The Dilettante Traveler

This Too is Kenya, Part II

2012-01-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

People kept asking us before we left, and, indeed, people were still asking when we arrived in Kenya, what kinds of plans we’d made. Plans? Why would we need plans? And, in truth, for the bulk of our independent travel, or non-work-related couple travel, we do NOT have a strong habit of planning out what we’re going to do in foreign climes. There are several reasons for this, including lack of time back at home for non-essential trip work (a planned hotel everywhere is clearly non-essential to me, whereas VISAs and shots for exotic places: serious business); hesitancy to choose something based solely on what Lonely Planet says about it; and a not completely retired sense of adventure—we want to see what things are like when you’re simply observing them, hoping desperately that you won’t, after all, have to sleep under that stunted acacia in that city park(dangerous both because of other “sleepers” in the outdoors—human and otherwise—and because those trees are full of THORNS. One popped my first Thermarest pad back in ’93, and I found the butts of several more in the soles of my Tevas after that trip.

All that said, we had actually been thinking about places we wanted to go in Kenya. I had been in ’93 and ’96, and one of the places I had dearly loved and insisted we return to during this trip was Lamu. We would fly, as flights are common and the bus bumps along for 6 hours or more on sand roads (after the “normal” roads give out), through the middle of the almost-border lands of Somalia. Our original plan, then, as we had, in fact, been discussing some basics, had been to fly up for our second week to Lamu—on the north coast, near the Somali border—and spend a week sailing on dhows, fishing, eating fresh coconuts, and exploring 8oo-year-old ruined mosques. Concurrent with our planning period, however, the Somali pirates kidnapped three Europeans off beaches in the Lamu Archipelago, and then Al Shabab, the Somali militant Islam group, began making trouble for Kenya by crossing the border and setting off lots of bombs. Lots of friends and strangers, from the US and in Kenya, agreed with us that avoiding the northeast was in our best interests. Okay, so, no Lamu. So . . . what next?

We knew we wanted to go to Mombasa as well, and as Mombasa is 70% Muslim (Lamu must be 95%) we would definitely be able to experience the call to prayer (although Kenyans, being relatively secular in action, rarely dropped what they were doing to high-tail it to a mosque.)

Mombasa feels like one of the most foreign cities I’ve been to. Even Tokyo, Yokohama, and Hokkaido felt pretty reasonable and recognizable (Naples, not so much), even with virtually no language in common between me and any of the Japanese (not an absolute truth as “arrigato” in Japanese is a direct descendant of “obrigado” in Portuguese.) It took us a couple days to grow comfortable incorporating Mombasa’s set of norms into our own, pretty jumpy set. Old Town Mombasa is a warren of narrow, crooked streets with curving walls split by intricately carved doors lining them below, and balconies hanging above. Beautiful, but no place for a clear vista, and a lot of hiding places for crooks. Who, as far as I can tell, we never actually saw.

(Note: this paragraph and some of the post written on 22 Dec) Dear Readers, I am going to pause here to say that there has been a lot going on over the last two weeks since Ian and I arrived back at home, and it’s been difficult to find a good time to write. At the moment, I’m on a glorified stretcher on the ground floor of Harborview Medical Center, waiting for my second Gamma Knife procedure. I will be going third today, which means that I arrived here at 6:30 a.m., I was given Ativan and some other antianxiety pretty soon after that, I didn’t sleep even a wink last night, and we’ll probably get out of here today around 6 p.m. All of this is to say that I’m going to switch to bullet points of the highlights I remember from the previously unmentioned portions of our trip.

In Mombasa:

Our hotel, The Royal Castle, was just the right blend of seriously comfortable and not too expensive. From our little balcony on the third floor, we could see the crumbling Hotel Splendid, which was where our group leaders stayed in aircon comfort when we students were all living in infinitely less comfortable situations in private homes. Mine, where I had a bed to myself (family maid slept with the littlest kid; the other two each had a bunk), was pretty fine. One of my friends was placed in a family of 9 children; she had a bottom bunk and they shared each of the others three apiece; one night, one of the little ones above her wet the bed and it ran all over her. Water was patchy, electricity too, and the temperature was about 100 degrees and about 98% humidity.
(Note: this part and below is being written 6 Jan, and then I’m giving up) We had a fancy supper our last evening in Mombasa on a dhow—a handmade wooden sailboat—which had been built in Matondoni, a little village in the Lamu archipelago, a nice morning’s walk from Lamu itself. One of the first things we did, all of us LC students, upon arriving at Lamu in 1993, was to be boated up to Matondoni where we were able to watch a newly-build dhow being launched, rolled on logs down to the sea. I felt for this trip that I had, in fact, managed to get more of Lamu than we’d initially thought we were going to get. There was some miscommunication about how we were actually to arrive at the dhow, and it had left the dock by the time we were delivered, but they put us on a dinghy and took us out into the starlit lagoon to meet our cruise.
Requested—and delivered—masala chai for breakfast.
Tuk-tuks, those three-wheeled rickshaw-type taxis in Thailand, imported in the last ten years from Italy, HUGELY popular in hot, busy, noisy, Muslim Mombasa. The taxi drivers are very sad.
Lots and lots of great, brightly-colored fabrics along Biashara Street, beaded sandals and belts, ancient sewing machines, giant shopping bags, dirt, crowds, tuk-tuks, watercarts, fancy dresses (worn under bui-buis, the Swahili name for the black overclothes worn by Muslim women. Bui-bui also means spider.)
Ft Jesus, built by the Portuguese and used as a fort for a couple hundred years, I believe. You can no longer just run roughshod over Ft Jesus, meaning we had a guide, and we actually learned something about the place. None of which I remember anymore.

Here is perhaps the best example I can give of Kenya delivering exactly what is wanted and needed, without any struggle or pre-arrangement necessary: Near the end of our trip, we knew we would need to get from Mombasa back to Nairobi. We had done the 8-hour bus ride, and weren’t all that interested in taking another bus all the way back; we were likewise not all that interested in taking an expensive flight back. Kenya is, of course, full of national parks which are, in turn, full of exotic, dangerous zoo animals; there happened to be at least two parks that I knew of—Tsavo East and Tsavo West (split by the highway and railroad)—situated between Nairobi and Mombasa. “Maybe we can get a safari,” I proposed to Ian, “that will pick us* in Mombasa, and drop us in Nairobi, with two days of touring.”

It turns out that, Yes We Can. On the verge of a heat-induced anxiety attack, I followed Ian up the stairs to a safari company listed in our Lonely Planet book, which happened to be located only a couple blocks from our hotel. While I contemplated the end of the world and put in my oar only when absolutely necessary, Ian made plans to get us back to the capitol, plans which involved leaving early (6:00am!) two days later, but would allow us to see Tsavo West for a couple days, then Amboseli for a couple days (with an overlap of parks in the middle), and two nights’ stay in fancy lodges, the old Voi lodge and the new Amboseli lodge. For maybe $200 less, we could’ve been dropped on the highway to catch a long-distance, Mombasa-Nairobi bus, at the lunch stop. But by putting that $200 in, we were able to have an entirely private safari with just us and our driver/guide in the car—PLUS, he could then take us directly back to our friend’s house just outside Nairobi. We enjoyed having a driver all to ourselves as we made our way back up that main highway our last weekend in Kenya, seeing no fewer than five large hauling trucks tipped over off the shoulders of the road, plus one that was upright, but on fire.

The short rains are not the best time to view animals in Kenya, as the greenery around them is full and lush, and they’re often hidden; plus, the several lodges that have well-placed watering holes find that their holes are competing with natural watering holes. We saw one mud-red elephant drinking from the closest hole to Voi lodge, for example. Our talented guide did, nevertheless, manage to show us a little of virtually everything, including, during our last evening drive in Amboseli, right as a major rainstorm came up and we had to lower the roof of our van, two lions making a bunch of little lions. Our guide was VERY impressed with himself, finding us some cats to see, as cats can be quite difficult—being that they are cats, and not in the least interested in doing what humans would like them to do.

We also managed to see Kilimanjaro, on our last morning, on our 6am game drive. Mzee (old man) Kilimanjaro had been hidden for more than a week behind rain clouds; I asked as nicely as I could, though, and the next morning, for maybe a grand total of 15 minutes, we were able to see the snow-capped summit of this giant beast.

I know there were many more details that I would have put in here had my December gone more the way I was expecting it to go . . . but it didn’t go that way, and the way it went took more time than I could have imagined. But this last bit about the Kenya trip: It was SPECTACULAR. We had an absolutely amazing time. We got to do everything we wanted to do, and everything worked out, and we lost nothing, and gained new friends as well as new things, and were reminded of the importance of open minds, of asking for assistance, of listening to our bodies. Of loving life.

*”pick us” is very Kenyan. They never pick anyone UP.

This, Too, Is Kenya: Part I

2011-12-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

(As I write this post, I find that I’ve been emailing so much on smart phones lately that I keep expecting Word to finish my words for me. What do you mean I have to type the whole thing myself?!?)

We arrived home last Tuesday evening at rush hour, collected our car from long-term parking at Sea-Tac, and got on the road, me driving. More or less perfectly healthy during the entire trip (nominal bouts of “kaka huraka”* notwithstanding), on Monday, our last day in Africa (we left at 11:30pm), Ian developed a nasty cold, and I, three hours after breakfast, developed a much more grim case of the runs. This was no annoying but predictable fast brother—this was serious, Roto-Rooter stuff. Fortunately for me, we had supplied ourselves not only with our malaria prophylaxis, but also a powerful antibiotic, just in case.

“Take two per day for three days,” it said, “or take four all at once.” I thought about our upcoming travel: 8 ½ hours to London, 8 hours in London, 9 hours to Seattle. Four all at once, please.

The drug worked beautifully and so, while Ian continued to worsen the closer we got to home, I got better and better, the guts rapidly quieting and solidifying. Ergo, me in the driver’s seat in traffic, just about my least favorite position in the world to be in. What a welcome.

Except that, compared to Nairobi, Mombasa, and the intensely dangerous highway between the two, it was like driving down the middle of a six-lane LA freeway after an epidemic has wiped out 98% of the population (obviously before they all got on the road in their cars). Comparatively everyone here used a turn signal before changing lanes. Comparatively everyone here allowed safe distances between vehicles—i.e. more than 3 ½ inches. Comparatively everyone here, in fact, drove in a staid, boring, predictable manner. And the roads were smooth like newly-Zambonied ice.

Kenya, I found after 15 ½ years, was exactly the same and completely different. The cars on the roads now are contemporary, well-maintained, normal cars such as you might see anywhere in the world (i.e. mostly Japanese coupes and sedans, with the occasional German luxury car thrown into the mix). The delivery trucks, however, are the same 60’s-era junkers that have been befouling the air since their inception. The roads, too, seem to be—still—the tattered remnants of British infrastructure. The one exception in Nairobi is that several new ring-type roads are being built to ease congestion in the center of this city of 3,000,000.

New roads are a fine idea. Unfortunately, all that was accomplished in this major public works program before the short rains came (and they may be short, but they’re nervy), was clearing all the vegetation and carving out the basic road grades. Most countries (one might imagine), when faced with a two-month nature-predicated hiatus, would cut their losses and hang back, waiting for the conditions to change. Kenya, knowing that no further work could be done on this new network for several weeks, decided the roads were good enough unpaved for the time being and opened them up to public use, effectively turning several neighborhoods into ochre mud, off-roading, car-luge pleasure parks.

Of course, traffic crawls along (when it isn’t slewing about)—but here’s the thing about rush hour in Kenya: you can do most of your necessary shopping while stuck in your car, waiting for your turn at the kipilefti (Swahili for roundabout—they drive on the left there). You could buy a caged songbird, or a fluffy white puppy (as pets, not to eat). You could collect the ingredients for a tropical fruit salad (mangos were in season!). You could buy your lover a bouquet of flowers or a lottery ticket or a packet of gum or cigarettes. Have a job interview in the morning, or ten minutes from now? You could professionalize your upcoming interview with any of a dozen different sport coats. The evening paper is delivered right to your window along with a bottle of cold water. You could even, as Ian discovered to our delighted admiration, top up the minutes on your cell phone.

Cell phones and cell service in Kenya have got to be the pinnacle of the technology anywhere in the world. On our first full day in the country (after breaking our fast with Helen) we were taken to a Safaricom store where we purchased—for $1—a SIM card for Ian’s 4G Android phone. For another $5, we bought enough credits for email, picture uploading, and, of course, phone calls, for the next few days, until we were able to top up in a traffic jam. Everyone in Kenya has a cell phone—or more often two. There were originally two major networks and each network offered in-network deals, and so people started acquiring phones so they could get the deals with all their friends and families. Making calls costs you credits but receiving calls does not, and if you’re out of credits, there is a free text you can send, up to three times, asking someone to call you. Much of the country has never had wired phone service; most of that area now has excellent cell coverage. Most rural people don’t have electricity with any regularity, but there are kiosks in every community where you can charge up your batteries as well as your credits. Perhaps one of the best discoveries for us was that there are zoned international dialing plans included, and the US is in Zone 1, the cheapest, and for 10 cents per minute we could call our families from anywhere we had service. Which was everywhere.

Cell phones also took a lot of the stress out of getting around: you find a taxi driver you like, take his number (invariably men in our experience), and call him whenever you need a ride. Easy as pie. Also, when you do ultimately make up your mind on where you want to sleep the next night, you can just call up the number listed in the Lonely Planet. You then find that the Lonely Planet exclusively lists out-of-date numbers for hotels in Kenya, but with your 4G you can just look up the website of the place directly (websites are not as cutting-edge as cell phones, alas, and we usually just showed up at hotels unannounced. Being Kenya, it always worked out).

Being Kenya, it always worked out. That hadn’t changed at all.

Everyone was genuinely nice and helpful (and most warned us about everyone else). At our hotel in Naivasha, Simon the accountant took a turn as a taxi driver and dropped us at Mt Longonot for our hike (8 miles, about 3,000 feet gained and lost in elevation, beginning at around 6,000 feet—so, thin, pant-for-it air for us maritime Seattleites).

Our eagle-eyed guide, John (I think his name was John. Most of them were named John), pointed out millimeter-high giraffes grazing thousands of feet below us, as well as all sorts of vegetation and other fauna. I used to debate whether or not getting a guide was a necessary or desired expense; I’ve mostly switched to using guides when they are offered. Our guide told us a story of an American couple who chose not to use a guide about two months ago—the man was evidently a largish man, and he died of a heart attack almost at the peak, about a 3-hour hike from the gate. The guides had to come to the rescue of his wife and his body, carrying him down a trail that was, often, little more than a pumice-covered scramble. The folks had taken the difficult way around. Anyway, we were glad for the assistance, the direction, and the “giraffes” grazing in the “tall trees” far below.

We called Simon as we neared the end of our climb so that he could “pick us” as soon as we got to the bottom. “We want to take a bus from Nairobi to Mombasa tomorrow,” we told him as we drove back into town. “Where should we get a matatu that will take us back to Nairobi?”

“Okay,” Simon said, “I will just show you where to go for the best company.” And he drove us a few blocks out of the way just so he could point out the safe matatu stand. Safe, regulated matatus: that’s a definite change from last time.

Our two nights in Naivasha aside from the hike were not particularly wonderful, but they were gloriously comfortable and posh for $30 each night. We had a private bath with with a dripping shower head (when it was on; otherwise it was silent. It never really counted as a “shower”, and in fact I think I didn’t even try to take one.) There were two sagging beds and holey, just barely too-small-for-the-beds mosquito nets, and so we each took a bed and did the best we could our own selves. We enjoyed some beers and curries and chapatis, wandered briefly and nervously in the gloaming around the dusty, muddy, stinky, noisy town; and more nervously yet, withdrew a big pile of cash from an ATM.

Naivasha was our first real town on our own, the first place where we didn’t have a fall-back plan in case we encountered some of those awful people we kept being warned about. Naivasha seemed ripe to be full of villains, to our untrained eyes. The commotion unsettled us, and knowing we were going to be holding a lot of cash unsettled us more. But it turns out, commotion is Kenya. Dirt is Kenya. A lot of black people living their lives is Kenya. And the 5 a.m. matatu to Nairobi, up to 18 people crammed in a 4-row minivan (some were dropped; some were picked)--regulated or not, that, too, is Kenya.

The only time I really lost it on this trip, and I think it was a pretty minor example of losing it, was just after arriving in Nairobi, safely, in our matatu. We were dropped somewhere along River Road, which lives in my memories as a place you were much better off avoiding completely, except for when you wanted to go anywhere but Nairobi. All the long-distance buses and matatus congregate along River Road, and it is full of bustle, hustle, and crime.

“If a nicely-dressed man bumps into you accidentally,” one Kenyan friend warned, “it was not an accident. He is picking your pocket.” No one bumped us, and no one once picked any of our pockets.

We walked along quickly, trying to look like we knew where we were going, trying to blend in. Not fooling anyone. We arrived safely at Akamba Bus with its secure waiting room before 8 am, hoping to catch their first bus to Mombasa. Turns out we were in plenty of time.

