Thoughts on Eastern Washington from Eastern Washington

New photos posted on Americana. Also for your further amusement, I have started a new feature on my photo site, …& Espresso, to document the interesting coffee pairings found around our if-only-I-could-mainline-my-caffeine-fix region. My favorite so far is Parables, a Christian Bookstore…& Espresso. "Take and drink, this is my ???, given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me." If wine represents his blood, and bread his body, would coffee be his seminary fluid?

I am, officially, on the other side of the state, as far away from Seattle as you can get and still be in Washington. Lewiston, ID and Clarkston, WA (get it? Lewis and Clark?) They grow 'em straight, true, and strong out here; every one of these tiny towns has won state championships in boys/girls sports at one time or another and they proudly put such on signs on main roads into town both directions, directly before or after the signs stating all of the religious denominations of which you can partake. They've sent more than their fair share of kids to the military, too, let me tell you. For farm kids looking to get the hell out of dodge, it's one of their all-too-few choices. What the hell else are you going to do out here in the middle of nowhere? Get away from it all, and go to some other hell hole, from one hell hole to the next, frying pan into the fire. Finally, in the I-don't-get-it category, there's a store in Walla Walla called The New York Store, Western Outfitters, Inc.; He's from New York City? Pick up the Pace.

Engrish of My Own

On the wrapper of the bamboo chopsticks at Nothing But Noodles in Kennewick, WA: Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual. Would that be glorious? On the other side are instructions: Tuk under and held firmly, tnurnb, add second chcostick hold it as you hold a pencil, hold first chopstick in originai position move the second one up and down, Now you can pick up anything: I'm thinking the tnurnb might refer to the thumb. Anyone out there have other ideas?

Shameful Gloating

Hey Seattleites, here's what the sky looked like where I was yesterday. Nanner, nanner, nanner. Here, let me rub it in a little bit more. Blue sky, nothing but blue sky, do I see.

Show and Tell

"Hey SFHC, what did you do on your Saturday vacation?"
"We went to the snow."
So, what do you do when one more day of rain will cause a mental meltdown and you don't have the time to drive far enough south to get to the sun? Why, you go to the snow, of course, to the Carbon River entrance of Mount Rainier, on our way to Mowich Lake, which we couldn't quite get to because the snow was too deep. See more cool photos here.

I'm also adding new photos all the time to my existing galleries. See the exciting new snaps at The Texture of Nature. I'll let you know each time I add a significant number of photos.

On Being Predictable and Human

As I go about my business of writing and photographing a truly great and bestselling travel guide in the next seven months, as I proceed with my everyday plan to spend as much fun time with family and friends, I want two things:

1) To pay off the $7500 credit card and not accumulate any new debt.
2) To lose 42 pounds, exactly 42.

These are terribly typical desires, especially in our culture of excess. I spend too much money on food and my waist and wallet bear witness. Every Average Jane wants to be thin and rich. For me, and I suspect for many, these goals are really about one thing: exorcising the instant gratification beast within me. If only, if only, I had the discipline, the resolve, to just do it, as a famed ad slogan of our time tells me I should.

These thoughts consume me today. Which makes me feel guilty and completely uninformed when I think I should really be blogging about some group called Hamas winning some election somewhere and what that means for war and terror and strife and oppression in the world.

Validation

(cue music, the Halleluiah Chorus, substitute the word Val-i-da-tion for the word hal-leh-lu-iah)
(repeat while jumping up and down hysterically all over the house)
I am so excited I can hardly sit still. I went to a photography class and learned so much about my schnazzy Nikon D50. I drank a double shot Cuban dulce de leche coffee at El Diablo Coffee Co. The mountain is out. After 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the sun is shining. But all of this pales in comparison to the main reason I am twitterpated. A national magazine wants to publish one of my stories! Yes, I've been published before, but this is really the first piece that is truly mine, all mine. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. I'll keep you posted when I know I'm allowed to say who and what. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a quote from a greeting card by a guy named Edward Monkton and a couple of pics of yesterday's sunset.

"My Chocolate Kingdom - a Fragment of a Dream" ...and in my chocolate kingdom they brought me great MOUNTAINS of CHOCOLATE and thereof I did eat. And it did not make me feel ILL or ASHAMED, neither did it put weight on my THIGHS. For the chocolate was health-giving and NOURISHING, and the more I ate, the more BEAUTIFUL I became.

How to Tell You're in Poulsbo

I've officially started traveling for the Moon Handbook. You'll experience two main side effects here on SFHChick. 1) Fewer Words. 2) More Photos. For example, here are a few images from my visit yesterday to "Little Norway" on the Kitsap Peninsula. To see many fotos, check on Pups, Peeps, Nature, and Americana on the toolbar to your right.

