I'm still not feeling well, so forgive me if I blog badly for a little longer. Prednisone jitters. Not so much oxygen deprivation, but a little. I wrote a draft for you, but it was petty. Can you believe this stuff?
I'm trying to break myself of the habit of putting two spaces after a period. Why do I worry about that? Some people don't even use capital letters. (I won't tell you who I'm sniping about because I really like her blog.) Why can't I use two spaces after my sentences? I like what it does visually. It allows you to breathe for a second. It tells you that, yes, this is indeed the end of the sentence. It is, like capital letters, a visual clue. I like visual clues. I'm all for being unique and all, but not using capital letters isn't unique or creative. ee cummings did it. Lots of other people have done it. Not to do it out of laziness is different. Not a good reason. like what if I was lazy and didn't use capital letters? what then? okay, now, I'm really lazy and I don't use any punctuation either so then i'm too lazy to use either capitals or punctuation now you dont know when my sentences are done is it getting a little harder to read so now im a seriously lazy typist and i dont want to bother with spelling out silent letters either has anon out ther trid to red som text mesages that com somtims the dont mak any sens now is my lazines startin to bothr u nowimgivinupspacstobecuzimlazyoruniqorwatevrnowruhavinfunredinthis
Petty right? So now you know - I have a petty side. It's there. I can't deny it. Why I try to pretend that I'm this nice person, I don't know. You're going to know the truth anyway.
So I'm planning to ditch all that in favor of the weather.
It's a beautiful cold day here, sunny and 62 degrees. My friend, Korley, is in Cancun where it's hot and sunny. I'm jealous, but trying to take it in stride because I felt a little better and it's nice to get back to my life. She's from California. She facebooked me to tell me she was joining an exercise class on the beach today. Okay, so I joined my fold-some-clothes exercise class this morning for a quick warm-up. This afternoon, I joined another class, the pull-some-weeds class which was very satisfying as a tiny corner of my yard looks better and I did just enough to feel winded, but not over-tired. Just so's you know, I'm not a big gardener. I wish I was, but I'm not, but pulling those weeds felt good. Now, I can tell you that these are the days that those California transplants just live for in the Pacific Northwest, so that when Korley gets back from Cancun, all tanned and smiling, I'll be able to tell her that she missed out on the best week of the summer and that's it, we're done with it and we'll be back to the rain until next summer. Ha! It could be true. But probably not.
Well, here's the truth about our spot on the 48th parallel: it has a glorious summer. While all my friends across the U.S. are complaining of the 98 percent humidity and the oppressive heat at 97 degrees, I'll be basking in cool sunny days that just might reach 82, which isn't so bad if you want to go play at Rattlesnake Lake.
Did I tell you about Rattlesnake Lake? It's this amazing little lake near where I live. It's actually an Army Corps of Engineering mistake. See, in 1915, our guys decided to dam a stream up in the mountains and create a pristine water supply for Seattle. They did that. Seattle water tastes great! But the mountains, being mostly stone and moss, leaked water from that dam through a ridge and down into a little town named Moncton which had old-growth trees around it and sat at the northern edge of a pond named Rattlesnake Lake. It was an idyllic place to live as it had a pretty ridge to the South, a rocky peak to the North and a nice view of the sunset out West. Who wouldn't enjoy living in a sleepy little village by a lake in the mountains. But the seepage kept making the lake rise and eventually they cut down the old-growth trees and evacuated the homes and businesses.
So sometimes we take our canoe out to Rattlesnake Lake to play. When the water level is low, you can still see the old submerged stumps. Some of them have notches for spring-boards in their sides. Two loggers would stand opposite each other, with a ten foot long hand saw, on these spring-boards where the tree had narrowed out a bit. Still, the trees that they cut were at least three feet in diameter. Can you imagine standing on a two by six board with a two-man saw in your hands and cutting down a tree that massive? You'd really have to leap away when that thing started to come down. Man, logging was a dangerous business.
We look at these stumps every time we paddle our canoe there. Most of them are submerged, but some are not and sometimes, we climb up onto them to jump off. Some of the stumps are taller and have nests and bushes on top.
We paddle over the submerged trees like clouds passing. And I imagine us, my husband, my son, and I in our canoe. We drift across the Moncton sky and little ghost boys down there, lying in the grass by their ghost houses looking up can see us and point and say, "Hey, look at that cloud. That looks like people in a boat."