“No bus this morning,” said the man behind the counter. “Tonight. For two?” he pulled his ticket ledger toward himself.

“Shit!” I said, and pumped my fist like a baby.

“No thanks,” said Ian to the agent, and turned to me. “We have a couple choices. We can get in a taxi and go to the airport. There are supposed to be five flights per day to Mombasa.”

“But I don’t WANT to fly!” I wailed (I am not the Abercrombie and Kent type!) “I want to TAKE THE BUS!” (who is this person insisting on the bus, I thought. I hate the bus.)

“Okay,” said Ian again, "then how about THIS plan: we go find a taxi driver to take us to another bus company, another good one, that will have buses leaving this morning.”

I pulled it together. “Okay,” I sniffled. “That sounds very smarty-pants.”

It was very smarty-pants: we crossed the street to the taxi stand and walked up to the first one. “I’ll give you 1,000 shillings to find us a bus to Mombasa,” Ian said. The driver smiled broadly and welcomed us into his car. Ten dollars—nothing to sneeze at in Kenya.

Within ten minutes we were at another bus company purchasing our “premium” tickets for $17 each (or maybe total? It was preposterously cheap . . . if you lived through the journey). We were ushered into another clean, secure waiting room, and I relaxed into a new panic: food, and more importantly, caffeine. Surprising perhaps, but Starbucks has yet to wedge in amongst the Kenyan chai shops.

“Chai,” I said to Ian. “Chai. I need some. What do we do?”

On a roll, Ian, who had been discovering all over the place that if you wanted something—anything—just ask the nearest Kenyan, went up to the guard at the door of the waiting room of Mash Poa Buslines (Much Power? Like the Citi Hoppa bus, City Hopper?), carrying my peripatetic mug, and asked if there was a place nearby to get some masala chai.

“Here,” said the guard, “come with me.” He guided Ian across the street to a busy storefront with a line snaking out the door. He explained to the guard at the door of the shop what Ian wanted. The shop guard held out his hand and Ian passed over the mug and some shillings.

“Chai for two?” asked the shop guard.

“Yes, please.”

The shop guard popped into the shop, skipped the line, got the mug filled and returned with it and Ian’s change in a matter of seconds. Ian was back in the waiting room—with the best chai I have ever tasted in hand—in under 3 minutes. Kenya is AWESOME.

My premium seat on the bus turned out to be the very front seat, to the left and up a level from the driver, who was down in a bit of a well. There was a grab bar, presumably after-market, a couple feet in front of my seat, the seat reclined to a pleasingly comfortable flatness, and I rested my feet on the bar, sipped at my chai, and watched the world go by at breakneck speed. And then I fell asleep, which I proceeded to do for a total of about 85% of our entire ride. It was my only defense against dying of fear.

Ian was across the aisle next to the classic African Mama, with her headscarf, her comfortable bosoms, her colorfully printed clothes, and her woven bags full of the shopping. He didn’t have quite the same view of our endlessly repeating, petrifying traffic near-misses. I took a couple pictures of the vehicles mere inches in front of us as we barreled down the 8-hour, 2-lane road to the sea. Frequently the pictures are close-ups of the back of fuel trucks. “Danger, Petroleum” said signs looming in the windshield in front of me.

For all the near misses (at least by my perspective), we had an almost completely boring ride; the one exception being a totally non-official road block midway through our journey.

We arrived at the strip of a town just behind two trucks hauling things (bananas? goats? petrol?). Our bus driver, not wanting to be third in line for any reason at all, just moved over into the empty right lane (oncoming traffic having been stopped at the other end of town) in an attempt to push on through, while maybe 20 young men hurriedly carried and rolled reddish boulders across the lanes. They were just faster than we were, and the driver sighed and turned off the engine.

“What do they want,” I gasped to the bus conductor, who was lounging on a large, wedge-shaped speaker covered in carpeting. He sort of shook his head at me, then got up and left the bus. Who knows?

As the group of men finished blocking the road, several of them picked up extra boulders, formed a loose gang, and started toward our bus. I wanted a picture, but much more, I wanted to stay as unnoticed as possible. I felt very exposed, the white woman lounging in the front seat, wearing a bright red polka-dotted skirt and an orange sweater. The men surged around the bus and started shouting, some of them banging their rocks against the side of the bus. I desperately had to pee (Nina hitaji kuji saidia: “I need to help myself”), but I watched regretfully as other, braver passengers than me blithely left the bus and situated themselves, men on one side and women on the other, to do their business. I knew we had an official stop, for lunch and toilets, in about 30 minutes. Well, if the road opened up soon.

A police jeep appeared out of nowhere, though, not long after the roadblock did, and a police officer calmly told everyone to stop being such boobs and clear away the rocks. In seconds, the rocks were being rolled back off of the road (with some assistance from older, more mature members of the community—there was a man in a 3-piece suit helping); passengers zipped up and dashed back onto the bus, and we were on our way.

Thirty minutes later we were at a roadside buffet, I’d peed (squat, no paper), and we were eating some sort of curry and rice. We decided that the young men in the previous town had been interested in extracting bribes, since it was clear that they weren’t going to be able to legitimately make money if everyone was already stopping 20 km away.

One of the difficult things about traveling in Kenya, the whole Kenya, and the real Kenya, is that there are such vast distances—cultural, socioeconomic—between peoples. There are still nomadic pastoralists, including the Maasai, the Samburu, and the Turkana. The Maasai, even today, had herds of cattle grazing in the outskirts of Nairobi. “You can’t reason with them,” one of our drivers said. “’You can’t graze your cattle there,’ a policeman will say to them, and they just look confused. ‘Are you going to eat this grass?’ they ask. “Because our cows need this grass.’ Crazy.”

First world entitlement and first world guilt work at cross-purposes in Kenya, leading to, at least for me, some moral discomfort. It is so easy to avoid the grubby, over-stimulating, foreign parts of Kenya. Stay in the airports and the air, in the beach resort hotels, in the five-star tented camps. Travel with Abercrombie and Kent (and Prince Charles). Visit Giraffe Manor. You’ll stay clean, safe, well-fed. But you’ll completely avoid pickpockets, traffic that appears to be handfuls of Matchbox cars dropped from the heavens, the unique stench of tropical cities, families teaching their young children to beg. Awesome, you say, give me that Kenya any day! And we did enjoy the coolth and quiet of a fancy, air-conditioned hotel room in Mombasa, and giraffes, and a private safari. But that Kenya is only a few grains of salt in the pig (most of those grains not going to Kenyans), and the whole experience tastes a lot more gourmet if you dump that pig out and spread the salt lavishly around your visit. Instead of feeling guilty about your good luck, take a bus ride. Stay in a cheap hotel. Use local transit. Note: if all you want is grubby, over-stimulating, and foreign, plus cloths and jewels and excellent food, Mombasa is just what you’re after.

* a sort-of “swahinglish” euphemism coined in 1993 by my schoolmates and me: “huraka”: hurry/fast; “kaka”: brother.

Pictures!

2011-11-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Quick post just to say we have some pictures up, and THEY ARE NOT PHOTOSHOPPED. Follow the link to Ian's Picasa site. Keep checking back on the site, because we can probably post pictures more regularly than I can write into blogger. Enjoy! https://picasaweb.google.com/ian.g.taylor/Kenya?feat=email

Counting Down

2011-11-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

Away we go, into the wild blue yonder (not more wild than is good for us, we hope), in just a couple ~~days~~ hours. Here is one of the things I’ve been thinking about in the last few weeks while I’ve been doing pretty much everything under the sun but writing: this is a gorgeous, gorgeous part of the world we live in here. I found myself laughing, marveling, at the ridiculous magnificence of a Wallingford street late Friday afternoon. The sun, dancing with the thunderclouds, had spotlighted a towering golden ash in the distance; immediately outside my car, maples of crimson and burnt orange shivered in gusts of frigid air, their leaves spinning slowly down to carpet the sidewalks in royal splendor. For once in my life, I drove slower than the speed limit, gawking like I’d never seen plants. I love this season.

Here is another one: the human body is [naughty expletive beginning in F] AMAZING. Take our skin, for example. It’s porous, but solid. It’s stretchy, yet it keeps its shape, and it can do that through a surprisingly large range of sizes. Or our eyes, which enable us to experience the rich colors of nature (nature, too—awesome, right?). I’m just so impressed by us humans. I mean, we are shockingly capable things. Life ROCKS.

And here is another thing humans do: we connect with each other. On Thursday evening, Ian and I had dinner with several members of a Kenyan family, one member of whom I’d met twice before, although she was not at dinner because I’ve met her in Idaho, when I’ve been visiting K&A. On my most recent trip to Jerome Creek, I reminded K&A that Ian and I would be going to Kenya, and as we were going to be traveling in the outrageous comfort of British Airways’ Club World, we could check more bags than we would need, and would A&D (D and his family being long-time friends of the R’s, D and Dr Jason having worked together harvesting wheat in their youths) like to send anything with us back to family in Kenya?

Well, they were thrilled with the offer, and A&D in Idaho collected up a duffle and sent it to Seattle with K&A who came in Wednesday to see K’s mother. But then, A’s sister in Federal Way also had some things to send back home, and would we please come to dinner and meet them and collect their duffle, too. And so we had an excellent home-cooked meal and met three generations (the youngest is an adorable, active, and whip-smart 4-year-old who can already count to ten in three languages). Upon arrival in Nairobi late Tuesday night (overnight tonight to London, overnight in London, over day Tuesday to Nairobi) we will be met by the wife of one of the dinner attendees who will take the extra duffles off our hands and then we’re off to Giraffe Manor. But a couple days later, we’ll be staying in Nairobi with yet another family member, and next Saturday there is going to be a huge family party at the home of the fourth generation (or maybe the first)—Ian and I are invited to the family’s “thanksgiving” get together at the grandparents’ house!

We are overwhelmed by the friendliness of these folks, and can’t wait to be back in Africa.

Virtual Journey

2011-11-01T20:49:00.001-07:00

It turns out that I really want to write about everyday things, such as the UFO I saw during my trip home from Idaho last Monday evening, or my most recent visit with Eric Thorton (for travel in Kenya: Mt Longonot is safe; Mombasa is fine before dark; Tsavo is safe from a jeep; give Lamu a miss). I want to share my life—all of it—and shut off the flow of energy into cancer. It will get the attention I absolutely need to give it—attending appointments, scans, treatments, etc—but that’s it. I’ve learned a lot over the last several years, and I know that what I’ve learned has helped to demystify the disease, at least somewhat, for many others as well as for me. But I’d like to put my not inconsiderable interests and strengths into something new. So the virtual journey to which this post title refers is the journey from I Thought I Was Done With This to All This and Then Some More—I will point out that “this” in the first title refers to cancer; “this” in the second title refers to EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE.

Time to broaden mine.

The Ol' Stomping Grounds

2011-09-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hermaphroditic slugs making more slugs.

The view from up in the cherry tree. Fun!

Spackle looks hopeful. I'm staying in the tree.

Spiderweb.

Clearing in the woods. This woods is MUCH wetter than the Idaho woods I'm used to.

An old inner tube wedged in a stump--a massive stump--down at the bottom of Mom and Marsh's driveway.

Spackle and Hoover on the driveway.

And, good ol' Loper. He is truly an amazing speciman of old doghood.

Half and Half

2011-08-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

The San Juan Islands have been an important part of my life, and have played a role in my memories, from way back at the start of the mental film strip. When I was four years old, my parents and the parents of my Much Admired Cousin Sheri (just enough older than me to be awe-inspiring, but still attainable as a friend and a life goal) shared an 18-foot bow-rider ski boat (much like the boat Ian and I currently enjoy; in fact, the inspiration, at least for me, for our boat). In keeping with the natural tones of all motorized gear in the late ‘70s, indoor appliances and outdoor recreational equipment alike, the Larsen was a lovely milk-chocolate brown with tan upholstery. My family would haul this ski boat up to Lopez Island every summer for a month’s rental of a beach shack on Shoal Bay. There was a private mooring buoy—no dock space—associated with the beach shack, and somewhere we would back our boat into Puget Sound and motor it around to that buoy.

A ski boat is small—much smaller than some dinghies for yachts I’ve seen docked in Roche Harbor. There is not a lot of space to put a dinghy on a ski boat, is that point I’m making here (and is an issue Ian and I deal with in our modern-day San Juan ski-boat adventures), and so we had any number of strange contrivances (well, boats) to convey us and all our day-trip needs and superfluities from shore to vessel. One was a red, white and blue inflatable (or rather, usually, deflatable) craft and plastic oars, which one adult or another would row as quickly as possible before we all (two or three adults and several children under five) sank into the 46 degree bay. One thing going for the inflatable was that it had multiple air “zones”, so maybe it would be part of the floor that was flaccid, which wasn’t such a big deal as when the sides sighed their filling out. Then there was the little, orange, double-hulled Sportyak that Dad brought home on top of the car, late one night before a trip, and ran it into the carport roof, damaging the roof and rendering the boat just as leaky as the inflatable (it was hastily patched with some thick, noxious gray glue, and made the trip). Or the next dinghy he did that with.

One afternoon, after successfully loading five children under age five and three adults on board, we took off for an adventure. We can’t have gotten very far before the water pump cooling the engine broke and left us drifting, but we had gotten too far for anyone to swim us back to shore. We flagged a passing boat, tied a line to our bow, and hitched a ride to the marina on Blakely (I think). I remember all the parents being quite adamant that none of us kids go up to the bow, in case that line snapped, whipped back, and took off our heads. In the event, we arrived safely, heads intact. As I remember it, Dad spent a couple hours working on a VW Beetle that a mechanic had been fixing, while the mechanic looked over our boat instead. We kids got popsicles at the store.

We eventually moved up from the ski boat/beach shack to a 26-foot cabin cruiser which was large enough to carry a dinghy along with it—we had a Livingston with a sail package, and so learned rudimentary sailing skills. Around late middle school or early high school, though, we got the Big Boat.

The Finnish Maiden (named for the previous owner’s wife and never changed, and for years people would stop on the dock and speak in Finnish to us) was 36 feet long, could sleep six, and came with an 11-foot Boston Whaler with a 35 horsepower engine that we could ski behind, as dinghy (technically, the Whaler was only supposed to have 10 hp). Now THAT, we kids thought, was FUN.

A couple years before we acquired the larger boat Dad started playing his French horn again, after a several-year hiatus. He and Mom, and then Deane, as he got older and more skilled, would bring their horns on the boat and practice or play duets and trios, sounding off against a cliffside in Princess Louisa Inlet, or singing the sun to rest off Matia.

There’s an arrogance implicated in such noisy shenanigans—a French horn is no guitar, for example—and there may have been people who hated any rupture of the watery quiet—no matter how dulcet—as much as Dad hated the yapping dogs they brought on board with them. But I don’t remember hearing any complaints, and Dad’s playing was sweet, and clear, and warm, and lovely—if loud.

This year, Saturday, 13 August marks the 19^th anniversary of my father’s death. It also marks the day that the length of my life without him starts to extend beyond the length of my life with him. I am finding this to be, somewhat to my surprise, a momentous event. I feel a bit like he’s just now falling behind me, fading into the past. Like he’s been with me, step in step (but oh, so far away), until now, but he’s starting to let me go on without him, to really see who I’ll be on my own. What will the next 19 years be like?

I was talking about this with our friends D&K and K’s mom, G, on our most recent trip to the San Juans. We were camping for a couple days on Lopez Island, all of us, at Odlin County Park (D&K supplying the dinghy service), before Ian and I headed off alone to hope for dock space on outer islands. D mentioned the beauty of Reid Harbor on Stuart Island and I said yes, I knew it well, and Ian and I had made a pilgrimage there a couple years earlier. I spent a few minutes explaining why pilgrimage and telling of my father’s death (fouled propeller; yellow jacket), and the last couple experiences I had shared with him.

Walking with Dad along a dock in Friday Harbor on the 11^thof that August, heading out for a bike ride, I had chuckled at a small fishing boat called the Irish Wake. “What is a wake, exactly?” Dad asked.

“It’s a party you have when someone dies,” I said, “to celebrate their life, instead of mourning their death.”

“I think I’d like to have a wake,” he mused. And he did, less than two weeks later, with over 300 friends attending to cheer him on.

And on the evening of the 12^th of that August, in Reid Harbor, with everyone else on shore, Dad and I played a last game of double solitaire, and I won. For the first time. Ever. 100 to 90. He was impressed; none of us had ever beaten him (we could occasionally convince him not to play).

And the next morning he died.

“Wow, and you still come back!” said K, and “You’re very strong,” or something like that, said D, and I replied that I couldn’t stay away, and wouldn’t they choose such a place to die, if they could?

Later in the afternoon, Ian and I went off to the far eastern edge of the campground, to the main office, to buy some more firewood. As we turned to walk back to our site (which was down on the beach, midway through the grounds where the road starts to climb up a cliff into the woods), I heard a French horn, sweet, and clear, and warm, and lovely, playing a horn call that Dad played every single time he ever picked up his horn.

