ghosts are good company

( giant weekend field trip part three - monday )

part three includes going to the remains of never never land with nat’s friend ann.  there are a few pictures here.  it was a sad trip lacking the touchstones of its sweet memories, so it was an appropriate that it was in the middle of the forest that my mother called and learned about my great-grandmother’s passing.

it’s, unsurprisingly, still hard.  i visited her in the hospital a week before she died - she’d had a stroke - and she was looking not-so-awesome, but having trouble breathing.  i felt guilty going on the field trip, rather than staying in town to keep visiting her, but i think it’s best that i had adventures rather than watching her deteriorate - she was always more of the adventure type.  you can see a picture of her from the fifties (when she was 47) here, and her obituary is online here.  it was amazing to have the entire family in town, many folks whom i haven’t seen since her 90th birthday.

butter is currently cleaning his paw while it rests on my wrist.  nat is sleeping. 

i’m hoping to, sometime in the next few weeks, stop by the schilter family farm in order to do some pumpkin-buying and hayriding.  i’ve been wanting to do the like ever since october crisped in, and upon some research decided on schilter - which turns out to be a good choice, as it seems like they were family friends… some of them were at the funeral and, in looking at the history of the farm, they share a swiss and dairy-related heritage.

since the adventures and stresses chronicled above, i’ve mostly been working and sleeping and working and sleeping.  it’s so chilly here!  i’m currently wearing polarfleece socks and still have freezy feet.

(parts one and two.)

the truth is, the purpose of our trip wasn’t so much a happy one.  we were headed to the funeral of a friend of nat’s.  after a few hours on the road we made it to pasco, to a lovely service.  we headed home still sad, and were excited about the opportunity to distract ourselves by visiting the teapot dome.  …but we couldn’t find it.  we did, however, see this.

so, we turned around and headed a few miles back toward granger - yes, granger: where the dinosaurs roam.  nat and i had a great time taking the dinosaur drive, and taking pictures with all of the dinosaurs - you can see the full set here.

oh! i can’t believe it, i almost forgot. after we went to the darigold dairy fair (soooo underwhelming), a few hours down the road we stopped by snoqualmie falls, which was so. so. beautiful.

and we headed home. sunday was lacking in adventures, since i had orientation at work. but info on monday’s adventures is pending.

(part three here!)

last weekend, nat and i had a fairly extensive field trip.  he had worked sixteen days straight, and finally had four days off.  the initial plan was to go to spokane, but we didn’t make it that far.

our first adventure was to the puyallup fair, nat and i went with our friend will.   immediately upon arrival i ate a scone, in order to not be disowned by my family.  we went on the skyride in order to get our bearings, after which we rollercoastered! and then headed to the hobby hall where we saw amazing things including legobama and the vegetable displays. after that we saw the wonder of the steilacoom dance company (led by the silver stars) and headed up to the home goods exhibits, which were fascinating and crazy.  i was most interested in the table settings, i think, because really - what kind of competition is that?

we wandered around and saw the animals and were magnetically drawn (back) to the 4H dog show, after which we saw the jest in time circus which was pretty cute (i don’t usually like clowning, even though i have some clown friends, so “cute” is saying a lot).  i bought a red nose.  after that, nat and will went on the giant slide!!  “welcome to the puyallup giant slide, one of the largest slides ever built.”

then, we all went on the ferris wheel, which was an appropriately long ride for our money.  will took a shmoopy picture of nat and i.  we then abandoned him to wait forever for his fiancee to pick him up and take him home, while we headed to ruth’s chris steakhouse for my grandparents’ overwhelmingly fancy 50th anniversary party.  we brought a change of clothes to the fair, but still felt underdressed.  it was lovely, and so nice that my grands were able to celebrate such an important occasion.

upon leaving dinner in bellevue, we headed over the pass.  i had high hopes of making it to pasco that night, but we made it as far as ellensburg, tired and grumpy.  we ended up staying at the i-90 inn motel (classy, eh?) which i was surprised was pretty darn clean.  we sunk into bed exhausted, and i woke up at some point in the middle of the night to the bed settling, because it had just… broken.  from us rolling over.  awesome.

