Dec 18, 2009 by Naomi.

I was pleased to arrive home after a delightful visit with Nancy and Jerry — more than two weeks of leisure, watching other home owners struggle with weather and equipment breakdown. I didn’t need that, but then I had nothing to worry about. My house was warm and I could relax. Well almost. I turned on the faucet and the shiny pretty thing just ignored me. I scowled at it but it still did not release water. There is a four letter expletive in here but I leave that to your imagination. So I recalled that Richland had a couple of chilly days — well below freezing. OK so the pipes were frozen. I had not left the faucet dripping and so the water froze. I had thawed pipes before so I took charge. I got a pipe heater and installed it. It warmed so I thought I was home free. Well pardon my ignorance or naiveity. Over night the water did not run. I called the city engineering and had to leave a message. I really expected no help there so what to do?

There is always the Internet and my little “Sheba” was ready. I had heard of the concept of HandyMan therefore I googled Handy Man. Specifically for Richland WA. I learned long past to be careful what I wished for because Internet help would come up for Richlands all over the world, well the US at least. So there he was — a handy man not 10 blocks away. “Give me your zip code so I can put it in my GPS just in case I forget the address” He assured me he would be at 407 Abbot St in twenty minutes. And he was. A big white van pulled up labeled DOUGLAS DO-RIGHT, the Handyman Hero with his image in a big white hat, no less. He actually wore a brown leather hat, just like Crocodile Dundee.

A gas torch was what I expected to use, if I had one. But not a Hero, not one to burn a customers house down. He dug around the foundation skirting until he discovered where the copper pipe came up from the street. Then he had a truly creative idea. Lets look at the meter where the water comes in. OK. When he lifted the cover, (I knew where to help him find that) it fell apart. Down inside the housing for the meter was solid ice. OHO! Out of his realm. He called the city and let them know there was an old lady without water, left me an invoice of $59.56 and that was that. He did remind me to check his website again if ever I needed help with any one of all the wonderful things on his list.

By three pm the city man came and installed a new meter and cover. He let me know I was again connected to water. My houseguest will be delighted that she can count on water for flushing and also for brushing teeth. She might even take showers. Life is grand. So whenever realistic, I make sure it stays that way by using the best technology at my fingertips, the worldwide cyberspace.

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Dec 14, 2009 by Naomi.

An old saying goes: “Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.” For blogging it is not like that. Blog and maybe the world will hear you. Here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog, blog, just like the “Farmer in the Dell” schoolyard game. Some blog sites invite you to add a blog. Not me. I prefer to blog alone. No comments necessary. Blogging is an outpouring of ideas, emotions and feelings, for information or instruction.

A blog is a excellent place to practice writing. Try a simple verb with a simple subject. For instance: She got into her car and shut the door. That is as bland as infant’s pablum. Try: She jumped into her car and slammed the door. Wow, that makes your eyeballs get big and round. Is she angry? Is she hurrying to the scene of an accident? Is she running from someone or something? Makes you want more.

As a teacher and a writer I encourage you to blog. Be sad. Be professorial. Be funny. Simply write. Keep on writing. The more you write, the more you want to explore active verbs. Action makes the reader get involved. It is true: blog and hope someone will listen, but when you blog you blog alone.

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Dec 13, 2009 by Naomi.

Looking back at a big party depended upon many things and it took a complicated formula to make it a success. There had to be an expectation. A declaration. “I will have a party.”

What type of party? How about the season? Could the guest list include those who would also constitute a special get-to-gather? Why not? So it was to be a party of siblings and their offspring. Perfect guest list. Previously that arrangement had been held at a restaurant but this time the youngest sibling and spouse decided to hold the party in their home. And that was the plan.

Ah, then came the work. What to serve? There are always seasonal specials. Yes and there are personal likes, dislikes, and allergies to be considered. Those were well known so a list was made. A long list. A day at the market. OK, so the food got to the kitchen, some to be unwrapped, cleaned, cut, sliced, or diced — fruit, vegetables, dips and garnishes. Next, how to serve and on what?

Luckily there was a delightful assortment of pretty glass dishes in the uppermost shelves. Oops, they were stored for months, so washing was in order and so they were. Crackers, breads, spreads, cheese, meats, pickles, olives, garnishes, placed strategically on a table beside plates, knives, forks, and napkins. But not haphazardly. Carefully and artfully arranged on appropriate tables covered with colors of the season. Lovely. Appetizing. Healthy.

Guests arrived and grazed on the arrangements. Much conversation ensued about where have you been, what have you been up to, when will we see you again? Lots of recall to remember who did what and there has been nothing the likes of that ever since. As an onlooker, I was impressed. The party was successful. Host and hostess quite pleased as they watched thick snowflakes gently falling. Cleanup tomorrow is another task but even that will be pleasant because each dish, chair and mess will recall memories of the clan and past occasions.

