Catch Up

It's been way too long since I've had time and energy to compose my thoughts. No posted photos, no thoughts on marriage rights, nothing. So, in ten photos or less, I'm going to get us caught up.

I wrapped up the quarter with AMAZING students

My wonderful niece graduated from her 2 year college

She's headed to Eastern Washington University- because Hogwarts doesn't take FAFSA

See the family resemblance?

We enjoyed Walla Walla once again, and all of its beauty

I got into a stupid Facebook argument after posting this picture. But seriously, this is an issue close to my heart

I am proud to be an American right now. I mean, I am always a proud American, but marriage equality came to our country. YES! Some say congratulations to same-sex couples, but I say congratulations to all of us! We're not free until we're all equal. 

G and I have been traveling around the state

This is Snoqualmie Falls.  My friend Chris Stinson says that next time we're in the area, she'll take us hiking!

Ever watch Twin Peaks? We went to the cafe.

In the TV show, Kyle Maclachlan has a piece of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. And so did I.

We went hiking outside of Leavenworth one day

This is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. We came across a deer, snake, and a bunch of other wildlife

I've been up early- 5 am- since about January. I go for walks or go to the gym every weekday

The 4th of July weekend took us to Olympia.  We don't have AC and it was over 100 in our town

"When the tide is out, the table is set"

I could live in Olympia.

Yep, just buy a houseboat and live on the water.... 

"Dignity in Labor". I framed the state capitol building in this. 

In Washington, lots of wilderness runs right through town. This photo was taken right by a giant freeway overpass.  This is Tumwater falls

I laugh at this photo all the time. It's a face and it's drinking water... 

Lovely little bed and breakfast

This is the Swantown Inn. Great place to stay, excellent homemade gourmet breakfast. Xeriscaped with a garden in front and lots of recycling.  They even keep bees.  

So that just about catches us up, right?

Except that I got a new job. I'll write about that in the next post.

Diversion!

I have so much grading to do. I need to give guidance to my poor, lost students.  All 103 of them.  I have two weeks left in the quarter before finals week.
I
Am
Tired!

I also have some tres weirdo stuff going on with my family right now. Not the kind of things you share in a blog for everyone to read, but stressful all the same.

So G and I have been cheering ourselves up on the weekends.  We spent a good two weeks looking for things to put into a care package for his family in Louisiana.  Most of them have not yet been to Washington. YET. I'm hoping they do come visit at some point.  I'm sure I've said it at some point, but I got really lucky in the In-Law department. Not just my husband's parents, but his sisters and nieces too.  So I thought as G and I went around our journeys in Washington, we'd buy little trinkets and send them along.

From Walla Walla, we found a magnet and coloring book, with some colorful post cards.  From Prosser- which is in wine country- we went to the Chukar Cherry factory.  It's a locally owned and operated company that makes chocolates, usually with cherries in them.  We tasted lots of them just to make sure we got the right ones.

From a little store we got Aplets and Cotlets. I don't even know where the factory is in Washington, but the candies are sort of Turkish delights with a twist.  The fruits are locally grown and the candy is made here too.  My grandma used to buy them for us, and as she gave them to us she would say "You're the aplet of my eye!"

We decided against sending sweet onions from Walla Walla.  Probably a good call.

We were going to send them a bottle of wine, but uh, we drank it.  And I'm not sure it's legal to send across state lines anyway.

But the care package is also our way of saying..... "There's more where that came from.....!"

Check out my MILs blog for her reaction.

Glad you liked it!

(Now back to grading)

Only Three More Weeks

I hate being sick.

I'm not surprise, but I hate being sick.

I have a little cold, which grew from a little cough last week to what seems today to be a full-blown tempest in a teapot.  Coughing, stuffy nose and I'm tired.  Apparently, just in time for Monday.  At least I got all my grading done yesterday! Today I'm glad I made it through teaching my classes; now I'm sitting and drinking mint tea and grading papers.  I walk to work in the mornings and G and I walk home together at night.  This morning was fine, but tonight is going to be impossible. It's still snowing and cold, and while I like that, it's bad for my lungs.  G volunteered to walk home and come pick me up.

****Wait- before I go further, shout out to JOHN in the Academic Resource Commons for reading my blog! Good to see you in the ARC and I look forward to working with you soon.*****

It's been a neat couple of weeks.  For Valentine's day, G got me some chocolates and I got him a vinyl record that he's been wanting.  I waited until Valentine's to get it for him because it's by a group called "My Bloody Valentine".  :-D

We got out of town and headed for Walla Walla for the weekend.  We had restaurant food, went to wine tasting rooms and generally had a good time. I have an astonishingly low tolerance for alcohol these days.  One glass of wine and I can't drive. Two and I'm falling asleep.  We did tastings at 4 tasting rooms and bought a couple of bottles.  After that, I needed a nap. What happened?! I used to be so young!