Thank you for listening, jb
I'm trying to break myself of the habit of putting two spaces after a period. Why do I worry about that? Some people don't even use capital letters. (I won't tell you who I'm sniping about because I really like her blog.) Why can't I use two spaces after my sentences? I like what it does visually. It allows you to breathe for a second. It tells you that, yes, this is indeed the end of the sentence. It is, like capital letters, a visual clue. I like visual clues. I'm all for being unique and all, but not using capital letters isn't unique or creative. ee cummings did it. Lots of other people have done it. Not to do it out of laziness is different. Not a good reason. like what if I was lazy and didn't use capital letters? what then? okay, now, I'm really lazy and I don't use any punctuation either so then i'm too lazy to use either capitals or punctuation now you dont know when my sentences are done is it getting a little harder to read so now im a seriously lazy typist and i dont want to bother with spelling out silent letters either has anon out ther trid to red som text mesages that com somtims the dont mak any sens now is my lazines startin to bothr u nowimgivinupspacstobecuzimlazyoruniqorwatevrnowruhavinfunredinthis
Petty right? So now you know - I have a petty side. It's there. I can't deny it. Why I try to pretend that I'm this nice person, I don't know. You're going to know the truth anyway.
So I'm planning to ditch all that in favor of the weather.
It's a beautiful cold day here, sunny and 62 degrees. My friend, Korley, is in Cancun where it's hot and sunny. I'm jealous, but trying to take it in stride because I felt a little better and it's nice to get back to my life. She's from California. She facebooked me to tell me she was joining an exercise class on the beach today. Okay, so I joined my fold-some-clothes exercise class this morning for a quick warm-up. This afternoon, I joined another class, the pull-some-weeds class which was very satisfying as a tiny corner of my yard looks better and I did just enough to feel winded, but not over-tired. Just so's you know, I'm not a big gardener. I wish I was, but I'm not, but pulling those weeds felt good. Now, I can tell you that these are the days that those California transplants just live for in the Pacific Northwest, so that when Korley gets back from Cancun, all tanned and smiling, I'll be able to tell her that she missed out on the best week of the summer and that's it, we're done with it and we'll be back to the rain until next summer. Ha! It could be true. But probably not.
Well, here's the truth about our spot on the 48th parallel: it has a glorious summer. While all my friends across the U.S. are complaining of the 98 percent humidity and the oppressive heat at 97 degrees, I'll be basking in cool sunny days that just might reach 82, which isn't so bad if you want to go play at Rattlesnake Lake.
Did I tell you about Rattlesnake Lake? It's this amazing little lake near where I live. It's actually an Army Corps of Engineering mistake. See, in 1915, our guys decided to dam a stream up in the mountains and create a pristine water supply for Seattle. They did that. Seattle water tastes great! But the mountains, being mostly stone and moss, leaked water from that dam through a ridge and down into a little town named Moncton which had old-growth trees around it and sat at the northern edge of a pond named Rattlesnake Lake. It was an idyllic place to live as it had a pretty ridge to the South, a rocky peak to the North and a nice view of the sunset out West. Who wouldn't enjoy living in a sleepy little village by a lake in the mountains. But the seepage kept making the lake rise and eventually they cut down the old-growth trees and evacuated the homes and businesses.
So sometimes we take our canoe out to Rattlesnake Lake to play. When the water level is low, you can still see the old submerged stumps. Some of them have notches for spring-boards in their sides. Two loggers would stand opposite each other, with a ten foot long hand saw, on these spring-boards where the tree had narrowed out a bit. Still, the trees that they cut were at least three feet in diameter. Can you imagine standing on a two by six board with a two-man saw in your hands and cutting down a tree that massive? You'd really have to leap away when that thing started to come down. Man, logging was a dangerous business.
We look at these stumps every time we paddle our canoe there. Most of them are submerged, but some are not and sometimes, we climb up onto them to jump off. Some of the stumps are taller and have nests and bushes on top.
We paddle over the submerged trees like clouds passing. And I imagine us, my husband, my son, and I in our canoe. We drift across the Moncton sky and little ghost boys down there, lying in the grass by their ghost houses looking up can see us and point and say, "Hey, look at that cloud. That looks like people in a boat."
Thank you for listening, jb
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