Merry Christmas to All and to All Goodnight!

Wishing you and your families health, happiness and love,

DR2

Ho Ho HO!! It is a test!!

Can you guess which one is my grandchild????

A trip to the mall, Nonnie and Bubba do the traditional thing and go visit Santa.

What fun!

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. Picture was taken out my back door, the flakes were so big..and it was startling that it was so quiet. I don't live far from the freeway and most times you can hear the hum of the traffic.

We got snow again today but it warmed up around noon and melted the new white blanket without hesitation. Transplanted here from Wyoming 20 years ago, snow was not a common thing. Once every two or three years and it was welcomed despite the chaos it created. We are surrounded by mountains east and west and to tell the truth that is where, in my opinion, the snow should stay!.. I moved AWAY from that. This year we have had two big snows and it is only the middle of December..January and February are the months that we should expect snow. Now we were in a state of emergency due to the rains that flooded so much south of Seattle. It flooded so bad that both directions of the interstate were closed for days. The truckers, well nobody, had direct access between Portland and Seattle, a 450 mile detour was their only option beyond waiting it out. It is much comfort to know that our highest elected official continues to assure the citizens of the United States that global warming is not an issue and we must not concern ourselves when the weather becomes and stays outrageous. I hope his "Little White House in Texas" is far far inland and safe from those much exaggerated rising water levels. That is another rant.

Happy shopping,

Sometimes it is a Wet Road

Went down to the State Park and watched the ferry traffic. The weather was chilly but so beautiful.
This ferry, The Kittitas transports people from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island. Lots of people commute to work using the ferry system beautiful weather or not. This dock has been shut down and had to be rebuilt due to one of the ferries crashing into it.
The ferries are owned/operated by the state, and are considered part of the highway system. Twenty eight ferries make up the largest ferry fleet in the United States. There are eleven different "classes" of ferries, determined by their size and stowage capacity. The Kittitas is an Issaquah 130 class and is about medium sized. It can transport up to 124 vehicles/1200 passengers! The cost for car, driver and one passenger is about 17.50. They haul big semi trucks, motorhomes, everything.

Lucrative employment opportunities!!

The smaller island that is behind the ferry is Hat Island. It has its own private ferry system. Only about 150 homes there, and of course a golf course!

Yeah, Right!

This serene vision of Thanksgiving is certainly what I would like to remember. Ah, well. Being the baby of a family full of dysfunction my memories are mostly of tension..trying not to say or do the wrong thing and fling the Mum into a fit of anger or worrying about how I was going to dispense the huge portion of food that Mum piled upon my plate. It most likely was large, but being a very picky eater and Mum being a barely adequate cook I am sure my minds eye construed vast enlargements of the portions left for me on my plate.

If the lumpy gravy and the dry turkey did not dispense properly from said plate I was made to set at the table sometimes alone, sometimes with my sis for hours until I had swallowed the last bite and the plate was empty.

Father dear ate quickly as not to be drug into any family bonding or conversations and retreated to what sport favorite happened to be on the television at the time. A handy excuse for total withdrawal from family gatherings.

Certainly one of my joys was that for a few years we shared the dinner with the neighbors across the street, alternating homes (Lorraine was a better cook than Mum) and forcing my parents to at least pretend to like each other. It was an odd glimpse of how it was at one time or at the least...what could have been.

After I was married I was driven to try to make sure that Thanksgiving was perfect for my children...how odd that must have looked to the observer!

So here I am in 2007 accepting an invitation from a good friend to come for dinner, all my children everywhere but here.

Today I will give thanks for my sister, for my mother, for my children and my grandson and for my friends and for the luxury of living in a country where I have the freedom to say what I think, worship in the manner that my heart directs and feast at a table laden with the bounties of hard working hands. I will give thanks to those family and friends who have passed before me but embraced me for who I was and for what I learned from each one of them.

And I WILL give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Treat Retreat, another Road to Travel

Skunk Bay Lighthouse




This looks like a lot of fun! six of my friends/coworkers and I are going on a retreat this weekend.


I am excited to visit with these people outside the office. A little food, dinner is going to be ready when we get there Friday night. A little wine, book discussions and hopefully we will not fall in the drink. Maybe clam digging at midnight?

I hope my camera comes today so I can get some pictures..I will be learning how to take photos (someday) that are as good as all of yours and Gardenia's!

Random Tagdom

Ok, I got tagged by Gardenia, my ever loving sister, in an effort I think to get me to bloggin'. I must apologize..I am so busy at work and have had trouble keeping up with my email.

I must be the most boring person in the world, as I can't think of much fascinating about me at all.





Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog



1. My mother put me in the car 2 months after my 15th birthday

and I drove all the way from Wyoming to San Luis Obispo and back.