“That’s a French horn!” I said breathlessly to Ian, and hurried on toward our site, and toward the sound.

Wha? thought Ian. I can’t hear anything . . .

“Dad used to play that!” I went on. “It’s maybe Wagner? I don’t know for sure, but he would use it as a warm up!”

Suddenly the music switched to Mozart, one of the concertos, I couldn’t remember which but I’m thinking it was maybe number 3 3^rd movement. “Ian! It’s now playing Mozart! I PLAYED THIS WITH MY DAD!”

“Okay!” said Ian, awed (and somewhat relieved). “I can hear it now!”

We hurried into camp and dropped our wood.

“There’s a French horn, and I have to find it,” I said, still breathless.

“What?” said everyone there. “We haven’t heard anything at all . . . but then, we’ve been playing music . . .” and they were, quietly, but just enough that they hadn’t noticed the horn.

“No, it’s definitely a French horn,” I said, “playing Mozart, just like Dad did.”

I rushed on up the hill, pulled by the past, Ian trailing along behind. At the top, off to the side in one of the sites perched on the cliff-edge, I walked right up to a young woman sitting on a picnic table, smiling at me, and a young man (mid-twenties?) standing near her, holding a French horn.

“Oh!” I said to him, “my father used to play the exact same things, 20 years ago, here in the San Juans, it’s so beautiful! You have such a lovely tone! Was that Wagner?”

“No,” he said, “Strauss. Every horn player knows it.” He smiled at us. They never seemed to have any fear that we had come to complain.

“Are you in an orchestra?” asked Ian.

“Not since high school, just a pick-up band.”

“How long are you staying?” asked the girl.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” said Ian.

“Oh,” said the guy. “I’m playing at an open mic on Thursday evening here.”

“Well, I’m afraid we’ll miss that, but this, this was wonderful,” I said. “Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful playing with us.”

We said goodbye, and made our way back down the hill, serenaded by more Mozart, ringing joyfully through the trees and out over the bay, celebrating life.

Thank you, Dad.

Freedom

2011-07-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

As I have noted before, I am uncommonly lucky to live in a country, in a socio-economic group, that allows me to have unusually high access to personal freedom. I am free from want; I am free from oppression. I am free from bad teeth and debilitating eye issues. I am, so far, free from death. There are many places in the world where these things would not be true. But, being human, perhaps as a very symptom of the freedoms I enjoy, I construct ways to want. I invent ways to be oppressed. (I do pretty well at oral hygiene, however, and since I’m down to a mere three drops per day for my eye, I’m keeping up with that pretty well, too). But there are times when I’ll find myself dissatisfied. Other thirty-somethings, I’ll think to myself, get to do all these things. Why can’t I? I WANT TO. IT’S NOT FAIR. Or, With my cancer/anxiety/occasional migraines/other-manufactured-things-to-worry-about, maybe I SHOULDN’T be allowed to do this thing I love. I can dig quite a hole for myself.

Nine years ago, when I first started going to Idaho to house/horsesit, I would marvel at how healthy I felt there, in the wilds, away from the cares and considerations of my day-to-day life in the city. I feel so healthy out here, I realized once, that I don’t even think about it. That, for me, at that time, was the true measure of health—a very young, sheltered, naïve definition that nevertheless was true for me—I suddenly realized that, when you’re in it, youth=health=immortality and therefore there is no discussion. The sun rises and sets. Water is wet. These are facts of life. What is there to question, or even to notice? For several years, Jerome Creek allowed me to pretend, for up to three weeks at a time, that cancer didn’t exist and I was still that same old invincible teenager.

All travel allows us to shed the cares of home, at least a little; but as I’ve grown through my cancer experience, I’ve also had it follow me to my Idaho paradise—a migraine here; a panic attack there; the medically influenced runs or jams; the very fact that one of my doctors is a Son of the Land. I have found that I can no longer escape when I go there, and this was causing me a lot of manufactured-things-to-worry-about anxiety before I left for this second trip. I invited lots of people to come and visit me in my mountain fastness, but it turned out their schedules meshed best with my first week, and I was to be left alone during the two-farm days.

In the late summer of 2009, one year after practically dying, I was out for a visit at Jerome Creek and I took Shadow, my dear horse (she is mine by now, no matter who pays all her bills or shelters her, and thank you very much for doing that for me, K&A), out for a bareback ride. As I rode along, I thought back to the last time I’d actually been on her bareback, and it had been three years before. Maybe I am too old for this, I thought uneasily, as Shadow twitched her ears back and forth at me, asking to gallop. Maybe I have passed the time in my life when I am going to be able to gallop bareback. But fortunately something in me wouldn’t accept that, and so we did gallop a little, me clutching at Shadow’s mane and desperately clinging with my legs, and I was very tired at the end of our ride, but I WAS NOT TOO OLD.

This trip out, I was stronger because I have learned in the last couple years that you’re never too old to regain strength (case in point: my 96-year-old grandmother with the 5-month-old knee), and I’m mostly active during all the times of day when most of the other people I know are mostly stuck inside at desks. But I was also prepared, as much as possible, for any eventuality health-wise, because with my new awareness of my reality, I know I must be.

I asked for several local contact numbers and met the people I might theoretically call on for assistance. MS volunteered to come right back over, forsaking her new love for another week, if I needed her. I made a plan with Ian where I would call him before and after each and every walk and ride, tell him where I was going, and write on the refrigerator white board the wheres and whens of my day. Ian had the number of my nearest contact, whom he could call if the sun had set and I was still at large. All of this prep assuaged my anxiety, and I settled into my solitude with commendable ease—in fact, pretty much unadulterated bliss, as you will have surmised from my recent posts (minus the episode with the chicken—those of you in Seattle who have hens, which I promised to take care of if you ever accidentally acquired a him instead . . . well, I’ll still do it, but much more soberly now. So choose your flock carefully, please.)

Allowing in the fullness of me today—the needs for regular meals, good protein, pills on (more or less) time, exercise, help (the hardest one to admit)—actually, I realized as I was driving home yesterday afternoon, drinking in my favorite sights in the advancing season, allowed in a freeness that I haven’t experienced in a long time, maybe ever. I was not out there ignoring my cancer; I was not out there in spite of my cancer. There was no spite involved. I was out there as MY WHOLE SELF and ALL THAT MEANS, and I have never felt more grateful for my life and the gifts it has brought me.

K&A arrived home late Monday evening, the night before I left, from their 5 days on Orcas Island (where they had spent a night on our land on their way to sailing with A’s brother—oh, the crazy intertwined threads of human lives). We were sitting in the kitchen, them just finishing their Subway sandwiches from a well-considered stop in Colfax; me chattering on about sawing down the forests and the hilarious quirks and foibles of the menagerie.

“Calin,” they said, more or less together (although not in unison—that would be a little creepy), “it is such a gift to us to have you here, taking care of things so beautifully. We are able to completely enjoy being away, knowing that you are here, able to handle anything that could come up. Is there anything we can for you in return? Anything that you would like?”

I started to tear up (I am again, now). “Only to come back,” I said. “I LOVE being here.”

“Well, that makes it pretty cheap for us!” said K, leaning back in his chair, and we all laughed. But it’s true—it is a perfect symbiotic relationship.

In a very recognizable physical way, this realization—that my true freedom came only when I embraced the needs of my whole self, as she is today, not just carefully selected parts of myself—was good for me: as I drove back into Seattle yesterday after my several days of unadulterated bliss, the usual mantle of tension did not descend onto my shoulders and around my chest, tightening my spine, squeezing me into a twisted, unforgiving corset of CANCER . . . because I had not thrown it aside in the first place.

I am indescribably lucky to have such a place where I can be wholly me: elemental, feral, capable.

Free.

Lunch Out

2011-07-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I achieved something big! I successfully completed a long ride which I planned for, cleared a trail for, and managed to stay on track for (i.e. did not wander miles out of my way by missing a cutoff)! Of course, since my previous long rides where I did get lost all involved guests and this one did not, you’ll have to take my word for it. Don’t listen to any of them. I totally know where I am at all times.

Anyway, yesterday’s ride ended up being about 8 miles, and took 3 hours, and we climbed and descended about 1000 vertical feet—in a couple of precipitous climbs and drops with long passages of level between them as we walked along near-cliffsides. There is nothing rolling about these here hills.

I took Shadow and the Young Pups, and I actually squoze Shadow into a saddle so that I could navigate the hills more easily . . . because I knew where we were going, you see (UP), and I figured we would both have better balance on some of the more difficult terrain, if I could wedge my feet against something. And sure enough, by the end of the ride, my legs were a little shaky. MY legs.

As the ride was going to take place midday, I packed a lunch. After considering either ham and cheese, or pbj, I went with the pbj—it somehow didn’t seem right to eat meat when out with a horse, and certainly, if I were going to share, which I ultimately didn’t, she would probably prefer peanut butter to pork. I also took an apple which I did share, as we meandered along a relatively level logging road in a recent local clearcut. I did this the other day, too, shared an apple on a ride, so Shadow knew what to expect the minute she heard me take a bite. Her ears swiveled back and she slowed her walking, to be prepared for me to stop her and hand her a bite, which I did by reaching down my left hand to her turned head. A bite for me, which I would chew completely, Shadow’s entire focus on my slowness at mastication (Ian can tell you more about this); then a big bite that I’d take out of my mouth and hand to her. She got a very juicy core at the end. The other day when we first shared an apple, several minutes after she’d finished the core she stopped, hopefully, turning her head back to me. Nice try.

It turns out that the section of trail I cleared was completely navigable . . . for Shadow and me. I let her pause as often as she liked to catch her breath—it was a warm day, and I didn’t want her to overheat but I needn’t have worried—she’s incredibly tough. We then tied in with a long, level forest service road that I’d driven to and walked on, and I ate my sandwich enjoying the enhanced views achieved with the extra horse-height beneath me.

There were two sections of my proposed trail that I hadn’t vetted before setting out, and sure enough, both needed work-arounds. In the case of the first one, I more or less expected it to need a work-around, but I knew that the woods it traveled through were not dark and deep, but rather well-thinned and airy, and that wasn’t much trouble. The other work-around, however, took place as we were beginning our return.

Two possible tracks headed off down the hill through another clearcut, on our way home, and I had run partway down the branch I wanted to take—the one that looked less steep—but just barely not far enough. Shadow and I reached the ridge where I’d stopped, peered over, and saw an impassibly long tree lying full out across the trail and way down into the brushy regrowth below. It was not something I could tackle with my saw, or indeed a dozen of my saws. We’d have to take the quad track.

I don’t know—I honestly do not understand—how people can find the nerve—let alone the vehicle—to drive some of the steep grades around here. I would think they’d just roll over backwards going up, and somersault forwards all the way down. Not Shadow, though. She shifted back into her rump and descended that ladder-like slope headfirst, carrying a woman on her back, with the grace and agility of a dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet (if that’s the kind of thing they do. Maybe I’m thinking of this instead.). And I was still finishing my sandwich! We must have made an incongruous picture in the wilderness, the two of us in our full-on English riding attire—breeches and boots and helmet; English saddle and snaffle and breastplate; lunch.

At the bottom, exhilarated, I shouted to the birds and the deer and my incomparable steed, “Shadow, you are a ROCK STAR!”

We made it the rest of the way encountering no further unexpected challenges, and had a joyous gallop through the meadow near home. G&N got home in time to put their animals to bed last night and I was off the hook so I sat on the porch with a glass of wine and watched the sun set, then took a long, much needed bath (and cleaned the tub after). In all, the ideal climax for the story of this visit.

K&A will be back late tonight and G&N are taking me to the Hoo Doo for dinner. I’m in a bit of denial about just how much I have to do to get out of here on Tuesday afternoon, but rather than worry about that right now, I’m going to take the dogs up the mountain and see if I can’t just tie a last couple trails together. It’ll be time to be civilized soon enough.

This link occasionally shows the trails I’ve been working on, and where I’ve been.

Things That Go Munch in the Night

2011-07-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

I put the dogs to bed and was lotioning my legs last night when Sadie and Tessa started barking downstairs from the back porch/mud room. There are range cattle about (including an adorable pure white calf whom I’ve seen several times as I’ve driven to and fro), and Spackle had been extremely barky down toward the road at last piddle—I assumed at beeves—and so I resolved to finish my second leg before doing anything. Cows can be annoying, but mostly when they're being barked at and I was hoping the girls would just stop.

I finished my legs but the barking hadn't even slowed and, starting to think now about just how far away from community I was here in this wilderness, with a brief consideration of A’s 22 and where she’d said she kept it (I wasn’t sure I remembered), I wrapped my kikoy around me and went to investigate.

"It's nothing, you silly things," I said, peeking in at them through the door to the back porch, hoping this was true. "It's cows. Go to sleep."

But they would not go, and Sadie in particular was barking with vim and purpose (Tessa was barking with vim and fear).

They came out of the back porch with me and into the kitchen, and Sadie made a beeline for the front door, barely pausing for the breath needed to maintain her barrage of noise.

Catching Tessa’s alarm and not at all comforted by Sadie’s indignant outrage, I turned on the front porch light, stepping to the side of the glass-paned door, trying to keep myself hidden from any possible intruders-to-be. Sadie stared out intently into the yard.

"It's just my reflection you see, you silly dog," I said uncertainty, trying myself to peer past that reflection and through the prism glass. "Look," I said, and, screwing my courage to the sticking point, made myself to open the door. "There's no one there."

But there WAS someone there.

Shadow, who had removed herself from her pen through a gate I had inadvertently left unfastened, was enjoying a midnight snack. I'm now sure it was she Spackle was barking at earlier. When he failed to enlighten me as to her truancy though, Shadow, taking matters into her own hooves, had come up to the house and the measliest patch of weeds you’ve ever seen, its one advantage being that it was the only place visible in the light from the front door. She knew Sadie would not rest until I had battened her back down for the night.

Shadow put on a half-hearted show of evading me in the dark, and then walked docilely beside me, halterless, back to her pen, where she pushed back through her gate and stood quietly while I called her a silly horse, scratched her neck, and latched her in.

After all, it's no fun sneaking out if no one knows you've done it.

The "grazing" spot, as seen from the front door. Doesn't that look lush and tasty? Note, those are NOT the pens the horses were in last night.

More Like the Bliss I’ve Come to Expect

2011-07-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday and Friday were much more like other days that I’ve enjoyed here. Busy, for sure—but that is only in part a function of taking care of two farms and much more because I’ve turned feral and am pretty much constantly on the hoof—my own or the horses’—when I’m not doling out feed or collecting eggs (two so far—so at least Sadie and I didn’t take out the one remaining layer in the flock).

I think a lot about human/animal communication when I’m out here surrounded by . . . animals . . . and while I’m sure I anthropomorphize certain behaviors and responses, I am equally sure that not all of what I observe is simply me inappropriately attributing intention to action.

On Thursday afternoon I took Snickers out for a ride. My plan was to make a relatively near-to-the-house loop, but to take a couple moments to re-forge an old path and newly forge one I discovered a couple days previously on Shadow. I took all four of my dogs, including the Aged Labradors, because we weren’t going for more than 3 miles, and it wasn’t going to be that strenuous of a pace. Snickers did not particularly understand what I was doing on the ground with her reins looped around my wrist, shaking the trees, but after pushing me in the back a couple times, she settled down to eat whatever was within reach while I cleared brush. I decided while out that I would let the horses in to the upper part of the Little Hay Field when I got back.

The horses started out this spring with a three-pasture rotation—in front of the house, behind the house, and the lower Little Hay Field—and these pastures each have at least one fence of white electrifiable tape, currently un-electrified, but the horses haven’t figured that out so they respect the boundaries. I myself respect the boundaries so much that I was quite tentative in my first touch of the tape, yanking my hand away as if shocked, even knowing I wouldn’t be. Electric fences. The memory of their evil sticks with you. To get to the upper LHF, I was told to turn back the white tape from the north side to two posts in. The grass is so lush up there, however, that the horses are only supposed to be allowed to graze there for two hours.

This is a several-acre field full of 4-foot-tall grasses.

There are three horses.

I can, at best, sprint 10mph.

So, I mused, as I rode Snickers along between sawings, I think I’ll put the horses into the lower pasture at 6pm, then open the upper pasture at 7pm, and go get them in at 9pm, when it’s getting dark and they’ll know it’s bedtime and it should be easier to convince them. “Snickers,” I said out loud, “I’m going to give you all a treat tonight, and let you into the upper pasture.”

Somewhere along our ride I took a new spur trail heading the direction I wanted to go to see where it ended up—the answer was down, but not far enough, and then it dead-ended. I turned my horse back and rode to the trail I knew would work, then realized I was missing two dogs—mine. Hoover came after some calling, but Spackle did not. I worried a bit about him; although he’s been around these here parts for nigh on 10 years, this was a new trail and he’s not out in the woods all that much these days. It was hot, though, and we had been (and were again) heading down into the Maple Creek draw, and he was familiar with that, and would, being Spackle, probably have beelined for water. I called his name at regular intervals as we descended into the valley so that he could mark our progress, stopped at the bottom to have a piddle, and just as I remounted he appeared, grinning a sloppy grin, his lower half dripping from a cooling paddle.

