Tis the Season!

Holiday joy to all! However you choose to celebrate the season, may it bring you happiness.

Yes, I'm still here, alive and kicking. Busy with my rekindled mania for genealogy. Getting fat and lazy. Just celebrated my 76th birthday with some lovely cheeses, sourdough bread, and a drinkable (can't afford really good) red wine. Life could be worse.

YUM, to the nth degree

My morning (and a good bit of yesterday) was devoted to this. Fresh blackberry cake with cream cheese frosting. TO DIE FOR!!

Fresh, local organic berries from the farmer's market. Local cultured cream cheese from Nancy's (of yogurt fame), which is located here in Eugene. I could have eaten the entire container of that cream cheese, it was so good. I didn't even know they made cream cheese, but now that I do, I expect to find uses for it.

Cake was a little dense, but more likely operator-trouble than recipe trouble. This recipe was from Stella Parks, aka BraveTart, who I follow slavishly on Twitter.

The messy top cannot be blamed on her. I had leftover blackberry puree and wanted to drizzle it nicely over the top. Turned out to be splotchy, not nice, so I swirled it to try and cover up some of the mess.

I made this with the thought of taking it to a resident's meeting this afternoon, but it was so small I opted to just share it with a couple of friends who would appreciate it, and the people in the office, who are always appreciative. Mostly, I just wanted to make it and taste it. Well worth the effort.

The red/orange sun that isn't

Cameras are weird. My eyes saw this as a bright and deep red/orange and yet even with several tries the camera saw it as white. The deep red is much more dramatic and interesting, but.... what can you do? Other than long for the control I used to have with my film cameras.

However. While it may be less colorful, I think the photo probably illustrates the smoky skies that show themselves every evening when the sun is setting, blocking out the sun's rays like clouds while turning the sun itself into a pretty cool color (photo not withstanding). White or red/orange, taking an actual photo of the sun like this as an actual round star is ordinarily not possible. The sheer brilliance of this light doesn't allow it.

Fortunately, we don't have big fires nearby this year, yet, although there are something like 16 'large' fires burning across the state. Last summer our air was almost unbreathable (in the dangerous category) and while we had fires in northern Oregon, weather phenomena was bringing the smoke from a huge fire in southern Oregon, near Brookings, up here into the valley. I haven't seen any reports one way or the other, but I'm guessing a lot of this smoke is also being blown from the south -- from the huge fires near Redding and just north of Napa Valley around Clearlake.

Note: A day later, a video on Twitter from NWS that shows exactly how the smoke is traveling up the I-5 corridor and into Canada.

These fires don't have quite the emotional impact for me personally that the Napa/Sonoma fires had last fall, but I couldn't begin to count the times I've driven to/from the Bay Area from Oregon since 1996, and Redding is usually a pit stop. First city of any size, first one out of the mountains. Time for gas and/or food. And my last trip to Sonoma, in April, took me through the Clearlake area that is now burning. Alas.

When will it be our turn again? Hard to say. We've had a couple already, early in the season, and there will undoubtedly be more.

An escape to the coast

So this morning I felt a real need to escape TV, Twitter and the entire shitstorm in DC today. Whatever side of the argument you prefer, I think we can all agree it's a shitstorm. After a very small amount of consideration I decided upon Newport, north west of here. Not the closest place to find a beach or a coastal town, but the one I felt a need to drive to. After a couple of hours on the road, I arrived here. Not shabby. I took a path down to the beach, removed my shoes and started walking north to just past where that building on the beach is, where I'd head back up the cliff. The sand was so hot I ended up putting the shoes back on, which was surprising. But if felt good.

I found the restaurant I wanted, though the fish & chips were little more than average. And the serving was huge so I'm still stuffed. It felt good to be on a beach again, free and happy.

Rather than head back the way I came -- through Corvallis -- I opted to drive south to the little town of Waldport, where I lived for awhile, and cut inland from there. En route I passed so many beaches I explored so often during those days, finally gave in to one in Seal Beach, just a tad north of Waldport. I finally got my feet on a beach again! Nice, wet beach that's easy to walk upon.

