Weeds or Flowers?

Beautiful day.  Drove out to Mill Creek to see the herd of goats busily chewing away on the south banks, clearing out dandelions, blackberries, and assorted other things that have sprouted up this spring.  I think they nibbled off the wild roses too but no fear those will come back.  I like this chemical free method of cleaning up.

Looking for a sip of water.

All sizes, colors and shapes of goats, pretty sure this little white one is goat child labor.

Part of the crowd.

 A finished spot, I couldn't ID the plants the goats didn't nibble to the ground.  Some kind of spiky grass?

A Little Sunshine and prayers

Spring on Mill Creek

This was quite a weekend.

The hills are still green and here and there you can see the crops coming up.

The Walla Walla Onion Man Triathlon was held at Lake Bennington.  It begins with a swim across the lake and goes on to bike and then run.  

Here's a shot of the rapt audience.

I am making a vat of sausage bean stew for the family dinner tonight.  My number is up for the main course.  It's also a 3rd birthday celebration for the 2nd to the youngest grandchild and only grandson.  This boy has seven sisters folks, six older and one younger.

Make Everything OK Button

Got this from my grand-girl Natty. Wish it worked.

There is a celebration of life tonight in Pioneer Park for three Walla Walla High School students who died in a rollover accident in the early morning Sunday.  We are a small town in rural SE Washington and everyone knows everyone one way or another.  My prayers go out to their families and to all their friends, my grands among them.

Not Forgotten

2nd Lt. Walter F. Alberty - Flying out on his first mission with the U.S. Army Air Forces, with Photographic Squadron, 67th Reconnaissance Group, April 1944.  

He was a young man from Castle Rock, WA and my father's best friend.  June 17, 1944, over Normandy while piloting the P-38 Lightning 42-68259, he was shot down by German Fw-190 fighters.

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The residents of the French town of Lingreville recovered his body and buried him.  Later he was reburied in the Brittany American Cemetery in St. James, France.

Walt was awarded the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Purple Heart. 

While going through old pictures I found this photo my father had taken of Walt before the war. I did an internet search and tracked down the Alberty family and sent it along to a grand-nephew who has been keeping this history for the family.

Happy Birthday Little Sister

This is my next to youngest sister Pam at age 4 and age 5.  She has a tender and kind heart and is an animal lover with a special passion for cats, bunnies, and horses.  She is a sweetie and today is her birthday.  And as my Norwegian in-laws would tell you the 17th of May is also Norway's Syttende Mai or Nasjonaldagen (The National Day) somewhat like the 4th of July.  Many Norwegians will be celebrating along with her.  Happy Birthday dear one.

How do you cheer yourself up?

Photo by Jordan Matter from his book "Dancers Among Us."

I picked this Seattle photo because Seattle is where I was born.  Here's a link to the  Dancers Among Us photos by Jordan Matter, how does he do it?  Such joyous poses.  I found him by strolling through images looking for dancers and some way to pump in some positive vibes to my brain before going to the gym.  That's one of my other ways of shaking the blahs, get moving.  Right now the pollen is killer high here so I stay inside and scoot along the treadmill and then go work out on the nautilus with almost no weight on the ends; doesn't matter brings some life back into my body.


I also got out my wallet and went to Macy's and bought myself two pairs of short summer pants and a couple of tees all on sale.  Everything there always seems on sale but this was good.  Retail therapy at a minimal price. I lost enough weight over the last year, on purpose, to leave my summer clothes two sizes behind me.  That's also a cheery thought.  I am three pounds away from my goal.  Its been a three year trudge.  There's a pizza place (yes, I am talking pizza and weight loss) downtown where you can buy one slice of very skinny crust pizza with delicious things like fresh tomatoes and artichokes on them.  I get one for take out, then run home, where I can eat it without being tempted to get another.  Works for me, and oh my, was it delicious.


Sometimes I just go over to my son's and sit and talk for a bit with my daughter (in-law) Heather while she fixes dinner and I can hold the toddlers, 2 and 3.  She has eight kids as well as my son, her day is always full of something interesting.  Nothing like hugs from those toddler folk to mend what can be mended.  And they are always so glad to see you.

Sometimes I just drive up to the nearby lake and walk or just sit and let my eyes fill with the green fields and the foothills with just a thin line of snow left on them for the first spring in three years.  I see herons, duck, jumping fish, and hikers.  Peace.

