Jaci Dawn

My alter-ego has carrot red hair, freckles, and a wicked sense of humor. She isn’t shy. She doesn’t care about rules. And she likes monkeys (at least one monkey – Mr. Nilsson).

STOP. I don’t care who my alter-ego is, she hates monkeys. There isn’t anything remotely cute or sweet or funny about Mr. Nilsson, except that he’s a fictional monkey. Pippi can be my BFF, but Mr. Nilsson really has to stick to being a fictional monkey, and may never – EVER – come out of the book. I feel about monkeys how some people feel about spiders and snakes. No. Just. No.

Truly, if it were not for the stupid monkey, Pippi was my heroine in grade school. She had a horse. She could do anything she wanted. She was STRONG (which I have never -ever-ever been). She had braids that stuck straight out from her head. She was fearless. She beat up bullies, but not unkindly.

Pippi likes ordinary kids like Tommy and Anika (the latter of which is more like myself). She doesn’t like fake people, people with an agenda, and mean people.She has a horse with no name that eats oats on the front porch. (That may be the best thing about Pippi: she has a horse! We could ride all day long, or just groom the horse.)

Pippi is also an immortal, still a child the age of nine, and still running amuck in some town in Sweden, possibly with a young Astrid Lindgren. It is never cold in Pippi’s world, for, as she, herself, stated: “If the heart is warm and beats the way it should, there is no reason to be cold.”

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Who hasn’t cherished a favorite toy at one point? Do you still have it or an old photo of it? What emotions does it stir up? Do you ever picture it coming to life like Buzz & Woody? Do you ever think today’s toys are “cooler” than what you had?

I got my very first model horse on a birthday. I disremember which birthday, but I do remember what I did the same day I got the Hartford Tennessee Walking Horse model (other than to name it “Black Satin”, nick-named “Blackie”, which was highly original of me). I took Blackie out to the empty lot out front so he could run in the dirt and jump small weeds, and dig up – oops! – small rocks.

I broke his leg off. I cried. I carried the leg around for years, lost it, and eventually made a prosthetic out of polymer clay which is still attached to him with wire and super glue.

Somewhere along the way, Blackie’s ears got chipped off as well. He’s endured a lot.

I decided this week that when I do my next declutter, the broken plastic model horses are going. I have a lot of fond memories of Blackie, but I don’t want to leave him to my children to dispose of. He’s long past the age any horse should live, and he had a lot of three-legged adventures in his life time. He even had a girlfriend, another model by Hartford that my best friend owned. I think her name was Cammie or Kammy, and she wasn’t a natural color for a horse.

I owned a lot of Breyer model horses, but I finally sold most of them to a collector back in the late 1970’s. I kept three back (including Blackie) – my favorites.

Man O’War is a Breyer horse. The story behind his is that there was a store in Winnemucca that sold tack and other goods. Dad shopped there/ I would wander to the back of the store where the tack was, and just stand and breathe in the smell of leather: leather saddles, bridles, halters. Sharp, tangy, and full of horse-ness.

There was a glass case back there which housed two magnificent hand-carved wooden horse statues, carefully painted: Man O’ War and War Admiral. As I recall, one was $75, which was a whole lot of money back in those days. And, oh! How I coveted Man O’War and his beautiful son, War Admiral!!

The closest I could come was the Breyer reproduction, purchased with my own money for around $15 or $20. Man O’War fell off of his perch about eight years ago, and his hind leg is glued on with super glue. Like Blackie, he is destined to be retired in the kindest way possible. I just don’t have room for broken horses anymore.

This is the only intact Breyer I have: WitezII Proud Arabian Stallion, mold #212. In my younger years, I fancied Arabians a lot, and this guy has had a special place in my heart. He was never one of the Breyer herd to be played with – he’s always been a display model. And, honestly, I never knew his name or the history behind him until tonight, when I googled “proud arabian stallion” under the Breyer website.

