All Over the Place, a joint entry

   We were crazy busy for the last two days.
   Friday morning we hiked around Heart Lake then had dinner with fellow Mensans in Oak Harbor (Whidbey Island).
   Saturday David took Wes to Deming for the Logger Fest (it was a top-down day), and I attended the Whidbey Island Writer’s Association one-day conference.
The Heart Lake Hike

   We again followed our intrepid Friends of the Forest leader Denise Crowe through the forest surrounding Heart Lake, near Fidalgo Island’s center. All along the path we saw the usual trees perforated by Pileated woodpecker’s rectangular(!) holes,  ultra sweet-scented Nootka roses (think boiled-down rose water), rattlesnake plantain, and banana slugs. The big surprise, and probably such a rare find it should be documented by someone more knowledgeable and anal than I: a gregarious blue garlic snail. I have never met a snail so curious and pleased to meet twenty people standing on a forest path. Denise carried him up and down our line. Would he hide in his shell? No way. He couldn’t get enough of us. He oozed further and further out of his shell, craning his whole body for a better view of us. We could almost hear his inner dialogue: “Wow, look at these trees! Dang, I forgot my camera!”

   The problem, though, was that we wanted him to be upset so he’d reek garlic for us. (Many of us noted that he might be the perfect escargot snail.) Alas!
   Another find on the trail was a flock of robins upset with a spotted or barred owl, who are cousins to each other. (Long story short: barred owls flew into the Rockies and split, half going west to evolve into spotted owls, and the others flying east and staying the same.)
   We never saw the owl, but we got the scoop on barred owls, who’ve remigrated west and are pushing out the spotted owls. These are, according to Denise, less-than-wise birds, who routinely steal red baseball caps and attack pony-tailed joggers whom they totally mistake for squirrels. People actually need hospitalization from these attacks (think jaws and talons! Eek!).
   A neat thing Friends of the Forest does with its outreach program is to take the local school kids on forest hikes in fall and spring. In the fall, each kid adopts a plant, which stays rooted in the forest. Then in spring, they come back to see how it’s faired. They draw pictures of it, write odes to it, research it like crazy, and probably even fall in love with it so when they grow up and can destroy the forest in many little ways, they don’t. Which is at least part of the reason why Fidalgo Island’s forests are so wonderful to experience.

The Mensa Dinner
   We met at San Remo’s in Oak Harbor and had a fun little time with six other Mensans: a Unitarian Universalist minister, a recovering lawyer, an engineer with WASHDOT (WA dept. of transp.), an artist,  an Englishman, and a journalist chronically the activities of the notorious BTK of Kansas.  (Yep, she’s interviewed him! Egad!)
   The evening’s topic of conversation, which actually proved VERY transformative, derived from the bumper sticker, “The Hokie Pokie—that’s what it’s all about.” Think about it. Putting in, taking out. Hokie Pokie.

Deming Logger Fest (Dave)

   It’s a bright and sunny June Saturday. Therefore it is time to take Wes’s top down and drive to one of Washington's ubiquitous weekend festivals with Carl Burgan and Linda Page: the 48th annual Deming Logging Show.  Carl’s candy-apple red Miata is Wes’s new best friend. (p.s. The fest started out in 1962 as a fundraiser for "busted" loggers.)
   As we drove east on a narrow, 35-mph country road, Bellingham faded in the rear view mirror. At Deming, we pulled onto a grassy, open field filled with campers, logging trucks, Caterpillars, 'dozers, and cars, cars, cars. Beer bellies, dungarees, suspenders, t-tops and shorts were everywhere. We parked and covered our cars to protect them from the sun, sap, and spraying saw dust.
   We joined the throngs entering the gate and find our seats in the stands to watch the human grizzly bears compete in axe throwing, speed-pole climbing, hand and double bucking, chain saw bucking, log rolling, standing block chop, loggers relay, and iron man racing. Phew. The day was capped by the hot saucing events, where the chainsaw’s manufacturer-recommended motor is replaced with a V-6 Merc, or a Harley. The funny cars of the chainsaw gang. Check it out!
   We bailed the promised BBQ because the line snaked through the vendors’ booths and outdoor museum displays. After dining at Lychee Buffet in Bellingham, I beat Joanne home by fifteen minutes. Again, life is good!

Writer Fest (Joanne)
   One of the things I most miss about leaving California are my writing friends and groups, and writing in general. After three months of unpacking, rearranging and generally creating a new lifestyle, I was ready to start creating a local tribe, of which my California tribe will be a part of by default.
   So naturally I immediately signed up for Whidbey Island’s one-day writing conference as soon as I found it on Google.
   It was wonderful, it was different, it was all the things it needed to be.
   First, unlike all the other conferences I’ve been to, the breakout groups were called Chat Houses and were held in people’s homes around Whidbey Island, which is not such a bad fate. Lovely homes!!! Fabulous yards (I’m jealous!!). Stupendous views of Seattle with the snow-capped Cascades in the background. WOW. But not distracting because . . .
   Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), held forth on the craft, discipline, and joys of writing his first book to be published, but not his first book to write. Followed by Nancy Horan (Loving Frank) giving me my first mesmerizing talk on historical fiction, and agent Amy Burkhardt getting down and dirty about what turns her on and off when she reads a manuscript’s first few pages.
   My two agent consults went great. Yippee!
   And the dinner was fun, because Elizabeth George, who lives in Langley on Whidbey (and once lived in Huntington Beach) spoke. Dinner was a wonderfully intimate affair in which local ladies made and served the dinner on china, silver, and crystal they’d brought from home. WOW!
   And I’ve found a writing group. Agent Andrea Hurst holds a writing group every Wednesday noon at a restaurant in Coupeville on Whidbey. It’s not a critique group, but it came HIGHLY recommended by fellow attendees.
   I’m really delighted with the connections I made, and look forward to deepening those acquaintances. I regret, however, that I met not one person from Fidalgo Island, which seems rather odd to me. What this foretells, I know not.