Looking north back towards Newport. Lovely day on the water. Nice breeze, warm sunshine. The tide was very calm -- perhaps ebbing, perhaps neap, perhaps beginning to edge back to shore, but calm and peaceful and easy to walk in the waves without fear of being swamped. Just gentle waves washing my ankles. Lovely.

I walked south for awhile, hated to turn back but I was still a good distance from home. That headland in the distance is Cape Perpetua, which is just south of Yachats, which is just south of Waldport.

The Alsea River bridge in Waldport. Once at low tide I walked through this area and under that bridge around and up the river a good bit before I could find a place to get out. My first and only exploration of mud flats. It was sucky and stinky and it was raining, as I recall. And I was happy as I could be. I had just moved there.

From here, I followed the river on and off for a long while inland to the burg of Alsea. I'd consulted a map before leaving Newport and had found a 'shortcut' from Alsea over to Monroe that would save me from returning to Corvallis. I know it's unlikely, but if you ever find yourself looking for that road, suffice it to say that there is zero sinage telling where it is from the highway. After a few U-turns and consulting the map again, I finally decided that there was only one option, sign or not. A couple of miles in there was a tiny sign pointing to a road that branched off to the left. I almost missed it, even looking for such a turn.

This was an interesting road, though beautiful. Kept getting narrower. Finally a 'rough road' sign and then not much further a 'one lane road with turnouts' sign. Well, OK. I love to explore and it's not like mid-winter when such exploration might not be such a good idea. For the most part the road was wide enough for cars to pass, though I saw few of them. Largely wound through forested land, with arches of trees overhead in dappled sunlight. Quite lovely. I passed a sign to Alsea Falls Recreation Area or something like that, but nothing that specified 'Alsea Falls'. Turns out, that's where the falls are. I was getting itchy to reach home, so I didn't stop. But I'd already decided that Alsea Falls was a place I was going to explore soon, since in all my years here I've never done it. Now I know where it is and how to get there.

As promised, the road traveled through the burg of Alpine and to Hwy 99 at Monroe, where I came home through some vineyard and winery areas. About a 6.5 hour day, all in all. But worth every mile of it. I've promised myself to do a lot more of this kind of thing. I find myself in serious need of mental health days right now.

It's been so long since I've done something like this alone that I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. Company is great, but there's something to be said about being alone, with good music and plenty of time to think.  Free to go where I want, do what I want, stop when I want, come home when I want. Take off on BLM roads when I want and see where they go.

Another beautiful sunset

Another beautiful sunset last night, and the night before. I waited a tad too long to decide to take this, because there had been light rays spearing up from the sun. But sunsets don't wait for people to decide to get their cameras. Every moment is fleeting.

Harder to take photos now because I got my curtains installed yesterday and now I don't have the unfettered view of the window. Had to get close to it, and was afraid that either the camera would focus on the rain splatters on the window, or catch my reflection in the window. Thankfully, it chose to focus where I wanted it.

Killer sunset!

You're probably going to get tired of sunset photos. Especially now that I've discovered that the camera will focus just fine through the glass, as long as I'm not too close to it. This one was right after an unexpected spring rain and was spectacular.

And then the battery died, which is probably just as well because the camera was not focusing so well for distance as the light lessened. The show went on for quite awhile longer.

Sunsets from the window

Sunsets around here are getting better! Last couple of nights I've just sat on my sofa and watched, rather mesmerized. Much better standing at the window, of course, because naturally the view is more expansive. So much more above and to the sides. But, my camera gets too confused trying to focus beyond either the screen, on the left, or the rain-spattered glass, on the right. So I stay at a distance. Definitely time for a new camera.

I did try just through the screen, as the scene progressed. Definitely a lot of whirring going on as it finally figured out it needed to focus on the trees, or something other than the screen. Any closer, however, and I suspect the screen would win. Beautiful anyway, tho not great photography!

The art of making a bed when the cat won't get off it!