(part two here!)

so last time i posted, i linked to this comic, where the text is “3D dinosaurs no way” and “3D cheesemaking omg.”  … last weekend, nat and i had adventures that actually included both of those things, in roadside tourist attraction form.  i will share more once i’ve uploaded the pictures, but golly it was awesome.

my favorite quote of the day, from nat about butter:

i covet this poster like crazy, but it’s $30.

my great-grandmother passed away on sunday, after a week’s worth of post-stroke sleeping.  she lived such a long and wonderful life; she was my favorite lady.  i was her namesake for eighteen years, and will always remember her.  i’m mostly still numb, i think.

i can see the matterhorn mountain from my window. my mother’s at a conference here at the disneyland hotel, so i’m relaxing in a bed that’s not mine. i need to get to work soon; i have proofreading to do, but for now it’s relaxytime.

i’ve been on an adventuretrip for a little while - on sunday i took a bus to the train to portland, then headed over to the zine symposium. the symposium was was pretty delightful - even if i was only there for a little while. it’s probably for the best, because had i been there longer, i’d only have managed to spend even more money. as it is i spent too much, but i also traded some of my button stock, and that comes together to mean that i have a pretty lot of awesome stuff. it was weird for me to be at the symposium because i really have no idea where to start with zines. i mean, there are *so many* that it’s overwhelming - even when it’s just single people with multiple zines they’ve written at one table it’s tricky figuring out which one of theirs i want. because they’re all awesome exciting promising.

so, um. end zine symposium tangent. i left my atm card in a machine up there, i realized as i went to pay for my dinner at the portland airport. fortunately i had enough cash, so was allowed to get on my plane to san diego.

in san diego i… bought a car. and filled it up with a bunch of my stuff. and then drove it up here.

full circle so far. on friday i’m driving up to san francisco, staying the night there, then picking up mr. butter banana saturday morning and heading to olympia, where i will take the giant step of… moving in with my boyfriend. i’m excited and worried and hopeful and we’ll see how it all goes.

i need to get a job.

i went to bed thinking about working on this
gathered scarf, and proceeded to have a dream where i was going to go on a road trip (from the pacific northwest to san diego, i think) and i wanted to bring that project along to start. i wonder how to interpret that one, considering the above and that i’ve been borrowing my grandparents’ car this past week and that i’ve been trying to figure out how to get to portland in a couple of weeks.

it’ll be, if i make it out there, my first trip to the zine symposium without cubbie - but it’ll also be a trip where i know more people than ever. so it seems like a positive thing to do, and like there are more people from olympia going this year. i think i’m feeling like i really should do something awesome because typically i would be at homoagogo right now, but i’ve been travel-hungry for the past while anyway, as i mentioned.

last weekend (not yesterday!) a friend and i stayed in a (western) yurt at grayland beach state park. it was a really wonderful trip that made our overnight stay seem longer than it was, which i think is the mark of a successful retreat. we saw a pinniped of some sort on the shore… i’m pretty sure he was munching on seaweed, although that might have been in my imagination. also we flew a kite! and toured the gray’s harbor lighthouse.

most importantly on the trip, we learned that we can take the bus there from olympia! having acquired bus schedules for the region, i am excited about the potential for cheap minivacations by bus.

i’ve been trying to start skating again - i’ve been pretty wheel-shy since i fractured my tailbone, mostly because my sense of balance is missing. i went out the other day, though, and managed to calm down after a little while (my knees, they stopped shaking!!) and even fell properly (while falling managed to twist so that i landed on my fleshy hip, rather than my not-fleshy tailbone). i’m hopeful that the skatey trend will continue, but still laugh at the thought of ever being able to even take part in the tiniest part of derby.

i’m still trying to figure out some broad-based what-do-i-want-to-do-where-do-i-want-to-go questions. all of my ideas at this point seem more romanticized than realistic - i need to find a way to balance those aspects and find a life that can sustain me. ideas?

CIMG4072

Originally uploaded by geoffy

i found my missing login information! that’s always a good thing.

i’ve been wandering around the puget sound region lately, sleeping on couches for the last month. currently i’m in des moines, at the kindness of my grandparents. their house is one of my favorite places, it has such a beautiful view of the water - i just wish that it were reasonably public transportationable.

the region is making me antsy, and i’m hoping that opportunities elsewhere pan out soon. for now i’ve been making mini-trips to pretend that i’m going somewhere; last weekend a friend and i explored bainbridge island. it was very very warm.

also last weekend i met up with some of my (now) favorite strangers from the internet, in BALLARD of all places. i got to go to archie mcpheeee where i found a fantastic green dinosaur finger puppet (see photo!) and spent too much money.

ALSO last weekend, the derby liberation front beat the throttle rockets, which was delightful but also sad as it was mommacherry’s last bout with the team. the team, mascots and all, did their introductions in aprons in homage to mommacherry, which amused me since i was wearing an apron that day anyway.

this weekend has, unsurprisingly, been calmer.