Home Again

Once over I-90, four times in the last few days.  This is our return trip from the birthday party that became a gathering to celebrate the life of my brother-in-law Geir.  We were lucky enough to make it over last Tuesday in time to see him and be able to talk with him last Tuesday.  Late Thursday night he left us.  The late birthday party had been planned because he'd been so ill over the actual birthday date.

Geir and his eldest son April 5, 2014 at another family gathering.

Family and friends had gathered from all over, North Dakota and Colorado among other places.  We were both sad and joyful.  We all agreed we needed to plan a reunion that was just a reunion.  Soon.

When we got home my oldest discovered someone had shattered the passenger window on his parked car and taken only his maintenance records out of the glove box.  Why?  Is there anything evil you can do with the maintenance records?  Many bad words issued out my mouth.  

Photo Rolf Hicker - Moon over the Cascade Mountains.

There was a lovely half moon in the sky of the Cascade Mountains Tuesday night until the clouds masked everything.  Fog caught on the trees and was shredded by the wind like time rotted voile curtains.  Other worldly.

This Thursday morning brought good news.  My friend Nancy had an MRI and surgery yesterday evening on her infected foot.  They removed the damaged tissue and found the bones, tendons, and nerves were healthy and intact even though her foot looked like h--l.  She will remain in the hospital and on IV antibiotics for a couple of days and then be transferred to a nursing facility cum rehab center.  She's not supposed to put any weight on that foot for an indefinite amount of time and will continue on the IV.  They found her blood sugar was out of control and that will be treated in rehab too.  She sounded like a new person when she heard she got to keep all her important parts.

I have a lot of stress related energy today.  Got the floors cleaned and moved the bedroom furniture around and now I won't bump into the dresser when I get out of bed.  Also moved a mirror so I don't have to see myself when I first get up either.  This afternoon, I went to see a counselor I know, was late, she was surprised, I am never late anywhere.  Then I went to our wonderful candy shop and bought two dark chocolate truffles, heavenly.  Drove up to the lake to watch the birds, and swimmers it turns out to be about 70 here today.  Ate the truffles in the van before I parked.  Oh well.  Delicious.

A Day Out of Time

I traveled with my sons to Seattle Tuesday.  It turned out to be a long otherworldly day, almost like a long dream.  We heard prior to leaving that their uncle Geir was being moved to a hospice that Tuesday so that was where we headed.  Along the way we stopped and connected with my sons' father (Geir's brother) and caravanned on to Kirkland.  Because of ambulance problems we arrived about an hour ahead before Geir did.  There were quite a few people there, friends and family.


I used to volunteer at a hospice but I was shocked when I saw Geir arrive.  In a 2-3 weeks time he had gone from being mobile, able to drive on occasion, thin and worn but smiling to the half light of heavy pain meds, his face thin and yellow as though carved out of yellow pine.  They took him to his room.


His wife Pam arrives and we hug for a long time.  Then she goes to sign papers.  Paperwork dogs us to the end.  She finished and then people start quietly going in for visits.  I catch up on family news.  Pam comes for me and I take my turn sitting with him, replacing one weeping brother.  I hold his hand, they told me to talk to him.  I can't remember what I said at first.


Geir starts moving and I think he's just restless but when I lean close, his old familiar face appears with a faint animation, his eyes open up and he looks at me and nods in recognition, eyes still blue as when he was a little boy.  "Nice haircut." he says.  I tell him I see he's gone for the bald look and he laughed.  It's hard to hear him but he tells me he's in pain and his feet are cold.  I don't want to leave him, thank God for cell phones, I text my son David about Geir's needs, and Pam and her niece appear in the room and I get a nurse.   His niece takes her socks off and we put them on his feet.  The nurses come with a heated blanket, and more socks and pillows.  It's wonderful to talk to him, teasing him about the "stinky" socks and seeing him smile.  It's clear his pain meds are wearing off but we get to talk to him because of it.  And he can hear us when he seems under the drugs.  We get him turned and snugged in.


When I get back to the family room there is a conversation about dinner going on.  Dave has to be at work tomorrow.  We decide to leave and eat on the way home if need be.  We never did, no one is very hungry, we stop mostly to let me out and have a potty break.  Driving into the dark of the mountains feels strange.  Over Snoqualmie Pass and down into the basin.  It's amazing what looks uninhabited during the day can be lit up in all directions in the dark.  We drove by the Yakima firing range and saw a huge helicopter doing some kind of exercises, looking like a UFO alternately turning its big spot light on and then turning all its lights off and disappearing into the dark.  Into the dark but you know its there.  I think Geir is disappearing into the light.  At 11:30pm I find myself home, and wide awake, not feeling like I know where I've been.