When I moved, I made the bed up with 'summer weight' cotton sheets. I don't love them but would have lived with them, but I'd forgotten to put the mattress pad on and I kept feeling that I needed to do that. Or, maybe it was just an excuse to put the flannels back on, who knows!

The cat stayed on the bed through the entire process, moving as I needed to spread the sheets out. I knew she loved these soft, cotton-flannel sheets, but I don't think I knew how much she loves them until today. All of these photos are blurry, because she kept rolling over and over and nuzzling that soft flannel. She never sleeps on the sheets, but when I get up in the morning I tend to turn the covers back and expose where I'd been sleeping. We humans do sweat while we sleep, even if it's not obvious, and I like to let everything dry out for awhile in the mornings. And this is where the cat comes in, because she loves to sleep on that turned-back flannel sheet, atop two layers of puffy wool comforter.

There may come time when I need to switch to cooler sheets, but for now, Kat and I are both happy.

Moves and half-siblings

So -- all in all, it's been a pretty interesting week. Especially when you consider that day to day life around here is generally totally uninteresting.

First -- I moved. Already chronicled. Made quick work of it. Worth every back ache and ounce of fatigue it caused, too. I love the new place. Inside, it looks just like the other one, except for different color carpeting. Furniture is all in the same place, etc. Even the cat seemed to feel at  home when I brought her onto the premises after everything was moved. It smelled different, to a cat's sensitive nose, but it looked familiar. She had to sniff out every inch of the carpet and cabinets and whatever didn't hold her scent, but settled down quite quickly to the idea that this was home.

For me, it was more about quiet, and temperature. Even though this unit faces west, it's still cooler than the one that faced east. I think that's largely due to the westerly breeze that's almost always out there, as well as the fact that the sun doesn't hit my windows until around 4pm and then it's gone in a couple of hours and then the cool breeze cools it down quickly again. The breezes escaped the east-facing unit. I could see the leaves moving on the trees, but somehow none of it ever came in the windows. The sun always hit those windows early, too, and for several hours. All in all. A good move.

The other interesting thing is that I discovered that I have a half-brother I never knew existed. Only through the wonders of DNA and the internet! To make a long story short, my father apparently sowed some wild oats while he was in Taiwan in 1952, hence the half-brother. I don't have DNA testing, but some first cousins do have and this man's son submitted his own DNA on the off chance he'd find a match. He knew my father's name, but with a common name like John Smith, he had little chance of finding the right person.

And he's definitely found the right person. He sent a photo of his father (my half-brother) and the resemblance to my father is uncannily eerie. There's no doubt in my mind, certainly, even without the DNA evidence matching offspring of my father's brother. The whole family lives in the US now, and has for a long time. I'm not going to post photos because I want to be careful of their privacy. It's been pretty cool to know that I have a Taiwanese half-brother. I was a little shocked when I first read the 'comment' posted on my FamilySearch webpage. He said he didn't know how else to contact me.

So there's that. Correspondence at a minor standstill right now because the young man is in the USAF stationed in Australia and doesn't have much time to write during the week. But he will, I'm sure. There's lots more for both of us to discover.

A quick move upstairs

Not a spectacular sunset, as sunsets go, but this is the view from my new apartment, from my sofa. Not bad. Not bad at all. Windows were open all day yesterday, with a cool and fresh westerly breeze blowing through. Also not bad. I like the apartment, and am very pleased to see that it does not have that awful, brown/gray carpet but a lighter one that is much more pleasing.

But quiet, blessedly quiet. And cool. Equally blessedly.

I'm still not completely moved. Just stuff left to put into boxes, not a lot of it. Then I have to clean the place. It won't need a lot, but some things. Like the refrigerator and bathroom and vacuuming.

Am I tired? You bet. But the achy back is gone and I'll be happy to finish this up and settle in here, though everything I've moved so far is already put away and the place looks pretty much as it always did.

Here she goes again...

Yep, moving again, but this time just up one flight of stairs (or a short elevator ride).

