Bye bye Lemon Grass, hello Divine Calm

The lemon grass ginger bath and shower gel (a gift from Kate) has been one of my totally most favorite-ever scents and bath products. It's about gone now, and I'm packing my gym bag with Divine Calm, which seemed like a good choice for a busy world. I got it at one of Laurel's Body Shop parties. Mmmm. Lavender is nice. It seems a little weird mixed with camomile, but maybe it will be relaxing.

I was going to some artwork today after avoiding it for months and months (maybe years), and I avoided it again. I put up more dog pins in the gift shop and on the gift shop blog, cleaned up papers in the office that had been in horrifying stacks for way too long, hand-washed a blouse and dried it on the deck, organized and filed stuff on my desk, moved a lot of file folders, hung up t-shirts (although I need to find a way to fit another hanging rod in here somewhere) and then went to work out at the gym and take a shower. I stopped in to see Margi for a bit, came back and got my credit card info organized (again, after months of avoiding it), got my character in Fate down past dungeon level 40, and then made a couple of posts on this blog, including some older photos of the day I came to Oregon. It's weird how I'll go for so long without organizing things until I'm completely freaked and feeling out of control. I like organizing, but I'll pitch into work or almost anything instead. It felt so good to get it done. I can find things now, and it didn't even take that long. I have to remember that! I still need to move and wash/dust all of the surfaces and the stuff on the shelves once the construction is done in a few days. Most of the remodeling was outside or upstairs, but it knocked things off the shelves and brought down bits of the ceiling. I was surprised one day to find a tapir skull in the middle of the floor. Fortunately the floor was carpeted, and no damage was done. A ceramic tapir on wheels was toppling, and I caught it just in time. I had no idea that replacing siding would be so violent. It seems that buildings on pilings sway more than the average structure. I hadn't considered that! Also, our windows were all replaced and the walls partly re-cut, so there's sawdust in the books, CDs, telephones, printers. . . . Everything. And tomorrow? Maybe after work I'll make a collage. We'll see.

Amond cookies candle in a jar

Oh, my frogs, Kate, this smells so good! There's even a very waxy almond in the jar. I love it! I think the plastic igauana and resin baby tapir on the bottom left of the photo are moving in for a feast.

Kate . . .

Sheryl says, "Somewhere between blogging and scrapbooking and learning about Cascading Style Sheets, there must be a common denominator about organization and expression."

Kate says, "I wish there were a Quote of the Day board I could post this on, because it contains a key to life. I'm sure of it."

Sheryl says, "T. katii, do you want me to set up a blog for you? I know how now :-p"

Belize: Day 2, Part 3 - The Belize Zoo and April the Tapir

There it was! The Belize Zoo, at Milepost 29 on the Western Highway. I'd seen the web site. I'd worked with the zoo's director. I'd heard a lot about April the Tapir. Just being here was like seeing a movie star. The place was shrouded in drizzle and grey light when we arrived. Click on the image to see the sign as we did.

The zoo's entrance would be found some distance from the main road. That I had not envisioned. A little further along there was a sign that read, "The Belize Zoo. Chill out zone."

As soon as we had determined that Sharon Matola was not on the grounds and we wouldn't be able to see her today, we entered the zoo. Our inquiries tuned up Humberto Wohlers (below), the zoo's General Curator and one of my colleagues in the IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group. He was warm, gracious, and knowledgeable, and he took us immediately to the tapirs. Little Ceibo, above, was friendly and curious. There is nothing like having your hand nuzzled by one of these animals. My day was made . . .

. . . but it was not over. More famous sights awaited, such as Sharon's hand-painted signs and of course, the "very famous April the Tapir," known and mentioned (as we would learn) throughout the country.

The animals are not the only attractions at the zoo. The plants were lush and beautiful. I was particularly charmed by the attractive plant-shrouded stairs and walkway below.

Humberto took us to see the harpy eagle and a jaguar, and then he ducked into the overhanging brush in April's enclosure to find her and coax her to visit.

