Oh, say can you see?

Independence day approaches!
We really enjoy making ribs to take to the beach with us...we always go to Long Beach and set up our screen tent at Bolstad approach for the entire day.
It is entertaining to watch the people in their seriously ON road vehicles tackle the approach. Dubs don't necessarily make good beach cruising.
There was the one year when our neighbor came over to slap my sister (she deserved it) and the men then got into it. Can you say Jerry Springer?
The firework display over there is spectacular though the private displays rival that, there is never a dull moment.
One big birthday party!
I'm just bummed that we didn't pick up any of these over in Chinook, today:





What better to go with a national holiday? I got a great chuckle out of a shopper at the stand reading this off his "list" as he walked past!
How can you not love a nice rack?
Wanna see it in action?
Pyro King Nice Rack

Saturday is Columbia River Coffee Roaster's Grand Opening...yep, it bodes well for a great weekend.

Stay safe!

A teeny bouquet of wildflowers

Makes me think of a piece of a William Blake poem (from Auguries of Innocence):
"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

We were out at the Hammond marina viewpoint, today, watching the USCG Eagle depart.
The boys (and dog) played in the biting wind, and (once done taking photographs of the tall ship on the way out of the river) I plucked the tiniest bouquet with my numbed fingers.
I don't know what any of the three are technically named (my grandmother loved the "homespun" names for flowers, as opposed to the real ones), but they made a sweet, little arrangement.
If only for a moment, for they wilted rather swiftly once they were on the dash of the truck.
Glad I snapped a pic.

Hmmm

The doldrums have arrived!
I haven't been able to get completely out of them, either. The weather is my main excuse. Someone told me it was "just" an excuse, and well...they're right, I suppose.
Still, the sun, when it shone one week ago, was blistering hot. Didn't do much for my motivation.
The house has been torn apart, and one appliance after another seems hell-bent on quitting. Can't quite get my sh*t together to get it as clean as I'd like to before something else happens that stalls my progress.
I guess last weekend was Summer, but I'm not ready for Fall, and not wanting Winter. Please come back, Summer. I miss you!
TV is boring, and sleeping more than 7 or 8 hours is overrated.
Back to the surfing.

Bang your head!

I just detest hitting my head. Don't know too many that enjoy the sensation, though I wonder...
My small barn (six stalls for six small horses) has always been a little bit of a "make do" situation. From the days when we first moved here and it was just a two-stall shed, to the expansion in the Winter (yes, Winter) of '99.
I ADORE having an indoor space to go and feed the horses, and the barn cats have shelter.
What's happened is that it's a storage space for everything else. Four-wheelers, lawn mowers, extra lumber and what-have-you. The things that go with the horses are supposed to go in there, but the other things really bug me.
At times when we've had an extra stall, it's not so bad other than the dust and such that goes with the horses/bedding ends up on the stored item(s).
Martin had the idea to put in a shelf-type setup. This would make space for storage overhead. I didn't know this was going to happen until after it was built.
I thought it was a fine idea, but when I saw the execution, I was disappointed, though I tried to temper that.
The shelf was approximately 5'6" off the ground. I am very nearly 5'10" tall. I am the shortest adult member of the family. That was explained by the shelf being only 4' from the back wall...very little need to get under there.
Not so, I thought, as I remembered that that's where the horses like to go to pee. Of course, I ended up dropping it. Not sure why the shelf couldn't have been higher off the ground.
I envisioned myself bumping my head. Often. Happily, that did not happen.
Instead, it happens about 2-4 times a year, give or take. Today was the first time in about 6 months.
No matter, because it was a doozy.
I was dragging a huge, probably 80-lb. sack of bedding into Mouse's stall, walking backwards and shuffling at that. I had it going pretty good when I felt it.
I think I had one of those jaggy dialog clouds over my head like in the comic books. It said "KERRR-THUMPPPP-KRAKKKK" as the back of my head hit the corner of the 2X4. I had been in the process of standing up as I was shuffling backward.
I cursed. Loudly.
The horses, which had been milling around outside the doorway, thinking about coming in, quickly left, crossing the creek and away from my negativity.
Something about hitting your head that puts visions of violence dancing through the air.
I squeezed out tears, sobbing a few times just because it hurt that bad. I would have fallen to my knees, but I was in a horse stall that had just been stripped. Guess I didn't hit my head THAT hard.
Still, it pissed me right off.
As my Dad used to like to tell me, "better to be pissed off than pissed on."