2. I slept with a skunk for a couple of years. It was the black and white

striped variety. She slept in my bed -not me in hers.

3. I have to have my feet outside the covers in bed. Can't stand to have

them or my arms pinned down.

4. I held a real estate license but never sold a house.

5. I cannot swim and am frightened of water but love the ocean and being

near it.

6. Absolutely loved being pregnant and would have seriously (under very

certain circumstances) considered being a surrogate mother.

7. And for those that read Dean Koontz "Life Expectancy", I have partial

simple syndactyly of the feet.

Gardenias for Gardenia

Thinking of you today.

Money Flies, Sad Mama

Just a sad warning. To all of us who go by the assumption that most people are like yourself/myself, honest.

My son stopped by the gas station tonight to fill his truck, he was on his way to pick me up, yay! I was finally going to get some needed repairs done to my car. She's ailin' just a bit and has a hundred thousand miles to prove it. Back to story, son's debit card declined. Whaa? says he. I just got paid. No worries, right? Nope, his checking and savings account wiped out. Negative $89.00. Never lost or shared debit card, has only written two checks in his life. His account is with a credit union. He also has a credit card with a small limit, issued by the credit union. It is over limit by $100.00. Two conversations with non English speaking people have him at his naive wits end. Sad story for an adult, worse for a 19 year old.

Yes Sister..you never get done being a mom. Gave him money for gas so he could get home..gotta figure what to do next.

Car repairs will have to wait till uh...mmm not too long I hope.

Bridge Less Traveled

I don't recall ever discussing ( and we have discussed ALOT!) my fear of bridges with my sister. It is one of three recurring dreams that I have been plagued with off and on for decades.

My x decided we needed to go to Galveston for the weekend. We had been on "vacation" in Louisiana visiting his parents. My portion of the visit included cleaning out a chest type freezer that was the size of the USS Abraham Lincoln and removing from a tiled shower stall 31 years of mold, mildew and other things that would make a rat run.

I am sure that the fact that I was a prairie gal from Whyomin' and deathly afraid of bridges just slipped his mind. I watched this structure loom in the distance...creeping slowly closer. Within a heartbeat we were chugging the rented Gutless Ford Wonder up up up...I was gripping the seat with my left hand and my toes were making dents in the floorboard of that tinny little can. Soon I was hyperventilating and chewing on the dashboard. That action was broken up with short little "oh" oh" "uuuhhh" .."eeeiihh"'s.

I opened my eyes long enough to see a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his jugular vein.

Fortunately for him we crested the brute and the little tin can went faster on the backside. Before we got completely off the bridge my door flew open and I spilled out onto a 135 degree concrete curb. I was gasping for air, my hair was soaked with sweat and I was rudely informed that he was NOT under any circumstances going to park in a no parking zone while I pried my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

So it went.

Our conversations were clippy thereafter.

Our trip back to Louseyana involved a different bridge and luckily I was prepared with the comforting shroud of darkness

and

a paper bag

I believe he wanted me to put it over my head.

4 (U) Dinners

Here's to ya, for keeping up or it or what evers!

Whew!
What a trip,
Who'd a thought that this would happen ifn ya put the Cylons Helmut on yer head?

AAhhh...Tassimo

I am so thankful for my sister. She gave me a Tassimo. Not that I ever wanted one. Had never experienced the wondrous liquid that it issues into a cup. But I should have known to take her counsel. She has a passion for GOOD, really good coffee. Me too.

And Sisty...sorry I jumped down your throat..about the dawg.

Check Your Boobies!

It is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

It is important.

Go to Checkyourboobies.com. They will send you a monthly reminder to do just that.

Take care of yourselves.

Promise?

Mueller Hinton

Mueller and Hinton were the smart fellas that stirred up the broth and poured it into a plate ( or a tube) in 1941. I thought there was only one kind of media for growing bacterias. I was way wrong. I started working in a microbiology lab in a Veterinary Diagnostic lab about two years ago. Each kind of bacteria likes different kinds of media. "Chocolate" looks just like chocolate, and the blood is actually cooked. Anyway it was a fun and fulfilling kind of work. Love those animals..we worked with Zoo's, too. Lots of exotic animals, birds and reptiles of every shape and form.

I am going to miss it..the micro people were a good lot..but I am going to try to get a little more creative..aspiring to be more like my sister and of course spend more time with my little fella.

Ta!

George Papanicolaou

Some 50 years ago your friend and mine, George "Pap", invented the good ol' Pap test. Since then deaths from related cancers have dropped by 70 %. What a deal for a few uncomfortable minutes with your bum up in the air, huh?

Mueller Hinton

Gave my notice at my second job, this is my last weekend.

