Catching Up

The Rockefeller Christmas Tree looks as beautiful today as it did 10 years ago and as it will 10 years from now, but don't take my word for it.  In honor of the lighting this past week I dug up this shot, my first winter on terra firma after 12 years on Ruff Life.  I was freezing all the time.

This past summer was spent painting murals in Hope Village, as previously reported, finally finishing the morning I picked my sister up from the airport for a 2+ week visit.  It was wonderful to catch up but in particular to get to know one another as Seniors.

It’s a common malaise:  siblings drift apart as lives diverge, and it takes time and commitment on both parts to come back together.  I’ve heard similar comments from friends who agree it causes a distinct type of distress which none of us need at this age.

I took Sis for a drive around Crater Lake before the road was closed for the season and it was beautiful.  We tend to treat both natural and man-made wonders within close proximity to our homes as matter-of-fact until we play tour guides.  My Dad said he never went to the top of the Empire State Building until he was 50 and showing the sights of the city to visiting relatives.

We drove through northern California to visit our uncle, whom we hadn’t seen since our aunt passed away two years ago.  I’ve been fortunate to have spent several lengthy vacations with my aunt and uncle, beginning in West Berlin, but my sister has not.  After a brief howdy I bid them all farewell and continued with BC to Lake Tahoe, again, to house and pet sit for 6 weeks.

Crater Lake is inside a national park surrounded by a single road with countless pull-offs for photo taking.  I decided to repeat the experience in Nevada, but unlike Crater Lake the road around Lake Tahoe is a public highway through towns and full of stoplights. I hadn't driven along the western half before and was on the side nearest the lake, so I did my normal snap blindly with my right hand while driving with my left.

Pepper was doing well for his first time in the back and BC, in her usual front perch, was content.  Autumn leaves remained on the trees longer than usual because of the warm weather and no wind, and unlike most times I've visited there was NO smoke from California fires; only a bit from one southwest of the lake. I didn't think much about it until one day I looked up from the computer and almost shit my pants, pardon.

A thick plume of smoke rose out of nowhere, seemingly just down the hill.  Where do the residents go if they can’t get down? Where’s the back-way out of this swanky neighborhood?  There is none.  In a panicked state I’d called my friends in Puerto Rico, after stepping out the front door into a smoky haze and nobody seemed to be around.  Surely they’d announce evacuations, I thought to myself; but still it seemed like an old episode of the Twilight Zone.

“Call the fire department,” ever-calm Nancy advised, and I did.

“We’re having a prescribed burn in Incline; depends on where you are what you’ll see.”

When I spoke the street name he replied,

“Oh, it’s right below you.”

The air which expelled from my chest would have put out a small fire itself.  

“If I did need to get out, besides the dogs, what else would you want me to grab?”

I posed that hypothetical to my friends and others since then, and most responded with shrugged shoulders.  It’s not pleasant to think about, like wills, but something to consider.  I know exactly what I’d grab from where, but it’s not consolidated in a single place to grab at a moment’s notice.  I’d be busy packing food for BC, cage if I had, clothes for whatever time of year and if there was time, dig out this and that.

Years ago I was sent a heartbreaking photo of a friend sifting through the ashes of her built-by-hand home in southern California, searching for her grandmother’s jewelry.  She’d just returned home from a trip and had a still-packed suitcase by her front door, which she grabbed when a neighbor alerted her to the fire on the ridge above her home.  That and a box of baby photos meant for mailing, still in the back seat, were all she managed to save.

So the road keeps going up and finally the treetops on the right disappear to reveal the lake below but no shoulder to speak of on either side of the narrow, single-lane each way road, busy with tourists taking advantage of the pristine weather.  I put down the camera after this shot, gripped the steering wheel and closed my right eye to focus, so I don’t have any photos of the lake as I neared picturesque Emerald Bay, but you can see a nice winter shot on the website of non-profit orchestra Toccata, performing their Messiah Series beginning tonight.  I’d love to hear it, but I’m not fond of shoveling snow. I barely made it back to Oregon before Thanksgiving and everyone's first decent snowfall.

I huff-and-puffed more at 7,000 feet with the extra lbs. I’m toting, but holidays aren’t the best times to begin diets so I’ll worry about that next month.  I did donate my scale to Goodwill as soon as I returned home, since I decided it’s not a good thing to have around.  If I deprive myself for a period of time and the scale doesn’t show it, I get pissed and gorge.  It’ll be better to judge my weight by how my clothes fit.

It was nice to be away from paint for a while and have a chance to regenerate creatively. I planned to decorate Hope Village’s Community Center, with its boring white walls just screaming for color, once I returned, but to entertain myself I worked on pine cone ornaments, one for each resident plus leftovers to decorate the grounds.

While walking the dogs down Tom’s Trail I searched for the freshest, most symmetrical cones to dry and decorate.  I need incentives for strenuous activities like hiking; or searching for seashells while snorkeling.  During this trip I made it past the second ‘switch back’ on the meandering path and took photos as proof for my skeptical pals; but damned if I didn’t accidentally delete them from my camera, along with much of my time in Incline. However, like the Rockefeller tree, the woods of Incline look pretty much the same as two years ago.

I was used to being pricked by the needle ends as I handled the cones, but hadn’t thought about how they might feel to unsuspecting recipients.  They were like porcupines.

Can’t give those as gifts; everyone will be poked like Jesus; so I took blunt pliers and nipped the tip of each petal.  I know, but once I did one I had to do the rest, for safety’s sake.  I already had a stash of after-Xmas mini ornaments, 90% off, from last year, which I augmented with cut pieces of foil garland.

Creating 40-50 cones kept me busy after I put the RV back together, but I delivered them this past week, freeing up my time for other projects I've put off.

I love Christmas time…the music, the decorations, and I always tell myself that THIS will be the year I’ll work on decorations all year long.  I also repeat (but don’t yet believe hard enough) that I’ll live in one of those Christmas Villages and sell my things in local shops.  Wouldn’t that be jolly?