violetismycolor

leaving on a jet plane...

Actually, am NOT leaving on a jet plane, but in a car. John and I are going away for real adults-only time. My mother-in-law (aka the best mother-in-law anyone could have) gave us 3 nights at Tu Tu Tu'N Lodge in Gold Beach, Oregon for a Christmas gift. It has taken us forever to get it scheduled but now that we have...yeah, we are going away. I am taking my camera (film camera) and tripod, etc. and hope to get some really awesome photos. We want to go river rafting, too. John has some bias against the jet boats, so we won't be doing that but that is okay...been on them, already. We will go and spend Saturday evening with Renee and Bud (in Jacksonville, OR) and then leave on Sunday for the coast. This is almost California, folks, so it is a very long drive. I am excited to be getting some vacation time, though.

I had to make sure that I bought insta-food for the kids, so they would actually eat a (semi-) decent set of dinners. I am having Ross be responsible for the plant watering. Things should really not be too much of a disaster for them (the kids). I also made sure all the laundry was done so that they didn't have to worry about that, either. Such a MOM!!!

So, if I can't get an internet connection down south, see ya next Wednesday or Thursday...

lunch, just us girls

Coffee girls were back today, and that made everything better. Only Irene is still on vacation, till Thursday...and then Ev leaves on Friday...and oh yeah, I go away on Saturday... Well, this is summer vacation and we will all be in and out for the duration. I am happy, though, that there will be SOME time for us to get together.

Bonnie got a big packet from Colgate today, so I called her and asked if she wanted her mom to come and have lunch with her. (Of course, she did!) She works as a receptionist at a law office and she has a whole hour off. She brings her lunch everyday (she says she is too cheap to want to spend her own money on lunch) and marvels that everybody else eats out EVERY day.

We found a little restaurant (replete with Betty Boop-themed artifacts) and both ordered the same thing. She had gotten all the materials for her fall semester class selection and was ooh-ing and aah-ing over the different courses she could take. For freshman seminar, she is interested in a 'theories of Atlantis' class (just what I would have picked, too). She said that she would like to take trap-shooting for PE...she really wants to learn how to handle a gun and she sees this as her opportunity...but she is afraid that other kids interested in learning trapshooting would be conservative rich Republicans (and all that during the election season, too) and she wants to meet kids more like her. Where does she get these ideas? (Of course, she may be right!) She also said it was ironic that she is interested in this at all, since she is so pro-gun-control. She doesn't try to explain this apparent dichotomy of belief and wanting, and I love that about her.

just notes

Summer makes me feel disconnected. Nothing is like it was. Not the weather. Not the family schedule. Not the round of 'normal' things to do. My coffee girls are scattered about. Some on vacation. Some mostly asleep. Some doing the same disconnected-from-routine family things that I am. We don't have a set time to meet and I don't have my yak session to keep me level. Yuck! It just doesn't feel right. I know that, soon, I will pull myself and my schedule back together but that doesn't help me from feeling that things just aren't going right in my life.

Okay. Enough whining.

I am working on getting to try to understand my Corel Painter 8 program. It is so different than Photoshop that I am having a tough time getting acclimated. Of course, it would help if I had a real background in pastels or oils or any of the forms I am interested in. I have taken a watercolor class, but I find watercolor to be very difficult. I really like the boldness of pastel, oils too. I will plunge headlong in again, tomorrow.

Father's Day

We had a very good 'family day'. The kids gave very nice cards to their dad, who had said he really didn't want to do anything special and that he really didn't need anything. I gave John a nice card, too, even after the Mother's Day disaster that we had. I won't go into detail but let's just say there were tears and I didn't even get a card from him. Charming, he was not.

We did have a nice barbeque, complete with dinner on the deck. The day had cooled off enough to enjoy being outside. John did the chicken, the kids made sure that they postponed their own social plans for the evening so that they could have dinner with their dad, and even Bonnie managed to contain her teenage angst and enjoy just spending time together. So, over all...very positive. If I don't sound ecstatically happy, that is true. But contentment ruled the day.

We did go out and see Shrek 2 last night. It was funny and charming and we all enjoyed it. I liked Harry Potter better but maybe because I just wish that I could live at Hogwarts and be a witch, casting fun spells, too.

hot as hades

Portland is hot, hot, hot...91 degrees (about 33 degrees for all you of the celsius persuasion). This is VERY early in the summer for us to get this hot. I am wondering what this portends for the rest of the summer. Yikes!!!

I got out on my walk very early this morning, to beat the heat. This was a very good idea, since I am a total weather wimp and I know I would have skipped the walk altogether if I hadn't gone when I did.