I enacted my plan re: grazing times/areas, and when I went to call the horses in for bed, only Snickers was up the hill on the other side of the white tape, grazing near the other two, but clearly having a much better meal than them. I can only assume she heard me and understood.

I had eaten an apple earlier that day and dropped the core—a pretty juicy, thick one—in Shadow’s grain bucket in her pen, just because I like her and she’s my girl. “Hey Shad,” I said as I approached her in the gloaming, secretly glad that two of my three horses hadn’t noticed their new, delectable freedom yet, “it’s bedtime, and I left you a little treat. Go on! Go in!” She glanced at me, and meandered a couple steps toward the pens, grazing as she went. “Go on, Sik,” I said, turning to him. “Bed time. Go on in.”

Slowly I cajoled and pushed Shadow and Sikem back toward their pens, noting that Snickers was watching us go, but still enjoying her evening meal. Not a big deal. One horse is easy to catch if two are in. Finally Shadow reached her threshold of cajoling and trotted off—doing what I wanted, but doing it on her terms.

Until she almost reached her gate, and glanced up the hill to the missing length of fence. I saw her do an equine double-take, and then she bolted for Heavenly Long-Grass Freedom. Sikem, sauntering along just behind me, threw his head up, snorted, and galloped, kicking and bucking, past me and up the hill following Shadow. Snickers peeled away from her post near the white tape and joined them, racing into the dusk over the crest of the hill and away.

Huh.

Well, one thing was certain—the horses could not be left to graze all night in the long grass. Shadow in particular is fat as butter right now, and too much green grass can be hard on their digestions. Fortunately for me, K&A had, a couple years ago, purchased a really stable, really easy to drive quad, which enabled A to go collect horses when she was recovering from her knee accident.

After not more than about 5 minutes, I remembered all the details about how to start the quad and, with Sadie barking hysterically in my ear and Hoover leaping joyously about, I set my jaw and headed off up the hill.

Dogs are not supposed to chase horses. Horses will flee if they feel threatened, and all the pastures around here are securely, but cheaply, lined with barbed wire. This works because the pastures are large enough that horses are unlikely to get too close to the wire on their own; however, a wild animal, or an hysterical Sadie and a joyous Hoover, could chase a horse into a fence, particularly in the dark (this is another reason why the horses are brought in at night. Socialization is a third.).

I was on a mission though, and I didn’t chase them on the quad, I herded them. I really did—racing gleefully around in grass as high as my head, followed closely by two dogs who wanted to be chasing horses but couldn’t see where they were over the soaring fodder—I actually did a pretty good job of heading those horses off and sending them careening back down the hill and, ultimately, into their stalls. We all, I think, enjoyed the mad career. I sure did, and I have more sympathy now for Hoover, who really does respond very well to “NO”, much against his instincts.

Shadow had long since eaten her apple core when I arrived to close gates (having taken the steepest downhill at a slow roll myself), and she came over to me as I latched her in with an air of contriteness that I don’t think I was imagining. She had never before come to say goodnight, and she was clearly not trying to get out. “I told you I left a treat for you,” I said, scratching her jaw while she whuffled at me.

Okay, I need to go outside and put some horses in for naps and saw some things down.

Tuesday Was Much Better

2011-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

So I’ll go ahead and start with Wednesday.

Wednesday really began at just around 12:01am, when I reached up to turn off my reading light, exhausted after my excellent Tuesday, and heard a distant crack of thunder. This isn’t really a big deal in and of itself—it’s perhaps notable how easily I could hear such distant thunder—but thunder showers are more usual here than in Seattle. The problem was that the horses were in their outside pens, which means that currently one of them (and lately it’s always been Snickers) doesn’t have a shed to stand under in case of inclement weather. The other problem with the outside pens is that they’re just big enough that a horse likely to get up a head of nervous steam (Sikem) can actually leap around a bit, thus making an injury more possible.

I lay for a moment in my suddenly exceedingly comfortable bed, then jumped out, pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, stopped on the back porch for my boots and the resident dogs (Spackle and Hoover saw no need to be up in the middle of the night), and ran to collect halters.

It’s far from silent out here in the wilderness—there’s constant birdsong or crickets, wind or whinnying, moos from the range cattle, and occasional ear-splitting shrieks and bays from the hounds. Spackle likes to get them all going; he lounges on his bed and, when things have been still for too long, manufactures a reason to bark. One bark from the Elder and the Underdogs fly into a frenzy, scrabbling from door to window to door again, screeching or bellowing their warning/hysteria/excitement, as Spackle smugly looks on.

Unlike the city, though, there is no underlying white noise to all the sounds of nature. There is no freeway, no chatter of humanity, no hum of urban electricity. Out here, the underlying layer is a stillness so absolute that, when the birds and the crickets pause, and the dogs are at rest, the silence pounds against your eardrums like a sinus infection.

It also makes things like the sound of oncoming rain thrillingly audible.

I managed to get Shadow moved across the yard before the first drops hit, and Sikem, although he was inclined to leap about in a histrionic frenzy, came willingly enough as the rain began to patter down. I merely opened Snickers’s gate so that she could follow Sikem; I assumed she would be quite keen to get into a shelter; but no. In the beginnings of a serious downpour, I had to return to the lawn to collect her and bring her in.

Back at the house, Sadie and Tessa declared themselves done with sleeping on the porch for that night (the thunder was getting closer and the lightening was quite impressive); Spackle and Hoover had pulled themselves sleepily up and wandered downstairs to see what all the fuss was about, and so I collected two more dog beds and the five of us milled up the stairs and (eventually) got ourselves situated for the night.

It rains.

Dogs snore.

And, at 5:45am, one of them tries to get in bed with you (note: not one of mine).

And, at 6:53am, another one of them tries to get in bed with you (note: also not one of mine).

At 7:35am the downpour that wakens you makes you glad you’d changed the horses over to a better shelter.

At 8:10am, you leap up, suddenly remembering that as of now, for the next 4 ½ days you are in charge of two farms, whose complement of animals comprises six dogs, five horses, four cows, three cats, three hens, and two pigs. Make that two hens.

It wasn’t a particularly bad morning, I suppose. It was wet enough that I decided I would probably not ride today, which is sad, but not the end of the world. I let out my three horses, fed my four dogs, made a latte and headed up to G&N’s. Up there I let their dogs out (both eager to sniff me and my car and obviously disappointed that I lacked dogs of my own in anything other than scent). I let the hens out to pick grubs out of the horse poop, forked some hay over the hotwire to the horses, emptied a bag of cantaloupe rinds into the pigs’ trough and covered their heads with grain as they snuffled up the rinds, went back into the barn/shop/house and fed and tidied for the cats, gave each of the dogs a cookie and a firm command to “stay home,” and made my way back here.

I was slow this morning, being a bit tired, and the internets had gone off again in the storm and were shy about returning, and when they returned I still couldn’t figure out how to fix the interface between Blogger and Word 2007 which went off a couple weeks ago (back when I last was posting. I have figured out a work-around.). Dusty, one of G&N’s dogs, came down to K&A’s farm soon after I arrived back here, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but then I had five dogs to manage and monitor, and Hoover was decidedly set against Dusty at the beginning (even though he’s met her many times before), and so there just seemed to be a lot of busy work to do, and I needed to go in to Moscow to get new tires for the 4-Runner (nothing happened to the old ones except wearing out). I eventually got my horses in for their midday break (the grass is very lush very late this year, and so the horses’ intakes are still being carefully monitored).

I felt a little anxious today, talking to the internet techs, the nice saleslady at the Moscow Old Navy, Ian, the people at Les Schwab, the checker at the Co-op, so I took a ¼ Clonazepam, and by the time I was heading home, around 5:00pm, things were looking up. The sun was cutting through the clouds as I drove up 95 on my new tires, illuminating one glowing idyll after another, the greens and golds and browns of early summer agriculture and intermingled pines sharply defined in the rain-washed air. I decided to take all the dogs up to G&N’s when I got home; we’d have a stroll around up there, with Kaluk, the remaining canine (who remains at home, in general). I had a brief thought—dogs/hens—but decided it would probably be okay, because I assumed I’d only really have to watch my own.

G&N’s place is the Northern Idaho equivalent of Cabo Verde—a virtually self-sufficient farm carved out of an essentially vertical mountainside. Kaluk greeted us warmly when we arrived and took the visiting dogs on a racing, erratic tour of the place while I went to feed the pigs (cute and smiling, but STINKY), then the horses. I kept my eyes open for the hens, who were unconcernedly clucking about. Spackle stuck pretty close to me, avidly interested in all the new smells. I’m sure he was plotting a way into the pig pen. Hoover leapt from pillar to post, until he saw HENS. He focused, ran, and “HOOVER!” was pulled up short. He focused, ran again, and “HOOVER!!” stopped and came bounding my direction. The hens, which I really wanted to put in their pen, had scattered around the farm yard hither and yon. I heard one cackling in a frenzy, which I realized a moment later when I heard silence. I did an instant scan for dogs.

“SADIE!!!!” I yelled, as the three Labs and I ran around the horse paddock and along by the garden. My Wednesday had suddenly gotten much worse.

There stood Sadie in the path, a mouth full of feathers, a dead hen at her feet. “SADIE, NO!” I screeched. “BAD DOG!” The horses, who had come running with the rest of us, wheeled away. Sadie slunk, ashamed, into the nearby bushes, along with Spackle and Hoover, ashamed by association. Or so I thought, until a second hen, playing possum, was discovered by the slinking dogs. She cackled wildly and flapped her wings and Hoover bolted at her until “HOOVER!!!!” he was pulled up short. “ALL DOGS COME WITH ME!” I said in my Alpha-est tone, and marched them all down the hill to the truck, and locked them in.

I climbed back up the hill to survey the damage, and found the worst thing of all.

Sadie hadn’t killed the chicken.

She had only maimed her.

I would have to kill her.

The thought of doing it with my bare hands came before the action could sneak in, and I realized I would need a tool. I went back down the hill and into the barn/workshop/house and finally found a heavy, somewhat dull-looking splitting maul. I hauled it up the road to where the chicken lay, stunned, in a cloud of feathers, gently straightened her neck while she blinked at me, girded myself, and struck. And struck again, and the third time her eyes closed and she went into the metaphorical—and literal—chicken-with-its-head-cut-off convulsions, legs pumping and one wing flapping.

I thought briefly of butchering the chicken so as not to waste the meat but quickly discarded the idea; the last time I killed a chicken was the summer before 10^th grade when we’d spent 10 hours on 150 of the things, and my dad had done all the butchering. Besides, I reasoned, she was a layer, not a fryer, and also old and therefore tough. And, just, besides. I found a posthole digger and a small plot of flat ground and buried the hen, marking her grave with two cement blocks (well, hoping to deter grave-robbers with the two cement blocks). I caught the other hens and put them in their pen, returned my executioner’s ax, and decided that I could, after all, still use a walk in the woods with dogs.

I freed mine from the back of the truck except for Sadie, whom I took gently but firmly by the snout so that I could give her a little lecture before letting her go. She wouldn’t meet my eye. Smart dog.

Tuesday, though, Tuesday was glorious. Tuesday was why I come here, why I yearn to be here, why I want to do this Jerome Creek thing, live this Wild Girl life, for as long as I possibly can. Two of my three sets of parents (K&A, and Ian’s parents, who had come for their country/horse fix) left Tuesday morning, giving me big hugs and leaving me in utter, unadulterated, independent bliss. The dogs and I (only the fundamental four) took a long hike—about five miles—and finally solved the mystery of a trail that’s been bothering me for years. Or, if we didn’t actually solve it, because the last time I rode it was about 8 years ago and there’s been clearcutting since, we at least found a satisfactory conclusion to the mystery, with even a bit of getting lost in the middle—enough for excitement without too much dread—and also in the middle, a bit of finding myself unexpectedly in a place I recognized, even though I’d arrived at it from some oblique direction.

And then, hot off the walk, I took my lovely Shadow out for a bareback ride and got her to cross a creek she wouldn’t cross a couple days earlier, and had several long, delicious gallops, and found a new spur trail that would shorten a rocky road and save Snickers’s tender feet in the future. I ate an excellent steak salad for dinner, and thanked my lucky stars that I get to live this life.

Letter to Canon Customer Service, Digital Camera Department

2011-06-20T22:38:00.001-07:00

20 June 2011

Customer Service Agent, Canon Digital Cameras
CanonDirect@cits.canon.com

To Whom it May Concern:

Since March, I have been the happy owner of one of the new PowerShot Elph 300 HS cameras. My previous camera was also a PowerShot Elph; one of the much earlier ones, with only four megapixels. The 300 HS was obviously a huge leap forward in technology. I am writing this letter to sadly report that I am no longer able to use my 300 HS, and while I don't believe the reason my camera no longer works is covered under the warranty, I thought you might be interested in hearing the story of its demise.

This is the last picture I took with my camera, using the automatic setting:

Note the clarity of detail in the face of the dog. He is perceptibly uncomfortable sporting his new porcupine whiskers. Note, as well, the horse fading misleadingly into insignificance just beyond the dog. And further, note the subtle but present signs of wilderness all around: tall conifers, patchy grass, mud.

For several years now I have enjoyed both the pleasures and the responsibilities of housesitting for family friends who have a tree farm and horses, and whose land borders the Clearwater National Forest near Harvard, in northern Idaho. Although I grew up on a small farm myself, and am not averse to getting my hands dirty, today I live in Seattle and my dogs are, primarily, city dogs. The older, more sensible dog has retired from accompanying trail rides through the National Forest but the younger, erratically curious one is just entering his third year of excursions. I have seen many varieties of wildlife on my rides and hikes through the area, including deer, coyote kits, owls, moose and mooselings, and once, thrillingly, a grey wolf. I have also seen signs of bear and cougar, although I am happy to report signs only.

This porcupine was the first for all of us.

We had only been out for about 20 minutes (expecting a ride of maybe an hour and a half); myself, my dog, one of the farm dogs, a friend who had come to hang out with me to play on horses in the woods, and two horses. The dogs had veered off the track into the woods as is their wont—I believe they easily cover two miles to every one of ours—and when they returned, I noticed my dog behaving strangely. As we walked along and turned onto a logging road, enjoying the mountain air, he kept throwing himself to the ground and rolling about. As there are innumerable kinds of animal scat around, as well as bits of carcasses in various stages of decay, I assumed he was merely perfuming his body as he felt would be most attractive (to be quickly scrubbed off as soon as we returned home, long-dead deer not being a scent I enjoy to the same degree). He went on and on, though, flinging himself to the ground, and running his muzzle through the still-full drainage ditches on the sides of the road we were riding on. An instant after it dawned on me that he might be trying to rub something off, I caught a glimpse of white along his upper lip.

I called a halt and slid off my horse (not the one pictured), caught the dog, and immediately recognized porcupine quills, known from a set of earrings my mother had once brought me from Alaska.

"Oh, poor doggy!" I crooned, as my friend dismounted and took the reins of my horse as well as hers. "Hold still, let me get a picture, then I'll take those out!" I was able to snap this photograph before my mothering instincts reached full steam and pushed everything else from my mind, including the delicacy of modern technology. I set my camera down next to me on the road and, quick as a flash, grabbed a quill and yanked. I hoped it didn't have a big barb on the end; it didn't, but it wasn't an easy extraction. Nevertheless, it came out, and the dog yelped and leapt away, pulling me off balance and startling the horse in the picture, who rushed at my friend, indiscriminately kicking at any cameras that might be in the way. Only one was.

Mine.

In full-on Mother/Veterinarian mode by this time, I ignored my camera and instead spent the next 20 minutes wrestling in the dirt and mud with my 74-pound Lab mix, slowly, and evidently painfully, extracting the quills. Each time the dog leapt away I would untiringly call him back and he, desperate but also, somehow, hanging on to a thread of trust in me, would come and let me have another go . . . or at least let me catch him again. He was salivating madly and the quills were slick with mud and saliva, but one by one I got them out, even the last four, stuck in the roof of his mouth. To his credit, this pain-crazed young beast, drops of blood spattering his snout, did NOT bite down when I held his lower jaw open with my bare hand. What a good dog!

Once the last quill was out the dog was quite recovered; we remounted our horses, and continued our ride. Some might think we should have turned immediately upon discovering the quills and gone straight to the vet, but even if we had it would've been more than an hour before Porcupine Mustache could've been seen—and that's if there were no other patients. Field surgery was what was required.

A subtle but deadly dent and a bit of mud was all that marred the face of my new red camera; I pushed "on" hopefully, but "off" it remained.

Sincerely,

Calin Taylor

For all of you blog readers who are not Canon Customer Service, you might be interested to know that the story of yesterday does not end there. It was, in fact, a day that was far, far from being a plateau. Inside the last gate at the end of our ride, maybe 200 yards from dismounting, Sikem, who had already destroyed a camera, shied and MS took a tumble. She hit her lower left back (kidney-level) and clocked her helmeted head, but is, in fact, perfectly fine today except for some residual pain and a tiny bit of blood in her urine . . . which is perhaps a bruise to the kidney, although there's not enough blood to indicate a laceration.

