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Pink Mountain

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on February 1, 2011| 5 Comments »

I have a lot of things on my mind lately. So I found myself mindlessly crawling in traffic at 5:00 PM, not really stressing about the fact that we were only rolling at 20 miles per hour. You can take in a lot of scenery when traffic isn’t moving very fast and there’s one spot on my commute where Mt. Hood can be seen – if it isn’t socked in by grey clouds or so pale behind the haze of smog that a photo is impossible.

Tonight I could see it was tinged pink. But would it stay pink long enough for me to get to the view point, get out of my car and shoot a photo? That’s always the iffy question.

And did I want to stop considering how much time I was already losing in slow traffic?

But, as I said, I have a lot on my mind. And stopping to smell the roses is a priority right now. You only live once: embrace the moment!

It was still vibrant pink as I came to the exit, so I flipped on my blinker and escaped traffic. The woman in the blue car behind me did the same thing.

It occurred to me that she might be one of those people who thinks it is clever to speed through the rest area and merge back into traffic six cars ahead of where they were. But she wasn’t: she stopped her car and got out, camera in hand. I guess pink mountains are irresistible.

As I snapped half a dozen photos from different angles, I remembered a summer night in 1973. A warm summer night, unlike tonight when the frigid east wind was turning my ears into ice. We were hosts to a Japanese exchange student by the name of Keiko. Keiko was a little overwhelmed by the vastness of Nevada. And on this particular evening, as the sun set behind us, it turned the eastern mountains pink.

In Nevada, you don’t think much about pink mountains. They just happen. But Keiko had never seen a mountain turn pink and she jumped for joy. Pure jot, clapping her hands together. “Pink! Pink! The mountain is PINK!” She cried over and over in delight.

Tonight my heart was saying the same thing: Pink! Pink! The mountain is PINK!

I lost a little ground in traffic, but it was well worth it. How often is the sky clear when the sun is at the right angle to turn Mt. Hood pink? And how often am I in the right place to see it happen?

As my friend Jodi says, Life is Good.

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Random Memories

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on January 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Some memories stick with us. The sounds, smells, the colors. A moment in time, a photograph in our brain.

I have many of those memories from our years in Jarbidge, Nevada. Most of them center around Mahoney Ranger Station, which – oddly enough – we have few photographs of. Most of the old photos I own were taken at Pole Creek. But the memories are at Mahoney.

I remember watching a spider crawl around underneath my mother’s ironing board while she ironed. It was doing no harm, just crawling. I might have mentioned it to my mother. I think I remember mentioning it to her. I think I remember she was less than concerned about it, as long as it was under the ironing board and not interfering with anything. She may have looked to be certain it was not a black widow, but I do not remember that. I only remember the spider did not frighten her and she did not kill it. My mother liked spiders (exception: black widows).

I remember the palomino. He was probably a gelding. He was half-wild, as were most of horses that made up the U.S. Forest Service remuda in those days. They kept him in a separate pasture at Mahoney. He reminded me of Roy Roger’s horse, Trigger, but in living color. I have a vivid snapshot in my mind: I am bent over in the driveway, making mudpies. I mix in the gravel and petals from the yarrow. My mother is not far away, watching me. The palomino is in the pasture closest to the ridge above Mahoney. Suddenly, he rears up onto his hind legs and paws at the air.

He is etched into my mind forever.

I have another photograph in my head: I am peering upward through milling horses’ hooves and tails. I am looking into the frightened eyes of a man who is standing in the loft, tossing down hay to the horses in the corral. I can smell horses. I can hear the man’s fear.

Someone snatched me out of the corral and I most likely suffered a spanking for scaring everyone. But what I remember is that I was standing in the corral and the horses milled around me.

There was another palomino. Maybe the same one. It was up at Pole Creek. The flies had gotten to it. It developed a sore under the throatlatch that festered and oozed. My mother had to apply salve to it twice a day, a chore she hated. I did not know at that time why she hated the chore – or even that she hated it. That knowledge came later when she told me she hated horses. All I remember is the horse standing by the corral fence, waiting for the salve that eased the flies and the pain.

Then there were the bears.

