Just in Time

Click pix to enlarge

  Super short entry here because we’re packing up today to start our month-long road trip tomorrow morning, so eek!, there’s a ton of more important things to think about and do right now than make a blog entry. But, alas, we wanted you to see pix from yesterday’s adventure with Carl Bergan and Linda Paige to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival (reminder: if you’re in Washington, there’s a festival this weekend). NOTE: Please do not assume we’re considering buying a wooden boat in our near future. We are not. We want to have fun instead. 

    We travelled as walk-ons because the crowd proved too large for the small ferry serving Port Townsend. Before we even got to the marina, we stopped and watched Christopher of the Wolves,  a MOST fabulous  musician who creates intolerably wonderful music with own one-man orchestra  of a hang drum, didgeridoo, djembe, and more. See!! Listen!! 

   The festival had wooden boats galore. We were surprised to see Spike Africa, a SoCal-built schooner we often spotted sailing off the Catalina coast, but is now moored in the San Juans. I have no idea what the middle boat is; I was intrigued by her lines. The boat on the right, Quack,  is a silly boat, of which there are a lot of up here.  Humor is a great antidote to the gray!

   We loved the Port Townsend Foundry (“Friends don’t let friends buy imported hardware”), probably because we’re total suckers for tackle. We even use it for décor purposes. 

   Lastly, we had lunch with one David’s law partners, Frank Conner and his wife Patty, along with her brother and sister-in-law Bob and Lenore Romney, all decked out in Volcom this or that (one of the perks of Patty being a corp. paralegal). We had a fab lunch of fish tacos, pulled pork, clam chowder, and crab cakes at the at the beer garden. It was great fun talking with them about current and old times, and laughing about all the crazy stuff we know about each other. We also did a bit of t-shirt spotting. 

   Our departure proved exciting for two reasons. 

   First, with a touch of melancholy we watched Always's sistership, a Mason 43, head into port. 

   Second, we were, to our chagrin, quite certain we’d make it onto the ferry if we got in line a half-hour early. Alas. We were not among the first one-hundred walk-ons, so we had hoped liked crazy there weren’t too many car passengers, for the ferry only held three-hundred life vests for everyone, including crew. Ah oh. We relied on prayers, karma, and visualization to bring us fortune. But eek! In a row of vehicles we did not previously see was a well-turned-out motorcycle club! We were certain our chances were shot as cycle after cycle, often with two passengers, boarded the ferry. But you know how valuable PKVs can be, and we did indeed get on in time to get home and attend bar night at the Fidalgo Yacht Club of which we are now members.
   Gotta go pack!!! Love to you all!!!

Mea Culpa

   Yesterday I wrote that I couldn’t find the pictures from when Hank and Sandi Siebert traveled from Clinton, on Whidbey Island, to stay with us for a couple of days. Well, I discovered them trapped inside my Blackberry, and, in the process, discovered some other pictures I didn’t know or remember existed.

Click to enlarge

   The first set of pix dates from the Sieberts’ July visit. We drove to the top of Mt. Erie, a dense 1200-foot rock that hovers over Lakes Campbell, Erie, and Heart; fiercely interferes with our cell-phone coverage; and has caused us to buy a two-hundred dollar gadget just so we can answer our phones at home. Enough whining. Mt. Erie is gorgeous and provides quintessential views of the neighboring islands and the mainland. The right-hand photo shows Campbell Lake (Fidalgo Island is an island with an island!!) near the bottom, Whidbey Island off to the right, and all the little land masses dotting the waters along the mainland.

Click to enlarge

   This next set of pictures was taken on a trip we took to La Conner, which is on the mainland side of the Swinomish Channel, and has a RV site where one of my teacher friends, Bobbi Johansson and her husband Brent regularly visit. To get to La Conner, we had to cross Rainbow Bridge, (click for a better photo). On the right is one of my favorite La Conner lavender houses, of which there are AT LEAST a dozen.

   The last picture documents another pushy deer stopping us by the side of the road and  asking to see our papers. Shameless, I tell you!
   Two more days in town, and then we set off on a road trip to the East Coast (NYC to see Lisa and Kim; Philadelphia to see Ginger's Tony's family; Baltimore to visit David's H.S English teacher, the infamous Mzz. Frances Meginnes; Annapolis to see Bobby; Ocean City for David's 50th H.S reunion - he was class prez so they insisted he attend; and Irvington to prepare the property for sale). Stay tuned.

Having Another Tim Gunn Moment

   You’d think that after all these years, Davy and I would tire of making our lives harder than necessary. Alas. Some spells cannot be broken.

   Take, for example, our need to patch our chimney stucco and replace rotting balcony timbers. Taking into consideration our ages, wouldn’t you suggest we hire the entire job out, and save our fragile, ancient bodies from strain and ruin?

