Just after I got home I decided to take my car to the Toyota place for the services they do every so many miles or months.
I'm sitting in the waiting room and get to talking with an older lady also waiting. We jabber about a variety of things: raising kids, hardwood vs wall to wall, recipes, the weather and then the subject of the current California fires came up.
Chatter chatter, chat chat and then (get ready for this one) the woman leans in towards me and informs me that, of course, these fires have been caused by the gays getting married.
Dumbfounded by her idiocy all I could do was chortle, gasp and stare at her open mouthed while she continued to prattle about her wonderful successes as a mother and member of her church.
I'm thinking, "Oh yeah. Here I am, back in Yuba-Sutter." swear swear sigh
The morning before we left Sharon came by with rhurbarb pie she made just for us. She even grew the rhubarb herself! We ate as much as we could, and had enough left over for breakfast in the car in the ferry line the next morning. And that's my little plastic for getting ready to shovel it in. Possibly the best breakfast ever.
We caught the 'red eye' which is the first ferry to the mainland. Left the house around 5:30, parked the car in line and walked over to the inn for coffee. Was disappointed to see they're serving Starbucks (it tastes bitter to me) but ... what are you gonna do? We sat and stared at the water and ferries for a while:
Anyway, anyway, anyway ... the ride is a gorgeous hour of water, islands, hills, trees and strangers to chat with on the ferry. I took one last photo of the Orcas landing nestled in the morning calm. You can see a bit of the reflections through the window. Not a perfect picture, but to me it shows well how the island life was slipping away. Now I'll try hard to remember, recall so that when my life starts going crazy I can float back to the feelings of this most excellent two weeks!
He was just sitting there, enjoying the sunshine and chewing his cud. Do deer chew cud? Maybe he was chewing grass or some sort of plant, but he sat there a long time and chewed and chewed.
Too cute. His antlers had that velvety stuff on them and looked soft and furry. He looked big.
We were all taking pictures through the window. What a hoot!
And then, today, there was a bunny in the yard. Not the same place. I took photos (also through the window) but the batteries died in my camera before I could upload. Just picture little brown bunnie ears sticking up in the grass.
Driving around today a baby deer crossed the street in front of us. Her whole backside was white and there were still spots on her. We looked around for her grownup, but .....
Lesson number one: get rid of your old, beat up, broken and never to be used again possessions in a timely manner. Please don't wait until your very sad and missing you loving nieces have to haul everything out and try to sell things two for a quarter.
You really do not have to save every single computer power cord you've ever owned. We found outdated packages of RAM, computer chips and weird looking electronic contraptions no one else has seen since 1986. Not to mention enough old Macs, printers, monitors etc to fill the back of an SUV.
We are going to have to find someone to cart them over to the mainland for recycling Which is, I guess, the reason they were still in the garage.
West Beach is one of my first stops when I get to the island. It's an absolutely wonderful resort, with campsites and cabins to rent. Every year I come, more and more has been added to make it fun and beautiful.
I love to walk all the way out the pier; it's pretty long. Terri, guess what! They've replaced some of those old boards. whew! While walking, and looking down, we saw a huge crab trotting along under the water doing what ever it is that crabs do. Such fun.
I just love that there's a cute area for sitting and enjoying the ambiance set up right in the middle of the pier. Although I didn't sit there, just shot a photo.
West Beach, as you can tell by the name, has the most spectacular sun sets.
First picture is part of Tahoe, at a rest stop. It's very low. The whole lake is very low. Going to be a long hot summer of trying to conserve water.
Just a thrill to drive into Oregon. Other than the shocking 55mph signs. What a jolt. Oregon is beautiful, so lush and green. Just like California, only
Plenty of Obama bumper stickers driving around me.
Plenty of road construction going on, too. Only on one stretch did we have to stop and wait. For the most part the traffic at least kept moving.
The last day is always field day. Fun and chaos everywhere. The kids had a blast and teachers had an hour free time to work in the classrooms (see above paragraph) Our local fireguys came by with a big red truck, pulled right up to the fence by the field and sprayed 500 happy children for quite a long time. Eventually they looked like happy little puppies playing in the mud.
Too fun. I wonder if anyone took a picture. Not me; I was in charge of the wet sponge relay races.
After the fun and chaos, the organizing and cleaning up, the everything, some of us went over to The Silver Dollar Saloon for fun and chaos with no children.
Early enough that the jams & open mics hadn't started yet, we could hear each other across the table. Fun to talk, debrief, catch up & all that. We hardly ever get to sit down and actually talk at work. Most of us only pass in the halls as our schedules are so strict. It was nice sitting with people of different grade levels, job descriptions, even a couple retired teachers and a husband.
I had a couple gin&tonics and a lot of water. (I always want to start singing about gin&tonic-ah on Chanukah with Monica) (thank you, Adam) and ate mozz sticks, french fries, zucchini sticks and battered/fried dill pickles. That's four of the six major food groups.
Our vice-principal was trying to distract herself, not sure if her house up the country was going to make it through the night or burn to the ground. It was good to see the winds were calm this morning and the fires just about out.
Went to late breakfast with friends and had a gigantic breakfast burrito with a glass of orange juice. It was lovely. It had bacon in it that tasted greasy & crunchy like bacon should. My mouth was happy.
Then I went to my pedicure. Foot luxury is a new habit of mine. Very spoiled, I am. Got mine done a lovely bright blue. Next time we're thinking pink with green polka-dots.
Netflix (the U.S.'s version of Zip.ca) is great! (thank you, mcco12) I have had it for years and have seen movies I would never see otherwise. Movies I would never bother to rent (ie: pay for) and many that I simply wouldn't risk wasting an evening (or portion of an evening) watching.
Recently I watched two that are well worth blogging about. Oh, and also I finally saw No Country for Old Men and that was great, too.
#1. The Orphanage. An intense, creepy, atmospheric, haunting, intelligent, beautiful, scary movie that almost brought me to tears. Always on the hunt for a good ghost story (preferring the kind without gore) I was thrilled to find this one. And I will look for more movies by this director.
#2. Old Boy. This movie was so intense I almost hesitate to recommend it. No ghosts here -- just some horrid people and one person living one of the worst possible of all lives. Violence, tension, scary, martial arts and heart wrenching psychological terror. But again ... little gore. Some satire and humor, too. It was a very good film, even as I cringed in horror.
I watched both of these with sub-titles. The Orphanage was in Spanish and Old Boy was in Korean.
But No Country for Old Men was in English! There ya' go!
