Saturday, May 31, 2008
San Antonio, Chile
San Antonio is a port city about 30 or 40 minutes from El Tabo. On our first full day in Chile, this was our destination. May 21 is a national holiday in Chile and we were not sure anything would be open but the guide book promised sea lions in San Antonio and I figured they would not have clue about the Chilean navy.
As it turned out the promenade along the waterfront had several artisan shops open and people were out and about despite the rain. This part of Chile reminds me of California and particularly San Francisco in the way houses are built on the steep hillsides overlooking the bays. I guess Mukilteo and Seattle are this way, too but the flora and fauna in Chile remind me more of California than the Puget Sound region.
San Antonio
Dave and Lucas getting a snack on the promenade.
Yum!
Notice the two dogs in the photo above. The dog situation in Chile was fascinating to me. They seem to have a significant feral dog problem. Dogs are everywhere. There were dogs on the beach, in the villages, and running all over the place in Santiago. But unlike Puerto Rico or Mexico where you also see a lot of dogs, the dogs in Chile do not all look alike and some of those that are loose appear to be pure bred or nearly so. I saw German Shepherds, Greyhounds, and Golden Retriever mixes. They are smart and streetwise and seem to know just what to do to have their needs met. A couple of times as we were walking along, a couple of dogs would join us for a little ways. The whole dog culture was really interesting to me. In addition to all of the dogs, there are also a large number of pet food shops so I assume that many families claim some of these dogs as pets. Naturally, I wanted to pet all of them but some were mangy, cut, and full of fleas. You really could not tell which ones might be pets unless they had on a collar.
Sea Lions
The sea lions were hanging out near the seafood market. These two guys seemed to be a part of the neighborhood. While we were looking at them, a little girl ran up and waved, "Hola!" at them like they were old friends.
San Antonio is a port city about 30 or 40 minutes from El Tabo. On our first full day in Chile, this was our destination. May 21 is a national holiday in Chile and we were not sure anything would be open but the guide book promised sea lions in San Antonio and I figured they would not have clue about the Chilean navy.
As it turned out the promenade along the waterfront had several artisan shops open and people were out and about despite the rain. This part of Chile reminds me of California and particularly San Francisco in the way houses are built on the steep hillsides overlooking the bays. I guess Mukilteo and Seattle are this way, too but the flora and fauna in Chile remind me more of California than the Puget Sound region.
San Antonio
Dave and Lucas getting a snack on the promenade.
Yum!
Notice the two dogs in the photo above. The dog situation in Chile was fascinating to me. They seem to have a significant feral dog problem. Dogs are everywhere. There were dogs on the beach, in the villages, and running all over the place in Santiago. But unlike Puerto Rico or Mexico where you also see a lot of dogs, the dogs in Chile do not all look alike and some of those that are loose appear to be pure bred or nearly so. I saw German Shepherds, Greyhounds, and Golden Retriever mixes. They are smart and streetwise and seem to know just what to do to have their needs met. A couple of times as we were walking along, a couple of dogs would join us for a little ways. The whole dog culture was really interesting to me. In addition to all of the dogs, there are also a large number of pet food shops so I assume that many families claim some of these dogs as pets. Naturally, I wanted to pet all of them but some were mangy, cut, and full of fleas. You really could not tell which ones might be pets unless they had on a collar.
Sea Lions
The sea lions were hanging out near the seafood market. These two guys seemed to be a part of the neighborhood. While we were looking at them, a little girl ran up and waved, "Hola!" at them like they were old friends.
// posted by Janet @ 3:15 PM
0 comments
Friday, May 30, 2008
We Brought the Rain to Chile
Lucas informs us that the weather is beautiful in Chile now that we have left. We had pouring rain on some days but a couple of days we enjoyed sunshine. The first day we were in El Tabo and after getting settled into our casa, the rain drenched everything. While Dave and Lucas were out scouting around for wood for the fireplace, I noticed a muddy river flowing down the road in front of the cabin. Within a few minutes, a road grader appeared to dig a proper channel for all of the water. Of course, I was fascinated and went outside to watch for a few minutes not realizing how wet I would get. The deluge caused tons of sand to flow over the main road in the village. Many unpaved side roads became impassable. The driveway up into our cabin was so muddy we had to leave our car near the road. It wasn't until a few days later that we learned people had actually died in this storm and that the amount of rain at one time was highly unusual.
When we ventured out afterwards, this is what we found:
Near a bakery.
Actually, there is a funny story related to the above picture. We were returning from San Antonio and spotted a bakery and a little store on either side of this intersection so we stopped. As we went into the bakery, we heard a man screaming and yelling and of course, I did not understand what he said. I thought perhaps he was yelling at his wife. He came to the counter from the back acting somewhat sheepishly and we bought some items. Lucas started laughing when we crawled back into the car because he understood what had happened. Evidently, the man had been watching a soccer game and he had let out some profanities not knowing we were in his store. Lucas translated for us the equivalent in English. Oh my! But since Lucas is the only one of us to speak Spanish, we had no idea.
After the rain the Andes show themselves.
The above picture was taken just outside of Melipilla and very close to Lucas' house. The rains stopped and the skies cleared revealing one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is autumn in Chile so the grapevines have turned a harvest gold. We were driving along a curvy road where Lucas likes to ride his bike and Dave pulled the car over to take this photo. The scenery was breathtaking. I see why Lucas is enjoying Melipilla.
Lucas informs us that the weather is beautiful in Chile now that we have left. We had pouring rain on some days but a couple of days we enjoyed sunshine. The first day we were in El Tabo and after getting settled into our casa, the rain drenched everything. While Dave and Lucas were out scouting around for wood for the fireplace, I noticed a muddy river flowing down the road in front of the cabin. Within a few minutes, a road grader appeared to dig a proper channel for all of the water. Of course, I was fascinated and went outside to watch for a few minutes not realizing how wet I would get. The deluge caused tons of sand to flow over the main road in the village. Many unpaved side roads became impassable. The driveway up into our cabin was so muddy we had to leave our car near the road. It wasn't until a few days later that we learned people had actually died in this storm and that the amount of rain at one time was highly unusual.
When we ventured out afterwards, this is what we found:
Near a bakery.
Actually, there is a funny story related to the above picture. We were returning from San Antonio and spotted a bakery and a little store on either side of this intersection so we stopped. As we went into the bakery, we heard a man screaming and yelling and of course, I did not understand what he said. I thought perhaps he was yelling at his wife. He came to the counter from the back acting somewhat sheepishly and we bought some items. Lucas started laughing when we crawled back into the car because he understood what had happened. Evidently, the man had been watching a soccer game and he had let out some profanities not knowing we were in his store. Lucas translated for us the equivalent in English. Oh my! But since Lucas is the only one of us to speak Spanish, we had no idea.
After the rain the Andes show themselves.
The above picture was taken just outside of Melipilla and very close to Lucas' house. The rains stopped and the skies cleared revealing one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is autumn in Chile so the grapevines have turned a harvest gold. We were driving along a curvy road where Lucas likes to ride his bike and Dave pulled the car over to take this photo. The scenery was breathtaking. I see why Lucas is enjoying Melipilla.
// posted by Janet @ 11:36 AM
0 comments
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Discomfort Part
Today, I will describe the most uncomfortable parts of the trip to get it out of the way. Our family has traveled extensively and I feel fortunate that we have been able to do so. We have been able to go places because Dave goes everywhere and racks up tons of frequent flyer miles. Our three flights to Chile were "mostly" frequent flyer miles. I will not take the time to explain the "mostly" part but it can be difficult to get the flights you want especially when three people are traveling together.
