On the road again

Our place is full of hand carved Mexican furniture

Bridge in Newport OR

Lots of sea lions barking away

Bridge in Coos Bay

Bandon Harbor where we had lunch at a fish mark

Waterfalls

Bridge 

Yellow flowers 

Crescent City

View from motel window through screen 

It has been raining nonstop for the past 12 hours though it is supposed to stop by sunrise. still we've been lucky.   Despite the forecasts, rain didn't hit us until late yesterday and due to poor planning on my part, we couldn't stop to enjoy much anyway as yesterday we had 330 miles to drive.  Not far on a freeway but very long through numerous tiny towns with 20 mph speed limits, bad roads due to flood damage, switchbacks, construction, what have you

Yesterday morning found me running along a narrow peninsula waves crashing on one side, gulls calling, sea lions barking from their rafts, fog horns. 60 degrees and the sun was just rising. I wore a short sleeve top. A local asked if I were freezing. No I'm from Michigan. This is tropical heaven. We were in Crescent City close to the Oregon border. How much more for an ocean view? $4. Of course I want it though Steve said he grew up with a ocean view. Nothing special to him

We had a good day Wednesday As I got out of the shower I see a bright pink sky. go take some photos before it disappears!  Mendocino is on a cliff surrounded by 3 sides of water. It is full of quaint houses standing in for Cabots Cove, a Maine village in Murder, she wrote. We ate breakfast overlooking crashing waves, so pretty. The inn had lots of gardens. Rhododendrons were in bloom. Don't I have them?  I won't see them until June

All the glass seemed to be gone at glass beach in nearby ft Bragg but it was still beautiful I will get around to captioning yesterday's photos and editing this mess. The road back to the 101 was very narrow, steep with many switchbacks going through redwood and eucalyptus forests. We stopped for elk, vultures and turkeys though these photos are on Steves camera. The 101 is called the Redwood Highway in Humboldt county. We took a bypass to Victorian Ferndale home to Guy Fieri. I had remembered he mentioned it on a show about Ferndale MI.  Lunch at the Ferndale meat factory specializing in smoked meats. A Guy favorite    The Victorian houses were known as Butter Palaces for all the dairy farms nearby.   Our cows eat grass year round is written everywhere. On to eureka and more ornate Victorians, this time wealth was due to lumber. we stopped at a cafe to select that nights stay. should we try to drive to Oregon? That wouldn't leave much time for the Redwood National Park, home of the tallest redwoods. The tallest tree in the world is in there, 349 feet, unmarked so it won't be loved to death. since rain free time might be rare, our plan was to enjoy it while we can. We opted to stay in California right on the water Of course that meant Thursday would be long

How I miss my computer? Very hard to type on this and I can't see what I wrote

Steve wanted to go to the Redwoods Park the most. We took short walks through the mossy dark forests, crawled in trees, hugged trees. See yesterday's photos. There was supposed to be herds of elk roaming the place. Looked and didn't find them though we saw some earlier that day

The sun was just setting when we got to Crescent City but too cloudy to be pretty. We found a nice restaurant featuring all natural this and that for dinner. I spent some time in a hot tub, steve hates them. 

After some of my Mendocino wine, off to bed

The next day after my run while Steve took photos , off to Oregon. We stopped alot for rocky ocean views It was 70 and sunny when we stopped for lunch in Bandon  There is supposed to be agates and jade on the beach if only we had time to look but we had hardly covered any distance. We started the grueling part of the drive skipping the dunes and the fake glass beach where they dump glass pretties to find. We did stop in Newport for coffee overlooking rafts of battling male sea lions, some weighing1000 pounds. Very noisy. as the rain poured down and time was running out. The drive began to be an ordeal and anxiety causing. Our place though is very cute in Cannon Beach. there is an attractive courtyard with a fountain between the cabins. we have a little porch. if only it wasn't rainf though I don't hear it pounding so much against the skylight. Low tide is before sunrise but hopefully it will be out long enough for us to see the tide pools. no puffins though. they are here only in spring and summer. we are here at the wrong time for whales too

glass, big trees and gingerbread houses

Redwood National Parh home of Hyperion, the world's tallest tree unmarked

Carson House, Eureka

ThePink Lady Eureka

Fern dale

elk

tunnels of trees

Glass Beach.  Not much glass left

still pretty

Our first night 's inn with rhododendron in bloom. Rooms weren't that nice but common areas were beautiful

Mendocino

trees covered with moss and lichens

the road to the coast was very twisty and steep going through groves of redwoods and the mossy trees.  Hard to drive more than 20 mph but the speed limit was 55

we got to Mendocino just as the sun was setting.  the town sits on a bluff surrounded by sea on 3 sides

