I ordered a canvas print of Red to fill in the space to the right of our fireplace. A neighbor who is an artist and an expert at hanging paintings helped me with it. There used to be a Remington statue on this cabinet. But she moved it to the other side of the fireplace and placed this plant under Red. i’m excited with how it looks!
I was so excited with the canvas print I ordered of Red that I ordered one of the sea glass photo above. I’m not sure where it will go. Maybe in the casita. I’m having fun creating art with my photography. It’s a new way for me to enjoy it!
Finally, I ordered a third print of a pen and ink drawing of mine. This is the house I lived in from second grade until I went off to college. While I was in college my mom had to sell our home after divorcing dad. She couldn’t afford the upkeep, electric and gas. It was sad to lose our beautiful home, but she ended up leaving Snohomish and moving to Olympia. She married someone she knew from her high school days who lived there.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a Bird Buddy video of the star of my show, Red. There’s a smudge on the lens that you may notice. I’m thinking that mean old thrasher did that! But it was easily cleaned.
My son at age four and half at our riverfront property in Washington State that my grandfather bought for a few dollars during the Great Depression.
I am facing a chore I’ve put off for years. I have stacks of photo albums with many of the same photos and duplicates from my high school years through raising kids — before digital photos became a thing. We had a photo developer a few blocks from our house in Palm Springs called Double Photo. Yes, you got two photos for the price of one for every roll of film you brought in. I’d walk to the store, pushing a double stroller with kids plus rolls of film treating them like treasure. Hence my abundance of photos and closet full of photo albums. I’d mail the double photos to Mom, but after she passed, they were all returned to me.
I’m finally addressing the elephant in my closet by tackling one album a day. I take out the photos I want to keep and put them in a photo box. The album with remaining photos gets tossed.
Here are a few photos I found this week that bring back memories:
Here I am at our property with both kids, my daughter aged 18 months, throwing a punch?
My son before little sis was born, bathing in the kitchen sink.
Baby Kat at our park for the Fireman’s annual egg hunt.
My son eating steamer clams we dug together in Washington at my mom’s house. Funny, he’s allergic to all seafood now.
My husband and I took a rewards trip to Hong Kong thanks to the company he worked for. This is the parking lot of the Peninsula Hotel. I couldn’t believe their fleet of cars. Or the flowers for a wedding.
Wow! I’ve never seen a wedding with so many flowers before. I guess it goes along with the cars.
Then in typical China fashion, this was a side of pork at a local open air market. Such a contrast between the haves and have nots.
A picture of me in Hong Kong. We were all turned around time wise and I tripped on the curb outside our hotel — my first steps outside — and sprained my ankle. We have lots of photos of me sitting on that trip wearing an ace bandage. Kind of foreshadowed our trip to the lake in Eastern Arizona last month!
What do you do with photos from the past vs. digital photos?
It will be a year this week when my Aunt and I traveled to Washington State to spread my mom’s ashes at our family property. It would have been Mom’s birthday. I’ve been feeling a little weepy knowing that her birthday is this week. I miss my mom.
Here’s what I wrote last year:
This is the private road through the woods to our family’s riverfront property. We ran across this obstacle on our journey.
My aunt and I made the trek to Robe Valley where our family has owned property along the Stillaguamish River since the crash of ’29. Our mission was to spread my mother’s ashes in a place of beauty that she loved.
At dinner the night before at my brother’s home, we celebrated mom’s life. I was surrounded with love from my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, spouses, their children and of course my mom’s little sister.
I worried about the condition of our road to the river. Would it be too muddy? Would it be flooded? We were told we’d need a chainsaw this time of year to make it to the river.
“We don’t do chainsaws,” I said.
My aunt who turns 80 this year, nodded her head in agreement.
A new gate to our property.
Our first obstacle was a new gate. Prior to this gate, we had a chain across our road. Fortunately, I packed the key that was mailed to me by a distant relative a few months ago. Whew! It worked!
When we stopped at the fallen branches blocking the road, I was able to push and hold them back while my aunt gunned the accelerator and drove through.
Then something surprising happened. A Great Blue Heron rose from a low branch and flew up in front of us. The Great Blue Heron was my mom’s favorite bird. In the 80-plus years this property has been in the family, no one has seen one there before.
My aunt said “Mary is that you?” (Mary is my mother’s name.)
The heron kept flight directly in front of our car as we made our way down the road. Literally we were looking up and forward.
I’m reminded of a post of Vicki’s at Victoria Ponders with these words from her dear friend:
Look Up. Look Forward.
HTTPS://VICTORIAPONDERS.COM/
It was a sight or a sign. It was other worldly. I didn’t get a photo or video, but the four-foot tall bird guiding us down the road is etched in my mind.
We reached the river without further obstacles, prayed and spread my mom’s ashes along with blue hydrangea blossoms (blue was my mother’s favorite color and she loved hydrangeas.)
We left in peace knowing Mom was put to rest in one of the most beautiful places that she loved. Her dear cousin’s ashes were spread there the previous year.
Where we spread ashes with snow on the riverbanks and snow capped mountains in the distance.View across the river from our property.
Who do you miss most in your life? How do you celebrate their memory?
