Happy Birthday Dianne.

.....Yesterday was the 57th birthday of Dianne Monreal, known to many of us as THL Serena Eame. She is still missed. When Mom was in Harrison Hospital for all those weeks recently it felt strange being there for a number of reasons, primarily because I still associate the place so strongly with her. I kept turning a hallway corner and expecting to see her in her flowered blouse showing one of the nurses how to do something on the computer. Just like everywhere else she felt it her duty at work in the hospital to kind of take care of everyone she met.

.....I took a quick side trip to the cemetery over on Kitsap Way. They removed the tree a couple of years ago, the one near her grave site that had been hit by lightning. They've expanded that end of the fields and cleaned them up quite a bit. I like the fact that it looks more tended and cared for. Although I'm not sure I like it completely as now her grave site is being slowly surrounded by others, being lost in a bunch of others. Lonelier in some ways.

.....One thing that she changed in me by having known her was my attitude towards the Morman Community. Of which I was reminded of on several occasions this last year. It's kind of strangely amusing. Before I knew Dianne I thought of Mormans as some sort of wacky interpretation of the Christian Community, the ones who wore the 'special underwear'. Mainly someone to you avoided when they tried to visit you in your home. Or sigh in frustration when they made you late on the way out the door.

.....When Dianne's health really took that final turn for the worse, one of things from those times I remember was how much they came in and took care of us. They came by constantly to see if we needed anything at all, trips to the store, to the hospital. Out for a walk. They would bring food in by the gross bagful. So much so that Victor, Dianne's son, finally had to tell them to please stop doing that. :-)

.....The Morman's have such a pragmatic view towards death. I'm not a convert, but their attitude can be a comfort and definitely a push to move on with life. And while I'm not a convert, just hearing the fact that a person I've just met is a Morman doesn't automatically move that person into the 'strange person' column in my mind.

.....Tolerance. One of the best lessons I learned from Dianne.

.....57 years. You left us way too early, Dianne. But you are still in our thoughts. Happy Birthday.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Saturday Re-Cap.

.....I woke up with an ambitious agenda, which started off well enough, but slowly built up speed towards eventual destruction. :-) And, really, I'm not too ticked off as a relaxing weekend day is good for the soul from time to time. :-)

....Woke up fairly early and so did TBT! So we did our ritualistic journey to Starbucks for Latte's and Chonga Bagels. We didn't linger too long though. TBT had a heavy agenda in her studio and there were things I wanted to get done today myself. I cleaned out the Computer Room (or at least straightened it up :-)) and then started some laundry.

.....Then it was off to Ralph's house to load up the van with wood shavings for the pit firing. There were twelve bags of this stuff left over from Ralph's wood turning projects. When we reached the second pile of plastic bags we discovered a nasty secret. SOMETHING had used this pile of bags as their personal urinal. It was bad, and STANK. I have horrible olfactory senses, burned away from years of chemical abuse at the Shipyard. So when I say it was bad enough to bug me?! Then it was BAD! We double baged a bunch of the bags, and threw a tarp down in the van to protect it from possible contamination.

.....My original thought had been to just take the shavings home and bring them up to Renart and Aelianora's on Sunday for the pit digging. But, you know, a bunch of bags of wood shavings? Soaked in animal urine? On a hot day? In a van? Not a pleasant thought AT ALL. So I gave Renart a call and stood ready to beg him to allow me to dump them off at his house. Thankfully he was very amenable to dropping stuff off.

.....I sped up to Kingston as fast as I could. I almost stopped a couple of times to get out of the van and air myself out for a bit. That's how bad it was in the van (it needs more windows!).

.....Made it up to Renart's and after some discussion on where the pit was going to be I unloaded as fast as I gracefully could. Then I could relax a bit! :-)

.....Renart and Aelianora took me on a tour of their garden. Lots of good stuff growing there. Made me wish I could have afforded to buy into a share of their program this year. I especially liked the pepper farm they have growing in their greenhouse. Renart promised me a bite of something that would challenge my sense of what is really HOT! :-) I'm up to the challenge, although I tell people that for me it is not necessarily the 'heat' that I like, it is the taste. I love jalepenos and most of the greens. There are some of the reds I like as well (especially tasbasco). But it really does come down to the TASTE. I hate the taste of habanero. It is hot, but not the hotest. But the taste really tastes bad to me. So there you go.

.....Then I ran back into Poulsbo and picked up my measuring equipment from Cedric and Brighid's house and took a quick trip to the potential Poulsbo site. WOW! They have brush cut the place! It looked absolutely freakin' FANTASTIC! I love this site. It has so much potential! I pulled out the tape measure and walked the very top section, which measured roughly 900' x 1200'. I went to the west side area, which had a wire fence blocking it the last time I was here, and measured it and came up with approximately 800' x 600' of flat area.

.....I was going to tackle the next lower tier of flat space when a Suquamish Sherriff drove up to me in his Expidition. I thought at this point that I was going to get into trouble for trespassing, and my heart started beating just a little faster. But he didn't care about my presence at all. It appears that someone abandoned some car on the property down by the school and he was trying to find someone who may have seen its owner. I didn't even know the car was there. I did see it on the way out and did not recognize it.

.....I was hot and decided that talking to the Officer was more excitement than I needed for the day, so I decided that I would wait for Talia before doing anything else. Talia and I want to tour the place next weekend. The Suquamish Tribe has a canoe event planned, with lots of people camping and setting up pavilions on site for the weekend. We want to see the place with people and tents set up, just to see how it will actually LOOK full of people. After seeing the place mowed down, I'm kind of excited.

.....There are issues of course. To get anywhere we would still need cooperation from both the schools on site, which is not guaranteed. So, in the end, we're still stuck with the same dilema. We have the SURE thing with Port Gamble. And we have the POTENTIALLY FANTASTIC in the Poulsbo site. And we have to make a decision in a relative hurry. Oh, well, if things like this were easy, it wouldn't be as much fun. ;-)

.....Then it was off to Mom's Storage Unit to grab my three boxes of 'stuff' to unpack for the week. I was starting to get tired of the heat by this time and picked three relatively 'easy' boxes. Mainly stuff to be tossed.

.....My fun meter was just about pegged at this point and I was ready to go home. And I've been lounging in front of the air conditioner practically since then, feeling incredibly lazy.

.....Tomorrow is the pit digging out at Renart's. He cheated and dug the pit today. I suppose that I should feel bad that he didn't leave any for us. But, you know, HE is the farmer. I'm an office manager. Let him sweat. That's what he does for a living! :-P

.....And now I'm getting sleepy. Boy, am I getting old or what? Why, yes, I am. I found myself driving down the road today with '80's music at full blast and the windows all rolled down, and not really caring what those in the cars around me actually thought of that. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.