Amazing. I had started working with Sharon in 1996 as a new member of the Tapir Specialist Group, and she had invited me to be her Deputy Chair. I'd learned about April, and in an unexpected way, my past and Sharon's present had collided through April. When April was a tiny baby, she'd been found abandoned and injured in the jungle. A screw worm had gotten inside of her through a gaping wound, and it took everything Sharon had to nurse April back to health. In the process of learning what to do with a sick baby tapir, Sharon had contacted Russell Mittermeier, who had a copy of a self-published booklet my first husband and I had produced back in the 1970s. Russ sent it to Sharon, and Sharon was kind enough to tell me it had helped. Long story short, she had heard of me by the time I approached her to join the Specialist Group. My way had been paved. Those were interesting times, and now I was meeting April. Like a star-struck groupie meeting a legend, I couldn't wait to send Kate a postcard to tell her where I was and who I had met.

By the time we left the zoo, the rain had gone and the day had become steamy and bright.

July 23, Astoria: Ships, signs, and the ever-present Columbia

It started out a bit overcast today, but it cleared up beautifully. It got up to a whopping 66 degrees. As I've said, I love this kind of summer! The ship above is going past my apartment. I'm still amazed after more than a month that I can come out onto the deck and see such sights.

This is the Astoria welcome sign at the other end of town near Hauke's market. It has to be the nicest sign I've ever seen welcoming someone to town.

Same sign, closer view.

Not far away from the welcome sign is this stretch of the River Walk. I took photos here four days ago, but it was heavily overcast and the results of the photos were completely different. I love all the remnants of things in the river. The rock piles were intended to be breakwaters, I'm sure, but there are pilings and such to look at all along the waterfront.

Here's the view back toward the Astoria Bridge and the big red building that the owners have to reach via a small catwalk. The boxy black thing is made of concrete. It's probably left over from a cannery or something of that sort.

What a beautiful wide-open feeling you get at the East Mooring Basin. There are fishing boats mostly, but other types of boats can dock here, too.

Just another view of the Columbia River with pilings from some old building. That looks like a sailboat out there. I've seen a few here, but not many.

There's one of the big ships that pass this way. Even that looks dwarfed here where the river is so wide. The hills are in Washington, on the other side of the river.

Back home now. A huge auto pack glides out toward the ocean. I love the shapes of these. It seems odd how they reach so cliff-like from the water like huge floating walls.

I've gotten one more area cleaned up and organized. This is in the work room, and the bins contain packing material for shipping. The wreath and the ribbon on the door are thanks to Kate. I love the artistic things she sends me. She makes wonderfully surprising gifts. I'll have to get into that sometime. Thank you, Kate!

Kate goes home

I took Kate to the airport in Portland today, and she flew back to California on Alaska Airlines. I'd never seen this airline before - the one that has a picture of an Eskimo on the tail, but everyone thinks he looks like Bob Marley. I got to wait with her in the terminal. Remember when you could do that? I like terminals. It's deplorable that the actions of so few truly terrible people have affected so many. They probably didn't even have a security check at the airport today (I'm writing this from the future, and it's hard to remember that detail). You can see a slight reflection of the airport windows in the photo, and clearly the weather had changed quickly as it does here. The blue skies were gone again.

This was, of course, my first trip from Astoria to PDX - the first of many. Portland has a beautiful airport, and it's user-friendly, not too large, but big enough to eclipse the one in Grand Junction. I can't say enough about what Kate's help and presence had meant to me during the move. What an incredible friend. Now I was truly on my own to discover Oregon. I didn't know anyone in the state except my brother and his family, and they were several hours from Portland and further than that from Astoria. It had taken two hours to get from Astoria to PDX (1 hour east to Longview, and 1 hour south to Portland), and Gary, Beth and family were several hours further south of Portland on I-5.

Day 4, Part 2: The first two photos I took in Oregon

This post (except for these four sentences) was written before the story of the rest of the trip. I'm going to leave it intact. The first part of the day and the last part of the day can be found in parts 1 and 3. I was charmed to be welcomed by a place that was green and floral.

Kate and I had just driven across the border from Idaho, having spent the night at a hotel on the Snake River. I expect I'll put more pix up later that tell the story of my move, but for now these will do. The picture I had taken before the welcome center photo at the top was taken in Idaho. I took more as we drove across Oregon and came to rest in Astoria, still not sure if that was going to be the final destination. And of course I took many, many more after that. My picture files for this period are still pretty limited. As we know, that would change.

