Author Archives: Pamela

I know I’ve written before about my thing with gas stations. I prefer to use the same ones over and over.

If I were driving around and low on gas it would never occur to me to stop at the first gas station I saw. I keep an eye on my gas level and fill up at my usual spot as soon as it gets close to 1/4 tank. Or, sometimes my sweetheart tanks it for me.

When the grocery store tells me I have a bunch of points and I can get cheap gas at their station, I’m like, who cares? I’m never going to go there.

You’d think this would be more problematic for me than it is. I’ve gotten so good at managing my anxieties.

On trips to Orleans, I always stop at the same places.

One of my favorites was a gas station in Roseburg. The last time I was there the attendant very chatty and charming. In case anyone reading this doesn’t know, in Oregon you can’t pump your own gas. He told me he was 83 and lived his whole life in the area and didn’t travel much because he cared for his 83 year old blind wife.

You can imagine how awful I felt when my next trip, barely a couple months later, the gas station was closed.

When I had my last eye exam I mentioned that I have trouble with my eyes being dry. This isn’t a new situation but it bothers me when I spend a lot of time at the computer. (Surprise.)

He did some horrible test which I would describe as scraping a wooden stick around my eye.

He suggested that every night I put a warm pack on my eyes for 20 minutes and then wash my eyes with baby soap and massage around my eyelids. That might not be the exact instructions because I put the sheet at the bottom of my bathroom drawer when I got home that night and haven’t looked at it since.

Twenty minutes to sit with an eye pack? Every night? Yeah, sure, if he told me my eyeballs would fall out if I didn’t do this I would probably be motivated to make the time. But I’m already brushing and flossing and cleansing and moisturizing and fluffing my neck pillow and getting all my stuff ready for the next day because I get up at such an ungodly hour. I can’t bear the thought of adding 20 minutes with an eye pack to the equation.

Raise your hand if you had a bright white poncho to go with your denim pantsuit when you were a girl.

It’s finally happened. I was in a hip diner having lunch the other day and I leaned over to my dining companion and said, “This music sounds awful.” It was modern music and I’m no expert, but I don’t think that girl could sing.

This is a swimming hole on the Salmon River in N. California. The water was low and the skies smokey when we visited this year. I’m not a great swimmer but we brought a floaty cushion and paddled down to see a waterfall. While we were out, some people came to swim a big long lap back and forth. It’s a good swimming hole.

This is Dad’s dog fence.

There are neighbor dogs who used to come into the garage and pee on things. There was a construction project and Dad saw this netting and had an idea. There were some steps involved to get Dad the netting. It involved a former federal highways employee and a tribal official. We are related to these people.

I wish I got a better picture because Dad rigged this so it will attach to the existing garage door frame. Then roll back for storage.

And, keeps the dogs out.

This is a marker up on Grayback on the way to Orleans.

I was hoping to make another trip to Orleans this fall but we were too over-scheduled and then my team made the playoffs. Which was awesome and thrilling and also something else to cram into the schedule at the last minute.

This happens every fall and I don’t know how to make it easier. (Not the playoffs, the over-scheduled.)

I’m always embarrassed to tell people how much I enjoy January, but there’s never anything going on. We get to stay home every weekend. I love it.

Regular readers (ha ha! Like I have random drop-in readers) have heard me talk about my giant potato harvests.

I still have a ton in the vegetable bin and out in the garden. But the garden has been tragically neglected due to the Lovey Project (you can pre-order now!). It seems like I never have time and when I do, it’s raining.

I was out there on Friday and was dismayed to find the tomatoes never looking healthier. In November. Everything needs to get yanked. Hopefully this week. I was hoping to do one more pot of applesauce but looks like I missed my chance.

But back to the original point of the post: those are potatoes I found when I was helping in Mom’s garden.