I would love to write more about this because it is an entire other story complete with rural EMTs and trips to the closest hospital facility—in Moscow, 45 minutes away—both late last night to collect MS (she rode in the ambulance because I needed to eat and change clothes after the Hoover/Porcupine debacle—I was so covered in mud and grime when I answered the door to the EMTs they thought I was the patient) and earlyearly this morning to deliver a new urine sample—but I am too exhausted to give the story its due and tomorrow we must deliver another earlyearly sample, and then in the afternoon we're heading home. Suffice it to say that, when MS was holding both horses and I was battling Hoover, Sikem stood patiently and Shadow patently did NOT; also, the moment MS came off him, Sikem stood stock still above her, as he should, instead of continuing to his stall even though it was so close. Accidents happen, when you're living life to the fullest.

Nature's Botox

2011-06-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

What you see in this picture is fewer lines between my eyebrows than I had when I got up this morning and no, it wasn't just that spending time in the woods has taken years off my life. I was bushwhacking with the dogs today, having a fine time with my little saw, indiscriminately hacking off branches and saplings if they stood remotely in my way, or in the way of where I think I might be on horseback, which means I frequently had both hands over my head as far as I could reach while I was sawing. You can see my path here. One thing about this particular path is that, on foot and going at sawing pace, it seems really, really long. I am disappointed to report that it is, so far, only a little over 1.5 miles round trip from home, and that does not a very long horseride make. Anyway, at one point as I was slashing my way through the woods, covering myself with sawdust and bits of bark and lichen (it's even worked its itchy way into my undergarments), I stood up right into a spider's web. I noted a blurry black dot--it was too close to my face to see clearly--batted absently at my hat (I was ON THE TRAIL and TOO BUSY WITH SAWING to worry about my health), and forgot about it. Imagine my alarm when I returned home, removed said hat and glasses to clean them, and felt that my procerus was distended. Felt with my hand, mind you--I had not felt a bite with my face. After a brief surge of anxiety, I took a Benadryl just to be on the safe side, and told MS that she was to watch for any symptoms of arachnid-induced nasal deterioration. I think it's probably not a big deal, and hey--the wrinkles (well, couple of them) are gone!

Dogs in the woods. This is one of the paths I cleared! Okay, okay. I'm obviously lying. This represents the kind of wide-open spaces that are found in the deep woods, which lead one to believe that she can clear a deer track through to the next one. And still know where she is.

This is a mine that I found deep in the woods (well, about 0.75 miles in). Difficult to see, no? That's what makes them dangerous! There was a lot of gold mining once in these here hills . . .

Rainy Afternoon Musings

2011-06-16T16:35:00.001-07:00

I had been tacking this on to my most recent post on I Thought I Was, but I realized it didn't really go, and you all probably needed piddle breaks anyway. I sure did. By the time you notice I've written STILL MORE, you will be in a better position to read it. And so . . .

I didn't listen to anything on the drive over yesterday, although I had a book and hundreds of songs primed on the iPod. Sometimes it's nice to just have the silence and your thoughts. This is a different place for me, Jerome Creek, than it was when I first came as an adult, 10 years ago (after maybe 20 years since I'd been here as a child). I have had some pretty momentous experiences here, both good and bad, both for me and for the dogs, and for the animals I care for here. I no longer come here with the expectation that the most difficult part will be convincing the 3-year-old that I'm riding bareback (Hobo—great horse, long gone :() that he should go forward and stop trying to back us into a steep, wooded ravine.

There can be nothing better, for example, than galloping bareback through a mountain field, when you and your horse are equals thrilling in the rapture of speed. I'm willing to accept that there may be some things as good, but nothing better. On the other hand, having to send your first born dog to the teaching hospital at WSU because he appears to be dying and no one can figure out why, that's awful.

Having your younger dog joyously, spectacularly exhausted from running free in the woods: awesome. Losing same dog in woods the first time he went out: petrifying.

Sharing this amazing place with dear friends: exquisite. Having an emotional crisis that leads to a serious rift (now healed, although I'm still careful about the scar) with some of those friends: heart breaking.

Sawing logs fallen across trails, mending fences, discovering new trails close to home, where K&A have been riding for 30 years: physically satisfying, mentally satisfying, smugly satisfying.

Having a night of serious illness: puking, migraine, orange diarrhea; followed by a couple days of intense anxiety and panic: terrible.

Being trusted to take care of this farm and all of its intricacies, and having the ability and skill to do it well: ALL OF THE ABOVE.

I don't know what I'm going to get when I come here. I love it; I love the drive over (except for the 60 miles east of Othello, but particularly the river valley east of Washtucna); I love the quiet; I love the space. I love hiking through the woods and riding through the woods. I love that my dogs burst out of the car grinning at the end of the journey (I did not love that Hoover started squeeing in anticipation at Colfax, more than an hour away). When I drive back into Seattle at the end of my time here, I can feel the noise and static and frenzy of the city climbing up my spine and into my neck. There's never any kind of silence there. Here I can revel in it. This is one of my homes.

But, being home, it comes along with everything that home has: glory and sadness and peace and exhilaration and fear and joy and dread and mundanity. And it's a little too far out in the woods to just walk down to the corner store for my supper, so there's a bit of inconvenience here, too. Good thing I like to cook.

View With My Morning Coffee

2011-06-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

The top photo is Shadow and Sikem engaging in charmingly horsey behavior--scratching each other's shedding withers. The bottom photo is birds having a little ride. I don't know if the horses have parasites on them that the birds are eating, but the birds certainly shit on the horses rumps. At least they're Appaloosas, so it's harder to see.

Payback

2011-03-07T19:39:00.001-08:00

This is one of the posts where travel really meets day to day life. So you'll see it both places. Sorry, those of you with a direct feed.

One of the difficult things about being the invalid spouse in a relationship is not actually the part about being an invalid, because I'm not really an invalid. I could be, of course—I could probably come up with enough reasons to sit around and moan and complain and have people wait on me hand and foot and . . . honestly . . . not have very much fun . . . but I'd rather live life to the fullest that I am able, which is pretty full. And so, only slightly more often than I would like to, do I have to take advantage of Ian's kindness and solicitude. Still, it seems a little one sided . . .

In the interests of living life to the fullest, we took Friday off from work (Ian) and horseback riding (me) and went up to Crystal Mountain to ski for the weekend. When I made the reservations a few months ago, it was because this was the first free weekend we had when Ian could possibly get a day off work (his first year is a very busy one). I'm not sure if you all have been reading the snow reports, but it ended up being a fantastic weekend for skiing. Crystal Mountain has the most, and most interesting, terrain close to Seattle, and from 22 February to now they have been hit with 7 or 8 feet of new snow. Basically, after a warming trend beginning in December and ending in mid-February, most area ski slopes were pretty much mud. And now there's a whole new season! This, of course, meant that Saturday and Sunday were very, very full of other people, but the longest lift line we were ever in was about 10 minutes. They're very good at moving people, the Crystal Mountain Resort folks.

We were sobered, though, at Crystal this weekend, because the excellence of the snow for us was just making it all the harder to find the 40-year-old man who went missing there last Tuesday. He hasn't been found. And I just now read that two college boys went missing on Thursday—the helicopter flying around when we arrived Friday morning was searching for them. I don't know if they've been found. Life can't be full without the bitter in the sweet.

Anyway, even though Ian and I didn't ski at all last year, and skied a mere ½ day in both 2009 and 2008, we were pretty fit, and found ourselves able to navigate any terrains we wanted (some more easily than others, as it continued to snow both Friday and Saturday and we were often socked into thick fog) with more or less the skill we remembered having. Ian in particular is a beautiful skier—graceful and fluid, flowing straight down hills, adjusting to bumps as if they're not there. I found myself plowing through more bumps than I'd like to, thighs burning—I felt like I was working REALLY HARD, harder than three years off might signify.

"I need to have a lesson," I suggested to Ian at one pause for breath late Saturday afternoon. "I haven't had one since high school."

"It's true," he said, "a lesson might help, although you don't look like you're working hard. Still, the equipment has changed a lot and someone could probably suggest ways to ski that might be different than they used to be." He looked thoughtfully at me, then said "You don't fall very much. Maybe you just need to fall so that you remember it's not the end of the world."

I was willing to allow that he might have a point. I had recently taken a fall in a riding lesson, on a day when I was having trouble focusing (except for being afraid that I would fall); I went over a jump, landed, and slid accidentally off the side of my horse, rolling onto my back before standing up and brushing off the arena dirt. No pain at all, just a reminder to stay in the moment. It might be true—snow can be soft.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny (and full of boys clomping about the inn in ski boots at an ungodly 7:00am), and though sore, we packed up our car and headed off up the mountain in good spirits. From the very top we could see, 14 miles away, Mt Rainier at its majestic winter finest, glowing brilliant white. Dormant, we reminded each other. Not extinct. Could erupt at any time. Lovely. We decided to start with a short run down to the nearest upper-mountain lift, and I took off into a huge bowl, Ian close behind me.

Swooshing along, feeling good, I suddenly heard my name yelled, then again. I skidded to a stop and looked back up the hill to see Ian far above me, lying in the snow. I watched for a minute to see if he was going to get up and join me as usual. He was moving around, but he didn't get up.

A father and young daughter skied up to him and stopped to see how he was; I began the long, desperately difficult and sweaty job of sidestepping up a steep run on newly waxed skis. Someone called me from a few yards across the hill; would I mind getting out of the way? They were photographing people and I was right in the . . . oh . . . I was climbing up to that guy? Would I like to just leave my skis with them where they would be visible and out of the way, and just hike?

I popped off my skis and started the climb, infinitely easier in just the stiff boots. The father and daughter slid by and the daughter, maybe 9, told me "he was just going to see about getting his skis back on, but he seems okay." I continued to hike, not too worried.

And there was no need to be too worried; Ian's issue wasn't a new one, and, in fact, taking place in the first run, on what looked to be a gorgeous day for skiing, also wasn't new. He had dislocated his right shoulder, which he had done during Fresh Tracks at Whistler ten years before, the first time we'd ever skied together.

I'm not saying a dislocated shoulder isn't an awful thing to have happen to you, and this is the third time for Ian and this shoulder in the last 15 or so years, and so there's got to be some kind of care and rehab, from what I understand, to make sure it doesn't keep popping out for a coffee when it's not convenient. And Ian was obviously uncomfortable with the weird feeling of his arm dangling from threads, and as the adrenaline wore off and the ski patrol arrived to ship him into a luge, it really started to hurt. "I'm sorry to ruin your day," he said. "You can ski some more if you want to."

"Ian," I said in reply, looking him straight in the eyes, "you are the most important thing on this hill to me. We are done, and we're going home. There is absolutely no question."

I saw him off, hiked back down to my skis and went my own way, and I really did have a fabulous, long, exhilarating run. Ian was brought in to the first aid station at the bottom and his shoulder was manipulated into place and his arm tied with a makeshift sling. And then I got to be the one to return his demo skis and our rented poles (oops—forgot ours in Seattle). I got to be the one to go collect the 4-Runner and pull it into the 5-minute load/unload parking zone close to the ski patrol clinic. I got to be the one to help Ian off with his ski boots, and on with his Sorels. I got to be the one who drove us carefully to Maple Valley to have a bite to eat, say hello to the dogs, and convince Mom and Marsh to keep them for another couple days (Ian won't be walking both of them together any time soon). And, perhaps most excitingly, I got to be the one to drive him to the ER so that he could get an X-ray. Even today there have been some things I've been able to help him with. I love it.

As we were walking yesterday afternoon from the ski patrol clinic to the car, though, over slush and ice, my right arm through his left arm, holding him steady, I did have something to say.

"Ian?"

"Yes, Sweetie-pie?"

"I think I'm going to go with my original plan and have a lesson. I don't really think that falling more is the answer."

Found While Cleaning House

2011-02-22T16:29:00.001-08:00

The physical counterpart (i.e. dredging the bottoms of our storage spaces to clear out superfluous craps) to the emotional work I'm currently doing recently uncovered some gems from my trip to Kenya in 1996. Where one of the two national languages is English (the other is Swahili).

From various menus:

OXTAIL SOUP: Made from Oxtail power, wheat Flour, fine salt, vegetable fat, herb and spices, milk powder, yeast, beef cubes, etc. (what is the "etc", after all that? For that matter, why just the power from the oxtail? Why not the meat, too? I know there is some . . .)

LUMB STEAK: Goes with dee Todi Sauce vegetable and tarnished with tomato onion (15 min) (what is ANY of this???)

MINESTONE: Italian Soup made from vegetables, Macoroni Cubes of the Beef, little Gravy—intercontinental (No, it's MINE STONE! Hands off!)

CREAM CHICKEN SOUP: Made from Stocks of Chicken Fresh, Celery cubes of chicken, pepper, plus cream, salf, flour, very nice Try it. (I said TRY IT.)

Also this information: there were both old and new 1 Kenyan shilling pieces. They were completely dissimilar. In Nairobi, you needed the new ones to operate the pay phones. In Mombasa, the second largest city in the country, you needed the old ones.

And one morning I had coffee that was so black it turned gray when I added milk.

And on our last morning there (I was traveling with a friend from Lewis and Clark, although we'd both graduated by that time), we were awoken by banging sounds. Looking out our window we saw two men straddling the top of storefront of an almost-demolished building, hitting at it with hammers. Well, it's a way to keep employment numbers up.

Ian and I are planning a trip back to Kenya this fall. I wonder how it's changed. And I hope parts of it have stayed the same.

Okay, So What Was the Whole “Necker Experience” REALLY Like?

2011-02-18T10:20:00.001-08:00

Well, the truth is, it was pretty fantastic from start to finish. I was sort of expecting that 3 days would be quite enough—the ratio of help to guests is better than 2 to 1 and I thought that could seem stifling—but I must have grown more accustomed to being treated like a princess in the past six years since my experience at the Four Seasons Wailea on Maui—because I felt like I could quite happily stay for at least another, oh, week. There is a distinct lack of horses on Necker (although the dog department was ably filled by Field Spaniel Sumo), and, latte upon request or no, that is just completely unacceptable in the long-term.

I was one of the 24 attendant guests not because K and I are the kind of bosom buddies who gossip on the phone with any frequency or even email all that often—I hadn't known he'd met a woman until I received the Evite on New Year's Day (more reason to think it was a hoax)—but because we've been, since high school, the kind of friends who can pick up wherever/whenever and continue on with a level of warmth and intimacy that many day-to-day friendships lack. And, his half-sister in Egypt couldn't make it (she and the rest of the family there are doing okay, as of a couple days ago).

There really were two equally phenomenal aspects to this particular event weekend—the people, and the location. I'll start with the people.

First of all, French, Russian, and English were all spoken pretty equally amongst the attendees (not all spoke all three, but several did). Someone asked me at dinner one evening if I spoke any languages other than English and I was pleased to be able to answer that, yes, I knew a little Swahili and a little more Portuguese. I was just as pleased to have no one there able to test my abilities.

As I've said, my roommates were Sophie Barthes and her daughter. There are drawbacks to sharing a beautifully appointed but relatively small room with a 17-month-old, including that she goes to bed at 7, which means I go to bed entirely in the dark, trying not to kick the Pack-n-Play . . . but I have to admit, there are drawbacks to sharing a beautifully appointed but relatively small room with me, the walking easy-access pharmacy, if you have a precocious toddler. And the little toddler-sized mosquito net was the cutest thing ever. C, the toddler, talks all the time in some language or another. I think my French is just about as good as hers. Note: French was not one of the languages I claimed to have any knowledge of.

Other guests with notable accomplishments include the bride's father, who invented a black body and thus emigrated with his family to the US on an "Einstein visa"; the bride's sister-in-law, Courtney Hansen (who was as sweet as she is lovely); the groom's daughter's after school activities director—who also seems to own the TriBeCa pier where the activities take place; and any number of international business/culture people. For the most part, people knew and/or were related to each other and were there having a fun weekend together—the environment was as laid-back and welcoming to me, a complete stranger to all but three people when I first arrived, as it could possibly have been.

As for Sir Richard Branson himself, he also seemed to be an easy-going guy, and has an amazing deal going on here: he invites the rich and famous to pay an insane amount of money to stay at his home—for which they feel privileged—and then he comes and hobnobs with them—for which they feel privileged—and he gets to network with the rich and famous of the world. Of course, some of them he may not like, but he always has the option to stay away from those—and he can do some pretty brilliant networking with those who he does get along with. He also has a keen sense of the environment, and while he's trying to develop private space travel, he's also reintroducing flamingos to Necker Island, and is developing a non-governmental, international coalition for ocean health and global fish sustainability. He was disappointed Ian wasn't there to chat with; me too. But, if he needs Ian, there are ways to find him.