I will keep him. He’s the only plastic one I will keep – I have a much cooler collection of ceramic horses created under the Trail of Painted Ponies label (mine are all probably retired now). Breyers are great for kids who want to play with the horses and have them “run” and be free at night when noone is looking. But for collector value – which is what I need to think about when leaving this mess of “stuff’ to my kids – the Painted Ponies are worth so much more.

Isn’t it funny that our toys are reduced to resale value when we become old and think of having our children clean up after us? Goodwill – trash – eBay? That’s how the kids will think when they come through the estate and look at what the Boomers accumulated during their lifetimes (and their parents’ lifetimes, because I have certainly inherited my folks’ tendency to collect!).

In the comments, tell me if you have a prized toy you have saved? (My kids can’t play – I have their stuffed animals in boxes waiting to go home with them…maybe even sent some home already to one kid!!)

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This exercise is supposed to delve into “what if I had taken that chance”, but I’ve always been pretty good at jumping and taking that chance.

Take the year 1977, for instance. I traveled by bus across America, by myself (blogged about here and ending here).

I haven’t taken those kinds of chances in ages, but I took a wild chance when I first applied for a job in the real estate industry (as an admin, not a real estate agent). I’ve made that a “career” – been at this for 17 years this October.

I took a crazy chance when I pulled my kids out of public school and started homeschooling them through middle school and high school (they may resent some of that, but they turned out to be pretty intelligent, well-read, and successful people).

Sometimes, I feel like I am stuck – the career is stale, maybe. I’m aging. I have so much art to paint and so many stories to write. Again, I’ve moved into the proactive mode: I have a mentor in art, now, and a life coach. I’m making goals and following through. I chip away at writing with exercises like this and a few hundred words a night on my novel.

I remind myself that my mother always encouraged me by telling me the story of Grandma Moses. My mother chose to die when she was 63, but she didn’t want that for me. I’ve inherited her Scots stubbornness, and I fully intend to push through and reach my goals before I age much more.

This all leads into: I intend to have my website, an Etsy store, my Facebook business page, and an Instagram business page all up and functioning before my 61st birthday. Talk about jumping off the deep end without a life jacket!

Now I *have* to be accountable to all of my readership, not just my coach!

(I’ll post links to all of those sites before October 22nd. I turn 61 in November.)

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I am skipping over exercise #9 (what would you do if you suddenly came into a lot of money? A. Invest and Save) and working on #10 (What is a typical writer’s day in your mind? Describe.)

Mine would be a “typical writer/artist’s weekend”, the end result of which is *I hurt all over*. I’ll rub arnica lotion in before I crawl in bed tonight and hope I feel better in the morning when I have to get up to go to the Day Job. The Day Job currently pays the bills, but if I didn’t have to go to the Day Job, and I made money writing and painting, this weekend would be pretty typical.

Saturday, I pulled furniture away from three walls in the living room and washed those walls. I dusted all the shelves and items on display (sorry, no photos), and I washed the oak hardwoods with Murphy’s Oil before replacing the furniture. I cleaned out all the runners for the sliding windows (here, in the Pacific Northwest, mildew and moss is a huge problem, but they weren’t too bad). I washed each wooden slat on the Venetian blinds, and then I washed the big picture window and the small picture window (inside). That done, I gave the rest of the house “a lick and a promise” – deep cleaning is better left on a room-by-room basis.

Then I moved outside. I finished hacking at the rhododendron in front of the front stoop – I hate that plant! It’s pretty only when it blooms, but it covers up the front entrance, and for safety’s sake (mine), it needs to be hacked short every few years. It was also blocking the house numbers (has been for a couple of years). Suffice it to say, you can see our front door now. It was a butcher job, and – sorry – no pics.

A third of my lilac died last summer, and I got out the tree saw and cut out all the dead wood from that. I left the branches on the lawn because by that time, I was DONE. The only other thing of note that I did was to wash off the stoop and steps, and I met the newest new neighbors. (Our neighborhood has been in flux this year: we got a new neighbor across the street to the south, a new neighbor across the street to the east, two elderly neighbors vacated their homes [OK, Virginia died, but Selma moved to a retirement home and her house is now for rent]. And the neighbors across from Selma’s old place just sold their place. Their replacement is who I met). Daniel & Katie and the most adorable Staffordshire Bull Terrier ever. I mean, this guy up and climbed the retaining wall to sniff my pants and tell me how much he likes being our new neighbor. I like this dog!