We flew direct to Atlanta from Seattle and then direct from Atlanta to Santiago. Our return was the same--direct from Santiago to Atlanta and Atlanta back to Seattle. The flights between Santiago and Atlanta were 9 hour overnight flights. Luckily, both going and coming the planes were not full so we were able to spread out with seats between us to help with sleeping. Still, I do not sleep well and always feel like a pretzel when we land. The Atlanta-Seattle flight is five hours. We did not have seats together so yesterday, I was in the middle between a tiny woman with MS and a large man who did not speak English. For five hours (after completing the nine hour overnight) I sat there with my head bobbing asleep and not wanting to bother either of them to make a bathroom visit. I couldn't read because I kept falling asleep--yuck. Seriously, when we landed in Seattle, I wanted to kiss the ground.
The Santiago airport is nice. It is not huge like Atlanta or Seattle but we had a nice sit down dinner with a cute waiter before boarding our red eye. They also are not as ridiculous about security. As we started through security, I started to do my usual--taking my eye drops and hand sanitizer in the plastic bag out of my purse, taking off my coat, belt and shoes--until a friendly smiling Chilean man approached me and gently said, "no, no." He directed me through the metal detector and told me I was fine. Wow! How civilized and rational. By comparison, when we landed in Atlanta and had to go through customs, immigration and security again, the TSA were screaming at us, "Put your bag here....move it, move it." An older frightened Chilean woman behind me was trying to copy everything I did. Shoes off, belt off, coat off, hurry hurry, do not hold up the line people! All the while, we were faced with giant American flag murals and obnoxious videos showing folks of all different ethnicities saying "Welcome. WELCOME. Welcome. WELCOME."
When we first arrived in Santiago, Lucas met us at the airport. We rented a car to drive the hour's drive to the coast where I had reserved a beach cottage in El Tabo. The pictures online looked charming and the price of about $60 per night was terrific for the four of us.
Charming. Right? Things are not always as they appear to be!
In my life I have gone camping and also, I have stayed in rustic cabins. Iron Springs and Kalaloch on the Washington Coast come to mind. I am very glad for my Montana upbringing and all of the times we camped or I would not have had a clue about how to deal with the few days in El Tabo. When we arrived and Juan Carlos showed us around, I kept saying to myself, "we are camping; we are just camping....in Chile." The website had shown two bathrooms and I could not see where the second bathroom was until Juan Carlos revealed a four foot tunnel/hole in the kitchen wall to crawl through. At that point, I started to laugh. "Ok, we'll be ok. How bad could it be?" I decided this would be my personal bathroom but after two days of crawling through the tunnel, I ended up with a back ache and bumped my head a couple of times.
Actually, this casa was luxurious compared to how a large percentage of the Chilean population lives so how could I complain. I decided it was God's idea of a joke for me to pay penance for having our bathrooms remodeled. In other words, before I was allowed to truly enjoy my new bathrooms in Mukilteo, I needed to have this experience.
The sinks had no hot water at all. The showers had hot water via a calephon which is like a big propane tank. This is typical in Chile and Lucas' house in Melipilla is equipped the same way. Needless to say, the showers were a little unpredictable with both heat and water. If you flushed the toilet, no water would come out in the shower. Likewise, if you turned on the kitchen faucet, the shower would stop. It did not matter that we had two bathrooms because only one of us at a time could use a toilet, sink or shower. If we cooked anything and needed to do dishes, we had to heat water on the stove--not unlike camping like I said. Washing your face at bed time was with cold water.
Another quirk about Chile is that they do not flush toilet paper---used toilet paper--down the toilets for fear of a methane explosion. Luckily, Lucas is able to flush his toilet paper in his nice little house in Melipilla. I now believe this to be a luxury and have enjoyed my morning here at home flushing away toilet paper in my new Toto toilet. Sorry, but I could NOT get used to this. Between the four of us, we were filling up a couple of grocery bags a day. It was disgusting. Even an outhouse allows a person to throw the paper down the hole, for heaven's sake.
I learned from the guide books that very few Chileans have central heating. Even though the temperatures were in the forties at night and fifties during the day, we had no heat in our casa. Dave and Lucas managed to find a place that sold scrap lumber just for this purpose. It was dry wood but took quite an effort to start a fire because the fireplace was wet with rain water and we had no dry kindling. They managed to get a fire going and felt accomplished to say the least. Unfortunately, all of the heat went right up the chimney and unless you sat immediately in front of the fire, it did not heat up the house. In retrospect, we should have purchased a portable heater and left it with Lucas. He has no heat either and by e-mail today he told me he did just that and his house is much more comfortable now that he doesn't see his breath in the mornings. The mornings and evenings were spent in our casa wrapped in the infinite number of alpaca blankets they provided.
When we arrived, the rains had begun. As a result, in addition to the coldness in the cabin, it was damp. Poor Dave had a low grade fever and kept getting the chills. Kaley spilled some water on the floor and even after wiping it up, it did not dry the whole time we were there. But the worst part was that the cabin was dirty. I do not know how long it had been since anyone had stayed there but the bathrooms were filthy and one of them was crawling with ants. In one of the sinks, as I brushed my teeth, I spotted cigarette butts in the drain and I almost threw up. The floor had not been mopped in years. We could not wear our shoes because they were all covered with mud from our outings. Our socks were literally turning black. The first thing I bought in Chile was several pairs of socks. We bought bug spray and tried to clean the bathrooms as best we could for our own use. I washed the dishes in the kitchen before we used them. Kaley's room had mice and crickets which bothered her during the night. Luckily, we had brought our own clean sheets and towels. Even though the beds were damp, because of the ample blankets and our own sheets, all of us except for Kaley slept quite well.
Oops--I forgot--an update: Of course, we had electricity but no TV and with the different currents, we did not even bring hair dryers or curling irons. This was a challenge for both Kaley and me because we tend to have out of control hair. Dave was able to charge his lap top and we watched some DVD's I brought on three different nights and this was really fun! On the first night, the rain was a deluge and the roof leaked onto the floor upstairs. Kaley turned on the bathroom light and got hit with a full body shock. Um, this wasn't good.
Our plan was to stay in the casa for a week. I thought I'd get used to the new way of life but instead I began dreaming about a nice warm hotel room where I could flush my used toilet paper. We decided to blow our budget and the last two nights of our trip to Chile, we stayed in the newly renovated and gorgeous Radisson Hotel in Santiago. The shower I took when we checked in was one of the best showers of my life!
How lucky are we that we could choose to leave uncomfortable living conditions? How many people in the world suffer everyday without heat or adequate facilities? How spoiled are we that we could not even take a week out of our lives to struggle a little? I wouldn't change our decision to stay in the casa. The location was great for our sightseeing and proximity to Lucas. It was part of seeing how Chileans live everyday without even thinking twice about it.
But I really liked the hotel!
Today, I will describe the most uncomfortable parts of the trip to get it out of the way. Our family has traveled extensively and I feel fortunate that we have been able to do so. We have been able to go places because Dave goes everywhere and racks up tons of frequent flyer miles. Our three flights to Chile were "mostly" frequent flyer miles. I will not take the time to explain the "mostly" part but it can be difficult to get the flights you want especially when three people are traveling together.
We flew direct to Atlanta from Seattle and then direct from Atlanta to Santiago. Our return was the same--direct from Santiago to Atlanta and Atlanta back to Seattle. The flights between Santiago and Atlanta were 9 hour overnight flights. Luckily, both going and coming the planes were not full so we were able to spread out with seats between us to help with sleeping. Still, I do not sleep well and always feel like a pretzel when we land. The Atlanta-Seattle flight is five hours. We did not have seats together so yesterday, I was in the middle between a tiny woman with MS and a large man who did not speak English. For five hours (after completing the nine hour overnight) I sat there with my head bobbing asleep and not wanting to bother either of them to make a bathroom visit. I couldn't read because I kept falling asleep--yuck. Seriously, when we landed in Seattle, I wanted to kiss the ground.
