Winter in Sonora

This photo was taken early one morning from my office parking lot.

News Director!

It's an ordinary day in Jamestown, and I am working away in the office. The sun is shining, things seem normal.

But I just got a phone call from my baby girl, and she just got hired as "News Director" for a cluster of 5 radio stations in Klamath Falls, as well as the 4 hour morning show co-host for one of the stations, KLAD, in Klamath. Geez. Maybe the whole house thing had a purpose. My girl got a career! whew!

In the current climate of more than 10 percent unemployment in Klamath, and 8 percent or so in Oregon overall, it's pretty cool that within a very short time Kevin became the "Program Director" for the cluster and Melody got hired as well. Wow. yes! So they will be doing the morning show together on KLAD. www.kladfm.com


A good day I would say. Guess I will have to listen to the country station when I get home to Klamath. LOL

Christmas

I am home from my travels, and finally finished emptying my suitcases enough to repack them this evening.  It's Christmas.  And I am going home.  Home to big snows and family and cooking.  Home to Oregon.  I already took almost all of my Christmas decorations up to Mo's the last time I was there, when  I visited Melody back on Halloween.  I don't have to bring them back to Jamestown.  The moving has begun.  This time next year I will be living in Klamath.  A good thought.  I have lived alone for a very long time, but much of that time in the last three years here in Jamestown, I have traveled with Mo, or she has been here visiting.  I haven't really felt that awful alone feeling that I felt so long ago when I first moved to Klamath.  I can barely even remember what that felt like, the deep sadness inside, feeling that I was going to be alone for the rest of my life.  So funny to me how vague that feeling can be when it isn't right there in your face.

This week, after settling in for a weekend at home and a week at work, I suddenly realized that I was alone, and that it felt great.  Quiet  time, even though I was working, time to knit a bit, watch some tv, write some Christmas cards.  Great.  And it feels great to know that it's temporary.  All the angst, the agony, the sadness, the depression, that adjustment period so many years ago when my life really started shifting, all that was just such a strange phase.  Looking back, I wonder about it, as I wonder about now and the difference. Life just feels easier, more straightforward, a bit more predictable.  Settled.  My friend Jeanne wrote the other day, "But Sue, it feels so settled already!!!! I don't know if I want that!!!"  Settled, sounds wonderful to me.  LOL  wonderful.  I am grateful.

I wrote a card to Eva, my supervisor from so many years ago when I was working for Kim.  I had no real future, I was a soil scientist cleaning houses, and Eva kept calling me, trying to convince me to quit my job with Kim and go to work for her at the Spokane Conservation District.  Looking back in life there are moments, turning points, places where angels appear and change the course of your life.  That was one of those moments, and Eva was my angel.  I am going to retire this year, something I never could have managed without taking that step, taking the huge pay cut and leaving the illusion of all that money that Kim represented, and going to work again digging holes in the ground, walking the hills and mountains, working with the landscapes again.  I look back on my career from this vantage point and it truly amazes me.  I see what the young soil scientists are up against with all the shifts and changes in soil survey as I knew it and again I am so incredibly amazed and grateful at the way my life went because of this job.  I remember sitting in the dirt in Rathdrum and wondering what in the world I could do to make a living in the earth that way.  Little did I know.  Amazing.

So now I am off to Klamath, through the snow, the storms.  I have a gazillion suitcases in my truck, with silly things like the sterling silver for dinner, a set of spode china for Melody that we can use for dinner.  Thirteen people at Mo's table.  A whole suitcase full of coats and scarves and gloves.  It is something like 7 degrees in Klamath right now.  I am out of practice.  Long underwear, jammies.  Something shiny for new years.  Two whole weeks in Klamath with my kids and my friend, my cats and Abby, snow and good food and love.

Yes,  it's going to be a great Christmas.

Getting seriously excited!

