Sneak Preview To The Weekend That Was

It's Linda. Beth asked me to post a quick blog to let you know she's still alive. She is hoping to post a blog in the next day or two, talking about our weekend.

In the meantime, here is a photo to whet your appetite. I've never seen Port Angeles look so beautiful as it did on Friday evening close to sunset.

The street where I live and spring flowers, 'Danger Area' on the Beach, hummingbird matings and my fine ass

I want to show you the street where I live. And why it is worth hanging around despite the noise. Because it is a nice area and within wheeling distance to a very nice and old park and to the beach/waterfront. Because when I go to wheel down to get a DVD (of the very terrifying and lovely Pandorum) from the DVD rental place, THIS is the sidewalk I wheel down.It is more than just nice and even, so no sloping to the left or right, but also a floral burst of outdoors.

And I usually see squirrels every trip, sometimes crows follow me, I have seen an owl on this trip down this street and when I return, I see this robin, looking very regal for someone looking for worms (the two crows were on the other side of me, the female picking branches for the nest and the male guarding her – sweet ‘twue love’ crow style). And I guess robins like to preen since THIS is the view from the van (we went to pick up Cheryl from the Coho) of the fence directly in front of me.Squirrels often use this fence as a highway. I like that we live in an urban/secret rural beltway.

At then end of the block of the Sakura Blossom tunnel, which has many zero entry apartment buildings with seniors living there, stands this older, 1940’s building, which has a fair sized bamboo forest off on the side. Linda said, “That place NEVER looks that good.” Well, in spring, and when the sun is out, a lot of things look good. I remember that from the first spring in Cardiff – grey, wet, nasty tipy flagstones which soaked you like landmines, and row houses that looked like someone crying frozen in architecture. But then the spring sun came out and it look really quite nice. I asked Linda ‘Wow, why don’t we move to THIS area?” coming off the round-a-bout

She replied dryly, “This is OUR street, we are at the other end...in sunlight, you just haven’t seen it in sunlight for six months.”

Ah.

Where we live now however is very nice, and we looked around at many different apartments to try and find the right place. Where we live now was the best we found at the time (since we were living in a ex-crack dealers apartment beneath someone who liked to try and listen to us having sex – we REALLY wanted to move). So, another block down and there is the flower store. I showed you the purple Mumms we got, but I had wanted the blue (Linda wanted the purple, and I wanted Linda to be happy). Here are the large blue ones ($7.99), the smaller bundle for $4.99 was already gone, alas.

We are fortunate to be within a block of a shop that sells a great variety of flowers from these gorgeous lilies,to mumms and carnations and more, all in amazing colours, ranging from $2-$12. So though I may be trapped inside and fearing the noise and the heat, without a view of outside, I have life and colour, like these pin cushion (or the bird of paradise behind). And of course, what is spring without a sunflower?
Wheeling on a half block are more houses and apartments. Many of the apartments have cement pot in front where gardens are kept, or are landscaped,
as the quality of gardening is quite high here. A lot of old heritage houses, built on bedrock on one side of the street (close to the old Cathedral on the hill), as you can see with these houses, sporting the lovely purple bushes (name?), but not exactly wheelchair accessible. On this side of the street are a mix of post war houses and apartment buildings from the 1960’s to 1980’s. Here is the fence of a side street showing even when things are ‘let to go’ it comes out nice, in springtime.
Two blocks along is one of the apartment buildings we desired to get into, it looks like it was made for people living in Hollywood during the 50’s (does it come with a LONG mother of pearl cig holder? Yes, I wanted to vamp it!). The whole area is curvy with multiple gardens, these balconies and as you see, ramps for the inhabitants. I think it is more expensive than where we are now, but I imagine some aging film star in there saying, “Oh darling, you remind me so much of a young Catherine Kelly, who was all the ‘wow’ amoung us B-list film stars and sure to launch into the A films, and who knows maybe star next to Cary Grant…” wink wink, “that would have been dreamboat days! Come by sometime and I can screen my films for you, like “A Fallen Tomcat” or “The Smitherson Sister”"

It was places like this in L.A. where older women with way too much jewelry were "the third daughter of the Count, you know, and would have been doing the Royal Circuit if not for The War, her country just didn’t exist after that.”

