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.

bird whisperer

Yesterday I participated in hourly comic day. (http://www.hourlycomic.com/hourlycomicday.html) I drew a series of little drawings illustrating the boring events of my boring day.

Had it been today, the comic would have begun with a little bird stirring me from my sleep on the living room couch. I sat up and it whizzed past my head on a kamakaze attempt to leave through the only window in the building. Thump! But lo! Little Bird was not dazed and it flew its tiny body into the bathroom and began trying to leave through the mirrors.



It hardly wanted to pose for a picture and I settled with this one. He dive-bombed from the shower bar and out into the living room screen door where he either got stuck, or gave up. I grabbed a towel and scooped him up before the dogs noticed his existence.



He wiggled a little. I left the towel on the counter to put some kicks on my feet and leash my dog. Dog towing me out the door, I set the towel atop my car and opened it up. The little bird flew up and riiiight back toward the front door. He did not want to leave.

Ditch Diggin' Day.

Well, it's Tuesday. Must be the day to clear the broken branches/street debris/road-kill from the ditches on Ershig Road. And with that, I return from my Bow-observation hiatus.

I was away for a 10 day stretch visiting the Northern California Coast. You can't believe everything you assume about California. I had been certain I'd not need a coat and I ended up being COLD.

Boarding the return flight back to my coats and similar weather, the attendant announced, "It is a full flight today! You WILL be sitting next to someone. That's right, folks. It's Make A Friend Day! If you did not bring a friend, we will provide you with one." Some how I managed to weasel a window seat and sat fixed out the window, headphones on. I stared down every potential middle-seat sitter with the most anti-social persona I'd ever had. A nice small girl sat next to me. We did not become friends. She fiddled with her iPhone for the flight's duration. I fell asleep by accident, much to my chagrin, and missed the drink service I had been looking forward to. Now, if I had taken my headphones off and made a friend, perhaps I would have been able to have that cocktail. Let that be a lesson to us all.



(mt. rainier as we descended)

After baggage claim, I regretted letting my husband off the hook about picking me up at the airport. I had to wait an hour to catch the next north-bound shuttle and grew frustrated with every second of the wait. When it was time, I grabbed another window seat, again with my headphones on. I listened to every song on my iPod by the Constantines, and a couple twice. The shuttle makes the hour drive in double the time, but by my Burlington arrival, my husband had texted me promises of dinner and a hotel room. Cable TV and a shower that does not smell like our egg-water (sulfur) well supply. Promised dinner fulfilled, we took our membership cards to check in at the Skagit Casino Hotel. However, it was booked full and displaced, we moseyed down Old Highway 99 landing at the Cook Road Fairfield Inn at the Junction of Bow, Burlington, and Sedro Woolley.

Now today, I am getting back to my Bow/Skagit County routine. I had missed an evaluation while away for the Paralegal 105 Class I'm taking at Skagit Valley Community College. I went today to make it up and as I was finished and trying to remember the date to write at the top of my paper I laughed, "I should know what the date is, tomorrow is my birthday." My teacher laughed as well. He said, "Today is my birthday!"

When I tried to buy a parking permit from the cashier, all she wanted to talk about was horses on account of today I am wearing my horseshoe necklace. She ended her anecdote with "...still today, my husband says I looked like Ichabod Crane galloping toward him."



And here's a fun wiki for today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_Washington

Samish Island History 101, taught by my pal Dylan

"That's not an island. We drove to it."

I try to explain to my husband that the land-bridge wasn't always there and how Samish Island is indeed an island. But in the back of my mind, I was asking myself... "Well, IS it?"

So I asked Dylan to back me up. Dylan, now a successful PDX businessman, hosted a Christmas Eve seafood party at his mom's warm waterfront home. He grilled Blau oysters and laughed with us about the Christmas Eve caroling firetruck that kept circling the island. We sucked crab meat from fresh crabs, also from Blau's, and we listened to Dylan tell us about the island he grew up on.

happy holidays from people with junk in their front yards

(my husband says, "That's not junk! That's a forklift and a submarine!")

Blogging Instead of Shaking Wrapped Presents.

Not much to report from this zip code. 

Alcohol and sugar intake in excess will impair your immune system.  And so, with the onslaught of holiday eating and celebration, I welcome all the nastiness into my body.  I'm still a little sick. 

The weather's still a little warmish, and that means my boots are still muddy. 

piglet flu

Sore muscle and quease in my belly and cold sweat day.  I think I have a little flu/cold condition.  The onset of this yesterday caused my brain to begin malfunction.  We had to make two trips to Whidbey Island Bank on account of I forgot the checks we were fixing to cash.  Later the green beans ended up a little ...caramelized.  Okay, I burned the heck out of them. 

Driving home from the bank the second time, my husband said something cleverly Bow-related that I decided I would include in today's entry.  I considered putting it as a memo in my phone, but convinced myself that I wouldn't be able to forget.  No mnemonic device necessary, this is classic!  And now I'm e-kicking myself because that moment has since passed and wasn't properly filed.  Alas, another anecdote lost to the ages.  

So, I'm sick today.  But that doesn't mean this compulsion that's been growing in me to take wallet to the casino has quelled.  The Skagit Casino Resort is just a country mile from our driveway.  I did gamble and win recently: and so it begins.  Now I find myself too tired to really get dressed for the day, but at the same time wondering if anyone would care if I was sitting at the Blackjack table in my nightgown.