Those Garbage Burning Days

“Hi I’m in Walmart, do you need anything?”

This weekend, I have been taking my calls from my sick nest on the shop couch.


“Cough cough cough cough cough cough cough. Cough. No.” I’m sure I do need something from Walmart, but I couldn’t get past the coughing to name items.





The woods are on fire today. That, or the beautiful weather welcomes burn piles. Whatever it is, it makes me cough more. On the other hand, the sun and no-coat-needed weather is healing. Shotgun rounds echo off in the background in the most casual way and I observe the fog of smoke coming through the sticks.



I sent my husband’s visiting friend to Deception Pass for some Washington. He’d woken up wanting to climb a mountain. Some Verizon Wireless teller advised this mountain climbing could happen in Anacortes. I pulled a satellite view of the bridges and pointed. “Veer left toward Whidbey. Go over this, park here. Trailhead should be riiiiight here across the street.” Delivered him to one of the better Puget Sound daytrips I could think of.

I anticipate I won’t be seeing him for some few hours.

A day earlier in the week took us (myself and best friend since 1988, Ayrn Cromeenes) to the farm-to-market bakery for some peanut soup with rice. We sat out in the Edison sunshine waiting for a fresh batch. Four full cups. And fresh bread. For less than twenty bucks. Which made for a seriously fine lunch in the teacher’s lounge at Edison Elementary School, our alma mater, for Ayrn’s mom, another teacher, and us.




Later we ended up for one reason or another in Marysville waiting in what we called “The Parking Lot of Champions.” The Municipal Court or Clerk or Something of Marysville.






AAAaaaaand about the time we got back to the Valley, My cough really started to take hold. My husband went to Portland with his Nashville friends for the weekend and had a fantastic sunny getaway from sicky. I nested on the couch with a fever and haven’t really moved since.