The Santiago airport is nice. It is not huge like Atlanta or Seattle but we had a nice sit down dinner with a cute waiter before boarding our red eye. They also are not as ridiculous about security. As we started through security, I started to do my usual--taking my eye drops and hand sanitizer in the plastic bag out of my purse, taking off my coat, belt and shoes--until a friendly smiling Chilean man approached me and gently said, "no, no." He directed me through the metal detector and told me I was fine. Wow! How civilized and rational. By comparison, when we landed in Atlanta and had to go through customs, immigration and security again, the TSA were screaming at us, "Put your bag here....move it, move it." An older frightened Chilean woman behind me was trying to copy everything I did. Shoes off, belt off, coat off, hurry hurry, do not hold up the line people! All the while, we were faced with giant American flag murals and obnoxious videos showing folks of all different ethnicities saying "Welcome. WELCOME. Welcome. WELCOME."
When we first arrived in Santiago, Lucas met us at the airport. We rented a car to drive the hour's drive to the coast where I had reserved a beach cottage in El Tabo. The pictures online looked charming and the price of about $60 per night was terrific for the four of us.
Charming. Right? Things are not always as they appear to be!
In my life I have gone camping and also, I have stayed in rustic cabins. Iron Springs and Kalaloch on the Washington Coast come to mind. I am very glad for my Montana upbringing and all of the times we camped or I would not have had a clue about how to deal with the few days in El Tabo. When we arrived and Juan Carlos showed us around, I kept saying to myself, "we are camping; we are just camping....in Chile." The website had shown two bathrooms and I could not see where the second bathroom was until Juan Carlos revealed a four foot tunnel/hole in the kitchen wall to crawl through. At that point, I started to laugh. "Ok, we'll be ok. How bad could it be?" I decided this would be my personal bathroom but after two days of crawling through the tunnel, I ended up with a back ache and bumped my head a couple of times.
Actually, this casa was luxurious compared to how a large percentage of the Chilean population lives so how could I complain. I decided it was God's idea of a joke for me to pay penance for having our bathrooms remodeled. In other words, before I was allowed to truly enjoy my new bathrooms in Mukilteo, I needed to have this experience.
The sinks had no hot water at all. The showers had hot water via a calephon which is like a big propane tank. This is typical in Chile and Lucas' house in Melipilla is equipped the same way. Needless to say, the showers were a little unpredictable with both heat and water. If you flushed the toilet, no water would come out in the shower. Likewise, if you turned on the kitchen faucet, the shower would stop. It did not matter that we had two bathrooms because only one of us at a time could use a toilet, sink or shower. If we cooked anything and needed to do dishes, we had to heat water on the stove--not unlike camping like I said. Washing your face at bed time was with cold water.
Another quirk about Chile is that they do not flush toilet paper---used toilet paper--down the toilets for fear of a methane explosion. Luckily, Lucas is able to flush his toilet paper in his nice little house in Melipilla. I now believe this to be a luxury and have enjoyed my morning here at home flushing away toilet paper in my new Toto toilet. Sorry, but I could NOT get used to this. Between the four of us, we were filling up a couple of grocery bags a day. It was disgusting. Even an outhouse allows a person to throw the paper down the hole, for heaven's sake.
I learned from the guide books that very few Chileans have central heating. Even though the temperatures were in the forties at night and fifties during the day, we had no heat in our casa. Dave and Lucas managed to find a place that sold scrap lumber just for this purpose. It was dry wood but took quite an effort to start a fire because the fireplace was wet with rain water and we had no dry kindling. They managed to get a fire going and felt accomplished to say the least. Unfortunately, all of the heat went right up the chimney and unless you sat immediately in front of the fire, it did not heat up the house. In retrospect, we should have purchased a portable heater and left it with Lucas. He has no heat either and by e-mail today he told me he did just that and his house is much more comfortable now that he doesn't see his breath in the mornings. The mornings and evenings were spent in our casa wrapped in the infinite number of alpaca blankets they provided.
When we arrived, the rains had begun. As a result, in addition to the coldness in the cabin, it was damp. Poor Dave had a low grade fever and kept getting the chills. Kaley spilled some water on the floor and even after wiping it up, it did not dry the whole time we were there. But the worst part was that the cabin was dirty. I do not know how long it had been since anyone had stayed there but the bathrooms were filthy and one of them was crawling with ants. In one of the sinks, as I brushed my teeth, I spotted cigarette butts in the drain and I almost threw up. The floor had not been mopped in years. We could not wear our shoes because they were all covered with mud from our outings. Our socks were literally turning black. The first thing I bought in Chile was several pairs of socks. We bought bug spray and tried to clean the bathrooms as best we could for our own use. I washed the dishes in the kitchen before we used them. Kaley's room had mice and crickets which bothered her during the night. Luckily, we had brought our own clean sheets and towels. Even though the beds were damp, because of the ample blankets and our own sheets, all of us except for Kaley slept quite well.
Oops--I forgot--an update: Of course, we had electricity but no TV and with the different currents, we did not even bring hair dryers or curling irons. This was a challenge for both Kaley and me because we tend to have out of control hair. Dave was able to charge his lap top and we watched some DVD's I brought on three different nights and this was really fun! On the first night, the rain was a deluge and the roof leaked onto the floor upstairs. Kaley turned on the bathroom light and got hit with a full body shock. Um, this wasn't good.
Our plan was to stay in the casa for a week. I thought I'd get used to the new way of life but instead I began dreaming about a nice warm hotel room where I could flush my used toilet paper. We decided to blow our budget and the last two nights of our trip to Chile, we stayed in the newly renovated and gorgeous Radisson Hotel in Santiago. The shower I took when we checked in was one of the best showers of my life!
How lucky are we that we could choose to leave uncomfortable living conditions? How many people in the world suffer everyday without heat or adequate facilities? How spoiled are we that we could not even take a week out of our lives to struggle a little? I wouldn't change our decision to stay in the casa. The location was great for our sightseeing and proximity to Lucas. It was part of seeing how Chileans live everyday without even thinking twice about it.
But I really liked the hotel!
// posted by Janet @ 9:26 AM
5 comments
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
We Have Returned!
As many of you know, my son Lucas is teaching English as a second language to students in Melipilla, Chile. Lucas wanted us to visit him and learn about his adventure so we did. I have written before about how I am a reluctant traveler and I do not like to be outside of a specific comfort zone. To be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Chile. I was not sure what to expect. But every time we take a trip, I learn more about the world and my family's place in it. Always, I come home with the thought that Americans are ignorant. I also feel guilty because so much of the world is poor and we of all people on the earth are in a position to do something about it.
My comfort level was tested a bit and I will write about it---but it makes me mad at myself because of how 95% of the children in the world live. I am proud of my son for teaching me and I am proud of my son for teaching those who need to be taught. Chile is a beautiful country and I am so glad we had the opportunity to see a small part of it. It is long and skinny. From the top to the bottom of Chile is about the same as Alaska down to Cabo san Lucas. We were only in the mid section spending our time between Santiago and the coast because Melipilla is in between.
Being that Chile is in the Southern Hemisphere, it was fall there. Leaves were falling from the trees. Darkness came at about 5:30 PM and the weather had turned rainy and cold. It was weird today to return to Seattle and all of the spring blossoms. And at 8:13 PM---it is still very light outside. I will begin with two photos. The first is from the beginning of our trip and our visit to San Antonio on the coast and the second is from our last day together in Santiago.
San Antonio, Chile on the coast.
Downtown Santiago, Chile
More later!
As many of you know, my son Lucas is teaching English as a second language to students in Melipilla, Chile. Lucas wanted us to visit him and learn about his adventure so we did. I have written before about how I am a reluctant traveler and I do not like to be outside of a specific comfort zone. To be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Chile. I was not sure what to expect. But every time we take a trip, I learn more about the world and my family's place in it. Always, I come home with the thought that Americans are ignorant. I also feel guilty because so much of the world is poor and we of all people on the earth are in a position to do something about it.
My comfort level was tested a bit and I will write about it---but it makes me mad at myself because of how 95% of the children in the world live. I am proud of my son for teaching me and I am proud of my son for teaching those who need to be taught. Chile is a beautiful country and I am so glad we had the opportunity to see a small part of it. It is long and skinny. From the top to the bottom of Chile is about the same as Alaska down to Cabo san Lucas. We were only in the mid section spending our time between Santiago and the coast because Melipilla is in between.
