In Portland again

Here I am in Portland again, enjoying refreshing air with alternating sun & clouds, sometimes a bit of rain. Last weekend, son T was here as well, and we all (five of us) went camping two nights up in Washington, near Mt. St. Helen's in the Gifford Pinchot NF. As son J has accumulated three tents (giant, small, and smaller), T and I didn't have to lug camping gear on our flights. We even got pillows! After leaving pavement, we drove for what seemed like three days on gravel washboard and set up tents in the dark. Sleeping was COLD. We survived, waking to fresh-brewed coffee, blueberry pancakes, and bacon next to a warm fire. J&L sure do know how to camp, and even baby Henry is a veteran camper and giggler. We took short walks (T ran several miles of course), admired the Cispus(?) river roaring past the campground, and T could not see a tree lying across a torrent without walking across it. And we sat around talking, reading, snacking, etc. basically just enjoying being surrounded by Doug-fir, hemlock, and w. redcedar all day instead of city. The second night we all put on more layers and felt cozy.

T's back in Phx, but I opted to extend my stay to be here for J's birthday and so he and L could have a rare night out. Henry is such an easy baby to stay with. Mostly good-natured and entertaining... at least this time. I have to admit that on occasion he has been a pill, but that was before he got used to not-Mom, not-Dad folks. Now, we're good. He works hard all day pulling himself up to standing (and occasionally toppling) and crawling at jet speed all over the place. I bought him a wristband with jingle-bells, which he finds delightful, and we make a lot of goofy noises and faces at each other. When no one else is home, I sing to him. Maybe I'll get my voice back. I've found vocal exercises on the internet that are sworn to reduce or eliminate snoring by strengthening up the back of the throat so it doesn't collapse on itself. They are basically exercises singers use to keep in shape, so it seems logical that I could also get my voice back. I can dream.

The Sparrow

Yesterday I finished reading The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, a book so fascinating and at the same time so excruciatingly painful and heartbreaking that I feel run over by a truck. After a while, I guess I'll tackle the sequel, but right now I can't. In short, a group composed of Jesuit priests and various scientist types (in the future) manage (this accomplishment may be the least believable part of the story) to travel to another planet whose inhabitants' eloquent singing broadcasts have been picked up by SETI. They make contact, and the consequences range from ecstasy to unimaginable horror and all points in between. Only one priest makes it back, and his debriefing is interleaved with the group's experience of the years-long visit. Theology is a (the?) major theme, along with ecology, evolution, familial love and friendship. Normally I roll up my eyeballs at stuff about religion, but here the issues are sophisticated, interesting, and challenging enough to knock that prejudice aside, at least for me. There aren't any easy answers here, but there are lots of good questions. (Anyhow, I've always liked the Jesuits.) The author, formerly one of the science types, was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism, and she's writing a lot of her own theological and intellectual struggles and growth into this story. And I'm not going to say what's so horrible because I don't want to be a spoiler. Read it yourself!

Also yesterday, I watched my son T's second Muay Thai fight (he won!), which was also horrifying in a way, but turned out to be much less so than I expected, was actually interesting and made me proud. I only regret that it took place in one of those obnoxious giant casinos way on the other side of town. I hate those places -- all the jangling frenzy rattles me.

Update on the photoshop issue -- It is not totally dysfunctional after all. I can open *.jpg files, but cannot open raw files (*.NEF) without crashing. I do NOT want to give up taking photos in that format. I still haven't done anything except post on the Adobe support forum. Nobody is helping yet. Oh! Haven't checked yet today. Off I go.

And then I'll escape into another quite ordinary and horrific crime novel by Henning Mankell, which will be so soothing after The Sparrow.

The ongoing gripe-fest about broken Photoshop

What an aggravating day! First, I called Adobe Customer Support for help with my photoshop problem (crashing every time I try to open an image file). I was willing to pay the $39, but no way, no support for me. Why? My Adobe Creative Suite 2 is toooooooo old!!! I was instructed to use the online forum to seek help. (Been there, nothing there, guess I could write something and wait, and wait...) Then I thought, well, maybe I should spring for a more recent version, so I called the ASU computer store and was told I could get CS5 for only $169 if I bring a current class schedule, or if I don't have one but have an ASU ID card ("Sun" card), I can use it one time only, under the policy of being nice to friends/supporters of ASU. Wheeee!