I don't remember that much about my first impression of the state. I remember things in the hours after this, but I don't remember a lot about how I felt on first entering the state. I feel sure I was very glad to be there. I'd been through Oregon as a child once or twice, but not as an adult. I was moving here, and I hadn't even come for a prior visit. I think I was glad to leave the flat, brown, mostly boring country of southern Idaho, and was glad to be welcomed. The cheery visitor center made me FEEL welcome. I was a little worried about the heat, because I wasn't tolerating it well at that time, but I knew the coast would be cooler. I remember how pleased I was to see the flowers in bloom - there was some color, finally. It was manicured and clean, and there were bathrooms. It was an anomaly in the midst of the untamed wilderness (or something approximating that) on all sides. We learned a little about Oregon at the center. I wanted to take advantage of it, but I didn't have the capacity that day to learn very much through reading. We wanted to move on. I knew Oregon would be diverse and wild and different, and I wanted to see it. I also wanted the trip to be over, and to know what place I'd be calling "home." I was assuming it would be Astoria, but I'd left the option open to find somewhere else. It had been a long trip, and we still had a very large state to cross to reach the ocean.

Go to Day 4, Part 3

Day 2: The Days Inn I will never forget

It was desert, but it was also a bit mountainous. I like that about Utah. But it also seemed endless. I took this photo in the morning. I took very few photos on this first part of the trip. In fact, I only took three today. Kate drove all day. I wasn't feeling that good, and I don't remember much about the morning. Later, we had an incident that almost made me believe in angels.

There weren't too many places to eat. Around lunch time we pulled into a McDonald's that had an extremely high curb. In the heat, I think we were after milk shakes almost more than food. We felt the bump but, tired and not thinking, we didn't inspect the truck. It seemed to be riding OK. And then, as we were cruising down what should have been an uneventful stretch of the seemingly endless highway, we noticed a guy waving and flagging us down. At first we were nervous, thinking he'd been drinking or something, but we noticed he looked sane and was in a uniform. We pulled over. Thank god. The guy, who was in the military, pointed out smoke coming from one of the tires on the trailer. Sure enough, the somewhat flimsy fender had bent at McDonald's and our tire was about to catch fire! Our guardian angel was a perfect gentleman and perfectly calm. He had some tools in the back of his car and bent the fender so it wasn't digging into the tire any more and, making sure everything was safe for the moment, and I think he called a nearby repair place or directed us to a phone book. I don't even remember what we did or what happened. I vaguely remember waiting alongside the road for much longer than the repair people said it was going to take. I was stressed, despite everything I was having fun with Kate, and we were finding reasons to laugh, but I was also starting to feel exhausted and nauseous. It was probably from stress and heat. We were so grateful for our uniformed angel, but the day had clearly been too long already.

