Wednesday, June 12th
In the morning we met M, L and A at Coffee Culture. The three of them (and especially the two humans) are electric car veterans, having owned a Leaf before recently getting a Subaru Solterra. L seems to be doing well. He was telling us that before too long the world’s electricity will be provided by small, self-contained nuclear plants. These plants will be about the size of a house and each one will provide enough power for a medium sized city. We may not see them ourselves, he says, but our children and grandchildren will.
Thursday, June 13th
Went out to dinner with P at the new(ish) Corazon wine bar. We’ve been there twice now and liked it very much both times.. Corazon is Spanish themed in a way, but they have their own particular cooking style. And they are very good at it. Lots of vegetarian items on the menu.
Friday, June 14th
E had a medical appointment and then rewarded herself by picking up some shoes that had just come in for her down at Footwise. Then she proceeded to Ants on a Log for a lunch of avocado toast.
We’ve been watching TV every night these days, but we’re finding it hard to find anything to settle down to after Extraordinary Attorney Wu. We tried another Korean series–Crash Landing on You–and it’s kind of interesting but it’s a slow mover. So we searched the India section of Netflix and ended up watching a movie called Laapataa Ladies. It was good and left a pleasant aftertaste. The plot was a little hard to get into at first but got better in the second half. It’s set in a rural area and provides a wonderful sense of place in addition to its gentle but insistent messaging about women’s place in society.
Saturday, June 15th
H came over so that she and E could do more sewing. Today they took on the task of altering a pair of tapered leg pants. Along the way, they celebrated the fact that they both have tomatoes in their sewing kits.
Does everyone have a tomato in their sewing kit? Inquiring editors want to know.
Meanwhile M took the truck up into the Cascades, where he drove around for a couple of hours trying to find a particular route which at first seemed to exist only in the imagination of the people who publish maps–online or printed. In the end he found evidence that indeed at one time there had been a route just where the maps said there was. But it looked like it had been closed for quite some time. That was disappointing, but it was good to have found an answer to the mystery. It was a pretty day up there in the Cascades between Upper Soda and Sheep Creek, with rain showers alternating with sunshine, seemingly every five minutes.
Sunday, June 16t
It was another cool, damp day here. This is the time of the year when we feel like summer has arrived everywhere in the country except Oregon. The weather is not bad, but you have to bundle up to go for a walk. Today we drove up to Tampico Road and walked in Dunn Forest. Along the way we came upon a snail in the middle of the path. M tried to take a video of it, but soon realized that a good snail video would require a major investment of time–both in the making and in the viewing. So here’s E’s photo of it instead.
A few minutes later we saw something strange at the old stream crossing.
Later in the day it rained pretty hard for a while. Nice for the garden.
Monday, June 17th
It was raining again this morning and the temperature at 5:30 was 38 degrees! Things improved a little as the day went on and we got to a high of 65.
Tuesday, June 18th
We did some yard work today, spreading wood chips and digging up grass. E also had a repair project. A few days ago she got out her step stool so as to be high enough to take the cover off of our rather ridiculous patio umbrella, an annual ritual at around this time. This year, when she examined the cover, she found that it was coming apart at the top. Unable to resist a mending challenge, today she got down to repairing it. This took a long time and involved a certain amount of muttering about the quality of the mending tape that the person at Ace Hardware had assured her would be just the ticket.
We also had a Ziply installer working here for much of the day on a new internet connection. We’re saying goodbye to Comcast/Xfinity. Ziply is a new provider that uses fiber optic cables rather than copper wires. For the installer, the first challenge was to find the nearest Ziply node, which was down the block several houses away. Then he had to string new fiber optic wires from there to our backyard utility pole and thence to our house. As he was doing that, M decided to clean things up a little by removing the old land line junction box from the side of the house and removing some less than sightly old wires.
Once the new fiber line was connected to the house, the process went quickly. First M disconnected the Xfinity cable and removed its outlet hardware. Then the Ziply installer–a very competent guy named Stanley–put in a Ziply outlet where the old Xfinity outlet had been. M unhooked our old cable modem and found an ethernet cable long enough to connect the Ziply outlet directly to our router. Stanley then called in an activation request and told us to wait ten minutes. After that we just powered up and gave it a try. Perfect.
