"Mom, I can't get over this barbed wire!" Blake called.
I gave my water bottle to Sasha, told her to stand still, and walked back through the cheatgrass to where Blake stood, stuck between bitterbrush, lava rock and, apparently, barbed wire. Sasha and I, following a deer trail through the brush, hadn't crossed any barbed wire; but Blake, he doesn't walk where others walk. I lifted him over the wire and sternly reminded him what it means to follow someone.
My husband had pulled some strings to get my car's oil changed today (don't ask), but we didn't know how long it would take the mechanics to get to it; we didn't know if we three would be sitting on their sidewalk for half an hour or four hours. "Walk to Sawyer Park," my husband suggested. "It's only a mile." I considered it.
The service garage is in a light industrial area of windowless buildings with lots full of RVs and boats and trucks. Security gates enclose everything. Parkway traffic roars by. No one walks around there. That's what I thought at first, anyway. Then I stood with one hand on my hip and another shading my eyes, and I squinted, and considered, and I saw there is, in fact, an interesting way to walk. We could take a jagged line through abandoned lands of hardy, prickly Central Oregon shrubs and invasive weeds. Lizards live in that liminal place. Grasshoppers, too. Grasshoppers clack-clacked, leaping, as we pushed by.
We had water and gorp but it was so hot and prickly that I knew after just 1/4 mile that the kids would never make it to the park. I thought we might find a closer path to the river, though. It was really hot. The kids kept collapsing in bits of shade. When we crossed from that industrial space to a residential street, I hoped for a sprinkler — vainly; even the temporary owners of foreclosed properties know not to run their sprinklers at 3pm.
"Look," I said, pointing to a lot that was once, I suspect, a working ranch. Mature ponderosas grew there. "The river's on the other side of that land. You can make it!" I urged them on.
But at that old ranch we found something better than the Deschutes, at least as far as young, drownable children are concerned: a busted irrigation pipe. Water just poured from that pipe. It made a creek along the side of the road. My kids shouted and leapt. Blake, he climbed a split-rail fence and jumped into the creek's deepest part. With knees bent he was in water up to his neck. Sasha found a snake skin, a drowned lizard and tadpoles. I kid you not: tadpoles. That pipe must've been broken a long time.
Thus refreshed, we walked back to the service garage.
This is the Central Oregon version of Sweet Juniper's experiences in Detroit. You could say I'm making a meme of his post about pathways of desire.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
White Noise
Our first day on Orcas Island dawned cold and rainy — not fat, Central Oregon droplets with sunlight visible between them but fine, misty stuff, like the inside of a cloud. There was nothing to do in that rain but sleep.
Toward afternoon the sky raised and then the sun broke though. Which made a nap even nicer.
Artist Brother-in-law on the beach.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Na, na — I cannae, I cannae
Awhile back a book meme went around that asked something like, "Which literary character would you like to marry?" Most of the bloggers I read answered, "Mr. Darcy, of course!"
Really? Darcy? I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice but I'd seen two movie versions (the one with Colin Firth and the one with Keira Knightley) and I didn't particularly like Mr. Darcy in either. He's so arrogant! He's silent. He doesn't do anything. He just travels from party to party being arrogant and silent.
Recently I heard Mr. Darcy praised again, so I thought, well, I'd better read the book. If so many people like him, clearly I'm missing something. He must have more depth than what's shown in the movie. (I planned to read the book in the San Juans but OMG! I loved it! I stayed up late to read it. I finished it before we ever reached the ferry.) And lo, I did like Mr. Darcy. I see that while he's arrogant, he is also an honorable man. He does a lot more than go to parties, too, in the book; he's got an estate to run, he has tenants and vast acreage to care for. I respect that.
I don't want to marry him, though. Do you? He has no sense of humor! He's silent!
I'll tell you which literary character I like. I wouldn't marry him, but I have a wee bit of a crush on him.
Alan Breck.
From Kidnapped? The Robert Louis Stevenson novel?
Wait, wait, I'm completely serious here. I borrowed Kidnapped from the library thinking I'd read it to the kids in the San Juans; after skimming just the first chapter I knew they'd never understand it; but after skimming just the first chapter I was totally hooked. While on vacation I kept stealing away to read parts of it, and it fair haunted me, I tell ye.
Alan Breck! What a hero! He's a great swordsman and he's brash and he's a dandy and he always carries with him the buttons off his dead father's coat. He's generous and open-hearted and would travel to the ends of the earth (or across the heather, pursued by English soldiers) for a friend. He has an impeccable sense of honor. He's a little guy but he has great reserves of strength, sleeping on rocks, traversing mountains without a whimper. But he's emotional. He sings all the time. He cries. And that scene in the heather? When he and David Balfour have been travelling in such hardship for such a long time, and young David draws his sword on him? What a lovers' quarrel! That's when I most liked Alan Breck.
I wouldn't marry Alan Breck, though, like I said. It's only a matter of time before one government or another lops off his head.
*
David and Alan eat oatmeal. All through the book — when David first meets his uncle; as they beg a night's lodging from strangers; as they flee through the mountains — they eat oatmeal. Apparently Scottish oatmeal is stone-ground, not rolled. I thought that was interesting. I was trying to imagine eating oatmeal with water three meals a day every day for weeks on end.
When you're a mother concerned with running a household as inexpensively (but not cheaply) as possible, you notice different things in a book than you did at age 12.
Really? Darcy? I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice but I'd seen two movie versions (the one with Colin Firth and the one with Keira Knightley) and I didn't particularly like Mr. Darcy in either. He's so arrogant! He's silent. He doesn't do anything. He just travels from party to party being arrogant and silent.
