Separation Anxiety

Keith left this morning for Missoula with the cooking crew for the firefighters. He could be back next week or he could be gone for about 6 weeks, or anywhere in between. The longest we've been apart is probably 4 days in the almost 11 years we've been together. We're pretty much always together and we like it that way. So although I know this is a good opportunity for him, it was still hard to see him leave this morning.

Yesterday was one of the first days he didn't have to be at work @ 3 a.m., so we spent the morning together, getting his things ready to pack, and then went to eat lunch at the bakery.

"Um, I think that's enough (picture-taking)."
His favorite pose lately,
I think it's very cute.
He had to shave his beard
to work in the kitchen.
So he went with a goatee,
although I was hoping for
the fu manchu.

Of course every time we have to be apart I think about it being possibly the last time I will ever see him. Things happen, you know. And that's what I am afraid of. And knowing that this is a good opportunity to make some money that will allow us to build our house when he gets back--that feeling is mitigated by the reality that we don't know what is going to happen and we can't count on the possible good outcome in the future making this "worth it."

I am usually not this pessimistic. I'm just afraid, nervous, worried. And the only thing that will help is when he gets back to me.

"Every animal rescuer is rescuing a part of themselves..."

Slideshow that goes with the article about BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls) in the LA Times. (Thanks, Bo.)

My favorite from the slideshow:

a pit bull and a chihuahua
wait for adoption

The article focuses on the rescue efforts to save fighting pit bulls taken from disgraced football star Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels.

I have a link to slideshows of the dogs from the BAD RAP website on my sidebar, but here it is again. Rescued Michael Vick Dogs (Warning: heartbreaking.)

Anyone who knows us knows we're pit bull advocates. And if you have any bad ideas about pit bulls (because the media loves to spread them), we can introduce you to Lazlo, who will change your mind in a heartbeat.


Mia, we know, has issues, and definitely has trouble with strangers. But once she gets to know you, she won't leave you alone. She's one of the most affectionate dogs I've ever met.


The point, of my rambling and the article in the LA Times, is that dogs should be treated as individuals, not lumped together as an "evil breed."

And just like any other stereotype, parts of the stereotypes about pit bulls are true (strong, loyal, extremely athletic)... but once you get to know a member of a stereotyped group, you get a better picture of what that individual is actually like, and you might just learn something about yourself and about your preconceived notions. Our brains like stereotypes; we like things to fit into neat categories so we don't have to process so much information. It's like a shortcut. But sometimes those shortcuts can get you in trouble. You might just miss out on a whole lotta love.

Positive Pit Bull Press

Random thoughts

-Keith might be going with the fire camp in a couple days. Which gives me a lot of anxiety because I don't like being apart from him and I worry about catastrophic disasters that are totally illogical, but I can't help it.

-Dad saw Carl tonight and fed her.

-It was too hot to run the stairs at lunch today but I walked a lap around the track instead and then walked back to work- smelly. I ran the stairs on Tuesday and almost collapsed.

-I need to start doing yoga in the mornings. And eating less sweets. Fatty McFattypants.

-I saw a snake go under the greenhouse tonight. A little guy, smaller around than my pinky and about a foot long. No rattle, so we're safe-ish.

-Composting toilets are complicated.

-I like watching the Olympics, but I miss watching movies with Keith.

-Missing Portland at times. Like when I saw this pic of our old 'hood on Flickr.

-Going to my first pow-wow this weekend: Chief Lookingglass Days. One of my HS classmates is a stellar dancer, I've heard, and I'm really interested to see the dancing in person.

-Started making the Fall Real Estate Guide at work and it's kinda fun, for scrappy design work. (Summer version, pdf) Good experience, that's for sure.

My parents are softies for animals, especially abandoned animals. Must be where I get it. They are constantly adopting new/used pets. Like when we moved to Portland we left our cats Belly and Ophelia with my parents. And then my sister found a kitten when she worked at the lumber mill. And then another cat started hanging around and they adopted him, too.

There are 3 dogs and 5 cats living here (soon to be 4 once my sister takes her cat home).

