A Rough Patch

I am miserable. For those of you who have heard from me during this last week, you may be surprised to hear that we are still in Vaughn. We were indeed originally scheduled to still be here through all of September, but things changed and I started packing to leave early, and now I am currently feeling a bit stuck. A lot stuck.

So that you don’t worry too much, let me reassure you that the problem at the moment is simply a bad cold, or flu, or covid, or who knows, whatever. Emily diagnosed it as either covid or the flu (diagnosed long distance, based on my descriptions of symptoms. I have no intention of getting a test). It hardly matters, John already had it, and I am staying isolated in the cabin until I’m better. Yes, this will pass, I will get better. Eventually. Once I do get better, I am hightailing it home. But (surprisingly, once you hear my story), we are still considering coming back again next year.

It all started when John left to fly home to Tucson for a few days to check on the house. I had originally been noncommittal when he first mentioned his intention. It seemed pointless and unnecessary to me, because we hire a competent couple to go to our house weekly and check it over, water the house plants, make sure the pool vacuum and filter are working, etc.

But as the time approached for his departure, I grew increasingly unhappy that he was leaving. I didn’t have a logical reason to worry (anymore than he had a logical reason to make the trip). None of it was logical – my concern or his travel plans. It came down to just letting our spouses be their inscrutable selves.

So I waved a cheerful goodbye. Actually I gave him his goodbye hug the prior evening, because I had no intention of getting up to see him off at too-early o’clock the next morning. The first day or two he was gone went uneventfully. It was cold, and off and on raining (welcome to Washington in September), and I spent it in the cabin, doing some cooking and cleaning, reading, working on some dance steps, nothing much to speak of.

By day two, the dogs were getting bored. They have their toys, and a large deck to lay in the sun (except it was raining) and a little grassy patch that John temporarily fenced for them for their potty needs, accessible from the deck, so they don’t actually need walked. But they had gotten accustomed to daily morning excursions with John, where he would load them into the Jeep and go in search of exciting new trails, leaving me to rest at home alone until the coffee kicks in. (After a year of his retirement, we are slowly learning how to live together 24-7. Part of that recipe is nothing important happens before the coffee has kicked in.)

On about day two, after the dogs had bumped their leashes with their noises for the umpteenth time, in the middle of the morning, after coffee and during a break in the rain, I agreed to take them for a walk. I leashed them and headed up the driveway, intending to walk them on the local country road. I’ve walked them out there before – it’s not ideal. The cars travel rather fast and it’s overgrown along the side of the road, but I didn’t want to fire up the van, and John had left the Jeep at the airport.

Our cabin is at the base of a steep gravel drive, shared by about four houses. Allie has a small cabin above us, and her son and daughter-in-law and their kids have the house above her cabin, up near the top where the drive meets the main road. There are also a couple neighbors on the other side of the gravel drive.

The dogs and I had gotten just a short distance up the drive, about even with Allie’s cabin, when suddenly her huge dogs rushed us. One is a rottweiler and the other is a rottweiler-lab mix. Allie had indicated that one of them wasn’t particularly friendly, so we hadn’t ever scheduled a doggie play date, but I certainly had no idea they were dangerous.

As the big dogs ran towards us, I instinctively picked up JoJo who had started squealing. Then I realized with astonished horror that one of Allie’s dogs was attacking Biska. I started screaming for help as the dog tore into Biska. Biska was leashed and could not run to safety. I tried to drop her leash but it was tangled in JoJo’s leash and increasingly tangled around my legs. I could not free her. I screamed and screamed and attempted to pull the dogs towards the neighbor’s back door, hoping the neighbor could help me. I also attempted to unleash Biska so she could run, but I couldn’t reach her, as she desperately strained at the end of her leash, trying to run away from the attacking dog. Biska was wisely making no attempt to fight back, and was trying to flee.

The leashes were wrapped around my legs, trapping us. I fell on the pavement of the neighbor’s back patio, wrenching my hip but somehow miraculously managing to hold onto JoJo. I was down on the pavement, with JoJo protected under me, my eyes now at dog level, with a close up view of the rottweiler mangling Biska. I have the most horrible visuals seared into my mind of that dog’s mouth sunk into Biska’s pelt, just pulling and pulling. It looked like the dog would tear Biska’s skin right off. I screamed and screamed.

Finally Allie came running out and grabbed her dog, but she did not have the strength to pull her dog away from Biska. Allie was screaming and pulling at her dog, JoJo was out of her mind, I was out of my mind, and Biska finally managed to slip her collar and run. Allie’s dog did not chase her, and Allie managed to get her under control. Then she asked me what I needed and I howled, “I need to find my dog!”

