Out looking around.

Took a little drive outside town this week. This winter has reminded me a lot of Seattle, little snow, lots of rain, but lately no rain either.  Below is what's left of the last snowfall in the foothills.  No doubt the mild weather, in the 50's here will be paid for with no water in the summer.  The only brief freeze we had killed off the hydrangeas in front of my condo building.  I've proposed to the board they be replaced with drought resistant plants, some of the tall grasses perhaps.  There are many lovely varieties and they require little water and little in the way of maintenance.

No Snow

Interesting to see how many farms have their own series of power poles up to the place.  Sometimes  more than one home on the long route, just not this one though.  My cell phone works out here so they must have service too.

Power to the farm people.

Lonesome little rain cloud.

Fine crop of grass growing on this temple of hay.

Not my post office!

I have three sisters and we keep in touch and connect in many ways.  We have the usual electronics exercised daily.  Where I live the weather can put the cells and PCs out of business in a second leaving only my old faithful corded phone operating (cordless go out when the power does of course).  And the sound is better on the land line, a plus as the hearing of our aging family begins to deteriorate.  But I digress.

We four sisters give the post office regular exercise and I have one cousin who writes too.  This is in spite of texts and emails,  I used to be a prolific letter writer. Our parents got us started.  My father often traveled overseas in his work and wrote every week or more, letters to Mom and letters to each of us, separately, each in its own envelope.  My mother wrote to our grandparents frequently.  She helped us write back to Dad and all as well as making sure we wrote timely thank you letters.  Somewhere I have the telegram Dad sent to his parents announcing I'd been born, an early electronic letter?

I shudder when I hear the post office might go the way of the Dodo bird.  Our mail now goes to Spokane 300 miles away for sorting in and out.  Nearly every week I receive a card or letter from my sisters, or even a small package.  We send books, news clippings, soap, windup toys and old photos, yes, I know you can do that electronically.  I have just started scanning the pictures to share out of an old album my sister Pam brought me when I visited. I have a CD of home movies from another sister's ex-husband with wonderful, funny movies of our kids as babies and all of us young and healthy.  It came in the mail.

After I post this I will be writing to Pam (who just visited me) on the new note cards I recently bought.  I know she will like it as I do when I get her notes with cat and bunny stickers all over them.  She is much into cat and rabbit rescue and I know its her note as soon as I touch it, just as I know most books in mail come from Susan.  I like the touch and feel of that.  A letter in the hand.  Same with books. I think that's why I've never quite got on with e-books.  I love the feel of the paper, especially ones with deckle edges and reading what type face it was printed in.  I love seeing my sisters hand writing, knowing they touched this missive, chose this note or paper.  It touches me in a way email can't which is probably why I still have a scrap of paper my Dad wrote on.  It has instructions he noted for setting the stations on a mini-boombox I gave him after his little old radio refused to broadcast any longer.  It doesn't matter what he wrote, just that it's his handwriting, just like those old letters, and when I pick it up I connect with something precious to me.

Visitors

Taking a break from vacuuming up my dust bunny collection.  My sister Pam and her hubbie are arriving tomorrow to visit me.  A little company coming can do wonders for the condition of one's home.  There is an dreadful amount of my hair stuck in the  vacuum brushes. More hair than d-bunnies.  My bathroom looks amazing; I don't think I will let anyone in there.  Good thing they are staying in a hotel.  Ha, ha.  I did unload several more bags of household goods and clothing.  I can see the floors in my closets.

Pam's hubbie retired January 2 and this trip is their first official out of town vacation.  I am so happy they are coming here.  They are great people to be around.  They used to travel a lot but his job began to be too demanding of his time, and Pam, a big critter rescuer, ended up at one time with eight geriatric cats.  And a rabbit.  All rescues.  The critters have all passed on and the two of them decided to make a run for it.

None of my sisters have seen where I live since I sold the house over a year ago and moved.  I wish I had all the boxes unpacked but I don't.  I was surprised to see that I had so much stuff on built-in shelves in the old house and now that stuff is homeless.  And my living room is more cluttered than usual with my recently retrieved art supplies, brushes, paints, and new but only a half-way installed printer.  The printer is wireless but part of the installation process requires being able to push a button on the printer and push another on my router at the same time.  I set the printer up in another room so unless I turn into Plastic-man I will have to temporarily re-install it near the router, or hard-wire it like the old one.  So far all I've done is swear and move it to the table with my art materials.  Well, bedroom and the bathroom look nice!

I wasn't going to watch the Super Bowl but I ended up streaming it on my PC anyway.  Ouch.  Didn't think I cared but I was born and mostly raised in Seattle and it turns out I did care.  My favorite ad was the Nissan ad built around Harry Chapin's music.  Made me cry.  Did you have a favorite?