More time to blog and to visit all you bloggers. Now I guess this means I have to get in the fast lane and buy a digital camera....eeeeehhhk!

Any suggestions? About the camera, about the camera!

Flexman

Quarantine lifted I headed down the road to go visit my little guy. Thursday night commute was a nightmare..complicated by a double rainbow, one of which was one of the most brilliant I have ever seen. I am hungry and my pal is stuck in a rut of only eating chicken, frozen corn and frozen peas. So yup, headed to Taco Bell. Now on the main drag you see lots of things some good like rainbows and some not so. Same man begging on the corner slapping his arms at imaginary things and tugging at his worn but clean trousers. At the next intersection (Tacos coming up soon) a large freaky haired bohemian type fella clad in sweatpants and a tee shirt and a red cape knotted fashionably across his right shoulder drops to his haunches and aided by his rather large walking stick does some pretty amazing, uh moves. He squats and flexes and stretches and tests his ligaments to the max. No man person should be flexing that far and to that degree on the main drag at 5:30 in the afternoon. Traffic moves, so does he. I pull into the drive up and he goes inside. A long wait at the drive up provides some interesting entertainment tho'. Soon a Medic Car (ambulance) roars up to a schreeching stop in the parking lot of the T.Bell. I am trapped in the line but can see in the lobby area. A commotion. Lots of observation going on by patrons. Medics haul out on a stretcher a young female holding an icebag on her head.

My thoughts are this: Flexman goes in to order a burrito and tries to impress young female with some mega flexos and the little thing swoons from observing such range of motion in one human being and falls and hits her head. Now down that road she goes in a Aid Car, me stuck in line for 30 minutes and Flexman marking another notch on his walking stick smug with the knowlege that he can make the girls fall.

Woke up This Morning with a Blue Moon in My Eye

Woke yesterday to the first big fog of the fall. Today the first big rain. No, it really doesn't rain every day in Seattle.



I was with a friend in Iowa heading for a fun night in Des Moines. Fog rolled in, worst fog I have ever been in. I am not talking about the friend either. He drove this little MG. Really little. Door on the passenger side was held shut with baling wire. The heating system was mostly our breath. We were laughing so hard that it kept the MG almost toasty. We travelled quite a distance before I, being the appointed lookout could see past the end of the car and ... oh oh we were heading up the wrong way on the interstate highway!!!!



He thought it was hilarious...

I think we u-turned and went back to the farm and made chili

This stirs up another memory.. my sister and a muddy road

Sicka Sickabee

Wella,
it was a long trip to get there and a long trip back.
First leg I had the opportunity to spend 7 hours enjoying what the Cincinnati airport had to offer. Then NWA/Delta lost my suitcase. It was delivered the next day only to find that someone had tossed it. Snooped to the extent of removing the bubble wrap so carefully placed around two bottles of wine. All of the contents had been gone through. The only thing that went missing was a sample package of Prvovigil I brought along to thwart a serious case of jet lag. I wanted nothing to get in the way of my visit with my sister.
My visit was so short, time flew we visited much but not enough. I feel a sense of urgency to make sure she knows how important she is....I want desperately for her to know that I am so sorry for being such a stink, brat and a totally crappy sister. I wish I could go back and be there when she needed someone..and no one was there. I want so much to not have been the Gatekeeper of the secret that haunts us to this day. She comforts me and tells me it was not my fault but I am bent with the weight of the guilt.
The trip home was hard...I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay and help her get her yard back into shape, secret some boxes and junk out of the garage and help her organize a place for her to go to do her beloved art.
I see Hattiegrace has made a visit and hope that her wishes and mine come true!!
My luggage was searched on the trip back but this time things were not a mess and the TSA left this nice little card. Am I the only one that feels violated by these searches? I really couldn't wait to wash all my clothing especially my undies.....yeeechh!
Work was a pressure cooker when I got there..(maybe it was just me, I only had two hours of sleep). By Friday morning my throat was itchy and I was wheezing so bad it reminded me of the of all the cartoon characters of long past that used to cough and wheeze after inhaling a big old stogie. My weekend off was spent gulping Advil and trying to breathe.
This road traveled was bittersweet. I missed my little guy so much. My sister just laughed at me when I was going on a bit too much about how cute he is. I miss D so much.

I am trying to figure out the lesson I am supposed to learn..about why we are on opposite ends of the country.

Thank You

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

I have enjoyed all your "spots" viewing from afar so hope I don't post anything stupid or offending.. I have been known to fall off my soapbox on occasion. Or a boardwalk in Yellowstone Park.. a curb ..


forever moving down the Dirt Road Blues.

Tannka choodeyssisabe ebatector deys lilbe swistah

and a thanks to Jodi Foster.

Roads

Thoughts on traveling that road, where it leads and trying to figure out what it all means.