Wow, the summer is moving right along. The weekend right after our anniversary I took a drive down to the Bay Area to visit my family. Blair couldn’t go because he was still in the middle of summer teaching, but a friend from church has elderly parents living down in Santa Cruz so she and I drove down together to share gas & driving. We had been planning to take my car, since it gets good gas mileage, but then we discovered a coolant leak (we had overheated on our trip to Bend, that’s probably why) so we ended up taking LL’s minivan. It had cruise control which made such a difference. I wasn’t exhausted like I usually am after the 10 hour trip.

I got to hang out with my “kids.” Except now they are young adults. My youngest 2 sisters made the flower fairies shown above, and they remind me of the things SS and I used to make when we were their age. I also got to hang out with my siblings that are married with their spouses. That was fun - thanks S & N for hosting me, and J & S for treating me to a lovely dinner.

Big changes at my parents’ house - Grandma M has come to live with them, and GC & RC now live in the “dorm” that was constructed in what used to be the garage. It felt really strange to go into a new room in the old house I grew up in. It was also good to see my Grandma since I haven’t much in recent years. Everybody is adjusting to each other, and it’s often not easy especially for my Mom since my Grandma needs a lot of help. I was only there for a few days but I was wishing I lived close so I could help with cooking and driving and such. I did drive the ‘burb, which felt like driving a tank - I mean it’s an automatic so it’s actually easier to drive than my honda, but it’s very wide, long, and heavy.

I took MA and HN to go visit JI and her new little guy, JMI. He was born premature, just little less early than his big brother SM was, 2 years ago. As of this writing he is home from the NICU and doing well. It was really special to be able to see him when he was just 10 days old.

Click here to see pictures.

So, that was 2 weeks ago now… I have had a busy time with work and trying to keep up with my fitness regimen - we are planning to hike the South Sister again this year and I vow it won’t hurt as much this time! Other than those activities I’ve just been hanging out and enjoying the warm and mostly sunny weather. I’m also knitting a sampler from a book I checked out from the library about how to design your own sweaters, “Sweater Workshop” by Jacqueline Fee. That’s fun. I have gotten so many invitations from friends to join Facebook that I finally did. It’s actually caused me to get in touch with a few friends-from-the-past so that’s good.

What’s new with you?

Aren’t these pretty? BN got them for me to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. That’s not all - he also made me a wooden jewelry box with embedded magnets to keep the lid on. He used some exotic hardwoods he’d gotten for Christmas - purple heart and zebra wood. I love the way the cross grains and lengthwise grains create subtle contrasting surfaces. Inside was a whole collection of silver earrings - I’d been wanting some hoops to wear all the time comfortably with no posts poking into my head.

We took a weekend getaway to Bend, which is east of Eugene. We stopped for lunch at Sahalie falls. It was a warm day but sitting within sight of the falls was cold! The rushing water really cooled the air.

Our hotel room looked out over the Deschutes river, which had a slight dam to create a calm surface for ducks and geese in Drake park downtown. We drove a short ways into downtown to find some dinner, and discovered that there was a pro bicycle racing event going on right in the middle of town - they’d closed off a several-block area and the racers did laps. Our dinner location was right at the corner of the home stretch and after we ate we watched the women’s race. It was very exciting!

From there we went to watch Wall-e. It was a sweet little movie. I appreciated that the tone wasn’t preachy (it could easily have been, with a planet made uninhabitable by garbage and the human race turned totally sedentary) and I think perhaps we were meant to identify with the robots more than the humans? It was definitely more about Wall-e and Eve than about the cruise passengers.

On Saturday morning we went to Smith Rock. We hiked up to the top of one of the formations and got some great views of Central Oregon, the various Cascade peaks, and a cute little lizard.

Smith Rock State Park is a rock-climbing hotspot, and we observed some climbers on Monkey Face, a huge pillar that’s a signature feature of the park. If you click on the image above you can see a climber right below the shadow on the lower left face.

We were very hot and sweaty after our hike, and we wanted to go swimming in Tumalo creek but we figured we’d go back to Bend first and get some lunch. A short way into our drive back we realized the car was overheating. To make a long story short, we did make it out to the creek to swim, quite a bit later than we’d planned, and after learning several new facts about the cooling system of the car, plus discovering the insider trick of pouring roadside creek water over the engine to cool it off.

When we got back to town after our swim, we cleaned up and went to check out the street fair that was going on downtown. (When we planned our trip we had no idea that Bend was going to be such a happening spot this weekend!) There were lots of booths selling art and crafted goodies, and several live bands. One of them was really groovy and we stayed to listen. The singers reminded us of some girls we’d heard singing down by the creek. I think it was the same girls.

We ate dinner at Typhoon, a very good Thai place. Best Thai we’d had in awhile, and it felt very upscale without being too pricey. Bend as a whole is so much more upscale than Eugene, astonishingly so. After a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning we strolled in Drake park and looked at the geese and ducks.

Driving home, we took a detour to Waldo Lake, where we’d been with my family last summer camping in the Cascades. The mosquitoes were just as vicious this year, but we scampered past them as best we could and the lake was cold, clear and refreshing. I’m amazed by how many activities we fit into this trip - besides the ones we planned on, even. It was a lot of fun.

