It was announced on the ABC News this was the most successful Black Friday ever, and that the nation was loosening it's purse strings and surely recovery was just around the corner.  I thought "idiots" and turned it off.  Even in our little, remote city there were people lined up at Sears, and Shopko in the dark.  The Walmart was beseiged, no pepper spray though, and the Macy's lot was full.  Those I talked to said they had bought Christmas gifts but spent less on those but purchased things like vacuum cleaners, school clothes, $50 blu-rays, that they had been holding off on for months waiting for an excellent price and that they were now done.  I think the extra push came from replacing household necessities at a bargain rather than spending up a storm from feeling economic relief.

I am making some gifts myself and did participate in the sale at our JoAnne's.  I didn't shop Friday but Saturday went to the smaller home owned places for books, and the like.  Still, there are three fresh business closures here.  Our liquor stores will be closing due to a referendum here in Washington dismantling the state liquor stores.  All those employees will be out of jobs in June.  Once Walla Walla was on the list of a 100 best small town downtowns, after restoring old buildings and building up local businesses.  Now the empty store fronts are appearing again.  It's interesting, second hand shops have replaced furniture stores, consignment shops for kids and women's clothes are thriving, car dealerships shrank.  Large farm equipment dealers lost their franchises.  The Greyhound bus line no longer stops here.  The odd weather hurt the fruit farmers, and the precious wine industry here.  I think this dank economy is here to stay for awhile.

How is your town, city, village faring and managing?

It's a quiet, cool but sunny day.  Tiny little birds are picking at something I cannot see in the remains of the garden.  I still have a few roses to trim up a little before it really freezes. 
And,  wahoo, I nearly finished my Christmas shopping much to my surprise in a spurt of online shopping Wednesday.  Good thing as my modem crashed the next day. That was followed by a tour of our little town's small businesses Sunday afternoon with my granddaughter.  I am trying to shop locally but it is hard here, selections are limited in our remote location, still I've gotten about half my gifts here.  I did buy a fake tree this year while we were out.  Small and easy to put up without moving any furniture.  I feel like I can relax and enjoy the season now.

Thanksgiving is a blur, 24+ of us gathered two days in a row.  Lots of food, turkey Thursday, ham Friday. Good company, silliness, laughter, and some early gifting for small children visiting and their cousins, eight all together.  Four generations.  And unfortunately for me, a dog, I had to leave early when my asthma kicked into high gear in spite of a week of pretreating with antihistimines.  Being goofy or lonesome I came the second day too and ended up with an inhalation treatment at ER.  In the shower Sunday I got cranky, weepy, and sad thinking how my allergies separate me from a lot of people I'd like to be around.  That's when I realized I really wasn't feeling well.  The hardest part is I'd like have a dog or a cat too if I could, just not in my karma.  Time to make lemonade out of my personal lemons and regroup. 

Got my modem reset by my carrier, no internet most of the holiday, which is okay mostly except I pay my bills online and read the online news.  I'm renting my modem which I either didn't know or forgot, so I will go out and buy my own, trying not to think how that oversight had me paying for 10 years extra $ to my so-so cable company.  Not a fortune but one of those little irritations.

Still, I am feeling mellow today and looking forward to my five year old granddaughter spending the afternooon and dinner with me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

Hope your weekend is fun and your travels are safe.

Turkeys at the Grandgirls Farm

I'm thankful for my family;

For all my grandchildren;

My dear friends;

All my truly cool in-laws;

More than enough food in the cupboard;

For a comfy house to live in;

For a reliable paid for vehicle;

For living in a place free of tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes;

And of course my blogger buddies!

Just a thought...

You might as well laugh...

TGIF

I'm passing this on because it worked for me today. A Dr. on TV said to have inner peace we should always finish things we start & we all could use more calm in our lives. I looked around my house to find things I'd started & hadn't finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiuminun prscriptuns, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now.  Sned this to all who need inner piss. An telum u luvum.

Thankyou, Susan

Landscaping

What is left of my rose trellis and climbing rose from h--l.

This is landscaping in the broadest sense of the word.  Since tomorrow is garbage day I went out to the backyard to gather up all the fallen branches from the week or so of windy weather we've been having.  Surprise!  The trellis had broken off and it and most of the climbing rose that was on it was collapsed on the deck in front of my back door.  Grrrr, it's 31° in my backyard.  I don't want to go out there, it's cold!  Being a grown-up, I slammed the back door and said all those words I don't say in front of my grandgirls.  However being really irritated calls up quite a lot of energy that's not going to any good use so I put my woolly coat, woolly hat, leather gloves, woolly socks, and rubber shoes and went out and retrieved the rose pruners and my giant geared lopper from the garage.  I stopped to stare at the thermometer, yup, 31°.   What happened to our semi-sunny 45° degree weather? Oh well, it's still garbage eve, much celebrated in my household, and the 90 gallon monster I get from the city is only got about 10" of trash in it.  Go Grandma.