Being that Chile is in the Southern Hemisphere, it was fall there. Leaves were falling from the trees. Darkness came at about 5:30 PM and the weather had turned rainy and cold. It was weird today to return to Seattle and all of the spring blossoms. And at 8:13 PM---it is still very light outside. I will begin with two photos. The first is from the beginning of our trip and our visit to San Antonio on the coast and the second is from our last day together in Santiago.
San Antonio, Chile on the coast.
Downtown Santiago, Chile
More later!
// posted by Janet @ 8:01 PM
2 comments
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Message to Cyberworld!
I will be taking a little break here for the next week or week and a half. The weather has been gorgeous for the last two days but we will soon return to 60's and chance of rain.
Update: feeling better with the asthma thanks to modern medicine and a doctor who had a pharmacy degree before he got his MD!
Bye!
(Yep, my eyes are really that color)
I will be taking a little break here for the next week or week and a half. The weather has been gorgeous for the last two days but we will soon return to 60's and chance of rain.
Update: feeling better with the asthma thanks to modern medicine and a doctor who had a pharmacy degree before he got his MD!
Bye!
(Yep, my eyes are really that color)
// posted by Janet @ 9:46 AM
3 comments
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Heat Wave?
"They" say we are going to have a little heat wave here for the next three days. Supposedly, it is to get to 80 or above today. But when I was out in the back yard cleaning up you know what, it was 53 degrees with fog and drizzle. But now at 10:30 AM, I am beginning to see a tiny bit of blue sky though I am still shivering while I type this. I refuse to turn the heat on if it truly is going to get hot outside.
taken at about 8 AM this morning
"They" say we are going to have a little heat wave here for the next three days. Supposedly, it is to get to 80 or above today. But when I was out in the back yard cleaning up you know what, it was 53 degrees with fog and drizzle. But now at 10:30 AM, I am beginning to see a tiny bit of blue sky though I am still shivering while I type this. I refuse to turn the heat on if it truly is going to get hot outside.
taken at about 8 AM this morning
// posted by Janet @ 10:27 AM
3 comments
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Era of the Hippie
When I wrote about becoming engaged yesterday, my thoughts went flying back to the early 70's when the world as I knew it was all about being a "hippie." Interestingly, at the time neither Dave nor I thought we were true hippies but when I look back upon those revolutionary times, we were in the midst of it all like many of our age group. Rather than a black and white category of hippiedom, like everything, there were gradations. Dave's brother was 8 years older and his sister was 5 years older. They were not a part of the movement.
The civil rights movement was separated from us in Montana but we were not isolated from the Vietnam war. Because of the draft, it affected all of the boys my age. We were unified against the war. The anti-establishment views most of us held were as a consequence of that war which had continued relentlessly our entire childhoods. One of the events that catapaulted us into hippiedom and solidified us as a group was Kent State. How I viewed it at the time was that students were peacefully protesting the Vietnam war and particularly the invasion of Cambodia. In a heavy handed attempt to quash any opposition to the policies of our government, the National Guard was called in. In May of 1970, when I was a junior in high school, the National Guard opened fire on unarmed university students and killed four of them.
It is difficult for me to express the hatred we felt toward the "establishment" after Kent State. It is a horrible feeling to think your own government wants to kill you. The profound impact of that day in May in 1970 on the baby boom generation resulted in a great divide between kids my age and adults more than any other time in our history. We included in the definition of "establishment" university administrations, local, state and the federal government, the military, the police and pretty much everybody our parents' age. No longer could we salute the flag or say the pledge of allegiance. The world we had been taught about in elementary school in the late 50's and early 60's had been turned completely upside down. We believed the original values of our nation embodied in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence had been trashed. The older people looked at kids as unpatriotic and protests as terrible. They were the WW2 generation and they could not fathom questioning the flag or our government's choice to wage war. To rebel, we rejected everything that symbolized their generation. Suits, ties, dresses, high heels, girdles, bras, hats, cleanliness, teased bouffant hairdos, crew cuts, and martinis were looked upon with utter disdain.
Montana, particularly Missoula more than Bozeman, became a crossroads and a refuge for those we regarded as the true hippies. Always, I had great admiration for many of these folks who began to live their beliefs. After Kent State, a lot of students dropped out of society and these are the people that I regarded as the true hippies. They traveled aimlessly from place to place and many joined or formed communes. Multitudes of kids headed up to Canada to escape the draft or to hang out outside of the United States. Banff, Alberta became the mecca. When I graduated from high school, one of my best friends, Tina, and I took off on our own to Canada. Dave and a bunch of his friends joined us once we crossed the border. We camped along the way, picked up hitchikers who were just kids like us, and found ourselves in Banff. I remember I sent a post card to my parents and told them we had become "bona fide" hippies. It was exciting to witness the movement first hand and to be a part of crowds of kids who had decided American society was not cool anymore. But of course, my friend and I and Dave and his friends returned to Montana, American society, reality and college. Nope, the colorful VW bus with endless wanderings was never a part of our lives.
While we were in college, many hippies continued to pass through Montana on their way to Seattle or California and college campuses without the presence of the National Guard were friendly places to stop. In fact, MSU had a large courtyard made of bricks and we were told the bricks were loose so that students would have a way to defend themselves in case the government decided to shoot at us. I'm thinking now that I am 55 that perhaps this was an urban myth. I have specfic memories of meeting people on campus who were just visiting and sitting on the lawn at outdoor rock concerts listening to stories. In addition, certain folks stayed. Missoula even now has aging hippies crawl out of the woodwork when they have Hempfest. I had a young English professor who drove from Seattle with her husband and two small children in an old broken down station wagon and they ended up in Bozeman. To me, they were true hippies. They had left behind the big city to eak out a living in a small college town in Montana. The couple asked me to baby sit their children every now and then and I always got a kick out of seeing in plain sight in their house a little crop of marijuana plants. I discovered from a google search today that she and her husband are still professors at MSU to this day. Both of them have become successful authors of several books.
MSU, being out of the way and calm, also was a refuge for many students from wealthy families back east who were terrified of the campus unrest in the rest of the country after Kent State. Ironically, these parents probably had no idea that MSU and the UM were hippie pit stops. A lot of these kids managed to get lacrosse teams organized and they loved the great skiing near Bozeman. I became good friends at MSU with a girl who was actually an heiress of a wealthy Texan family from a major US corporation. For her own protection, they sent her to Montana. I never did get the feeling she liked it much. I do not know whatever happened to her.
So, were we hippies or were we not? The following were definite characteristics in addition to hair to my waist and Dave's long hair and beard:
1. Tie dye. Indeed, I tie-dyed a few things. It was fun but it was difficult to keep the t-shirts from bleeding on other clothes when washed.
2. Jeans. Jeans were everything. Kids today do not realize that before us, jeans were not a regular part of the typical wardrobe. We were not allowed to wear jeans to school--until college. My favorite pair of jeans were a work of art. I sewed wild colored trim on the bell bottoms. I embroidered different symbols all over the legs including Canada's maple leaf. I wore them constantly and washed them infrequently.
3. Work Shirts and underwear shirts. We found our blue work shirts at stores that sold work clothing and boots. I also found the long underwear shirts at the same places.
4. Natural Linen. I made Dave a peasant shirt out of natural linen and then I embroidered it with all sorts of symbols like the peace symbol.
5. Macrame and beads. I learned to do macrame and we used it to make plant hangers and decorative items. Also, I made earrings, bracelets, and necklaces out of small different colored beads.
6. Earth shoes. Dave and I both had Earth shoes with reverse heels.
7. Waffle Stompers. Mine were blue and were the original light hiker.
8. Head shops. Since a lot of the clothes we liked to wear were unavailable in mainstream department stores, we'd find Indian print shirts and bedspreads in places like this.