Then I sat and waited for my husband to call because we were supposed to meet in Estacada for a particular brewery celebration. Don was out hiking with friends and said he’d borrow someone’s cell to call me when it was time. I watched Trolls (horrid, really – who recommended that?). I sorted laundry. I waited. I napped. I waited.

So this isn’t exactly an ideal day in the life of an artist/writer. But he finally called and it turned out that our plans had been canceled by other people and he was coming home. Life happens. Instead, we went down to Feckin’ Brewery and Smokehouse and listened to a pretty darn good cover band (Trying to Sleep). Then we watched a horrid French movie that I still haven’t figured out yet.

Today, however, has been the perfect example of a good writer/artist day. I had popcorn for breakfast, courtesy of the local produce store, Spicer Brothers. Bought pasteurized, but not homogenized milk from Garry’s Dairy, in glass jars. Whole milk. Came home and sank the bird feeder into a bucket with bleach and water.

Don was trimming up the rhododendrons out front, including my butcher job. We have to keep them trimmed up about four to six feet so I can see under them when I come home late at night (safety, ladies!) and we have to keep them trimmed away from the house by 2′, including the gutters. They generate a lot of dead material. (Bonus: he cut up and disposed of the lilac mess I left him.)

I moved to the back yard and took a tree saw to the horrid Oregon Grape I planted 14 years ago. I thought ALL Oregon Grape was a low growing shrub with pretty yellow flowers, so I planted this stuff in innocent bliss. I had little idea that there was a commercialized variety that grows 10-12′ tall and basically takes over your life. The smallish shrub I have always enjoyed turned into a gargantuan monster that shaded out my southwestern garden corner. Last year, I began the move of killing it all and restoring balance to that corner of the garden.

I cut down three of four bushes last year, but was stymied on the fourth: too many tree-like stalks growing out of the ground. The three I cut down last year, I have continued to hack all summer, and I hope will eventually die because I refuse to let them grow. Don came out and helped me kill the fourth – and final – beast. I now understand why my friend, Tori, stated that she “hated Oregon grape”. I thought she was being over-dramatic. Hah!

Still no photos.

We broke for a beer break and opened the first of the beers in Donald’s prize case from Feckin’ (for the barbecue): Feckin’s tasty IRA. It’s a red ale, not too hoppy, and very low on the IPA scale (I hate IPAs, just for the record). An excellent ale.

Then we watched bees. This is a note to not be underrated: bees. I can name three neighbors who use chemicals to kill weeds and insects. I have a sign in our front yard proclaiming us to be chemical free. Fifteen years ago, our first summer in the garden was spent asking ourselves, “Where are the insects?” We had no insects, no birds.

Fifteen years later, we have a plethora of bees: green, black, honey, bumble. Wasps (I welcome all except yellowjackets). Spiders. The birds are amazing.

Speaking of birds, I cleaned the bird feeder, stewed down some suet and added dried mealworms. We rehung the birdfeeder full of black oil sunflower seeds and one suet feeder. Then I came out to see my car covered in this:

The little shits shat all over my car. Pretty certain it was hummingbirds who were upset with Don trimming the rhododendrons, but – really???

I spenbt the rest of the afternoon tracking down insects with my Google Pixel (it takes better macro photos than my DSLR). The bees weren’t cooperative, but the fall wolf spiders were.

Finally, after showers, laundry, dinner – I was able to sit at the computer and write, scan, and create. Perfect day for me. 🙂

I still have time to work on a chapter in my novel.

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Something you’ve always loved is coming to a close unexpectedly… What is it? Why is it important to you? And how do you convince someone to drop everything and go with you in a short time frame?

The End of the World’s Largest Independent Bookseller

Powell’s City of Books? Closing? Forever? The iconic, three-level, largest bookstore on the West Coast – closing its doors? Suddenly, with no explanation? Can you hear every librarian, teacher, bibliophile west of the Mississippi screaming a collective, “Nooooooooo!”??