Nevertheless . . . I get the feeling Sir Richard might be a little lonely. He has a wife and kids, but the kids (both in their 20s) are in London, I'm not sure his wife comes to Necker whenever he's there, and I'm pretty sure I would be lonely (and may just be projecting). He leads such an extreme life—far less "normal" than mine—I don't know. As much as the island was virtually perfection, I wouldn't want to live there.

And, going on to the second part of this weekend, the actual "hotel" part of the island, it was virtually perfection. The food was invariably delicious (quail; sushi served from a kayak in the main pool; beach barbecue; etc), and, at the request of the bride, was 100% sustainable and organic and all of the meat, as well as the wedding cake, was kosher (her family is Jewish, and some of them keep kosher). There were bars all over the island and, if they were empty, you were invited to just go and serve yourself. Coconut palms grew thickly around the main swimming pool at the main beach, and several of the (male—females were in sun dresses, usually) employees would climb up the trees to retrieve young coconuts, carve them open with machetes, and serve the coconut water with a straw.

The place was decorated Balinese-style, and unlike the house we rented in Kona in January, the wooden furniture and artwork probably was actually from Bali. Certainly, there was no scrimping on comfort—all sofas, chairs, and beach-side pavilions were richly restful, scattered liberally with pillows, and blindingly white and clean. In the main lodge, for guests' entertainment, was a pool table, a computer (WiFi if you had your own computer), several chess boards, a collection of international rhythm instruments, a giant TV (never on during our stay), and a spinet piano—far the worse for living in an open, humid environment. I played a scale and it was barely recognizable.

There was also a loft library with a drum set and a guitar (we managed to keep the 9-year-old and the 6-year-old from trying to play those) and a ton of books.

Each room was equipped with a light, batik robe and a heavy spa one for each guest; laundry service was free; phone calls—local or international—were included; the postcards in the lacquered wooden box on the desk were stamped. When asked, by the groom, if the amount was the same to Egypt, the girl serving us at breakfast the last morning said that the office manager would check each address to make sure before the cards were placed in the mail.

Sun creams, in 4 strengths (Tourist: 30; Traveler: 15; Islander: 6; Local: 0 [dark tanning oil]) could be found in numerous locations, as well as bottles of aftersun recovery sprays and Off.

Activities at the main beach included sailing in Hobie Cats, kayaking, snorkeling, kite boarding, and any number of other things (I was mostly chatting with people).

Of all the people I know, I think my mother-in-law would appreciate the Necker Island experience the most. Bali themes; snorkeling; shelling (there was a good beach with a gentle surf and lots of miniature shells to dive for); sailing; warm, gentle air; food whenever you ask for it. I would love to get her there sometime.

As for myself, I'm calling this trip not the "trip of a lifetime," but rather "the FIRST trip there of this lifetime." You never know!

What Clinched It Was the Valentine’s Day Buffet

2011-02-15T14:23:00.001-08:00

Two days ago I left the low-key, easy-going, laid-back opulence of Necker Island and returned to reality. It was still Gleaming, Glinting, Tropical Island reality, but it was a jarringly long step down from where I had been.

I was on Necker until the last boat out, which I shared with the bride and groom, because they, too, were not leaving for home but rather going to adjacent Virgin Gorda for several days. They were staying at posh Little Dix Bay for a honeymoon week, and that's where the Necker boat took us. I was put into a taxi for Fischer's Cove Beach Resort, just down the road, which is a lovely, vintage, beachside, garishly Caribbean-colored establishment. Did I say vintage?

I was already feeling a bit sad to be off on my own, after a gorgeous weekend of luxury and romance and fascinating interaction, and I was also feeling that I'd sunned enough for the cold season what with the southern hemisphere in the fall and Hawaii just a few weeks ago (I do have a lovely tan, though), and my blood sugar level happened to be low, making me tend slightly toward weepiness—which the sight of my Pepto-pink, ancient, pilly, polyester bedspread did nothing to assuage.

When I had checked in at Fischer's Cove, the nice lady had given me a stack of information, including a flier for the Valentine's Day buffet ("Special Drink: Sunset Kiss By The Sea!") that their seaside restaurant was going to be hosting the following night, complete with live band, and that would I please make a reservation if I was going to attend. I thought, with a tinge of hysteria, about attending, solo, a romantic dinner on The Romantic Holiday in one of the classic locales—the British Virgin Islands—of honeymoons and couples getaways. I would get all dressed up in one of the nicer outfits I'd brought, wear my leather sandals instead of my rubber ones, maybe even use my tinted Burt's Bees lip balm instead of just the normal one. And I would be the poor, alone, crazy lady with the wildly unmanageable hair who made everyone else's romantic dinners uncomfortable. The image kept making me laugh.

At the same time, it made me think—who is keeping me here? And the answer was unequivocally ME. I was. And I could change that! And so, using the remaining minutes on the roaming program I'd bought for my cell phone, I called American Airlines and changed my return trip from the 17^th to the 14^th. I'd be able to see my very own sweetie-pie on Valentine's Day!

I instantly felt better about my whole existence, ate my last stale food bar, and went down to the beach for a last swim and lounge. The ladies in the office kindly employed their behind-the-scenes networking and got me a place on the next morning's "guests only" shuttle boat from Little Dix to Tortola so that I could catch my plane. Even though I had BOTH my carryon and checked bags "randomly" searched at the Tortola/Beef Island airport, and my third flight (itinerary was 1: Tortola-Puerto Rico; 2: Puerto Rico-Dallas; 3: Dallas-Seattle) ended up being Dallas to Dallas instead of Dallas to Seattle, meaning that I got to have a fourth flight—this one successful—Valentine's Day was a good day for me, because at the very tail end of it, 21 hours after awaking in my pilly pink bed, I was hugging my shocked husband. I somehow managed to not let him know I was coming home, which was a profound achievement considering my superpower of Full Disclosure, and due largely, I'm sure, to Ian's superpower of Credulity and Trust. Yay Seattle!

more pictures posted, and captions added here.

first pics from Necker

2011-02-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

https://picasaweb.google.com/nilact/Neckerisland2#

Legitimized

2011-02-13T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture from the dinner the night after the wedding--we're all--well, only some of us currently pictured--wearing "tribal" attire. In turbans are my high school friend K and his new bride A, then her father, then Sir Richard Branson himself. Second from the right is one of my roommates (the other was her 17-month-old ADORABLE daughter), Sophie Barthes.

Um, wow.

Is This A Hoax???

2011-02-08T22:49:00.001-08:00

On New Year's Day I received an Evite to my high school friend K's wedding . . . on Necker Island in the BVIs . . . which is the private island home of Sir Richard Branson of Virgins Music, Atlantic, America, Blue, etc etc fame. Ian and I discussed and postulated how this could possibly be and decided that, knowing K, it was equally likely that on one hand he had come upon enough money to rent the island for the event, or on the other hand that he had met Sir Rick himself and had been invited as a family guest.

In the event, it seems that K and his lovely fiancée A (whom we met in a flying visit to Seattle in mid-January; they are currently New Yorkers) are, in fact, renting the island, although the man who introduced them to each other does, unrelatedly, work for Branson in some capacity.

Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 4:30am (when I ordered my taxi just now the agent said "and you're still out of BED?!?"), and flying in multiple legs to Tortola. A ferry to Necker Island on the 10^th, in the afternoon, has been mentioned, but true to many private events of the rich and famous, who are trying to avoid contamination by the riff-raff, I as yet don't have any more information than that.

Will someone pick me up at my hotel on Thursday afternoon? Will I be blindfolded, or put into the back of a windowless van and driven . . . somewhere? Will a note appear at my hotel telling me where to go? Or will it simply mock me for taking the bait and flying myself all the way to the Caribbean for nothing?

If it does turn out to have been a hoax, and I find myself without 2.14 employees dedicated to me and me alone for three whole days, I suppose I'll just have to make the best of it. At my second tropical paradise in two months. Sigh.

Felt Up

2011-01-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

I'm in Hawaii right now with the Taylor clan, our first full day, in a pretty spectacular house, right on the lava-rocky shore just north of Kona. It even has a nanny's room, teeny, small bed, just off the garage and with entry basically in the kitchen. Lucky nanny! Pics of the house later, though.

The outfit that I chose for flying here was one that I've flown in before, but over a year ago--a dark turquoise jersey maxi dress, sleeveless, over a t-shirt, with a cashmere hoodie and flip flops (easy to remove for security). "That looks like a great travel outfit!" said K, and I, naturally, agreed with her.

Until I stepped through the security gate and got pulled aside.

"Female assist needed," called the woman watching the gate to see if I set off any alarms. "No alarm, targeted search," she said to the woman who answered her summons.

I was led off to a plastic mat in an open space and told that I was going to be stroked, basically, from crotch to ankle (well, she could see my ankles so she didn't have to go that far--as if that's the part I was concerned about), front and back, each leg.

I was asked to stand with my feet shoulder width apart, and point each foot out, in turn, while the woman (who had put on blue gloves and was holding that white flannelly thing) ran her hands down my legs over my dress.

She was very professional about the process, and I felt mostly not uncomfortable. Something tweaked me, though, about her being able to see my ankles, and I said "I should probably just wear pants next time, huh." And she looked up at me and said, with a hint of wry humor, "Yeah, that'd probably be a good idea."

So much for trying to bring back up the standard of air travel attire.

Remainder of Wellington, and a Token of Auckland

2010-12-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Find the last remaining pictures from my trip here.
In all, the trip was fantastic, and I missed Ian and the dogs a lot by the time Susan and I taxied back into SeaTac last week (and 3 hours later I went back to the clinic for my infusion).

November 2009 through November 2010 saw me in 9 different countries, on 6 different continents. I've had to add extra pages to my passport! I now have a specific travel goal--Antarctica in the next 4 1/2 years, so I can somehow get that trip into this passport as well.

Quite the whirlwind of a year!

Pictures of Milford Sound

2010-12-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Queenstown, NZ, is ideally set up for hemorrhaging money. The landscape is immediate and spectacular, with a gondola leading to a ski slope (and, in the warmer months, a luge for tourists to ride, although we didn't) right in the center of town, endless marching rows of sawtoothed, black and white mountain peaks, several blue-white, icy, braided glacial rivers, and deep gorges abounding, either for jet-boating down, or bungee jumping into. We didn't take advantage of all of our options (the aforementioned gondola and luge, four-wheeling in a canyon somewhere, bungee jumping), but we did take a jet boat ride (sorry, no pics--although the official one was funny, because they yelled at us to wave at the camera and Susan and I were the only ones on the boat who didn't see where the camera was and so we're both waving randomly off at a 45 degree angle), and a spectacular flight into and out of Milford Sound (we opted not to take the 3-hour cruise of the sound itself--I'd rather kayak if I'm going to be on the water and we were conserving time).
I think this area of New Zealand's South Island is also known at Fjordland; it certainly should be.
Anyway, here are the pictures. They do not REMOTELY do justice to the spectacular landscape.

Pictures of Hobart, Tasmania and Queenstown, NZ

2010-11-30T03:08:00.000-08:00

More pictures with captions can be reached here, and I am heading off to bed, for my second-to-last night's sleep on the other side of the Date Line. These are not all the rest of the pictures, and I hope to get some more posted before I get too entangled in the craziness of the holiday season back home. I tell you, it is WEIRD to be wearing shorts and sweating, and look at Santa figurines in their red fur suits decorating store windows.

A Lotta Pictures

2010-11-21T03:03:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a lot of pictures from our week of riding. Helle took tons of pictures while we were actually out on the horses and I hope to include some of those when she's able to send them along.

For the most part I felt a little more in control of the situation on Zorro if I had both hands on the reins and my attention on what he was doing. He was a little bit like riding Hoover, I think. Very sensitive and alert . . . and very sensitive and alert. He could either listen to me so well that I could move a finger or a leg a fraction of an inch and he would do exactly what I wanted--he almost intuited what I was asking--or he needed to be controlled and soothed and cajoled and abruptly brought to task. A good guy over all and really sweet when I was on the ground with him; but also a little distractable, and given slightly to hysterics over unexpected things like the Three Blue Boxes of Death along one wall of the arena the first day, or The Ominous Chunk of Grey Cement in the Ditch Next to the Road, or the truly unexpected (by me as well) Old Rusty Washing Machine in the Woods.

On the first full day that we were out, a horse came up fast behind Zorro and ran into his rump as I was slowing him down to keep him from running into someone else's rump; he kicked out and Alison ended up in a ditch with a very bruised back. She was a trooper, though, and not only got back on that day; she continued to ride every day for the rest of the trip.

Also that day (it was a big test day, as far as my horse was concerned) Zorro tried to buck me off at a couple of different gullies. The horses like to walk down and trot or canter up; this happens in Idaho too and I do not allow it, and Zorro (perhaps talking to other horses whose humans were allowing the upward race) was annoyed in the extreme. At the first gully after he was knocked in the ass he tried to run, I held him back, he SQUEEE-ED loudly with annoyance and bucked his hind end up; I landed on his neck, completely out of the saddle. But not off of him. At the next one, I again held him, he again SQUEE-ED but with a little less intensity and bucked with a little less vigor and I stayed seated; the third one he kind of sighed an annoyed sigh and then never tried to run up a gully again without permission.

He finally decided that, if he couldn't get me off with acrobatics, maybe he could get me off with speed. Much of the way back to the pens we came to a long, wide, gently up-sloping mowed path along the edge of a grassy field. A canter, the first of the trip, was proposed, and we all agreed to give it a go. Several horses were in front of me, including Alex riding Alison's horse (she had, after all, gone home in the van that had met us with our lunch) and leading ("ponying") his own. I, having had some experience with Zorro's personality that day, decided to keep him on a pretty short rein. This all worked fine, more or less, although Alex trying to canter with a horse ponied to his seemed to wig out everyone a little. We all pulled up, and I rode around Alex to get a clear view. The signal to canter was again given and again several people took off--I think Mike Webb, Susan, Helle, and Rebecca were all ahead of me. So I asked Zorro to go, and he. took. OFF.

I did what I would do on any horse running very fast and clamped my legs on so I could stick with him, and HE. TOOK. OFF. MORE. I was coming up fast on Rebecca and so I steered out into the long grass and yelled "I'M OUT OF CONTROL!" as I went by, faster than I believe I've ever moved before, even faster than the greyhound I rode on the beach in Chile last year. So fast, in fact, that I'm sure the Doppler Effect was in effect, therefore rendering my shout as something like this "I'M OUt of control l l l . . . " to Rebecca as I shot past (she was cantering, but she may as well have been standing still). I didn't lose my reins with the brief losing of my wits, however, and I slowly pulled Zorro back, and by the time we were caught up with the others he was entirely my horse again. Talking to Rebecca about it later, she said she heard me shout and looked over at me, and I wasn't out of control as far as she could see. Well, nice compliment, and, in fact, at least half true. I was definitely in charge of the steering, but for a moment I was not in charge of the speed. Unfortunately, he never put on the afterburners quite so much again, and it would've been fun to experience it just one more time. Nevertheless, score one big one, Calin.

I actually loved that I was given Zorro to ride--I felt that I got to use my horse skills as well as my riding skills--and nothing was found wanting.

All in all, it really was a spectacular trip. I wanna go again. Actually, Susan, Helle and I are already talking about the next one . . .

That's Alotta Bull

2010-11-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

Susan and me riding (okay, mostly just sitting on) Lumpy, a 3-year-old Brahmin bull. He's expected to grow over the next couple years.

Changes

2010-11-13T13:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry, Ian, I have a new Life Partner. And this is our new adoptee.

Home From the Other Side of the Planet

2010-10-31T21:14:00.000-07:00

Ian and I arrived back home on Friday around 1:30 pm, 29 hours after leaving our hotel in the Seychelles. We managed to stay frenetically awake until 7:00pm, at which point we fell into bed. At exactly the moment our heads hit our pillows, the phone rang; some friends calling me back. I brought the phone into bed with me and carried on a 15-minute conversation, about one foot from Ian's head. The next morning when I was telling him information gleaned from the call, he said, puzzled, "When did you talk to A.?"
"Last night, right when we got into bed," I said.
"But did the phone ring?"
"Um, yes, about 4 times before I got to it, and then I brought it back into bed with me so I could lie down."
"Really?!?"
He had no memory of the call whatsoever.
Anyway, we're here, and we've posted a bunch more pictures, many with captions, and until I find time (energy) for any more actual entries, I hope all you loyal readers will make do with these:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.g.taylor/SeychellesPart2# and http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.g.taylor/SeychellesFood# .

Last Day

2010-10-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

There will be more postings after we get home, I promise (if only a [rather long] bullet point post), but today is our last day and we are planning to fill it up.

Yesterday on day two of our two days on La Digue it was sunny, and we rode bikes, and we're both a bit sunburned (not too bad) and a bit stiff and sore from, for me at least, an activity I am completely unaccustomed to (excellent planning for the 25 hours of upcoming travel). We don't take off until around 10pm tonight (and I'm going to go double check that in a moment, because there's still time to rush to the airport if it's actually 10am this morning), and today we're planning a four-hour tour of the island, and then packing and organizing and one last swim and hitting the road.