Steve is one of those shadows

more color at sunrise

First do no harm

the 3 granddaughters play a cacophonous trio Each of our children has a daughter

Each so different

Grandpa and granddaughter

The Dateline show highlighting our local sleazebag aired last night. Dr. Fata, operating as  an oncologist, managed to harm or kill more than 500 patients while bilking Medicare and various insurance companies  of millions and millions of dollars.  Did he do this through sheer incompetence? Nope pure greed and callous disregard for the suffering of his patients. One of his favorite scams was to falsely diagnose patients with cancer, usually cancers that had no imaging of tumors such as multiple myeloma. The lab results would be easily faked as not only did he operate the clinics but the laboratories and the pharmacies. One of his victims, who never had cancer,  had his liver poisoned by the treatment such that he needed a liver transplant. A woman in my on-line TNBC cancer group was purposely undertreated so that she would need additional treatment in his hands. She is now battling a recurrence at UM that would not have happened had he gotten clean margins and treated with radiation (he didn't have a radiation clinic). He was sentenced to 45 years (he is 50). I am not sure if he can't get out earlier. He is the most despicable person. His whole evil empire would have been uncovered earlier had the State listened to a nurse who reported what he was doing. Finally one of his own physicians became a whistleblower when he realized one of the patients clearly didn't have cancer but was treated as if she did. Medicare should have been suspicious as he was the number one biller in the country. Blame all around. Patients who hinted that they were getting a second opinion were told that he no longer would help them. And for patients, don't be so trusting. Question everything!

 

I am in preparation mode which always makes me a bit crazy though I think I finally got a handle on it. Extra bonus: earlier the weather forecast was for rain every single hour of our trip now shows a clear spot tomorrow. I've booked places for the first and third night. How far we get the second night is very dependent on many factors.

 

This morning when I ran, it was a whopping 8 degrees with a stiff headwind making the windchill well below zero (easier on the way home). Let today be the toughest weather I will deal with this year. At least there was no black ice as there had been Saturday. Maya was over most of the afternoon testing us at every opportunity. Then the kids and their spouses had a sibling night out, a first. Steve and I watched the grandkids at Shanna's. The boys were mesmerized by their devices while the girls played together. Ms. Allie, age 27 months, seems to have an early understanding of arithmetic. I was reading the girls a book in which the main character kept losing one object at a time and Allie correctly said how many things were left.

 

 

Blame the mama

not sure if these are watercolors or altered photographs

sparrow on pressed paper

Annoying squirrel eating safflower seeds that he isn't supposed to like. It took him a few weeks to figure how to squeeze himself into this cage

A splurge: Fenton carnival glass

This salad bowl appealed to me. What metal is this? I was told that if it were pewter, I couldn't afford it (must dress better I guess) It turns out to be an alloy of aluminum and 10 other metals

A selfie of Naomi that does not have the dreaded kissy lips that under 25 y.o.s find so attractive

Reading old textbooks, mothers seemed all so powerful. What causes homosexuality? Distant fathers and hovering mothers. What causes autism? Uncaring mothers. Any evidence for any of this? Any controlled studies in which identical twins raised apart with different maternal styles resulting in different results? None at all. So why was this bs published and not challenged. Who came up with these inane theories? Freud? And once one expert came up with a theory, it was just parroted by others as if it were the truth. It took years to have these theories challenged by scientists and activists.

 

I remember going to the library to try to figure out why I had such bad menstrual cramps, sometimes feeling like end stage labor. Imagine my surprise when I read that they were a figment of my imagination. They even had a personality type of girls likely to complain of cramps: thin, nervous, not accepting of their body changes. I was none of this. And for the first 4 years, I never even had a twinge of cramping. Now all of a sudden my personality changed? (I probably had cycles that didn't involve ovulation: birth control pill induced cycles are anovulatory and thus are cramp free). Of course in those days, nothing was known about the prostaglandin cycle and how to interfere with anti-inflammatory drugs. Why research something that is not 'real'? There was aspirin  in those days and that would have been helpful to take. But it was marketed for fever and headache reducing. My grandfather did forward me his medical journals. I read an article that mentioned that birth control pills stop cramps. Sign me up. My mother was most unhelpful saying some tripe that then I could have sex without consequences. So if I want to blame the mama for something is  her total lack of critical thinking. Better for me to writhe in pain. I had to bide my time until I got to college. Still numerous roadblocks were in front of me before I could get relief.

 

By the time I reached adulthood, I had numerous examples of the same style of parenting resulting in vastly different results. Kids are what they are. There is very little one can do to change that. Yes I know parents treat children differently. I have been accused of that. I would not take Shanna on a weeklong bike trip and I would not take Josh to the ballet. Parents can make things much more difficult. If I didn't have to work so many hours, more time could have been spent studying. I made sure that my kids didn't need to work while they were taking classes. I did help with homework (no one ever helped me) and tried to make sure it got done.