The apartment I'm in faces a very busy street that is very noisy. If the windows are open during the day, I can't even hear a person on the other end of the phone without going into the bathroom and plugging up my ears. Noise goes from around 5am to around midnight.

I have to use headphones if I want to watch TV with the windows open and don't want to blast my neighbors with volume.

The apartment is also uncomfortably hot at night during the coolest 9 months of the year, primarily because they keep the halls at a steady 73f day and night except for a few short summer months. Combine that with apartments above, below, and both sides and this apartment is just too hot. If I open the windows to keep it cool, the noise keeps me from sleep.

I'm not the only one who feels this way -- plenty of my neighbors on this floor feel the same. I could use AC, but I hate cold air blowing on me. I've slept abominably poorly since the heat went up last fall, and my brain and body are suffering because of it.  Right now, I'm using the AC for a couple of hours before I go to bed, to cool the place off for sleeping. For example. Last night I cooled it to 68, kept it there for awhile before going to bed. Then, turned it off, opened the living room window a few inches. Opened it wider at some point during the night when I got up to pee. At 5am the temp was back up to 70, with no source of heat. Outside temp was 53f. Arrgggggh!

All that to say -- I asked my doc for a required letter saying this is detrimental to my health, and on the day the letter arrived in the mail, about two weeks ago, I learned that a woman upstairs had died the previous day. Short story, I ended up getting that apartment. Third floor is cooler, according to some residents I've talked to. At least there's no insulating heated apartment above us up there. The apartment also faces the rear of the building, which is quieter. That will enable me to keep the windows open at night even in the winter, without being bombarded by noise when I'm trying to sleep.

Moving May 29th, day after Memorial Day. People here are helping, and I'll be given 2 days to get this apartment cleared out and turned over to the office. While I don't particularly look forward to the process of moving itself, I do look forward to the quiet and hopefully, cool nights.

Quiet walks on sunny days

Not far from where I live is a lovely 'private' path that cuts through a greenbelt between two rows of very nice homes. Their backyards look out over this, as well as lots of ponds and fountains. It's supposedly for residents only, but we use it since we are residents of the general area, and I can't imagine anybody challenging someone for using it, as long as they weren't doing anything but walk the path. It's not a lengthy path, maybe a half mile, but it's really lovely and this was a fine morning to take advantage of it. Spring greenery and sunshine -- a lovely combination.

I walked along this path a couple of weeks ago without my camera and came upon a few geese with at least 2 dozen little balls of fluff following them around. Hatchlings, before they start to grow and become a bit gangly, as these are. They scurried away from me and into a nearby pond, and I could have killed for my camera! Then the sunshine was replaced by clouds and fog for awhile, so I didn't get back over there until today.

Good coffee is a thing of beauty

There's nothing like a good cup of coffee to start the day off and make me feel about as joyful as these kids.

My old coffeemaker died a couple of months ago and since I was still anticipating a possible major life change where I wouldn't need such a thing, I put off buying a new one and have used a single-cup cone filter. OK coffee, but variable from day to day.

I spent last week in California considering this major life change and, in the end, decided I was better off staying where I am. I had rather a whirlwind of a trip -- total of 6 days, including two days of driving -- but it was enough and while I could have stayed an extra day, I opted to drive on  home. I was ready. Pretty tiring trip for an old broad like me, though the body and mind handled it better than I expected. It's been almost two years since I'd made this trip, so I wasn't sure what to expect with all the fatigue and lack of energy I've had in recent months.

I vegetated for a few days afterwards -- recouping from the entire 6 days -- but since I had to do a bit of grocery shopping in order to eat, I also researched coffee makers and found one I wanted available at the local WalMart. Small drip coffeemaker. Nothing special, just small. After a few days of trial and error, how much coffee for my large mug, one or two filters, today I think I have found the perfect recipe.