We were going to rent a car today--they're everywhere, the rental cars, and I've driven on the left a lot, and have already, in my almost two weeks here, readjusted my sense of right and left (which seems to be how my brain copes with the change: "I'm going to make a right turn up here," I'll say, and Ian will say "Don't you mean a LEFT turn?" which, indeed, I do--the near turn, that's what I'm making) . . . but, coming home tired after dark yesterday, in a taxi Ian had already used several times going to work last week, we decided to just hire the driver for the day and relax all the more. So that's what we're doing at 10am (provided I'm right about our departure time)--having a more or less guided tour of the parts of Mahe island Ian hasn't seen (I had a private guide in the form of the wife of one of Ian's colleagues last week a couple times).

Our trip out here really wasn't bad with the 10 hours in Paris and the Croque Monsieur and the airport hotel dayroom; our trip back only has 4 hours in Paris, which, from what we could tell about Charles DeGaulle, will really be just enough time to get from one gate to the next before cramming ourselves back into our coach seats.

But then we'll be home! Friends! Family! DOGGIES!

No Pants

2010-10-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've been Without Computer for over a week now, and although my cell phone is WiFi enabled, it really only works for short emails back and forth with Ian, at work on the other side of the island, and that somewhat inconsistently, because his connection is spotty and mine disconnects whenever my phone falls back asleep, which is often--it's a lazy phone--and I then have to reenter the password we bought for 50 euros for the week (just renewed this morning, for 50 euros for our last five days). The one major issue I've found with the touch-screen keyboarded Android phone is that the text box in blogger does not actually trigger the touch-screen keyboard, and so I couldn't even post that it was inconvenient to post, without waiting for Ian to get home. Anyway, it's Sunday morning here, we're planning to go on a trip to swim with whale sharks this afternoon (if they've been spotted, and I'm ambivalent about whether or not I want them to have been), and so I get to use the computer for awhile and Ian gets to entertain himself however else he wants.

And so.

Several days ago, I set off to take a walk by myself, described as relatively easy and not too long, to the beach at Anse (bay) Major, more or less west of us down the island. It promised to go through some of the forest as well as along the glacis rocks, and I was ready for a change of scene from all the glistening white sand and glinting turquoise waters. I started out by walking down the road to the next town (Bel Ombre), which was HOT and a little scary (roads are narrow, people drive quickly, cars are on the left if a particular side is chosen, personal space is on a smaller scale than we're used to). Along the way to the trail head, I meandered down to the beach and back, I surreptitiously took a picture of a small tuna catch being loaded into a refrigerated van, I saw my first of the now many GIANT spiders I've seen (about 3 or 4 inches long; evidently, if you have the bad luck to run into one of their webs, you bounce off because they're so strong), I chatted up a man at the end-of-the-line bus stop ("Hello, could you tell me when the next bus comes?" "Yes, in about 10 minutes, at 11:00am." "And does it come often, every half hour?" "No no, every one hour." Titillating conversation.), and I bought a Sey Pearl (local soda maker; division of Sey Breweries and cousin to Seybrew, the local lager) Fruit Punch.

I continued up the hill and turned right onto a narrow paved track, following the arrow to Anse Major. I walked along into the forest, glad for shade, drinking my ridiculously sweet but undoubtedly electrolyte-filled punch, and I came up a hill next to a house and was hailed.

"Hello!" called a man. "I have a fruit bat here in a cage! Would you like to see it?" I hesitated, because I usually don't go in for such invitations in foreign places, but I glanced at the man and he was very thin, as if he had some neurological damage or something, and he was friendly, and it was hot, and I was following whimsy rather than plan, so I turned off the track and went to say hello.

Sure enough, this man had a fruit bat, one of the ones we see diving around the skies at dusk every night, in a cage in front of his home. Once I was up the walk, he explained that he sewed some things, and had a little shop in his house, and would I like to take a look, take a look, a look is free. I felt a little helpless to avoid taking a look--I mean, why not just a look, after all--and so I went in.

The man, Richard, was a talker. While I looked around at the clothes lining the walls of the workroom of his house, and took in the couple of old photos, the ancient sewing machine, and the, unfortunately, ugly wares, Richard told me about his life. He had three children, and a German wife, who was not his wife anymore and was back in Germany. The children lived with him but were at school. The German wife came to visit every year or so, but stayed in another bedroom, not in his, no, not anymore ha ha. About 15 years ago he had gone to work on a boat (I don't know in what capacity)--a great job--room and board paid, plus a salary--but he had had an accident after 3 years and had been crippled. He had not walked for over six months; had not really been able to walk before nine months (and indeed, now, 12 years later, made his way across the room by holding himself up and creeping around the wall). I assume spinal cord damage; at any rate, something to keep his body from fleshing out in a normal way, in addition to the severe unsteadiness.

Richard noticed my shorts (knee-length Old Navy drawstring ones) and said that they were good for hiking--better than the really short things other women wore on this trail--but that he couldn't make such things because elastic was hard to get in the Seychelles. I pulled up my shirt slightly and pointed out that they had no elastic, just a drawstring, and Richard was suddenly enthralled. A rope, my shorts used a rope, just like the skirts and things that he made! He could copy them, could make a pattern from them, if I would only let him have them for five minutes, just to make some measurements and to study their form.

"Are you asking me to take my pants off?" I asked, somewhat incredulously.

"Only for five minutes!" he replied. "You can wear some clothes from here! Just to have a look, so that I can make some myself!"

I thought about it. Richard was obviously not a physical threat. I had, hanging on the back of my daypack, a kikoy (piece of 3X5 Kenyan cloth Ian and I bring with us on vacations to use as towels, skirts, coverlets, etc), because I had wanted to be sure to be able to clean off my feet after wading at Anse Major. I normally don't like to swim at beaches alone--too paranoid about getting my belongings stolen--but I did want to at least feel the water. "Okay," I decided. "I have this kikoy here; I may not use it for anything else--I'll just wrap it around my waist and you can look at my shorts for five minutes. They're very sweaty, just be forewarned."

I duly wrapped my kikoy around my waist and removed my pants. Richard made his limping way around the edge of the room, then spent some time trying to locate his measuring tape. I, who had brought one along with my plane knitting project had, unfortunately, left it back at the hotel. A (male, physically fit) neighbor who had been outside cutting fruits came in and Richard sent him into the next room where, sure enough, one of his daughters had taken the tape measure. It was delivered, and much was made about how large my shorts were, although "you are not a large woman, but maybe a 46 size."

Then Richard started in telling me not to walk on to Anse Major alone. "If you were my wife, I would not let you," he said. "I could ask some man to walk with you, but alone, you will be stolen [read: robbed] or raped. In my 12 years of living here, four times women have come back to me, naked, they were swimming and their clothes were stolen and they were raped. Four times! It is not safe for you to be going alone. I would not allow my wife. These women, they come to me and I call the police for them, and I give them clothes to wear, but there is nothing I can do. But it is not safe. You should not go. Go another time, with a man. A man alone, he might be stolen, but a women alone will be stolen and raped."

I sat there on his sofa, without my pants on, and thought about this. I was not feeling particularly endangered by the environment, or lurkers therein. On the other hand, I was hot and tired and sweaty already, and it was another 1.8 km up and down a relatively steep, stony trail. Richard, also, seemed very insistent, very worried.

"You can go another ten minutes," he proposed. "There is an Indian man putting in a big hotel, lots of workers, and a beautiful view. You would be safe that far, you can take pictures. But then you should come back."

"Okay, okay, fine," I said, yielding. "I'm hot and tired anyway, and I have no interest in being stolen or raped. I won't go. My husband and I have several days together next week, and so we'll come back then." Even though four in 12 years is a pretty small proportion, and even though I wasn't feeling any frisson of fear for my own safety, if I didn't go to Anse Major, I was absolutely assured of not getting raped there. "I'll go and look at the view close by, and then I'll turn around. Can I have my pants back now?"

"Yes, yes, I am done with them!"

I went ten minutes further and spent some time on a huge glacis boulder flying high over the sea below, then turned (marveling a moment at the sheer number of vehicles that had driven this far on this trail) and went back. I waved at Richard as I passed, proving that I hadn't been stolen, and wended my way back to the bus, which I caught about 1pm and took back to Beau Vallon, the village (and beach) where we're staying.

Two days ago Ian and I did have a chance to walk all the way to Anse Major, on an afternoon that he was let out early, and as we passed Richard's house, we saw him in the doorway with his three children, home from school, and the friend feeding the fruit bat with a bit of mango. I thought "well, now he knows I wasn't lying about the husband, and I know he was telling the truth about his kids." And the walk the rest of the way to the beach was long, and was beautiful in an Indiana Jones sort of way--clear brooks babbling and swirling over the glacis boulders or deep under them, tunnels through tumbled rock, rich steaming vegetation and rotting fruits--and the bay itself was exquisitely remote and empty, complete with a blue jewel of a lagoon, coral-littered sands and gnarled, weathered trees and roots curling out over the beach. And a full moon on the way home.

It was very romantic. I was glad to have waited for Ian, regardless.

Opposite

2010-10-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

I was expecting to not put many pictures online while being here, because I don't have my computer with me, but I thought I probably would have stories to tell, and I would probably get myself to an internet cafe to tell them.

Well, turns out I have rudimentary WiFi on my cell phone when Ian's not here (a shared 50 euro pass) that's good enough for short emails but can't figure out blogger, and so I'm way less interested in sitting indoors at someone else's computer than I thought I would be. I want to be outside in this movie-set environment!

On the other hand, I have actually been taking some pictures, and we've been posting them on Ian's Picasa page every evening (well, morning for most of all y'all). Some even with captions, so I'm not leaving you completely bereft.

More Pictures from Paradise, and a Definition

2010-10-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

Ian, for the last couple days, has been waking before me (2 hours yesterday, just under one this morning) and spending time on his computer, both working for the conference here, and on some things from home, AND putting up pictures on a Picasa site. I'm guessing the number and quality of pics will fall severely over the next week while he's working, because I 1. have a less good camera and 2. have less mad skilz. But I'll do my best.

And now for the Definition of Paradise: NO MOSQUITOES.

Seriously, not only is there no malaria, no typhoid, no Dengue, no yellow fever, no cholera--there are NO TEENY WHINING DEVILS. How on earth???

Pretty Much Paradise

2010-10-16T09:36:00.001-07:00

Before I follow Ian exhausted into bed, I just wanted to let you know we made it here after much of a couple days, and it's perfectly lovely, and I will titillate you with a few pictures.

Where we'll be hanging out hats for the next several nights.

Little orange bird. Very pretty. Some kind of finch?

The view from our bedroom window during this afternoon's warm downpour.

Just one example of the abundant flowers.

Ian's Brilliant

2010-10-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

We are sitting in the airport Novitel at Charles de Gaulle right now, just off our flight from Seattle and just beginning our 8 or so hour layover in Paris. Instead of wandering around the airport getting tireder and tireder, or dropping our carryons (other bags are checked through) and wandering all day around town getting tireder and tireder, we're going to have a quick lie-flat, then go into the City of Light for lunch in David Sedaris's neighborhood (6th Arrondissement), then have another quick lie-flat before heading off to Golden, Equitorial Paradise.

I tell you, this man. He has the smarts.

Three More Stitched Pics and a Middle Panel

2010-10-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

These are just three more views from around the property, and a middle panel of a failed stitched picture of some really mossy trees. I think a lot of moss must have grown this year; it's been a wetter year than normal, from what I understand.

More Early Autumn Pictures

2010-10-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Some of the multitudinous mushrooms out everywhere right now. *I* would NEVER pick any of them.

A noble neighbor horse, who huffed loudly and came over at a fast clip to investigate when Spackle wandered into his domain. He was perfectly happy to simply sniff and nibble my hand. But then, I didn't cross the fence and threaten his herd.

Just in time for hunting season!

The Beeves, arranged in their Grain Acceptance pose.

The Beeves in Nature, threatening to get closer to us than we were really interested in. They were coming toward us with purpose indeed, as you can see. We high-tailed it back out of their pasture.

Me with Sikem, today's Noble Steed, and my four Squires.

Infiltration

2010-10-10T16:11:00.001-07:00

I would like to be keeping my I Thought I Was Done With This life separate from my Dilettante Traveler life but, as happens, because both those lives are, in fact, equally intimately mine, the two lives occasionally meet, and occasionally meet in a dramatic way, as happened this last week over here in Jerome Creek.

Originally I was planning to be here for three weeks--long enough to spend some time with K&A and my dogs and their dogs and all the horses and cows--no, beeves we're calling them now because they are all fixed but two are steers and two are spayed heifers--and then some time WITHOUT K&A (or anyone else), because they would be on vacation and I would be holding down the fort, blissfully alone in this wilderness heaven. Ian's singular job had us heading to the Seychelles, though, and so I planned to cut my trip here down with a razor to the very last possible day and leave here on the 13th, Wednesday, and Ian are flying out of Seattle on the 14th, Thursday (I have already packed my two bikinis and 3 sun dresses and crate of pills and medications. I'm ready to pop on the plane.).

Plans change.

I got: a migraine? Stomach flu? Food and/or alcohol poisoning (on one mug of hot buttered rum?)? A bacterial infection from throwing away a truly nasty bone the dogs were munching on, with my bare hands, and then forgetting and licking my fingers (I don't remember licking . . .)? Who knows, but last Wednesday, the day K&A were leaving, I woke up completely incapacitated. Roaring, jackhammering headache. Shivers. Nausea to the point of puking (only 4 times, I think). Orange diarrhea. Migraine auras of both visual and tingly kinds. Major anxiety.

This, of course, threw everyone (well, A. in particular) into a tizzy--because, what was going to happen with me? I couldn't be left alone (fair enough), and they couldn't stay with me. I began a preliminary rally around 3pm, A. managed to find a friend to stay with me for the night and pick up my mom from the Moscow-Pullman airport the next day, and Mom's been here ever since.

It's been a big, complicated stew of suggestions and proposals here since Mom arrived. Should she leave on Monday as originally planned, so that I have two days of renewed independence? But to save my nerves and hers for my drive home, should we have Marsh fly in Wednesday and I'll only have to drive as far as Moscow to pick him up and then he'll take over? Or, Mom can stay the whole time and, so that I don't have to drive with her, I take her to Moscow and she fly out while Marsh flies in? And how can she get to Medford, where she was planning to meet friends for the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland? Does this paragraph not make a whole lot of sense? Yeah, I think so too.

What we decided on is this. I did not sleep well last night (a ridiculous fly that would start buzzing about every 1 1/2 hours and, since it's so quiet here, rattle me awake), and I was worried this morning that I would not feel confident enough in my recovering health to take care of things for any time alone (although it was my overweening wish that I would feel comfortable), and it seemed that having two days in Seattle would be really helpful before flying to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET, and so Mom and I are leaving, together, tomorrow afternoon after a couple of appointments I'd already scheduled (therapy, for me, and a vet for Shadow to look at her eye).

Mom will get to Ashland, I will have someone to drive with me, Marsh will miss out on a lovely autumn trip back and forth across the state, and Ian will, after all, have a chance to see our dogs for a short time, the only time he'll get to see them in about two months.

I think that's the kind of cancer I have--Infiltrating ductal--and that's certainly what it's been doing the last several days, darn it all.

Early Autumn

2010-10-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

All of us out for a ride--it was glorious. Well, that is, all of us but Tessa, who chose to stay behind on a comfy bed on the porch. Spackle was having none of that invalid thing.

Panorama looking over K&A's tree farm and pastures into the neighboring pastures. Dogs under tree at right, perfectly happy.

Panorama of horses and one of the big pastures. It was almost 60 degrees today--a perfect day to be outside exercising. It really is so beautiful here.

Going it Alone

2010-10-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

I arrived at Jerome Creek this afternoon around 4pm after a perfectly lovely 5 1/2 hour drive. My goals were 1) Greet, pet, kiss, reprimand (mix, repeat) my dogs--Hoover squoke with joy for a whole five minutes 2) Unload my car and get my slushy fruits into a freezer 3) fetch Shadow and have a relatively short, easy bareback ride that all dogs could accompany me on. Shadow, of course, added a pre goal-3 constitutional because I'd come out with carrots as a lure and not grain--idiot--and so I trekked up the hill, then down the hill after flying heels, then back again and further up the hill into the trees after flying heels that were too fast for me to really track them, then back down the hill when no heels were to be found anywhere, flying or not, then to the Garagemahal for a bucket of grain, then, finally, to a fence post where I could acouter my steed.

The ride was absolutely lovely. Warm evening air, slanted sunlight, leaves just beginning to change, the smell of aging fir needles, horse who was, once caught, quite happy to be on an outing. Dogs ranging according to their ages and interests (i.e. Spackle right behind Shadow's now reasonably paced heels; Hoover covering ten times the ground). The worst thing, I mused, about riding alone, was that there was no one to benefit from the cleared path, from which I had taken 3,476 spiderwebs with my face, and 10,003 fir needles with the rest of my upper body.

Then, I mused some more, and decided that no, I was wrong, that was the second worst thing. The WORST thing was that there was no one here to perform those services for ME.