And now: Meet Carl.
Keith was the first to spot Carl, running for cover under the shed. Then when my mom and I were making pickles on Sunday she saw him running across the yard and I grabbed my camera. The poor kitty is so scared/shy/anti-social she runs and hides under the shed at the first sound of the door opening. But we put out some food and water for her (on the ground since she's too little to jump up to the table of food for the outside cats) and we've been trying to keep an eye on her. My parents both fake-protested at first: "We are NOT adopting another cat!" "Do NOT name that cat!" (knowing: name=attachment)

Keith suggested the name Carl. I was sold. Awesome name. Especially since it's a GIRL. Keith had not realized (almost) all calicos are female when he suggested Carl. Then he said maybe we should change it to Mabel. No! Mabel is an old woman name. Carl is better. Mom suggested Carla. No. CARL. Then he started creeping me out by describing the cat in his best Slingblade voice: "not no bigger than a squirrel."

Still, I like Carl. No one saw Carl today. Maybe she went on down the road. We'll see if she sticks around. Maybe one of the outside cats ran her off. I hope not.

So, yeah:I made pickles. We had to do something with the plethora of cucumbers coming out of our garden. We sliced 26? and ended up with about that many pints of bread and butter pickles. And they are DELICIOUS. We won't starve this winter after all. We may be getting canker sores from pickles, but we'll be eating. Tomorrow I'm taking a box of cucumbers to work and I'm going to beg and plead that someone/anyone take them home.

Keith got a new job: Fire Camp Cook. There's a Fire Camp set up down by the bridge going into town and he was hired on the spot. Working split shifts: 3 a.m.-10a.m., 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Hard work and long hours, but good money and plenty of opportunity for overtime, depending on how long the fire lasts. He might go with them when the go to the next fire, wherever that is. More money in the bank for Tiny House! He'll go back to his other handyman job when the fire season is over, I guess.

yesterday morning, very smokey

I hear the Whatchamacallit pulling up now! G'ngiht!

weekend cont'd...

Saturday's adventure started off on a good foot.

We almost always eat breakfast here if we're going through Lewiston in the a.m. After a Hawaiian waffle sugar rush I was ready to hit the road.

In Moscow we stopped at the recycled building supply place to check out their inventory and started making all kinds of mental notes about what we would buy on our next trip.

We found some old wood frame with glass french doors I think we're going to use for our front door(s). We'd originally wanted a kind of barn door that would allow us to open up one whole end of the house. But that would be tricky to insulate against Idaho winters. So we decided these french door we found would work great. But we didn't buy them. Because we're broke.

But we did buy a two-way mirror for the bathroom. For $20!!! Whatta steal! We had this idea for a while and we were lucky to happen upon a good-sized mirror, already framed in.

For next time: corrugated tin for the kitchen (and maybe bathroom?), old windows (as a room divider, hung in columns---cheap: $5-$20/ea!), shower base/drain and 2"x2" redwood for the shower floor, possibly a toilet (still working on the R&D of a composting toilet)... We might need a trailer to haul it all home. Assuming we have the money to spend. But everything in the yard was really reasonably priced. Unlike what's-his-face with the used lumber here in town ($.40/board foot!!!).

Then we finished the mission: we returned my sister's car to CdA. Driving up through the small towns on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation I saw signs for a store called The Warpath and I decided that if I was a tribe I would name my casinos so they'd be offensive to white people--i.e. Broken Treaty Casino, Solts o' Genocide--but they'd still gamble there anyway and I'd always be letting them know that they owed me (the tribe) and it was only fair they drop some coins in my casino. Passive-aggressive, I guess, but yeah. Maybe it's obvious I wouldn't make a very good businesswoman.

Wildlife Alert: On the way there we saw a MOOSE!!! On Hwy 95 (almost exactly HERE) going across four lanes of traffic! I was driving and Keith was slow getting the camera out, so this is the best shot we got. Deal with it. (We also saw another moose on the way home, but no pic.)


We left CdA lickety-split and when we got back to Moscow we decided we were hungry so we went to Ted's Burgers. (I had a grilled cheese and onion rings. Yum.) My mom was flabbergasted because the kid behind the counter spelled her name correctly (Merry), but later she was whispering that it's probably the only way he knows how to spell Mary, because, you know Merry Christmas. She said that was the first time anyone had spelled her name correctly without asking. See, small miracles happen every day.