Sorry, odd memories as the people who lived in Pasadena between Lake Street and MIT were an interesting mix (including Ray Bradbury). Back in Victoria, here is a back garden from an apartment compledx we wheeled by.
Crossing the street, I took a picture of this heritage house turned either boarding house or bed and breakfast, I think it is a bit of both. I like it because it has not only an atrium but also an roof deck which is used as an observatory for star watching at night. This is the street where I live. One of them.

After wheeling home we went to pick up Cheryl from the Coho (here it is heading back to Port Angelesthat day it was delayed since a semi-truck backed OVER a car, not a good day for the car), and since I was in the van, and the sun was out, I suggested we go to the waterfront. We parked across from the duck pond, and used a trail I had not used in a long time. I liked this section of the waterfront as it gets pounded hard by winter storms and erodes and changes the nature of the park often. Sadly none of the “Do not walk during winter” signs were up with a pictogram of a little man falling down a cliff to his death under the word, “Erosion.” I did find instead an actual slope going down to the beach! Hooray! This meant I could go to the beach for the first time since being in a wheelchair.

Linda assured me that she would help me back up. After getting down (with help), I wanted her assurance again, because that was going to be an ‘inch at a time’ climb for me. And to my joy, we found a ‘danger zone’ with lots of XXXX on where people were not supposed to walk, stand or stop.You can see the danger XXXX under my wheelchair!

Coming back Cheryl went down and said, “My God, the whole thing is eroded underneath, you were sitting on nothing!”

I was all excited, “Quick, take a picture showing me sitting on nothing, that would be so cool!” They took the picture. Then Linda and Cheryl reminisced about all the signs like ‘Do not continue if you have lung or heart issues’ in Hawaii and other places I get my picture taken next to or just they take the picture as you see me heading off PAST the sign on my oxygen (SEE, the logic was that since I HAD a prosthetic lung, technically, I didn’t HAVE a problem anymore….except it turned out later that day, I did.). I am wearing these jeans because though skinny, Linda helped me into them saying that they ‘made my ass look sexy’ – how she sees that in the chair, I know not, but there you go, the slimming, ass sexy jeans and danger girl.

On the way down to the beach we saw a songbird robin, which had a beautiful singing voice. All the birds were in mating patterns.

The good news was that I got to go down to the beach and wheeled to the end of the pathway, I did not however try to balance my back wheels and make my way through the driftwood. That is for another day. On the way back, I was taking pictures of the driftwood when I saw something. It was a seal who was popping its head up for water, and must have found something good beneath the kelp bed to eat. Here is the brief shot of the Seal head and seal ass I captured on film.
We did make it up to the top of the slope. Huzzah. And just in time to see this humming bird. It was resting between doing very, very fast loops for mating attraction. Or so says Cheryl. It would hang in the sky, and then faster than the eye could see, it would swoop down near the ground in a fast loop, up again, and then looping again. I actually managed to catch it as it was heading down to the ground. The mating dance worked because as we watched, it ended up at the top of one loop (we would lose sight of it near the ground and all the bushes) with another hummingbird a foot behind. They headed off doing a set of helix type counter swoops around each other – ahh to be a hummingbird in love.

Across from us, while the hummingbird was swooping was this songbird (unknown?) in the bushes. One of the things I like about Victoria, and where I live in Victoria, I saw so many flowers, and a host of different animals, from marine life to various birds all in the space of an hour or two.

After this I was slurring very badly, and Linda took me back to the car. We drove two blocks up to the same Drive In my parents generation went to, the Beacon Hill Drive Inn, which uses lush cream, ice cream, and I had a hot butterscotch sundae before heading home for my nap. I might not get out often but I am glad when I do.

FYI, Linda has added a few medical items to the wishlist, including some of my camelbak drink holders, since one temp careworker decided the sip tube WAS going to come out, regardless if it didn’t after using all her force to pull it, push it bend it and eventually break it, in order to wash it. “I’m done!” Sigh. Also some digestive breakdown for my intestines and other fun but necessary items, like Batteries for the monitor where Linda can hear me, when I am too weak to move or call her.