   Not us. Wouldn’t it be fun to help with the work, we thought. Think what we’d learn. Consider the money we’d save! What a terrific way to get exercise without actually exercising! Two weeks later, the job’s still nearly done.
   We hired our favorite team, Cris and Jeff, a married couple we assumed were maybe in their 30s, but who’re actually, we discovered, in their late 40s and beyond. (That’s all I’m saying.)
   In the beginning, everything went swimmingly, until . . .
   Why not stop a moment and consider the middle picture on your left, the one with the white arrow Photoshopped over the horizontal beam. (Click to enlarge.)

   That heavy beam you see replaces a truly rotten beam that had resembled a child’s gum ridge immediately after a molar has fallen out. Nasty. The trick of the day was not the dismantling of the old beam, for with two men wielding Dewalt and Black Bull destruction-derby toys, the feat was accomplished in mere hours. No, the trick of the day was inserting the new beam in the old one’s place, without removing any of those other horizontal and vertical pieces of wood, which were supported in place through this whole process by a couple of jacked-up two-by-fours.

   First, Davy suggested we all have a beer, because, after all, it was warm out. The three of us just stared at him, and he changed his mind.
   Then the four of us stood around figuring out how we were going to fit the beam into the maze of supporting and decorative boards. More honestly, it was Davy and Jeff talking it over, and Cristine and I trying to save them from themselves. Eventually, with all four of us doing something helpful, which sometimes meant just being quiet, we made it work. We hoisted, nudged, wove, and noodled the beam into place, much like a surgeon might do when forced to replace a cheekbone through an ear canal.
   Anyway, it got done and painted, and we’re all happy as clams and friends for life. After all, we did in many little ways, save each others’ lives and the lives of those precious to us.
   So, do you like the house’s new color addition? Remember, the house was completely sunshine-tan. We’re adding the sage green a bit at a time so we don’t overdo. We have some arched windows, and we don’t want them to look like eyebrows begging for a smile to be painted just below.
   And the bottom picture on the left is our new chandelier, or is it just a hanging light because it doesn’t have a bunch of crystal? I forgot to read the box. Hanging the light evoked some make-it-work thinking. We had Jason, our very diplomatic electrician out for the event. He balanced atop his ladder throughout Davy’s and my squirmish about whether to swag such a heavy light to center it over the dining room table, or to just move the dining room table, even though doing so would put diners up against the windows. Jason won! He drilled a new hole in the ceiling and now everything’s perfect, especially the light. Yay!!!
A Little Local Color

Click to enlarge

   Last Saturday morning we stopped by San Juan Lanes for a world-class, dive breakfast at their Stork’s Restaurant and Lounge. (I stole the flicker link; I have no idea who the girl is.)
   Stork’s has like the best fish-and-chips, and won a top-four rating in some national fish-and-chips contest, which is kind of suspect in the first place, if you ask me. Breakfast was delish, and we didn’t eat again until the next day. The picture on the right shows a three-year-old boy bowling with his bowling-ball slide. He picked the ball out of the return, carried it over to the slide, gave it a shove, and walked back to the return. His mom adjusted the slide depending on the results, which the kid never even watched.

   The other picture is in our computer store, Compumatter, which had me from the get-go when we moved up here by fixing my computer for free. What I love about this pic is that it shows one of Computmatter’s fully-functioning computers, which are strung about sans box. I cannot explain how jealous I felt when I saw this. I must remind myself that unboxed computer-parts, slung from the ceiling like a model airplanes, no matter how darling or irreverent, will not go with my décor. Alas.

Click to enlarge

   Near the end of August we went to one of Anacortes’s free concerts in Cap Sante Marina and Park. We LOVED it!!! They had Green Tangerine, who do Beatles songs (does that date me?????), and, oh cripes, there’s nothing like the whole damn town camped out in crayon-colored umbrella chairs rising to their feet and singing along to “Hey Jude”. Life doesn’t get any better than that! Old people, kids, the wheel-chair bound, dogs. Wowzer! I LOVE Americana!!!!

