Daily Adventures

We got up a little earlier than usual because we knew we'd have to go a good number of miles before we got where we had to be that night. I'd also been pretty disappointed by Whisk the previous morning, so I looked through all the food magazines in the hotel and found Brown's Court Bakery.

( Two words: Sriracha Croissant. )

The weather is cooling and the vegetable garden is really starting to produce as the plants figure out that the days are growing shorter.

( Garden produce, exercise update, food explorations. )

It's summer. It's official now. We've made our first real ice cream.

Using a real vanilla bean, real cream from the local dairy (not ultrapasturized or ultra homogonized so it clumps just a bit, beautifully, and has that incredible mouth feel when frozen), two eggs, a touch of sugar, and a bit of time and attention over the stove and cooling off before being put into the freezer.

The freezer was well frozen, too, as the paddles did stop and reverse eventually. So it was frozen really nicely. We had the real ice cream with fresh raspberries. It's definitely summer.

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The trial experience was okay. Odd, while wearing a shirt saying "I'm Blogging This" to have at least three people ask if I was a reporter. I suppose all one needs to be mistaken for a reporter is a Moleskine Reporter's Notebook and use it during a trial where everyone else seems very, very still.

I enjoyed hearing both opening statements. I got a good feeling for both sides of what was going on, but when it got into all the intense detailing of what went on, it got distressing.

So I left at the first recess. There were a good thirty people supporting Julie in the room, so I didn't feel I'd miss anything. If I were a reporter I'd be there for the opening and the decision, that's about it anyway.

I'd ridden there with Bonnie, my massage therapist and friend from church, and a few other members of the Peace, Justice and Whole Earth Committee were there. Those that could and weren't working. It was good to see folks.

But at the recess, I first moved a bench so that the incoming flood of people could actually sit down, and then I called John to ask him to pick me up. I also wrote down the exact spelling of all the names, and got asked, again, if I was a reporter. I answered, "No. I don't get paid for writing this stuff." *laughter*

Then the boys came and whisked me away in the Passat, and we went to McGuckin's.

McGuckin's is a Boulder stronghold. It's local, fiercely so. It's mostly high priced being a one-of-a-kind kind of store, it stocks all kinds of things that are just not found elsewhere, but eminently practical here. Like things to hang laundry up on. Three kinds of trees, four kinds of retractable lines, some with multiple lines, and five or six different drying racks and setups for indoor drying. This after looking at Target, Home Depot, and Sears and finding Nothing, Nada, and Zilch. They stock thousands of lights, thousands of bolts, nuts, and fasteners, thousands of art supplies, and all you can think of in terms of seed, organic gardening supplies, and tools. Lots and lots of tools. We were there for a laundry drying thingy. We ended up with one of the mid-sized trees that can be taken up or folded up and put away when we don't need it. Best thing of all the staff of the tree fits in the old umbrella base we had for a table umbrella that blew away in one of the infamous Front Range wind storms, so we can put it just about anywhere! Yay!

We also got a plastic bucket for compost to replace the crumbling ceramic one we have at the moment. We're using it a bit too hard, I guess. So better to get a more durable one that can hold our summer volume. Given John's new compost bins, we should be able to use the full capacity, easily.

It was funny wearing the "I'm Blogging This" t-shirt there, as this is the kind of thing I usually blog about and no one there really noticed it from what I could tell.

From there we went home, had some lunch, got Jet into his swimsuit and sneakers and sunscreen, and we took him to Super Soaker Camp. He was very, very excited about it all.

Then we stopped at King Soopers for some bleach for John's brewing system. And we got home and I was so tired, I fell into bed and took a nap.

I hadn't slept well last night, mostly wondering if I should even go to the trial and imagining all kinds of reactions to the shirt, none of which happened. Plus I hadn't been sleeping that well the last few nights. And I'd woken up with really red eyes and some gloop all over them, and I was afraid of pink eye again. But the last time this happened, it went away after a day, so it might be allergies or something. Plus, from just being tired, my jaw was aching, so I took a couple of Tylenol and just flopped into bed and set the alarm for an hour. I woke up woozy, slept another ten minutes, then got up and put together some enchiliadas for John to cook when he got home, and then got ready to see Bonnie. :-)

John loaded the bike and the come-a-long into the van, and we went to the Longmont Athletic Center, first. I got Jet signed out, dropped off John and the bikes and the boys headed home on the bikes.