9. Pachouli oil. It was the smell of the times. A whiff of this now sends me back 35 years like nothing else.
10. Long peasant dresses. I had a couple and I made them myself. The material was various shades of brown.
Clarification: As I wrote this yesterday, I was having a hard time putting it in past tense as the images in my brain were of me back then. Also, I never thought of my parents as a part of what we rejected. They were cool. My Dad let my friend and me take his new Jeep Wagoneer to Canada. And my Mom made me the coolest vest out of moose hide. My Dad had killed a moose which we ate and he had the skin tanned. I think I was the only person in the world with a moose hide vest. I rebelled in two ways against my parents. 1) They were smokers and I did not like that. 2) My Mom played bridge and tried her best to get me interested--wouldn't do it.
blurry picture of me with my Indian print shirt--the Tetons
Being a hippie was definitely the style of those days back in the early 70's and there was a certain way of life and a rebellious mindset that went along with the dress. I remember thinking I thought it would last forever. The jeans part certainly has. Did we truly change America?
No and unfortunately the answer is one word----Iraq.
When I wrote about becoming engaged yesterday, my thoughts went flying back to the early 70's when the world as I knew it was all about being a "hippie." Interestingly, at the time neither Dave nor I thought we were true hippies but when I look back upon those revolutionary times, we were in the midst of it all like many of our age group. Rather than a black and white category of hippiedom, like everything, there were gradations. Dave's brother was 8 years older and his sister was 5 years older. They were not a part of the movement.
The civil rights movement was separated from us in Montana but we were not isolated from the Vietnam war. Because of the draft, it affected all of the boys my age. We were unified against the war. The anti-establishment views most of us held were as a consequence of that war which had continued relentlessly our entire childhoods. One of the events that catapaulted us into hippiedom and solidified us as a group was Kent State. How I viewed it at the time was that students were peacefully protesting the Vietnam war and particularly the invasion of Cambodia. In a heavy handed attempt to quash any opposition to the policies of our government, the National Guard was called in. In May of 1970, when I was a junior in high school, the National Guard opened fire on unarmed university students and killed four of them.
It is difficult for me to express the hatred we felt toward the "establishment" after Kent State. It is a horrible feeling to think your own government wants to kill you. The profound impact of that day in May in 1970 on the baby boom generation resulted in a great divide between kids my age and adults more than any other time in our history. We included in the definition of "establishment" university administrations, local, state and the federal government, the military, the police and pretty much everybody our parents' age. No longer could we salute the flag or say the pledge of allegiance. The world we had been taught about in elementary school in the late 50's and early 60's had been turned completely upside down. We believed the original values of our nation embodied in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence had been trashed. The older people looked at kids as unpatriotic and protests as terrible. They were the WW2 generation and they could not fathom questioning the flag or our government's choice to wage war. To rebel, we rejected everything that symbolized their generation. Suits, ties, dresses, high heels, girdles, bras, hats, cleanliness, teased bouffant hairdos, crew cuts, and martinis were looked upon with utter disdain.
Montana, particularly Missoula more than Bozeman, became a crossroads and a refuge for those we regarded as the true hippies. Always, I had great admiration for many of these folks who began to live their beliefs. After Kent State, a lot of students dropped out of society and these are the people that I regarded as the true hippies. They traveled aimlessly from place to place and many joined or formed communes. Multitudes of kids headed up to Canada to escape the draft or to hang out outside of the United States. Banff, Alberta became the mecca. When I graduated from high school, one of my best friends, Tina, and I took off on our own to Canada. Dave and a bunch of his friends joined us once we crossed the border. We camped along the way, picked up hitchikers who were just kids like us, and found ourselves in Banff. I remember I sent a post card to my parents and told them we had become "bona fide" hippies. It was exciting to witness the movement first hand and to be a part of crowds of kids who had decided American society was not cool anymore. But of course, my friend and I and Dave and his friends returned to Montana, American society, reality and college. Nope, the colorful VW bus with endless wanderings was never a part of our lives.
While we were in college, many hippies continued to pass through Montana on their way to Seattle or California and college campuses without the presence of the National Guard were friendly places to stop. In fact, MSU had a large courtyard made of bricks and we were told the bricks were loose so that students would have a way to defend themselves in case the government decided to shoot at us. I'm thinking now that I am 55 that perhaps this was an urban myth. I have specfic memories of meeting people on campus who were just visiting and sitting on the lawn at outdoor rock concerts listening to stories. In addition, certain folks stayed. Missoula even now has aging hippies crawl out of the woodwork when they have Hempfest. I had a young English professor who drove from Seattle with her husband and two small children in an old broken down station wagon and they ended up in Bozeman. To me, they were true hippies. They had left behind the big city to eak out a living in a small college town in Montana. The couple asked me to baby sit their children every now and then and I always got a kick out of seeing in plain sight in their house a little crop of marijuana plants. I discovered from a google search today that she and her husband are still professors at MSU to this day. Both of them have become successful authors of several books.
MSU, being out of the way and calm, also was a refuge for many students from wealthy families back east who were terrified of the campus unrest in the rest of the country after Kent State. Ironically, these parents probably had no idea that MSU and the UM were hippie pit stops. A lot of these kids managed to get lacrosse teams organized and they loved the great skiing near Bozeman. I became good friends at MSU with a girl who was actually an heiress of a wealthy Texan family from a major US corporation. For her own protection, they sent her to Montana. I never did get the feeling she liked it much. I do not know whatever happened to her.
So, were we hippies or were we not? The following were definite characteristics in addition to hair to my waist and Dave's long hair and beard:
1. Tie dye. Indeed, I tie-dyed a few things. It was fun but it was difficult to keep the t-shirts from bleeding on other clothes when washed.
2. Jeans. Jeans were everything. Kids today do not realize that before us, jeans were not a regular part of the typical wardrobe. We were not allowed to wear jeans to school--until college. My favorite pair of jeans were a work of art. I sewed wild colored trim on the bell bottoms. I embroidered different symbols all over the legs including Canada's maple leaf. I wore them constantly and washed them infrequently.
3. Work Shirts and underwear shirts. We found our blue work shirts at stores that sold work clothing and boots. I also found the long underwear shirts at the same places.
4. Natural Linen. I made Dave a peasant shirt out of natural linen and then I embroidered it with all sorts of symbols like the peace symbol.
5. Macrame and beads. I learned to do macrame and we used it to make plant hangers and decorative items. Also, I made earrings, bracelets, and necklaces out of small different colored beads.
6. Earth shoes. Dave and I both had Earth shoes with reverse heels.
7. Waffle Stompers. Mine were blue and were the original light hiker.
8. Head shops. Since a lot of the clothes we liked to wear were unavailable in mainstream department stores, we'd find Indian print shirts and bedspreads in places like this.
9. Pachouli oil. It was the smell of the times. A whiff of this now sends me back 35 years like nothing else.
10. Long peasant dresses. I had a couple and I made them myself. The material was various shades of brown.
Clarification: As I wrote this yesterday, I was having a hard time putting it in past tense as the images in my brain were of me back then. Also, I never thought of my parents as a part of what we rejected. They were cool. My Dad let my friend and me take his new Jeep Wagoneer to Canada. And my Mom made me the coolest vest out of moose hide. My Dad had killed a moose which we ate and he had the skin tanned. I think I was the only person in the world with a moose hide vest. I rebelled in two ways against my parents. 1) They were smokers and I did not like that. 2) My Mom played bridge and tried her best to get me interested--wouldn't do it.
blurry picture of me with my Indian print shirt--the Tetons
Being a hippie was definitely the style of those days back in the early 70's and there was a certain way of life and a rebellious mindset that went along with the dress. I remember thinking I thought it would last forever. The jeans part certainly has. Did we truly change America?
No and unfortunately the answer is one word----Iraq.