They were not real bears. Oh, real bears lived in the woods but one never got to see them. These were the bears that lived under the floor of the log cabin Ranger Station office that stood next to the white clapboard government house where we lived in Mahoney. My father’s office was in the log cabin with the white chinks between the logs. We were not allowed to go into the log cabin.

I didn’t want to go into the log cabin.

Bears lived under the floor.

I was not afraid of Smokey the Bear. He was warm, friendly, and smiling. Sometimes I got coloring pages of Smokey and I colored him brown with blue pants on. I did not stay in the lines.

I was afraid of the bears that lived under the floor of the log cabin and that came out at night, growling and prowling. I had nightmares about the bears chasing me.

My father did not believe children under the age of five could have dreams, let alone nightmares. Guess I was a wake-up to him.

My father and brother still laugh about the bears. But they were very, very real to me when I was three.

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Soldier

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 29, 2011| 1 Comment »

She stood in the shade. Voices drifted back to her and laughter. The smell of camp fire.

The cars were all parked alongside the road: Grandpa’s and Uncle Bob’s and the sea-green Buick station wagon they all called Nelliebelle. She liked the color of Nelliebelle.

She looked up toward the sky but could only see the branches of the pine trees. It was dizzying: the trees were so much taller than the people and the people were so much taller than she was. She was certain her father was the tallest of all of them: tall, thin, with hair as black as the coal that came down the coal chute in the winter when they lived in town. They didn’t live in town in the warm summer, but lived in one of two white houses with green shutters up in the woods.

The houses had names: Pole Crick and Mahoney. She liked Mahoney best because there was a big white barn at the end of a long, wide gravel drive and there were always horses in the corrals. There were horses at Pole Crick, too, but no long driveway where she could play and make mud pies.

It would be years before she learned to spell and more years before she learned that Pole Crick was spelled Pole Creek.

In the sunny clearing where white smoke curled up from the campfire, her tow-headed girl cousins were giggling with her big brother. He was making funny faces, something he was very good at.

Her mother was busy with the new baby, Denise. Aunt Phyllis had a new baby, too. The babies were not very exciting: they cried and stayed wrapped in blankets.

The dogs were running around, sniffing the ground and begging. She didn’t like her mother’s dog, the little Chihuahua mutt they called “Squeaky”. Squeaky nipped. She was afraid of Squeaky’s nips, even though they didn’t really hurt.

She wanted to be special. The other children were special. They huddled together and laughed, but she stood on the edge looking in. She didn’t know how to play the games they played and that made her feel afraid.

All around her, the woods were dark and light, shadow and sun, green and brown and sagebrush. Wild animals lurked out there: porcupines, big red-and-white cows, floppy-eared mule deers, the chattering camp robber and the invisible rattlesnakes.

She looked down at her feet: the earth was a soft brown duff, littered with thin pine needles. This spikes of green grass poked upward. At Mahoney, there were flowers she could pick to put into her mudpies: yarrow, dandelions, Queen Anne’s Lace. She hoped to see some bright red Indian Paintbrush, but there was none to be seen.

There was something odd staring up at her. Half buried in the duff, a worn little soldier stared through the tiny cast-iron ears of his Cavalry mount. A horse! There was a horse on the ground by her feet. A horse that no one else had seen. A horse left there by some child many years before she came to this place.

She picked him up and toddled to her grandfather and father, the soldier and his horse held tightly in her hands. So excited by her find, she lost all sense of shyness and held it out for all to see.

Who told her that it was special? She could tell by the interest the grown-ups took in it and the careful way her grandfather cleaned it off.

“That is very old,” someone said.

The other children crowded to see, but when the soldier was released from adult hands, it was back into her hands. “No, he belongs to Jackie. She found him. He is hers to keep.”

The other kids lost interest because the horse only had three legs. That was all right with her: a three-legged horse was probably why it was such a special find. And part of her was sad for the little boy who lost it long ago. She would never know if it had all four legs when it was lost or not.

**The only parts of this story that are true are: we were on a picnic. My grandparents were there. Some cousins were there, but I don’t remember which ones. It was out of Jarbidge, NV. We spent our summers at one or the other Ranger Station: Mahoney and Pole Creek. And the wild animals that were loose in the woods. And our Buick, Nelliebelle, but we may have purchased the car after I found the soldier. I was two and a half or three and a half, so it was 1959-1960. Could have been 1961, but no later than that. My memories get clearer after 1961.