Wednesday, June 19th
Our friend J came over for dinner, so we got to catch up on what’s going on with her. She’s planning a summertime trip back to the east coast to visit relatives. While she’s there, she and three of her sisters are going to help a fourth sister travel down to Atlanta to visit her daughter. They’ll be traveling by car from Delaware to Atlanta, a twelve hour drive that they plan to make in one day. J is a brave woman.
Thursday, June 20th
In honor of the Solstice, our weather has turned hottish, with clear skies and highs in the mid eighties.
We got to go to a birthday party today as C celebrated reaching another year ending in zero. The party was held at The Vue and it was quite the occasion. A nice treat for us. C is angling for a ride in the Jaguar as a birthday gift. A plan is in the works.
Sunday, June 23rd
Another chapter in Mite Wars took place today. E went out in the cool of the morning to hang cardboard cards full of Green Lacewing eggs on the rose bushes. She took care to not to cluster them together, however, since the manufacturer issued a warning that larvae can be carnivorous and may eat each other instead of the offensive mites.
Tonight we watched a movie called Miracle Club on Netflix. It features two great actors: Maggie Smith and Kathy Bates. Five stars.
Monday, June 24th
Another busy Monday. E went shopping at the Co-op. As usual, got herself there on foot and then called her car service for a ride home. When her ride arrived, she wondered what had become of her usual driver, the one who wore glasses. Apparently the old driver developed cataracts and the company had to let him go. The new driver was squinting a little, but seemed to know the route.
Speculation on the June 16th rock formation: possibly a cairn gone south OR the beginning of a new formation? Also I too have a tomato in my sewing kit! Must be of an age? 😉
Another good installment, thanks. This time, despite the charms of snails and lacewings, I am focused on the sewing-kit tomato question. Although not qualified to provide a universal answer, I can testify that the sewing kit in my possession (formerly Nana’s) does indeed contain one, with strawberry attachment. Since I lack the skill to display photo evidence here, please be alert for a separate email. Uncanny tomato proliferation!
But now I have to go eat actual strawberries.
I have a tomato in my sewing kit!! or did..its here somewhere, including the strawberry to sharpen needles like Eve’s!!
which brings me to a story about Eve’s mother. Auntie Ruth to me. One day I got a note in the mail (ohh how I miss her notes…and i’ve kept some so I can look back at her beautiful, cherished handwriting) and it said…HollDoll…you are the ONLY person I know that has undyed, unpermanented hair. Could you please save me a LOT out of your brush every morning? What an odd request, but Auntie Ruth generally had a reason for everything. The next time I saw her I presented her with a packed full baggie of blond unadultered hair. She was tickled pink..I said ok…what are you doing with it? putting it out for birds to make nests? She did one of her deep breaths and said YOU of all people should KNOW THIS!!! Yeah well i of all people DIDN’T know this. So she proceeded to explain that way back in the dark ages, like the 30s i guess, women saved their hair to make pincushions. See, pins were made of some material that could rust, and the oils from untreated hair kept them from rusting, kept them shiny, and aided in keeping them sharp.
And, yes, I looked it up..and as usual, she was right!! I wonder where that pincusion went to? Probably in a bird nest now!!
Holly, I also donated hair to the pin cushion effort. When I was child I remember saving hair from the haircuts that Hoy gave me, and giving it to my mother to make pin cushions.
Hey, I’ll check out Laapataa ladies Per your recommendation. I think you guys would really enjoy the Korean show Reply 1988, which is on Netflix. It’s about a small neighborhood in Seoul and the five families that lived there in the 80s. it’s my favorite. I just finished Startup, which was pretty good about an incubator for businesses in Seoul Korea. It’s OK to not be OK is kind of a dark fairytale but has a great character with autism. I also watch the zombie and monster Korean shows but I don’t think Eve would like those. mom watched attorney Woo while I was away, so I guess I’ll have to watch that on my own.