// posted by Janet @ 10:48 AM
3 comments
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Speaking of This and Speaking of That
The numbers coming out of our two most recent disasters just blow me away. I can't get over the numbers. Imagine if a windstorm and flood wiped out Everett by killing every single man woman and child. Next imagine if an earthquake leveled Mukilteo leaving no survivors. Finally, let's say that the Seattle Metropolitan area experienced so much damage that half of the population was left homeless. The truth is I cannot imagine but these are the numbers of victims we are hearing about.
The last major earthquake in Seattle was in 2001. It measured a 6.8 and lasted forty seconds. Think about forty seconds: One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three,.....all the way to one thousand forty. It was terrifying for me as my house shook and rolled. My son was in high school and my daughter was in middle school---brand new schools that held up well. They were not frightened as they ducked under their desks. Each of their schools is about the size of the school that collapsed in China killing most of the students. In China, the quake measured orders of magnitude greater at a 7.9 and it lasted over two minutes. So, just keep counting past one thousand forty and keep going until you pass one thousand sixty and then count all over again. All of those families.......Geez! The idea of an earthquake leveling Mukilteo is actually more probable than possible.
The only damage we had besides frayed nerves was this signed print by artist Marlow Urdahl of Bozeman, Montana. It crashed on the fireplace and the broken glass left a big scratch across it. Nevertheless, I'll keep it forever. Imagine your whole house gone, your neighborhood gone, your town gone and friends and family killed. Hopefully, some sort of help would arrive quickly but if Katrina is any indication, I'm not so sure.
Anyway, on to happier thoughts. Speaking of Bozeman. Bozeman is where Montana State University is located and where Dave and I attended college. Next month we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. Our wedding was in Helena but we became engaged in Bozeman. On Mother's Day, as we were enjoying a nice dinner, we reminisced about our engagement dinner. We were dining on a couple of lobster tails we bought at Costco and this started the conversation.
Probably, we had lobster that summer evening so long ago. My gosh, we were younger than our children are now and were in the midst of a hippie stage except for this particular evening when I remember I dressed up a little in a dark blue mini-skirt. Actually, Dave and I had broken up several months before. Over the summer, he was working for Coca-Cola in Helena hauling pop and driving trucks. I stayed in Bozeman to go to summer school. Since we were not together, I dated a couple of different guys that summer. As a matter of fact, when Dave called me and said he wanted to drive from Helena to take me out to dinner, I had to break a date with a pre-law student I kind of liked.
Dave made the dinner date sound important so I guessed his plan was to ask me to get back together again. We went to the Topper Restaurant which no longer exists but it was one of the nicer places in Bozeman at the time. Not only did Dave want to get back together but he actually proposed with a ring and everything. Since his Dad was a jeweler, he had access to such things. His Mom thought he was being presumptuous to pick out a ring without asking me first. She helped him with the selection and asked what he would do if I said no. "She won't say no!" was Dave's response. I was shocked and thrilled and said "Yes!" Never did I have any doubts or regrets about my answer.
Yes, we probably had lobster and steak or prime rib that night and even though we were only 19, we probably had some wine. The drinking age in 1972 in Montana was 19. Because of the Vietnam war, while we were in college, they changed the voting age to 18 and the drinking age to 19. Lawmakers figured that since over 40,000 kids had given their lives for that ridiculous war, the least they could do was to let them have the right to vote and the right to have a beer now and then.
Our lobster tails from Costco were not as good as the Topper's but it was fun to remember. While we ate, we spotted one of our bald eagles with a fish dangling from its talons as it landed in the giant doug fir. She was eating her Mother's Day dinner, too, and her life partner was not far away.
UPDATE: I took this picture of our eagle a few minutes ago at 2:30 in the afternoon. Our skies are dark dark dark today but by Thursday, the sun is supposed to be here with 80 degrees.
The numbers coming out of our two most recent disasters just blow me away. I can't get over the numbers. Imagine if a windstorm and flood wiped out Everett by killing every single man woman and child. Next imagine if an earthquake leveled Mukilteo leaving no survivors. Finally, let's say that the Seattle Metropolitan area experienced so much damage that half of the population was left homeless. The truth is I cannot imagine but these are the numbers of victims we are hearing about.
The last major earthquake in Seattle was in 2001. It measured a 6.8 and lasted forty seconds. Think about forty seconds: One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three,.....all the way to one thousand forty. It was terrifying for me as my house shook and rolled. My son was in high school and my daughter was in middle school---brand new schools that held up well. They were not frightened as they ducked under their desks. Each of their schools is about the size of the school that collapsed in China killing most of the students. In China, the quake measured orders of magnitude greater at a 7.9 and it lasted over two minutes. So, just keep counting past one thousand forty and keep going until you pass one thousand sixty and then count all over again. All of those families.......Geez! The idea of an earthquake leveling Mukilteo is actually more probable than possible.
The only damage we had besides frayed nerves was this signed print by artist Marlow Urdahl of Bozeman, Montana. It crashed on the fireplace and the broken glass left a big scratch across it. Nevertheless, I'll keep it forever. Imagine your whole house gone, your neighborhood gone, your town gone and friends and family killed. Hopefully, some sort of help would arrive quickly but if Katrina is any indication, I'm not so sure.
Anyway, on to happier thoughts. Speaking of Bozeman. Bozeman is where Montana State University is located and where Dave and I attended college. Next month we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. Our wedding was in Helena but we became engaged in Bozeman. On Mother's Day, as we were enjoying a nice dinner, we reminisced about our engagement dinner. We were dining on a couple of lobster tails we bought at Costco and this started the conversation.
Probably, we had lobster that summer evening so long ago. My gosh, we were younger than our children are now and were in the midst of a hippie stage except for this particular evening when I remember I dressed up a little in a dark blue mini-skirt. Actually, Dave and I had broken up several months before. Over the summer, he was working for Coca-Cola in Helena hauling pop and driving trucks. I stayed in Bozeman to go to summer school. Since we were not together, I dated a couple of different guys that summer. As a matter of fact, when Dave called me and said he wanted to drive from Helena to take me out to dinner, I had to break a date with a pre-law student I kind of liked.
Dave made the dinner date sound important so I guessed his plan was to ask me to get back together again. We went to the Topper Restaurant which no longer exists but it was one of the nicer places in Bozeman at the time. Not only did Dave want to get back together but he actually proposed with a ring and everything. Since his Dad was a jeweler, he had access to such things. His Mom thought he was being presumptuous to pick out a ring without asking me first. She helped him with the selection and asked what he would do if I said no. "She won't say no!" was Dave's response. I was shocked and thrilled and said "Yes!" Never did I have any doubts or regrets about my answer.
Yes, we probably had lobster and steak or prime rib that night and even though we were only 19, we probably had some wine. The drinking age in 1972 in Montana was 19. Because of the Vietnam war, while we were in college, they changed the voting age to 18 and the drinking age to 19. Lawmakers figured that since over 40,000 kids had given their lives for that ridiculous war, the least they could do was to let them have the right to vote and the right to have a beer now and then.
Our lobster tails from Costco were not as good as the Topper's but it was fun to remember. While we ate, we spotted one of our bald eagles with a fish dangling from its talons as it landed in the giant doug fir. She was eating her Mother's Day dinner, too, and her life partner was not far away.
UPDATE: I took this picture of our eagle a few minutes ago at 2:30 in the afternoon. Our skies are dark dark dark today but by Thursday, the sun is supposed to be here with 80 degrees.
// posted by Janet @ 12:39 PM
2 comments
Saturday, May 10, 2008
It's About Time I Posted!
I have not felt very well this week. It may have had something to do with that fever I had a week ago or with the fact that tons of pollen is bursting forth. My asthma has kicked up. The problem is I do not even realize it when it happens. A little less oxygen to the brain causes tiredness and keeps you from recognizing you may be sick. But, I will be fine. A nice sunny warm day would definitely help but that's not gonna happen.
I love my newspapers. To me, there is nothing like reading newspapers, comparing headlines, and looking at the photographs. The experience cannot be duplicated online where you can't get perspective of the importance of a major story by its front page placement.
