music to a mother's ears

Every morning when Anna comes downstairs, I stop whatever I'm doing and we spend a few minutes snuggling. This morning she said "Mama, lately whenever I wake up I am just so happy that I want to run around and spaz out and stuff!"

I know what you mean, sweetie. I know just what you mean.

who's the worst blogger ever? huh? who is?

But damn...it's summer! The sun is out, it is warm, it's light until after 9 o'clock. There is BBQing to be done, books to be read in the shade of the porch, yard-work to be tackled, runs to..um...run, and old creek-beds to be hiked. Behold, Deep Creek:



This gorgeous area is only about 20 minutes from our house (assuming that someone other than me is driving so we don't get lost). It's this big gorge with towering basalt rock formations and a lush creek-bed. We couldn't get as far back in as we wanted because we brought the dogs and someone has legs that are only 4 inches long. Corgis? Are not built for hiking. Anyway, it was lovely. The whole place reminded me so much of Garden Valley; the trees and plants, the smells, the air, the clacking grasshoppers. Aaahh. We played by the river for a long time; both the dogs LOVED it and were completely happy to wade in up to their chests and just stand there panting. Neither would swim although Moby did this funny "snorkeling" thing that I've never seen a dog do: he would put his entire face down in the water for several seconds at a time, exactly like a person with a face-mask would do to look around under water. That dog is strange. Anna started catching little fish and putting them into the bowl we'd brought for the dogs. She started her own little "relocation" project, to move them to a "prettier" place. I'm sure they are still there in that exact spot, so grateful for the girl who moved them from their previous, "boring and ugly" home.

The rock climber in the picture? Is the very girl Eric (my ex-husband, for those of you who do not know) has a red-hot burning crush on. Strange that we'd see her on this hike, halfway up a towering rock wall. She's a waitress at our favorite local pizza joint. She is single, has an 8 year old daughter of her own (which means, presumably, that she LIKES CHILDREN! Imagine that!), is fit, adorable, and has a gorgeous tattoo of a flycatcher on her arm. (Eric loves birds). But, I am of course, staying out of it.

Tra la la...

What else? I made a cute and ridiculously easy skirt for my cutie-pie grand-niece (aka my sister's granddaughter). Grace has blond ringlets, grey-blue eyes, the sweetest nature and she literally shines like the sun, this kid. Her mother recently told me that Grace LOVES to wear skirts and dresses. Well, that's all you have to say to me, and I get busy sewing. I just happen to love to sew dresses and skirts for little girls, and my not-so-little girl is way beyond that stage. She's all about "skinny jeans" and t-shirts now. Hmmpphh. Anyway, Grace's birthday is coming up, so I made her a skirt with a matching shirt. The skirt's fabric has flowers, bees, lady-bugs. And of course ric-rac. It is so very Grace.



Also? My 20yo niece is coming on Sunday, to stay for about ten days. I'm going to thrill her with all the Fun! Cool! Exciting! Healthy! things to do here in hopes she'll move up here. I just booked a room in Leavenworth and got tickets to The Sound of Music production that their summer theater puts on every year up on the ski mountain. If that doesn't blow her mind, I don't know what will. We'll also take her to Deep Creek (above), hopefully to see Janie the Bird Lady who rehabilitates injured raptors, and various other treats. Will post photos etc. as I have time.

HAPPY SUMMER, everyone!!
Now get off the damn computer and get OUT THERE!

::beatrice::

Bea came to live with us in September and from the moment she arrived, she knew she belonged to us and that we belong to her.





The thing about Bea is that she literally can not be close enough to the people she loves. Every morning as I deliver David's coffee to him, she races up the stairs in front of me, hops up on our big bed (using the step-stool that is there for this purpose, of course), runs up the length of his body and flops down on his chest, her nose right in his face.

She did this to Anna the other day as we lay on the bed talking. We laughed and I said "Bea doesn't understand the concept of personal-space bubbles." "Yeah," Anna said. "I think she just POPPED mine!"

what would you do?

Last night, at about 12:40, I was awakened by a car pulling up, directly in front of our house. I lay there for a minute, assuming it would move on, but it did not. I could hear a woman talking full-voiced, so out of curiosity more than anything, I got up and looked out the window.

It was a big black car and there's really no other way to describe it other than "pimped out": a low-rider type with dark-tinted windows and chrome wheels, idling there directly in front of our house with a low rumble. I could see a young blond woman sort of leaning out the passenger side, smoking, but I could not see inside the car or the driver. My large and protective husband snored soundly next to me, and our dogs? The ones who go ape-shit whenever a dog or squirrel dares to tip-toe within 100 yard radius of our house? They were each in the midst of a deep, chicken-scraps induced coma.

