FAMILY

SWEDISH DEATH CLEANSING

/ janpriddyoregon / 12 Comments

In a two-year-old article, Ann Patchett explains that as a teenager she did not consider cream soup spoons essential when she bought sterling flatware as a 14-year old. I do. I will say that I already gave away all the family silver and have bought only odd pieces which I intend to use daily in the new year—using her sterling was something my grandfather’s third wife, Genevieve, did too. Patchett wonders what to do with her dozen champagne flutes that will never find a dozen people wanting champagne, but we have kept fourteen flutes purchased over the years on anniversaries. Though we have no better idea when or if they might be used, they line a high shelf and give me pleasure every time I take down a plain water glass. Throw them on a beach after I die.

Fabrics sorted for a quilt I made for our oldest grandchild a couple of years ago.
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FLOURISH

/ janpriddyoregon / 3 Comments

I left my first job at Taco Bell on Aurora Avenue North in 1970 because my boss said the people shot at Kent State got what they deserved. My second job was at DJ’s Sound City at Northgate in Seattle but my boss had an eye for another employee and when the business began to fail, she was the only one not laid off. In 1972, the University of Washington’s University Book Store hired me for the Music Department, a job for which I was eminently unqualified. Think bins of LPs and a scattering of cassettes tapes—that long ago. I would work there for most of the next four years while completing two studio art degrees. Despite having abandoned guitar, I learned a lot about music during those years.

And I met an old woman named Florence.

This is not a recent photo. The sand has mostly moved offshore for the winter, revealing the basalt “cobbles” beneath. Yesterday afternoon Gary and I found 9 bits of seaglass while searching only a few hundred yards north and south. I will add a current photo if we have a break in the rain.
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RAINBOW CHANGES

/ janpriddyoregon / 9 Comments
Two of my favorite yarns in rainbow shades: Shibui “Pebble” a silk/ wool/cashmere blend below (discontinued) and mostly Purl SoHo “Tussock” a mohair/silk blend along the top.

I have always dreamed in color, brilliant skies and water and greens. I might be flying on the back of a horse or flying as that horse. My bad dreams are typical: unprepared for something like a test (grades 1-12), a class (university), teaching (standing before students and teaching something I know almost nothing about). For many years I dreamt of running into a friend who committed suicide—so glad to see him and laughing, then screaming and crying. But the good dreams, my favorite dreams are about flying over wild land.

Memory. Change. This post isn’t about dreaming; it’s about landscape.

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UP HILL

/ janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

Gary doesn’t want to walk up hill to the rose garden this morning, especially with bears. (Probably just one black bear, but three sightings so far in Forest Park… not anywhere near the area we walk.) Climate change seems to be foremost in the news everywhere in the world but in our country. Recent heat here suggests this may have to change. Reading, writing, walking, and admiring trees.

One of our favorite local beach gardens a couple weeks ago. There is a lovely succession beginning with pale daffodils and hyacinth, the tulips and bluebells, and eventually hosta and hydrangea.
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HEARTS & CORDWOOD

/ janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

Gary is filling the gap in his woodpile he so carefully straightened and vacuumed. He used to object if I called our cords of firewood “his” but no more. He has never allowed anyone to help him cut, clean, stack, or rearrange that pile. Photos follow.

Back to from, left to right: rough quartz, basalt, quartz (agate), sandstone, three white milky quartz (agates), green seaglass, jasper, purple jasper, and green glass. The glass on the left was what Gary found and gave me for Mother’s Day last year. He found the one on the left this morning.
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GARY’S WOODPILE

/ janpriddyoregon / 7 Comments

I should have got a photo. I caught Gary vacuuming his woodpile.

Somewhere in this photo is a hummingbird feeding off the rhododendron that began blooming a week or so ago. I can only spot it because I compared my photo to the view and spotted the smudge. We’ve had snow since, but the hummingbird is still alive.
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NEXT?

/ janpriddyoregon / 25 Comments

Gary and I are working on our future. Eventually the upkeep and isolation of the Arch Cape house will be too much. Our sons do not seem attached to the coast—oh, they say they miss it, but they seldom come out to visit. Once a year, or twice. They lead busy lives. That means we’ll be on our own for day to day assistance with what we’ll need if we try to stay there forever. Shopping, repairs… No simple workaround in our unincorporated community and no fewer local political issues. In our 70s and in good health, we manage fine now. We did, after all get the new roof on and Gary spread compost. We drive to Costco once a month. I’d like to think we might become ninety-something-year-olds who manage on their own till death takes us. But as a compulsive planner, I’m not counting on that.

We are working up courage to let go.

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GOOD NEWS

/ janpriddyoregon / 5 Comments

Our granddaughter had her second heart surgery this morning. It went well. Minimally invasive and she may go home this afternoon. Incredible.

This photo shows a trapezoid, but is in a rectangular frame I already had, photographed at an angle to avoid most of the glare on the glass. The crying bird appliqué is by a friend who is living in exile and missing her home, but still making art. I’d lost track of Marina for a few weeks after she left Etsy, and then I discovered her posting on Behance and was able to get in contact and send her a card with a pieced leaf. She sent me a card in return that included this incredible hand-stitched linen piece. The crocheted cotton gloves on each side were my grandmother’s. Ladies used to wear gloves in public places. I am old enough to remember my mother putting on a hat and gloves to go shopping downtown.

There’s more goodness…

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SNOW

/ 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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DISTANCE

/ janpriddyoregon / 18 Comments

Sometimes I lie to myself. For example, I promised myself a short run yesterday morning. I held out a single-mile run like a carrot. When I began running north, I was running straight into a 40mph wind and it was cold. The tide was going out and I repeated, “Just one mile.” I didn’t need to run all the way to what we term the Turnaround Rock, 1.5 miles north. I could stop at the metal stairs near my one-mile marker, turn, and walk a mile home. I was thinking there was a good chance that when I turned toward home the wind would be swinging around and I would still face a headwind. That happens sometimes as the sun rises. So I told myself: You can stop running after a mile.

I ran three miles.*

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