So, at midday, sun glaring, I hit the highway, paid $3 to park (feeling sorrowful not to be in the club any more, no parking permit, no class, out in the cold), trudged in the blazing sun to the computer store, and was told I can't have it without a current schedule. The guy I talked to on the phone was naturally gone for the day. Did I get his name? No, damn it, I am not in the habit of asking everybody's name when I have no clue there will be "issues." However, for an extra $30, I could buy it without a class schedule ($199). Granted, $30 isn't that much, and $199 is still a bargain, but I stood there wavering, resisting, thinking about that course I really want to enroll in but I'm trying to be sensible. Let's see, spend $2000 to save $30? Sure, that's rational. But I still might give in; it's not too late. (The employee even said I can enroll, print out a schedule, then withdraw! Heck, I might want to do that anyhow after attending the first class.) So, I stood there like a donkey starving between two haystacks unable to decide what to do. Finally, I accepted her offer to hold it for me for a week (they disappear like hotcakes).

Then I remembered I'm enrolled in a 1-credit yoga class at the community college! Okay, I call the bookstore there. It's not in the store, but it's available for online order, $199.95. Hmmm, that sounds better than another broiling trek to ASU. I'll eat lunch and think about it.

Oh, this is so boring! Why are you reading this?

Damn it!

So now I can't use Photoshop! I finally settled in to do a re-install. First I did what turned out to be a pseudo-install, which was quick and didn't change anything. So then I read the instructions in the read-me file, deleted files, emptied trash, and tried again. This time it took a long time and seemed to be going very well until the very end of disk 4, when something did a flibbertygibbet, flashing error messages and swallowing them like minnows. I figured, well, that was just in one of those "Creative Suite" programs I never use anyhow but greedily install as if I might someday become a completely different person. Nope. Photoshop crashed as soon as I tried to open an image file. Bummer. When I work up the frustration tolerance quotient again, I'll re-try but only install Photoshop. Hah. It'll never work. I really don't want to face a trip to Tempe to buy a more recent version, which I'd love to have, but facing the broiling sun, the long walk from parking to the student discounted store, the risk of having my outdated student ID rejected and therefore having walked in the sun for nothing, or the expense if successful -- all that is daunting. But maybe if I go tomorrow, before fall semester actually starts, maybe I can still use the ID. Heavy, all this decision-making.

Meanwhile I'm loafing (reading) a lot and occasionally cleaning some corner of the house in preparation for house-shoppers. If I only do a little bit at a time, I can just barely stand it. Yesterday I was in a funk, so I went to a tiny meeting of the Glendale Poets at the library. That was fun, perked me up a lot. The leader is a sweet missionary-type lady about my age who patters on and on, kinda gets on my nerves. The cut in library hours has required her to change the monthly meeting time, the prolonged details of which I heard three times as people kept coming in late. Then we read some poems (the fun part). There were only five of us, and happily nobody brought anything to write with, so we didn't do any writing exercises. (I hate writing exercises. I wanna be left alone when I write.) It was the first time I'd attended, and I said I'd come back, but I may have been lying.

To enroll or not to enroll?

Here's something else bugging me. I've been taking poetry courses at ASU for the past several semesters. I am hungry for this. I learn so much. The professors have been wonderful, each one unique and brilliant in his/her own way. But it's so damn expensive! And tuition keeps going up, up, up. This fall semester, tuition + fees for a 3-credit course is almost $2000! So, I sit here dying to take a 500-level poetry course that will be demanding and juicy, will feed my mind and spirit, and not taking the step to enroll because I think I should not be spending that much these days, with personal circumstances in a state of turnover and too much credit card debt and my inheritance dwindling as the market wallows in an apparently long-term funk. I know that's the right decision, the practical and cautious decision, but I ache to enroll, I salivate to be challenged in a classroom dedicated to poetry. Damn. I might (usually do) have a sudden last-minute change of heart and just throw money at myself! Thinking...