There it was: headlines on the evening news: all the books to be sold at a fraction of their ISBN code price. The retail and resell book seller was going out of business, permanently. All locations, but you know the one set between NW 10th and 11th, facing West Burnside has always been the best one: the new location out in Beaverton doesn’t have that musty old book smell to it, but smells like a Barnes and Noble store, with a Starbucks kiosk and nice carpeting.

I picked up my phone: who to call? Who would want to go downtown with me, armed with bags and a credit card? Who did I know in real life that is as rabid a bibliophile as I am? It’s not like I actually have any more room for books, but just the thought of all those books… The originals. The classics. The poetries. The plays. Children’s books. Novels and novellas. Mysteries. Science fiction, fantasy, historical fictions, histories, biographies, and controversial writings.

It didn’t take much arguing to convince Mary that we needed to go. The history of Powell’s Books was enough to convince her that this was a last minute, last moment of our life time. Audio books, how to books, crafting books. Old and new books. Antique books. We knew time was of the essence, before other collectors depleted the massive store’s supplies. We also knew that we were the only two suited for the long lines, the impatient jostling, the reaching-over-your-shoulder-book-grabbing madness that we were about the descend into…

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When I turn ninety, I expect a party. I want costumes and music and dancing. We’ll tell jokes and funny stories and embarrass each other royally. I want every generation  living to come and spend the day with me, and some not so living (ghosts will be welcome).

When I turn ninety, the menu will be lasagna, and cake, and ice cream.

When I turn ninety, I want you to rent a horse so I can go for a ride.

When I turn ninety, I want to give away all my books to all my guests.

I want to wear toe socks and my very best hat that doesn’t match anything I own.

When I turn ninety, I may not have all my faculties – or even all my teeth – so treat me kindly, and make me laugh.

When I turn ninety, I want hugs from everyone – just don’t spill my wine. It’s probably the only glass of wine I’ll get in my nineties!

When I turn ninety, I want Hallowe’en candy and Christmas decorations and all the fine china set out (and who cares if a piece gets broken?).

When I turn ninety, I expect a party. I want costumes and music and dancing.

When I turn ninety.

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“What do you see out your window?”

I see a boring view of a suburban street canting downhill at an angle. There’s a dead lodgepole pine in the center of the view, with an empty bird feeder hanging from a limb and three empty suet feeders hanging from nails in the trunk. I didn’t put the nails there: they came with the tree, which came with the house. The tree wasn’t dead when it came with the house, but died in increments of some mysterious fungal disease or bug infestation. There’s a large hydrangea planted under the tree, I planced it there so the roots would be in acidic soil and the flowers on the hydrangea would be a deep teal blue-green.

Beyond the tree, beyond the short retaining wall, there is the street and mailboxes. In mid-summer, just in front of the retaining wall, the bright orange day lilies bloom for weeks. In the winter, the street looks like a creek as water from the rains wash down it and swirl out onto the cross street and down.

Suburban ranch style homes built in the 1950’s line the south side of the street, with their little rectangle front lawns and requisite azalea and rhododendron bushes. A row of Douglas fir trees line the north side, their branches trimmed up so that I can see the traffic coming and going. These are not my trees, but belong to the neighbor in the green house directly opposite us. A bright orange fire hydrant marks the sharp corner to our street, and the corner of the neighbor’s yard.

I have hummingbird feeders hanging from the eave of the small porch roof. I can watch the Anna’s hummingbird all year, and the rufous-sided hummingbird in the summer. Red breasted nuthatches and black-capped chickadees drink from the ant moat (an inverted bowl of water hanging above the hummer feeders, designed to keep sugar ants out of the feeders). Chestnut-sided chickadees, bushtits, and white-breasted nuthatches utilize the dead lodgepole. I bird watch through this window.

It’s a boring view, an ordinary view, a view that is most often wet and dreary throughout the long rainy season. It is a perfect view of changing seasons, migrating birds, and the various nattering squirrels who come to depend on the bird feeder being filled all through the winter. It is my view.

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