The house I grew up in from second grade on. No we didn’t have a blue garage! What were these people thinking!
I grabbed the front of the house photo from Redfin.
After my aunt and I left Robe Valley and my mother’s ashes, we drove to my hometown, Snohomish, Wash. During our journey we detoured up Lord’s Hill to my old house that I lived in from second grade until I left for college. My mom sold it after “the divorce.” It was too expensive for her to keep up on alimony payments.
First Street, the touristy part of my hometown.Another view of First Street Snohomish.
We stopped for lunch at Andy’s Fish House. The Pacific Northwest has the best seafood. I had chowder, salad and a piece of cod. My aunt had fish and chips. It was delish!
While I’m posting about food, I had sushi with my BFF from college at Oto Sushi near my brother’s house. This was called “Skinny Girl Roll” because it didn’t have rice. It was so fresh and yummy.View from my brother’s patio overlooking a small lake. It’s a gorgeous home and location. Notice they have one of my flamingos in the backyard!
My nephew played Moonlight Sonata and Für Elise as a tribute to my mom. He used his Covid shutdown days to learn piano!
The counter at 13 Coins, one of my mom and dad’s favorite restaurants when I was growing up.
My aunt and I spent the night at SeaTac airport after our adventure in Robe Valley and Snohomish. Next door to our hotel was 13 Coins which was a favorite memory of mine with my mom. My aunt said it was a place she and her husband frequented in the 1970s. Sitting at the counter is more exciting than in the booths, because it’s where all the cooking takes place.
The line action at 13 Coins by the Seattle airport.Mom, her older brother and my aunt who is 11 years younger than Mom.
My aunt shared a small scrapbook she made for my mom’s 70th birthday. This was a photo in it that I loved.
Olive immediately attacked my suitcase when I came home. She made the suitcase her perch for hours.
Thanks for taking a look at my week in the Pacific Northwest.
The time has come. I’m traveling to Washington state to be with family and celebrate my mom’s life. She passed away from asymptomatic COVID on New Year’s Day.
My brother and I were grieving badly along with our aunt, Mom’s little sister, and we decided to wait until her birthday to spread her ashes and to be together to celebrate her life. I thought a little time would help me face the loss. I don’t know if it made it better or worse.
The trip has been hanging over my head since the first week of January. Now that it’s here, I’m feeling waves of grief and untapped emotion.
The photos are from property that has been in the family for three generations. This is where we’ll say good-bye to mom.
Our property on the Stilaguamish River.Mom trout fishing in the river when I was up for a visit from California years ago.
Did you know that EVs interfere with AM Radio waves?
I read yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that Teslas have already gotten rid of AM.
Here’s an excerpt from “Sadness and Static as AM Stations Fade–Space aliens, UFOs, the supernatural—all grist for radio shows” by Peter Funt.
Several European car makers, including Audi, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen and Volvo, have stopped putting AM radios in certain models. Trendy EVs and hybrids have electrical systems that interfere with AM audio. But rather than moving a few parts around, or shielding the equipment better, manufacturers are cutting out AM.
American automakers are taking a more cautious approach, but Tesla has already eliminated AM radios, and Ford plans to drop AM from its electric pickup trucks. It’s no small matter, since about 47 million Americans still listen to programming on the AM dial, according to Nielsen data.
The article also said that those of us who grew up with AM radio view it as the soundtrack of our lives. I grew up on the west coast of Washington State. KJR AM radio was the top 40 station. One of my best friends signed up our high school for a competition where we saved our Wrigley’s gum wrappers and made a chain with them. The school that built the longest chain won a concert downtown Seattle for the band WAR — free for the entire school.
We won. I always wondered if we really won, or if it was my friend dating a DJ at the radio station?
I used to listen to the wacky Art Bell at night when I couldn’t sleep. People would call in with tall tales of UFOs and abductions, mysterious discoveries of crystal skulls and assorted weirdness. I found it entertaining.
I’d also tune into talk and news shows while I drove. It sort of was a soundtrack of my life.
Now with Sirius in the car, we rarely tune in AM. We listen to music of our preferred decades.
Do you think that AM will fade away? What AM stations have you listened to and what was their format?
I’m visiting my mom in the Pacific Northwest. This is what my phone blasted to me on my first morning when I woke up.
I’ve never seen a hydrologic outlook on my phone, nor an atmospheric river.
I’m staying with my BFF from college and I asked her what it meant.
She said, “Oh I hate this. It’s a huge amount of rain and flooding.”
I pictured the atmospheric river as a massive body of water running through the clouds above my head.
My friend also told me that she thinks the weather forecasters and meteorologists work too hard to find new terms for long-occurring events.
Here’s the rest of the alert I received:
I was pleasantly surprised to have cloudy skies with blue peeking through. It’s absolutely gorgeous here and such a contrast from the desert of Arizona. I love spending time with my mom, although she’s not doing as well as during my last visit. More on that after I have time to process my thoughts and emotions.
The drive to my mom’s assisted living.
I loved the light in the leaves of this tree at my mom’s assisted living.
What strange weather alerts have you seen? Have you heard of hydrologic events or atmospheric rivers before?