Did you ever notice that Americans lower the octave of their voice when they say "goodbye" at the end of a phone conversation, but Brits say goodbye in a higher octave? It was really brought home to me this week, since I have spoken to 3 of my friends in England in the past few days. Wonder why...

Dutch card-playing genes

Is it possible to pass on genes for things as random as card-playing?

When I was growing up, we would go to my grandparents' house (about one Sunday a month) and all the tantes and ooms (aunts and uncles) would be there. They played a lot of cards. Now, my parents hold court on Sundays, and there is a lot of card playing going on. Tonight, my 19-year-old son and his friends are all here, playing cards. Coincidence? I think not.

Adam and his friends are all in the living room, playing Frustration (great game!!!), laughing and teasing, and having the best time. It is so wonderful to see (and hear) your kids relating to other kids in such fun, positive ways.

I was out to dinner with my coffee-girls and we had spent the evening laughing and talking, too. Ah, the joy of close human relationships. Is there anything better?

do you ever have the feeling that something was just MEANT to be?

I decided to stop and have a cup of coffee (sounds like I do that alot, huh?) before going to the nursery to find the perfect plants for my garden (wow, I do THAT a lot, too)...and who should I run into but one of the mother of one of my sister-in-laws. She doesn't live in town and it was sort of a shock to see her in my favorite place to hang out. She is a really nice woman, but I think this is the first time I have ever REALLY talked to her. We sat and had coffee and talked about love and life and the universe...wow! I just felt like I was 'meant' to go there and talk to her. She really made me think about some things in my life, in a way that I hadn't before. I just LOVE it when those things happen. Made my day.

why am I always "The Mom"?

Can't believe it. I went to get coffee this morning at a local shop, and what do I find myself doing? Wiping up all the milk and *!"# that everyone else has spilt and then just LEFT there. I am all the while thinking, "Did their mother's never teach them to clean up after themselves?"...themselves meaning all the other messy coffee shop patrons who are not obsessively cleaning the counters....

my baby has a job

My baby girl (age 'almost' 18) finally got a summer job...a real one. She is going to be the receptionist at the law firm of a friend of mine...so, here is how it happened...I ran into my friend, Marty, at Starbucks last week and he asked what was new with me. I said that Bonnie had graduated and we were trying to help her find a job and did he know of anything. He said that they were trying to hire a new receptionist and that they had about 100 applications. I said that they could hire Bonnie for the summer and that would give them plenty of time to do a good job of interviewing, etc. (so they wouldn't be rushed). He said he would consider it. I had Bonnie fax her resume to him. He liked what he saw and called her. He hired her. Yeah. She is thrilled and I am thrilled.

Now for my political rant...I can't believe the non-stop Reagan-was-such-a-great-Pres BS that is on the US airwaves. Yeah, there were some good things about him but this is the guy who wouldn't utter the word 'AIDS' while people were dying, who cut off benefits for low-income citizens, who raised the deficit so high that we went through a major recession...I mean, COME ON!!! Yeah, he was old and now he is dead, but he was no saint. No one is.

Great news for us, my husband, John, was elected to be a Kerry delegate to the Dem Convention in Boston in July. He is very excited. He really deserves the honor, too. He is running the Veterans for Kerry group in Oregon. He also was the person running the Kerry campaign here in Oregon till they sent a staff person to the state. So, yeah John!

I worked at the Democratic Convention in New York in 1976, when I was 19. I was working on a Congressional race on Long Island that summer and fall (taking a break from college) and got the chance to work at the convention. It was an awesome experience.

just the usual...

Yes...my son, Ross, finished his finals today and that means that (unless he has totally messed up without my knowledge) he is officially a junior in high school. Last one in the lineup...kidlet #3. #1 and #2 were busy working summer jobs today. Adam is working for an economics consulting firm, and Bonnie is working for a temporary agency and she got to take staples out of already-stapled items, and put little sticky things on packets. Wow...she now knows why she is going to college in the fall and getting an education. No lifetime of putting little sticky things on packets for her!

I spent part of the day scanning in a bit of my collection of vintage Agnes Richardson postcards into my computer, to be put on disks. Here is a fine example of the cuteness that is the illustration of Agnes Richardson. I found my first AR postcard in England at a Home and Garden Show. I saw this wonderful postcard of a little Dutch girl being chased by a goose and it reminded me of stories my mom tells about mean geese that they had, when she was growing up in Holland. So, I bought it for her and had it framed as a gift. I think I paid 2 pounds for it at the time. Now, these postcards are being auctioned off on EBay for $20 or more. They are from the 1910's and 1920's, so they are wonderful, nostalgic pieces. I have about 50 different Agnes Richardson postcards, myself, and I love them. I use the artwork for making cards and calendars and all sorts of things. (P.S. For all your knitters out there, I love the fact that this little Dutch girl is knitting!)

