Updates

I see that I've been exceptionally remiss in my blog updates! Last time anyone posted was Peggy back in July. I'm happy to report that today is her 6 month anniversary at the "new" job. Now I am looking for a new job as our research project lost funding. I am so bummed about it that it's hard to even write about. But this too shall pass.

Rosemary has semi-retired and is on the tail end of a month long trip to Brazil to visit friends and to visit the area where she spent time in the Peace Corps years ago. I can hardly wait to hear about her trip. She's been off the grid mostly so all we know is that it's been very hot, she got sunburned on the first or second morning there, and the bugs have been awful. I do think she's enjoyed spending time with her friends, so I'm sure it's all been worth it.

October brought a new roof and paint for the house. I'll post before and after pics. It was quite a job and our friend Michael did a fabulous job (as usual). We had to have a moment of silence for the eco-system that was destroyed when the roof was torn off. I think there were 4 species of trees and more than 11 species of grass and weeds. Michael also found a live worm living up there, no doubt by way of a bird. Poor guy!

On the horizon is our much anticipated Italian vacation. Peggy, Rosemary and I decided to bite the bullet and travel in Europe this time. To make things even more interesting, I reconnected with my old high school friend, Kathy Ornellas, who was also my first room mate. I'm sure we'll have tales to tell the gang about the good old days . . . but not too many! We've not seen each other in more than 25 years. Turns out she and her partner will be in Italy at the same time we're there, so we will meet up in Portovenere and travel together to Florence and back to Rome to fly home. Funny that we'd have to go all the way to Italy to finally see each other!

Stay tuned for our itinerary and news of our travels. I'm sure we'll have editorials about fashion and food. I'm also sure that if asked, the Italians will have comments about our fashion, too!

Kathy


Old Roof and Ecosystem


Michael Getting Started


New Paint & Roof


Side View of Roof - yes, it's metal and it's purple!

Peggy's on her way back to work

It's true, I'm headed back to work on Wednesday. May this job be better than the last one. I've assembled my wardrobe, which consists of endless black pants, but that's what we wear to work when we get dressed at the crack of dawn. I'm looking forward to working again and being a part of a group effort, especially one that makes the world a better place.

Not working is fine at first, but then you have moments like the one I had at Glenn's party a month ago. Everybody was talking about their work, and I sat silently. I like to be active and to have people expect things of me. Jobs have given me something that no other endeavor gives me (other than a paycheck )- people contact, putting my effort into a good cause, making calm out of chaos, all day thinking.

Johnny Depp will play in the latest re-make of Dark Shadows. When worlds collide! I love Dark Shadows and I have liked Johnny Depp since his 21 Jump Street days. If you don't remember Dark Shadows and wish that you did, go to YouTube.

We are planning a new roof for the house. Michael will put the roof on, bringing along a friend. They'll stay here since Michael lives on one of the San Juans and the drive is too long. We'll have a full house, with activity abounding.

That's it from here!

Clothes Complaints and Other Items

My thoughts on clothes did not end with the end of our trip to Texas and Oklahoma. Yes, I have calmed down about an attempt, albeit innocent to sell me capri pants in Oklahoma. But now I find that Nordstrom is selling their 8 panel side zips as back zips this year, so I've lodged a formal complaint to Nordstrom and am enlisting Talbots for their help in finding side zips. Back zips are impossible for women with arms that are less than 14 feet long and who may or may not have flexibility or coordination limitations. As an aside, I entered a public restroom just the other day where a woman was swearing about her back zips slacks. Anyway, the 8 panels are a full length pant (of course) that are extremely easy to alter because there are 4 panels per leg. They were the answer to my black pant prayer. If anyone knows of a good side zip, please contact me right away, if not sooner.

My sterling nephew Garrett has checked in to say that the latest and last Harry Potter book is the best. He loved it. Garrett had his copy in hand at 12:07 a.m. Saturday morning. He read for 17 hours. That's my guy. Garrett is quite a reader and a very smart guy all the way around. He has my mother's green eyes and the innate common sense of a West.

Kathy and I spent a lot of our weekend trying to bring order to our home. We are calling in California Closets for some organizing and closet building. One of my tasks with all of this luscious time off is to throw out years worth of papers, receipts, light bills, etc. and I've nearly completed the task, although there's shredding left to do. But this didn't solve our closet problems. I will get rid of more stuff by going to work, where I will take a box of office accoutrement, including cds, a cd player and 9,000 little cartoons that I'll paste up around my desk. I can take some of the art work that is sitting around, too.

I did in fact go into my new job twice this week to aid in hiring a program assistant. The people are funny and nice and I have high hopes. I am delighted to be back on upper campus. The building is old, set in a lovely location, and right around the bend from two stellar libraries. The bookstore is 1.5 blocks away and so is the Shalimar restaurant. Who could ask for anything more? I hope I do this group proud and can accomplish what we're setting out to do.

We're into books on cd these days and are listening to the next book by the author who wrote The Kite Runner. This book is about women in Afghanistan. I believe the book will plot revolution in Afghanistan through the lives of at least two women. 1973 is the year for the first woman's story, 15 years later for the second woman's. I'm reading Poor People, a long essay on poverty, by William Vollman. It's tres reflective, very well-written, and a book I read, then put down for several days. It reminds me how privileged I am, and cuts down on my complaints, except those having to do with clothes and who they're made for.

I have finished my book for the time being. I went back through a chapter that I liked the other night and see that although I get off some good lines, the chapter is a little out of character for the book. More re-writing ahead.