***The soldier looks very much now as he did when I rescued him. He has always been very happy to live with me and I have taken good care of him.

I don’t know why I have never named the horse or the soldier. I guess I thought that if they wanted me to know their names, they would have told me and they never did.

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Life is Magical

Posted in Uncategorized on January 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

I have been doing some real soul searching over the past few days and all I came up with is this: life is magical. We can spend our days on the woulda-coulda-shoulda’s and let all the regrets flood in, or we can take the time to stop and look at life.

And life is magical.

From the tiniest flower to the way the light glints off of the freeway in the rain: life has some truly magical moments.

I’m pretty excited about the future and all it holds.

And that is all I have to say. 🙂

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Wookiie & Woof

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 24, 2011| 1 Comment »

If you follow my blog at all, you know we have two dogs: Don’s Very Expensive Bird Dog that I once considered the bane of my existence and Jaci’s Pound Puppy.

It’s been quite the ride and I am still learning how to be a good Dog Mommy. It’s quite a change for a dyed-in-the-wool Cat Person. I like cats specifically because they don’t really NEED me but they don’t mind any attention I might give them. And sometimes cats think they are dogs, but they remain aloof like cats.

Anyway, I am now a Dog Mommy.

When we got Murphy, the Dark Dog, I thought Hell had opened up and swallowed me. He was a dominant/aggressive puppy. He was hell-bent on ruling the house, including me. I was hell-bent on learning to speak dog-ese and thwart Murphy’s domination plans. I blogged a lot of not-so-nice things about Murphy, but in the end (with the help of dog experts like Cesar Millan’s website), I won. Murphy now defers to me in most things.

But Murphy is not compatible with a cat and I was left pet-less, a totally unacceptable state. So I decided I needed to adopt a dog of my own. I did not set out to get another bird-dog, but when everything finally came together for me to adopt, I adopted an English Setter that was a year younger than Murphy. Harvey had his own dominant issues, but he was not dominant-aggressive. He’s dominant-passive. That’s good, on the people end of things.

It means, in short, that Harvey will never challenge a human being for the dominant place. He recognizes that he is a dog and the low member of the dog/human pack class structure.

Neither dog has a mean streak.

Neither dog seeks to set up doggie dominance with violence against other dogs. They do it all through posturing.

This is good: they don’t know how to fight and aren’t out to start a dog fight. We’ve owned a dog that was out to fight. She was not funny (but in all actuality, the most she ever did was shoulder-roll another dog to prove who was the Big Dog. And the dog she rolled was a Chow-Chow with a bad rep. Chow-Chow never challenged our little bitch again. Hmmm. Maybe that’s proof that – nevermind. I’ll let your corporate mind go there, lol.

Back to our dogs. When I adopted Harvey, the people at Clackamas County Dog Control insisted we bring the dogs together on neutral ground to make sure they would “like” each other. I understand their premise. And we did that. And the dogs were fine.

At home, the dogs are… funny. Murphy is the prevailing dominant dog and he maintains his status by a lot of barking. Harvey remains a dominant male, but he acquiesces to Murphy’s place in the pack. They determined their place without a single fight. Yes, there is a little growling and snapping over shared food, but it is really very minor stuff. More noise than anything.

They take turns chewing on each other. Sometimes Murphy is down and Harvey chews on his throat; sometimes Harvey is down and Murphy chews on him. there’s always a lot of noise, posturing, and faux growling. There’s a lot of stealing, too.

Murphy has a growl language that sounds like a Wookiie. We hear a lot of that. Harvey just barks. We hear a lot more of that than we care to.

But when they are exhausted, they sack out together. Really sack out together.

You would never know they did not grow up together. They are bonded.

They are funny.

They will teach me to love dogs as much as I love… hmmm. OK, they will teach me to love dogs after horses and cats. And birds. I still like horses, cats and birds best.

Just kidding – They are very much loved by me. Even Murphy, the former dog from hell.

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Grand BOYS

Posted in Uncategorized on January 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

I had the opportunity to babysit three little boys today.