Massage is good for me. I really think the pain is more from my jaw muscles tightening up than the tooth itself, as the tooth that's crowned doesn't actually hurt much, even when the pain gets bad. It's the jaw around it and under it. She did a great job on my neck, shoulders, and jaw, and I'm feeling much better even as the acetaminophen has worn off. Between the nap and the massage and dinner I'm feeling happy for a bit.

I got to write a bit while Jet went to play with Tanner for a bit. So I'm taking advantage of that.

Jet had a great time at camp. They played a lot, and swam for a good half hour in the outside pool. So he liked it a lot, though he said that he "nearly died" when one of the rafts they'd been swimming to flipped over and he was under all the other kids. He got out of it, though he breathed a little water. He seems just fine now, but seems to relish telling the story a lot more than telling about all the *other* swimming he did.

I've discovered an interesting side effect of not working during the summer.

We've gone through two bottles of SPF 50 sunscreen already and are through one bottle of mosquito repellent. I guess we spend a lot more time in the outdoors now than we used to. It's a good thing, all in all. I feel more fit than before.

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We had fun in Beaverton and in wandering down I-5 to see what Oregon could offer us.

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We arrived in Seaside, Oregon on Thursday evening, getting to two houses on Beach Street in Seaside that weren't side by side, but had two houses between them. The party started at about nineteen and ended up with 24 between the two houses. All the meals were in our house, which had not only the bigger kitchen, but a whole lot more table and diningroom space and on the last day, it was sunny enough for some folks to even eat outside on the upstairs deck.

It was one good, long beach party, all in all. On Thursday, on the way over it was raining so hard it was hard to drive. George and Isabel caravaned with us and we all stopped for a quick lunch of crackers and cheese and salami in the car at a lookout point above the Columbia river. We could see the wood mills there, with huge piles of logs that were so far away they looked like matchsticks. There were piles of wood chips and sawdust so large they filled entire barges probably going to paper mills elsewhere.

It was raining when we ate, but it was cool and beautiful and a slow enough rain that we didn't really get that wet.

When we got to the houses, we set up spaghetti with tomato sauce and sausage, salad, and garlic bread in huge batches. The spaghetti got all cooked at once, and by the time everyone was ready to eat it was nearly 8 pm. But we all fit and we all ate at once and it was like the biggest family you could imagine, all at once, but then the whole gathering turned into something like that.

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Jumping into 80 degree water when it's 106° F outside feels shockingly cold.

Then it just feels good. I'm SO glad there's a neighborhood pool.

Went swimming today with the boys and they played squirt guns while I did a few slow laps. It's hard to swim slowly, let my momentum carry me after a stroke rather than fighting the water the whole way across. I get further am less exhausted when I can let my glide happen. I have enough buoyancy now that I can do it. It's rather nice.

Quiet day building a Lego car with Jet, one of the huge Creator sets that can do either a spider space alien ship, a helicoptor, or a race car that reverses directions when it hits something on a bumper. I helped Dean get to his car in the afternoon. Tomorrow he's getting up at 5 to get us to the Boulder bus station that will get us on the 5:30 a.m. bus to the airport. It seemed the least I could do for him. :-)

We've been washing and packing a few things, as most of our things are already there. I asked Jet to think about the long plane ride and what he wanted to do. He hasn't really thought of much, yet, so I may well have to do the crayon and paper and paper airplane book, again, it worked well enough last time. Low key and easy. Yay!

Gosh. It's been a while since I wrote.

I went to the OUR center garden every morning, planting, weeding, and trying to figure out what people really wanted to do. Finally, by Wednesday, I figured out that we could also go to the Rec. Center, in the afternoon, and it felt great.

It's been 80's out, lately. Just like Colorado, jump right from winter into summer, with just a few days of rain in between. Sigh. I miss the rain. Yeah, I know.

The volunteers have been great. There's a lot of weeding done and beds planted and when things come up it should be easier.

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Woo. It's my first day off and I don't feel Aaaaany different. Hm...

Jet says that being six doesn't really feel all that different from being five. So maybe that's related? I'm not sure. *grin*

But he is six and I'm off and I guess that's just reality, now, and I got up this morning and thought to myself, I don't have to go into work today. Mmm...

The weekend felt like any other weekend, only MORE busy, with all of Jet's birthday things. He now says that he has six days of birthday, so he's pretty happy.

( The Six Days of Jet's Birthday, minus One. )