Realtors aren't all alike

This new realtor is so different. He called today wanting to bring someone over, and of course we are sloths and haven't done any cleaning up yet. He didn't care! He said if that mattered to them, they weren't really a serious buyer anyhow. Wow! The previous realtor (prissy old phoney woman with fake hair & show-off clothes to make her look young) had us working like demons and paying hundreds to cleaners, and she also said we had to leave the house for hours while people often didn't even show or took their time, which is a genuine hardship in this heat & no place to take a dog except Petsmart or Petco, which gets very, very old very, very quickly. Our signatures on the paper have barely cooled, and later this afternoon he wants to bring someone else as well. Same realtor, buying and selling -- that's what I did, and I regretted it, because I should have made a lower offer and didn't negotiate at all because I was a complete dummy. But hey, I'm keeping my mouth shut. Uhh, it occurs to me that maybe he's not putting the house on MLS and exposing it to other realtors. Amazing, we didn't think to ask, just left him to his own devices, feeling kinda glum and non-activist.

What a slug day. Just listening to NPR and playing solitaire mostly. Exercised yesterday, which livened me up. I usually don't go to Bally's on consecutive days but maybe I should. I even slept late this morning, catching up on shortages all week, as I stay up too late to be getting up at six to walk the dog. Dog and me loafing today. Anyone who knows me has to be astonished to hear that I have been getting up every morning between six and seven. Me too. It actually feels good to be out before the sun is high enough to get mean. This week is gonna be awful, temps close to 110 and overnight lows in the 90's. Why do people live here? I feel pissed off all the time. I keep scheduling things I have to do, not leaving me gaps to get out of town. Dumb. I know, I can go to REI today and shop for a pad for camping. Yeah!

There's more

Aha! Back again, twice in one day. Why? I'm bored. My photoshop software is fucked up, so I can't work on my photos. It has been showing signs of damage ever since my first iMac's motherboard went south and I bought a new one (new iMac, not motherboard). Something happened. Updates would no longer install. I've lived with it, cuz it's already got too much stuff in it anyhow, for me, so who needs updates? Me, apparently. Now, just this afternoon, when I tried to add photos from Alt-89, the plateau, every time I try to open an image file, the program crashes. I'm reluctant to haul out the original CD's and re-install, probably will have to wrestle with Adobe's paranoid security restrictions and will get mad and spoil my day. So here I am, whining in public.

Not far, maybe a mile, outside Bryce Canyon National Park sits a restaurant that displays a braggy sign about their homemade soups and pies. I'm a sucker for homemade soups and pies, and I was hungry, so I stopped... and so did everybody else. There I was, dusty grayhead all alone. Restaurants hate to waste table space on singles. They gave me suspicious glances as I sat waiting for a table to come available, then they (guiltily, avoiding my eyes) escorted me to the counter (without even asking if I minded sitting there). I did mind, but I stifled it. I got to watch frantic staff rushing back and forth in front of me, behind the counter, avoiding my eyes and muttering about people at certain tables. Finally I got a menu. Eventually a waitress appeared -- mine! I asked what kinds of homemade soups they had. Just one: tomato and macaroni. (Tomato and macaroni? Why?) I asked, does it have anything else in it? Ummmm, maybe some ground beef. I ordered a cheeseburger with bacon, kind of pouting, and buried myself in a New Yorker magazine. When the burger (and fries) arrived, I asked for barbeque sauce, and was surprised to get it. Then I tasted the burger. It was excellent! Really, really good! And so were the fries. And so was the blueberry pie I ordered for dessert. So, after all that irritation, I ended up liking the doggone place. You never know.

