What I Was Trying to Show You

It is a beautiful day out. It started cool and overcast, but just after noon the sun came out and it warmed up nicely. I had gone for a walk in the morning and enjoyed the coolness. But when the afternoon happened, I knew I needed to go test the camera on my new phone. I don't know who I'm fooling, I have a new camera that people can call and text me on. I am thrilled with it. I can get a picture of the mountain that looks close to what I actually see. 

 

Well, It's Not Like I Don't Have A Calendar

Yes, well...I really do have a calendar. Many, actually. One on each of the seven electronic screened devices in the room which I am sitting. I could easily find out what day it actually is if I'd bother to look at any of them. My last post is the second post since the first of the year where I have misrepresented the day, only because I erroneously thought it was a different day. Maybe I should try one of those jellyfish brain vitamin supplements. Only I can't remember what it is called. Happy Friday 😉

Friday, Already?

I had been on a small roll a few weeks ago. Elephant's Child's Sunday Selections meme had energized my blogging, at least to give me a subject once a week. And I was working on my post a few weeks ago when Karen asked me if I wanted to go to Wilkeson to get some pizza.

 Wilkeson is a somewhat renovated, small mining and logging town not all that far from where we live. Unfortunately, you can see everything there really is to see in maybe twenty minutes. It isn't that big of a town. But it is home to the best pizza you will find anywhere, and I say that having eaten a Due in Chicago. 

The Carlson Block, the restaurant is open during limited hours first due to Covid and then claiming they can't find anyone to work. Ordinarily I would suspect they weren't paying their staff well, but this is Washington state and minimum wage is fifteen dollars an hour here. I suppose if you kill off a million members of your workforce in a year in a half, you should expect staffing shortages. Regardless of what I think of it, they are only open for a few hours in the evenings on weekends. And we have driven all the way up there only to find a note on  the door explaining they were closed to attend a cousin's wedding and would be closed for a couple of weeks. This weekend though, we were able to get the treat we had gone for. We ate our pizza, went and explored the bridge, then went back to Wilkeson to a different restaurant and had soft serve ice cream. When we got home I decided that I was no longer in the mood and that I could pick up Sunday Selections in the next week. 

Little did I know that the following Sunday, Father's day, my mother-in-law decided that it was as good a day as any to pass over a bridge all of her own. She stepped out into eternity. It was far from unexpected. She was diagnosed with dementia maybe fifteen years ago. It's been years since she even recognized anyone. But as always in these cases, even one's that are expected, it could have come at a better time. Everyone had just travelled for the wedding and were now having to expense it again in a time when travelling smoothly is an issue. Plane travel isn't the given that it used to be. And the worst was that my father-in-law was in the hospital himself because he'd fallen and broken his leg; He wasn't able to be with her in her final hours. I will be surprised if everyone isn't summoned for another family event before Christmas. Sadly, they had just finished their life's works and translated the entire bible from Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts into the Aztec languages. The dedication ceremony had been delayed due to Covid and unrest in Oaxaca, Mexico where they are spoken.. They finished the work, but she didn't get to go to the party. 

Please do not feel the need to console me. I am completely at peace with her death, as I am sure I will be when my father-in-law joins her. Her life was more than full. She lived it well. And now she is Home.

During any one of those weeks, I could have taken a minute (more like a couple of hours when it all is said and done) to put out a blog, but I have been frustrated in the attempt since the wedding. Mollie had sent everyone a Lyft voucher to help with transportation. I downloaded the app and that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for my phone. Three thousand plus photo's didn't help much either. It was a cheap Samsung that wasn't meant to last the six years that it did. And I never really liked the phone all that much to begin with. During the wedding it started doing annoying things like refusing to read QR codes to pull up menu's and not allowing use of the Google Pay app. And it was a good thing that I had a back-up for my train ticket or I would have had to walk home...From Chicago. The phone has been begging to be replaced and finally got to a place where I couldn't even get photos off it easily anymore. I replaced it with a new iPhone SE 2020, and I couldn't be happier that I did. Even with the learning curve and setting up all my apps again, it is so much better. And I love the crispness of the new camera. 

That isn't a promise that I will be more consistent with writing, but the ease of getting my pictures to upload will make the idea a whole lot more palatable.

In other news, Mollie and Chris got Covid, but are better. Tim and Jenn have signed their divorce papers and are awaiting the final court order. Matt built out a van and has joined the nomadic movement. And Jack decided that he's giving scouting a break. He's no longer interested in going for Eagle Scout. All of this is stuff for other blog posts. It really is a lot to unwrap here. And it is time for bed. 