I am excited, to say the least. This weekend I am finalizing my packing, making sure bills are paid, details taken care of. I will work the first of the week, Mo will arrive Wednesday from Oregon, and we leave for San Francisco on Thursday evening so we can be ready for our 6am flight to Chicago, and then on to Istanbul by way of Frankfurt. We are traveling with Go-Ahead Tours, a first for us, since past international travels have been mostly with Grand Circle. It's a chance to compare. I am taking the laptop, and plan to write daily and upload photos as well. My last two international trips were journaled sporadically with pen and paper, so hopefully this time I will actually keep better track of everything. This trip has a fairly ambitious schedule, so it might be even more important to keep good track of things since it really can all run together after a few days.
Day 1 - Istanbul
Board an overnight flight to Turkey from San Francisco via Chicago and Frankfurt.
Day 2 - Istanbul
Land in Istanbul, the ancient capital of civilization known previously as Byzantium and Constantinople.
Day 3 - Istanbul
On a guided tour of Istanbul, visit 15th-century Topkapi Palace, home of Ottoman sultans; the ancient Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia, illuminated by 30 million gold mosaic tiles; and the stunning Blue Mosque. Pass by the Hippodrome, an elaborate stadium once the site of ancient chariot races.
Day 4 - Istanbul
Free time to explore Istanbul. Plan to visit the Museum of Ancient Civilizations. Possibly join an optional morning cruise among the Bosphorus Straits, the ancient waterway that connects Europe and Asia. View Ottoman palaces and medieval castles during this half-day cruise along the Bosphorus Straits, which separates Europe and Asia.
Day 5 - Canakkale
Stop for a guided tour of Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman empire. Continue to Canakkale, a town coveted in centuries past for its strategic location.
Day 6 - Kusadasi
A local guide leads a tour of Troy, where Homer’s Iliad comes to life. Tour the ruins, where experts have identified the relics of nine civilizations dating back 5,000 years. Then follow the Aegean coast to Pergamon, visit the ancient Greek Acropolis. Continue on to seaside Kusadasi. Day 7 - Kusadasi
Visit Ephesus, one of the Mediterranean’s best-preserved classical cities. View the Library of Celsus, the Temple of Hadrian and the house where Mary is said to have spent her final days. This afternoon, opt for a journey to the village of Sirince for a firsthand look at Turkish rural life. The peaceful village of Sirince lies in the hills outside of Ephesus. On a walking tour led by tour director, stroll past some of the country’s best-preserved 19th-century architecture.
Day 8 - Pamukkale
Stop today at the ruins of Miletus. Next, visit Didyma’s Temple of Apollo.
Day 9 - Pamukkale
Take a guided tour of Pamukkale’s travertines, a cascade of snowy white calcium terraces formed from hot springs. The tour includes the ruins of Hierapolis, the Roman spa city built around Pamukkale’s calcium rich waters. In the afternoon, opt for an excursion to Aphrodisias, the best-preserved Hellenistic site in all of Turkey, dating back to at least the 1st century B.C. The site includes a temple dedicated to Aphrodite. In Aphrodisias, explore the city that honored Aphrodite, goddess of love. Ancient sculptures made of glowing marble date back to the late 1st century B.C. in this beautiful getaway.
Day 10 - Antalya
Cross the Kale River Delta to Demre. Visit the 4th-century Church of St. Nicholas. Continue to the ruins of Phaselis, an ancient Lycian city. Later reach Antalya, ancient retreat of Antony and Cleopatra.
Day 11 - Antalya
View the Old Town and visit the archaeological museum and Hadrian’s Gate. Later, a trip to Aspendos and Perge. Perge was settled for new Greek colonists and prospered under Alexander the Great. The ancient remains of the city include the Great Theatre, Hellenistic Gates Roman bath houses and a magnificent stadium.
Day 12 - Cappadocia
Stop in Konya. Visit the Mevlana Museum. Continue to Cappadocia. This evening, an optional excursion to see a Whirling Dervishes performance. The Muslim sect known as the Whirling Dervishes was founded in the 13th century by Mevlana Celeldin Rumi. Learn about this fascinating sect and its modern-day practitioners during this special cultural performance of dance, music and tradition.
Day 13 - Cappadocia
Tour the rock churches of Göreme and visit the towns of Pasabag and Avanos. This evening, attend a traditional Turkish Folklore Evening. Taste Turkish wine, snacks and beer at this authentic Cappadocian restaurant, carved out of sheer rock.
Day 14 - Istanbul
Enjoy a free day in Cappadocia or opt to visit the Eskigimus Monastery. After an included dinner this evening, board your return flight to Istanbul, where you’ll spend your last night in Turkey. Day 15 - Istanbul
Depart for home .