This rose and I have a long history, it was here when I moved in 11 years ago and I spent 6 or 7 years trying to kill it.  It was raggedy and has the nastiest thorns.  I chopped it down.  I  dug it up, many times, following roots and dragging them out.  I poisoned it, a move I try usually to avoid but cutting and digging wasn't doing it.  So one year, bowing to a power greater than mine a trellis was erected to let it grow on.  If it wouldn't disappear I would use it to shade the deck which gets hotter than a frying pan in the summer.  The first year it seemed happy, growing up to the first rail, but the next year it sent out long branches and I interwove them through the trellis to spread the shade as far as I could.  The third year it filled in nicely and gave out many red blossoms.  The next year it didn't want to blossom and in the following winter 2/3 of it died like everything else shrub-like in the yard died in a prolonged deep freeze that came after an untimely warm spell in February.  And it never seems to have recovered, but it won't die.

So there I am, I chopping and pruning, muttering dark thoughts about being out in such weather snipping away and then it started to rain a little, and the rain froze, making the deck slick.  Little tiny particles of sleet or miniature snow got stuck in my hair and eyelashes.  More colorful language emerged, quietly, there's small children next door.  And then I started laughing.  This thing needed cutting long ago, the trellis wasn't strong enough anyway for the kinds of wind and gusts we have here, and fate made sure I got out there to do it and conveniently there was enough room in the trash for the remains.  So much for being the mistress of my own ship.  At least it got done before dark.

Raymond Carver a Washington Writer

I've been reading my small collection of Raymond Carver books again.  In some ways it suits this dark and blustery weather, and the late fall season.  His later work is a reminder for me of what a game changer it is when the realization strikes that you've come out appreciative and still moving forward after life's early sturm and drang, even in the face of great personal challenges. The first Carver I ever bought and read was "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," it's 1981 collection of short stories and the title of one of the stories.  One of this week's joys will be strolling through the used book stores looking for the missing books in my collection.  I looked him up on the web and found Carver is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in Port Angeles, Washington.  I'm sorry I didn't visit him during my last visit there.  This is the inscription on his tombstone.

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Also his poem "Gravy" is inscribed there.

No other word will do.  For that's what is was.  Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving, and
being loved by a good woman.  Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going.  And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways
somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and
building up inside his head.  "Don't weep for me,"
He said to his friends.  "I'm a lucky man.
I've had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected.  Pure gravy.  And don't forget it."
RAYMOND CARVER
(1938-1988) 

Veterans Day 2011

Just a pause to appreciate our troops scattered around the world, especially those in combat areas.  I imagine most of us have watched as our young people left our neighborhoods, churches, and schools leaving home and family for an unknown future in the service.  I pray for their safe return, and for all those over time who have not returned or have come back injured in ways hard to heal.  May we all greet the returning gently, with love, and support, and comfort the families left behind.

Alaska Dreaming

Sun glittering on ice Alaska July 2011 Mendenhall Lake, Tongass National Forest



Mendenhall Glacier was on my "must see" list.  It's part of the Juneau Ice Field.  It's about 12 miles out of Juneau, Alaska.

Mendenhall Glacier

My sister and traveling buddy from inside the visitor's center. 

A Whole New World of Old

Photo KATU



Having relatives and friends in and around Portland, Oregon, I peruse the local papers and TV stations to keep up with their news.  I brought up KATU TV to see the most amazing glass sculpture and a gallery of other wonderful art pieces.  They are featuring the Geezer Gallery, a fine arts gallery, the inspiration of Amy Henderson, featuring elder artists.  Read here why-geezer. "Rather than a term of derision, we seek to redefine geezer as a term of strength, empowerment, and perhaps even endearment. Instead of a pejorative, geezer can become a rallying cry for all of us, regardless of chronological age, to embrace the creative forces which reside within." Their home page displays the logo "The Geezer Gallery- a whole new old."  The gallery is located at 7710 SW 31st Street, Portland, Oregon, in Multnomah Village, one of my favorite places in the world to be.  Shops, bakery, coffee, you can't go wrong.

Lamp by Chuck Castro

The gallery has an art as Therapy initiative, especially as it concerns our growing elder population. I have experienced personal growth working through issues with art.  The works in the gallery are varied and interesting.  They are about so much more than the art you see in the gallery.  Below is a glass piece by Frank Springer, a fine glass artist and retired Portland cop who at 97 volunteers in Portland schools teaching about glass and art on personal basis with young students.  As you probably know the arts of all kinds have taken a serious beating by the current economy in the schools as elsewhere.  To me this is a peerless match up, the elder experienced artist and our children who are are our future.

Plate by Frank Springer displayed at the Geezer Gallery - photo KATU

I found it especially exciting because I'm an artist, an artist in a long slump, but I just started volunteering with an art program in our Walla Walla elementary schools, Art Lab.  I signed up to do "a" tour of the Walla Walla Foundry with my 5th grade grandgirls and their class.  Turns out what they really needed was several someones to be at the Foundry helping put the tour on so I signed up for one a month.  And, now I get to go on tour with just the adults to pre-view the place in detail.  I have been there before but not so much from the inside.  Then I had to shake the cobwebs out of my head and write a blurb about one of the many, international artists who do their work there.  That material written by us volunteers goes to the teachers to use to prep the students for the tour.  It needs to be interesting, and brief, a challenge.  I used to write and do art and photos for a small PR group years ago, some of that experience is still there I found.  I got it done and I liked it.  I think this is my own art therapy and it started some juice flowing again.  Last night I found out the artist I wrote about, Ming Fay was in town.  I plan to hustle down over and see if I can catch a glimpse and see what he's up to there, an art goupie at 70, ha, ha.  The map of our lives is out there if we just don't quit looking for it.