I got up and went downstairs to get a better look. Now, here are a few things to keep in mind when considering my heightened sense of curiosity/fear: I was, a couple of years ago, robbed at gun-point at 7 o'clock in the morning, not three blocks from our house as I worked at my sister-in-law's coffee shop. The dude who was obviously tweaking and not considering the consequences of pulling a gun out in broad daylight at a very high-traffic coffee stand. He calmly took the money I handed him from the till and walked, WALKED away as one of our customers (who witnessed the entire thing) drove slowly behind him, calling the police on his cell-phone. Then, a few months ago while David was out of town, there had been a car similar to this pull up across the street from our house in the middle of the night. That car, too, sat and idled for several minutes, and as I watched, I heard pounding footsteps and a man yelling "Go! GO!!!" as he ran jumped in the car as it pealed away from the curb. They were obviously up to something and had come close to being caught. Also, last summer, someone pried open the latch and siphoned the gas from David's gas-tank right in our driveway. These things make me aware that there are people, bad people, who come to our part of town specifically to take things that do not belong to them. With this in mind, as that big black car sat rumbling less than 10 yards from our front door, I called 911. I just reported a suspicious vehicle and said I'd like an officer to come check it out and make his/her presence known.

As I waited, hunched down in the darkness of our house, I watched as the driver's door opened and out stepped....a thin young woman, in shorts and flip-flops with her hair up in a loose bun, with a baby on her shoulder. A baby. She could easily have been one of my nieces. She walked around to the back of the car, put the infant in its car seat, got back in the car and they pulled away. By the time the patrol car arrived twenty minutes later, they were long gone.

Of course, I felt foolish once I realized that the young mother had simply pulled over to nurse her baby and her passenger took advantage of the time to hang out the window and have a smoke. But what were these two young girls doing in this big, black, tricked out pimp-car in this neighborhood at 1 o'clock in the morning? And with a baby no less?

David thought I'd over-reacted by calling the police, and perhaps I did. But given that I couldn't see the occupants of the big, black car and that they were obviously...uh...not from this part of town, well, it freaked me out.

What would you have done?

::scenes of summer::

Just a couple of days after I posted about our dear friends Rod and Julie being numbers 1 and 2 on Anna's list of "People you love most", guess who called to say that they'd be over for dinner in a couple of hours? This is remarkable because, well, they live on the far west side of Oregon and we live in eastern Washington. But they were on a road trip to Glacier Nat'l Park and decided to head home via Spokane. We had a great visit, as always.

Also, over the weekend, David installed a rope-swing in one of our gigantic Ponderosa Pine trees. We're still working out some kinks; right now it's more like a zip-line! It only works if someone, preferably over 230 pounds, is holding the end of the rope.

Anna says that this simple addition now officially makes our house "the coolest house EVER" and says that now? She will live in this house until the day she dies.

So it looks like David and I will have to move out. To a home without a rope swing.

This just is not right

Do you see that? I'm #2.

I carried that child in my womb for 10 months. I put cool washcloths on her forehead, sing to her and rub her back when she's sick. I nursed her until she was twelve, for gods sake.

Number 2. BELOW Rod and Julie.

They are evil and must be stopped.


On the other hand, David was thrilled to be in the top 3.

Alpine Lakes Wilderness hike

After our fun Saturday night at the Bike & Beer festival, we needed to clear our heads and get some exercise. I love that these girls enjoy hiking as much as I do. Christina didn't join us this time; she opted to take full advantage of her child-free day back by the pool with her book and a nice, long nap.

This is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area outside Leavenworth (in the North Cascades of Central Washington). The area suffered a horrible forest-fire in the late 90s; now it's starting to recover and it is sooo beautiful. We were there at the perfect time for the wildflowers. The lake that we hiked to is called Eightmile Lake; it was worth every precarious stream crossing and mosquito bite. Gorgeous.

Once at the lake, I was checking out birds (Yellow-rumped Warblers and a Red-naped Sapsucker and lots of other warblers that were impossible to identify.) Suddenly, I saw movement in the bushes and used my binocs to see what it was. "What the....There's a friggin' HOUSE CAT over there!!" Now, we were 4 miles up the side of a mountain, the nearest house probably 10 miles away. The girls came running over and after awhile we saw the "house cat" and several others climb up on the rocks to check us out. Yellow-bellied marmots. But I SWEAR (and even Jen and Cole admitted it) that that one looked exactly like a long-haired siamese slinking through the brush.

....

This weekend, Christina and the girls are coming over for a sleep-over; we are going to try to recreate the outrageously DELICIOUS Mexican food we ate every chance we got while in Leavenworth. She's in charge of the fresh-basil margaritas! I know tha sounds weird, a basil margarita, but you know what it tastes like? A garden in a glass. So, so yummy.

And, last but certainly not least, today is Friday which means: STORYCORPS! I'm going to try to post these every week; Story Corps is truly one of the best bits on radio and I look forward to it all week. It is always thought-provoking and heart-warming, usually funny and sometimes makes me cry. I'd love to interview our mom someday.

This one made me think of my sister Jodi, who took on (and beat) breast cancer twice. As always, I urge you to listen to it; it really is best heard in their own voices.

Happy weekend, everyone!