Some of you may know, over a decade ago, something similar happened to me in California – I was jogging with my two small poodles on leashes, and two off-leash pit bulls rushed us. They may even have been friendly dogs, but one of my poodles, Kira, who was only about JoJo’s age at the time, panicked and wiggled backwards out of her halter, and ran into a busy 4-lane street. I ran down the sidewalk screaming like a crazy lady as I helplessly watched my little dog disappear from sight as she dashed down the middle of the street, dodging the fast moving cars. About 4 awful hours later, John found her alive about two miles away, bedraggled and terrified. For the rest of her life she was so afraid of other dogs that we couldn’t even take her for walks.

Luckily Biska had run back down to the far side of our cabin, and was trying to get through the gate onto the deck. She was terrified and did not appear too badly injured. I could see what looked like rug burn marks on her skin, but wasn’t sure what all her fur might be hiding.

I asked Allie and her kids for the nearest vet. They didn’t think I needed to take Biska to the vet, offering antibiotic cream, but I didn’t listen to that for one moment. They gave me the name and location of the local veterinary hospital and I loaded both dogs into the van. As I was about to drive off, Allie came towards the car to say something – and my dogs went wild. They were clearly completely terrified of her. I wondered how mentally scarred they would end up from all this.

Later I remembered how only a few days prior I had loosened both dog’s collars. It seemed like they had both gained weight. JoJo is a food-loving chunk, still growing a bit, so hers needs regularly checked and loosened. For whatever reason I decided to loosened Biska’s collar a tad while I was at it. That minor momentary thing a few days before might have saved Biska’s life.

I drove to the vet and followed the instructions posted in the parking lot – calling to let them know I was here, instead of bringing the dogs in. They asked me the extent of her injuries, determined that she was not in imminent danger of dying, and gave me a 2:00 appointment (about 3 hours later). At that point, still on the phone with the receptionist, I burst into tears.

They told me to hold on, and managed to send a vet tech out about 5 minutes later. The vet tech reassured me that Biska was going to be ok. The woman in the car next to me gave me a hug. I cried in the parking lot. JoJo barked at everybody and everything. Biska just tucked her tail and wondered about this new strange and dangerous world.

We drove home, had lunch, called John, drove back again for our appointment. They shaved great patches of Biska’s fur so they could adequately see her injuries. The vet said she was “lucky” meaning she could easily have been much worse, and even so, had several puncture wounds and much bruising. The vet prescribed antibiotics, anti inflammatories, and pain meds.

That night, I started packing. It was Tuesday night. I figured I could get the van packed and loaded on Wednesday, and leave with the dogs on Thursday morning. John was still out of town, but he had his Jeep waiting at the airport, and was fully able to get his boat out of the water and towed home without me. But it’s an 8.5 hour drive to Boise, and Biska was in pain and I wasn’t sure if her injuries would become infected. JoJo was traumatized and barked and cried at every noise. I was daunted by the thought of doing the journey alone with the dogs.

John and I considered him driving me and the dogs home, and then him flying back out to Washington to collect his Jeep and boat. But that seemed like a big nuisance for him, and I don’t like to be a burden. In the end, I decided to wait the extra few of days for him to get here and get his boat out of the water, and then we’d caravan back to Boise together.

Meanwhile, a couple of days after the incident, Allie checked up on me. I told her my dogs and I were just cowering in the cabin traumatized. She and I ended up having a shouting match, part of which John heard over the phone and was appalled. But then later Allie and I were able to talk it out and fix our friendship, because actually we had been friends before this happened.

Then she surprised me by taking her dogs all the way off the property. Instead of just keeping them in their kennel, she took them to her boyfriend’s house in Gig Harbor and we haven’t seen those dogs since. I’m not sure how sustainable that is, because I thought she and her boyfriend had broken up earlier this summer, so he may now be her ex-boyfriend. But however that is working, the dogs haven’t been here.

My relationship with Allie has been confusing. Everyone, including the vet, have asked me if Allie paid the vet bill (no, she hasn’t). She didn’t offer, and we didn’t ask. The vet bill is nothing compared to my fear that my dogs will be permanently traumatized, like Kira was all those years ago.

After two days of the dogs and I laying low in the cabin, John got back to Vaughn. When the dogs and I ran out to the deck to greet him, I took one look at him and blurted, “You are sick!” He was so sick I could see it in his face from across the deck. Sure enough, even though he is a very determined, hard working and tenacious person, he spent the next couple of days sitting on the couch with a vacant look on his face.

I made a half-hearted attempt to keep the cabin aired out and to socially distance, but it’s pretty hopeless in a 500 sq. ft. cabin in cold wet weather. Particularly given my chemo-damaged immune system. I could guess we wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. And sure enough, by the time John was feeling better and ready to think about packing, I was in bed with a fever.

