Gracie's Unexpected Swim

Gracie pranced down the dock near the boat ramp, tail waving happily, nose to the breezes of a cool spring day.

I watched her every move. 

A ways out from shore, she turned to the edge of the dock, and sidled up into an open space between the low guard rails.

Tentatively, she reached her front left paw down toward the water, as if to test the distance.

And then, before my eyes, she stepped off the dock and tumbled into the deep water below. 

She did not catch the actual fall, but my fourth-born's quick camera trigger finger captured much of the action during Gracie's rescue. 

I stood a few feet away, horrified by the considerable splash.. 

Peering over the edge of the dock, I watched her sink deeper and deeper from the force of her fall.

Body twisting, limbs flailing.

Long red hair waving under the water.

Bubbles rising to the surface.

Though she happily wades in lakes, rivers, and ocean waves, I don't know that Gracie has ever swum in water over her head. The experience seemed to take her by surprise. 

Within what was probably three seconds but felt like forever, Gracie's head bobbed back up into the air. Her face was streaming with water and filled with shock and surprise, her eyes immediately locked on to mine. 

Help, she silently pleaded.

Her first instinct was to try to climb back up on the dock.

And I had the exact same idea. But my brain quickly pointed out to me that hauling one hundred pounds of wet, wriggling dog a good half meter up to the level of the dock was a bad idea whose most likely outcome would be me in the cold water next to her. 

Thankfully, the wise first responder who lives inside me and comes out exactly when I need her most had a better idea.

"Come on, Gracie! Come this way," I heard myself saying.

As I called to my splashing, thrashing pup, our eyes still locked as we sought to solve this problem together, I applied gentle pressure to her long leash and slowly backed down the dock toward land. 

^ Once she got the hang of deep water swimming, 

my girl looked like a lush, red seal, swimming like a total pro.

She got the idea. Her panic slowly cooled as she discovered the rhythm of swimming. Still watching each other intently, Gracie put together a competent doggie paddle as I guided her down the length of the dock toward shore. 

Around the halfway point, Gracie began to tire. I noticed her pace slackening and her head drooping just a bit lower in the water.

"Come on, baby! You can do it! You're almost there!"

The moment when her feet touched ground.

The encouragement worked. Just a few seconds later, Gracie's feet touched what must have been the immensely satisfying solidity of the concrete boat ramp, and her relief was palpable. 

"Well, that was actually kinda fun!"

Finally, Gracie's eyes let go of mine as she marched happily up the boat ramp onto terra firma, shook hard twice, and then circled back round to greet me. Her tail wagged water drops all over me and I did not mind one bit. 

 * * * * *

Gracie's unexpected swim was an exciting opening act for our hike around Langus Riverfront Park in Everett. Though the rest of our adventure was full of interesting surprises, my crazy dog's fall into the brink was definitely the high point of the day.

Discovering Sunsets

"Mom, the sun's going down! You want to come with us to the look-out and watch?"

The next sound you'll hear is a crash as I drop whatever cooking pot I'm scrubbing or wash pan I'm toting around the camp, quickly wipe my forever-damp hands, and rush off to see.

^ Scooters are my daughters' favorite mode of transport at camp. Every evening after dinner, 

they zoom around and bring me back stories of the interesting sights they have seen. 

Ranger always prefers to walk.

The campground at Kalaloch perches on a windy bluff high atop the wide sandy beach. Though most of the camp is sheltered by low, gnarled, and windswept evergreens, there are three open areas where one can hike down a steep path to the beach or linger up top to take in the vista. 

And the viewpoint at the southern end of the campground, the one that we think of as ours, is a lovely place to catch the setting sun.

It's also a perfect place for star-gazing but that's a story for another day. 

Of all the dozens of Kalaloch sunset photos I've taken in my life, this one is my favorite. 

The camera technology leaves plenty to be desires, but the composition and color are spot on.

If the breezes are not too cold, and we don't mind getting our feet sandy one more time, we might slip off our shoes and tiptoe down the path to walk at the edge of the water and watch the sunset from ground level. 

Up or down, either vantage point is lovely. 

True confessions. I am a borderline pyromaniac and I love to build irrationally large fires. 

This baby is just getting started. 

Some nights, we plan ahead for a beach fire. Temperatures drop quickly as the sun sinks low, and even our tempered Pacific Northwest blood runs cold on the best of summer days. The sensation of the over-heated warmth from a roaring fire against my slightly sunburned and significantly sandblasted skin takes me to my happy place real fast. 