I wrote about eating chicken at the Rock Springs Cafe north of Phoenix, but I forgot all about my accident! Before leaving on my trip I had tripped over the little stone wall between my front yard and the sidewalk, and I carried the resulting shin bruises around for weeks. They were just about gone when I fell again at the Rock Springs Cafe. To enter the place, one has to navigate wooden beams laid to form three small steps down from the parking lot level. They sported a coat of brand spanking new lurid, practically glowing, bright yellow paint. I saw it, admired the yellowness, and fell right off it, splat. Hurt, but not really. But now my shins are bruised all over again, one of the bruises bulging up angrily. They acted panicked, like other folks have fallen (hence the new paint job?) and they are sensitive about it. Well, hell, one arrives there dazed by freeway driving and the motherfucking heat, and it's no wonder one fails to correctly interpret the lovely yellow and falls flat! Someday somebody's gonna break a bone and sue somebody. I have an idea: paint black stripes on the yellow, at an angle, changing the angle for each step, so it's not pretty any more and just maybe suggests a warning. (Maybe I should email them about my idea.) The three steps, all the same color as they are, kind of blend together like a single surface; they don't look like steps but just a bunch of yellow stuff merged.

Home not home

This is a view of Deadman Pass in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, off I-84. Traveling east, exiting at the Deadman Pass rest area, one has to squeeze through a teeny underpass (crossing under the freeway) and drive three miles east of the rest area to find this viewpoint, which I think was worth the trouble. Bye-bye Oregon, for now.

Oh, how do I let it go so long (writing here)? Maybe it's because a lot of what's on my mind is grubby details I don't much want to write about here. I dreaded coming home, facing the necessity of tiresome details of putting an end to a dead marriage. Been home a week now, everything pretty calm and dreary. Met with a realtor, put the house on the market for a little less than what I paid for it in 1997 and not nearly enough over what we owe to give us a decent send-off. Oh well, so it goes.

So, I paused a few days in Portland and then headed on home by way of Bryce Canyon National Park, which was overflowing with visitors gabbling in many languages. Camping was not even remotely possible, everything full, so I just drove around stopping at viewpoints and taking some very short walks, soaking up the spooky beauty of mostly-orange eroding rock formations and enjoying the audacity of begging crows.

At a "natural bridge" so close to the viewing area it seems to smack one in the face, a young lady went on about how Bryce Canyon isn't a canyon (it's an eroding plateau) and the natural bridge isn't a bridge (since it doesn't go anywhere, nothing on the other end). So true, like something Congress might authorize spending to build. And like "reality" shows aren't.

After, I barely made it to Kanab, Utah, before I had to stop and sleep. All that gorgeous scenery I saw on the way north was hidden in darkness (and light rain), no fun driving this part sleepy. I'll be back one day, and I'll visit more of the dense cluster of parks and monuments and other varieties of spectacular preserved nature in southern Utah. A pity I won't ever live near them, as I've had my fill of ultraconservative states.

In Arizona, I took Alt-89 instead of regular, treating myself to the lonesome beauty of a high plateau. I watched a black-throated sparrow singing his heart out on a grass stem. I noticed lots of places to pull off the road and sleep, nobody to shine a flashlight in and object. I'll be back.

All this time, all the time I was gone, temperature and weather varied but was always COOL. The descent into Phoenix was depressing. One bright spot was the Rock Springs Cafe. Of course they have good pies, but I had already had pie two days in a row. I focused on non-sweet food. I saw fried chicken on the menu, and with little hope, I asked if dark meat was available. I was agreeably shocked to be informed that I would get the pieces of half a chicken. It was the best fried chicken I've had in years and years and years. It was a small chicken, tasted fresh and the pieces were crispy and cooked to perfection (juicy! even the white meat!). Yum.

I drug my ass home. Grumpy, when he saw me, looked like he was expecting me to assault him (probably because of that email he sent when I was at the writers' conference). Obviously, I did no such thing, chose to ignore the email as a misguided outburst not to be taken seriously. That may not be accurate, but as a working hypothesis it works better than fighting about it. Everything is calm here, not happy but at least tolerable until Oct. 31, when Grumpy is done with school and ready to find some sort of job and go it alone.

