Jeanie Tomanek

GOOD OMEN

/ janpriddyoregon / 10 Comments

I recognize that I have been complaining a lot lately. Mostly about shipping companies. So here is a good omen: “Soul Queen” arrived in near-perfect condition a couple of days ago, shipped more than five months ago, and presumed lost early in the summer. Gary wanted to calculate how many miles we’ve walked since then. He thought maybe we could have walked her here from Georgia.

I didn’t think so, and it’s not nice, and I am too lazy to go back and count up the total distance of our walks. (Do I really want to know?)

She’s here. That’s what matters. Our regular UPS driver was not even aware she’d been missing or anything. Insurance had paid. We’d all thought she was lost forever. And here she is. Good times.

It’s true that the space bar on my computer isn’t working so I have to stop and add spaces to my words and correct the Autocorrect (“to my” turned into Tony). And our property taxes . . . And one of our tenants is moving out in three weeks. And even the shipments from Finland and Estonia and Slovakia (music, music, and yarn) did not take this long. And I’d found two other paintings and paying again for “Soul Queen” was a painful pinch.

It’s also true that we both love her. Isn’t she marvelous!

So. Good omen? I am not superstitious, but I think: good omen!

“Soul Queen” by Jeanie Tomanek

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BEAUTY TOO

/ janpriddyoregon / 5 Comments

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This single-flowing pink rugosa rose has an intoxicating fragrance and set huge apple-red hips. I let the hips set each year hoping to make jelly, but the chipmunk gets them every time.

Two months ago I wrote here about beauty and about the storks nesting in England for the first time in a hundred years. It seems a long time ago.

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This lacecap hydrangea grows under, around, through, and over the windswept pine in our front yard.

Yesterday, for the first time in over four months, I ate a meal I had not myself cooked. It was a risk and we will not likely do it again any time soon. Most of our favorite places to buy food are closed (Ove NW and Pearl Bakery) or they have demonstrated a certain level of complacence or carelessness. And I am a decent cook and baker myself. Yes, I can bake a cherry pie starting with a hallock of sour cherries if I could get to the Farmers Market to buy them. I was baking sourdough before the pandemic. Usually by this time in the summer I have frozen pesto and huckleberries and the makings of pies. Instead my freezer looks barren. Continue reading →