Lazy shadows play against the sand, but the beach logs capture and reflect the sun's setting rays. 

 As the sunset's colors fade against the pale white beach logs, we kick sand into our waning fire and break down the burning embers, signalling the end of another lovely day at the beach.

"Please tell me it's bedtime."

And good ol' Ranger knows that it's time to head up to camp where our cozy tent and warm sleeping bags await us all.

* * * * *

My family and I go to Kalaloch a lot. Here are stories from our trips over the years:

2019

Wide Open Spaces

Whale Bones

Ways To Play

The World Of Packet Dinners

Windows

2018 

Walking On Rialto Beach

2017 

Gracie Goes To Kalaloch

2015

The Last Day Of My Summer Vacation

2014

With Joy And Wild Abandon

With Hope And Desperate Longing

With Peace And New Beginnings

2012

 It's All About The Food

 It's All About Playing On The Beach

 It's All About The Sunsets

 It's All About The Artistic Inspiration

It's All About The Memories

2011

Discovering Tide Pools
Discovering Sunsets

2010 

Balanced Rocks

sometime before 2010

Golden Pup

Making Do

"Mothers are the necessity of invention." -Bill Watterson

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." -Voltaire

This week I discovered, as I often do, that my month was bigger than my paycheck.

And while I'm not exactly destitute, I am stubbornly committed to honoring my grocery budget and living within my temporarily limited means. Which means that for the next few days - until the next paycheck hits - I'll need to get creative in order to feed my family the meals to which they have become accustomed. In other words, I'll be making do.

* * * * *

For my husband, the problem is granola.

Every weekday morning, after hitting his snooze exactly once, my husband rolls out of bed at 4:30 a.m. I know that because many days, I'm still drifting off to sleep as his alarm is calling him to action.

By five a.m., he's downstairs feeding Gracie her first meal of the day, which after eating she promptly sprints back upstairs and claims his pillow as her own, and fixing a little something for himself: a cup of Chobani Greek yogurt with a handful of granola stirred in.

Blueberry,
raspberry,
blackberry,
and cherry

are his yogurt flavors of choice, and every weekend he picks up five fresh cups to get him through the work week ahead. Since he shopped last weekend before the money ran out, his yogurt supply will coast through to the beginning of the next pay period, no problem.

His granola situation is a different matter. We're fresh out of the Quaker product that he normally uses. So tonight I got my Betty Crocker on, and baked him up a batch of simple, quick, and easy homemade granola.

Forget Betty Crocker, I actually channeled Euell Gibbons, that wacky natural food activist from the 1960s who asked us if we ever ate a pine tree while advertising Post Grape Nuts. Though this recipe called for neither parts of a pine tree, cattail, or any of the other random plants Euell pitched to us, my homemade granola is hearty, healthy and best of all, darn tasty. 

I may just start a little granola habit of my own.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, my fourth-born is facing a bit of a struggle with her work lunches. Inventive as she is, packing such delicacies as baked beans, hummus and carrots, apples and peanut butter, or leftover enchiladas, lately she has been craving sandwiches made on French bread.

Of which we are fresh out.

So why not, I decided, bake her some French bread from scratch?

Digging into my cookbook stash, I found what I was looking for: James Beard's Book on Breads, purchased by me circa 1984 and used fairly consistently ever since. Running a quick finger through the index, I found a straightforward recipe for French-style bread - ever the perfectionist, Mr. Beard notes that this is not technically proper French bread but a reasonable facsimile which is good enough for me. Setting the dough to rise before dinner and popping the shaped loaves into the oven afterwards, I soon had two pretty loaves of crusty bread cooling on my kitchen counter.

And within minutes, my family discovered this bounty. A small bread-sampling party ensued, complete with warm butter and lingonberry jam.

I'm happy to report that six sandwich-sized segments of bread were protected from the lip-smacking horde, safely wrapped and eventually stashed in the freezer, where only my fourth-born will remember to look when she's ready to pack her next work lunch.

I've already promised to bake more when this batch runs out.

* * * * *

With this quick one-two punch of normally-I-buy-it-but-today-I'm-gonna-make-it success under my belt, I'm wondering what else I might take on as a pantry-to-table DIY.

Pita bread?
Almond crackers?
Baba ganoush?

I do have that leftover eggplant kicking around my vegetable drawer.

We shall just have to wait and see what I might cook up next in the name of making do.

Mother's Day Blues

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." -Sophia Loren

"For when a child is born, the mother is also born again." -Gilbert Parker

These are flowers that I bought for myself, because I knew I would love some tulips. I was right. 

