Category Archives: Orleans

Back from holiday. It was fantastic.

First, check out this photo of Bob with the Grinch. That was from Idaho.

If you don’t remember, last Christmas was ruined. We had such bad weather we didn’t get to see family. We had no tree and barely any presents. We did have a nice dinner, just the two of us.

This year totally made up for it.

We had an uneventful drive down. We ran into a tiny bit of snow on one of the mountains but otherwise, clear sailing.

My Dad made this for my Mom. I said it should be in a museum.

We went mushrooming with Mom and Auntie.

I’ve never been before. We tumbled out of the car and in about three seconds Mom took off up the steep, heavily brushed and leaf-slick mountain in one direction and Auntie took off in the other. I tried to scramble along stupidly wearing my giant coat, carrying my camera in one hand and my pen and notebook in the other.

When we went to the next stop, I didn’t make that mistake. And I found my first mushroom. A Tan Oak. The photo is on Bob’s camera. I show it later.

Later Erin showed up with the world’s biggest lap dog.

This is a sign at Somes Bar at Hwy 96 and Ishi Pishi Road.

Every day we went on long walks with hills so we could keep eating and still fit into our pants.

Klamath River

The river was running fast and pretty.

For Christmas we all got big piles of books.

My Mom said, “Let’s cancel dinner and sit around and read.”

But we didn’t.

Here’s the Pamily at dinner. People love it when you take photos of them while they’re eating.

Great time. Glad to be home. I’m going to the office tomorrow and then taking off until Jan 4. Yay.

Sign on Red Cap Road, Orleans CA

This has been a weird month. The vacation part was fantastic but most of the rest of it I’ve been at loose ends mostly for reasons I can’t explain. Some of my woes I’ve brought on myself but we’re not going to get into it here.

I have tiny post-it notes everywhere with things I wanted to post about but I kept thinking I’d wait on those things until after I did my vacation post. Now I’m sitting here ready to do the vacation post and I don’t really have much to tell.

We did the usual stuff which involves sleeping in (and I’m sure Kira will shudder to learn that sleeping in on vacation in our family is like, 7:30a.) We went for walks. We ate breakfast outside. We read books. We went swimming and we visited with lots of fantastic family members that we don’t get to see that often.

I didn’t get sunburned. I didn’t get poison oak. I did get mosquito bit but not terribly. They always get me on my feet and knuckles. I sprayed bug juice all over my feet and wore shoes and socks at dinner and they still got me.

It was still really good and I wish I could have had a teeny bit more time. I feel like I barely got started and it was already time to go.

Grubstake swimming hole on the Salmon River

It might be seasonal or it might be connected to that “loose ends” thing but I keep feeling like I have to get everything organized. I don’t know what I have or where everything is and I suspect there are lots of thing we don’t need that would be fun to get rid of.

This feeling applies mostly to my closet, the kitchen, the garage and my bookshelves. Oh, and my bathroom cupboards. At the same time, when I had time to tackle a portion of one of these projects, I squandered it on unproductive sitting around. I guess that’s what’s called being lazy.

One thing that happens with the kitchen is that I accumulate weird ingredients. The kind of things that you have to buy a whole jar of to use one tablespoon for some crazy recipe that you only make one time.

Like roasted peppers. I had a jar of roasted peppers around forever and I finally used it up in salads and on pizza. Then I decided they were so good we’d start using them all the time and I bought another jar and they’re just sitting there. This isn’t really a problem to be solved, just telling how it is.

Klamath River, upriver from Orleans

I think one of the best naps I’ve ever taken was on vacation and it was before noon. There is something really decadent about taking a nap a few hours after you’ve gotten up. That’s a Bob specialty. Get up early. Go for a long walk. Eat a big breakfast. And then take a nap. I don’t usually do that.

I used to never get under the covers when I took a nap. I thought a nap should be distinguished from regular going to bed. But lately I’ve found that taking off my pants and crawling into bed really enhances the experience. Which reminds me of a Simpsons where Homer took a nap in his car and took off his pants first. I don’t nap in the car. I also don’t nap after 5pm unless I’m going to be out late and I try to never let that happen.

I injured myself holding the pistol the wrong way. Don’t try to do it like you see on TV. Then I shot this giant bullet or shell or whatever out of something. I was so excited about shooting guns I took terrible notes.

One time our next door neighbor asked us whether something would bother us. I can’t remember what he was up to — re-roofing his garage or something. I told him that unless he started a rock band or rendered fat in the backyard, it was unlikely he would bother us.

Earlier this weekend I heard a rock band rehearsing somewhere close by. I hope this isn’t a regular thing.

Our previous next door neighbor (on the other side) had a snarly awful dog. It would get into our backyard and bark at me which I thought was rude. Our new next door neighbors seemed to have recently acquired a snarling dog. I’ll be out in my PJs in the morning, holding my tea and wandering around enjoying my flowers, pumpkins and tomatoes and the dog will hear me and then barrel up to the fence and growl and snap like a loud scary Godzilla. It also howls at sirens. I kinda want to throw rocks at it.

I love the bulletin board in town next to the post office. It always has political stuff, lost pets, free pets and odd stuff for sale or trade.

Most of this weekend was catastrophically unproductive. Today I pulled myself together and got some writing done. And a few administrative type things.

I also have a long list of chores that are maintenance or repair oriented. I’m a C student in repair skills. I can usually do just enough to fix something or patch it together to limp along a bit longer but I rarely know what I’m doing. Those chores tend to stay on the list forever because I don’t want to take the time to gather information, figure out what tools or parts I need and then figure out the damn problem.

Today I descaled my showerhead and cleared my bathtub drain. The scaly showerhead did not deliver water in a focused spray and the slow drain forced me to stand in ankle deep water during my shower which completely wrecked what should have been the best part of my day. The showerhead was easy once I figured out how to get it off the pipe that comes out of the wall. Dropped it in a bowl of white vinegar and tried to figure out what to do with the drain.

While I was hoping to find a YouTube tutorial that would show me how to take my drain apart instead I found this how to make a simple tool to clean your drain instructions. I couldn’t even find a proper piece of plastic and used this tiny thing about as long as a pencil that attached my new designer dish scrubbing brush to the paper display thingy. And it still worked like a dream. I’d give you the gory details but I don’t know if you’ve just eaten and it was pretty gross.

Later I rinsed off the showerhead and re-installed it and I had a fabulous shower before dinner.

Last night was lecture night and we got to see Michael Pollan.

We didn’t get home until after 10pm and then I was all wound up and couldn’t sleep and I’m still having trouble forming a few complete sentences to sum up the lecture.

He talked about food, of course. Sold out the house. He’s an entertaining speaker and he backs up his statements with research and facts. I know, what a world where we give people points for using research and facts.

One stat: Americans eat 20% of their meals in the car. How awful. The only time I eat in the car is when I’m driving to Orleans and I don’t want to stop. This is when I drive by myself. I fill the passenger seat with fruit, carrot sticks, trail mix and sometimes a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. Bottle of water. You can do the drive in 6.5 hours.

I think the worst processed food I eat is Wheat Thins (Big). I don’t know: is See’s Candy a processed food? Let’s just agree, no.