While I was trying to get some breaths of air and waiting for the timing chip to be cut from my shoe (hi-tech this year!) a guy next to me leaned over and vomited. Gross! I looked away and edged to the side. I took some more gasping breaths. I looked to the left again just in time to see the vomiting guy hurl again. Great. I finished level with the vomiting guy. At least I wasn’t the one barfing.

My official time was 59:54! Yay! As they would say at the Trials, that’s a PR for me!

We have an art-film theater in town, the Bijou. If The Fall is playing anywhere near you, go see it. A visual treat, the story is also immersive and the acting is top-notch. A story-within-a-story kind of experience, it reminded me of one of our favorite books, Momo by Michael Ende. It also has hints of Alice in Wonderland and other fantasies where a child is gradually drawn into a story-world and the events in the story mirror the teller and hearer’s real life. A young girl, in the hospital recovering from a broken arm (she fell out of a tree when picking oranges with her displaced/migrant family) becomes friends with a young stunt actor, bedridden after a fall from a railroad bridge during the filming of a silent “flicker.” (it’s 1915.) Roy tells Alexandria a fanciful story, full of exotic scenery and colorful characters. The intensity of the action mounts to a brutal climax (be prepared for violence!). The best part about the movie was the sweet, mischievous little girl. The part I liked the least was the wrap-up - it was quite abrupt. But overall it was a rich entertainment and a refreshing change from the American blockbuster fare we get in the mainstream theaters.

BN and I got to go see the Monday events. He’s teaching a morning class this term so I rode my bike to campus (no parking within a 2 mile radius of the venue!) to meet him there. Before entering we scarfed down the sandwiches I’d packed (no outside food or beverages, you must fork it over for overpriced festival food) and got to the field right as the first event was starting, the men’s decathlon 110m Hurdles. Those went so quickly that I didn’t get any good photos - those guys probably had to count every step to stay in sync with the hurdles, and I couldn’t even get my shutter finger in gear quick enough. Oh, well.

The rest of the daytime session was decathlon events - next was the Discus Throw. This was also hard to capture on film since the throwers were in a small “batting cage” down at the opposite corner of the infield from us. But we had a good view of the distance markers and we were amused to note that they used remote-control toy trucks to carry the thrown discuses (disci?) back to the starting point.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger)

One of the most interesting and suspenseful events to watch was the Pole Vault. There was some complications around who started at what bar height, but basically how it worked is each athlete had 3 attempts to clear the bar, and if he made it he’d go on to attempt the next height increment. So the decathletes were gradually eliminated until the only ones left were Tom Pappas of the top-3 superstars and Ashton Eaton, a local darling from the UO track team, only 19 years old. TP set a new personal record (PR) and AE cleared almost every attempt, rapidly rising to almost the same height as TP. Yay!

We jammed out of there to grab an early dinner at McMenamin’s, our preferred burger joint about a block from Hayward Field. (no overpriced festival food for us!) When we got back the Javelin Throw was under way.

The evening session started to get a little crazy, with multiple events going on at once - the men’s Hammer Throw which was actually outside the main field; women’s High Jump and Long Jump (we didn’t get a great view of those) and Javelin; and lots of running. Here’s a picture that shows the big screen where we could see some closeups and instant replays that we would have missed otherwise; the sand pits for Long Jump and the High Jump poles with landing pads. The men are lining up for their 400m Dash semifinal.

It was so much fun to be at the trials and see a little bit of everything. We watched 2 semifinal heats of women’s 3000m Steeplechase - the girls have to run about 8 laps with several obstacles consisting of a fixed jump thingy (don’t want to call it a hurdle, not sure what the real name for it is) and a puddle of water. I’ve run across obstacles like these out in the wild while backpacking - downed trees and muddy creeks. Glad I didn’t have to run and jump… (but those girls didn’t have 20 lb loads on their backs, either.)

The stadium really filled up by the time the evening session was in full swing, and the peak of crowd-cheering intensity came during the astonishing finish of the men’s 800m final. Just twice around the track, the top 3 finishers came from behind for a flashy finish - and all Oregon-sponsored. 2 from the Oregon Track Club and one from the U of O. Rock on, home team!

We got to watch our decathletes complete their final event, the 1500m. The top 3 guys didn’t finish first in the run, but their cumulative scores were secured from the preceding events. Those decathletes deserve serious props for their well-rounded skills and stamina. Very impressive! Here they are on their post-awards-ceremony victory lap:

To wrap up the evening we watched the men’s 5000m final. For the first half at least, one guy was way out in front and the rest were in a tight pack. That was kind of a different approach than we’d seen all day. He eventually fell back to the middle-rear but we mused how the race results had been affected - maybe everyone ran faster because of him?

After an enjoyable and inspiring day, I was a bit sore from spending so much time sitting on bleacher seats, but all fired up to run the 10k on the Glorious 4th - thinking that 2008 is a fun year to be a resident of Track Town USA.

Strawberry-Lime Smoothie

- about 10 small frozen strawberries (hand-picked and fresh-frozen!)