Preparations

2010-09-30T22:05:00.001-07:00

As avid blog readers know (well, my avid blog readers of course), I'm going to be embarking soon on one of my major loves in a major way over the next couple months: Travel, capital T. I leave on Saturday for Idaho for starters, where I'll revel in northern Idaho October WITH MY DOGS!!!! I HAVEN'T SEEN THEM SINCE AUGUST!!!! and my blaze orange "I'm not a deer!" vest, for almost two weeks. I'll be returning to Seattle on 13 October, dropping the dogs at Mom and Marsh's DHOE I (Doggy Heaven on Earth One for less avid readers), and rendezvousing at home for one night with Ian before we both take off for the Seychelles morning of the 14^th. We get back the 29^th.

Now, to prepare for two weeks in a tropical paradise I did a couple things. First, I bought two new bikinis at J Crew's end of season final sale, and had Nordstrom sew faux-boob pockets into the right-hand cups of both tops. I was expecting to pay for this service, as the bikinis were not purchased at Nordstrom, but in an example of their fine, fine customer service, they stitched in the pockets for free. This did work in their favor, of course, because I'm going to be traveling with a girl friend, but not a girlfriend—I think Ian would object—as well as MS, probably—and, well, me too (sorry, MS, it's not that you're not attractive)—in November, and (little secret here) I generally don't wear pajamas, and I thought it only appropriate that I have some when sharing hotel rooms on a platonic vacation. Anyway, when I was there yesterday picking up my free alterations, the lovely young salesgirl in the lingerie department was only too happy to help me find truly the perfect nightgown, for only 99 smackeroos.

The other thing I did yesterday, with a bit of the spirit of experimentation buoying me along, was to get not just my bikini line sugared (like waxing but nominally less painful—so they say), but get my two whole legs sugared AS WELL. You may have caught the parenthetical statement encased in the last sentence about waxing and pain. All I can say is that I never had my legs waxed, but this. was. a. pile. of. hurt. For ONE HOUR I lay on a table under bright lights with my pants off and PAID SOMEONE to rip my body hair out by the roots. At one point, the sugarer eagerly encouraged me to sit up and look at all the short dark hairs, complete with follicles, in the wad of sticky sugary stuff she was holding in her gloved hand. Yep, ew. Periodic ripples of anxiety washed through me with some of the more violent yanks—as they would any person, I'm assuming. Although maybe that's supposed to be part of the fun. Anyway, my next appointment is in November, just before my trip Down Under.

I've ordered pills or made plans to order them from Idaho (and Ian can pick them up); I have a packing list for horseriding in the mountains and for swimming around the only granite oceanic islands on the planet, both of which I intend to fill by tomorrow night; I have baby-bottom-smooth legs; I've got a list of addresses for postcards, all ready to print on mailing labels for easy sending. If you'd like a postcard, send me your address. If you don't get one, it's because of African postal services. I'm pretty much ready to take off and see the world!

YAY!

The Babies of the Family

2010-09-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Me holding Daisy on my lap

Me holding Lovemore on my lap

Note: it is HOT in Austin.

All Closed Up

2010-08-30T20:42:00.001-07:00

I've had nightly chats with K&A about the dogs since leaving them Friday afternoon—which was very, very hard, by the way, stupid dogs—and I'm pleased to report that Spackle's wound has been comporting itself well if he and Hoover haven't been—quite—model dogs. As of today the drain hole left in Spackle's hip wound is completely sealed, and nothing seems to be infected. Hoover's ear is, I'm sure, perfectly fine—it didn't even get a mention in tonight's call.

Spackle hasn't been an evil dog in any way—he's just been himself, rolling in fresh horseshit when he can't be bathed (A. used a deodorizing spray on a towel that she rubbed over him until he stank less), and getting all four paws in the pond when he's not allowed to swim—and only at the last minute, when A. was preparing herself to go in after him, heeding her commands and reluctantly retreating.

Hoover hasn't been an evil dog either—he's just been HIMself—which means he's decided he likes the Jerome Creek place and it could only be better if he were Top Dog. He's not going to be; everyone else, humans and dogs alike, are banded together against him taking on that role. Nevertheless, he's trying for it, which is trying the patience of Sadie at least, who is top dog.

Things here in Seattle are lovely and calm.

Improving

2010-08-26T10:07:00.001-07:00

Hoover of course never showed any signs of needing rest, and is well on the mend, only yelping once yesterday when someone briefly caught his stitched ear. As for Spackle, he obviously has much farther to go, but is also showing signs of being well on the mend, and quite relieved to have the lumps off of him. He even, much AGAINST doctor's orders as well as my own, JUMPED INTO THE BACK OF THE 4-RUNNER last night as we were heading out for a picnic dinner, leaving the other dogs behind. BAD DOG. YOU NEED TO LET YOUR SUTURES REST.

For all you people who've had pets or children or partners recovering from surgeries and know some of the signs to watch for, I'm pleased to report that he's eating well (wet food, mixed with a little dry), drinking water and piddling normally, and pooping normally as well. And he is showing all signs of enjoying his exalted invalid status.

Good dogs.

Sheesh. You Dogs.

2010-08-24T13:08:00.001-07:00

I'm in Jerome Creek right now for 5 nights—which has turned into 6—while K&A are present. This was going to simply be a visit where I helped out a little with things that were specifically needed (there's only so much I can anticipate when I'm here on my own, outside of taking care of animals), rode some horses, and played with my dogs in the countryside before leaving them here for six weeks for K&A to take care of.

Yes, the shoe's on the other foot now, as it were, and they have kindly agreed to watch Spackle and Hoover while Ian and I go to our weddings/trips to see friends/chemotherapy for our pasture over the next several weeks.

Last fall when I was here for a length of time, of course, was when Spackle developed his serious, inexplicable illness and spent nights in the clinic and the WSU Vet School hospital. We ultimately gave him Prednisone for his ailments and that seems to have done the trick—for the past almost-year he's been quite well and happy. Years ago during our first visit here, Spackle caught a stick in the back of his throat and needed a vet in an emergency—he had not pierced his brain, however. Sometime in the middle past he tore an ACL out here but, not knowing what was going on, I didn't take him to a vet for that . . . but I should've.

His recent issues have been apparently minor—just a couple of benign cysts—one on his left hip and one just next to his spine. Our vet has been checking on these; indeed, checked them a week before I brought the dogs here, and the cysts were stable.

Well, the night before we came, last Friday, the cyst on Spackle's hip was larger. Instead of being the size of a marble, it was the size of two marbles. I squeezed it and some fluid came out, but it was like blood serum—not stinky, and mostly clear. Saturday, once arriving here, I squeezed it again, and again some clearish, non-smelly fluid came out . . . but by Sunday morning it was a large puffy patch the size of half a bagel, and Spackle didn't eat any breakfast. Uh-oh.

Sometime during the day it ruptured, and then Spackle started licking at it, and it was obvious by Sunday afternoon that a vet would have to be consulted. Thank you, Spackle, for making it all the harder for me to want to leave you for six weeks—not only because now I'll worry about you, but because you have left extra work for your hosts.

Hoover, apparently not wanting to be left out of the fun, managed to rip a 1cm slash in one of his ear flaps, in a flamboyant cavort away from chasing cows and under a barbed wire fence. I'd like to think this has larned him a lesson, but he doesn't seem to be that sensitive of his injury, and certainly didn't make a sound when it happened. I found out about it by reaching down to grab him so he wouldn't head back at the cows, and coming away with my hands covered in blood. He's mostly black, and so stains of any sort are pretty invisible. At any rate, he doesn't keep his head still, and so the ear would stop dripping, and then he'd shake his head, and fresh spots of crimson would appear wherever he'd been standing. It looked, as K said coming into his white-painted farmhouse, as if someone had been butchering chickens there.

I had a relatively sleepless night Sunday night (read a good article in Harper's about concealed weapons) while dogs licked and snored, and got a call into the vet yesterday morning early. They called back soon after 8am, by 9am I had the dogs in the Potlatch examining room, and they both had surgeries.

Spackle's was major—at least the cyst that had erupted. It had turned from nothing to a huge, infected, spidering mass of tendrils growing through his subcutaneous fat, attaching to blood sources, and generally showing beginning signs of world (or at least dog) domination—all of which needed to be cut out. The cyst on his spine, on the other hand, was completely contained and easy. But still left a sizeable, Frankensteinian bald patch.

Hoover's was minor, and the few stitches seem to be holding back the tides of blood. He's slightly more klutzy because of his round of anesthesia, but seems none the worse for the experience, and quite a bit the better. This was interesting, too: when I left the dogs yesterday morning, they were put into the same cage, because there was only one left and it was the big one. Someone came in and gave Spackle some drugs, because his surgery was going to be first, and he started to fall asleep. This evidently alarmed Hoover, who, much to my surprise and gratitude, became very protective of his older brother when they came back to get him for his procedure. Evidently, Hoover stood over Spackle and did some serious GRRRing at the people coming to get him. No one was hurt, and Hoover's worry was of course misplaced. But wasn't that sweet? Who knew he even cared???

Dogs are now back, and Hoover is a little subdued, and Spackle is more subdued, but in happy, healthy dog ways. Spackle didn't wait for a lift from the back of the car and leapt out, but managed not to faceplant in the driveway, so I think he's going to be fine.

And I will say this for them: Well done, The Dogs, having these procedures in rural north Idaho. The entire cost of the experience, including Spackle's two surgeries and Hoover's stitches, anesthesia for both, a night in the clinic for both, suppers and breakfasts, pills, a 12-pack of wet food in case Spackle's not interested in dry at the moment, and a lampshade collar in case Spackle licks: $406.99. Probably no more than a third of what it would've been in Seattle.

The Stuff of Life

2010-07-21T10:05:00.001-07:00

This is really a post that belongs on both The
Dilettante Traveler and I Thought I Was Done With This. I've been thinking a lot recently about the things that I like to do with my time, with my life. I like the horses, of course. My 20-year high school reunion was just last weekend and people I haven't seen in 20 years asked what I was up to and I said horseback riding and they nodded knowingly. "You always were into horses," they said. Which is a little weird, I suppose, since my being "into" horses has never involved the insane show circuit . . . it was, I have thought, a much more low-key "into horses" . . . but nevertheless, it's true. I am and I have been, into horses.

I like the fiber arts, if you will. Knitting hats and sweaters, most recently getting myself into the Fair Isle designs—which take a lot more time than the simple hats I've been doing for the past several years. I've also been sewing a lot—glitter bags for everyone I can think of (if I haven't thought of you and you'd like one, drop me a line)—and recently, crazy-patterned pillowcases because we've started using more than two pillows on our bed—hence, more than the number of cases that came with our sheet sets. Also, we like to have our pillowcases hold our down pillows together a bit—and so we only want them to be 18 inches wide. I've already had to alter most of our existing cases. I also bought some fabric just the other day to make some scrub-like lounge pants—much prettier, of course, than scrubs (particularly Dr Jason's black, Grim Reaper ones), but the same basic, loose-fitting drawstring design.

I've been finding it satisfying to keep the yard moderately tidy as well; it's been quite the season for lawn growth—particularly if your lawn consists primarily of dandelions—and twice I've had to do an entire sweep with the weedwacker before I could even begin to make any headway with our rotary mower.

As for the less domestic pleasures, well, travel. What can I say—I find it exhilarating to visit new cultures and new locations. The ability to fly around the world, observing people in all their natural habitats, and immersing myself in those habitats—I love that. And so, while I've been reveling in domesticity, I've also been making plans for World Domination. To that end, friend MS and I (you may remember her from the most recent day of lostness in Jerome Creek) are going to be taking an Equitours trip in Australia in November—horseback riding (with guides!) for a week from inn to inn along the Sunshine Coast. We're then going to pop over to New Zealand's South Island and add some more rides—in this case following in the footsteps of Strider and the Hobbits— and visit my friend C in Wellington (and, in fact, actually get to visit the place where I "moved" in 2007 when Ian and I sold our cars and rented our house and left town for several months). And I can't help being excited about this part: it will be my 6^th continent within a year. I love my life.

And then, in April, KENYA! Ian and I have been wanting to go back to Africa for years—well, East Africa, since Cabo Verde last January certainly counts as Africa—and we've managed to finagle an unbelievable plane trip: two BA tickets in Club World, Seattle to Nairobi and back, for the price of only one set of airline miles. I tell you, if you can figure out how to work the system, the system REALLY works for you.

So . . . I'm happy. I'm still feeling a little anxiety associated with things that I commit to doing for other people . . . or even mention I may be interested in thinking about doing for other people (the problem seems to be my personal definition of "commitment," rather than any external expectations). I'm slowly, as well, figuring out the benefits of a life of scheduled days off (I have chosen to "work through" my day off this week, in the interests of, well, horses), and I'm learning to stop feeling guilty about enjoying the path I am so fortunate to have been given.

My Inlaws Kick Your Inlaws Ass

2010-06-01T21:45:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've been home for ten days now, and I've given up on writing anything new about the horses from my last Jerome Creek trip, but I would be doing a disservice to Ian's parents if I didn't share how badass they are when it comes to long trail rides that include, well, a bit of difficulty at the home stretch.

First off, J is 65 and D is 75. They've both ridden enough before that they've retained muscle knowledge, and they are both healthy and active in their day-to-day lives, so an hour or so on horseback is a pleasure much more than it is a penance.

We went on an average-length ride (5 ½ miles) the day after they arrived, taking the fateful trail J and I had been on a couple years ago when she fell off her horse, I flew off mine, and we both had issues for months after (hip for her, tailbone for me). I cleverly took us counter-clockwise instead of clockwise, in the hopes that J would not feel the stress of returning to the scene of an accident. She assured me that she had absolutely no idea where she was; that she was pretty much following me blindly; and that she not only wouldn't recognize one curve of grassy road in a thousand miles of grassy road; she would also in no way be able to make it back home.

D thought that he had a pretty good idea of where home was, however, and pointed off in a direction ahead. "Nope," I said, "not even close. Home is almost directly behind us." It didn't help anyone's sense of direction that the sun was hiding, of course, but still—it's hard. It took me years to figure out where I was, and even now, it only (as I hope I've made clear here in this blog) works most of the time.

And so, Ride 1 was uneventful and beautiful. The next day we were all set for Ride 2, which was going to be a little more ambitious—steeper hills, narrower tracks, clearer clearcuts, sweepinger views, an extra couple miles—but still well within our purview, because it was a circle I'd actually taken before. Although not, as of yet, this year.

Have I mentioned that I clearly do not run a 5-Star Luxury Establishment, All Your Needs Met Before You Are Even Aware Of Them?

The first 2/3 of our ride were lovely. J really connects with Snickers and finds her to be a sweet lady, and Shadow behaves well for D. "See if she'll let you open the gate," I suggested to D, our first afternoon out, "without having to get off of her." He kneed Shadow up to the gate and reined her in, and she stood perfectly for him to unlatch it, then stepped back efficiently so he could ride through (we didn't need to close it until we got home). She does not do that for me—she makes me work for it, walking this way and that, standing with the gate just out of reach, backing at the last minute when I almost have the clasp worked out, then, around the 7^th attempt, standing, bored, rolling her eyes and sighing, as if to ask "why didn't you say so???" Sikem was also behaving, only balking a little when I rode him away from the mares and up and down various side trails so that I could get them charted with the GPS. We all, human and equine, enjoyed the several-minute walk/trot through the clearcut, seeing the last snow on the distant mountains, the new barn being built on a nearby hill, various birds.

And then we came to the woods.

From the beginning, there was a tree across our path. A giant tree but, there in the margin between woods and clearcut, easy to walk around. However, there followed another huge tree, then a smaller tree that we could see down the hill. I sent my troops back to open air and left Sikem in the care of D, and the gorp (trail mix, for those of you not from the PNW) I'd brought along in the care of J. I was beginning to worry about them—going back the way we came would be a long ride, and it was approaching Taylor dinner time. Having been married to a Taylor for almost 9 years now, I know that this is serious business. I hoped the gorp would keep things under control while I scouted.

Well, scouting was ultimately completely successful because I'm writing this from my desk in Seattle, and the Taylors Sr are safely back home in Bellingham. But really all it did was allow me to clear one tree with my handy saw, just enough to get us deeply enough into the woods to be committed. The trail was AWFUL. There were trees down everywhere, and it's a steep hill. Even when we reached Maple Creek, downed trees kept us neatly away from the well-established road there. We ended up, with the assistance of Shadow, picking our way across the creek and up a slope to end up on the road we'd come in on, a place where I've always wished for a trail, but could never see one. There really isn't one. You can check out our route here on my map. It's JCR6 and JCR6part2 because for some reason the GPS cut off in the middle. More than 9 miles, guys!

I was able to take us the rest of the way home with no more mishaps, however, and I'm pretty sure that was the night we went to the Hoo Doo. Everyone's tradition at Jerome Creek now is to have one dinner at the Hoo Doo . . . which meant that I had three dinners at the Hoo Doo this time around . . . which might be a bit much, etc. etc.

Anyway, Well Done the Taylors!

(and with this, back to ITIW)