I spent most of the day Wednesday napping.  We're going back Saturday. There's a late birthday party for Geir, or a memorial gathering.  I am so grateful I got to really be with him.

Danger Will Robinson

Why do people who would never encourage you to neglect yourself ignore their own illnesses to the point of disaster?  I went to the gym and when I came back my good friend Nancy called sounding weak and not knowing what to do.  She is very, very heavy and diabetic, no feeling in her feet.  She woke up with a large, open wound in her foot.  She didn't want to wake her nephew next door to drive her and she wanted me to tell her she could drive herself.  I said "no." She lives about 4 hours from me so I could't drive her either so I resorted to blackmail.  I thought I could get off the phone and start calling people myself.  It took awhile to persuade her to wake him and convince her this really is an emergency and she should go straight to the hospital.  She had her nephew drive her to the doctor's office instead of the hospital, so much for my powers of persuasion.  Fortunately it's only five more minutes to the hospital.  The MD had her admitted immediately.  She could lose a leg because she's been ignoring this for a couple of weeks.  This is a smart woman with a math degree from Rice University and she worked at for NASA in their early days.  She is kind-hearted and a rescuer of those in trouble, but not herself.  I called her at the hospital and she told me she had kept this difficulty to herself because she's felt so ill she hadn't been able to clean the house, do the dishes, or do the laundry and was embarrassed to let anyone in.  She wasn't eating because she couldn't make it to the grocery.  She lives alone in the middle of a couple of acres with her dog.  She is just barely mobile.  Not good.  She may not be able to keep living there alone.  I cannot see where this is going. Or maybe I can, I just hope not.

Next my son Dave called with the news his uncle Geir, who has pancreatic cancer is back in the hospital, and probably will not make it to the early birthday party planned for him this coming Saturday.  So both sons and I are making a dash for Seattle tomorrow hoping to see him once more.  God only knows if we will.  Every time my mother ended up in the hospital I raced the 300 miles to see her only to have her die when I had got back home.  That's the way of it, you can't plan it or beat yourself up over it.  Families are so spread out, we are lucky we are within 300 miles of each other.

Geir was only about 9 or 10 when I first met him. I was in college and dating his brother whom I later married.  He was little blond, cherubic kid.  The whole family had come from Norway to this country resettling finally in Seattle attracted it's coastal location as well as the Nordic community of fishermen, Norwegians and Swedes.  Maybe not the Swedes so much ;-).  I remember him collecting golf balls at a nearby golf course for pin money and later caddying.  He went to the University of Washington and became an engineer and later turned himself into a math teacher in a farm community in Eastern Washington in order to serve others as he believed his faith led him to do.  Seems God does scoop up the good ones.

Happy May Day

The streets and walks here are covered with blossom "snow."  These beauties are from the tree in front of my bedroom windows.  There is a magnolia tree also but it has completely dropped its petals already.

The sun is out, I have the patio doors wide open even though its only 60° at the moment.   The morning sun lights my little patio in the mornings and it feels warmer.  It's supposed to be 82° today!

Today is May Day.  While posting on Rainy Day Thoughts I remembered Mom helping us make little construction paper baskets. My sister Nancy and I (there were only two of us then) would fill them with whatever flowers we could find.  Anything from lilacs to dandelions. Then we'd go hang them on the neighbor's door knobs, knock, and run away.  We were probably 3 and 5 then.  When I was 7 my family moved to Honolulu for two years.  May Day is Lei Day in Hawai'i!  At that time, 1947, the byways and alleys were crowded with marvelous flowers, plumaria, hibiscus, koali 'awa - Hawaiian moonflower that grew in the sand on the beach, and the Kahili Ginger.  Our school put on a play and a festival.  It has grown into quite an event in the intervening years.

Before I moved out of my house my neighbors' three little girls would leave posies on my front porch.  I think I will go over there and leave them some today.  They really are sweethearts, the whole family.  Great-grandma's sister I think.  She's the last of her generation since Esther died last September.  I bet you could think of someone who'd enjoy a tiny flower bunch or pot too.