So You Think You Can Write

The following bit of sheer brilliance is courtesy of another SuperFunny Sagittarian woman, firebabe, as written in the letters to the editor of Motorcycle Consumer News magazine, and reprinted here, with her permission.

"I dare anyone in this country to write for a living. Think it's easy, do they? Let me tell them something--walking on a greased tightrope above a pool of battery acid with a team of professional baseball players hurling flaming potatoes at you while balancing a nervous cocker spaniel with an advanced case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome on your head while whistling 'I Will Survive' is easy. Writing is hard."

I plan on having this printed up on a card and feigning instant deafness when someone says to me, "Oh, you're a writer? I wanted to be a writer. I could do that. Say, could you help me get a children's/romance/sci-fi thriller/[insert type of book here] published?" On the other side of the card, I think I'll beg for money, just like some of those deaf people do who hand out the yellow cards with the ASL alphabet on one side and a plea for money on the other. Here's a glimpse into the nasty side of my personality: I'm instinctually cruel and superior when given one of those, thinking a) he/she isn't really deaf, should I bang a pan to surprise and out him/her? and b) if I were deaf, I wouldn't have to resort to begging; I'd be like Marlee Maitlin or that gal on the hideous Private Eye TV show.

I can be so mean.

My Mantras

I have enough.
I am enough.
I can do the book.
I can do the bod.

Lack of Self-Discipline

I've been trying to lose weight since I hit puberty at 12 years old. I was a tiny kid, in the third percentile of weight and height for my age. Then, in a single summer, I gained 20 pounds and grew breasts, hips, and thighs. My mom said I ate too much cheese and crackers. What the hell? My boobs grew so fast I had stretch marks from day one. I've struggled ever since. Why is it so hard to get my shit together to get fit and trim for good? As an adult, I've been everything from a size 4 to a size 18+, from 127 to 197 pounds. Up and down and up and down, a classic roller coaster dieter. A while back, when The Onion featured an article about Oprah celebrating the loss of her 20,000th pound, I fell off my chair laughing, all the while aching at how painfully true the jibe rang. Coming to terms with where my body is comfortable, right around the 170s, is even more difficult. At the moment, 3/4ths of the clothes in my closets are too small; I'm saving them for the day they'll fit again. When I told my husband I needed to do something before going to Hawaii, meaning I need to lose some weight, he responded, completely innocently, "You mean, like buying a new swimsuit?" He loves my bod as is, why can't I?

Goin' to Hawaii

Finally, happy news after all the sadness this week. Husby's sister, has invited me to join her and my niece on an all-expenses-paid trip to Kauai the first week of April. We're staying here. It's a thank-you trip for all her sales work as a mortgage mogul. Wheeee! I want to go now. At least I was able to go to the spa yesterday with my girlfriend Sheryl. It helped me calm down, though I'm still having trouble focusing today. I have a story due for CityDog Magazine, and I couldn't care less. I'll try again tomorrow.
OK, enough about me. What about you? It occurs to me that my blog is waaaayy too me-centric. It's exciting to read on others' blogs that there's been a woman elected PRESIDENT of Chile (single mother and agnostic, no less). Woot! Reminds me of recents comments from a friend who just returned from a trip to London, where he discovered the general consensus is that: 1) Hilary will run for president in 2008, and 2) She is gay, which will freak-out Americans far more than it does them.

Maternal Terminology

I have two mothers. I realize that my uses of the word mother and mom in my postings can get confusing, with readers not knowing which I'm referring to in any given note. My biological mother and my step mother. This is not unusual. More often than not, nowadays, blended families are the norm. What is, perhaps, slightly less common, is the tenuous relationship between me and my Bio-Mom, as I will refer to her now. She suffers from severe bipolar disorder, with frequent psychotic breaks from reality. She's been in and out of hospitals, prison, the streets, mental health institutions, and halfway houses since I was a baby. At any given point in my life, she may be stable, as she is at the moment, or distinctly not, for weeks, months, even years at a time. When she is "normal," I talk to her by phone nearly every Sunday. For me, they are often strained and simple conversations, filled with edited versions of daily goings-on.

When I was eight, the state essentially took me away from her, and I went to live with my biological father, who was, by then, back from the war in 'Nam and remarried to my Step Mom. It is she who essentially raised me, she who I think of as my Mom. From this point forward, Mom and Mother will refer to her.

I realize this is a lot of heavy stuff to lay on you at once, in these two postings, but there you are. Such as it is at the moment.

