews.com ]

I wish I could join the millions marching to protest immigration policy in the US. Nobody had to march to admit our family when they were fleeing religious persecution and economic disaster in Ireland. Or in Scotland. Or in Germany. Or in Poland. My grandparents weren’t taken from their parents and put into baby jail.

They knew it would be okay to come to America because the Lady said so. She rose from pennies raised by French and American school children, and she raises a lamp against the darkness. She says welcome. She says that’s who we are.

Statue of Liberty at night
[image credit: Guide TravelTourism]

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses…

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Share Your World – June 25, 2018

 

It’s really June 27, 2018, but I know Cee won’t mind if I join the party a little late. My real world is quiet, which is how I like it, but sometimes the world of Cee adds a wee bit of adventure, like this week:

If aliens landed on earth tomorrow and offered to take you home with them, would you go? (remember this is SYW, they are friendly aliens) My first reaction was to say no, but then I thought, “what the heck – it’s an opportunity to travel and see something new”, so I think I would say yes – conditioned upon it being a round trip ticket. Because, furry girl, family, friends, you know.

How tall are you? Are you satisfied with your height?  Once upon a time, back in the day, I was 5’11”. Gravity has taken over, however, and I think now I am probably more like 5’8” or 5’9”. I hated my height when I was 12 – the year I had a major growth spurt – because I was always the tallest in my classes and it was the topic of many jokes. But when I got older, I appreciated the ability to reach higher shelves, and to see over a lot of heads.

Do you think you could live without your smartphone (or other technology item) for 24 hours? That seems cruel and inhuman treatment to me. Yes, I could do it if I absolutely had to, but considering my iPad and iPhone are my sources of information – news, recipes, bloggy friends, Facebook, etc. – contact with my son – texts – entertainment – silly games and my books, it would be difficult.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. I appreciated more time with my daughter, a lunch or two out, my furry girl and the antics of her furry kids (hers are feline, mine is canine, and they live in separate parts of the house – for the sake of relaxation and harmony). Have I showed you the separation door?

Slightly cagelike, but living conditions are very humane, and families have not been separated. When the furry felines and their mom move to their new home in August the door is easily removed and stored away.