You'd think I'd be working hard to get my stuff in order to facilitate the move. Hmmmm. Not yet, at least not much. Little things. First job was to panic over 8 lbs weight gain, only to see it disappear after four days of excessive defecation (big piles of road poop!). Tossed out many old files, found insurance policies, requested beneficiary change forms, saw the tax man who recommended a mediator for divorce while I was signing off on the '09 tax forms, thought about amendments to my trust, etc. Mostly I'm reading mystery novels and a few books of poetry, exercising, getting up early for dogwalks and feeling sleepy all day, huffing at Bally Fitness, etc., and best of all, hours and hours working on my photos from the trip!

Life goes on.

Camped on Hoh River

On the way back Portland from Neah Bay & Ozette, I traveled down the coast on 101 and found myself in endless forest w/ no motels and getting late. Finally saw a "lodging" sign directing me into a driveway, a B&B, which of course was full, but the superfriendly woman called a friend who takes in folks when everything is full. I found my way and was welcomed into a private home where I slept in one of those bedrooms overstuffed to the brim with photos, pillows, bric-a-brac, and who-knows-what-all. But the bed was comfy and I shared a bathroom with her visiting son.

On the road again, after sausage gravy (outasight) over biscuits (like concrete) and coffee in the Forks Coffee Shop, I checked out some campsites and was hooked by one in Hoh Oxbow campground. Here's my li'l tent and the view from the foot-high picnic table.

I stopped midmorning and had the whole day to enjoy views of the Hoh River, Stellar jays, chestnut-backed chickadees, and reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on the midget picnic table supported by my rolled-up sleeping bag. I was a super-permeable sponge, absorbing nature like a tonic. Then it got dark and cold! Shit, I didn't have enough warm clothing. Leaving Phoenix in July, it just didn't seem possible that there'd be any use for a hooded sweatshirt. Somehow I managed, was almost comfortable, slept well. Then headed back to Portland, where today I took Grandbaby to the park again and let him chew on Maple leaves.

Cape Flattery

My visit to the northwest extreme corner of Washington was spectacular. Cape Flattery is breathtaking. I only regret that I limited myself to the main trail, which was short (3/4 mile one way) and made easy by tree slices, boardwalks, and viewing platforms. On the way back I noticed a side trail, unmarked, which I later learned was 3.3 miles long and led to the Strait side rather than the Pacific side of the cape, and that if one was brave enough to use the ropes, one could actually get down to the beach level. Ha! Not me! But I wish now that I had at least walked to the edge for the view, a photo of which was displayed in the Makah Museum. Instead, I drove down to Ozette Lake and took a trail out to the beach there (Sand Point). It was also 3 miles each way, with ups and downs, and so I realize I could have done the other, which would have been more rewarding. Oh well, I'll have to go back to Neah Bay and see Cape Flattery again some day.

I just can't seem to ever get tired of this view!

Okay, okay, I'll stop. It was late afternoon and very misty, so that's why the photos look subdued. At one viewpoint, there was a herring gull nest perched precariously very high up on a rock ledge. Three fuzzy gray chicks wandered around a few inches this way and that, somehow not falling off. The area is a nature preserve, which explains the very limited access. I wonder how long before somebody starts dumping, or drilling and spilling. It seems there's no end in sight for stupid, blindered spoilage of our planet. So I won't complain about restrictions.

The Makah Nation's museum was beautifully designed. I had read their web site, about their history of whaling (eight men in a canoe!), recently resuscitated in coordination with current regulations and restrictions. I saw a replica of the whaling canoe and samples of their traditional equipment in the museum, including sealskin balloons to tire the whale (a ritual now abbreviated by the more humane shooting after the lancing is accomplished). They also hunted fur seals and sea lions from slightly smaller canoes. An excellent video documentary was playing continuously, relating the tribe's history and present efforts to bring traditional knowledge back to life. Their history was limited to memories and oral tradition until a mudslide revealed a 500-yr-old village at Ozette with a multitude of artifacts reinforcing oral history (and by the way persuading the U.S. government to allow them to use fishing nets when it was proven, by remnants of fish nets made from nettles, that nets were traditional, not introduced by white settlers). I was so impressed by the museum that I was moved to buy t-shirts and a beautiful coffee mug (like I don't have way too many of both already).