Lunch in Astoria

Lunch in Astoria
Originally uploaded by JuliMil

Seared Tuna Salad, after quickly devouring one piece of tuna at the Baked Alaska Cafe on an old pier overlooking the vast Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. We loved the food as well as Jeanne, our friendly, enthusiastic and efficient server.

Smoked Oysters

Smoked Oysters
Originally uploaded by JuliMil

The Long Beach Peninsula has always been fascinating to me and these five days have been a real treat, especially since our friends Gerry and Nancy came down to join us for a while. Yesterday after they left we took a scenic drive to Ilwaco and Cape Disappointment, then meandered eastward along the Columbia River and crossed the magnificent bridge to Astoria. We had a great lunch there then walked through the historic downtown, window shopping and munching goodies from an old fashioned Danish bakery. And, we have two more cans of smoked oysters to take home.

Saddest of News

Pepper, formerly known as "The Devil Dog", more recently considered the sweetest schipperke in the world, took his last little walk yesterday morning and then collapsed, all used up.  Certainly, he had more close calls and adventures in his sixteen years than most dogs.  He survived a night of frigid winter weather in coyote country in New Mexico,  he got run over by a car in front of our Seattle house and survived with just some sore spots and, as Jacob remembers, "the shit squished out of him", he led all the dogs at the off-leash area under or over the fence and down the cliff and back again -- these are just a few memories of a most independent and high spirited dog who could never ignore an interesting scent.  We buried him in a beautiful spot overlooking Puget Sound.  It's been really painful.  Anyone who has truly loved a pet knows.  

Hitchhiker 2

Hitchhiker 2
Originally uploaded by JuliMil

Same little frog, different view.

Hitchhiker 1

Hitchhiker 1
Originally uploaded by JuliMil

I was driving along a country road and look what hopped onto the hood of my car!  After taking these two photos, I gave him a gentle poke and he only moved over a little, so I poked him again, he peed an impresive stream and leaped back into the woods. 

Technology and Nature: The Untameables

Cloudless sunrise over the Cascades this morning revealed thick fog over south Puget Sound and behind downtown Seattle.  I wrestled the spotting scope off the tripod and replaced it with my old Nikon film camera equipped with telephoto lens.  I've been unhappy with the results from my little digital camera, trying to capture the variety of boat traffic on the Sound so rescued the old SLR from storage.  Hoping the rising sun would glaze Mt. Rainier with a rosy glow like it did some months ago plus light up the towers downtown, I made coffee and waited, but no luck, the fog moved in and the scene got hazy.  Took a shot anyway and when I finish the roll and put it on a disk I'll see the results.  We get so spoiled by digital technology!

Speaking of technology, I've had my share of failures in the last 24 hours.  First, a very embarrassing email went out with my ragged, rough notes from the gallery meeting instead of the  three page polished to near-perfection version of the minutes it had taken hours to write. Panic!  Fortunately, the finished version was still in Documents, in some strange form that didn't allow it to be attached.  Those nasty notes kept attaching in my experiments.  After a call to my Mac guru, GVW, the problem was resolved and the minutes went out to the gallery members.  Huge sigh of relief as I poured a welcome glass of wine to go with my comfort food dinner (blue corn tortilla chip nachos).  Relief was short-lived because the internet connection soon failed.  A long phone intervention by the ISP tech repair determined that the problem was in our Time Capsule router, so I called Apple, but they were gone for the night.  That was last night and now this morning it's fixed, thanks to Apple tech repair in Ottawa.   Correction: It was not fixed. I had to take it back to Apple and then the new one didn't work right, so I had to take it back, and fight with the store manager because I didn't bring the box it came in.
The world is in financial meltdown but we still have the internet.  How cool is that?  The last techno issue is the satellite TV.  This morning a repair guy is coming to see why it suddenly shuts off plus I'm hoping he can improve the picture quality.

David left early in the morning to keep an appointment with the insurance adjuster for the boat and Jacob had gone back to Seattle the night before, so I was alone all day except for when neighbor Janet came over with two more balls of homemade butter.  When the internet connection failed, I suddenly felt so isolated.  It makes a big difference when living kind of remote like this. 

Yesterday was lovely prior to things messing up.  I was outside all day, landscaping.  The bed along the woodsy side of the house is finally done after digging down and sifting out an astounding amount of pebbles, stones and vinca roots.   Neighbor Joe's handy sifting screen really did a job!  The horrible, invasive vinca is now replaced with azaleas, pieris japonica and a single Yuletide camellia in the center between the windows.  In five years or so, it should look great!  After lunch, I went back out and worked on a border of beach rocks that used to be imbedded among grass and weeds in the flower beds.  Now they're placed in a partial ring over cardboard and landscape fabric around the former fire pit transformed into a drought tolerant garden.  I had used leftover plastic from construction materials under the rocks, but garden guru Dori advised me against that, so they all had to be moved and washed.  Today I plan on doing more digging and sifting out of rocks and gravel and planting the last azalea.    The wax myrtle still needs a home in the ground.  Jacob was here so briefly I didn't get him to dig the hole.  David doesn't do gardening.  Lucky I love it!  It's a beautiful day and time to go out and play in the garden.

McLame and the S & L Bailout

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Tempestuous Times

Lots of wind today.    The mast broke on our boat while David was racing and both the mast and mainsail were lost.  It was hard to walk a straight line on the ferry.  We passengers grinned foolishly at each other as we staggered about.  Getting back after a quick trip to Seattle,  I noticed a big pile of maple boughs beside our lane and later heard that a neighbor's visitors had cleared them off for me, just being helpful.  People seem to look out for each other around here.  A few days ago, Pepper wandered off the property and a neighbor, one of the old-timers, tracked me down to tell me he was at her place, eating cat food she puts out for a wild cat.  I'm grateful for the help and feeling of community on our road.  Although I did have a bad moment a few days ago when I discovered my newly placed Obama/Biden sign tossed high into the bushes.  I fished it out, put it back up and there it has remained.

Earlier today I caught This American Life's in depth report on the financial crisis.  The descriptions of reckless excess among high level speculators were staggering.  I'm thinking the damage they did to our financial security is comparable to al-Qaeda's attacks on the Twin Towers.  I'm grieving for all of us whose lives will be forever changed by the simple fact that people in power who had the ability to rein in the speculators chose not to,  in the mistaken belief that the wizards of Wall Street knew what they were doing.  The future is always a mystery, but tonight it's looking especially grim.