Next time, it is us doing the 74 postcards I sent out today (74 – woot!).

Simple pleasures, postcards from Japan, mud slushing and Hoh

Okay, yes I know I talked about rest and resting but instead (typical me) I am going off on another adventure which I hope will NOT end with me going to the hospital. See, tomorrow was SUPPOSED to be my, “I will go to the Hoh Rainforest Trip!” because the last attempt failed only because of the effect of the Coho (I am not strong enough to compensate for the movement of the ship for 90 minutes so start having problems breathing, etc), I need an evening to recover (so I going tonight and then lying there making vague moaning/vomit noises - actually viewed as less odd when I do it in Port Angeles than in Victoria, so I must not be the only one lying down making those noises over there). Then tomorrow I go to the Hoh Rainforest and recover again, and Saturday I come back and recover from the Coho Ferry after I come back. Admittedly two days and nights for 2 hours in a rain forest but hey, I said I was going and it would HAPPEN, I didn’t say it was going to be easy.

Only…..it is raining. I mean it IS called a rain forest, it is just that it has been sunny for weeks and weeks and now, when I actually WANT it to be sunny, it is raining. Oh Fudge! So I will need to plan the whole, “I will go to the Hoh Rainforest!” AGAIN, because we still have like a bunch of summer (many, “soon” of summer) and I need two or three weeks of sun to dry off the forest. Because while Able Bodied people can walk around that giant mudhole that appears after rain in the middle of the trail in a rainforest, wheelchairs have to go THROUGH. Which means if I go, I would do a LOT more pushing (mud is more resistance than dirt), and look like a mud monster within .5 km. So what we are doing is unknown. But not the Hoh. But I am still going (drinking margarita’s is high on my list right now).

But I wanted to let you know that I am, and have put my plan of doing the simple pleasing things in action and am back on the postcard project, and these are some of the postcards I prepared over the last day or two. Just a selection of what is going out. The ones with the pinked haired anime girl are from Aria, an anime/manga series about Neo-Venice (The New Venice) which is built on the terraformed Mars and the girls are the only ones who row the gondolas. Cute coming of age story of our heroine who dreams of being a professional gondola rower and the people she meets.

I have taken all of the postcards to stage three now. Stage one is matching postcard to person (I actually end up with several cards laid out reading up on the person to trying and decide the right one). Stage two is getting the address label and return address on. Stage three is wood block or rubber stamping. Stage four is all other stickers. Stage five is writing and then off it goes. Here is an example of two of the cards as they wait to dry, as Japanese cards have a bit of slick veneer on them which requires drying time.

When I send cards to parents I try to select cards and wood blocks and stickers which will make their children envious of them (Parents are rarely the envy of being ‘cool’). I also, if you email me at mpshiel at hotmail.com will send your child a postcard. I usually send baby animal ones, or simple anime ones – everything super G-rated. I remember as a child/youth/teen how that I NEVER seemed to get any mail, so I try to make sure all the youths/teens or children on my lists get cards regularly because a cool postcard from someone you don’t know is STILL better than no postcard at all, right? So if you want me to send a postcard to your children, just let me know. As I said, the information is kept for postcard use only. Only Linda and I have access and it is not kept on-line but off-line. Also, any readers (not to point fingers but SHEA) who I don’t seem to have addresses for, I would really like to be able to send you a postcard. If in this modern world the idea that someone would send time and money to make sure you got a postcard seems odd then just remember that I have some brain damage (if that is what it takes to explain it).

I got to try out some new wood blocks today and I am very pleased with them - Look at the totem pole and the baskets - cool! Simple pleasures, right? Hopefully the people who get them will like them too. This post is also so that those who haven’t got their card recently know that I am hard at work at the Postcard mine, toiling to dig the cards out of the earth, and bring them to the light of day (that means my 120+ postcards from Japan have ARRIVED!).

Anyway, I am off to the post office with today's batch, I hope you have a good day and I will update you tomorrow on what I did INSTEAD of slushing around with my wheelchair in the MUD.