Across Deception Pass Bridge

   In early August we went out for lunch with Mary and Jack Moeller, who’re from Coupeville on Whidbey Island. I met Mary in my Wednesday writing group. She is such a kick. The moment she described the sound of a falling tree branch as, “You know how a head sounds when it hits the ground?”, I knew I wanted to listen to her forever! Jack’s much quieter, but just as witty. He’s an engineer-type, so he’s got a lot of stories about near failures. (Generally speaking, engineers have this solid, steady veneer, but deep down they’re always trying to devise things that shouldn’t be devised. I know. Davy has an engineering degree.)
   Sorry about the sign, which might offend some. It’s on the public-bathroom doors in the barn at the end of Coupeville’s pier. I still haven't shaken my junior-high-level humor.
   We also had a terrific time with the Sandy and Hank Siebert of Clinton, on Whidbey Island, but I can’t find the pictures. The Sieberts and the Wilshins sit in totally opposite corners, politically speaking, and we love to talk about it without yelling, calling names, running off in a huff, or shooting each other. It must be amazing to watch!
The Last Two

   I’ve said it before, and it’s worth repeating. Deer own the place up here. (Chalk it up to them acquiring a feline gene somewhere along the line.) You can go outside and tell the deer not to eat your weeping cherry tree, and it will correct you with a glib, “But it’s my weeping cherry tree.”
   The lower picture didn’t quite capture what I wanted you to see, but like most of the view shots up here, you have to be here to get the full meaning. Anyway, on this particular morning, rain clouds held up the sky and a thick fog layer frosted the Sound. All that was left was a peeping-tom’s mid-mountain view of Lopez and Decatur Islands. Even hidden, the world up here’s so gorgeous!

From General Custer to Wonder-fly-boy

Tuesday night with the Johansson's in La Conner
   Tuesday night was our turn to visit Bobbie and Brent Johansson in their neck of the woods, La Conner.
   For YEARS Bobbie and I were fellow English teachers. When she retired in 2000, she did exactly what I never suspected her to do: she became an RV vagabond. They sold their home, bought a big truck and a fifth-wheel trailer, and never looked back. Since then, they've been all over the country in their tricked-out,  air-conditioned 38' RV.
    Lucky for us, one of their favorite oases is La Conner's heavily-forested Thousand Trails RV Park, a mere fifteen minutes from our home. 
   We had a great supper at La Conner Seafood and Prime Rib,
and were waited on by a delightfully goofy waitress who really owns her own organic deli in Sedro-Wooley, the Hottie Tottie, which was named before she bought it. She regaled us with stories of her opening day, when she thought she could do it all by herself. Now she has employees.
   What did we learn over dinner? Mt. Baker Winery is really in the flatter-lands of southeastern Washington. Gen. Custer's army had single-shot rifles, while the Indians had repeat-firing rifles, or something like that. (I forgot to take notes.) The Tetons could just as easily have been named Las Melones.
   PS - We discovered later that an even better place to dine in La Conner is Seeds. Alas.

Wednesday morning at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island

  Far too early the next morning, we headed out with a group of Anacortesans for a tour of top-ranked NAS Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor.
   Before I describe our trip, I'd like to say that Whidbey Island is a long, bucolic island situated north of Seattle and east of Vancouver Island. By its nature, it lures artists, writers, dreamers, seafarers, and organic farms. 
   Plunged in the northern one-third of all this beauty is a huge naval air station and the city, Oak Harbor, that supports it. 

    Being a military town, Oak Harbor differs markedly from the rest of the island, not so much for its bellicosity, but because, I think, people are constantly leaving, or they're waiting for someone to come home safely from war or from a practice flight mission. Missing are the lovely gardens, the imaginative shops and eateries, and all the other things creative people do to enhance their existence. 
   Anyway, jet jockey Lt. Dave "Wonder" Brennan led us through VAQ 133's hangar to view EA-6B Prowler jet repairs and out on the tarmac where electronic jamming jets stood at the ready. He explained how everyone lines up and walks the tarmac, picking up stones or whatever could be sucked into the jet engines, otherwise known as FOD (foreign object damage). Wonder answered plenty of our questions, like why they're so loud when they fly over Fidalgo Island, how he got his moniker, and how the jets get to Iraq and Afghanistan. (Duh, they fly them! It takes seven hours, and they refuel mid-air through their probosces [see pic.] over the East Coast and twice over Europe.)
   We learned that the jets usually only bother one side of Fidalgo Island or the other, depending on the weather and wind patterns. Happily, the air station's getting some new, quieter jets. We also learned Wonder got his moniker because, out on the tarmac, his plane clipped a parked parts truck that looked remarkably like a (Wonder??) bread truck. Monikers, he explained, are meant to "bust your chops."
   Another highlight was to meet Fidalgo Island's resident hero, Lt. Commander Ariel Klein (USNA '97, Beat Army!), to whom Davy personally wrote in late spring.
   Then we got a new guide, Lt. Commander Brightner, who was quite informative as we toured SAR (Search and Rescue), which he insisted did NOT bother Fidalgo with a bunch of noise.
   Hands down, SAR has the best wall-size relief map I've ever seen. It was like three inches deep, so you can really compare the state's extreme elevations. Which is really important since this SAR unit, when not saving people from the sea, saves a lot of people from mountain tops, which I gather is an intense trick to accomplish in Washington's jagged ranges. They do this at no cost to the victim. God bless them! Brightner told us SAR was ironically far more successful saving people from mountains than from boating accidents because, try as they might, some kayaker or sailboat always seemed to get to the victim first. LOL!
   LCDR Brightner really stole my heart when he said the best thing he ever did in the service was helping survivors of Indonesia's Christmas Day tsunami while he was stationed in Guam.
   Our tour ended with a yummy lunch in the Officers Club. 