Labor Day weekend came and went. For us the highlight (not) was when a presumably friendly, large, half-grown black lab puppy wandered over near our deck, and JoJo panicked. She doesn’t just bark, she squeals, screams and ky-yi’s like nothing I’ve ever heard. It sounds like she is being killed. JoJo refused to be comforted, even safe in John’s arms. The off-leash and wandering overgrown lab puppy just stood there, 20 feet away, watching in puzzlement. The family with the labs were weekenders, gone by the next day, but I’m still unhappy with the prevalence of off leash dogs in the area.

So here we are, 9 days later, and I’m still too sick to even go down to the local post office to pick up a package that’s been sitting down there, much less get myself and my dogs safely home. I have no idea what the package is or who it’s from. If any of you sent me a slightly late birthday present and I haven’t thanked you, it’s because it’s still down at the post office. Yeah, some of you know I had a milestone birthday recently.

My birthday was actually a good day. John planned a thoughtful Tacoma outing that we enjoyed. It turns out that Tacoma is a far nicer city than I ever imagined when I lived in Olympia 30 years ago. Tacoma has always been in Seattle’s shadow and has never had a good reputation, but we are becoming surprisingly fond of it.

Since then I’ve been mostly stuck in this tiny cabin for almost 2 weeks now (that’s including the rainy weather while John was in Tucson), with nothing except the amazing sunsets to take my mind away from here.

But there is one rainbow to this story. During a brief window of time, when John was still sick but not as sick, and I was clearly getting sick but not yet feverish and exhausted, we took JoJo to the dog park. Those can be dangerous, but this one has a section for little dogs only and we wanted to start the long road to socializing her as soon as possible, so she doesn’t end up permanently traumatized like Kira did.

When we got there we were relieved to see only one old man with one small dog. We were even more relieved once JoJo got in there and she wasn’t starkly terrified of the one little dog. Wary, but not terrified. Soon a cavapoo about JoJo’s size arrived. At first the cavapoo tried a friendly game of chase, but JoJo put her tail between her legs and bolted in fear. The cavapoo read the signs and stopped trying to play chase. Then JoJo was ok again – not playing with the dogs, but not terrified either. It’s a start.

Now we have to decide if we’re returning next year. We like it here and had put a deposit down for July and August next year. I was excited to have gotten July and August rather than August and September because the weather is likely to be better. And the 4th of July fireworks over the water should be excellent. And Allie and I had made plans to go to a festival together in July. It’s the Winthrop festival, that John and I tried and failed to attend on the way out this year. Next year Allie and I were going to drive out to Winthrop from here together, and she has already reserved the hotel. But John and I would only consider returning next year if Allie’s dogs continue to be away from the property.

Complicating things is our new house in Garden City (Boise area). That seems like the simple and obvious place to spend our summers. But it turns out John and I had a certain amount of miscommunication and misunderstanding about that house, and he is, in the end, not particularly happy that we bought it. I know some of the rest of you are also unclear why we bought it. But it seemed like a no-brainer to me. Tucson summers are not for the feint of heart. The simple sentence, “We have kids in Boise,” entirely and completely explains the purchase to anyone who lives in Tucson. Snowbirds (as we’re called) are sometimes gently mocked, but mostly envied.

I don’t want to spend summers in Tucson, but John emphatically doesn’t want to spend summers in Boise. Even though some of the most spectacular mountains in the entire country are in northern Idaho! And a river runs through Boise and Garden City, just a block from our townhouse!

And the people in the Boise area are the kindest I’ve ever encountered in this country. Genuinely kind and caring people, not just a sugar-coating act. I adore Garden City. John resents it. We haven’t worked that out yet. Meanwhile I want him to be able to have his boat on a mooring buoy – which admittedly, can’t happen out the front door of our Garden City townhome.

This particular mooring buoy is not the only one in the Puget Sound region, but finding a new rental that includes a dock or mooring buoy would be a daunting task. John and I have liked it here. And Allie and I were (still are?) friends and dancing buddies. We seem to have survived a dog attack and a shouting match. I don’t know if I have very many friends whose friendship would survive me shouting at them. Then again, I’ve never had any friend’s dogs attack mine.

Ok, that’s a lot of words; it’s probably time to stop writing and post this. This is what happens when I have too much coffee, sudafed and cough drops in my system. I still don’t have enough energy to get up off the couch, but my brain is zinging around.

A close encounter with a whale

It was the day before my birthday, and John and I were enjoying a quiet afternoon at the cabin we are renting in the Puget Sound area of Washington. Suddenly John called me outside, where he stood on our big wrap-around deck with a waterfront view.