Remembering mother

When one endeavors to write about personal topics in a public format, it bears keeping in mind that others may know of the ones involved.
I wonder, then, does anyone who stumbles across this remember my mother?
If so, I wonder what their recollections were.
The nature of my maternal family was to ostracize and "reward" those of blood relation with unusual cruelty. I have no idea why, but my theory remains that it was the ultimate in self-loathing manifesting itself.
In other words, these individuals disliked themselves to the point of hating their own offspring because they WERE flesh and blood. I could be wrong.
If, however, you were lucky enough not to have been born with a genetic link to them, the Piersons were apparently good as gold. I wouldn't know, though my grandmother Connie was very kind and generous to me, it still hurt that the others were shunned for one reason or another.
I think it's interesting how the other blood relations from that side of the family all but amputated any contact with myself, my brother and half-sister, at least as far as I am aware, for my relationship with my siblings is very sporadic in the former, and completely over in the latter. I guess again the fact that we were related made us repugnant. Family = the people who know all the right reasons to hate you.
This is probably greek to most of you.
I realize also that many of my mother's friends are either passed on or moved away. Several of her contemporaries (how can you call such creatures friends?) have probably died of the same vices that took her life. The good ones, like Heidi, I miss. She died last Summer.
I wonder where Frank has gotten off to, and wonder many things about many people I met there.
Most of them had no idea what kind of monster she had the potential to be. Why do I feel guilty in saying that? I can't completely forgive her, even though she is dead and cannot redeem herself.
If I were to do that, it would feel like acceptance (of what she was), and I will not do so. I know what she is/was, and that is enough. I don't have to like it or be comfortable with it.

So if you were a friend or acquaintance of Julia Cargill (née Parsons, Branigan, Seely and Douglass, maiden name Pierson), hello to you!

The number of my blood relation family is quite small, but I count myself fortunate to have many good friends. Some better than others for sure, but friends nonetheless. I hope that I am as good a friend as you are to me.

Wanderlust

yes, it is there, always looming, or bouncing slowly around the spaces of my brain.
As much as I tend to spend time at home, I love the open road.
I love to stop in a new space, and sample the sensual variety. Sights, sounds, scents and the ensuing change in feeling.
Short trips tend to mollify this beast within, but nothing more so than the "someday" imaginings of fruition.
Luckily, I live in a vast and expansive region. For as long as I have lived here, there are still new, and where once was something old, is quickly changed by the elements.
Craving desert, I can drive for less than four hours and find it. Verdant gaps between craggy mountains, streams and waterfalls. Snowy meadows, all of these exist near enough to soothe my need for different.
I suppose that I may need to bicycle there in order to afford all of these things, when and if that someday comes.
Right now, there is no better place than here.

Vacant

It's Spring Break, though you'd not know it to look and stand outside.
This is nothing surprising, for next week the sun will shine warmly, and the breeze will caress the empty playgrounds, parks and beaches in a heartbreaking display of irony.
It's too bad, that.
Another thing that is depressing is the vacancy in the downtown business areas. I don't pretend to know every contributing factor in this sad eventuality, nor do I profess to have the remedy.
That, as well, is too bad.
Since I don't own anything there, the most I can think to do is frequent the shops that are open, and pick up trash here and there. For no other reason than that I live here, and wish things were different.
Why do people let their dogs crap on the sidewalks? Why do they feel the need to dump their trash everywhere? Feeding pigeons is right up there...As is waiting with baited breath for the Home Depot, the Staples, the Big 5 to show up and further the destruction of small businesses.
Competition is all fine and well, but what about monopoly? Soon there will be no choices. It's a good thing we all love the exact same things, in great quantity, because it's being provided in convenient formats.
Buy, buy, buy, and throw, throw, throw. (as in trash)
Something vicious about the circles we seem to walk around in.
baaa!!!