I hope you're all having good summers and wearing the pants of your dreams.

Fonz

I'm absolutely in love with this dog! She's Ken's dog. Ken is Peg's brother who lives in Medford, OR. Peggy asked me to post a picture of Fonzie. I think she has something to say about her...and wanted to include a visual...

Items of Concern

Hello Everyone: Unlike you, I have a life with very few concerns these days, all of which will change when I head back to work in 3.5 weeks. In the meantime, just to keep the blog going and because I know you care, here are my thoughts and deeds these days:

I am on a non-inflaming foods, low-fat nutrition plan. I have indeed given up Diet Coke and have cut down on coffee from 1 full cup to 1/2 cup per day. I'm ingesting as little salt and as few preservatives as possible. This morning, when we went out for breakfast, I ordered an omellette, asking that it be cooked in as little oil as possible. I substituted the hash brown/home fries portion of the show with fruit, and got, of course, melon. That green kind of melon. It was a very good breakfast, in spite of the green melon, which, in my opinion, is one of your more tasteless fruits. My clothes fit better already. My skin looks uninflamed. I am, however, dying for a cup of coffee, ready to inflame something any minute.

I am, once again, addicted to the Kathy Griffin show. I find her very funny, although am finding her swearing to be a little much and done too often. It takes the place of the "you know" in the language of so many of our young people. Kathy has a very funny set up for her show. Her mother, a recent widow, has moved into the big splashy house and we are all behind her because she's a hoot and won't iron for Kathy. Jessica, Kathy's assistant, lives in the house, has blonde hair now, can't stop laughing at Kathy, and has gone gay. Jessica has an assistant now who we don't know much about (not sure if she's a resident or not) except that her grandmother watches the home shopping channel. And there's John, who Kathy makes up terrible stuff about and who laughs at her all the time. They interviewed for a handyman and found one. It would be very funny if he moved in because there's nothing funnier and more ongoing than home fix-it projects. If the new handman won't move in, they should find a Jessica-type with a tool belt and a dysfunctional present or former partner. Kathy herself is dating and attending various D-list and A-list events, all of which KG makes hilarious. It's as though we're there, but we don't have to get dressed and go out.

I am also addicted to my new blackberry, which is keeping me organized. There's a game on it, too, which I play almost constantly. It's good for tracking and beefing up various cognitive skills.

Next weekend we will visit my brother Ken and my fabulous nephew, Garrett, in Oregon. Garrett excelled in school this past year and has just returned from a trip to the east coast. He loved Wash DC. Ken continues to work on his patio and to try to bring his new, very young dachsund, Fonzie, into line. Fonzie is trying very hard to be good, but aren't we all? I have included my brother Ken in my book. He belongs there, having lived in the housing project, which is the locale of the book. I will be wearing my Orvis Buzz Off cargo pants on the drive there and back. It's very hot in that part of Oregon in the summer so I'll take my Orvis linen pants and top, too.

Speaking of the book, I talked with my 81 year old friend who I have modelled the protagonist in my book on. She is letting me use her name as the protagonist. She was a wonderful friend to me two years ago when I helped my father through hospice. She was a great friend to my father, too, especially in the last couple of years of his life, when they talked every night over the phone. Awhile back, she ordered a CD on how to get your life together.

We're talking about the Marcumentary. Kathy has a long list of things to do and people to tape to pull that project together.

That's it for now!

Next steps

One of the many inspirational sign boards we saw in our travels.


Well, the Road Trip may be technically over, but the quest for material for the documentary (Marcumentory) has just begun. (If the truth be known, my spirit hasn't caught up with my body yet...re-entry to my ho-hum life in Seattle has been a bit rough). Believe it or not, I hadn't, until Friday night, had a chance to even sit down and consider our trip, what we learned and who we met. Now that I have, I realize that we will need to go back out on the road, this time with more of a plan.

I've just emailed a local (Seattle) alternative country musician, Bob Wayne (of Bob Wayne and the Outlaw Carnies) asking for an interview and to video some of a performance. Bob and Marc met shortly before Marc died, but the two had quite a connection. Bob came to Marc's service and sang a great ballad he wrote called, "The Ghost of Johnny Cash". It was the perfect song for the occasion.

Peg is going back to work the first of August, so she tells me I'm on my own with this project for awhile.

In the meantime, I'm in search of a good digital camcorder. Stay tuned.


--Kathy

Shopping for Work Clothes

I took a tour through Nordstrom today, trying to wrap my fashion brain around what I will wear to my new job, which starts August 1. That's a difficult time fashionwise to start a job because on a new job, one must look serious, and summer clothes are not serious.

Sadly, the Nordstrom salesperson was not sure if the Caslon side zips would be re-stocked for fall. I have them in gray and black, but the latter are looking a little like the former, and need to be replaced. Those side zips go with everything, are easy to alter (4 panels on each leg), and are slimming. I am now seeking out a Nordstrom emergency hotline phone number, with grief counselors available if they are needed.

I continue to write a little, but mostly I am reading. I'm reading "The Inheritance of Loss", which won either a Booker or a National this year. It's beautifully written (I'm sure they needed to hear that from me). As I read along, I ask myself why I would consider myself a writer because I don't write like that. My writing is much more stark. But no two writers write the same way anymore than than two painters paint the same way.

We missed the rains in Oklahoma and Texas!

Hats off to Paris Hilton, who will go forth to do good works in the world. Perhaps she would like to take on my ironing.