YOU OTTER

February 25, 2023March 1, 2023 / janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

That critter was galloping along the shoreline when we spotted it from a distance. “What is that?” Gary said. And it was someone totally unexpected. “ASHES ASHES ON THE WATER, BURN THE HAIRY LITTLE OTTER. GEE IT LOOKS LIKE SO MUCH FUN, I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL HE’S DONE.” Don’t take this silliness too seriously—Gary and a University Book Store friend wrote it in about 1971. Gary and I both love otters. Can’t you see him?

We thought we might not get out on the beach this morning. The rocks were slippery with frost. Streams had iced over. Castaway jellyfish were frozen. And there was an otter running down the beach.

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SNOW

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 / janpriddyoregon / 15 Comments

Snow days, eagles, red snapper (warning: the fish is dead), and symptoms I am old in no particular order.

Our local eagle pair were high up above the beach in a spruce the other day. We heard them first and had to search. They were agitated, probably about what turned out to be a beached and quite dead red snapper. Our local eagles are not aggressive.

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FAIR WARNING

February 6, 2023February 23, 2023 / janpriddyoregon / 7 Comments

Sneaker waves, white male privilege, assumptions, earthquakes. [Mine as well.] The terrible ironies we live with every day.

SNEAKER WAVES. I was working in the Library, a Wednesday when I generally stayed late to provide access to students until the evening. However it was the last day of school, and students were furiously clearing out their lockers, signing yearbooks, and on their way to summer vacation. E stopped to say hey. He had just completed his Sophomore year, so I hadn’t had him in class yet. But we chatted, laughed, and both managed to be clear about looking forward to spending time together in the fall.

My friend was at the coast for a graduate residency. She expressed concern that students warned about sneaker waves seemed to think it was a joke.

***This is a photo from a week or so ago, but the beach looked exactly like this yesterday during my run.***

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SHE IS NINE & FINE

February 3, 2023February 4, 2023 / janpriddyoregon / 4 Comments

Only invasive flies die in her story.

Three months ago a nine year old girl, a Fourth Grader wearing pink glasses and named Bobbie Wilson was collecting Spotted Lanternflies. She’d learned about the dangerous-to-trees invasive species and how important it was to stomp them out. That’s what she was doing on the sidewalk where she’d lived since she was a baby: stomping on huge flies. The man who lived across the street watched her out his window and became frightened. He called the police to report her.

“There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees on Elizabeth and Florence,” Lawshe told the dispatcher, according to a call obtained by CNN.

“I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though,” Lawshe added.
NPR, 3 February 2023