Nurturing Sadness

The Camillia bush in our backyard is blooming. It is a life-affirming reminder I'm clinging to in a week that has been far too full of mortality. First, I learned that the ex-husband of a friend of mine had died of a heart attack in his early 50s. Their relationship was a tormented one, ending in stalking, abuse, restraining orders, and his attempted suicide on her birthday, January 25th, to "get back at her." This was years ago. His death seems the final pain in a painful life, and his timing sucks, yet again, as she approaches what should be a happy day, but is full of painful reminders.

On Saturday, I belatedly heard of the death of a family friend, from prostate cancer on December 11th. He and his wife have been a blessing to my Bio Mom, sticking by her through all her ups and downs, enjoying her company when she is sane and caring for her when she is not. Too many people can't handle the stress of severe mental illness, but they are not afraid of it. They've always been there for her. Bio Mom couldn't bring herself to tell me until I asked specifically how he was doing.

Then, yesterday, the hardest for me. A very dear friend of the family is essentially gone, brain dead, his body kept alive on a respirator only long enough for his children to find his living will, if he has one. I've known him since I was eight years old. He took our wedding pictures; it was his first gig as a professional wedding photographer, and he went on to become quite in demand for his skills. He's with my Dad now, I bet, in heaven's Officers Club, shooting the shit about Vietnam and the stunts they pulled flying C-130s. The situation is horrific. His wife is suffering from the same dementia that took my father. They found her bloodied and bruised from several falls, wandering the street, and sent police over to the house to find him collapsed in a coma. My Mom had been talking to him for weeks, trying gently but persistently to convince him to place her in permanent assisted living, knowing that caring for her was wearing him down. It wore him to death, is what it did. An ear infection exploded into his brain, even though he was on antibiotics to treat it. Now his two grown children, all that's left of the family, are faced with both his final arrangements and getting their mother into a care facility as soon as possible, with no instructions or plans left behind. My heart breaks for them while it forces me to deal intimately again with my father's death. I'm not ready for the intense emotions that are assailing me. My heart is too raw. It's too soon. I'm trying to deal with it by being gentle with myself, allowing the sadness to fill me, even as I acknowledge the beauty and joy of everyday life and simple things. I know I will go on, and happiness is still all around me.

It's a Soggy Life for Us

Fucking rain. This keeps up, I'm gonna' have to up my meds. I'm fighting it--exercising every day, opening all the windows, turning on all the lights. It's winning anyway, really getting under my skin. I'm not doing anything super, I'm not having much fun, I'm too lethargic to be happy, and with my new haircut, my chick-ness is highly questionable. Wearing boots and black Hotwire sweat hoodies is hardly chic. Of course, staring out the window at the dripping skies forces me to contemplate the deeper reality that is plaguing me: being broke. I have been for so very long, and am now, so obsessed about never seemingly having enough money to fill my bottomless emotional pit with the placating and soothing trappings it requires to keep me from falling over the edge of my mental cliff. Distractions. I require many of them in great variety. In frequent, machine-gun rapid-fire succession. To keep me sane. Food, adventure, travel, new experiences. All of these things take money.

Post-party depression. I never have been very good at downtime.

Declaration of Fundependence

I'm reading a book that started with a quote that quoted parts of the Declaration of Independence, and commented, basically, that it is patriotic to exercise our fundamental right to "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." SuperFunHappyChick is in good company. The very founders of our country thought that fun was important enough to be one of the fundamental tenants of a document stating the purpose of forming an entire new country. Yea, baby.

I've worked out five days in a row. I have marks on the backs of my arms from a particularly challenging yoga pose yesterday. Goooooo, me!

Awwwww

Time for more puppy pics!

Work It, Girl

I have now worked out, either walking, swimming, or yoga, for four days in a row. A recent record for me. I know what I do wanna. I want to be Bette Midler's character in Ruthless People. I want to be kidnapped by sweet, bumbling people who treat me decently and lock me in a basement full of exercise equipment and workout videos. I think about six months would do it. I'll be exempted from my normal expectations, I'll get a bunch of sympathy and attention, and I'll get out just in time for the best of summer. The new book can go to hell. Maybe they'd even let my hubby and dogs have visitation rights. I guess I'd miss 'em.

Don't Wannas

I have a real problem here today. I don't wanna. I don't wanna do anything. I don't even wanna write.

Need $20,000+

So, on the way-off chance that someone truly wealthy is reading my blog, and has an extra $22K or so that they'd wouldn't even miss, and is feeling very generous, I have a plea: we could sure put it good use! Just think of all the good it would do, instead of buying that wide-screen, flat-panel, plasma HDTV. Despite selling the house and paying off the majority of our debts, we're still in the hole $6K, plus I need about $6k to cover travel expenses to write my next book, and we'd love to have a little left over for fun stuff, you know, like a new bed so my back doesn't hurt at night and a sofa to replace our 11-year-old-$300 bought new cheapie model (before that, I would sit on a recumbent bike and my husband would sit on a dining room chair to watch TV), and paying off a $470 cell phone bill ($400 in cancellation fees + tax to get out of a bad contract), and about $600 in medical bills, and about $200 I owe a friend, little stuff like that. The latest figure I heard was that we could each receive an $11,000 per year without having to claim it on our taxes. That'd sure come in handy. Thanks.