Mother's Day makes me feel lonely.

Ever since my first official celebration in 1988, I've spent the day with a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, a bittersweet ache for something I can't quite explain or describe or put my finger on.

In the early years, I supposed that the disconnect was due to the fact of my little ones' age. They were so young, too young to understand the meaning of the day. Adorable little kittens, they purred and pounced and played at my feet every day and why should one Sunday in May be any different than all the rest?

My fourth-born knew I would love this bouquet of allium and eucalyptus. She was right.

As time went on, my relationship with my own mom puzzled me. Hard feelings that I didn't understand came between us, and I guessed that wedge was the source of my loneliness on Mother's Day.

Then she got sick. Lewy Body Dementia stole our peace and certainly the thirteen years that my mom fought a losing battle against that terrible disease would explain my Mother's Day melancholy.

But those years are over now. 

This is the third Mother's Day since my own mother went to heaven. I'm glad her battle is won and more than ever, I am at peace with her passing. 

My daughters are full-grown adults now, and surely they grasp the significance of the celebration.

Nonetheless, again on this Mother's Day, I feel lonely.

And my first-born baked me a cake, a one-layer affair with a moderate dollop of frosting. 

She thought I would like it. And she too was right. 

And I wonder today, as I realize that all my old theories have flown out the window, that maybe the reason I feel alone on Mother's Day is because I am alone on Mother's Day.

Oh, of course, my husband and a goodly percentage of my daughters are with me.

But they are not mothers.

Not yet, anyway. Hopefully that day will come.

In all the years that I have been celebrating Mother's Day, my family and I have never once spent the day with another mom.

Not my mom. Nor my mother-in-law.
No aunties or grandmothers.
No sisters or sisters-in-law.
No friends or neighbors or traveling salesladies.

I have always been the only mother at the party.

And there is something special

something extraordinary
something priceless
something profoundly and deeply moving

about motherhood

that only another mother can understand.

And because I never once have had another mother sit across the table from me on Mother's Day, a mom whose eyes might meet mine over our cheeseburgers, a mom with whom I could share a special, silent moment of knowing what an immensely mysterious and unspeakable thing it is to be a mother,

I think it is quite understandable

that I feel lonely on Mother's Day.

* * * * *

Here are more stories about mothers and Mother's Day

Looking Up: Mother's Day Edition

What Truly Matters About Moms

Dear Mormon Mom

My Mother-In-Law

* * * * *

And to read more stories about my mom's journey through Lewy Body Dementia, go here.

Discovering Tide Pools

If memory and the captions in my old school photo albums serve, it was 1995 that we first discovered the tide pools at Kalaloch.

^In 2011, luck was with us as our stay at Kalaloch coincided with some extreme minus tides. Hiking out across a vast expanse of soggy sand that would normally be buried under meters of Pacific blue isthe first step in the process of visiting the tide pools. 

These puddles of magic and mystery appear as the tides recede to their lowest ebb - minus tides are the very best - and that happens when the moon is full. When conditions are just right - and heaven help me, the perfect time always seems to be in ridiculously early hours around dawn - the Pacific waters draw back and reveal vast stretches of sand peppered with rocks that are otherwise submerged. Living in and among these rocks and in the pools of water around and between them are a special assortment of plants and animals that truly take my breath away.

^Brownish grey rocks covered with barnacles and mussels dot the beach, and foggy mists drift in and out between them. I often wonder if I'm seeing a herd of sleeping elephants. 

It was on an early August morning back in 1995 that my husband and I dragged our sleeping angels from their warm and cozy sleeping bags, stuffed them into their polar fleece jackets, filled them with hot cocoa, and marched them out onto the cold sand.

We brought our dog, Casey, too. 

^ The waves crash far in the distance, and the rocky mounds are surrounded by still, silent pools of trapped water. It's here in the intertidal zone that some unique and clever animals live out their lives. 

Knowing very little about Pacific Northwest tide pool phenomena, we were clever enough to follow along with the other groups of predawn gagglers. Everyone was headed to the low mounds of rocks easily visible about the sand where yesterday there had been nothing but the shimmering ocean. 

^ When they are exposed to air, sea anemones look like blobs of green jelly, as shown in the bottom right corner of this shot. But when the waters close over them, they "bloom" into what look like showy green flowers. But they are actually animals. 

The starfish - or sea stars, as they are scientifically named - were super easy to see. Purple and orange legs adeptly clung to the curiously bumpy rocks. But we with no guidebooks or experience with these creatures were at a loss to understand much more of what we were seeing.