Two filters, definitely. I learned this trick back in 2000 when I worked for the president and winemaker of a good Napa Valley winery. One morning I was making coffee and he came in and suggested I use two filters. In his lovely French accent and winemaker terminology, he explained that two filters gives the coffee more time to 'macerate'. This was a new concept to me, but he was right. The coffee and the water stay in contact longer, plus the two filters seem to create an end result that has less residue even though the coffee is strong. Perfect!

So, now that I'm apparently here to stay (and not at all sorry about that), I need to turn my attention to many other things that have been on hold for these months as the decision hovered over my life. It feels good.

Time out

She doesn't know it, but she's been given a reprieve from wearing the dreaded halter and traveling many hours in the car.

I decided to leave her here, with the neighbor across the hall (a cat lover) coming in to feed and play with her. I doubt she'll even miss me.

She was sick for a month or so and during that time came to refuse food she'd been happily eating for a long time. I think she somehow associated the smell of that food with illness. She often tossed it up after eating, though the problem wasn't with the food. But, she didn't know that and instinct probably took over. Now, she's gotten really fussy. I bought new brands and flavors of canned food. Open them up, she loves them for a day or so, then acts like it's poison. This is pricey cat food, and I'm about to just let her have a diet of all dry food. Tired of wasting money and effort.

She also just had her first 'time out' this morning, and it seems to have worked. She was having a hissy-fit for an hour or so after I gave her food she sniffed and didn't want. Doing things she knows are off-limits. Showing me who's boss. So I put her into her carrier for 5 minutes or so. First she was quiet, then she rattled the door trying to make it open. When she got quiet again, I let her out and she immediately followed me, seemed contrite, then hopped up on the bed for her usual morning nap.

Since today is Easter Sunday, and I'm a Buddhist, it seems appropriate to post a link to a BBC documentary entitled Jesus was a Buddhist. The evidence seems pretty convincing, really. But if it's not your thing, that's OK too. We each have to follow our own truth and conscience and I make no judgment about paths others walk.

Quiet morning at the ponds

The ponds can be especially beautiful in early mornings, any season. This is a photo from fall -- last year? Year before? Doesn't matter. It's timeless.

I didn't make it out quite this early today, but early enough that it was quiet, other than the geese flying around and honking. Many signs of spring out there. I hadn't planned a walk today -- the body is whining a bit because I've really pushed the yoga and stretches for a couple of weeks -- but a gentle stroll in nature is always a good thing. Plus, the day dawned without rain and the cold sunshine beckoned. There will be rain later, no doubt. It's that time of year.

Life goes well here. I still have some asthma brought on by exercise, after the bout of bronchitis, or whatever it was. It's getting better, though, and doesn't stop me from walking. Merely slows me down. I go years, decades without this making its presence known in my life, but it's always there, lurking, waiting for something to trigger it. But it also always goes away and I expect it'll do that this time as well. Just a matter of when.

Our crazy minds

So. I'm on the cusp of making a really big life decision. It's a decision that will bring major changes, including giving up most material possessions and foregoing entertainment. I can still keep my car, personal necessities, income, can use some kitchen stuff but not others.

I bring this up without further information because it's been really fascinating to watch my mind as I've been mulling this over, watching where resistances come in. Resistance to giving things up. I already knew I could deal with the big stuff, or I wouldn't even be contemplating the change. But I've had a giggle or two about some of the small stuff.

Like, my really nice burr coffee grinder. Probably too noisy to take with me. And my beloved heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer. Could take it, but not sure if it would be at all useful. That's actually where the resistance comes up the worst. That mixer. What do I do, give it to Goodwill? Doing that would certainly be good for me, in terms of learning to let go of material things that aren't useful. But I'd hate it. Fight it.

Giving up watching college football is also something I'm struggling with. I can/will do it, of course, but I haven't missed an Oregon game in years, and don't look forward to starting this year. I can always follow the news and know how they're doing, of course, but not the same as watching. I especially get a giggle over this resistance. The strength of it.

Everything else is just stuff. Most of it came from Goodwill anyway.

No real decision will be made for a couple of months, or maybe more, as I sit with this and mull it over every possible way. Sorry to leave you in limbo until then. 😼