A little day music

   Since our last entry, our noses have been snug to the grindstone preparing for winter (a.k.a. the end of summer). It's already raining, which is good, because we can't get the stupid sprinklers working, and bad, because the stucco needs fixing, and therefore the house needs repainting and all that implies. Good night!  
   But we've had fun too!
   Two weekends ago we had a splendid time with Dan and Marilyn Wilshin (Dave's brother) in Issaquah and on Lake Washington in their boat.  They're repainting their house too, so we spent a lot of time searching for color inspirations along the lake's shoreline, which is a lot like mansion-spotting in Newport Harbor (yeah, yeah, we passed Bill Gates's compound), except there are boat houses and a provable absence of palm trees.

click to enlarge

   This last weekend we made a two-dayer of the 49th Annual Anacortes Arts Festival in which they closed down Commercial Ave. from 12th St. all the way north to the port.
   We've happily discovered that Anacortesans are a bunch of party animals who don't blink at the chance to shut down part of their main drag and invite thousands of people to come party with them for a weekend. Typically, every few blocks there'll be a band playing and folks out dancing, some with each other, some soloing it. Even the wheel-chair bound get out and boogie. One whole block is devoted to food, from ribs to crepes, and of course salmon, salmon, salmon. And as far as the eye can see there are well-behaved dogs, even though the party planners keep insisting people not bring their pups.  
   On Friday we visited the juried show in the Port of Anacortes Warehouse Transit Shed, which is a crazy-smart venue because you can see and hear the surf breaking under the floorboards, while also listening to Corbin Keep and Mel Watson on the cello and guitar. Listen!!
   Upon entering the warehouse, we were given a ballot because there would be a prize for the popular favorite, which I'm guessing they thought might be different from the jury's (headed by Esther Luttikhuizen of 4Culture).
   Here's how we voted:
    I liked Rex Silvernail (loved his use of prehistoric joinery to express imagined organics), with Michael Berman's Open Oceans being a close second (his huge, oceanic photographs lack a middle ground, which unsettled my physical sense of balance, as it should have). 
    David liked Berman too, but ultimately voted for Peregrine O'Gormley.
   There were, of course, other fabulous pieces, like Natalie Niblack's mindscapes, Kathryn Glowen's silk ties on canvas (Pollock tamed!), and Carol Milne's knit glass. 

   Click here to see all 93 entries.
   With time to spare, we headed south on Commercial Ave. to catch the twelve blocks of art, craft, and food vendors. What a hoot! Our favorites:
   Anchor Art Space (as usual), which is Anacortes's only contemporary-art gallery. We took time to watch a Julia Oldham video. (Here are other Julia videos for your viewing pleasure.)
   Red Oak Glass's pendant lights. I'm putting this on my Christmas list. Gotta have one in the entry way.
   Paddy McNeely's Asian-inspired, black-glazed porcelin pieces.
   Stan O'Neil's hand-blown plates.
   On Sunday we went back to the festival to listen to music with our friends Carl Bergan and Linda Page. We hit the warehouse first to hear fabulous pan-piper Paul Nyenhuis, who, alas, records nothing he plays, which is too darned bad for the world, because his music is heavenly. And so are his pipes, which he makes himself and decks with swans, eagles, ducks, you name it. Alas.
   In the Majestic Inn's courtyard, we heard the jazz trio Trish Hans and Phil, who turned out to be quite entertaining and lovely to the ears. Trish looks like a princess, but for the music, she'll do anything with her voice: whistle, trombone (I kid you not), and cheek-thump. What a scream! For some of their new oldies, listen here and here.
   Next, at the main stage, we heard Little Bill and the Blue Notes (yeah, that Little Bill) followed by The Bad Apples, a (mostly) girl band who are teachers hailing from Bellingham. They even looked like teachers! Funny how some things change, and some things never do. 

   Tonight we're off to La Conner to have dinner with Brent and Bobbie Johanson, whom I taught with for years. More on that later!