“There’s a whale,” he said. A whale? In our little shallow little bay? Vaughn Bay is almost entirely cut off from Case Inlet by a long sand spit across the mouth of it. The tides here are enormous and large sections of the bay go dry at low tide. It didn’t seem like the right place for a whale.

John explained that at first he assumed what he saw was a bit of smoke from a neighbor’s grill, dispersing over the water. But when he saw it a second time, he realized it was a whale spout.

If that was indeed a whale, it was a long way from the ocean. It would have had to have come east in Salish Sea to Port Townsend, turn south and go past Whidbey Island, Edmonds, Bainbridge Island, all of Seattle, then under the Tacoma Narrows bridge almost to Olympia, then north nearly to the very end of Case Inlet.

On this map, we are at the round circle and bit of red and white striping, left of Gig Harbor.

It would be about 200 miles by water, inland from the ocean. Why would a whale swim all the way into a shallow bay in the the middle of Washington?

I grabbed my phone and we hopped into the kayak. John thought he saw the whale out near the mouth of the bay, and we assumed it would quickly be gone back into Case Inlet. We paddled out fast, hoping to catch another glimpse of it before it continued on it’s way.

I took this video to show you our mad dash towards the mouth of the bay to catch a glimpse of the whale. We edited it down to only 20 seconds long, so take the time to watch it to the end. It’s worth it! If you get my blog in your email and the videos don’t load, go to my website to watch them. Also at the bottom of this post I will post some other link options.

Did you see that?!? Unknowingly, we had paddled right past the whale! It had gone further into the inlet and was right behind us! So insanely close!

Suddenly we felt rather vulnerable out on our little kayak. We didn’t know where it would go next! We backed away – or at least to the direction we thought was away. Meanwhile, I’m still scanning the horizon.

There it is again. Not as close this time, whew.

This is amazing. It’s huge!

Look at the size of that whale! And it’s so close to shore! At this point we decided we were too close to the whale, and paddled quite a ways back towards our own shore.

Suddenly the whale was right there! It’s like it was chasing us! John paddled harder, but I was determined to keep filming. I was also babbling, talking aloud, maybe trying to make sense of the situation.

Here’s a transcript of my commentary, in case you are wondering (the whale was so loud, my mutterings are mostly inaudible). “Uhm, he’s coming this way. Oh, honey, we uh…can you paddle? I’m going to video but…HOLY FUCK! We’re going to get tipped into the drink. I’m going to do it with a good video though…Can you keep paddling backwards? There he is, ok, we’re clear, we’re clear. Whoa, heh, heh, that was a little close.“

This last video was simply alarming; the whale appeared to be following us! John was rapidly paddling backwards and although I was still videoing, I was shocked into silence. You can see how close it is when you get a glimpse of the front of the kayak in the foreground. Yep, I wasn’t just zoomed in. We were right there.

In hindsight, we think it wasn’t actually following us, but following the tide flowing through a deeper channel in the bay – a channel that circled all the way over to our side of the bay, which we had been unaware of. We didn’t know it, but the deepest part of our little bay was between our kayak and the cabin. This was why it looked like the whale was chasing us when we were high tailing it back home. We were trying to retreat, but unknowingly, we were retreating towards a deeper section of the bay where the whale was headed.

In this topographical map of the bay, our cabin would be in the lower right, and you can see the narrow mouth of the bay in the upper left. The deepest section is closer to our cabin than to the mouth of the bay.

The next morning the whale was still in the bay, even though the tide had gotten quite low overnight. By then we were worried about the whale – was it trapped, was it disoriented, starving, going to beach itself? But the locals told us it was fine. And sure enough, it left later that day.

Here’s some photos of the whale that we (mostly John) took:

And deer along the shore:

And geese in the air. It was quite a kayak ride.

Here’s the link to my Youtube video, which is all 7 of my whale videos put together into one video. I’m not a video editing whiz, so they are just stuck together, end to end.

I don’t think the Youtube video is very good quality, so I’ve uploaded the originals here into this file, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tQ0_eN9v6GJbjCvriKvZa9JK9xcCN9jg?usp=drive_link

And the link to the video that is all of the videos put together is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AAsY3e2QfRZBdHIPOejKgapPwgjDfIWe/view?usp=sharing

I’m not sure the video quality is very good on the google drive either. I guess if I have to email them to all of you individually, I could do that! Just let me know.

Not your ordinary sewing machine, and still no couch

It was the day before our anniversary and John had just finished purchasing a card for me at the local postal shop, hoping I didn’t notice while I stood right next to him and addressed an envelope for a bill. (I noticed.)

