Christmas letter

The following was sent to our friends & family, but due to printer malfunction, I didn't get to print the photos, so enjoy!

When the winter rains set in and the cold air hints of snow at higher elevations, we don our puffy coats and begin to work at that fat reserve that gets us through the ever-lengthening darkness. Our bodily resources are turned inward a bit more to stave off the chill and our thoughts become more contemplative as we sip our cocoa and gather around the fire. We don’t speak much. We savour the quiet, the way the cocoa warms first the hands around the mug, then tickles the nose, and courses its warm salve beyond our stomachs and to our very souls.

As the Adams Family on Lerch Road slipped into 2007, it was clear the energy and frenetic pace of 2006 could not be sustained. Instead of trying to top all the chainsaw and China adventures, we took a more introspective tact; one that gave us time to enjoy the small pleasures. We’d like to share a few of those moments that stuck with us.

Winter: On a glorious mid-week bluebird “POW!” day, Jenn played hooky for some early morning turns. She took the hill at full bore, nose of the board pointing down the fall line, floating on the surface, carving graceful turn after turn (nobody was on the hill to dispute this!) At the bottom, she took the chair lift up, basking in the warm (February!) sun. As she looked down, a man was looking up. They had the same ear-to-ear grin dazedly plastered on their faces. No words. They were stuck in slow motion. They recognized, each in the other, a spirit drunk on their unbelievable good fortune to be there.

Spring: The size of Mike’s eyes when we encountered a black bear mother and cub on the trail to Enchanted Valley in Olympic National Park. Even after numerous backcountry encounters, he still has a healthy respect for the powerful creatures. We counted 11 bears during the 3—day trip! It blew Jenn’s mind to realize that it had been 10 years since she was a backcountry ranger at that station.

Summer: Driving home after a long, sweaty day at work, head filled with visions of a sun-kissed lake and the recharge to be found there. A quick change of clothes, a moment’s pause at the dock’s edge to reflect on the day, the summer, the mountain, and the refreshing plunge ahead. The short swim to take the edge off tired muscles, pulling up on the ladder Mike handcrafted (all joints, no nails!), and flopping on the dock to dry.

Fall: Venturing out for weekend jaunts to explore Washington’s wild areas, with the goal of completing the 70 mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail, from Stevens to Snoqualmie Pass. The scenery was breath-taking. But more inspiring were the people from all over the world who were finishing their treks from the Mexican border. We silently cheered them on as they only had a couple of weeks left to realize their goal. When not meeting people, we reveled in huckleberries, where every turn opened a new bounty and inspired childlike behavior. Especially noted was the propensity to stick out one’s tongue to determine whose was the darker shade of purple!

These small days made up our 2007. When we string them all together, they add up to a wonderful year. We hope the New Year brings a string of fun-filled days for you and yours!

Merry Christmas! Jenn & Mike

Old school

Dude! Our printer is a p.o.s.! I spent the last hour trying to get a decent Christmas letter out of it. This is the last year for this! From now on, it will be BLOG letters!!! Mostly its the waste of paper that is driving me CRAZY, and the waste of ink, and the waste of my time!! So, I want feedback on BLOG Christmas vs. paper in-the-mail Christmas. Is it better to receive something in the box on the driveway or on your hard-drive? I'm taking a serious vote, here.

"Home from Nowhere"

Lately, I've been reading and hearing lectures on topics I know nothing about. I enjoy reading and hearing smart people explain what it is they spend time thinking about.

I stumbled on "Home from Nowhere: Remaking our Everyday World for the 21st Century" by Howard Kunstler. It was referenced in a guidebook on home building. I checked it out from the library and it was nothing like I thought it would be. The original reference leading me to the book had to do with how horizontal windows are not flattering to a house because they break an inherent code in our humanity. From the outside looking in, the horizontal window harkens to the image of a prone body. Prone bodies only happen in situations not meant for the public eye; sleeping, sex, and death, as examples.

The rest of the book dealt with how we design homes and towns; what is wrong with strip malls, what is wrong with mega-mansions, and what is wrong with our zoning codes that allow these monstrous abominations. And, the best part was, he wasn't an environmentalist. He broke down all the reasons why we are uncomfortable with development today. He spoke of humanness and the soul of civic life. And he spoke of how we are losing it.

It made tangible for me things I feel when I travel through the American human-constructed landscape. It put the problems and solutions into words I understand.

I found it fascinating and inspiring. I think all City and County Planners should read it. And you should too.

Post-Thanksgiving trauma and drama

I guess if Julie tags, that means I must respond.

I could write a feel-good piece and say I'm thankful to live in a country with freedoms not known many places. Or that my husband is the perfect man. Or that my chosen career fills me with satisfaction. Or that I have a roof over my head. These are all true. But, they are also not quite true, because it is not actually what I feel. The truth I come away with this holiday is much more gritty. It is the truth of my family.

My family gives the most reasons to be thankful. They are complicated, stubborn, distant, smart, full-of-life, never give up, always right, never perfect, loving, caring, compassionate,the whole bag of human strengths and frailties. We laugh together, we party together, we cry together, we chill together. And we fight. I am usually on the opposite side of everything and everybody. Pushing boundaries is apparently my purpose in life. Despite this, I love them.