Mosaic pieces

   Life’s smorgasbord of endless possibilities set its table in our house this last month, and the more edible tidbits to share consist of:
     men in skirts
     working boat racers
     preparing for winter
     the bat out of hell. 
  But first, two things:
   1. We apologize for not having written in our blog for almost a month, but it’s been a rather trying, busy, exasperating, stupefying, and demanding few weeks. To quote an anonymous source, “We love chaos because we love to produce order.” Actually, that's not necessarily true, but forgive us anyway.
   2. To enlarge an image, please click on it.
The Wooden Boat Show – July 3

   Charmingly, daughters Lisa Rodasta and Dana Wilshin intermittently talk about David’s retirement in terms of when he builds his first wooden boat. It makes me smile, for in the background David’s shaking his head and insisting. “It’ll never happen. I’m not a finish carpenter.”
   Frankly, the jury’s out. The girls may be right-on.
   Regardless, on Independence Day Eve we took in the Seattle Wooden Boat Show sponsored by the Center for Wooden Boats (“the museum of doing, not just viewing”).
   After boarding the Arthur Foss and other fine old tugs, it became apparent that David enjoys all the below-deck engine stuff, and I like rigging and smoke stacks, perhaps because during World War I David’s father was a twelve-year-old cabin boy in the Chesapeake, and my father was a fourteen-year-old deck hand on a Norwegian schooling ship. 

   Regardless, neither David nor I can get enough of breathing the smells boats reek (yum diesel!), sizing up each boat’s efficient layout, figuring out the bridge-to-engine-room and other linkage systems, and feeling with our hands and eyes the woods, lines, and tackle, as if some part of us is reliving our fathers’ lives (which is kind of inexplicable for me, since I was adopted). 

   Of the boats we saw, we especially loved a particular little skiff with details that could make FL Wright drool (except FL Wright houses always leak!). Rounded brass nails. Inlaid oar blades. Leather-padded oar handles. Brass oarlocks. Gorgeous accent woods. A dozen pictures we took before we were suddenly stunned to find an incredibly inappropriate cleat-off and coil. Mystified, we set off in search of a lovely tie-off job, and easily found one that would settle our inner tar (above, right).

   Alongside the compulsory tall ships, ancient Sound ferries, Mosquito fleet survivors, and mahogany Chris Crafts from Michael Corleone’s (??) flotilla, we spotted a fleet of Knockabouts, the same kind that were at the Naval Academy when David attended a very long time ago (pic. 3).
   NOTE: In Puget Sound, Mosquito Fleet, we’ve learned, refers to the thick swarm of steam boats that serviced the Sound in the early 1900s.
   ANOTHER NOTE: It was closed, but we really wanted to see the inside of Close Enough Engineering’s studio, which was where we parked for the boat chow. Alas.
The Fauna

   Besides hosting three carp, a covey of constantly complaining quails (because their brains hang outside their heads), a football team of goldfinch, and a neighborhood of rabbits, we have a snake. Actually we might have more, but they’re never together, so we don’t really know if he’s the same one here and there, or ten that never moved. We know one did move on, however, since David had to lift him out of the pond where he unfortunately went for a spin.
   For three days now, I’ve walked past this snake as it sleeps in various coiled designs atop a crop of chives. He’s obviously not camouflaged, so I’m wondering what his exact escape plan is for when one of the local bald eagles finally decides to make him its dinner.
   A couple of days ago we had a bat in our bedroom, which is against every Martha Stewart principle I choose to follow. (We still haven’t figured out how it got there.) After removing a window screen, we just kept walking toward it and talking. In its blindness, it missed the beauty of our tidily-made bed and the newly upholstered easy chairs, and the look of horror on our faces. I have no idea what was drilling through David’s mind, but worried endlessly about the little guy’s digestive system, and how I didn’t want to upset it. Actually, getting it out wasn’t as easy as I make it sound, because the bat stalled on the window sill, a good eight inches from the unscreened opening. There it played dead so long, we thought it might actually be. Finally it had enough of David pressing the screen against its furry little hide and sprung back to life and out the window.
   I put all this on Facebook, with half the responses being, “Cool, I want one too,” and the other half being one loud “EWWWW!”
   I’ve stuck a couple of other animal pix up here because I did find it odd to see a camel preparing to spit at us on San Juan Island. And I did love the little fox cruising along Lopez Island’s southern quarter.
   I have yet to get a picture of the deer, though. We have a black-tailed deer who regularly strolls through our yard like he owns the place and nips off a single rose or rhodie before wandering to our neighbor’s for a bite of something else.
   It was not until I was in Coupeville that I realized the deer ARE in charge. At some point driving into Coupeville proper, a deer sauntered across the road like a queen unafraid of her subjects, while cars all around simply stopped and waited, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, which it should be.
The Highland Games – July 11
   Besides being extremely educational, the Highland Games proved itself to be the one venue where the men looked significantly and consistently more handsome and interesting than the women.
   The Highland Games we attended with Carl and Linda were in Mt. Vernon, on I-5 where you make the left turn toward Fidalgo Island and the San Juan Islands Ferry. The Highland Games is a traveling show, in the same spirit as circuses or traveling theatre and ballet troupes. They have their fundamental events and rely on the locals for the rest, in this case shepherding, jigging, piping, stone putting, hammer throwing, etc.
   Here’re a few things we really enjoyed.