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Dec 13, 2009 by Naomi.

What better way to start a day than taking a walk through a park? I begin at the Bed and Breakfast where I’ve been staying for the past week which just happens to be on the edge of said park. Of the distance in yards from my residence to the falls, I have no idea but at a brisk pace it takes about thirty minutes to walk the round trip.

Today the temperature is twenty-eight degrees F which is crisp and invigorating. I meet several folks that are familiar to me from past walks mostly because I recognize the dogs that walk them. Some are leashed according to local rules but most are not. I’m not certain what that says about law abiding citizens but never mind that. So far not one of the canines has taken a bite out of my ankles or any other part of my anatomy or a made a lunge that threatened me. I get along fine with dogs so long as they stay a respective distance away, at least beyond slobber range.

But I digress. The path is level, solid packed gravel that crunches pleasantly beneath my comfortable running shoes, in which, by the way I never run. I keep my head up, shoulders back and take big steps to challenge my heart. Doc says the pump is A ok and I exercise regularly to keep it that way. My sinuses clear up and with a few blows I feel quite human again. The falls roar as I overlook the rushing water, blow again and begin the trek back.

And so I am left to contemplate the green terrain of ferns and tall trees, dropping off to my left and rising steeply to my right. Different from the flat dry sand of my desert. Remains me of the cockpit in Jamaica where I walked to spy indigenous birds. No crunching gravel there. But I am in the rain forest and await the snow forecast for the day. Maybe the precipitation will be light and not spoil the party planned by my hostess. The food is ready, therefore, company or not, I will eat and eat well with the appetite I worked up with the walk in the park.

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Dec 12, 2009 by Naomi.

What can be funny about death? Well, if you can believe the dead one dances somewhere in a never-never land laughing that he left all cares behind, death could have a funny side. But only to the dead one. Those left alive mourn often in black clothing and black bands or wreaths on the door. I’ve read somewhere that Orientals wear white instead but the emotion is the same. Sadness because someone loved is lost forever.

“Too bad the old bugger died. So glad it wasn’t me.”

That’s not funny, ha ha, but funny, odd, that we, for an instant, think more of ourselves and how the void left in our lives will affect us. Why not? We know dead is dead and the living must live on, one way or another. It could be difficult and hurt a lot. Or be a great big relief.

Maybe the Irish had it right. Put the dead body in an open casket in the middle of the room and bring on the Irish whiskey. Drink. Dance. Get so stupid drunk you laugh. Why not? Certainly doesn’t harm the dead one. And if that is the only way to bring on smiles and belly shaking ha-ha then no real harm done. Well maybe to the heads that throb the next day.

Nevertheless dead is dead. Nothing funny about that.

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Dec 11, 2009 by Naomi.

I am privileged to be a guest in many different homes and am often left to fend for myself at lunchtime which means I am free to find/fix whatever is available. Good deal, huh? Sometimes I flounder because the utensils I want are stored in different places in different kitchens. No big deal. But I do find myself pulling out a drawer to get a fork and find hot pads instead. In another I pull out a drawer in relatively that same orientation and find barbecue tools. I can hunt in drawers in another kitchen and find the tools in a carrousel on the counter top next to the stove. Pay attention.

Food is not the highest priority in my life so the actions are rote, not carefully thought out so I get lost so to speak. I cannot have my mind off working on a special problem. I have to get my synapses in gear and think about what tool I want and then remember whose house I’m in so I can find the place where certain tools are stored.

I can do it. Actually it is a very good exercise. Helps get lunch on time, too.

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Dec 10, 2009 by Naomi.

The crispness of the frosty air stung my nasal passages on my way to Whatcom falls in Bellingham at 0930, December 10, 2009. The moon was not visible to me, probably in a snit because I chose to see the last quarter yesterday as a sliced half instead of a reflection. I met couples intent on the same mission I was: namely a walk for good health. But I was alone, solo, and I felt a pang of envy that others had a companion. I had the privilege of a companion for 39 years and it was a happy privilege.

Then that companion left, not just off looking for another companion, but left — died. I floundered a bit at loose ends, as if the tie to an anchor had been cut. There came a new found freedom. And I went off to exotic places around the world. Places that I had only dreamed of seeing. Activities I never thought of doing. I swam in the great barrier reef off Queensland and climbed Ulrulu in the geographical center of Australia. I assisted British chemists in the great rift of Africa. I watched penquins dive into burrows in Argentina after they waddled ashore. I still find it difficult to consider them as birds, though they are birds in every sense of the word because they have feathers.

The first trip I took was with Folkways Institute to Nepal. It began in Kathmandu with a plane ride to a village on the edge of a mountain. Lukla was where mountain climbers began the hike to the base camp at Mount Everest. We trekked the narrow trails on the edge of the Himalayas for fifty kilometers from the eight thousand foot altitude to Dangbouche at fourteen thousand feet, camping every night in tents at wide areas in the trail. That was a maiden trip so to speak because after that I chose places I always wanted to see and went alone.