Conversation with the Daily Coyote

Shreve in Wyoming was accusing of pimping out her coyote "charlie" by selling calenders and such. I ordered a calendar and in the process reminded Shreve that the Nez Perce coyote stories would have had coyote being the pimp! She wrote me back with this:

Hi Sue,
Laughing about the coyote pimp observation - so true!!!And yes, totally fine and easy if you'd like to send a check - just make it obvious what you'd like and where you'd like it sent, as my brain is NOT to be trusted these days! Based on your history and experience with coyotes, what do you think it means that they are becoming such a stronger and more obvious presence among humans these days - even in cities and suburbs. What are they bringing us? What are they saying? I understand the logical, physical reasons causing it (people can't stop building 5000 square foot homes and stripmalls!) but the possible metaphysical meaning entertwined with that is something I am pondering a lot recently and would love to hear your perspective or ideas.......

This was so much fun, because it's been a long time since I had a conversation with someone who thought of coyotes as anything other than ... well.... coyotes...

My answer to Shreve was fun, because it made me ponder and made me remember.

First thought, that we humans will need to keep our sense of humor in order to survive in the midst of the strip malls and mcmansions. We will have to learn to survive and to adapt, to change our ways if need be in order to continue to survive, even thrive in the changing environment. Coyote most of all teaches me about surviving and thriving and adapting, and about having fun in the process, so I would imagine those themes might be relevant to humans on a larger scale. I have read that coyotes are even learning to hunt in packs like wolves in some places, behavior that I'm sure you know isn't natural to them. Coyote also reminds me that there is magic in the world, something that I can forget in the midst of the everydayness of living, working, all that ordinary stuff. Maybe Coyote is coming into our midst more to try to remind us about that magic. Shreve, I can't tell you how it feels to have someone actually ask a question like you asked. I have been away from magic too long. I'm a soil scientist, on the verge of retirement after 32 years mapping soils in the mountains and canyons of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and now California. Coyote has visited me often, physically, and metaphysically, if I pay attention. You remind me to pay attention.

Halloween in Klamath

I traveled to Klamath on October 31. The real reason for the trip was the need to get all my "stuff" out of Melody's space, but the great side benefit of it all was a magical Halloween night sending Hillary and Savannah off to a costume party and then trick-or-treating on Pacific Terrace with my grandson. Melody and I had a magnificent time, kicking deep piles of leaves, smelling wood smoke on the crisp night air, and listening to all the kids and parents laughing as they made their way through the night.

It's been a long time since the reality of Halloween tradition has lived up to my memories and fantasies of what Halloween is all about. It smelled like Halloween is supposed to smell. I ate a tootsie roll and it tasted like Halloween is supposed to taste. No more artificial mall tricks or gather at the school or church treats. It was the real thing.

I am not sure what happened in the intervening years, I just know that for a time, there weren't any kids at my door. For a time, there was no place to go and the newpapers were touting all the other things to do on Halloween night. For a time. But last Friday night, my kind of Halloween came back in full force. I'm just tickled that it did so while I still had a grandson still young enough to participate and I got to share it with him.

