Category Archives: pamily

First Tomato!

Someone needs major tutorial action on the latest version of Photoshop. It took me about an hour to do this. In my defense I am a tad run down and my brain isn’t on full strength.

This was waiting for me when I returned home. It’s now on its velvet pillow in the kitchen awaiting a major life change. There’s one more close and I’m guessing I’m about two weeks away from inundation. I can’t wait.

I had a wonderful vacation in Orleans and the day we arrived home I had just enough time to clean up and then drive to the airport to get on a plane to go to a work trip. I arrived home from that last night and I put in most of a day at the office today and now I’m looking forward to some couch time.

Lots of great photos and possibly a few stories to come.

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Local News Wrap Up

Hey – check out this craptastic photo from when I saw the U.S. Men’s National Team play Belize in the Gold Cup earlier this week. It was my first time ever seeing them play and I loved it. Can’t wait for World Cup next year.

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The morning after the 4th of July I went into the kitchen to put my tea cup away and I saw a man in our backyard opening the shed door.

I said, “Why is there a guy in our backyard?”

Bob jumped up and said, “I don’t know.”

And we both went running out there. He was wearing Jack Skellington pajamas and looked pretty harmless.

He introduced himself like he knew us and I thought it was pretty obvious he was high. He said he was looking for his mother. She had run off.

Bob hustled him out of the backyard and told him to get lost. I thought maybe we should make sure he got home in one piece.

Bob said he saw him later on the porch of the house where he told us he lived. He did not make eye contact.

We’ve got new renters moving in next door. Long time readers will recall that this is a regular event. We really liked the previous renters. It was a couple and they were stable and friendly (uh, but their dog pooped in our yard) but otherwise they were terrific. They’re having a baby and bought a house.

The house has been empty longer than it was between previous renters and word is that the rental agent took extra time to make sure she got good people. We’ll cross our fingers.

I grew a sugar beet. I found what looked like a pink turnip. I tasted it and it tasted like sugar cane mixed with nuclear waste. I guessed it might be a sugar beet and found a photo online. Maybe the wrong seed slipped in at the seed factory?

If I ever time travel to the 50’s and start a band it’s going to be called The Sugar Beats.

I have no idea where the time goes. I woke up at 6:30 and I’ve been going almost non-stop since then. I still have a ton of chores and my poor yard desperately needs attention. But I’m on my way to a Timbers game. Maybe tomorrow.

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Anniversary Teacup

When my sister and I were fairly young, we bought my parents two teacups for their wedding anniversary.

There was this fancy store in the shopping area where my Mom did her grocery shopping. It was the kind of place where you bought crystal bowls for wedding gifts.

I don’t know how I got the idea but I decided we were going to do this so we scraped together our cash and went to the store and picked out two fancy teacups.

One broke so there’s only this one left.

The person on the staff who helped us was very nice and I remember thinking at the time that we were so hot-shit grown-up buying fancy gifts at a fancy store. I’m sure they were amused.

The reason I bring it up now is my parents recently celebrated their 54th (?) wedding anniversary and my sister arranged for them to get a fancy room at hotel in Ashland, Or. where they were going to see a play.

When my Mom thanked me, she mentioned the teacups. She said she asked my sister why we picked this pattern and my sister replied, “They were the cheapest ones.”

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Home!

Fantastic weekend in California! I have the best family in the Universe.

But now I’m tired and my eyeballs feel like they’ve been dipped in sand and I need to start de-cat-hairing all my clothes.

Posted in Orleans, pamily | Comments Off on Home!

Holidaze

Crazy snow in Happy Camp.

Stinkface from cat because I would not provide a lap for him to sit on.

Gorgeous day on the Klamath River.

Here they are! The Rentz ladies. My sister is crouching a little bit so she doesn’t look taller than me.

Siskiyou pass on the way home. A little iffy but not too bad.

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Happy Holidays Everyone!

Here’s a link to all the 12 Days of Christmas photos. I don’t know how to make it so that the whole post shows up so you have to click through to see the photos. That’s on my list of things to fix someday if I’m feeling ambitious. It’s probably easier to go to the main page and scan through the photos that way.

Here’s my wrap up for the year post.

I had one new publication which you can find here: The Last Willow Stick on the River which originally appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, Spring 2012.

My other big publishing success was my eBook of short stories: Red Tape Stories From Indian Country. If you need a last minute gift, I can’t think of anyone whose life wouldn’t be brightened by a book of stories about Indians with time machines and hostile fish and other unexpected problems. It’s available anywhere you can buy eBooks. Here’s a link: Amazon. It’s cheaper than a beer at Jeld-Wen.

One of the highlights of my year was seeing a million Timbers games (a million is not enough!). I’m sure you’ve got time on your hands, why not check out my endless photostream? Wait, there’s more. I have a separate photostream for the Sounders rivalry matches.

We also had a terrific trip to New York this summer. Photos here.

I’m sure other stuff happened but I can’t think of it right now and as usual, I spent the morning working on my story so now I’m behind on everything else and I need to fold clothes and make gravy and wrap presents.

I’ll be offline for about a week. Thanks for stopping by.

Hope all your holiday wishes come true.

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Day 12: Twelve Days of Christmas with the Rentz Girlsâ„¢

This is the card that the Xmas photo was pasted into. Instant classic!

I have to confess here that there’s a 3 year gap between the last photo and this one. My giant bag of photos doesn’t have the complete set. Sorry!

Do you ever look at old photos of yourself and you can hardly reconcile the photo with the person you are today? Look at those skinny brown legs.

That almost completes our show. I’m going to get a current photo of us at Christmas so you can see us in our middle-aged glory. That’s still to come.

Meanwhile, I’ll do a wrap-up for the holidays post and give you a great last minute gift idea tomorrow.

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Day 11: Twelve Days of Christmas with the Rentz Girlsâ„¢

Huh, we didn’t go see Santa this year. I wonder why.

I think I still have that little button on my sweater. That dog is Ginger who went on to live with Grandma and Grandpa and was a terrific dog.

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Day 10: Twelve Days of Christmas with the Rentz Girlsâ„¢

Only 2 exciting days left!

Don’t I look like I’m going to a job interview?

And doesn’t this Santa look sketchy? I’m sure I didn’t notice.

See that piece of paper in my hand? The previous year when I wrote Santa a letter, he handed it to one of the elves and said, “Put this in her file.”

I HAVE A FILE!?!?!?!?

So this year, I confidently handed Santa my letter and said: “For your file.”

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Day 9: Twelve Days of Christmas with the Rentz Girlsâ„¢

That piece of paper in my hands? I decided to write Santa a letter with my Christmas list that I could hand him, so he’d have a written reference. He wouldn’t have to remember, or count on an elf to write it down correctly. Proof I have been ridiculously practical since the beginning of time.

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