Yep, 18 years, and how do you keep it from getting boring? Sewing machines wouldn’t be the first thing to come to mind.

Next door to the postal shop is a thrift store. We were just hanging out on a fine morning in an impossibly small town, so we decided to check it out. I walked in, had a vague impression of racks of clothing before my attention was riveted to this.

For those of you who know me, I’ve never shown the slightest bit of interest in antiques. Most of the stuff that is called antique nowadays just looks to me like crap from back when I was too poor to own anything that wasn’t splintering apart and mildewy.

So why this sewing machine called to me is anyone’s guess. Even more surprising, it appeared to be calling to John also. We circled it, touched it, started poking around. It was amazing somehow. John was intrigued by the mechanics while I wondered about its age and what kind of furniture styles would blend with something so…dramatic.

No question but that it would go in the Garden City house. The Tucson house is clearly the wrong style. Our Tucson furniture and decor is an eclectic mix of Mexican and Santa Fe style, and global tribal art. Nowhere in there would fit a mid-century black and gold sewing machine nested in it’s very own cabinet.

The machine was not only unexpectedly beautiful, but it actually worked. In this photo it’s not threaded, but in the store it was, and you could test it on the (also vintage) fabric.

And came with a multitude of attachments and even the original owners manual.

We were sold.

The curved wooden carrying case is actually nowadays more valuable than the machine. The shop had insisted they be sold together, or it would have been sold already.

We took it all back to the cottage and did some more research. Apparently it’s a very capable machine, able to handle very heavy fabrics and offering a variety of stitches. We can totally use it to sew! We both sew a little. I often alter my clothes and John sometimes does things like mend camping equipment or boat sails. Practical, working, useable art!

From the serial number we were able to determine it was probably made somewhere between 1948 and 1951, possibly up to 1954. So it’s actually similar in age to our Tucson house, but like I said, it doesn’t look remotely like anything we have in Tucson. The Garden City house is newer, but the architecture is somewhat reminiscent of the 1930’s craftsman style. Which also doesn’t seem to fit this sewing machine.

Neither house seems like the perfect spot for an antique sewing machine, but the Garden City house has one big advantage: the living room in is currently an empty blank slate. All I’ve purchased for the living room so far is a little raku pottery house that I bought at an art show with my friend Michelle,

…and a large metal heron that I will probably put upstairs anyway.

I had meant to buy a couch by now. I have spent so many hours trying to find a couch I like! I have a great spot in the middle of my living room for a small couch or two loveseats, or maybe a loveseat and a chair or two. It remains a very empty great spot, despite many hours spent online and in-person, searching for a simple, small leather couch.

I recently dragged a twin sized bed into the living room so at least there’s somewhere to sit other than the floor. Just temporarily! It belongs in the front bedroom. I have it pushed back against the side of the staircase, with pillows all along the back edge, almost imitating a daybed (but not quite).

How hard could it be to buy a couch? Turns out I don’t, apparently, like couches. I don’t know why not. I love shoes. What’s the difference between a fine leather couch and a fine leather pair of shoes? They are both practical items with a design element. But every time I walk into a furniture store, my eyes glaze over. (That’s not what happens to me in a shoe store, as John can readily attest.)

Will this sewing machine solve my couch problem? Or will it make it ten times harder? I do not envision myself buying some sort of stuffy antique sofa to match an antique sewing machine. Maybe I could go art deco? Uh, probably not. I don’t really do glam either. And I certainly don’t do victorian revival!

Most of the new couches in the stores right now are exceedingly boring.

So maybe I will find success if I haunt the local consignment shop, which seems like quite a good one, and is only a few blocks from my house in Garden City. But the minute you try to do something not boring, it quickly becomes regrettable.

Screenshot

I mean, somebody actually designed that. And built that. Then somebody else actually bought it. And now the consignment shop thinks they can sell it all over again. It’s almost kind of beautiful – in a very overwhelming and not-my-style kind of way. I wonder what vintage that even is?

Maybe someday I’ll find a couch I like. Meanwhile, I will work on starting the new bold trend of twin beds instead of couches!

Launching the boat, otters on our dock, smoke, and a day trip to the ocean

I guess the title says it all, I don’t even need to write anymore, lol.

Here’s John getting the boat in the water. The public dock is on the far side of this little inlet, so he had to do a bit of shuffling around with his Jeep, boat and kayak. First he towed our kayak to the mooring ball with Ali’s kayak, tied our kayak to the mooring ball, and paddled back to shore. Then he trailered his boat to the dock about a mile away on the other side of the inlet and launched the boat. He motored the boat across the inlet to his mooring, and kayaked back to shore on our side. Then he walked the mile back to the dock to retrieve his Jeep and trailer.