More photos of all the fun we had are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kyotesue/HomeToKlamathForHalloween#

Beaded Scarf Class

I took a knitting class yesterday, 6 hours of knitting in one day, with a lunch break. There we 8 of us in the class, varying levels of experience, but no beginners at least. After 6 intense hours of instruction, this is how far I got on the Undulating Waves scarf. I wasn't alone. Most of us were on something like row 10 or 12, after learning a lot about how to knit backwards as we unraveled our mistakes. I hope I can actually get the hang of this thing. Pat, the instructor, insists that we will eventually get it, as we all knit along. Lucky for me, the fee for the class includes as many "knit along evenings" that I need to finish it without paying the 7. fee for those evenings. Something tells me that I may be showing up on Wednesday nights after work while I try to actually finish this thing. Something else tells me that this may not be an airplane project. Lots of counting and measuring, and sliding of beads, and concentration. I am happy so far with my scarf. Unlike my fingering weight socks that went the way of the stash bin. We will see how it goes.

Silly Shoe Story

Shoes. Somehow they are an incredible delight to me as the years go by. The body goes, clothes become less and less important, but somehow shoes become more fun. So I am often taken by shoes, and probably am collecting more than my share in the last couple of years. Most of the time they are really good shoes, a great pair of KEEN sandals that have traveled Malta, Thailand, and many places in the US, a new pair of KEENS that have reflectors that can stop traffic, and are lighter than my sandals, some truly adorable brown walking shoe things that I got at Sonora's best shoe store, my "mary jane" merrils that can go with anything. All fun, most of them practical, useable, and built to last the rest of my lifetime, maybe 20 years or so at least! Ha.

But traveling through the Salt Lake airport last month I met a pair of shoes in the women's bathroom that truly caught my heart. I never met the woman wearing them, she was in the stall next to me, with slinky black pants and painted toenails, and these amazing shoes peeking out beneath her pants cuffs. Wow. Somehow the woman became endowed with brilliance, intelligence, money, and incredible taste. I could never wear a pair of shoes like those, but still, it fascinated me as I observed my reactions to those shoes.

Home that evening, and Moana arrived for our planned weekend outings. First on the list was the Annual Calaveras Grape Stomp in Murphys. I love Murphys, it somehow is more like what I imagined Sonora to be before I moved here. We drank wine as we carried our commemorative glasses around town, visited the booths of art and food, enjoyed the Abby compliments from a dog loving town , and sat down in front of a quaint little shoe boutique on Main Street. Of course, I had to go in and window shop, and lo and behold, there they were, those same silly shoes that I saw the day before in the stall in Salt Lake City airport. Silly. Incredibly expensive, and even more silly, on sale for 75 percent off. Hmm, maybe that means they are no longer in style? Who cares. I carried them outside to show Moana, since I had actually told her the shoe story, and she laughed when I said, "I don't need these silly shoes at all." "Well, why not?" she asked in return. Why not indeed?! So I bought the shoes. Silly sillly shoes. I will wear them with my black slinky pants to the dress up dinners on our tour and on a cruise, wherever.

I certainly know that shoes are not a great spiritual lesson, but still, these shoes remind me that silly magic also happens, and to acknowledge that magic is a gift. Silly shoes. Magic shoes. Dorothy shoes. I hope I am never too old to see magic all around me, even in a silly pair of shoes.

GPR Week

This week was about technology. GPR EMI and such. Ground Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic Induction. Great fun . Some people think it's way too much work for the results, but after a week of working with it, I can see the places where it won't work and other places where it will be a time saver in the long run. As with the Digital Soil Mapping technology, it requires a reasonably good model of the landscape already in place to work well. Ground truthing (aka digging holes) is still a requirement, but when it comes to transects to verify and document our landscape models, these tools can help out with maybe a couple of pits dug instead of 10. Yeah. I can go for that, especially in this landscape where the soils are like serious cement from about April through February, assuming we get a rain or two over the winter.

It was a good week, a break from regular mapping, and a chance to do something a bit different. Photos of the rest of it are on the Picasa site. The horses were especially entertaining as they tried to help. One especially pretty black boy was sure that my NRCS lunch bag was made especially for him, looked just like a grain feed bag. I cut up my apple and gave it to him, and I am sure in this dry crackly landscape it was pretty nice. Another day another dollar.

