7/28/07:
Earlier in the week, driving back from Bellingham on the freeway, I noticed fields with stacks of wooden crates interspersed among low-growing green plants. Thursday afternoon the fields were bathed in sunlight and heat as people in the fields bent over the plants. I squinted to figure out what they were picking… yes, that's the ticket, they were picking cucumbers, otherwise known as picking pickles. It looked like very hot, very hard work. Actually, I know it is very hot and hard work, there are no two ways about it. Some people work very hard and yet are paid hardly anything, and have no health insurance here, in this land of the free.
Jay says they did not grow a lot of cucumbers here when he grew up, but they always grew a lot of peas. I did not know what a pea viner was until I moved here. The big machines lumber slowly down the roads this time of year, here to harvest the big pea crop then move on. Recently we could hear lumbering and when we looked out the kitchen window we could see the machines slowly making their way down Avon-Allen Road.
Today Jay and I went out and about driving. As we drove down Josh Wilson Road, Jay remarked at the left over vines laying about the field after the peas had been stripped from them, wondering if they still baled them for pea hay. I hoped so. As often happens, I could smell the farming activity before I could see it. We came upon the pea viners, working in the field, sucking up pea vines, pulling the peas off of them and shooting out the left over vines and pods. It smells green, I said. Yes, Jay was surprised as he said it, yes, it does smell green. It smells green. You should write about that on your page. I told him I would think about it, think about writing about smelling green. Can you smell green?
The underlined words "pea viner" above link to a great boy site about pea viners, as does the picture of peas.
Some of us, observing that ideals are rarely achieved, proceed to the error of considering them worthless. Such an error is greatly harmful. True North cannot be reached either, since it is an abstraction, but it is of enormous importance, as all the world's travelers can attest.— Steve Allen
7/26/07:
As predicted, my sister Linda has weighed in. She does remember the cocoon on the twig pinned to the dining room curtains and the excitement of the butterfly's emergence. She does not remember the butterfly coming out during a birthday party, but that is a good memory so I will keep it. It has struck me that the memories I have are not shared in exactly the same way by all parties involved in my childhood. According to my readings, this is a common experience— who knows what the hell happened back then!
Today on the radio the stories continued about veterans' difficulties getting services after returning to the states. Despite being injured in war, veterans have to apply for benefits to treat those injuries. Apparently there is a dimension where such things make sense, and I guess this is it! This Administration has seen fit to call up and retain, for an extended period of time, our National Guard in war service overseas. Their families have paid a dear, dear price. Now the ones who lost their limbs, as well as other things, not only have to apply for health care benefits, but those benefits last only two years because the soldiers were not in the regular armed services.
The weapons of mass destruction never existed, the fight against the people who masterminded the events of 9-11-01 were virtually abandoned to fight an ego war in Iraq. The good will of the world toward the US was squandered and in its place the Administration created an animosity toward this country unknown thus far in our history. Suitcases of money were sent abroad, and fat cats have gotten fatter. We now call America Homeland, and this choice of words is not by coincidence. We have created more enemies by our very own deeds, and continue to blame others for misperceiving our intentions. We are transparent. Our lies are betrayed by the eyes and mouths of our leaders. Who would have thought an elected President would declare himself above the law, a virtual monarch? Our founding fathers warned against such a thing.
Last week the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) warned the country that terrorists may be probing airport security by trying to bring peculiar items on board airplanes. Click on the boxing cat for an example of the diminutive nature of our President's manliness.
some men...in order to prevent the supposed intentions of their adversaries, have committed the most enormous cruelties...— Clearchus, in Xenophon
7/25/07:
We had a lovely sunny afternoon and evening yesterday, and today has been the same. I recently saw a large butterfly in the back yard, hanging around our growing grapes. It had markings kind of like a monarch butterfly, but was yellow instead of orangish. I told Jay about it, then today he pointed out a photo of the same butterfly in the local paper (which, by the way, called it a monarch). I looked about the internet a bit and gained no clarity on what kind of butterfly it was, maybe a swallowtail.
Jay and I decided there aren't nearly as many butterflies out and about as there were when we were kids. My house always had quite a few monarchs and other butterflies about, and many butterfly larva liked our lilac bush. I remember one spring my folks cut a twig from the lilac with a cocoon attached and pinned it to our dining room curtains. I swear that cocoon hatched a beautiful butterfly on the day of one of my sister's birthday parties. I know Linda will write and let me know what she remembers.
I also told Jay I remember large numbers of white butterflies flocking to drink from the stream of water running down the hill of our gravel driveway every time we washed the car. There would be dozens of them drinking, looking to that little girl like dancing fairies. Jay said that around here those white butterflies were called cabbage loupers when he grew up, probably because their larva feast on vegetables like cabbage and so were regarded more as pests. They are cabbage white butterflies and I always liked seeing them drinking in the driveway…
At any rate, I like butterflies and enjoyed a large dragonfly buzzing by as I walked back from the chiropractor's this afternoon. (Dr. Wells chuckled one day when I told him we refer to his place as the crack house.) All of the underlined words link to different butterfly information sites, the picture links to some nice pics!