He also could have kayaked to the dock (further to kayak) and strapped the kayak to the boat trailer rather than walking to get the Jeep and trailer. I could also have driven him with the van, but John loves to go on walks, and it’s very scenic around this inlet.

Here’s some excellent photos John took of otters on our dock one morning.

And a video:

The weather had been cool and windy, but then it got still and hot. The lore when I was growing up in western Oregon was to go to the beach on the first hot day, because later in a hot streak the beach tended to be foggy and windy, but the first nice day was probably nice on the beach. I think this has something to do with the inland heating up more than the ocean heats up, pulling the onshore winds and bringing fog off the ocean.

Meanwhile the smoke had been brought in by the northeast winds and was now just sitting around making our eyes water. It was definitely time to go to the beach!

The City of Aberdeen, which is generally considered a dump of a town, had dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of these pink flower arrangements lining the main streets.

They were everywhere! They were so numerous and all of them were so perfect that at first John refused to believe they were real. But they are real!

We had smoke for a couple more days before it cleared.

Ironically, my migraines started getting better around the time we got inundated with wildfire smoke. There’s a good example of “correlation does not equal causation”.

Boise is still pretty bad. Northeastern Washington is just awful, particularly the north Cascades. We are feeling lucky here in Vaughn.

Screenshot

Seafair and Kitsap Blues

John decided to go to Seafair on a Friday, when there would be less people, even though the main events were on Saturday. He had a great time watching the preparations and trial runs.

This is the VIP section

The mountain is out! This one is Mt. Baker, and in a different direction you could also see Mt. Rainier.

In addition to some nice pictures, he was able to get a good video. It was challenging because he was zoomed in and the boats were moving very fast.

It turned out it was very lucky he went on Friday because the weather was perfect. By Saturday the wind had picked up too much and the Blue Angels couldn’t perform. He was glad he was able to see them on Friday.

We had also bought weekend tickets to the Kitsap Blues Festival in Bremerton and planned to go on Saturday and Sunday. But I didn’t feel well on Saturday, plus it was windy, so we decided to just stay home. On Sunday morning John didn’t feel well, so for awhile there it looked like a bust for the festival. At least he enjoyed Seafair on Friday!

But late in the afternoon on Sunday we decided we were up for going to the tail end of the Kitsap festival. It’s about 45 minutes drive north of us, and we got up there in time for the last two bands of the weekend.

We were surprised by the small size of the festival. Last year it was large, in a different part of the fairground. But at the last minute, a few days before the festival started, we got notice that it was moved to this cement bleacher area – after we had already bought our tickets. It felt a little bit like a bait and switch and we were disappointed.

But after we got there, we heard that they had lost their main sponsor and volunteers cobbled it together the best they could. After I heard that, I was grateful they did what they could to salvage the festival. Hopefully next year they will have a dependable sponsor. I guess we didn’t miss as much as I was imagining.

This band is called Kevin Burt & Big Machine, but the guitarist on the left that I was zooming in on is a guest artist we had missed the day before. His name is Larry Mitchell, and I would be interested in hearing more of his music.

Joanne Shaw Taylor was the final act. She is British, and an excellent singer and songwriter as well as guitarist. She is on tour, and is going to be performing in Tucson on November 1. We are thinking of going camping Utah that weekend though, so we’ll have to see.

There wasn’t even any space to dance in front of the stage. I just danced in the back.

You can see in that last photo that it was getting hazy by evening. The wind was no longer coming from offshore like it usually does. It was coming from the north and east, bringing smoke from the wildfires in the Cascades and Canada.

Cabin Life

By the end of July, the smoke was really bad in Boise and we were very grateful to be in Vaughn.

Our skies were still blue (although as you can guess, that wasn’t going to last forever). Here’s a photo of an apple off of Ali’s tree. It’s enormous!

Ali gave me two different types of apples.

The large ones were sweet but punky, and the smaller ones were tart. They both tasted like applesauce apples, which gave me an idea. I had bought a couple rhubarb stalks at the grocery store, but didn’t feel up to making a pie. Instead, I peeled and sliced the apples and rhubarb and put them in an instapot (pressure cooker) with some cinnamon, a bit of honey, a dash of salt, and the teeniest little bit of green chili, and made rhu-applesauce. It turned out fantastic.

I eat it on my yogurt in the morning. I made a fair amount more than what’s in this bowl, this is just all that’s still left. Pink applesauce!