and now for something completely different

Yeah, I have finally posted my first entries in my book blog. Yes, I AM writing a book and I am doing it in a very public way (that is, if anyone can actually find my blog...you have to know where to look!). I will let any of you lurking out there have the webaddress, which is (tadaaaaa....applause....):
http://valentinois.typepad.com/the_italian_wars/

The book is the first of a trilogy...this one is called (obviously) The Italian Wars. It is the story of Miranda Ducci and her family, starting about 1522 and going forward. They live in the Piedmont section of what is now Italy, but was then the Duchy of Savoy. Miranda is a fictional character but many of my characters will not be fictional, but actually real people who were either on the fringe or in the limelight of that period of time. The idea came to me when I read some short snippets about a girl named Filippa Ducci (our fictional Miranda's sister), who was the mother of an illigitimate child of the King of France. Anyway, stay tuned...it's going to be good.

it's raining in Oregon...

The Oregon rain has returned. Rose Festival and rain DO go hand-in-hand, but why couldn't it just be an aberrantly sunny year, like last year? This is thwarting my walking schedule, since the rain is not at all gentle, but keeps coming down in torrents. I am afraid to begin a one hour walk, given that I could be a mile from home when one of these outbreaks occurs. I am trying to see the good side of my prisoner-in-my-own-home status...I am getting more work done, my house is cleaner, my legs are not getting that overly-muscular look....

The information on the Rose Festival Poster for this year is this:

This year's poster, titled, “Yellow Roses and Quince Tea” has been designed by local artist Lin Haak. This painting is part of her “Windowsill Meditations" series, a collection of still life paintings inspired by the view from her studio. Haak utilizes a variety of surfaces for her oil paintings, including paper, birch panels and aluminum. This featured piece is painted with oil on an aluminum press plate. The poster is a warm representation of Oregon and Portland - fauna, flora and Mt. Hood in the background.

My daughter DID graduate from high school. She looked beautiful and happy. She had a great time at the all-night grad party put on by the school. All good. On the tragic side, the local one-hour photo place managed to destroy my graduation photos (no charge, though, ma'am!). They came out in all shades of reds, greens, and blues...and I have been unable to save them through photoshop magic. Now I have to call all the folks who took pictures of their kids, who included Bonnie in group photos, just so that I can get a decent picture for myself. The worst part is that I didn't take my digital camera because I think that film gives a richer look to the photos. I curse you, automatic-photo-killing machine!!!

We have some good friends that are moving from here (Portland, Oregon) to Valencia, Spain for one year. Their kids are 6 and 9. The dad took an early retirement. And they are going on an adventure!!! I am very jealous, but in spite of my jealousy I wanted to celebrate our friendship and had a nice dinner party for them last night. We had three other couples and my teenage children all participating, and it was so much fun. We did tell them that they should expect a visit from us, though...they're not getting away scot-free (how DID the phrase scot-free come about anyway?).

I probably wrote that my eldest son, Adam, is transferring to the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland in the fall (he will certainly NOT be Scot-free). My best friend, Judith, lives in England. I have first cousins in Holland and Belgium. Another good friend's daughter is going to be studying in Aix-en-Provence in the fall. I figure that this augurs well for me. I have a European tour planned that will span a good deal of Europe.

Ach, the sun just came out...do I go out walking or is this just a ruse to get me out the door and then pour down the wrath of the Oregon rain pixies on me?

this marks the end, and the beginning

My baby girl graduates from high school today. I dropped her off at the practice session, wondering what they could possibly do that could take 2 whole hours. When I returned, they still weren't done. Seems that they had changed the time of the practice, but forgotten to get the word out. I had to wait another 45 minutes. They showed them where they would sit, how the would march in and out, made announcements about times to be there, etc. AND THAT WAS WHILE I WAS THERE!!! What the hell were they doing for the other hour and a half? Do they think these kids are total morons and can't walk in and out without 2 friggin hours of practice...Hey, they made it through high school; give them SOME credit.

Anyway, my mom and dad actually volunteered to come up here and sit through her graduation. I wanted to ask them WHY they would want to do that...but I thought that I shouldn't discourage them. They don't actually volunteer for things like that; they mostly expect us to come to them. Of course, if you had 36 grandchildren (and one on the way), you might not actually spend all your time running back and forth to see them, either. They should be here a little before 4, we're going to eat (chinese) at around 440, Bonnie needs to leave around 5, we follow at about 530, graduation is at 6, and we finally get home around 830 or 9. What a day!

walking reminds me of??? what???