Moving Day

This time, not for me, but still so wonderful, and still so very important. Melody and Kevin and my grandkids are moving into my little house on Painter Street today. Moving to Klamath. I just never imagined this to be a possibility. I though maybe Deb might move there someday, that maybe Deanna and Keith would end up somewhere in Eastern Oregon on their 4-H ranch, but somehow never imagined that Melody would ever be ready to give up her life in Albany, the theater, her friends there, the more progressive urban life found in Albany with proximity to Portland and shopping and such. Yet the day has arrived.

I am excited for the kids, excited for my house, excited for me! I am a bit frustrated that I am still here in Jamestown, but I do know that this year will go quickly, and that this time next year I will be able to sit with my daughter in the dining room for morning coffee without having to drive 700 or 400 miles to do it. This time next year I will be in Klamath too. Close. Family. If Hillary has a play, or Elric has a game, I can drive into town and go. We can have them out for a bbq sometimes, or meet at Third Thursday downtown now and then. Simple stuff. Not all the time, not so much that it is an interference, but more than 2 or 3 times a year at least! Geez!

Life does take some surprising twists and turns, and as usual, most of the twists that revolve around the Klamath Basin for me have been good ones. I love that place, I love the feeling of home that is there, the safety net feeling that comes over me as I drop into the basin from the south, or the every single time thrill that comes when I drive over Doak Mountain and see the lake stretched out before me on the way to home in Rocky Point. Cold winters. yes. Yukky ice in February. yes. But it's home, and my kids are now there.

Unplugging revisited

I read a quote on Andrew Sullivan’s blog written by Michael Brendan Dougherty. It rang true for me in a way that I have noticed only recently. Lately when traveling I have left the computer behind, thinking I don’t need it for just a few days, effectively unplugging from the whole thing. Often my cell phone doesn’t work in these places either, so I have to wait for access or more bars to talk with my kids, with my friends. This in effect is distancing me from some people, it seems, since I haven’t been writing as many emails, not calling as often, somehow unplugging from all the electronic substitutes for everyday relationships. I couldn’t manage my life right now without electronics, however, I am too far from everyone important to me. Still, I notice the difference. What Mr Dougherty said was this: DING!!!’

“Immediately, I realized how much anxiety the flow and ease of communication brings. The annoyance people have when they cannot reach you. The itch to pick up the silent cell phone and check to see if anyone has called or texted. The certain knowledge that e-mail is quite figuratively piling up in your endlessly expansive gmail account. After you put away the devices that keep you connected to the flow, put them out of your sight, the anxiety begins to recede, slowly. The obligation to respond to e-mails almost instantly, or at least within a few hours, disappears, and you can imagine yourself having normal conversation, relaxed, the way your grandparents did. The effect of unplugging is the same as living in a foreign country for a period of time, you can read about the events taking place after the fact, but you don’t experience them in real time, and the panic recedes.”

3rd Global Workshop on Digital Soil Mapping

I am in Logan for this workshop, and so far it has been incredibly interesting. First day was a field trip around the Logan area, beginning at the eastern edge of the Basin and Range geologic province, and traveling up Logan Canyon to the view overlooking Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain province. Having mapped soils in parts of the world strongly affected by the great Missoula Floods of 13,000 years ago, I was familiar with a similar event that happend during the same time period, the catastrophic draining of Lake Bonneville from Utah into the Snake River and out the Columbia. It is amazing seeing the extent of this huge lake, of which the Great Salt Lake is the last remnant. Much of our day yesterday had to do with this particular window into the geologic past, but we also viewed some incredible geologic history related to the movement of crustal plates and the building of the Rocky Mountains. The changing colors of the maples at the lower elevations and the aspens higher up was magnificent. What a show!