We also hit the People's Co-Op in Moscow which made me pine for The Good Food Store in Missoula. I bought $6 worth of TVP for ....well, all kinds of stuff: chili, spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes. I could have spent a lot of time and money in there. But I had very little of both. It's another place we'll be making a list for and then saving up to visit.

On the way home we took the shortcut through Julietta/Kendrick and it was a nice change of scenery. Beautiful farm land up there.


And we saw a lot of old barns we wanted to raid for wood for our tiny house. We dreamt about how we could go into the barn demolition and resale business.

When we got back home we saw that the fire over the hill from us was burning like crazy.

And it's still going. We've been watching planes and helicopters dump on it all day.

My dad some some Dept. of Lands guys in town this morning and they said it "doesn't look good," but they haven't lost any structures yet.

Cougars and now a fire?!? Dangerous neighborhood we moved into!

Other People's Vacation Pictures

I'll try not to bore you. There's plenty of pretty pictures anyway.

The soundtrack for today's post is Eddie Vedder-Society (from the Into the Wild soundtrack--excellent film). Open in a new window/tab, as per usual. Sample lyrics:

...
You think you have to want
more than you need
until you have it all you won't be free

Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
...

Now the place we went is not far from here, maybe 40 miles or so upriver. It's quiet and beautiful and we were alone and that's what we were looking for.

We drove up to the takeout where our friends would be getting off the river in a couple days, just up from Selway Falls, and let the dogs out to cool off.

Lazlo says, "This is fantastic!"

After some swimming and rock hounding and refreshing beverages we got in the truck to leave, only to be thwarted by nosy Ranger Rick who wanted to have a stop and chat while Lazlo was vomiting in the back seat (he drank too much river water! ooops).

We stopped at Selway Falls and Keith did boy things like trying to throw rocks across the gorge.

Selway Falls panorama

We went back to the spot where we'd unloaded our stuff to save our campsite and made camp. We had a nice shady spot with easy access to the river and at least 3 hammock-friendly trees (though some saplings may or may not have been sacrificed).

Highlights: naps in the hammocks; waking up to go put our feet in the river; Thursday night's dinner of campfire-roasted corn on the cob and sweet potatoes plus fresh zucchini break (thanks mom!), more naps, going to bed early, sleeping late, finishing my library book, Keith breaking his camp chair on the first evening (stress testing it on a rock--epic fail), Keith carrying Mia across Boyd Creek (we cut her some slack, being a Survivor and all), Keith making me a bouquet of wildflowers and driftwood...

Keith found a brand spankin' newly hatched dragonfly

tent security cam footage

For our first time camping in about 2 years, we were a little rusty but no major distasters. A good dry run for the next, longer trip (Labor Day weekend?)

We broke camp Saturday morning and headed home. We spent Saturday on the road, returning my sister's car to Coeur d'Alene so she can have it when she comes back from NY later this week. But we also stopped at a recycled building supply place in Moscow and found some great deals for tiny house construction---like glass/wood french doors, corrugated tin, windows, wood, toilets and sinks, lotsa misc. Definitely a place we'll be visiting again, with a list and some savings.

Bee back...

in a couple days. We're heading out to go camping in the morning. FINALLY (could have today been any longer???)

"Camping" is going to consist of: reading, maybe swimming, eating, reading, napping, reading, napping, eating, possibly a hike (although I'm not committing myself to that), sleeping, a cutthroat cribbage tournament, and then returning. All will be documented in photograph, as per usual.

That bee up there was in the garden this morning. In fact, the whole garden was buzzing and there were 2 and 3 bees in a lot of flowers. I'll have some fabulous garden pics to post when we get back, too.

Bona Fide Newpaper Girl

I've been working my little eyeballs to the max scrutinizing pages in InDesign for 10+ hours and now I'm back on the computer... WHY?

Because I just had to share photos of my new workspace. I actually remembered to take my camera and then remembered to use it.

It's a quiet office with a lot of plants and I could easily hit the huge plate glass window up front with a ... well, it's close.



A lot of elbow room, too, you can see. (Unlike my last desk where I shared a cube with 3+ other people.) It still needs some Aprilification and I've been thinking how I can listen to music, but with answering the phone, taking walk-in orders, and getting my pages laid out, I don't think I need anymore distractions just yet. So I'll save the music for my lunchtime walks (to fight/prevent Office Ass).