Today's front page story in the Seattle Times was about a life long clam digger who found himself in deep trouble. He was after the elusive geoduck. My husband and my son have had the experience of digging up geoducks and it is no simple matter. They end up completely covered with muck as they have a full out bodily war with a clam about the size of a football. The geoduck is all compact muscle and it can dig faster and stronger than a human man could even dream about. The problem is, human men don't realize that they are weaker than this particular clam. And when you see what a geoduck looks like, men seem to have all sorts of issues when in competition with the notorious geoduck. It is a threat to their manhood if the clam gets away.
On Thursday, a local man almost lost his life in his battle for the geoduck. As he fought the giant clam, he got stuck in the mud. Then the tide came in. This man was experienced and knowledgeable but still got caught. His wife called 911. Several people on the beach tried to help pull him out to no avail and the water kept coming in---extremely cold Puget Sound water. The firefighters didn't know what to do either. They thought about a Coast Guard helicopter but the water was up to the man's waist and rising up to his neck. There wasn't time. They did manage to get a rescue fire boat there. All his poor wife could do was pray. Oh my gosh, she must have felt so helpless and for a silly clam. No doubt, geoducks are yummy but still...!
"Then Wolverton [one of the firefighters] had an idea: "I don't know how it came to me," he said Friday. "... I don't think they all had faith in my theory. They all gave me the eyebrow."
Wolverton connected a 200-foot long fire hose to the boat's fire pump. At the other end, he attached a 4-foot-long penetrating nozzle, a rod-shaped piece of equipment firefighters use to bust through roofs to pour water on a blaze. The firefighters stuck the nozzle into the sand around Thomas' legs, and the "turbulent action" from the pressurized water finally broke "the suction that was holding him there," he said.
"He popped out like a big, giant geoduck," Wolverton said."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004404909_clamdigger10m.html
The man spent some time in the hospital mostly getting warmed up and treated for hypothermia. He is going to be fine. I guess he is embarrassed at all of the fuss but they shared their story to remind people how quickly an innocent situation can become life threatening on our Puget Sound beaches. The man and his wife had a big picture of themselves in this morning's paper. My husband and I both enjoyed reading it.
John Lok/Seattle Times
What is it they say about how men sometimes think? I wonder just how big the geoduck's brain is?
I have not felt very well this week. It may have had something to do with that fever I had a week ago or with the fact that tons of pollen is bursting forth. My asthma has kicked up. The problem is I do not even realize it when it happens. A little less oxygen to the brain causes tiredness and keeps you from recognizing you may be sick. But, I will be fine. A nice sunny warm day would definitely help but that's not gonna happen.
I love my newspapers. To me, there is nothing like reading newspapers, comparing headlines, and looking at the photographs. The experience cannot be duplicated online where you can't get perspective of the importance of a major story by its front page placement.
Today's front page story in the Seattle Times was about a life long clam digger who found himself in deep trouble. He was after the elusive geoduck. My husband and my son have had the experience of digging up geoducks and it is no simple matter. They end up completely covered with muck as they have a full out bodily war with a clam about the size of a football. The geoduck is all compact muscle and it can dig faster and stronger than a human man could even dream about. The problem is, human men don't realize that they are weaker than this particular clam. And when you see what a geoduck looks like, men seem to have all sorts of issues when in competition with the notorious geoduck. It is a threat to their manhood if the clam gets away.
On Thursday, a local man almost lost his life in his battle for the geoduck. As he fought the giant clam, he got stuck in the mud. Then the tide came in. This man was experienced and knowledgeable but still got caught. His wife called 911. Several people on the beach tried to help pull him out to no avail and the water kept coming in---extremely cold Puget Sound water. The firefighters didn't know what to do either. They thought about a Coast Guard helicopter but the water was up to the man's waist and rising up to his neck. There wasn't time. They did manage to get a rescue fire boat there. All his poor wife could do was pray. Oh my gosh, she must have felt so helpless and for a silly clam. No doubt, geoducks are yummy but still...!
"Then Wolverton [one of the firefighters] had an idea: "I don't know how it came to me," he said Friday. "... I don't think they all had faith in my theory. They all gave me the eyebrow."
Wolverton connected a 200-foot long fire hose to the boat's fire pump. At the other end, he attached a 4-foot-long penetrating nozzle, a rod-shaped piece of equipment firefighters use to bust through roofs to pour water on a blaze. The firefighters stuck the nozzle into the sand around Thomas' legs, and the "turbulent action" from the pressurized water finally broke "the suction that was holding him there," he said.
"He popped out like a big, giant geoduck," Wolverton said."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004404909_clamdigger10m.html
The man spent some time in the hospital mostly getting warmed up and treated for hypothermia. He is going to be fine. I guess he is embarrassed at all of the fuss but they shared their story to remind people how quickly an innocent situation can become life threatening on our Puget Sound beaches. The man and his wife had a big picture of themselves in this morning's paper. My husband and I both enjoyed reading it.
John Lok/Seattle Times
What is it they say about how men sometimes think? I wonder just how big the geoduck's brain is?
// posted by Janet @ 9:16 AM
2 comments
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Don't Despair
Strange. All day Thursday, I felt fatigued and like a truck had run over me. I was cold so I walked Apolo to get my juices flowing to warm me up but I could only walk 1.5 miles instead of two or three. The contractors did not show up so I took a long hot shower in the middle of the day. Geez--I couldn't get anything done. I tip-toed through the construction in bathroom number four and found the drawer under the plastic where I hoped would be a thermometer. Sure enough, I had a decent fever. The week before I had attended a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) in Seattle where someone was annoyingly coughing during the whole seminar and I had a women's group meet at my house the next day where at least three of the people were sick. Oh great---3 to 7 days after exposure! I had paid to attend the Second Annual UW Climate Change CLE conference for Friday and no way did I want to miss it. I went to bed early, sweated a lot during the night and woke up feeling comfortable with no other symptoms. This has happened to me at times during my entire life. I'm pretty sure I have a virus that makes other people sick for several days but I get a fever and that's it for one day.
Anyway, I made it to my conference yesterday feeling a little tired but the fever never returned. Every now and then I run into attorneys I used to know from back in the day. Let's see. Lucas will be 23 next month so it has been 23 years since I was in the thick of Seattle's legal community. This woman approached me as I walked into the UW law school. Wow! She looked exactly the same. We had been hired by our Seattle law firm at the same time. For six years we slaved together until I left to have a baby. She left a couple of years later to become a Superior Court judge. While I had babies and raised children, she served on the bench for 14 years until she retired. This woman had had her children early in life--a boy and a girl just like me---and they were in high school by the time she began her career. Her early days had been as a full time parent. During the breaks we caught up on each other's lives. She could not believe that the reason for my oversized belly in 1985 was now a curious young man at the southern tip of Chile. I could not believe she was a grandmother.
Our attention was then fixed on the enormous problem facing us, our children and grandchildren. Global fricking warming. People, it is getting scary. I had not been on the computer since Thursday and the first story I read this morning is that seven people were killed by widespread tornadoes yesterday in Arkansas while we yet again had to sit and listen to how unresponsive our current administration is to this issue. They have denied it and ignored it. Bush's last little speech about the problem was laughable if you actually looked at what he said.
The good news is that Seattle, King County, and our state along with California, Oregon and British Columbia are way way ahead of the game. Our legislation has moved quickly to set strict levels of green house gas emissions. We are moving as fast as we can toward cap and trade agreements. Our land use and growth management restrictions now contain requirements to mitigate CO2. We learned about Paul Allen's South Lake Union development which is being built with green standards. Concrete, steel and wood are being reused. Condos and town homes exist in a self-contained community without the need for cars which is our area's biggest contributor to global warming. Our efforts have much more stringent standards than the watered down milk toast effort of the Lieberman-Warner bill now in the US Congress which is bascially too little too late.