I walk every day, if possible. I always try to find the perfect time of day, when the sun won't be too hot or the when the rain abates. It has become a wonderful ritual for me. I plug into my iPod and go. I walk a variation of a basic route, depending on how the mood strikes me. I find it is a wonderful time for me to think things over, or to let me mind wander, or to clear my head and listen for a guiding voice to help me find my way in the world. I find true peace on these walks and they have become very precious to me. Here are some of the things that I have learned:

I wander past gardens as they ebb and flow in floral finery. I no longer see the weeds or the unkempt areas. I find myself searching for the beauty in the world and ignoring the rest. This is a great lesson in life...be aware of the ugliness but concentrate on the beauty. I do what I can to make my little part of the world lovely. I tend my garden (faithfully? pretty much) and speak to walkers who pass by while I am outside. Sometimes, I even give a little mini-tour of the yard to those who are especially interested.

I listen to the music as I go. The songs on my iPod (about 1,000 to date) are a real mishmash of styles. I love 60's oldies (the ghost of my childhood), medieval and renaissance music, current music that is not hiphop, some classical, some new age (my favorite is Secret Garden, given to me by a dear friend who said it always made her feel peaceful), and random music from all over the spectrum (if I hear it on the radio and like it, I will try to buy it on iTunes). I listen to the songs, in random order, when I walk. I am always surprised at what pops on, and I enjoy that. I am usually just thinking and the new song takes my thoughts in a new direction. I think this is what the songs are meant to do...it's all some grand plan.

Music has been my constant companion, since I was a little girl. One of my first memories of being a child is of me swinging on the swingset in my front yard and singing at the top of my voice. I just loved to do this. I loved how the songs I knew then (I have no idea what they might have been) were a reflection of the rhythmic movement of my swinging. I loved the sound of my own voice (I guess I still do, for all sorts of reasons). I loved being outside in the beautiful sunniness that was southern California. Of course, we lived in the 'country' (which is now a densely populated part of LA County); we had a 67-acre dairy farm. My swing set faced the road and, across that, an open field that ran on and on till it hit some foothills, and there in the distance was Mt. Baldy. It was so beautiful. When I got a little older, I would take my dad's turquoise transistor radio up into the haystacks and rock out to the bands of the 60's. I especially loved The Beatles, Herman's Hermits, the Beach Boys, (and so many more of the boy-bands of the day), the Supremes, and more. When I got into high school, I joined the choir and found out that other people thought I had a pretty decent voice, too. In college, my 8-track player was the thing I treasured most in my various dorm rooms. I own tons of albums, tapes, cd's, and now my digital music. When I walk, I will sing out to my music (sort of quietly, but I don't really mind if anyone hears me). It brings me tremendous joy.

I try to notice everything that is going on around me. I try to be careful of cars and trucks, of course. But I also try to notice every person, every bird, every cat or dog, the occasional raccoon; I even saw a mole once. Interestingly, I came across a new book (called "The Path"), non-fiction, about a man's daily walk (for the past 37 years) the mile to-and-from-work every day. He said something very interesting and I quote, "Ultimately, almost without my willing it, the path became more than a walk, more than an education, more than a life; it became the Path, a Tao (Way), a thread that ties one human life and the universe together." I could totally understand where he was coming from. This is where I hope I am heading, on my walks.

CJ is back

Well, CJ is back. CJ is kind of like a surrogate son for us. He is going to be a junior at Syracuse U. this fall. He is the same age as my son, Adam. (Adam has spent the past two years at Willamette U. in Salem, Oregon but is transferring this fall to U. of St. Andrew's in SCOTLAND!!!) Anyway, CJ spends most of his time with us, as opposed to his own parents. He has been with us for the past 3 years. He just got back from a week in the SF bay area. Now, he is home for another 2 weeks, and then he is doing "semester at sea"...which means taking college classes while cruising to the Orient and back. He just got back to Portland (tonight) and came straight to see us.

I seem to have a history of taking in kids as 'surrogate mom'. It has happened over and over through the years. I actually feel pretty good about this, really. I had a 'mentor-mom-like-woman' when I was in my late teens through early twenties and it was what really steered my life in a good direction. I like to think I am paying back this experience.

My college-bound daughter spent her day job hunting today. She hates doing this, mostly because she sees every application as a chance to be rejected. And she takes these rejections as personal. I had a talk with her about it, explaining that these businesses may not be hiring or they may have so many applicants that her chances are small. But she went out with a friend today and pounded the pavement. I think that she will feel much better when she lands something and is able to make a contribution to her fall college expenses. Last summer, she had an internship and earned a $1000 stipend. She was totally freaked out about that, too, before she was selected. And in the end, she loved what she did (she worked in a lab at OHSU med school).

Off to bed soon...