Lazy Day

 

I spent a lazy day today. That is not to imply that I really have busy days anymore. I'm really kind of glad for that. Yesterday was the first Farmer's Market of the year. I ate lunch from a food truck, and it didn't really agree with me. As a result, I have been completely unable to eat any of the delicious cheeses, breads and hummus that I purchased while there and have felt wiped out all day. But I am getting better. 

The Farmer's Market was better than it was last year. The cheese guy was chatty and said that a lot of vendors weren't there due to the rain forecast. I was quite surprised to find that a lot of the vendors that are regulars actually don't live locally. Quite a few of them travel in from the eastern side of the state. I find that disappointing. One of the things I liked about the PNW is the community spirit that I found in most towns when I first moved here. That kind of took a nosedive because of Covid. A lot of our downtown mysteriously burned down. Other businesses closed their doors and didn't re-open. The community center stopped having events like hikes and tours and sadly have abandoned it for now. The Markets seem to be one of the few things that survived, and now I find the goods aren't even from this community. Oh well, maybe if I go to the eastern side of the Cascades I will find the vendors from Auburn.

A Very Special Sunday Selections

Hello again. I hope you have had a wonderful week. I posted my very first Sunday Selections last week on Saturday I was so mortified I went back on radio silence, too ashamed to show my face around here. Every excuse I can imagine is remarkably lame. At some point during the day I did know it was Saturday. The truth is that while I was reading Elephant's Child's post, I got very excited. She offered me a weekly conduit for the never ending orphaned photos that make their way onto my phone. She's enjoying the cooling temperatures in Australia. While being on the other side of the Earth from me, she is also on the other side of the International Date Line. That isn't an attempted excuse. I knew where she lives and the time differences before I posted. But I was fooled and there is no one to blame but myself. To be very honest though, I am a bit amazed and proud that I have a friend who lives on the other side of the Earth. 

But I Promised You Special...

The pictures that are shared on Sunday Selections are supposed to be the pictures you have languishing on your camera...I have oh, so many of those. These pictures that I want to share aren't them. They haven't been in my possession for so very long... And to be totally honest, I didn't take most of them...maybe any of them. My job that day was to remain present, but visibly obscure while providing comfort and support to my child...And, I have already broken the news of the marriage, so that isn't even a big surprise. 

But here are the pictures...

 

Mollie got married

They kissed before we all escaped back up the aisle to the party ...

Where extroverted children out did their introverted parents...

They had the first dance...

They cut the pie... Mollie isn't a fan of cake.

There was even a peck at the end of the night. Wink Wink....

My baby girl is married. My son's are healing...that is another blog.

Sunday Selections

 

This is a meme that Elephant's Child has been posting about, I think since I started following here many years ago. She is on #583. According to her, the purpose of the meme is to use up photo's that are languishing on your camera roll that would otherwise not have a home. Having ridden on seven different trains since Christmas, I have quite a lot of those who will thank Elephant's Child for the opportunity of liberation. So without further ado... 

I do not think that I used this picture on anything else. It is the ceiling of the King Street Station in Seattle. The buildings built for the railroads in the early 1900's were spectacular structures that obviously meant to impress passengers. Those that are built in the Amtrak period are much more humble. Some aren't really even stations, they just drop off or pick up in front of whatever building seems to be available on the track. Sometimes the building isn't much more than a bus shelter by the tracks. It kind of tells you the way the railroad has gone over the last century and a fifth. The issues that I am having with them right now is all about that loss of customer service and has nothing to do with the buildings. But the buildings do reflect the companies culture.

This was one of the first train trip pictures that I took. Considering that I was taking pictures from a fast moving train through a dirty window, you would expect a blurred picture that can't be made out. That isn't really the story with this one. What happened was that we were moving head on into a blizzard, and only a few days before Christmas, to boot. There is actually a river and some mountains that can't be made out in the distance. It was hard to see it in the snow and it didn't show up at all on the picture. The snow was blowing sideways. My compliments to the conductor for keeping the train on the tracks.

This winery is in eastern Washington state, near a town named Wenatchee. I hear that it is a tourist town and worth going to see. Instead of the grand tour of the country that I had hoped to enjoy on Amtrak this summer, I might just take the train there and enjoy a few days tasting wine instead. Or maybe Karen and Ken would like to go with me, and we could easily drive there in a few hours. We haven't been travelling much this year due to Cheese being so weak. We didn't want to have to ask someone else to care for him while he was down. Now that we only have healthy cats, we can have someone come by twice a day to feed them, and they will be fine. I think that I'd like to see the vines in their lush summer greens. 
 