I had other plans but who can resist? If I could have had all five of the boys here, it would have been bestest, but I will take three. And three is a handful.

I think Javan has latched onto the concept that he ought to be my favorite and he makes certain he is the center of attention. He’s still far too solemn and old in demeanor, but his smile is infectious and his laugh is addicting.

Zephan has grown up so much. I can scarcely believe he will be three years old in a few short weeks. THREE. Suddenly, he is camera-shy. He covered his face up every time he saw the lens pointed in his direction! He is still as bossy as ever and it was at his insistence that we watched cartoons on Netflix. He lasted halfway through “Tugger, the Jeep Who Dreamed of Flying” (he’s seen it before several times) and he made it all the way through some Stuart Little animated movie. He gave me running commentary through both animated movies, most of which I understood.

And Eliran. What can I say about little Eli, who I have dubbed “Chubby-Wubby”? The dimples say it all. The double chin says it all. And, no, he was not that cheerful the entire time. He was rather fussy during the last hour.

Oh, how I love my boys. All five of them. And I sure loved my three hours with these three today. I was also very happy to see mom & dad drive up. 😉 Eli was beginning to get just a bit too fussy for Grandma.

Zephan, on the other hand, did not want to leave Grandma’s house where he can eat crackers on demand and play with toys that make obnoxious sounds and watch cartoons all day. He cried.

Javan just rolls with the punches. Time to go? OK. Love ya, Gramma.

I did get a photo of all three together, but would they smile? Would Javan look like he was happy? I mean the kid ran around all afternoon laughing and giggling and getting Gramma to break out the crackers – but sit all three down to take a photo while they watched TV? Smile?

Suddenly he was Javan the Old Soul.

For the record, I love that photo. Zephan is definitely a Weisser, but Javan is totally a Wilcox (my maiden name). Eli is just… Chubby Wubby, my adorably wonderful pinchable Chubby Wubby.

Eli wants to run with the Big Boys.

Javes has accepted that he is one of the Big Boys.

And Zephan went pee in the Big Person Toilet.

Yeah, we had an “accident-free” day. Good job, Zephan!

Gramma loves her boys… All five of them.

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Photos

Posted in Uncategorized on January 17, 2011| 3 Comments »

I am doing the Photo 365 Project again. Not here, on my blog. I’m keeping myself accountable to a group of ladies on Facebook who are also participating. A couple of them are professional photographers. It’s very intimidating.

It’s also really, really hard to keep coming up with subjects. Even harder to come up with good photos. Sometimes I succumb to silly, as I did in this photo:

That was Day #9 and all I could come up with by the end of the day was a stock photo of Canada geese. I see geese every day. I step in goose poop every day. Geese are just… geese. Until you put shades on them & give them hats to wear.

Today was another fruitless day of looking for the right photo. I sat in my car  eating lunch and contemplating what on earth I was going to do for a photo for today. Then I decided to take a nap.

And I saw this strange glimmering reflection in my car window. Hmmmm.

I kind of like the cars in the tree mirage. But it isn’t really a “good” photo, just a weird one. I left it on my camera in case nothing else came up.

And I tried to nap some more, but the clouds overhead were streaming by and, well…

You do see it, right? the dragon?

If all else fails, draw a picture. You DO see it now, right?

Can I just say I knew I was not going to come up with a great photo for today and resorting to photoshop was going to be the best I could do?

At 3:00, I took my camera with me for my break. I was walking alone today as my walking partner had the day off. And let me tell you, there was NOTHING new under the sun (or the clouds) to take a photo of.

Then I met this cat.

It ran into the hedgerow when I called to it.

Thank you, Mr. Cheshire Cat.

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A Rainy Day with Harvey

Posted in Uncategorized on January 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I am waiting for the lasagna to bake and while I am waiting, I am writing a blog post. Outside, it is raining. Rain-rain-rain with very little let up. Warm rain, not that nasty cold wintry rain: we are catching part of what is known as a “pineapple express”: a large, warm, wet air mass that is streaming directly from Hawaii across the Pacific Ocean onto the western shores.