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.— Anne Frank (1929-1945)
7/21/07:
I went to the movies yesterday to see Hairspray (this time the cashier was older and did not ask if I wanted a senior discount, although I was mentally prepared to say "yes!" rather than the "how old do you have to be to get a senior discount?!" response I gave last time).
I cannot remember if I ever saw the first movie or just parts of it, so I really can't compare the two. However I do know I laughed out loud more than once for this one. I enjoyed the occasional digs at the goofiness of our past and it was fun to see John Travolta as a mother and Christopher Walken's interesting character. You should go see the movie.
Hairspray reminds us of the past we were so anxious to change, the dreams of the '60s. By doing so it inadvertently, or perhaps advertently, reminded me that those dreams have not yet been fully realized.
It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. These are often as highly structured and selective as myths. Images and symbolic constructs of the past are imprinted, almost in the manner of genetic information, on our sensibility. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past.— George Steiner from In Bluebeard's Castle (1971)
7/20/07:
Jay picked up a book for me to read at the library last weekend called Carved in Sand, When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin. I think you can tell by the title mostly what it is about. I am a slow reader (Jay tells me I do not have to read every word, but I am sure he is wrong) and have not gotten very far, but the author starts with dramatic stories about her own and others' memory slips as they head on into, well, into my age category. The author then starts into more scientific information about frontal lobes and such, mostly boiling down to the fact that in days gone by middle aged frontal lobes had a little bit of a hard time keeping up, but now, in the age of information onslaught and change, our task is daunting. We are still working in middle age, still raising or involved in families in middle age, and still busy with a multitude of important and mundane things. Such as it is.
Last night Jay asked me how the book was going and I told him I thought many of the examples were perhaps exaggerated— I am not doing that badly! I have a little tray on a little shelf under a mirror on the wall opposite our front door, in which I put my keys when I come home. This morning as I prepared to leave before Jay, I noticed my keys were not in the little tray. This happens occasionally, and my keys can be found in my purse because I had earlier entered the house with my hands and arms full. Before I could look in my purse though, Jay opened the front door to take out the laundry to his truck— voila! There were my keys, I need look no further, as they were safely stored in the lock on the outside of our front door. That puzzle solved, I now need to get busy reading that book…
As I visited, she told me she wanted to go home, she missed her house, missed being on the beach, missed going down to walk along it every evening with her husband. I knew it was time for him to go, he had cancer you know. I did not know this, but I shake my head because I have learned that this is indeed how life is. He was a wonderful husband! I loved him so much! We were married a long time… The pause betrays her lack of exactness as she struggles to come up with a reasonable number, one that portrays the time frame she is trying to express. 50 years! She smiles broadly, expansively. I can see the top of her upper denture the smile is so very big. I tell her, yes, that is a very long time and she nods thoughtfully, wistfully. I know there is more. I know the thoughts, the ones only sometimes shared, expressed to the other unsatisfactorily, thoughts containing feelings that we seem to be unable to express clearly enough. Yes, I say, that is a long time, but it wasn't long enough was it? It can never be long enough. She shakes her head yes. Her huge smile returns. Yes! Then a hearty, hearty laugh. I need to find another husband! Yet another huge smile that lapses quickly into a contemplative face. The lovely lady in pleated dress slacks, heels and a silk blouse tells me she enjoyed my visit as I leave, the bright orange ball cap bobbing along with her nodding head.
perhaps it is the chisel which is beautiful, not the statue.— Robin McKee
7/18/07:
I wrote my sister Monday about how hot and dry it has been here, then it rained lightly the last two days. Who would've thought it could be so easy to summon water for our plants? The rain has filled one of the two 55 gallon rain barrels Jay put in place last weekend. A downspout guides rain from our gutter into the first barrel, then a hose links it to another so that when the first is full the rain is diverted into the second barrel. Since just a little rain has filled one, we need to install a hose near the top of the second barrel to handle the inevitable overflows to come.
We are hoping to get approval by the end of the month for the variance we requested late last month to build closer to the front and back property lines than current building regulations allow. The flood regulations also limit us to adding on 300 square feet or less without going to the expense of raising the whole house. We plan to add on a living room and use the current one for our dining room, plus have washer/dryer space. Our lot is big enough to also include a single car garage with enough depth to allow workbench area. Because the garage is not attached they do not count it in the calculations that would make us raise the house. Apparently the regulations are far too complex for the mere mortal mind to make heads or tails of. We met with the architect Monday, she is a small home fan and is excited about our project. That feels good. More later…
If you click on the picture we took of some dolphins enjoying our new rain barrels, you will be taken to our architect's design/build website.
Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. Its eternal goal is life.— Smiley Blanton
7/14/07:
I haven't kept up on my book reports… The weather is a little muggy today, in the low 80s with breaks in the heat from hazy clouds passing overhead. It is hard to get a lot accomplished on these warm summer days, especially on weekdays when we return from work all wrung out. But today so far we have moved some plants, watered everything and Jay has worked with the two large plastic barrels we recently bought so that they are now set up to receive rain from our roof when it comes.
Earlier in the week I finished a slim book titled the winged seed by Chinese-American poet Li-Young. The book is a memoir of the author's unusual childhood and family history that lapses into poetical passages that are diffcult to understand and beautiful at the same time. The picture to the left links to one of Li-Young's poems, worth the wear and tear on your wrist to click.
That all of us were stranded inside ourselves was a new feeling, but it would become as familiar to us as a bad habit, and then, as again and again we felt it— in that house and later in the wide world— it would take on the irrefutable constancy of a truth.— from "the winged seed" by Li-Young Lee
7/11/07:
Whew! It is hotter than Hell here— and we're not used to it! The high here today was 93 degrees, while the high today in Hell, Michigan was 79 degrees. Yes, it is true, it is hotter than Hell here.
We went to an old farts concert Sunday evening at the Lincoln Theatre (old farts meaning people my age). We saw Jesse Colin Young perform with his current band. Years past Jesse played in the Youngbloods, playing a couple of songs many of you will remember: Darkness, Darkness and Get Together Now. It was a nice evening, it seems like it is always nice to hear live music. Hope you are having a good week— later, man.
The history of a people is found in its songs.— George Jellinek
7/8/07:
Last weekend we went to a local production of Oklahoma! in Sedro-Woolley. It always surprises me, when we go to local productions, how talented people are. The play was well done and the lead actors/singers did a great job. Also, the programs Jay helped print were lovely. :)
The picture of the Kansas rattler links to the NW Actors Repertory Theatre's site.
Anyhow, one of the things we have been up to— more later, c'iao!
Vladimir: You should have been a poet.
Estragon: I was. (Gesture towards his rags.) Isn't that obvious?— Samuel Beckett
7/4/07:
Last night we could hear the popping of fireworks and went out on our deck to see what could be seen. Seems the people setting things off were finished, but I took a couple of night pictures for the heck of it. The one to the left links to one bigger one. What the heck.
I read a book review today: Inventing Human Rights by Lynn Hunt. The review says Professor Hunt, former president of the American Historical Association, explains that the foundational ideas of our country's and France's revolutions were extraordinary in their time. There were no general concepts of human rights or equality prior to the eighteenth century. The Declaration of Independence with the stroke of a pen helped change from inconceivable to "self-evident" these concepts. It sounds like a good book, one I would like to read. According to the review, the book describes declarations as transformative, not empty words, making us want to become what they claim we are. 
Oh yes, I did catch one small picture of rockets set off last night. They are to the right :) and link to a state flag quiz my cousin Diane sent— see how you do.
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.— Jean Kerr
7/3/07:
I have shared my raspberries combined with balsamic vinegar and sugar concoction with Barbara and Kate at work, and with Mrs. Becker across the street. None of them had heard of such a thing before, yet the approval rating at present is 100%.
As Jay has said in the past about other high ratings, it is something President Bush would kill for— oh wait, that didn't work… Oh well, on to other things of real life.
Jay protected our prolific raspberries with a new struture over which he put netting to keep the birds from sharing so easily in our harvest. Jay does a wonderful job of planting and tending to our produce, while I tend to the flowering plants. Sometimes, as in everything, it seems not a fair distribution while Jay toils so, yet again, as life and happiness goes, on and on, it is so. Which crops proliferate seems to not be in our control, yet the flowers bloom and happiness comes to those that look.
The picture of Jay's hand connects to this year's raspberry story.
Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.— R. Buckminster Fuller
7/1/07
June 2007 passed by at the speed of light, joining the other pieces of our time here in that place we call memory. Those of you continuing on this flight with us, please fasten your seat belts as we head into July 2007.
Our garden is growing with help from the warm weather summer has brought. Behind our lot is a large field, currently planted in nothing but tall grass, and beyond it is Memorial Highway. On the other side of the highway is a field currently planted with a seed crop Jay and I believe to be spinach. I think I've mentioned before that the valley here grows a fair amount of seed crops. Anyhow, the yellow seed heads across the way are bright, brighter than I have captured with my camera. In the evening light or under cloudy skies the field of yellow spinach seed has a glow all its own. The picture up to the right is of one of the flowering crops in our yard at present— do you know what it is? Click on it for a large picture of the seed field across the way.
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
— Shel Siverstein, from "Where The Sidewalk Ends"
Jardot's World: July Edition, 2007
All pictures on my page link to somewhere... go ahead, click!
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