Today begins the actual workshop, with the new DSM technology as the center. I'm looking forward to it a lot.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyotesue/DSMGlobalConferenceLogan?authkey=vAP6GTHcOJA#

Les Misbarack

Omigosh!

Laying low in Jamestown

It's the time of year when summer is wearing thin, when the daily heat and dry conditions are no longer interesting. Admittedly, the highs are dropping from 100 plus to the high 90's. Doesn't feel a lot different. The soils are as hard as concrete, the vegetation is crispy dry, except for the poison oak, 20 feet high everywhere I need to dig a pit. Tiresome. Work is tiresome and I am a lot more than "some" tired. The skies are blue. Always blue, with a slight brown tinge that reminds me how close I live to the Central Valley. On weekends I am doing small things. I have been knitting a lot more again, since it's too hot to do anything outside. Having fun playing with my yarn stash, packaging it all up into color bands for working up a fun project called the "shawl of many colors". Organizing all my needles into sizes, amazing how many I have.

Walking around outside for a bit in the mornings, checking the plants, removing crispy leaves from the hostas that are as tired of the hot summer as I am. I talked to the hostas this morning, whispered secrets to them. "Soon, soon, I promise. Next spring while you are sleeping I will pack your big urns into my truck and take you home, and when you wake up you will see a cool forest, big trees, shade. I promise". I think they heard me.

I was also thinking about my home in Klamath this morning. The whole story of my life in Klamath and that little house on Painter Street was so magical, moving to Klamath and buying and living in that home was my first real experience of "flow". I have been saddened to see all this magic reduced to mediocrity by the crashing market, having to sell the house when things were down, all to eliminate possible capital gains taxes and to quit dealing with renters coming and going.

I stood in my living room last month, after making my floors all shiny and pretty again, and wondered about all of it. The light coming in those windows is wonderful. There is something wonderful about that little home, and I knew that there was a family somewhere, or someone somewhere who would walk in that door and feel the warmth and delight and safety that I felt there the first time I opened it. But lately, what has felt like a huge burden is shifting into a feeling of hope, not yet real, but at least hope.

My reasons

Seven reasons why I won't vote for Sen. McCain in 2008

1. His foreign policy is beligerant and will continue to add mega-billions to the national debt through continued wars that are useless expenditures of money and lives.

2. McCain endorses economic policies that are destroying the middleclass, causing jobs to go overseas, and endangering the future of our offspring for decades to come. I don't believe that someone making millions is middle-class. I am middle-class.

3. McCain is America's "Number One Neocon" with direct ties to Bill Kristol's rightwing extremist oganization, Project for a New American Century (PNAC), I am not a raging liberal, but I detest the Neocon movement. I am pro-choice and while I don't think president's should be elected based on that particular ideal, I fear most the radical right wing Supreme Court justices that will be appointed during his reign. Oh, he's not a king, I forgot.

4. I have read long lists of repeated flip-flops in his voting record and his statements that go back a long way. He is changing all his stances based on his desire to appeal to the right wing movement and get elected. His maverick ways and attempts to work across the aisle are completely evaporating as he gets closer to the election.

5. He promised in February not run a negative campaign. Then, five months later, rather than discuss important issues like high energy prices and rising unemployment, McCain's advisors unleashed a scurrilous, Karl Rove-inspired attack on Barack Obama's character , such as calling him "arrogant" -- a substitute for "uppity" with racial overtones. Both candidates are getting more and more negative, so this one is a stand-off.

6. I have read several accounts from other POW's and military personnel that indicates that McCain is distoring his POW record and exploiting it for political gain. I don't believe being a POW is any particular skill needed to be President.

7. My biggest reason is my belief that if McCain wins in November, the neocons in Washington will increase their power, Bush's incompetent cronies will remain in office, our nation will become more divided, U.S. armed forces will attack Iran, and the Supreme Court will become completely corrupted by extreme right wing conservatives who will take away any rights I once thought I had.