Today I decided I needed just two items for my little studio to help me work on some current projects. I need a little saw and I really wanted to find some air-dry clay. I have some stuff I bought at a flea market that I love, but it is nearly gone, it is blue, and I want something white.

As I dressed to go out, my husband suggested I take Harvey along to the ride. I was disinclined to do so: what would Harvey do? Just sit in the car in his dog carrier while I run into the store? Wow, exciting.

Then I reminded myself that I don’t understand dogs and Harvey would probably think like a toddler thinks: a ride to the store is exciting, even if he never got out of his dog carrier. He’s not a cat. A cat could not care – not more, not less – about a ride to the store. A cat doesn’t need anyone. That’s why I’ve always liked cats. They’re not very needy.

A dog is very needy and a dog needs constant reassurance. A dog needs attention. A dog needs a ride in the car.

So I took Harvey with me.

We went to JoAnn fabrics first, but they did not have what I was looking for in their large collection of Xactoâ„¢ blades and the clay they had was more than the change in my wallet.And there was this little girl who stood in front of the clay the entire time I was shopping. Just stood there. She was probably 4-5 years old and her mother was nowhere in sight. I had to shop around the kid.

I like little kids, but I dislike having one stand in the way like that and where was her mother? She was there a full five minutes and no mother. Maybe I was too overprotective, but I would never have allowed my child to wander off like that in a store. I wanted to see where my children were and who was near them.

When I got back to the car, Harvey was bark-bark-barking non-stop. This is typical Harvey. He needs to bark. I told him to be quiet, that the ride would go much better if he was a good dog and did not bark. He quieted and we drove to our second destination: the grocery store. I needed one tiny item for tomorrow’s dinner. In-and-out.

Harvey was a good boy and did not bark once. I told him so.

Then we drove the 3.5 miles down the hill to Michael’s Arts & Crafts. Again, I asked Harvey to be good while I ran into the store.

This trip took me longer. I didn’t have to contend with some little kid, but I did have to work around other shoppers. I found the Xactoâ„¢ blades but Michael’s had half of what JoAnn’s had. Or so I thought: I discovered they had more on the end of the aisle. Why not put them all in one place? Oh, that would be too logical, I guess.

They did have the saw I wanted. A perfect saw. $8.99.

They had the same clay as JoAnn’s did, but for $5 less. Cool.

I wanted one more item: a little sanding board for sharpening pencils. You can remove the sandpaper as you wear it out, but it’s really handy for sharpening pencils when you’re drawing. The sales clerk didn’t know what I was talking about. <Sigh> I did find one, but it was in a prepackaged mess of other items: pencils, eraser, compass. I only wanted the sandpaper board. But I showed it to the clerk so he would know if anyone should ever request one again.

Not that I think he even cared or will remember.

Back to the car & Harvey was still being very good. So on the way home, I decided we’d stop and take a quick walk along the promenade. The rain was warm and light by that time, so I thought we’d probably manage quite well.

When I opened up the back to let Harvey out, I discovered he’d been car sick. Really, really, really car sick. All over his rug & the inside of his dog carrier and on one paw. UGH.

I walked him through several mud puddles to wash the yuck off of his paw.

And I regretted not having my camera: Willamette Falls was spectacular: muddy, swift, and the river is very high. I could peer down onto the viewpoint: every parking space was taken by people wanting to photograph the falls. I had a much better view, but no camera.

<sigh> At least it was very warm and light rain.

I let Harvey ride home in the back seat rather than trying to put him back in the dog carrier with the yellow yuck. Fortunately, I had a rag in the car to cover the seat and he was a very good boy, curling up on the seat and not trying to run around the car.

The dog carrier wasn’t too hard to clean up, thankfully.

Pretty cool saw, isn’t it?

It was a pretty good walk with Harvey, too. He was such a good boy on the leash. He may yet train me how to be a dog person!

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An Artful Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Today was one of those days to inspire. I had only one thing I wanted to do today: take a photograph of the Oregon City Arch Bridge before they blast the gunite off if it. My husband had only one thing he wanted to do today: go to the Portland Art Museum to see the Thomas Moran painting on display there.