Oh, our address: 8844 34th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98126

Absolutely Nothing

"WAR! Huh. Good God y'all, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin." My father left for Vietnam when I was 1-1/2 years old. I'm told that when he came in to kiss me goodbye, I stood in my crib and asked, "Daddy go bye-bye?" He didn't return for good until I was four. I have a memento from that time, a red silk baseball jacket with Snoopy on the back and my name on the front. He didn't know how big I'd grown; the jacket didn't fit me until I was five or six years old. When he was gone, my mother had an affair with another man, and by the time he returned, she'd moved in with the other guy and taken nearly everything from my father in divorce, including me. When I was eight years old, I went back to live with my father and his new wife, my step-mom, who I call Mom. There are many stories from that time in my life that will take many years to tell.

It's true. My father would never talk about the war. Before he died this past Spring, and before he lost his mind to dementia, we had only one significant conversation about it. I'll share my memories about that some other time.

Until this war, my only other experiences were about old men, with whom I could barely relate. The really old geezers, wearing the caps and handing out paper poppies on Veteran's Day. The dismal guys who beg on street corners, hoping that if they put "vet" on their cardboard, whether or not it's true, they'll get more money out of passing car windows. Not too long ago, I saw an extremely short clip about Britney Spears, giving a private concert to War Veterans. I'm surprised I saw it at all, as our current "free" press and media are obviously tightly controlled by corporate interests and our current "administration" (a word which I can only bring myself to say with bile in my throat). The American public doesn't get to see the dead and the wounded. The image that burns in my mind is of a kid with arm braces, standing on his one remaining leg; he wasn't even 20 years old.

Where is Osama bin Laden? Where is he in the world? Where is he in public consciousness? Where is he in our government's skewed priorities? How easily we are distracted from our leaders' schemes and ineptness. How short our attention spans.

There's a private outdoor bulletin board in West Seattle with a message to "Support Our Troops: They Protect the World." I want to change the four little letters in the last word to -ealthy. These children aren't protecting the world. They're being maimed and dying to protect the wealthy.

Oddly, these are the thoughts in my mind when I woke up this morning.

L-A-Z-Y

Perhaps I'm deluding myself to think my main purpose in life is to find joy. I now think it's closer to the truth to state that my raisin d'etre is to put forth as little effort as possible in order to achieve the great rewards to which I'm entitled. To live with a low effort-to- high reward ratio.

As evidence, I put forth my most recent purchase: the RIVAL Crock Pot Slow Cooker Recipes Book. At first, I had purchased a lovely volume called NOT Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes. It was a tome, thick and beautiful, filled with more than 350 recipes. The menus were elegant and intricate. It was never going to get used in my home. I returned it for RIVAL's book. Folks, this book is actually shaped like a crock pot, with large coated cardboard pages, just like a baby book. There are perhaps 50 recipes, if you include the ones for hot chocolate and cranberry tea. Every page has lots of pictures. In fact, each recipe has the key ingredients pictured in columns on the side, so if you are running through the store, you can grab, say, chicken, an onion, celery, and a bag of frozen corn. No recipe requires more than five steps; the average is two: (1) dice a few ingredients and put them in the pot, and (2) turn on the pot.

Today, I'll be making Country Chicken Chowder. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'd like to know what the hell is going on.

The White Elephant God's Blessing

Our dearest friends Brian and Sara hosted a white elephant gift exchange for Christmas. After considering, in no particular order: a plastic lobster, a blue fake fur coat, dessert plates with women's legs and French words on them, and metal watering cans made in India in the guise of a rooster or a horse, I actually went to Marshall's and purchased an electric put-it-yourself science project bubble blowing machine. I wrapped it in Christmas paper and even taped two "AA" batteries to the front of the box, which this contraption required. Then, something wonderous happened. On a walk with the dogs, about 1/2 mile from the house, I came upon the most hideously-fabulous white elephant gift a person could possibly discover, sitting on a damp square of lawn in front of a house with a "FREE" sign taped on it. Now, only a person who truly understands and appreciates the art of the white elephant can appreciate this gift. But, knowing Brian and Sara, and also knowing that they named their party "Put Some Junk in Your Trunk," I felt I could bring this item to said party and find kindred souls who would understand just how truly perfect this gift really is. Here, my few and dear readers, is what Sara now has sitting in her living room.