I am saddened that at the early stages of this campaign I felt that there was hope for the future of my country, that we would become again a moral world leader and inspiration, that our economy would prosper, that maybe things would be different. Now it seems that it all is politics as usual, with both candidates doing whatever they need to do and say to try to appeal to the voters they are shooting for in order to win. No matter what kinds of ideals these politicians begin with, they end up prostituting themselves for power. Both of them.

I will no doubt vote Democrat, because of the reasons that I don't want to vote for McCain, but the whole thing just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth on this early Saturday morning.

Christian The Lion - Reunited - From

This made me cry. A true love story

Getting lost on google maps

This morning has been quiet, I am packing and cleaning and such, and decided to check out my google map. Time went by and before long I had found google street views of houses that I lived in long ago. It was fun making the map that you see in the post below this one. For my kids, you might like to check this out, because it's the chronological record of where we were when. I'll send an email to the family list for those who never get around to reading this blog.

Places I have lived

View Larger Map

Yarn stories

Knitters may laugh at this photo, but somehow I just have to talk about this so that I remember my lessons. I have actually cried over this yarn, actually thrown the ball and needles across the room, but then stubbornly picked it up again.


It all started with a hair cut. In Sonora, the yarn shop is just a few doors down from the salon I frequent, so of course, I have to stop in and oggle and feel all the soft yarns. Seems as though these very fine sock yarns, called "fingering wool" are pretty popular right now with the yarn crowd, and there are lots of pretty socks in baskets to tempt me. Now I have made one pair of socks, with worsted weight wool, successfully. On Number 5 needles if I remember right, or some such big kind of thing. Yeah, sure, I can do number 2's. why not. Hmmm. I learned why not. My fingers can do lots of things, I play the piano, texture soils and type fast. On a side note, I just learned that those of us who have textured soils with our right thumb and forefinger have lost most of our fingerprints there. But anyway, fine detailed dexterity isn't on that list of things that I do well. Tiny screws and such make me crazy. Think I should have known, right?

Well, instead, I bought some fancy #2 double pointed needles and a skein of very expensive, very beautiful fingering weight sock yarn. Gee, maybe I can make a dozen or so pairs for Christmas presents. NOT! I think I spent a week or so trying to actually cast on 64 stitches on the double pointed needles before I finally managed to begin a round. After another week, some dropped stitches, and actually crying when I ripped it all out for the 40th time, I put it on the shelf. Another week passed and I took the whole mess to my camping trip and tried again, once more to rip it all out. I cried again. geez. Nothing like some skinny yarn and #2 needles to mess up my life. Maybe I should just knit big shawls and washcloths. Somewhere in this process I knitted up a very nice washcloth to feel better about myself.

I finally decided that I could possibly try using circular needles. Bought 2 of them, at something like $13 each, and proceeded to find a video on the internet of just how to knit in the round for socks on 2 circular needles. Tried again. These socks are getting pretty expensive, and fairly precious. But I am beginning to see from all this that I am nothing else if not stubborn. So, once again, I attempt to actually cast on 64 stitches, hook them up, and start knitting in the round for a rib knit. Knit 2 purl 2 knit 2 purl 2. Uhoh. I have 63 stitches instead of 64. crap. rip it out. Only this time I didn't cry, I actually started laughing and started casting on again. I am not sure just how many times I did this, but I notice I am getting just a bit better at handling that finger weight yarn, and finally, finally, on a Saturday afternoon when I should be doing lots of other things, here is the proof that if I keep on keepin on, eventually I will get somewhere.

It's ribbing. It's tiny. It is the beginning of a real sock. Do you suppose I will have one pair by Christmas? Maybe if I give them to Mo I can wear them myself sometimes. No one else will get fingering weight fancy wool socks, at least not before I am retired.