Nature has only one thing She wanted to do today: dump a Pineapple Express on us. It’s supposed to rain all weekend. Warm rain, pushing snow levels up to 8,000′ which in turn pushes river levels up. I’ll be keeping an eye on the rivers for a photo opportunity, but we’re not expecting any floods like 1996 – just a lot of high water.

We decided to combine Don’s want list & my want list this morning. We drove up to Portland in light rain and actually snagged a parking place right in front of the Portland Art Museum, just 15 minutes before they opened their doors. That’s unheard of: getting a parking spot where you don’t have to walk blocks! Woot.

The Thomas Moran painting that is on display (sadly, it is leaving on Monday) is one that was not on display when Seattle Art Museum hosted a large display of Moran’s landscapes a few years back: Shoshone Falls. We’re huge fans of Moran’s landscapes, so this really was a big deal. And since we were at the art museum, we toured the rest of their exhibits. I left feeling very inspired to pick up my oils again and paint.

By the time we were back in Oregon City, the rain was beginning to fall in earnest. We were still early enough that we could find a great parking spot in downtown (again – unheard of). The Arch Bridge is already roped off while workers attach scaffolding and prepare it for the coming two years’ worth of work.

The gunite (concrete) needs to be removed so they can check the steel undergirding of the bridge (besides, the gunite is beginning to fall apart). I am sad to see this happening because I use this bridge daily: it’s a short cut across the Willamette River (which is a lovely chocolate brown today) that gives me about a 3-mile or 5 minute headstart on traffic stuck on the I-205 Abernethy Bridge. But I can see why it is necessary. And I hope it will not take 2 years as predicted! Two years is a long time to have to deal with the traffic mess on the Abernethy Bridge!

Since we were already along the riverfront, we decided to walk the length of the new pathway. Over the last 2 years, ODOT and Oregon City have been improving the pedestrian access along Highway 99E and this is the first time that either Don or I have ventured out along it as peds.

The old section features concrete posts and long rails, but a nice view of the historic bridge.

The new section boasts some artful rails as well, and a barrier between pedestrian and traffic – which the older section does not have.

I’m not really certain why you would want a view of the long sewer line? I assume that’s a sewer line running along the river there? Love the manhole cover.

The walk ends with a wide viewing area looking out over the Willamette River. Looking south(upriver) toward the Arch Bridge, we captured the Sternwheeler Rose at dock. Some day I’d like to ride on the sternwheeler, maybe up the river (that’s the direction we’re looking) and through the locks around the Willamette Falls.

And north (downriver) at the ugly Abernethy Bridge which is about to become the bane of my commute.

Trivia: see those docks there? When Arwen was an infant I had two girlfriends whose babies were the same age. We used to walk our strollers out onto those docks, just to go for a walk somewhere with our babies. That was 25 years ago…

We crossed the highway at that point using the handy little walk signal at the stop light. And since we were on that end of town, we decided to check out three little artsy-antique stores along 14th Street. I know where I will be shopping next Christmas! I may even put together some artwork & look into doing a consignment in one of them.

I have so many little artsy notes to write into my notebooks after the trip to the museum and the walk through the little shops. Somehow the day ended up being more about inspiration than the closure of the little bridge. And that’s OK.

Because I’d rather not dwell on how bad traffic is going to be on Monday morning when everyone has to take that nasty Abernethy Bridge across the Willamette River. Nasty AND ugly.

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It Started With A Forward

Posted in Uncategorized on January 14, 2011| 1 Comment »

Usually I avoid all email messages that begin with “FWD:”. I especially avoid those that begin with “FWD: FWD:” Anything with more than one “FWD:” in the subject line means that the sender is 1) computer illiterate and can’t begin to clean up an email 2) too lazy to clean it up and 3) passing on some joke, urban legend or political commentary that has been around the world exactly 6,349,567 time. At least. And I have had it in my In-Box nearly that many times so I don’t want to read it again.

But I got one today that rocked my socks.

I had to research it.

What I came up with is there’s this fantastic photographer in Finland who has a little girl and when her little girl is napping, this photographer creates a dream-scape for her. And takes pictures.

Adele Enersen.

I can’t find a website for Adele Enersen, but I found her blog.

I am adding that blog to my Google Reader. I am a new fan.

All I can say is WOW.

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