We stopped early at the Days Inn in Springville, Utah, and they were very sorry we had picked their hotel. I don't know what we did right off the bat to irritate them, but it got worse fast. Normally I'm a good hotel guest, but once we got settled, I threw up all over the bathroom. I had other manifestations, too, which I won't go into. I was at least in the right location when that happened. Poor Kate! She got a bunch of towels and cleaned everything up, then threw them into the hotel laundry. I could barely stand how I felt. I must have simply been way over-stressed. Kate was taking care of everything and being very upbeat, but - and she'll have to remind me about this, because I can only remember part of the story - she passed out from dehydration. She gets a kind of dehydration that can't be fixed by just drinking water. Frogs. If it gets bad enough she has to rebalance her electrolytes, and we somehow did that. Then she went looking for someting to cheer ME up and a way to feed both of us. A little broth, maybe. Food wasn't sounding very good to me at that point. Meanwhile, the staff at Days Inn was getting a clue that something wasn't right with their guests. "You go soon?" they kept asking her hopefully. Just a little more stress. Um, no, we're staying. They didn't like it that we'd parked a truck that was too unmanageable in their parking lot. Who knew. When we'd arrived, we'd driven straight through under that canopy to the back lot thinking that OF COURSE there was a way out, like a circular drive, but no. And the rig with the car on it wouldn't turn in their parking lot. I'd asked politely at the desk if they could suggest the best way to get the truck and trailer out of there, but they were extremely rude about it, so we parked it and left the problem until later. If I'm remembering correctly, the ball on the hitch got damaged, maybe trying to turn the truck in their lot, and we had to call on a mechanic for the second time that day. Again, it took a long time for anyone to come out. Kate got me settled in the room and then went to deal with the truck. In the "can't we do one more stressful thing" department, I called Marco to let him know we were OK. He'd asked me to. It didn't help that he didn't consider the situation OK at all, and he ordered me to turn around and drive back to Grand Junction so "somebody who knew what they were doing" (he) could do the driving. Are. You. Kidding? I refused. We'd gotten this far. We were going to make it. Go back? No, I don't think so. And somehow women's energy at this point seemed a lot less stressful to deal with than men's. I'm sure he was mainly concerned, but he was just showing me the attitude and macho piggishness I was glad I was leaving behind. In all, it worked out OK. Thank god for friends who can stay calm and laugh, even when you're sick and stuck at the Days Inn being told to "go soon." Kate even told them her friend wasn't feeling well and we might want to spend another night or two. They were not happy about that.

Go to Day 3

The airport again

See the post and barrier in the left corner? This is how you board planes in Grand Junction. You like up at one of the two doors in the airport terminal, and when the plane's ready they let you walk out to the plane. It's kinda cool. You can actually see the person you're picking up when they get off the plane. The planes almost invariably are commuters like this that go to Salt Lake or Denver, then you catch a bigger plane if you're going any distance. The plane may or may not have a bathroom. We learned to be prepared before take-off! Today I'm seeing Kate off. Her visits are never long enough. It's hard to believe I have only the airport pictures and none of her stay (except for steaming a tapir) and none of her. But I've always had trouble taking pictures of people, and at this point I'm not always carrying the camera.

This view is approximately northish from the north side of Grand Junction. The Bookcliffs are long, long, long. I think they stretch into Utah.

Here we're looking more or less east, so we can see Mt. Garfield, then a valley, then Grand Mesa, "the world's biggest flat-topped mountain." It was created only about 10,000 years ago due to volcanoes, and the flat top is a lava flow. The plane is FedEx. It seems to be there most of the time.

Fixing a stuffed tapir's ears. Honest.

No, this is not some nefarious form of tapir torture. Kate and I are fixing the ends of the ears. When they arrive from the importer, the fur is regrettably flattened in some areas and you have to fluff it up to look nice. This is not true of all of the stuffed animals I get for the gift shop, but tapirs are such slow sellers, they sit in the boxes at the importers for a long, long time. We're trying to help make them more known, popular, and in demand. It's quite a job. Meanwhile, for those who know and love tapirs, or are just getting acquainted with them, we want the ears to look nice!

Leila, sunset, and things I've saved

Leila was one of our two dogs. Her mother was a chow, and her father was at least part Labrador. Her mom died shortly after giving birth, and the puppies were sent to a neighbor's to nurse with a dog that had recently given birth herself. This created quite a load for the adoptive mother dog, and probably also for the humans. Leila and her siblings were weaned and taken to the animal shelter earlier than one usually weans a litter. I have some puppy pictures of her that I'll scan sometime. She was a furball as a pup and very smart; as an adult she could look as elegant as a queen or as awkward as bull. I loved that dog to pieces!

Ms. Contortionist. Her favorite spot in the whole house was at the foot of the two carpteted steps that led from the kitchen down to the family room, which we used as an office. In the winter, it was a good place to feel the warmth of the wood stove, but she loved that spot in any season.

Sunset from the back yard. Palisade didin't get a lot of thunderheads and big exotic clouds, and in fact, most of the time the sunsets were kind of a bust. But on occasion we got the most wonderful array of colors, and clouds that defied arrangement.

These are things that I've carried with me for a long time. Everything has a story. The box with the spots and stripes was made by Kate and given to me, and it's part of a bigger story. The short version is, it's painted like a baby tapir. Maybe sometime I'll photograph and tell the longer story.