   During the opening ceremony, they played first the Canadian national anthem and then the US’s, which as a SoCal native, I found extremely lovely and ironic.
   While the anthems were playing, the extremely buff guy directly in front of me, saluted, imbuing the tam on his head with a definite militarism. I found it stunning. I stepped back for a more complete shot of him. I cannot explain how capable and war-worthy he appeared. Wowzer! (The lad to the left of him, in the tartan slacks, is preparing to dance a jig.)

   Watching the working dogs sent me back to the early 80s, when I watched Sesame Street with my kids, each day hoping they’d play one of my two favorite songs, “I’m a Hard Working Dog.” (The other is Frisbee-catching Barkley. Oh, go ahead, watch/listen to them and reminisce!!)
   Sheep herding, we learned, is not all fun and games. After all, there’s a living to be made. Sheep ranchers want their dogs to be quiet, so the sheep remain calm, which means the sheep won’t be running of their fat. Kaching.

   We thoroughly enjoyed the Pipe Band competition (Portland Pipe Band, rt.), and discovered that pipe-band moms are closely related to soccer moms. They come equipped with water bottles, cookies and oranges; they hover; and they’re dutiful gofers when a kid forgot his cap. Made me laugh.
   Other things we attended were the jig and hornpipe contests, the harpists, the throws, and Molly's Revenge, a knock off of the Wicked Tinker singers, .
   Afterward, we went to the Carpenter Creek winery and then to Carl and Linda’s for dinner with another couple, and we played Mexican Train, which I’d never heard of in my life, and actually had a great deal of fun playing, but couldn’t figure out how in the world it got its name, politically correct person that I am.
The Stove

   Like chipmunks, we’ve spent part of the summer preparing for the winter. We got a Napoleon stove to heat the downstairs, but had to get a marble slab for it to sit on. Next, we get the chimney cracks taken care of and invest in a generator for when the electricity goes out and the people who don’t live within the city limits have a to wait an extra long time to see their lights come back on.
Yacht Mischief
   For those who have visited our Yacht Mischief home in Newport Beach, we want you to know that it is going through a transformation. This picture shows our dining room, kitchen and family room. The dining room now has staircase going to the upstairs. I can’t wait to see it when it’s done!
The Poet

   Before going to the Wooden Boat Show, we stopped at Marie de Haan’s Wayside Wysteria gardens. Marie is a poet and writer in the Wednesday afternoon Just Write group I attend in Coupeville. Her books coming out soon are Cancer is a Funny Thing and The Lighthouse Never Dims.
Viking Days – July 18

   Yesterday, David donned his blue and yellows, and I my red, white and blues, and we headed to Ballard for Viking Days at the Nordic Museum.

   Just so you know in which corner we each sit, David’s a fourth-or-fifth generation Swede and I’m a first-generation Norsk (even though I was Priscilla Sargent before I was adopted, so I’m technically a Daughter of the Mayflower or something ancient and questionably-noble like that). We got there just in time for some Swedish pancakes (loganberry and whipped cream), which, I have to admit pales in comparison to Norwegian pannekaker with its raspberry jam and powdered sugar. It was, however, totally worth suffering through sprue for.

   As for the mini events, we loved the children’s fiddling orchestra; the modern, two-hundred-year-old Viking boat; the weapons (Viking sword hilts were wire coiled so their hands wouldn’t slip when covered with blood. Such warriors!); and the carved rosemaling.

   Hopefully David will write about the Viking boat and explain clinker-built and lapstrake, because that’s what made the Viking boats seaworthy in the North Sea.
The Workboat Races – July 17

   After spending Saturday morning scouring the flea-market style main drag of Anacortes (Shipwreck Day – all flotsam and jetsam can be yours for a song!), we headed for the pier overlooking Guemes Channel to watch the Working Boat Races.

   The festivities started out with the official town crier (right) announcing the events, which included three classes of working boats racing each other up to the Guemes Ferry turnaround and back, a chowder challenge, the Shifty Sailors from Whidbey Island, and a pirate contest, which we didn’t stay for, but are really happy for the people who did.

   The crier interviewed a lady who’d already sampled and voted for her favorite chowder. “It’s terrific. So good it’s like dinner,” she said, to which the crier rersponded, “Yes, almost like a Sunday afternoon visit to Costco.”