Recently I heard Mr. Darcy praised again, so I thought, well, I'd better read the book. If so many people like him, clearly I'm missing something. He must have more depth than what's shown in the movie. (I planned to read the book in the San Juans but OMG! I loved it! I stayed up late to read it. I finished it before we ever reached the ferry.) And lo, I did like Mr. Darcy. I see that while he's arrogant, he is also an honorable man. He does a lot more than go to parties, too, in the book; he's got an estate to run, he has tenants and vast acreage to care for. I respect that.
I don't want to marry him, though. Do you? He has no sense of humor! He's silent!
I'll tell you which literary character I like. I wouldn't marry him, but I have a wee bit of a crush on him.
Alan Breck.
From Kidnapped? The Robert Louis Stevenson novel?
Wait, wait, I'm completely serious here. I borrowed Kidnapped from the library thinking I'd read it to the kids in the San Juans; after skimming just the first chapter I knew they'd never understand it; but after skimming just the first chapter I was totally hooked. While on vacation I kept stealing away to read parts of it, and it fair haunted me, I tell ye.
Alan Breck! What a hero! He's a great swordsman and he's brash and he's a dandy and he always carries with him the buttons off his dead father's coat. He's generous and open-hearted and would travel to the ends of the earth (or across the heather, pursued by English soldiers) for a friend. He has an impeccable sense of honor. He's a little guy but he has great reserves of strength, sleeping on rocks, traversing mountains without a whimper. But he's emotional. He sings all the time. He cries. And that scene in the heather? When he and David Balfour have been travelling in such hardship for such a long time, and young David draws his sword on him? What a lovers' quarrel! That's when I most liked Alan Breck.
Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clapping behind him in the wind.
"This is a pity" he said at last. "There are things said that cannot be passed over."
"I never asked you to," said I. "I am as ready as yourself."
"Ready?" said he.
"Ready," I repeated. "I am no blower and boaster like some that I could name. Come on!" And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself had taught me.
"David!" he cried. "Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It's fair murder."
"That was your look-out when you insulted me," said I.
"It's the truth!" cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. "It's the bare truth," he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. "Na, na," he kept saying, "na, na — I cannae, I cannae."
I wouldn't marry Alan Breck, though, like I said. It's only a matter of time before one government or another lops off his head.
*
David and Alan eat oatmeal. All through the book — when David first meets his uncle; as they beg a night's lodging from strangers; as they flee through the mountains — they eat oatmeal. Apparently Scottish oatmeal is stone-ground, not rolled. I thought that was interesting. I was trying to imagine eating oatmeal with water three meals a day every day for weeks on end.
When you're a mother concerned with running a household as inexpensively (but not cheaply) as possible, you notice different things in a book than you did at age 12.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Distractions
By the kitchen sink I keep what my husband calls a "bletch bucket." It's for compostable food scraps. In the winter our bletch bucket might sit by the sink for days, collecting only banana peels. Once the CSA starts up and the weather warms, however, it fills and smells and attracts fruit flies, so I empty it once a day.
The compost bins sit in the far corner of the backyard. To reach them I pass the raised bed and the flower bed. This can take half an hour. Cheat grass keeps growing amongst the flowers, you see, so I have to pull that, and then I have to check on the blueberries and why, pray tell, did the hundred flowers on that bush form only a dozen berries? I let Sasha plant the radishes too closely together; in case you're tempted to do this let me dissaude you; the radish greens will grow well but you won't get a single radish bulb. Which is fine for feeding guinea pigs but not people. So as I pass I pull radish greens for our dear Apocolypse Pets, and pick a pea or two for me, and then I fail to suppress my astonishment at the sunflowers. Did I tell you about the sunflowers? Last year two or three grew in dry dust back there, back where I put the compost bins, and lo, they have multiplied. It's a sunflower forest. They are just about to bloom. Wasps like them. I find wasps absolutely creepy but bees are interesting. Honeybees visit the flowerbed. On my way back to the house I squat to watch them.
Then one of the children calls me or I remember the pasta water is boiling or whatever, you know, I remember whatever task I had started before deciding to empty the bletch bucket, and I hurry back inside.
*
By the way: One of the three bins is completely filled with dirt. I made dirt in just six months. In the desert! That's what they call continuous learning.
The compost bins sit in the far corner of the backyard. To reach them I pass the raised bed and the flower bed. This can take half an hour. Cheat grass keeps growing amongst the flowers, you see, so I have to pull that, and then I have to check on the blueberries and why, pray tell, did the hundred flowers on that bush form only a dozen berries? I let Sasha plant the radishes too closely together; in case you're tempted to do this let me dissaude you; the radish greens will grow well but you won't get a single radish bulb. Which is fine for feeding guinea pigs but not people. So as I pass I pull radish greens for our dear Apocolypse Pets, and pick a pea or two for me, and then I fail to suppress my astonishment at the sunflowers. Did I tell you about the sunflowers? Last year two or three grew in dry dust back there, back where I put the compost bins, and lo, they have multiplied. It's a sunflower forest. They are just about to bloom. Wasps like them. I find wasps absolutely creepy but bees are interesting. Honeybees visit the flowerbed. On my way back to the house I squat to watch them.
Then one of the children calls me or I remember the pasta water is boiling or whatever, you know, I remember whatever task I had started before deciding to empty the bletch bucket, and I hurry back inside.
*
By the way: One of the three bins is completely filled with dirt. I made dirt in just six months. In the desert! That's what they call continuous learning.
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