- a frozen banana

- 2 T limeade concentrate

- 6oz container lime-flavored yogurt

- Soymilk

Place ingredients in blender in the order listed. Pulse to break up the frozen items and blend till smooth, adding soymilk as needed to adjust consistency. Refreshing for breakfast or delicious for dessert.

Look at the horns on that guy! I ran across my friend S from the Monday night knitting group and we strolled around admiring the sheep. There were big white sheep…

And little black sheep…

And, when I went back on Sunday, I got to watch a sheep get sheared. She was big and looked funny sitting there on her bum.

Besides all the critters, there was a huge market with all kinds of fiber-arts related goodies: spinning wheels and drum carders, buttons and shawl pins, knitting bags and handknit garments, roving for spinning and lots and lots and lots of YARN. Some knitters in my group had been planning for months about what they were going to buy at Black Sheep. But I was totally overwhelmed, there was no way for me to evaluate and choose something for a purpose or with intention. But, I did end up at the Blue Moon booth and buy some Socks That Rock. I’d heard and seen a lot of good about the yarn and it was easy to find 2 color schemes that I liked. Mmmm, pretty soft yarn. Very nice.

Later on Sunday I went to hang out with another knitting friend, M. She was spinning with her mom out in front of their house. When I got there she offered to give me a spinning lesson on one of their several extra wheels. (They are quite the fiber family.) So I learned how to spin! The concept is easy but I can see how it must take a lot of practice to get consistent yarn. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture. But I felt like that was a fitting conclusion to a fiber-arts themed weekend.

They charge by the bucket, so we picked two full buckets and felt like that was probably enough. When we transferred them into the bowls we’d brought from home, we realized two buckets’ worth was a lot!

We also saw a freaky white spider (I’ll keep the image small for arachnophobes, click if you aren’t afraid to see it larger):

We’ve had a strawberry-filled week since then. We had strawberry cocktails, strawberries wrapped in crepes with yogurt (yum!!!), strawberries with ice cream, and I froze two large bags full for use in smoothies. Cool.

My favorite kitchen toy recently has been the Camp Griddle that I got as a wedding gift from my grandparents. At the time, I was pleased since we love to camp. But I didn’t realize I would end up using it practically every time I cook or bake anything. The reason it’s so great is that it’s like a nonstick skillet in the shape of a baking pan. Nothing will stick to it, and one of my best tricks is oven-fried potatoes. With just a teaspoon of oil per potato, you get crispy, browned fries or hash browns. Yum. And it makes biscuits or cookies trouble-free (you have to bake them in smaller batches, but I only have 1 rack in my oven anyway.)

So, my curry was all arranged. I shelled the peas and stirred them in with the onions right before serving. These precious peas are the best I’ve ever had - they were sweet like candy. Luscious. I considered stirring the bok choi into the curry, but I hesitated. I was happy with the curry’s texture and didn’t want to throw it off… So, I decided to stir the bok choi into the steamed rice. I sliced it thin, as if it were cabbage or celery, and stirred it with the hot rice fresh from the rice cooker. A few minutes in the microwave helped get it just right - the stem slices were still crisp but the leafy greens were nice and wilted.

Earlier in the day, I had made a chopped salad for my Bible study ladies with the cucumber and radishes, plus some red bell pepper, red onion and cilantro with a lime vinaigrette. There was a bit of it left, and after I had ladled up the curry over the bok choi rice, I topped each plate with a bit of the radish “relish.”

Wow, that was the best Thai meal I’ve ever made! It tasted so fresh. I think the fresh organic veggies really made a difference, and it was really not a complex process. I guess it really supports the idea that the better your ingredients are, the less you have to do to them to get good results.

Oh, and the rhubarb - I made muffins. They came out well, studded with tart pink rhubarby goodness.

Suddenly, the greyhound went bounding across the parking lot, his leash had gotten caught on a metal folding chair and he got scared and tried to escape, but the chair was still attached to him and clattered alarmingly against the pavement. One blink and he was already across the opposite street, and we gasped in horror as he sped uphill toward the main drag, a busy street with 2 lanes in both directions. In the time it took me to think that we should all have jumped up and chased after him he was already out of sight, and none of us could have come close to keeping up let alone catching him, and he was towing that chair as if it were a plastic bag. The owner did set out after him, and the woman next to me anxiously murmured that Eugenian motorists would definitely stop for a dog. (That is, if they even saw him, tearing along approaching the speed of sound!)

We were relieved to see him come safely back with his owner and her friend, mostly OK except for a bloody foot. (I think the chair had scraped it.) One of the other knitters got a first aid kit out of her car and someone held onto him while 2 others worked on bandaging him up. He stayed pretty calm except his brown eyes looked a little bulgy and he let out one sharp bark of protest.

I have been reading a volume of “short novels” by Anton Chekhov, and in the current story the narrator mentioned cruel adolescent townsfolk who would tie an empty kerosene can to a dog’s tail and the poor thing would run himself ragged trying to escape… I felt it was an odd coincidence that I’d just read that a day or two before today’s dog/chair incident.