Elephant's Child's selection this Sunday featured clouds, so I thought that this would be a good place to end my selections today. I hope I haven't bored you too much with my little slideshow of my travels. 

Have a wonderful week...

It's Five O'clock on a Saturday

 

I'd ask about the regular crowd, but it's 5:00 am, not pm and I do hope that you were all still deep in your dreams. I however, had woken up covered in sweat, ravenously hungry and wondering if I could make it the 20 feet to the bathroom before wetting myself. There was an anxious buzzing inside my head that was different than what I am used too. And my movements were slow and clumsy. It felt as if I was walking on shifting sand.

After relieving myself, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich and changing my tee shirt I realized that all the things that had woken me from a dead sleep after 3 hours are the symptoms of a low blood sugar. I checked and even after having eaten I was only at 66. I waited another 15 minutes and checked again to find that I was at 61. Glucometers are not really known for their remarkable accuracy. It is hard to know if my blood sugar was actually falling or if the decline was just a quirk of the test strip. I ate a couple of sugar tabs and waited another 15 minutes to check again. That is how my morning has gone. After nearly 4 hours my blood sugar is finally in the acceptable range of 85. I am exhausted, but I rarely nap. once I wake up, I'm up. So, I'm thinking this rainy Saturday is a wash, and it has only just started. 

Summer Weather on it's Way

The weather today is absolutely gorgeous. It's warm and sunny with a gentle breeze. I opened both of the windows in my bedroom for the first time this year. And just about the time I was turning around to do something else, Max jumped in my window and dropped a small, dead mouse on my newly washed quilt. Really, it's the thought that counts...

I walked to the park and enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air. A lot of other people where there enjoying it too. It is good to see the children back. That is the "covid precaution" I really didn't understand. They closed all the parks and playgrounds. That never made sense to me. But I guess back then, we really didn't understand much about how it was spread. 

Something else I'm glad to see back is all the street markets and festivals. I do enjoy them and every town around here seems to have them every weekend in the summer and fall. Karen really doesn't like them, so I think that I will be out visiting them on my own this summer, just to really be able to enjoy a few of them fully. We will go to the Scottish Highland Festival together. But as always, we will most likely leave before doing anything more than walking through as fast as her legs can carry her and leaving without seeing much of anything. It's not a criticism, some people are just like that. It's the thought that counts.

 
 

Overheard

 `

I have been contemplating a conversation that I overheard a while ago. It was during the holidays and all the stores and restaurants were short staffed. To put this conversation in perspective, unemployment at the time was at an all time low in many places.

She said that people just didn't want to work anymore. If the homeless poor wanted jobs, there were plenty to be had. He said people are working, just not in jobs advertised on the establishment's front door. Those jobs don't pay enough to live on. You would have to work 3 jobs and still not have enough to house and feed yourself. If the business owners would pay enough, people would work there. She said those jobs AREN'T WORTH THAT MUCH MONEY. (Sorry for the shouting, but I wanted to emphasize that part.)  He asked if she would do those jobs knowing that at the end of the day the only home waiting was a park bench. She did not answer. But there it is. She left the foul unspoken part sitting out for all of us to see. She thinks that there is a whole class of people who don't deserve a basic quality of life; housing, food, clothing, healthcare. They should just be grateful  for the privilege of flipping her burger. 

There is a study that says to rent a basic apartment anywhere in the US, you need to make $24.50 an hour. 

And that is what it is like here in the United States.

Cheese's Last Day

Sir Cheddar Cheese Esq. 
~2003?-May 15, 2022

One of the first things I was told about Cheese was too not get too attached. He didn't have long for this world. That was nearly three years ago. And he was a decrepit old cuss when I met him. It was hard to get a picture of him doing anything but sleeping. If he wasn't begging treats in the kitchen, it was most likely what he was doing. 

He died by halves, especially this past year. At Christmas it was clear that it would be his last. He immediately pulled himself under the tree and stayed there until we took it away from him in March. The tree was long dead, but he seemed to enjoy it. 

He went down hill since we removed the tree. He finally became almost completely paralyzed. But surprisingly was still quite lively sometimes. This past week he seemed like he turned a corner. He quit eating and drinking. He began to cry sometimes when people would walk by, but would stop if we would hold him. Karen woke up in the very early morning thinking it was time for the lunar eclipse. She had the wrong day. She found Cheese crying and stayed holding him until he quietly slipped away. 

We buried him in the back yard. I will find something suitable to mark his grave with, but until then we plan to plant sunflowers above it for this summer. He loved a good shady flower. Soon he will have them again.