 

But except for this very recent trend of parents obsessing with outcome of how they deal with their toddlers, for the most part there are scientific studies to why one is gay, one is schizophrenic, one is a musical prodigy. Less blame on the mother.

 

So the other day, I am reading in the science section of the WSJ about personality types: some people prefer one-on-one interactions whereas others don't mind socializing in a group. I accept that there are these individuals but then the lady goes on to say that the ones who can only deal with one human at a time had nervous mothers who passed their anxiety to them. She offered no evidence of this other than this is what she thinks. I can't believe this crap got by their editors. It is fine to discuss possible theories but they should be labeled as such.

 

For the past 3 days, I've bee able to run outside. Yay, but the weather will become bad. As it was, this morning the road was covered with patches of black ice. Fortunately the shoulder has more traction.  Sadly, our vacation looks like it will be filled with non-stop rain. I am trying to plan around this but it looks hopeless.

 

As yesterday was relatively tropical (42 degrees, woo-hoo), I could wear sandals to the nail salon (putting on shoes could damage unset nails). A the man massaged my calves, he noted how muscular they were. Yes I do exercise. This was in stark contrast to the interview before I had surgery wondering if I could walk more than 50 feet without becoming exhausted. Instead of indignantly replying that I used to finish marathons in the top 10%, I just smiled and said  Yes.

Hit and run

This was our mailbox this morning. Whoever hit it drove on our yard for sometime. I assume alcohol played a part

hand made Chinese tiles

Framed Gegenbach, a Black Forest village

I love my fused glass frame though I am trying to decide what is best to put in it. A very colorful photo or a black and white one?

Miss Downy

I am waiting impatiently for the sun to burn a path for me to run outside. I noticed in town that things have melted but lucky us, it is colder here on the prairie.

 

So how did that person who mowed down our mailbox not see it? We have snow sticks along the property and a very bright lamp that would light up the way assuming this person had no headlights. It was snowing very heavily when I returned last night at 7 pm. It stopped snowing at some point in the middle of the night. These tracks this morning had little snow covering them up. Also suspicious, our newspaper deliverer who is here around 5 am  didn't show today. Could he have hit the mailbox and then run away? I will be looking at each vehicle entering the neighborhood for front end damage. Our neighborhood is very small.  And the mailbox is set in frozen ground. Right now, the mailbox is precariously balancing on its broken support. We will have to wait for the spring thaw to fix it for good. @#@!@#

 

I've been busy. I've helped my friend pack for parts of two days plus collect boxes for her, which involved unloading some (which needed to be done anyway). Lucky for her 6 weeks since the surgery is finally up so I was able to lift some things with my now atrophied muscles. I will be sore.

 

I have also visited more resale shops and bought several things. I need to stop this though some of the thing are very cool. One thing I did get (still in its original sealed box) is a Veggetti , device that turns vegetables into noodles. I assume this is a competitor of the Zoodles that a friend swears by. At the cooking class, our instructor had one but didn't use it. The subject was vegetable based casseroles. The best one was a lasagna using thin slices of yellow squash (zucchini was called for but difficult to find this time of year) for the noodles sandwiched with a mix of lots of spices, ricotta and corn. Tasty. Then a vegetable paella with roasted tomatoes, peppers, peas, broccoli and cauliflower. Though I like broccoli, its strong flavor overwhelmed the saffron. The instructor was proud that the menu was gluten free. Well not so gluten free because the orzo was made from wheat. Some cancer patients are extra sensitive to gluten. A lot of people now think of a sudden that they are gluten sensitive. But the main reason for me to avoid American wheat is that many growers spray Round-up on the seed heads to quicken maturity and this carcinogen makes its way into the flour. Why can't this be stopped? Just buy Italian pasta? But not Italian olive oil which in many cases is not olive oil. Hard to trust food sources.

 

Some sad stories at the class... 

 

 

 

 

Walking in circles

Squirrel trying to get at feeders

This morning's guest

Moss on rock, Ecola St Park Oregon

Cannon Beach, OR

The doldrums of winter. In the past, I could go to the Y but with my up coming trip and limited ability to use all of their equipment, I didn't sign up for this session. Usually I an find a plowed area to run but for the past 3 days, the wind has been very stiff. I've been walking in my basement instead.

Oh I did finally run the last day I could see pavement. I felt fine. I will go out tomorrow, I don't care how windy and cold it is.

Our basement is very large. I make a figure eight back and forth one hundred times. I listen to my podcasts.

Using up lots of  extra supplies, I made a coconut flan today. This time, making the caramel was much easier.

Tomorrow I join the outside world, helping a friend move and then on to my cooking class.

The above photos we took in Oregon 2.5 years ago. On Haystack Rock are puffin nests. With our better lens, maybe this time we can get a photo of them. We will be there in 8 days or so.