Oh well, I have more wisdom now- I know not to drink a whole lot and that taxis are not very expensive in Walla Walla.

Lots of cool attractions in Walla Walla.

Anyhoo, we popped over to Dayton on Sunday morning to visit my little family church.  Grey hasn't been there and since that means I hadn't been there in two years, we decided to hop to.  The church has changed since I was last there.  For one thing, there were a ton of people there and it used to be about 1/3 full on a good day. And I was related to just about everyone.  This time, we showed up at 11. I forgot that services start at 10:45. Ah well. We had to sit in the front pew because that was the only space available. There were also more children there, which I like. Except for visitors with children, I was always the youngest one there. Some of the kids got up and sang songs. After church was a soup and salad luncheon and we were invited to go.

The pastor remembered me, and he wandered over during the collection to say hello and meet my husband.  I like him and his wife a whole lot. They've been at the United Brethren Church in Dayton since the early 1990s. That still makes him the new pastor. I remember two pastors before him.  He was very good to my grandparents and took special care with my grandma before she died.

Some things hadn't changed. For one, my Aunt Sarah was there. She'd just had some surgery on her hip and was looking mighty strong. She sort of charges ahead once again, and that's just the way I love my fire-haired aunt.  She's my grandpa's sister, and she's just as stubborn. I loved visiting with her. She and G get along too- not that he's ever not gotten along with people.  It just makes me happy. She bossed us around a bit and told us stories, and re-introduced us to the church.  As it turns out, I'm still related to just about everybody. There is something in me that just wants to help people, so after we ate, I walked around and picked up everybody's plates and refilled coffee. This is the kind of place where they serve homemade pickles and butter on a piece of bread. That's where bread and butter pickles come from, in case you wondered.  There were four homemade soups and probably 10 different types of sandwiches with jello mold desserts and pie and cookies and low sugar options.  Dayton is eventually catching up with the rest of the world.

My Uncle Vernon's chair is still there, in the United Brethren Church, Dayton, Washington

Sarah had G in thrall (she was talking his ear off) and I even had a moment to say hello to my Uncle Vernon's best friend, Morris, and his wife Carol. I like them an awful lot too.  Although, when I saw Carol, I broke out in tears.  I remember how much Grandma loved her and what good friends they were. Once when Carol was sick, Grandma was afraid she wouldn't recover and got a bit teary-eyed herself.  All of this rushed over me as I tried to say polite things.  All that came out was "It's good to see you.  Oh, you remind me of my grandma!" Then I got all sniffy.  She gave me a hug.  I don't know, I'm not much of a cryer, and I certainly don't go around crying in public.  When Pastor Greg came to say goodbye though, I teared up again.  He did too, saying how much my grandparents were loved and how much we miss them.  It was a lovely visit.

My fiery Aunt Sarah. I'm gonna look that good when I'm 90!

Anyway, last week I started feeling a cough coming on, and have had to up my asthma medicine.  This morning and afternoon, it's cough/hack/ick/cough.  I think I'm going to go home and just go to bed. Ride it out. I know what it's from- too much work. I'm overextended, teaching 4 online classes and working for the dean 30 hours a week.

I hate being sick.

Only 3 more weeks, only three more weeks...

Then more adventures!

You can almost see the snow on my hair...

Sneaky/Happy

I am certain that I mentioned before that I am not a good negotiator.  My husband learned this when we agreed that a certain Friday would be the last day that we would be able to accept an offer from the university.  Then I never communicated that date to them and I didn't get the contract.  My philosophy is that people will do what's right and that they are doing the best they can.

So Grey gave me (and them) an extension until Wednesday.  I communicated this with everything but a bullhorn.  I went behind someone's back.  I cajoled and wheedled.  Wednesday came; Wednesday went.  No contract.  Thursday morning I got the first of the two contracts.  Friday at 4:30, after I posted my blog, I found the second contract in my inbox.

I was so sad.  We'd discussed it.  We had decided.  End of story.  I thought that perhaps it couldn't hurt to forward the contract to him at work and see what he thought.  In the meantime, I was looking forward to some other neat opportunities in Oklahoma at two of the state colleges.  C'mon, I'm a Ph.D.  I can find something relatively easily.  Gulp.  With insurance.  And benefits. That pays ok. As a teacher.  Shoooooooo!

Besides, we already decided a course of action, right?  NO way to change our minds, right?  Stay in comfy, cushy Oklahoma with its mild winters and blistering hot can't-breathe-for-2-months heat that depresses me and makes me want to live on a polar ice cap.  That's the plan.  No way I'm asking Grey to reconsider and please may we move to Washington after I'd already secured an extension.