To see the Matterhorn in Switzerland was a side trip I took when my bus tour arrived in Zermatt. I took the cog train to the ski lift and then up to the top of that and got off to walk to Zermatt on a trail from which I could see the Matterhorn. I visited castles in Austria and Germany that had beautifully ornate hinges and doors. The bus went through the longest tunnel in Europe from Switzerland to Italy. Distance in Europe is minor. In an hour I had a tour that went into three countries. It takes more than an hour in the USA to get across any one of several western states.

I sampled rose hips near a hotel in Amsterdam when I worried that a serious cold was invading my sinsus. No other access did I have to vitamin c. Because European trains were a better way to travel from The Netherlands I hopped a train to Austria. A woman I met at the conference who was quite touched by my intention to find my father’s birthplace suggested she meet me in Vienna. She offered a room in her home while I searched. I lingered for several weeks with her but without success in my mission. I returned there for the wedding of her daughter and assisted in some remodeling of their home.

On several excursions with a knowledgeable handsome young birdwatcher, I was bused from Peru, the Towers of Paine, through Chile and Patagonia to look across the Strait of Darwin for a glimpse of Antarctica. As my group moved northward long the eastern coast of Argentina, blowing whales were visible and we viewed spectacular Iguazu Falls from a walkway where I stumbled on my shoestrings. A beautiful square scarf became the sling to support my sprained wrist all the way home.

Some years later in the company of the same birdwatcher, I explored the island of Jamaica, first along the coast highway and in another visit into the cockpit to explore a large cattle pen in the interior. Farms there are called pens, but as far as I could see the cattle were not penned in the manner with which I am familiar.

Twenty-four countries were visited on six continents so reads my biography. The folks I met and the scenery I enjoyed are enfolded in my novels. I have self-published “Sagesong” and “Beyond Namche” and co-authored “Rise to the Occasion” a book of essays on science and philosophy. All are available on Amazon.

All of this came to mind while my nose stung from the frigid air as I walked along a trail with green ferns and other shrubs that were so much like Jamaica, subject of a novel yet to come. But I am in Bellingham and today is the sixty-third birthday of my son-in-law, Jerry. So I can relax in a warm place and celebrate with his favorite - cherry pie. No crisp air in here. And I am not alone.

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Dec 8, 2009 by Naomi.

How can the moon look like it is cut straight in half when the round earth is cutting off the reflection from the sun? I understand the ancients figured it out. Why can’t I? It is one of those things I never thought of before. Probably because where I live among tall trees and cloudy skies I don’t see the moon all that much to compare the phases. At other times the white thing in the sky is simply lop sided not cut so neatly in half. Don’t I think about what is causing the illusion? Is it an illusion?

The moon is real. I know that. Men have walked on it. Actually set foot on it the day my son was on his way to Viet Nam. “One small step for man,” said Neil Armstrong, “One big step for mankind.” as he moved out of the rover that had landed on the surface only hours before unknown to mankind as we know it. How different our perception is now. Not only with the information he brought back but the subsequent pieces of the moon that were since brought back by other vehicles. I touched one in a laboratory once. Not a piece of earth as I know it from gardening in my back yard but dirt made up of elements known to scientists on this “small blue dot” so called by Carl Sagan. That’s what the view looks like from outer space.

It would be cool to really get that view. Maybe I still can. As of now the cost of a ride into space beyond the 40,000 ft level airlines take me is prohibitive but astronauts have done it and robot space ships will continue to do so. About my chances? Only time will tell.

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Dec 1, 2009 by Naomi.

Ashton’s bed is ready to inflate when she arrives. A few more adjustments will be needed in her room but that can wait for her touch. I finished packing for my trip to Bellingham and decided to take a break in the dark. Outdoors it was not dark. Just look at the moon. What a bright light it gives! November’s moon is the hunter’s moon — to light the way for hunters I suppose. Probably makes deeper shadows for the hunted to hide in as well.

Tonight the moon is bright enough to light my path through the trees. Actually overwhelms the light from the street lights and neighbor’s security lights and that is a real pleasure to have them take second place. The restful change was from the glare of the computer screen. Adjustment is swift because the moonlight seemed brighter than my screen.

I’ve said many times how much I like the moon and the moonlight. But that’s all part of nature. I should be out on a hike at the refuge. In the dark the odors are more distinct. There’s something about the dark that makes my nose more efficient. In my back yard there is the scent from one neighbor’s dryer sheets — most fragrant. On the other side comes the whiff of smoke, cigarettes, and beyond comes the smell of burning paper — no shredder at that house I guess. There are satellite dishes on three corner’s of the roof. Great way to get the news of the world. I am going to let the world go by for tonight.

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