And with my family, I am also accepted (if sometimes grudgingly). They understand that I am complicated, stubborn, distant, smart, full-of-life, never give up, always right, never perfect, loving, caring, compassionate, the whole bag of human strengths and frailties. They love me anyway. Who else would bother to love such an outcast? It's hard work. So, thanks to my family!

Pretend this was inserted in September

My big vacation this year was a week hike along a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. Mike & I traversed the 70 miles from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. I'd like to say we chose to do in a week what a lot of people do in 4 days because we wanted to really explore the area. Truth is, I'm just not as hardcore as I used to be and Mike has never enjoyed long days on the trail; he prefers long days in camp. It was as incredible as I had expected, and as grueling. Every day was thousands up and thousands down. Or to mix it up a bit, thousands down THEN thousands up. Mike keeps asking why I haven't posted any photos. I'm not sure; I think it has something to do with the fact that even if I posted all 300+ photos, it just doesn't quite capture the trip. I'll post a few anyway.

Okay, so even after culling 250, there's quite a few. You can find them at MySpace page, 'cuz that just seems easier.

Is this me?

So, my birthday is right around the corner and I'm old enough to have a pretty good idea of who I am, even if I'd like to deny it sometimes. Although originality was deemed highly desirable in my upbringing, I've come to learn that I'm not all that different from most other people.

In my wanderings as a Backcountry Ranger on the coast, it was easy to track other hikers in the sand. When I knew there was a hiker travelling ahead of me, I would sometimes deliberately try to take alternate routes, to avoid previous footprints. I would climb over car-sized boulder fields, choose less obvious routes, pull myself over headlands, look for the challenge I thought others would avoid, given the choice of an easier route. Always at the end of the self-imposed detour, I would land in the other hiker's footprint. Left boot into left bootprint. Next time, I'd try the same idea, hugging the tideline, walking on the slippery, exposed kelp, sometimes dipping a foot in the undulating tide. Still, half a mile later, there's the inevitable foot print.

In Search & Rescue (SAR), one senior Ranger was the best at finding people because he understood that lost people follow the same routes time & again. If your last known location was Point A, he would look around point X. Something about the terrain draws lost people in undeniable ways. In one search with this Ranger, I was flown into a lost hiker's last known location. Within minutes of debarking from the helicopter, I landed in the hiker's bootprint! Soon, we found signs of camp. A little later, we lost his trail and found ourselves looking up an impossibly steep slope, covered in loose rock. The other alternative was to head downstream, through dense walls of Devil's Club. We explored up-slope a bit and through the wall of thorny shrubs, until darkness set in.

I looked up that slope and knew in my gut that given the choice of a thorny wall or an open slope, the hiker had gone up. The next morning my gut feeling was confirmed as the senior Ranger, flying over the Park, sighted an SOS spelled out in rocks on the other side of the ridge. The lost hiker had gone up over that treacherous ridge. Straight up 1,000 feet. The route made no sense and, its only conclusion was to end up at the top of a 300' waterfall dead end. But, I knew if it was me without a map and compass, I would have made the same decision and climbed up to that ridge.

And yet, when I look up traits of my sun sign, "Scorpio" online, I'm a bit shocked at how well it describes me. From the first hit http://www.astrology-online.com/scorpio.htm:

Determined and forceful
Emotional and intuitive
Powerful and passionate
Exciting and magnetic

On the dark side....
Jealous and resentful
Compulsive and obsessive
Secretive and obstinate

From the next http://zodiac-signs-astrology.com/zodiac-signs/scorpio.htm:

Scorpio in a Nutshell: Scorpio is the astrology sign of extremes and intensity. Scorpios are very deep, intense people, there is always more then meets the eye. They present a cool, detached and unemotional air to the world yet lying underneath is tremendous power, extreme strength, intense passion and a strong will and a persistent drive. Scorpios have a very penetrative mind, do not be surprised if they ask questions, they are trying to delve deeper and figure things out and survey the situation. They always want to know why, where and any other possible detail they can possibly know. Scorpios are very weary of the games that other people try to play and they are very aware of it. Scorpios tend to dominate and control anyone that lets them, or anyone that they find weak. The person that a Scorpio respects and holds close to them is treated with amazing kindness, loyalty and generosity. On the outside, a Scorpio has great secretiveness and mystery. This magnetically draws people to them. They are known to be controlling and too ambitious but only because they need control for this makes them feel safe.

Again, here's my boot landing undeniably into the bootprint. If there are 6.6 billion people on this planet, and (for argument's sake) 1/12th of them are Scorpio, then I am exactly like 550 million other people on this planet. Not so original, after all.

My husband's birthday is tomorrow. He is a Libra/Scorpio cusp. Libras are:
Romantic and charming
Easygoing and sociable
Idealistic and peaceable

On the dark side....
Indecisive and changeable
Gullible and easily infuenced
Flirtatious and self-indulgent

On sharing this information with him, he also saw a tread under his hovering foot. His astonished comment was "But what about free will?"