Keith helps keep me sane,
whether he knows it or not.

My first solo week a bit more stressful than I imagined but I'm confident I will soon be rocking the place. They're going to start throwing more graphic design work my way which is encouraging and scary at the same time. Of course there's no talk of a pay raise but I won't get into that because I don't want to get dooced. I'll just be content racking up hours for now. It's strange to be getting a paycheck again--after about 6 weeks without.

Our camping plans have changed---our friends have a solar equipment business and they made their first big sale so they're putting in a day later which means we're not going to see them. So we're going up Thursday a.m. and we'll come home Saturday a.m. Expect lotsa pics on the return. I'm so excited!

I found a new paint job for the Whatchamacallit!

(that's the new name for the $150 car we bought--notice it doesn't have the word poop or turd in it)

I totally want to paint our ugly brown car something.

Flat black would be easy and easy on the eyes.

(superchevy)

I was intrigued by the dia de los volvo paintjob Cephallus saw.


But then I saw this!

(via Matt Davis)

Of course it would have to be done by hand and I may not have that kind of time available, but maybe it's a wintertime project. After the Tiny House.

National Clean Out Your Pantry Day

We're either way ahead of the game, or way behind. No matter, we tend to play loose with holidays anyway. But we decided Sunday was Clean Out Your Pantry Day, regardless of when other people might think it is.

I didn't take any before pictures, but just take my word for it when I tell you it was filled with car parts, tons of "yard sale junk," old unusable jars, expired food, paint and paint supplies, tools, and copious amounts of spiderwebs. Also, some mouse poop.

But it only took a couple hours of Keith pre-organizing and the about 2 hours of the rest of us helping sort out what was Keep and what was Toss. We still have a lot of expired food to throw away. We had a contest to see what the oldest date we could find--- this was the winner:


There was a little discussion about how something AS OLD AS I AM survived so much packing and unpacking or if it was acquired somewhere along the way or what, but it clearly says, "79." We almost kept it for historical value, but decided to toss it. The runners up included mustard pickles, canned steelhead, and a wide variety of jellies from the early 90s. Keith and I have a personal policy of not eating anything older than 5 years.

So, the pantry after:

Everything top shelf center is getting tossed down the RV dump once we fashion a funnel to help with disposal. Not looking forward to that task. Good news is all the jars on the left (and what we have left after we dump expired food) should be plenty to can what we're going to harvest out of the garden this year. We'll need lids and rings, but we should have enough jars.

I also found some pretty neat older jars, so I decided to do a little photo essay of them. All you need to pull of something like this is a pump house and an empty field.

Last week my friend Melissa ordered 12 of my greeting cards, which was very exciting. My first big sale! W00t!

Never mind the messy wrapping, I had to catch the light!

This week at work is hectic because the newspaper is changing sizes again. Boring, tedious resizing. Late and early hours. Hey, what am I complaining about---more money to build our tiny house with!

On the Tiny House Front: we decided to go with lumber from the mill where my mom works. It's cheaper and there's little to no chance of sunstroke or snakebite. My dad's friend Dave is getting a unit of plywood from up north soon, so we're going to try to tack on a unit for ourselves to his load. We still have decide on the exact orientation of the house (to maximize the sun, especially during the winter) and then we'll start digging the holes for the footers. Keith says he wants to have it built by Labor Day. Sounds pretty ambitious to me! We might be able to acquire some barn wood from Keith's employer. It's definitely coming together.

But, this weekend----this weekend we're taking some much-needed KBAB time. We were planning on heading over to Missoula to see some friends but when we called to see if they'd be home we found out they're going to be on the Selway this weekend. So Keith and I are heading out Thursday night (with the dogs, of course) to camp for a couple days and then we'll meet up with them when they come off the river on Saturday. I think it's been over 2 years since we've been camping (I can't remember--that's how long ago it was) and it's been since before we moved to Portland that we've seen our friends. So we're really looking forward to this weekend. Keith is already sorting gear on the back patio.

On Sunday we're taking my sister's car up to Coeur d'Alene since she'll be home from NY on the 12th. At least an 8-hour roundtrip and we probably won't even get to stop and shop at any used building supply places, being Sunday and all. Good thing we're relaxing beforehand.