This next video is of John taking the kayak out to the mooring ball during low tide (yeah, he’s always doing weird and inscrutable stuff like that). Apparently the kayak was a working platform to use while he messed around trying to figure out how to replace the mooring line, which was getting frayed. I took a video hoping to get another world’s funniest home video, like last year. But this year it turned out quite boring. He’s slowly learning about tide flats.

Here, I’ll repost last year’s video in case you missed it – it was very funny and well worth a flashback:

Next puzzle in life – how did my puppy get a yellow nose?

At first I thought dandelions, but how could it have rubbed off so much? Then I saw one of these stunning lilies had blown over in the wind. The pollen on these things is insane.

After a quiet week, we had planned a full weekend. There was a three-day blues festival nearby in Bremerton, and Seafair in Seattle.

More on those events next!

Kayaking and seals

I’m still having migraines about every other day, but we’re trying to get out and do as much as we can anyway. When I have migraines this long, I start frantically casting about for an explanation, something to change in my life so I’ll quit having them. Maybe I’m allergic to my ginger tea? Or maybe the beautiful but pungent lilies in a pot on the deck next to where I sit most of the day? Or could it be a bit of mold and mildew in the waterfront cabin? Or maybe or maybe or maybe? I can see why people with unexplained long-term illnesses can get paranoid.

Here are some beautiful pictures and a couple of videos from a kayak trip we took the other evening. I often feel better towards the end of the day. It’s surprising that we’ve been here for 2 weeks already and I’ve only been out on the kayak briefly a couple of times. We have our own kayak here so it only takes moments to hop in and paddle off. We left our kayak with our sailboat on Ali’s property over the winter. That’s a much appreciated perk she gives us as a part of renting the cabin for 10 weeks each year.

Seals, including a baby, on a neighbor’s dock:

The seals blend right in to the rocks and docks; you’d almost never know they are there.

Anderson Island by ferry

We had enjoyed hearing Nick Vigarino Band on Friday night at the coffeehouse in Gig Harbor, where we learned that he was going to be the opening act at a small festival on Anderson Island the next evening. Ali in particular loved him. And Saturday was Ali’s birthday! What better way to celebrate a birthday than a fun little blues fest on an island? (Well, turns out maybe a fun little blues fest not on an island, actually). There’s no bridge to Anderson Island, but we were determined to go to the festival. That meant navigating the ferry.

Taking the ferries can be fun if you have lots of time and nowhere you need to be anytime soon. They are a cheap and beautiful boat ride. But the ferry schedules can be very limiting if you are trying to get somewhere and back in a reasonable amount of time. Plus, if you’re driving your car onto the ferry, you never know if there will be room for you. Everyone lines up in their cars as they arrive at the terminal, and once the ferry arrives, the lines of cars are loaded in order until the ferry is full. Any cars left over will be near the front of the line for the next ferry – often not for another hour or two.

The terminal to Anderson Island is down in Steilacoom, nearly an hours drive from Vaughn, depending on traffic. We left early, just after 3:00 that afternoon, in plenty of time for the 4:35 ferry, which would get us there well before the music started at 5:30. In fact, we got to the terminal early, just as they were loading the 3:55 ferry. There were far too many cars ahead of us for us to make it onto the 3:55 ferry, which was fine. We were in good position for the 4:35 ferry, 40 minuets later. We turned off the engine and waited. And waited.

4:35 came and went. Nothing happened. After awhile Ali and I walked down to the terminal to use the bathroom. I didn’t see anyone around to ask what happened to the 4:35 ferry. When it comes to ferries, you just put your car in line and hope.

Finally we started loading shortly after 5:00. They had skipped the 4:35 ferry altogether for whatever reason. The 5:15 ferry still got us to the festival not too long after the music started, but geez, what a nuisance.

The festival was at a pretty little spot, with a quaint museum and a community garden.

Here’s Ali hamming it up for the camera. That was in a break between songs, otherwise there were people out dancing for most of the concert, which is great.

It was not a large crowd, just the right size. And the weather was cloudy and cool, perfect for dancing.

At one point in time Nick came down and started using objects from the crowd to slide on his guitar. He used my fan for a hot moment. Then he saw Ali’s non-alcoholic champagne bottle and knew the bottle would not only work well, but photograph well.

In the foreground of this next one, Ali holding out the playbill and his CDs she bought.

We got a video too:

Here’s a few videos of Ali and I dancing that John took.

There were a number of children dancing. The little ones danced without inhibition but the young teens were hesitant and self conscious. We all tried to encourage them. Ali in particular was very encouraging, dancing with the teen girls and showing them simple moves.

I forget the name of the guy Ali is dancing with in this photo. He’s not really a friend of ours but we’ve seen him around. The dancing community is small and we start recognizing each other. I recognized a few people from last year, even though we were only here for a month.