 

^ Sea stars eat directly with their stomachs, located in the middle of their underside. They roll over expanses of barnacles and mussels, prying open the shells with their powerful feet, and putting their stomachs directly into the openings and thusly slurping up the otherwise difficult to reach but oh so juicy tidbits

And it just about that moment when a bright and shining 19- or 20-year-old popped out from behind one of the rocks and began to chat with us.

Correction. She lectured us. In the nicest possible way. Seems that she was a college student from the Georgia studying marine biology and these was her first visit to a proper Pacific Northwest beach. Beside herself with excitement and bursting with knowledge, she led us around for the next hour or so, teaching us all she knew about tide pools and the animals who live there.

Sea anemones

Mussels

Barnacles

Hermit crabs

And of course, our old friends, the sea stars. 

 

 ^ Eventually, the tide turns and the waves come closer and closer, sending furies of water across the quiet pools and reminding us that our time is almost up. 

I learned a lot that day.

My baby daughters did too, as our new friend encouraged them to look deeper, to . 

Our teacher's passion for this beautiful, ever-changing environment was infectious, and I felt her fire taking hold in my daughters' hearts. 

^ Eventually, too, the warmth of the rising sun evaporates the mists and if we are extremely lucky, the blue sky of a glorious summer day at the beach begins to burn through. 

Now, this morning, sixteen years later, we return to the tide pools at Kalaloch. The chill morning air, the grey mists, the bouncy red dog at the end of the long leash - these things are all the same. 

But my daughters have grown up quite a bit.

^ Oh sure, he's standing still now. But he has been running around like a wild man for the past ninety minutes and even the Tasmanian Devil needs to take a break now and then. 

^ Our good boy, Casey, has gone to his reward but Ranger is here to romp through the smaller, uninhabited puddles and generally have a rollicking good time at the beach. 

^Shimmering light flashes across the wet sand as we head back to our camp for a proper and well-deserved breakfast. 

And after years of studying with their marvelous science teacher, it is now their brains that are bursting with knowledge, their voices that excitedly call out one exciting find after the next, their hearts that beat faster as they bend down at the pool's edge in the early morning mist.

^ Praises to the Pacific.

Visiting the tide pools is not something we can do every time we go to Kalaloch. Our treks to the rocks are controlled by the vagaries of the tides, Which makes these adventures all the more exciting and all the more magical. 

Every time we visit the tide pools, it feels like we are discovering them all over again. 

^ Ranger 

* * * * *

My family and I go to Kalaloch a lot. Here are stories from our trips over the years:

2019

Wide Open Spaces

Whale Bones

Ways To Play

The World Of Packet Dinners

Windows

2018 

Walking On Rialto Beach

2017 

Gracie Goes To Kalaloch

2015

The Last Day Of My Summer Vacation

2014

With Joy And Wild Abandon

With Hope And Desperate Longing

With Peace And New Beginnings

2012

 It's All About The Food

 It's All About Playing On The Beach

 It's All About The Sunsets

 It's All About The Artistic Inspiration

It's All About The Memories

2011

Discovering Tide Pools
Discovering Sunsets

2010 

Balanced Rocks

sometime before 2010

Golden Pup

Sometimes It's Okay To Hold On

"Hey, Mom. Next time you go to IKEA, can you grab me some of those white plant pots? You know, the ones with the three different patterns of lines in them. I'd like one of each."

Uh oh.

"Well, I'd be glad to do that. But they don't make that style any more."

"Nooooo!"

"But wait. I'm pretty sure I have some of them in my stash of extra planting pots. I'll check for you."

Score.

* * * * *

Today, I found these three now-obsolete IKEA planting pots, one of each design, exactly as my first born requested. Granted, they needed a good scrubbing up, but nothing that a few minutes of elbow grease couldn't fix. Now these gleaming rascals are ready to take on new life and add some sparkle to my daughter's home.

I'm glad I found them.

But honestly, if I had ruthlessly decluttered my planting supplies, I would have tossed them long ago. It's been at least a few years since I put them to active duty, and by most any self-respecting minimalist's standards, that's far too long to have stuff sitting around collecting dust.

I'm still sticking to my original plan to declutter hard in my garage. But I must admit that maybe there's something to be said for hanging on to things now and then, just in case a daughter comes calling.

