Alan's birthday is as good an excuse as any to gather family at the beach. We've been together forty odd years (both meanings, yes). It all worked out somehow, and here we are, with a family we love, in a new state we've learned to love, and a coastline we've loved since childhood. Now I've discovered my new favorite Oregon beach town. Manzanita is the perfect ratio of beach to town - seven broad miles of soft pale sand, flat and firm, and a short few blocks of town.
Family
California Getaway
When I visit California it's with one foot firmly planted in the past. This is how it all used to be, this highway, those hills, that beach, this restaurant, that friend, the place I used to….
Inheritance
I inherited my father's brown eyes, bushy eyebrows, and his curly hair. I have his wheezy cough and I hear it when I'm sick, and wonder how he got into my room, though he is long gone.
Camp NanaPa
This winter we're back in the sleepover groove with the grandkids after a long hiatus. Fun but tiring. I somehow feel youthful and ancient all at once.
Wordless Wednesday
On the road to eastside Oregon, re-learning our social skills.
Risky Behavior
I'm at a restaurant a thousand miles from home, seated closely around a table with ten beloved family-in-law members. We are eating, drinking, chatting, unmasked, and I'm thinking, how the hell did I get here? Alarm bells clang in my head.
Mother-in-Law
Marilyn was a family gal through and through, and she worked at being a good mother-in-law.
Bird Friend
Today the grandkids and I buried one of the baby scrub jays that live in the tall line of arborvitae lining the upper edge of our backyard.
Spring in Motion
A blur of activity, a brain that never stops, a trickster, a climber, a jumper, exuberance that makes me stop and watch, stop and breathe in her 8 year old essence.
Death Don’t Have No Mercy
My mind lingers on death more often these days. I tell Alan that if I become too demented and disabled he should smother me with a pillow, but he hasn't agreed. How about a commemorative plaque on a bench instead?
Rivers and Roads PDX 