Medicine Lake Weekend

I’m back in Jamestown today, after a very fast weekend camping at Medicine Lake. Seems a bit silly, I guess, to drive 380 miles each way for 2 nights of camping, but I somehow hoped that I could get a break from heat and smoke. I at least got out of the heat, but not the smoke. The drive north was mind boggling. It’s amazing to drive hundreds of miles through smoke that is as thick as the famous pea soup tule fogs of winter. Well, maybe not that bad, really, I didn’t have to hang my head out the open car door to see the white line, but the visibility was down to ¼ mile in lots of areas, and never more than a mile or so at best. All the way up I-5, from Stockton to Mt Shasta and beyond.

The fires have dissipated somewhat, and yesterday as I was driving home there was a big Delta breeze cleaning out the valley. It was also an incredible experience, driving through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys on I-5 with crystal clear views of the western coast range. Truly lovely, as long as I didn’t look east. The Sierras were covered by a thick dark gray blanket of smoke. Like a big wall against the sky, and yet I was in a valley more clear than I have seen it almost since I lived here. Found out when I got home that the smoke was from a huge fire that blew up just south of me here on the Tuolumne-Mariposa county line, on the Merced River canyon. What started as a 150 acre vegetation fire caused by someone target shooting blew up almost overnight and now it’s 26,000 acres and zero percent contained. The smoke in Sonora and Jamestown is again barely tolerable. Inside with the air conditioning going again is the only survival mechanism.

But for one full day, with two half days on either end, I got to sit and look out over a sweet little lake. I had bbq’d steaks and salmon, potatoes O’Brien cooked over the campfire for breakfast, quiet times watching the twilight come slowly, even though the stars never really materialized because of the smoke. It was a first for Medicine Lake. Every other time we have been there, 3 previous times actually, the air has been crystalline, pure, and often cold. We found the perfect camping spot, one more time on the lake, in the perfect campground with stone fire pits and unobstructed views of the water.

Was it worth it? It was windy a lot this time, so time in my boat was also limited, but precious. Perfectly clear water, where I could see 30 feet down to the lava rocks on the bottom. The lake was down a bit, fed by snow melt and springs, and yet lower than I have seen it before. But yes, it was worth it. Time with Mo, time where work problems aren’t foremost in my thoughts, time to knit a bit and read a bit and walk a bit and boat a bit. Time for all that easy nothing kind of conversation that friends have when things are simple. It was worth it.

I am having such a hard time lately, harder than it’s been for awhile, with working and waiting and feeling as though time is crawling along even though it’s going fast overall, sometimes the everyday stuff just seems so tedious. The hot smoky weather here makes working outside barely tolerable, actually not tolerable at all, and I am having an incredibly hard time staying focused and doing what I need to do when it comes to mapping. Employee issues surely don’t help, and hopefully those will be resolved before long as well. Big sigh there. It’s wearing me out.

In the mean time…well, that’s a book, isn’t it?! I have it somewhere on the bookshelves, “In the Mean Time”. The lesson being that we need to do something ‘in the mean time’ while we are waiting for that time to come. Deb gives me lectures on “the secret” thinking positively to attract what I want. Deanna reminds me of “affirmations” to think positively about what I want. For the moment, I am in the mean time, however, and am having a bit of a hard time reminding myself of all those spiritual lessons that I once seemed to know really. Appreciate the moment, live in the now, use the gratitude journal. I’m working on it, in the mean time, I’m feeling frustrated with having to be here, having to keep living in this place, doing work that my body is tired of doing, and my mind is overloaded and burned out doing.

So, instead, I get though the days, and drive nearly 800 miles on a 3 day weekend to feel human, and breathe some mountain air, and drive on roads that don’t have bumper to bumper cars all in a huge angry rush. It was amazing driving 33 miles on a paved road from HWY 89 to the lake and only seeing two other cars. Blessed empty roads, one of my favorite things, and something that eludes me totally here in this part of California.

So, now, back to work today, and tomorrow, and another few days, and then I’ll be leaving for a 10 day vacation to Spokane with Mo. So, in the mean time, I am going to pay attention to the present moment, work, write, and live my day to day life with as much presence as I can muster.