* * * * *

Read more about my journey to mindful consumption:

Reading Inspiration

My Shopping Ban Rules

My Decluttering Rules
The First Test

Sometimes It's Okay To Hold On
Setting Myself Free
Armed And Dangerous
A Decluttering Update: Family Photos
A Shopping Ban Update: Three Months In
Keepers

Shop Slow And Don't Settle

Don't Let 'Em Push You Around

My Tillamook Tweet

The other day, a new red notification popped up on the little paper airplane icon that is my Instagram direct message feed. 

Sadly, though the notification was new, the message was almost two weeks old, but this was the first I had seen of it. Instagram, sometimes you are a little bit drunk.

But when I stopped pounding my fists and gnashing my teeth in frustration over the delay, and got over myself long enough to read the message, I found a crazy delightful surprise:

* * * * *

Tillamook, for you poor souls who live far beyond the Pacific Northwest, is an association of Oregon farmers who dish up about the best dairy products that this green earth has to offer. At this very moment, my fridge holds quite a treasure trove of Tillamook goods:

^ My Tillamook love affair began as soon as I moved to Seattle in 1986, and first discovered these beautiful products with the kooky name in my new grocery store's dairy case. For pretty much every day of the thirty-three years since then, I've kept a baby loaf of medium cheddar in my fridge. Other Tillamook flavors make their appearances as we crave them - mozzarella, Monterrey jack, Swiss. Lately a loaf of pepper jack has been keeping my cheddar company.

More than any other food, Tillamook medium cheddar cheese has been a constant in our family meals. My four daughters each began eating Tillamook as tiny babies, daintily picking carefully cut tidbits of cheese off their high chair tray and popping them into their mouths with utter delight. I've flipped endless grilled cheese sandwiches, grated countless heaps of the stuff for tacos, enchiladas, and nachos, blended uncountable handfuls of cheese into roux sauces for macaroni and cheese casseroles. Cheddar cheese makes everything taste better, and Tillamook takes cheese from good to great. 

^ Salted for everyday use, unsalted for baking, surely this butter comes from Oregon's finest dairy cows munching on green grasses in the Willamette Valley.I'm not sure that I can taste the difference between Tillamook and other butter brands, but my loyalty is unquestioned. 

^ I am a fiend for sour cream. Delicious as a topping on all dishes Mexican as well as fresh berries, this fresh clean taste improves many a homemade salad dressing and dipping sauce.

^ Ice cream is my favorite dessert and Tillamook is hands down my favorite all-purpose ice cream. Old-fashioned vanilla and vanilla bean are our go-tos for pairing with fruity pies and crisps; mint chocolate chip is the tried-and-true choice around here to accompany my daughters' favorite chocolate birthday cake. And for just plain weekend treat-yourself time, udderly chocolate is unbeatable. 

* * * * *

So due to my long, luscious love affair with Tillamook, to receive a DM from the powers that be at my favorite creamery was beyond exciting for me. 

But what's this about using some Tweet of mine in a video?

I racked my brain to dredge up some context.

Ohhhh, right

Back in 2014, as I was counting down the final days till I hopped a plane to Danang, Vietnam, to visit my globe-trotting third-born who lived there, she asked me for a special favor. Seems that she was planning to throw a taco party for some uninitiated Asian friends and wanted to tantalize their taste buds with the ultimate cheddar cheese.

She wondered if I might be willing to make room in my suitcase for a proper two-pound loaf of Tillamook's best. 

Which I did. Without hesitation.

As I recall, this complicated my dealings with Customs. I declared my baby loaf of cheesy goodness, filled out an extra form or two, and talked my way past the investigating agent. The Tillamook cheddar was officially welcomed into Vietnam.

And then, on a steamy evening in a Danang high-rise, I grated that puppy down into a heap of delicious golden shreds and earned the immediate affection of a dozen hungry Vietnamese. Apparently, I also posted this Tweet:

A few weeks ago, some Tillamook marketing minion must have sifted through layers of dusty old Tweets and surfaced this five-year-old gem. Don't ask me to explain why said minion then reached out to me on Instagram rather than Twitter, because I don't get that at all. But the upshot of his or her efforts is that tonight I signed a legal release, allowing dear Tillamook to use my Tweet.

In exchange for the value of my wordsmithing, Tillamook has promised to send me a thank you gift.

All in all, I could not be more delighted about this surprising turn of events.

And I can't wait to see what they send me.

* * * * *

What started as an off-the-cuff tweet back in 2014 led to an interesting offer and a dairy industry fact-finding mission. Here's the full story:

My Tillamook Tweet

Checking Up On Tillamook

Thanks, Tillamook