   Then the races began. The really big boats were in Class B, and they made it up and back in about fifteen minutes. Class C did it in three. The propane hauler San Juan Enterprise, with its large projecting landing craft bow, won its class (B), partly because it headed the snag boat Deception Pass off at the pass, forcing it to take the San Juan’s stern to miss hitting the pier. It was a close race. The winner won by two minutes. One boat never finished. It like left or something. Anyway, three hardworking boats earned twelve months’ bragging rights, and I hope they do it justice.
A Boat-Building Town

   At Fidalgo Island's northern end lies its one town, Anacortes, which we've been delighted to find has a thriving boat-building industry. Previously we've written how the last America Cup winner was built in Anacortes. Since moving here, we've been watching the steady progress of Cade Candies, an oil-rig-positioning platform (pic. 2, 3) and a yet-to-be-named Foss tug (pic. 4). We also wanted you to see that we're not outlandish with our blog's name. Anacortes is in a Banana Belt! (pic. 1)

A Sad Tail (Dave's entry)

(Note: On Monday we came home from our walk about found an old golden retriever lying on the door mat in our garage, waiting for whomever to arrive and offer him shelter. Here's Dave's rendition of what happened next.)

   The golden hung out on our outside doormat through the evening, sleeping after slurping water and ham. We went down with offerings of chicken about 9:00 p.m., and with sun still well up in the sky, it being the Summer Solstice. As Joanne fed him boneless chicken, upon closer observation I confirmed he was indeed a he, albeit neutered.
   Turns out the chicken and broth were a bit too hot. He paused from his dining and actually walked through the door Joanne had left open and into our family room. We called him out, and out he came. Turns out he understands "Come" and "Sit." But he seemed spooked by Joanne's camera near his head as she tried to take his picture. I noticed his water bowl had become a bit grungy, so I picked it up and walked with it around the corner to the hose bib by the garage door through which he had first entered our house. When I turned on the hose to fill the bowl, the confounded anti-siphon valve, which is apparently an integral part of every hose bib up here now, let out a God-awful squeal. Spooked him big time. He took off down the driveway, disappearing behind rocks and things green, purple and pink. When I next saw him he was northbound and down on the pavement, heading toward the end of our cul de sac. I whistled for him to come back. He looked over his shoulder and quickened his pace--away.
   Such is the saga of the damaged old golden.
   Pity. Yet perhaps just as well. We couldn't have kept him. Too many vet bills buried within those shakey haunches and that fur coat. But animal rescue is big up here. Perhaps he could have found, and may still find, a decent place in which to lie and die, instead of the cold forest floor toward which he was heading. At least he had his belly full and had had some rest. God only knows what human abuse caused him to be so skittish.
   Seems fitting that I write this here and now, enshrouded in the early morning fog we first saw last night miles away, that made parts of our distant view disappear and turned the rolling mountains of south Vancouver Island into a mysterious sort of Monument Valley, looking like the jagged, austere spires and plateaus of Arizona. Summer fog--reminds me of those of SoCal's Channel Islands. But today's fog compels the tugs I can't see in Rosario Strait before us to bellow their mournful lament, almost as though for the dog and the cruel aspects of humanity.

A Busy Week

Somewhere to toss a line (6/13)
   Last Sunday Davy and I had to choose between going with Carl and Linda to the Scottish Games (watch the Wicked Tinkers!! it's super neat!) in Ferndale or staying home and vegging out.
   We did neither, which was a good thing since the Scottish Games were the previous weekend.
   Instead, we looked for fishing holes.
   No one was more delighted than Wes. He was in his element. 55 degrees out. Top down. Paws to the open road. Purring like a catnipped tabby.

   Heading east on Highway 20 we drove through Concrete, which was surely named for the stuff its silo is made from. Concrete oozed raw western cool, including a sheriff sittin’ in a rocking chair perched on the saloon’s porch.

   Further east we found spots for river fishing in Rockport State Park situated in an old-growth forest. Here’s a tree old enough for Davy and me to practically live in.

   Despite a few snags along the shore, its sandy berms tempted us. Wouldn't it be great to flop in a chair and let out a line chummed with salmon eggs?
   It was in reading Rockport’s signs that we discovered that the Skagit River houses all Pacific salmon  species, and that the park closes the river for extended periods to make sure a plentiful supply of salmon can get back up river to spawn.

   Next we checked out the public fishing scene off Sauk Store Rd. (Sauk River is an upstream tributary into the Skagit). With its wide, winding stream, the Sauk proved luscious, especially if you like to battle nettles. Egad!
   A couple hours into the trip, we headed northward into the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest  on Lake Baker Rd., giving us a front-row view of Mt. Baker rising into the clouds.
   Galorious!
   Because we had the top down and only had to share the road with one other car, we could hear the birds chirping from the trees. Honestly, it sounded like an orchestra’s flute section warming up!

   While we did find a terrific fishing spot in Panorama Campground along Lake Baker’s shores, which whet David’s camping gene, I suddenly realized that we needed to have a conversation covering how much I preferred a little cabin in the woods to living in a tent, fending off bears, using the public dump (zip-code lock, eek!), and making coffee in the morning’s frost. It was fun to do in my 20s. Not any more.

