Jun 23, 2010 by Naomi.

There’s no hope for it. I have to learn to squirrel talk. From my sun porch I watched a squirrel run from the pine to the walnut, do a back flip and bound back to the pine, pause as if it was catching its breath then again – back and forth, over and over. Gone crazy. Well they eat nuts so why couldn’t they go nutty? I stood mesmerized. Then my eye caught another, a smaller one, jump from one branch of the walnut tree by the shop, over to the pine, up the trunk and over to Wade’s chestnut tree and on to the shelter belt where another one came traipsing along the telephone wire. When they weren’t moving their feet, their tails were jumping, flipping every which way, as if sending out Morse code. I hear squirrels chatter warnings when a cat comes into my yard but these rodents were mute, not a peep or noise of any kind. So they were communicating with their tails? What were they saying? “Wait. Stop. The human opened the back door. What d’ya suppose it wants?” I’m going to watch carefully and maybe I can translate their language. Can I do that without a tail?

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Jun 23, 2010 by Naomi.

Tim painted a picture of a mountain rising abruptly from a plain. The brush strokes randomly placed remind me of walking up mountains in my youth(?). I walked up South Sister near Bend, Oregon, with Tom when he visited his friends, the Lawyers, who had moved west from Connecticut. I went to the summit at 11,000 feet. Boy oh boy were my kneecaps spitting painful sparks by the time I returned to Bend. In Nepal I managed to Dengeboche at 14,000 feet where climbers rendezvous to plan the final assault on Mt Everest. When in Kenya I walked up Mt Longenot and peered into the fog filled crater, about 8,000 ft if I remember correctly. I could only stand in awe of Mt Kilimanjaro off in the distance. In Australia I got to the summit of Mt Kosciusko. On the first trip to Europe I took a cog train from Zurmatt and then a ski lift to its top and walked down in the virtual shadow of the Matterhorn. I later learned it was only 11,000 ft which I smugly compared to my own Mt Rainier of 14,400 ft at which I only gaze from the Jackson visitor center, never intending to strive for greater heights. Further mountain climbing is restricted to the highways accessible by my car, most recently at Stephens Pass in the Cascade mountains. Nevertheless mountains are a most awesome feature of the geology of Washington state or the world for that matter.

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Jun 22, 2010 by Naomi.

Snuggling into my blue and white lounge outfit sitting in my LazyBoy recliner, I watched traffic passing on the street. I was outdoors loading the wheelbarrow with grass clippings and fallen twigs that littered the back yard until my ear ached no matter that the thermometer registered 80 degrees. That was under the eaves on the north side of the shop. Out in full sun I have no clue of the actual temperature but I enjoyed the activity, moving slowly and pleased to have the back yard looking well groomed. Puffing and sweaty I did retreat to my cozy living room. As the traffic continued I was puzzled. Weren’t those people uncomfortable? The interior of my car is hot and stifling. But perhaps the passing cars had air conditioning on full blast and therefore cooler than the drivers’ homes. Not mine. With the doors wide open, the gentle breeze passes over me, cooling me. I am comfy and happily wrapped in fleece.

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Jun 22, 2010 by Naomi.

Simply expecting a good plot and characters is reason enough for me to take up a book but there is often much more that comes. Dean Koontz’ BREATHLESS has vivid descriptions of place. His characters are fleshed out the way they interact with each other in the place they occupy. There is little of the why and how they came to be what they are. Nothing like the careful emotional study of Sandra Brown in WHITE AND HOT where the past of the characters is the cause of the action that is the meat of the story. Anger, revenge and scheming result in murder of the innocent with the guilt ultimately destroying the killer. Then there is THE SPY – an action-packed adventure by Clive Cussler where no one stands still for a moment. Seeking, stalking, aiming, killing, escaping. If those three writers give a clue as to the stuff I like to read I would throw in another favorite subject of mine: evolution. I found that in WOLF IN THE PARLOR and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH most recently. Stephen Jay Gould educated and amused me with I HAVE LANDED in area of paleontology. He writes as if speaking to me directly and I need no plot to intrigue me. Good writing always makes me sit up and pay attention to the subject, plot or not.

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Jun 21, 2010 by Naomi.