One time he came up to me and tried to figure out what my feet were doing and mimic it. This is not uncommon on the dance floor. I’ve had people do that before, and I guess it’s a complement. But I’m not a trained dancer, so who the heck knows what my feet were doing, or whether it is even a repeatable pattern or not. I have a good sense of rhythm, but I don’t know how to do anything choreographed. I just try to change things up every couple of beats, so I don’t look like a robot.

After the music finished, we packed up and headed down to the terminal. When we got there, we were the only ones there. We parked at the front of of the lane marked “1”, and turned off the motor. It was eerie in the silence and approaching dusk, without any other cars or people there at all. It was absolutely deserted. Now what do we do? Was there going to be a ferry or not? We had visions of sleeping in the car all night – all three of us in one little Jeep.

We walked to the terminal to see what was up. It was unlocked and a light was on, but no one was there. I figured if we had to spend the night on the ferry dock, at least the bathrooms were unlocked!

It was also beautiful.

By the time we got back to the car, there were a few more cars lined up behind us. Whew! So we weren’t wrong after all. There really will be a ferry. Sometime.

The music had finished around 8:30, but the next ferry wasn’t until 9:50. Someone had told us (wrongly) there was a 8:50 ferry, but we double checked the schedule and there wasn’t a ferry scheduled between 7:00 and 9:50. Darn. We were very happy when a ferry finally showed up.

Here we are, the first ones on the ferry.

Yep there’s nothing but black water on the other side of the orange net. Inches from the orange net! Ok maybe a couple of feet. But that flimsy netting is the only railing between our car and the depths of the sound.

It was beautiful up on the deck, but it was cold and windy, so after chatting with a few other festival goers for a couple of minutes and snapping these quick photos, we retreated back into the Jeep.

All told, the little island festival was a fun adventure! But I can see how waiting for a ferry could become quite tedious. By the time we got home around 11:30, our dogs were very relieved to see us.

Nick Vigarino Band at Kimball Coffeehouse

Our first excursion, a couple of days after arriving in Vaughn, was out to the Kimball Coffeehouse in Gig Harbor to hear Nick Vigarino Band. He’s an excellent slide guitarist (if you happen to like slide guitar). I like anything I can dance to.

We took video and pictures of him playing on his little gas can guitar because it was a novelty, but he usually used a regular guitar.

Here is a video John took of Ali and I dancing. Ali is my only friend here – she owns the cabin we are renting, and lives next door. Such a coincidence that my only friend in Vaughn also likes to dance as much as I do! It’s not that common of a hobby. Ali is the one in a black top and a black and white checkered long skirt. I’m in a brown jumper.

Ali liked Nick Vigarino so much that we decided to try going out to see him at his next local gig the following afternoon. It was a little gathering on Anderson Island. We were reluctant at first because there is no bridge to Anderson Island, meaning we would be at the mercy of the unreliable ferries.

More on that adventure in my next post.

Drizzle is better than smoke

Vaughn is amazing! It is alternating between ridiculously saturated brilliant blue and green hues, to washed out gray drizzle. I forget how wet it is here, even in the warmest, driest months.

The drizzle dampens everything including our moods, but I’m not complaining. The wildfire smoke is terrible in Boise right now and although I’m not a fan of drizzle, it’s much preferable to smoke.

Screenshot

I am grateful I am not in Boise right now! And Tucson isn’t any better, with punishing temperatures and mosquitos.

Something has been affecting my health though. I’ve had migraines almost daily since this trip to Washington started a couple of weeks ago. I also have had mild cold symptoms or allergies since we’ve arrived. It is cramping my style! And rather disappointing to be sitting around feeling so blah with such a summer wonderland beckoning out the window.

I wake up in the mornings feeling god-awful, but (often with the help of meds), I feel better as the day progresses, and often feel nearly normal by late afternoon and evening. Particularly if it’s a sunny day and I’ve spent most of it resting outside on the deck. I’m wondering if it’s a mold/mildew issue in the cabin. This is a very damp and verdant region. I imagine all of the old cabins are going to be a bit funky in this climate, there’s really not much you can do about it.

Tonight I am going to sleep in our camper van to see if that helps. It’s perfectly comfortable, particularly for just one person. It’s primarily a desert van and any forest funk we’ve picked up in the nearly decade we’ve owned it, gets well baked out of it in the dry heat. On the other hand, it’s possible I’ve just been fighting a mild but tenacious cold and I will be better soon. John doesn’t seem affected and has felt fine.

Next up, some photos and stories from some afternoon and evening activities on the days that I’ve felt well during the second half of the day. You’d never know I’ve been sick for a big chunk of every day for two weeks!