   Right where the paved road ended on Mt. Baker Road, we found this awesome sight. Boulder Creek, seven car-lengths wide, waiting at Mt. Baker’s base for this season’s snow fall to finally melt. We plan to come back up near the end of July to see how much more the stream bed’s filled in.
   Despite not finding the perfect fishing hole, we loved the day. We left Fidalgo Island at 2 p.m. and returned at 8:30, two bushed puppies with a to-do list that included getting fishing licenses, discovering what salmon and trout feed on, and finally cleaning out our tackle boxes and reels, which haven’t been touched in twenty years. PS – I can hardly wait to use my Uncle Bob’s aerospace-engineer-built fifty-year-old fishing rod in the perfect remote mountain pond we’ll eventually find!
And then on Monday . . . . (6/14)
   Monday was a most special day because I had dinner with a very missed sister-in-law and her daughters, whom I hadn’t seen in twenty-eight years.
   A little back story.
   Sadly, on June 8th of this year, my kids’ father Phil Rodasta died. Because Nic didn’t have all Phil’s siblings' contact information, I took it upon myself to find each of them and tell them the news. I located Susie by dialing 411. Carol and Skip were a little harder, but thanks to Facebook and assorted other Internet channels, I found them both, left my phone number, and crossed my fingers.

   Early the next morning, Phil’s older sister Carol (OMG! she looks like her mother!!) called, and I got to hear a voice I’d missed so much over all these years. And she’d missed me. And she said she’d be in Seattle the coming weekend, because her grandson was getting married. And wouldn’t it be wonderful to get together? And let’s figure out how to make this happen.
   So on Monday we met at the newly patched up Ivars in Mukilteo (a sunami hit it during the dinner hour a few years ago – eek!), right on the Sound, next to the Ferry landing.

   The reunion swept my heart and breath away. David and I had a fabulous time catching up with Carol, her husband Leonard, her two beautiful daughters Laura Lee and Shari, their husbands Mike and Mark, and Laura’s daughter Ali. Tears, laughter, retelling of stories. It just warmed me. What’s that line from Wilder’s Our Town? “You have to have life to love life, and you have to love life to have life.’ Amen.
The Stove
   Hey, I was born and raised in Southern California. Never in my life did I think I’d ever own or even shop for one of these things.

   But, because our home is built into a steep hill that holds the cold, our downstairs is a totally different climate zone than upstairs.

   And this is what Sounders buy to warm their downstairs.
   Next shopping adventure: Buying a generator for when the forests blow down and we don’t have electricity for a day, a week, or, God forbid!
New Sighting

   We’re such nerds. We have bird books in the living room right next to the two pairs of binoculars.
   Good thing, because we had a waxwing roost on our torii.
Saturday Morning – Deception Pass Park (6/19)
   After hitting the local farmer’s market, we headed over to Bowman Bay (If you click on the map, we live just above the R of Rosario Rd.) for a joint Shamish-Swinomish celebration. They made fried bread and grilled salmon, drummed and sang, and showed people how to make thread out of nettles (eek!) which could then be woven into blankets. It was actually a fund-raiser to help pay for their canoe trip to Neah Bay, which makes
me shudder just to think about it. They have these little canoes which they’re rowing out to the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with its treacherous waters. Lahdeedah. Evidently they do this every year, and I’m a big sissy.
   We didn’t join in the festivities because fried bread isn’t on our diet, and anyway we wanted to down go to the shore and check out the canoes, which turned out to be new and made someplace in Canada, proving there is a market for contemporary Indian canoes.
   Loved the sight of lots of little kids romping down at the shore exploring the canoes. It made me wonder if they’re hoping to grow up to be Indians, like I used to dream of being a cowgirl, and my students imagined becoming astronauts.

   Afterward, we walked down the pier and saw a herd of fish flitting just below the water’s surface, spied another pier across the bay calling our attention, and visited the stone-and-lumber interpretive center, which was built in that 1930’s style that evokes FDR, Yosemite’s Ahwanee Hotel, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The center focused on the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), who built Deception Pass in the 30s, and whose individual participants described their memories with the CCC as “the best times of their lives.” Evidently Roosevelt wanted to “build men, as well as forests.” You want a little history on this? Check out this, and this for how they built the bollards. (Really, they're neat!!!)

   The other pier we visited was at Rosario Beach, but still part of Deception Pass Park. Here’s me in front of the Salmon Maiden, which the park service brilliantly surrounded with ultra thorny bare-hipped roses. BTW, the maiden on the other side has a different face. Symbolic? Realistic? We don’t know. We should have read the sign. We’ll be back and do just that!