I drove back from McNary in rain this morning meaning that I could not work at pulling weeds! I was happy to sit back and read of paleontology with Stephen Jay Gould. I should not have been so elated as to not look at my date book, missing my appointment with Dr Seda to have my nuclear stress test evaluated. I have since rescheduled but I do not want to put Doc out like that too often. I took the last of my antibiotics this morning and sad to say my ears are not clear. My right ear ached when I went out in the wind. My head feels groggy and my eyesight is bleary. Maybe I should just sit back. Keep cool and let it rain.

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Jun 21, 2010 by Naomi.

After weeks away I am once again getting back into a more normal routine, a comfortable one. Work at the Refuge on Monday mornings. Not really work, the opportunity to meet visitors and expound on the wonders of lands paid for by public moneys – National Wildlife Refuges, Mid-Columbia Complex, McNary in particular. Chilly and cloudy this morning I expect to walk part of the trail and wade in to cut cattails and tule for the craft festival next month. I may not stay out long, my ear infection is not totally healed despite ten days of antibiotics and mildly restful days watching thistles take over my driveway. I planted three petunia plants adding different colors to the dominant yellow in the front yard. Pigeon grass is overgrowing and will have to be dug out. Mowing it down will not suffice. But that awaits another day.

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Jun 19, 2010 by Naomi.

When I was in San Jose Meg Bowman handed me a box of old letters she received from Kenya and knew I collected cancelled postage stamps. How exciting to get stamps off letters from Kakamega and Kisumu, where “Mama” Meg had sponsored many girls’ high school education. I had torn the stamps off the old letters which needed to be trimmed and sorted to be put in my files. Although I had visited those schools I knew none of the letter writers and Meg no longer intended to store the letters as she did not have contact with the girls. Several hours of sorting and trimming were tiresome but became a nostalgic revisit to places I had been. Governments print stamps that represent important events, people, plants and animals. They are colorful and historic. I added several pages of “new” stamps to the photo album of my visits to Kenya.

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Jun 16, 2010 by Naomi.

Drinking water was very important. Instructions indicated time of fasting and drinking water. No food after 5 pm the previous night. Water allowed until four hours prior to the stress test. A needle with which to channel the liquid isotope was plunged into a vein on the inside of my left elbow. After that shot of isotope I laid flat on my back, knees raised, arms raised high above my head while a thick half donut shaped scanner moved in jerky increments from my left side to the right and back, twice looking figuratively around my heart. With magical eyeballs? Twelve plugs were stuck around my torso hooked up to a machine that recorded something – heartbeat? From 12 places on my skin? Whatever. A six inch wide brown cuff wrapped around the upper part of my right arm, inflated and recorded my blood pressure at rest and on the treadmill. I walked at 1.7 mph until my heart rate went from 85 to 117, only a few minutes. A very long paper recorded lovely rhythmic lines caused by my magnificent pump. I will meet with the cardiac specialist next week to hear his interpretation of the test.

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Jun 15, 2010 by Naomi.

Today didn’t start out like any other. A couple of bills were due but my checkbook wasn’t where it was supposed to be and I went hunting for it. Got sidetracked in the search when the envelopes of canceled stamps I gathered from Meg’s boxed San Jose communications scattered. The phone rang and put an end to that search. Don’t forget to fast for tomorrow’s stress test.  Shower and get dressed. Oh the odor of cantaloupe was strong in the garbage. Get the bag outside. At knee height on the door jam a jumping spider contracted eight hairy legs into a ball and squinted its eight wary eyes, or maybe ten. Evolution overdid it in the insect ocular department. But the spider had to go. And it didn’t cooperate. I managed to sweep it away from the dresser. I lifted the broom and there it was – accommodating me on the bristles so I held my breath, opened the door and propelled the arachnid far off the back porch. Get out the weed eater and mow the backyard. Heavy job to handle. Build my pecs. Better get earplugs before I do that again. What a day!

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Jun 14, 2010 by Naomi.

Seismic activity in our world is not only widespread but above the 5.0 range this week. As if the western Pacific rim shaking the edges of the earth wasn’t enough Kenya registered one by Lake Victoria and another in central China shows up but most surprising to me there is activity in the US in Maine, Utah, Ohio, and California where constant action along the rift in Baja keeps pushing a chunk of land right up and off the state. Thirteen are shown along the western side from New Zealand northward to Japan. Chile and Peru show that many on the eastern side. What a shaky old planet under our feet. Is that action at the root of climate change raising the anxiety of humans or am I imagining more synergy on earth than really exists?

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