Thoughts swirled through my tornado brain.  If I have never told you about my tornado brain, it's an amazing and efficient machine.  Any event that happens, my brain likes to imagine the worst case scenario, then whip the event around in my head several times and force a scary and difficult outcome wherein I end up living under an overpass with only Eleanor, a shopping cart and a machete.  Depending on how much I wanted what I didn't get, and sometimes depending on how much I wanted what I did get, it doesn't take long for me to get to the shopping cart scenario.  This time?  Five point two seconds.  With broken down house slippers and a mumu. That's a record of some sort.

By the time Grey got home from work around 6:30, I was in a lather.  I would not wouldnotwouldnot ask him to change our plans.  We were heading out for Norman immediately, so we decided to wait and talk on the way.  Time dragged as he packed his things.  I breathed.  I felt a trickle of sweat slide down the hollow part of my back.  My ear itched; I scratched.  I petted the cat.  He forgot something.  I threw everything (including the cat in her carrier) in the back seat and jumped in.

"So."
"Yep."
"You got the contracts?"
"Yep."
"What do you want to do?"
"..."
"Huh?"
"I said that's not fair.  We decided.  I am not asking to change the course of action."
"Oh."  He thought for a moment.
"Well, what do you want to happen?"  I smelled a trap.
"That's not fair.  I want to know what you think too." He smiled. Grey has a regular smile, a 5,000 watt smile and a sly smile.  This was his sly smile.
"Yeah, I'll tell you what I want.  You first."
"I think we already decided.  I think we should stay in Oklahoma."
"But what do you Want?"
"I want to go to Washington."
"Ok. Let's go."
"Whoa buddy. Input first. You can't just make pronouncements without telling me what's on your mind.  I need your thinking."  Again, Grey smiled his sly smile.  The middle of his lips stay put but the corners go up exponentially, creating a deep V that makes his eyes crinkle a little.  It's...fetching. My heart always beats a little faster when he smiles like that.
"I was thinking that giving them a Wednesday deadline was likely to get a contract by Friday."  By Friday?  My brain tornadoes.  Wait. What?  So he..
"Did you play me?"
"Uh, yeah."

He tricked me.  He gave me a Wednesday deadline so that I would become a hard-nosed negotiator because he knew I would be frantic.  Oh! I never!  How.... Effective.  Oh and he lied to me!  I spent almost .03 seconds being mad at being so easy to predict.  Then I realized that we are moving to Washington.

We are moving back to Washington! Yay!

Yay for beaches and mountains and Canada and Seattle and sisters and nieces and nephews and hiking and a blue state!

Looking out from Port Angeles

Quilcene Bay, 2011
On a clear day, you can see forever

Mt. St. Helens

Port Angeles, Washington

Sand Dunes, Port Townsend, Washington

Privilege and Cantaloupe

I was cutting cantaloupe for breakfast this morning. I've been thinking of my grandma a lot lately, since she died in March, the day before her birthday.  And when I think of her I usually have memories of food and home and cooking and cleaning with lemon-scented Pledge.


This morning it was cantaloupe.  I usually don't bother with it because of the slicing and scooping out of seeds and so forth.  Plus it gets a little slimy and I don't really enjoy handling this fruit. But it reminds me of childhood. It would be early on a dry summer morning, around 6:30 when the sun comes up over the ridge.  Out on Patit Creek Road it's a valley winding through farmland.  On either side of my grandparents house are cows belonging to the Broughton's and Grandpa and Uncle Kennard usually had a cow/calf or a couple of them to raise for meat.  Old farm implements dot the landscape and Grandpa's shop always had machinery and tools and bins of nails, screws and other things someone might need to fix the problems of the world.  It smelled like oil and old grease and whatever old mamma cat they had would inevitably hide her kittens in the shop because it was out of the elements and cats always trusted Grandpa more than anyone in the world. The five acres my grandparents owned were farmed every year to grow alfalfa or grass hay for the animals.  In later years, my cousins Lester and Little Kennard, the grandsons of my great uncle Kennard, did the seeding and harvesting for Grandpa.  That's what family is for, to go on and to help and to keep things going.

Grandma loved cantaloupe.  She would make breakfast when I was little, getting up early to throw sausage and pancakes on the griddle and she would always have a fresh fruit and milk and coffee to drink.  To wake up in the morning to that was such a treat.  The smell of the griddle and the coffee percolating and sometimes the washer and dryer going at the same time made me happy to be alive.  And we'd sit down and eat when she called us, watching "Good Morning America" on television.  Then it would be dishes and clean up and outside to play.  The sun would begin to cook us and in the afternoon, after lunch, Grandma would take us to the pool for a couple of hours.  There was always cold watermelon when we got home.  Much of that fruit, plus all of the walla walla sweet onions were bought at roadside stands.  The strawberries came from Klickers and once, my sister brought home a starving calico kitten which she called  "Onion Baby".  One of the most loving cats we ever had.

Some people have privilege in their lives through social status or money.  This morning, I bit into the juicy cantaloupe and thought of the privilege of my youth, of gravel roads and public swimming pools and I wonder if I will ever find that again.