In fact, a big part of the discussion yesterday was what happens if this federal legislation passes which is shockingly weaker than our regional laws. Will the feds make us loosen up our standards? Arnold is in a big court battle with them right this minute over this very thing. California wants stiff car emission standards and the EPA won't let it happen. Sounds like a reason for us to establish our own nation and call it Cascadia! Oops. I better not run for public office after saying such an unpatriotic thing. I mean, to suggest this is right up there with not wearing a lapel pin, God forbid.
Yesterday, my emotions went from hopeful to pissed off and back to hopeful again. Most of the speakers were in agreement that no matter which of the three candidates are elected in November, we will be significantly better off with respect to climate change issues. Bush and his oil cohorts have been a complete disaster. One of the enjoyable moments was listening to one of our Seattle attorneys describe how he is taking on the oil and power companies in a civil lawsuit. Last year, he told us he was just thinking about it--that such a case was an idealistic pie in the sky idea.
But this year, the case is on! His client is the Alaskan village of Kivalina which is being destroyed. The Arctic sea ice which had protected the village from storms is melting at an alarming rate. The village has been battered with wind and water and the shore is eroding. It is falling into the sea. The attorney on behalf of his clients is accusing the long list of power companies of causing the disaster and failing to mitigate the problem once they knew about their substantial contributions to global warming. As a part of the case, he is accusing them of conspiracy. His claim is that the coal, power and oil companies participated in a campaign to deny the existence of global warming, to question the science of it, and to call the role of mankind in it a myth. They promoted the propaganda, knowing it was wrong, in order to protect profits. He wants them to pay to have the town relocated.
Like all of the efforts to confront global warming and climate change, the lawsuit is probably a long shot. One of the questions yesterday reflected my thoughts. Everything we were hearing were baby steps in the right direction. We were proud of our local area's lead to do something--anything to stop the devastation to our earth.
But is all of this futile?
Extremes in temperature are causing drought and wildfires in western states beyond anything ever before experienced. People are breathing the smoke every summer. Extreme precipitation in our mountains has caused floods, multiple avalanches and landslides destroying property and lives. Hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes are stepped up a few notches resulting in loss of homes and death. This is the beginning and this is becoming the new normal. Can we reverse it? Can we slow it?
The answer to the question was as follows:
"I hear in your voice despair. There is a fine line between denial and despair. Neither denial nor despair takes us down the path of survival. On behalf of our grandchildren, we must survive."
Update May 6: The cyclone that hit Myanmar after I wrote this has killed 22,000 people so far. 41,000 are still missing. 100,000 have been left homeless and this number may rise to 1 million fellow human beings. Just sayin'!
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/06/myanmar.cyclone/index.html
Strange. All day Thursday, I felt fatigued and like a truck had run over me. I was cold so I walked Apolo to get my juices flowing to warm me up but I could only walk 1.5 miles instead of two or three. The contractors did not show up so I took a long hot shower in the middle of the day. Geez--I couldn't get anything done. I tip-toed through the construction in bathroom number four and found the drawer under the plastic where I hoped would be a thermometer. Sure enough, I had a decent fever. The week before I had attended a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) in Seattle where someone was annoyingly coughing during the whole seminar and I had a women's group meet at my house the next day where at least three of the people were sick. Oh great---3 to 7 days after exposure! I had paid to attend the Second Annual UW Climate Change CLE conference for Friday and no way did I want to miss it. I went to bed early, sweated a lot during the night and woke up feeling comfortable with no other symptoms. This has happened to me at times during my entire life. I'm pretty sure I have a virus that makes other people sick for several days but I get a fever and that's it for one day.
Anyway, I made it to my conference yesterday feeling a little tired but the fever never returned. Every now and then I run into attorneys I used to know from back in the day. Let's see. Lucas will be 23 next month so it has been 23 years since I was in the thick of Seattle's legal community. This woman approached me as I walked into the UW law school. Wow! She looked exactly the same. We had been hired by our Seattle law firm at the same time. For six years we slaved together until I left to have a baby. She left a couple of years later to become a Superior Court judge. While I had babies and raised children, she served on the bench for 14 years until she retired. This woman had had her children early in life--a boy and a girl just like me---and they were in high school by the time she began her career. Her early days had been as a full time parent. During the breaks we caught up on each other's lives. She could not believe that the reason for my oversized belly in 1985 was now a curious young man at the southern tip of Chile. I could not believe she was a grandmother.
Our attention was then fixed on the enormous problem facing us, our children and grandchildren. Global fricking warming. People, it is getting scary. I had not been on the computer since Thursday and the first story I read this morning is that seven people were killed by widespread tornadoes yesterday in Arkansas while we yet again had to sit and listen to how unresponsive our current administration is to this issue. They have denied it and ignored it. Bush's last little speech about the problem was laughable if you actually looked at what he said.
The good news is that Seattle, King County, and our state along with California, Oregon and British Columbia are way way ahead of the game. Our legislation has moved quickly to set strict levels of green house gas emissions. We are moving as fast as we can toward cap and trade agreements. Our land use and growth management restrictions now contain requirements to mitigate CO2. We learned about Paul Allen's South Lake Union development which is being built with green standards. Concrete, steel and wood are being reused. Condos and town homes exist in a self-contained community without the need for cars which is our area's biggest contributor to global warming. Our efforts have much more stringent standards than the watered down milk toast effort of the Lieberman-Warner bill now in the US Congress which is bascially too little too late.
In fact, a big part of the discussion yesterday was what happens if this federal legislation passes which is shockingly weaker than our regional laws. Will the feds make us loosen up our standards? Arnold is in a big court battle with them right this minute over this very thing. California wants stiff car emission standards and the EPA won't let it happen. Sounds like a reason for us to establish our own nation and call it Cascadia! Oops. I better not run for public office after saying such an unpatriotic thing. I mean, to suggest this is right up there with not wearing a lapel pin, God forbid.
Yesterday, my emotions went from hopeful to pissed off and back to hopeful again. Most of the speakers were in agreement that no matter which of the three candidates are elected in November, we will be significantly better off with respect to climate change issues. Bush and his oil cohorts have been a complete disaster. One of the enjoyable moments was listening to one of our Seattle attorneys describe how he is taking on the oil and power companies in a civil lawsuit. Last year, he told us he was just thinking about it--that such a case was an idealistic pie in the sky idea.
But this year, the case is on! His client is the Alaskan village of Kivalina which is being destroyed. The Arctic sea ice which had protected the village from storms is melting at an alarming rate. The village has been battered with wind and water and the shore is eroding. It is falling into the sea. The attorney on behalf of his clients is accusing the long list of power companies of causing the disaster and failing to mitigate the problem once they knew about their substantial contributions to global warming. As a part of the case, he is accusing them of conspiracy. His claim is that the coal, power and oil companies participated in a campaign to deny the existence of global warming, to question the science of it, and to call the role of mankind in it a myth. They promoted the propaganda, knowing it was wrong, in order to protect profits. He wants them to pay to have the town relocated.
Like all of the efforts to confront global warming and climate change, the lawsuit is probably a long shot. One of the questions yesterday reflected my thoughts. Everything we were hearing were baby steps in the right direction. We were proud of our local area's lead to do something--anything to stop the devastation to our earth.
But is all of this futile?
Extremes in temperature are causing drought and wildfires in western states beyond anything ever before experienced. People are breathing the smoke every summer. Extreme precipitation in our mountains has caused floods, multiple avalanches and landslides destroying property and lives. Hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes are stepped up a few notches resulting in loss of homes and death. This is the beginning and this is becoming the new normal. Can we reverse it? Can we slow it?
The answer to the question was as follows:
"I hear in your voice despair. There is a fine line between denial and despair. Neither denial nor despair takes us down the path of survival. On behalf of our grandchildren, we must survive."
Update May 6: The cyclone that hit Myanmar after I wrote this has killed 22,000 people so far. 41,000 are still missing. 100,000 have been left homeless and this number may rise to 1 million fellow human beings. Just sayin'!
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/06/myanmar.cyclone/index.html
// posted by Janet @ 9:44 AM
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