I don't typically read horoscopes and certainly don't base any of my decisions in life on these things, but it is quite interesting that the personalities in this household seem to match our sun signs.

fall already?

When the morning alarm sounds, it is still dark outside my window. Mornings of late are draped in damp fog. The early chill demands a long-sleeved choice from the wardrobe. The interspersed sunny afternoons hearken to the hot summer days, but the twinge of chill tells the truth, the sun arcs too low on the horizon. Summer has waned. The harvest moon of autumn presides.

September Saturday

What do you do with "leftovers" from a dock built with chainsaws? Flooring for the little addition from two years ago. We said we weren't going to finish a space that would just be torn down a few years from now, but the wood was free. I think it looks pretty good. Puts the walls to shame.
While the boards were being secured, roasted some peppers. Into the freezer for winter treats on pizzas, pastas, spreads. One more week of the Farmer's Market left.

Look at that smile!

A large package arrived today. One that took weeks of research to pick just the right one. Laser gizmos, extra lighting, sliding blades, everything! He was more diligent about this purchase than a teenage girl picking her prom dress. Just look how happy he is! Any bets on what the next project will be? Alas, more research is likely required.

"Oh, you're one of those d*@n environmentalists"

So, I've been directed to this website on more than one occasion which gives an outline of the homes and energy consumption of Mr. Gore & Prez Bush. (http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp), so here's my response.

Mostly I get it from right-wingers trying to debunk environmental ideas by pointing out the Gore hypocracy. Gore often makes a lot of good points about the environment and his rhetoric is usually thoughtful & intelligent. But I don’t find it too surprising that neither of their super-wealthy homes reflect their policies… just politics as usual. And SO WHAT? Bush's environmental policies have FAR outstripped whatever resources his home is supposedly conserving.

Which is to say, if I were looking for an environmental mentor, I probably wouldn’t look to anybody who is as power hungry as either of those two. It would be a rare politician who would rate highly on my list of heros.

Finally, if either of their homes were set as the bar for some environmentally friendly standard, we (and our planet) are in trouble. I would never consider even a 4000 sf home to be easy on the environment… I don’t care what the “average” in the area is.

early canning season

tonight i began the seasonal ritual of storing up for winter. twenty pounds of pickles sit in their jars. cucumbers were picked especially for me this morning, dill, too. the cukes must get into the jars same day for the freshest, snappiest pickles. nothing storebought can compare. cheaper, no wasteful packaging to be "recycled" (way down to #4 on the list, "rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle"), and plain ol' tastier. all this for a few hours work. i hear a satisfying dull snap in the background as each lid seals in its zingy, dilly contents (some have an extra spicy kick with hot peppers added - try finding THAT in the store). next will be tomatoes - plain canned, salsa, pasta sauce, and "sun" dried (in the oven with basil and olive oil). of course pesto with all the fresh basil will be stored too. roasted red peppers will round out next month. and whatever else pops out of the gardens. got ideas?

summer

summer is showing signs of an inkling to transition to fall. june began with sunny, blue skies but the snowpack clung in the high country beyond its normal early july melt-out. a sunny 4th of july in these parts predicts a traditional northwest summer. and late july followed tradition, although the tradition had been forgotten by many with the last couple summers of record heat. clouds and rain in the morning, clearing in the afternoon was on the bill for late july and early august. not too hot, not too cool. well, there was an anomolous week somewhere in there with some scorchers. (jonesyalonesy@blogspot.com "tragedy strikes the family rv" details an unplanned roadtrip to idaho on one of those 90+ degree days.) and now august is waning.

in a few weeks, it will be my favorite time of year. transition to fall. but a few more weeks of summer to enjoy still. starting with this weekend's forecast of "chance of rain" and "partly cloudy". if we are truly in a pattern of good ol' northwest summers, then september will be a treat.

Bye-Bye Bumpkins!

Our little cabin on the lake is, by most standards, in the boonies. The in-laws admit to singing "over the hills and through the woods to Jenn & Mike's we go," so it may be no surprise that we have been living with the SLOWEST internet available to humans. Yes, gawd-awful dial-up, and 28K at that! I know! Bumpkins! Hillbillies! I hear your jaws drop in awe.

But, that all changed two days ago! We are now LIVE and wireless at 4 million mB/sec, or some super-fast number! I'm not sure what it all means yet. I'm scared.

We moved out of the BIG CITY to the boonies 7 years ago for all the stereotypical reasons - mostly peace and my complete unwillingness to keep up with the masses (can't say "joneses" for obvious reasons). But the masses have won.

Now we, too, can fritter away more hours in front of a screen, until our eyes are bloodshot. You see, with slow downloads, you can't really get addicted; not REALLY. But, already I feel the draw, yesterday afternoon, a perfect 80 degrees, sunny blue skies and the boss let us off early. What do I think of first? A refreshing swim after a sweaty day? A stress-relieving bike ride? A good book on the dock? NOOO! I wonder what I'll post.



I went for a swim. I don't know how long I can stay strong.