CREAMED POSSUM

Last night I started a new read.

New read; I'm already half-way through it.

In the story, people eat possum, racoon, and squirrel … among other foods.

This morning, I drove to exercise class again, in Castle Rock.

Castle Rock from Heron Pointe via Coal Creek & Delameter Road - 28 mins.

CR Senior Center Itinerary.

It is good to mingle with a group of people again.

It is good to laugh.

It is good to work muscles, and tone the body.

Though possum is not on my menu: or any menu I plan to utilize, exercise is beneficial no matter what foods I indulge in 😉

Leaving Castle Rock, I decided to drive home over Hazel Dell Road, instead of my normal route over Delameter: I hadn’t driven Hazel Dell for a few months.

Hazel Dell Road from Castle Rock via WA 411 N, Delameter Road - 10 mins.

Lexington from Hazel Dell Road - 8 mins.

Halfway through Hazel Dell to Lexington, I decided to drive into downtown Longview and stop at the Longview Senior Center before driving home; to see what they have slated – Bob and I had thought to check it out before our life together was severed.

Heron Pointe from Lexington via WA 411 S & Downtown Longview - 21 mins.

This afternoon, I did it for me.

I saw when I pulled into a parking space on Commerce before the Senior Center Building, that a restaurant had replaced the casino-escort services that had been there – THANK YOU, LORD!

The Casino & 'Escort Services' are gone. YAY!

I practically skipped and whistled my way to the Center door – the casino/escort ‘businesses had been a large part of my procrastination; as well as missing Bob being with me. As soon as I entered, I liked the atmosphere.

And I knew Bob would have liked it, too, if he were still here.

I know he is watching my forward progress, and smiling with approval at all I have overcome to push forward.

I need to round my days/calendar out more; a little more variety is welcome 😊

Looking at the Itinerary sheet, I saw that the Longview Center had things scheduled that the Castle Rock Center does not – that is a good thing!

LV Senior Center Itinerary.

I will not be renewing the Kelso Senior Center Card … there is nothing on their docket that interests me; and they are not extending the remainder of the card that was not used during the covid shutdown: that is not okay with me. There should be an extension for $$ paid and services not rendered.

But I did notice, in reading their newsletters before they shut and barred their doors, that the Center is a demonrat club house – engaged in, and pandering to demonrat and liberal ideologies: also, not okay with me. I would not have renewed membership anyway.

I did enjoy Keenager’s Fellowship on Wednesdays … but the church had shut their doors, too. And there has been no mention of Keenager’s gatherings again, so I’m thinking that venue is no longer an option either. Too bad; it was enjoyable.

I was scooting into the driver’s seat and buckling up, when the phone rang: I was being invited to Supper out Coal Creek at 3 P.M.; I had just enough time to get home … put my weights away, tidy the bed I’d left in a tangle this morning, and slip the spaghetti supper’s I’d made last night, into the freezer: before driving out Coal Creek.

Spaghetti Suppers.

Coal Creek from Heron Pointe - 5 min.

After we had supped and were sitting around schmoozing, I mentioned that I was trying to trap a racoon that has been making a pest of itself on my lot. That topic brought up the topic of some southern people eating possum and racoon – and some midwestern people eating squirrel.

I can’t even imagine! EEW

So, when I logged into FB, and saw that someone had posted a reference to creamed possum as a joke … the timing of the post tickled my funny bone 😊

And all I could think was if creamed possum was on the menu …

 … there would be no problem with me slimming down 😉

REMEMBERING MAY 18th, 1980

Mt. St. Helens - Then & Now.

The May 18th, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens fluctuated in height and veracity for 9 hours straight; the thickest layer of ash blanketed the areas closest to the volcano, as the powerful blast blew away a mile of the mountain's summit, sending a thick layer of ash east and north across Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana … and some traveled as far as Bend, Oregon – 150 miles away. As the ash fell, entire communities went indoors - and stayed there.

Harry Truman with his beloved Mt. St. Helens in the background: before she blew her top in May 1980.

Toutle River Bridge before Mt. St. Helens’ pitching a fit took it out.

Log jam debris (which included house, barns, animals, ect.) – and a powerful mud flow took out the bridge on the North Fork of the Toutle River.

Log jam & mud flow on I-5 Cowlitz River.

Ashy downtown Longview. A speed limit was imposed to keep the ash kickup as low as possible. People wrapped their vehicle’s air filters in pantyhose to guard against the gritty ash: it did not help.

Measuring the height of the mud flow as it raced across the landscape; following the devastating volcanic eruption of May 18^th, 1980.

We had significant earthquakes following the eruption; and ash falling in Cathlamet – the kids got a bang out of watching the “dirty snow” drift past their bedroom windows

In the early morning hours of May 19th, the eruption had for all intents, and purposes, stopped.

And the gray course, sooty, ash had drifted into the central region of America: and within 2 weeks tome, had drifted completely around Earth’s atmosphere.

Mt. St. Helen’s Eruption (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifohb8_2WhE)

Bob was working for Durrah & Martin’s Logging Co, Inc., then – and was one of the first loggers to go into the Red Zone, when it was opened up for timber deadfall retrieval; he even smuggled his 12-year-old son, Alex, in with him one day when he had to do maintenance work on the Yarder, and told him to “get out of sight and hunker down” when a helicopter flew into the air space – they laughed about that incident for years … even up to the day Bob was placed in Comfort Care in December of 2018.

Bob's lungs were scarred from working in the Red Zone ash.

Bob said there were different brilliantly colored lakes that had been created by the eruption (red, yellow, varied hues of blue & green).

Spirit Lake had literally been sucked up by a surging wave of volcanic momentum, and displaced miles away from where it originally had been: and it is despairingly ugly, now.

Mt. St. Helen's was Bob's Mountain; and he knew every road that cut through her forests (forests and roads that are no more - they are buried under 400 feet of muddy debris). He loved her. Even when she was just a shabby ghost of her beautiful self ...

When Mt. St. Helen's was finally opened to the public, and Bob took me into the Red Zone, it was eerily creepy: total devastation was everywhere - no life, at all: not even a breeze. Just wreckage. Ash-dredged timber lay like giant toothpicks (like the 'Pick Up Sticks' game) laid flat and spreading for miles and miles into the distance. They weren't even charred; they were just denuded and baked with coarse gritty gray ash. I couldn't wait to get out of there. For years I wouldn't go near Mt. St. Helen's because it was so unnerving.

I go back now, just to prove to myself that I can ... but I do not feel the 'love' that Bob did.

Sunday~Funday 2 (https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2019/09/sunday-funday-2.html)

Daytrip ~ Mt. St. Helens (https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2020/08/daytrip-w-trudy-ed-mt-st-helens.html)

A Walk in The Clouds: (https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-walk-in-clouds.html)

The mountain that walks in my soul is Mt. Rainier: which is also an active volcano.

Mt. Rainer peeking over Mt. St. Helens wilderness seen from Johnson’s Ridge area; August 2020.

Bob and I hiked the Sunrise Trail in mt. Rainier National Park; Mt. Rainier's top in the background; June 2015.

Mt. Rainer seen from high up on the Sunrise Trail - Box Canyon is just over that peak; June 2015.

Box Canyon – Mt. Rainer National Park; I LOVE this place. We enjoyed this place several times a year. For decades.

Mt. Rainer seen from Packwood Grocery Store; August 2020.

I know that Mt. Rainer “is alive” with unleashed chaos, like Mt. St. Helens is … and was – but somehow, I never feel threatened by that knowledge.

I suppose that is how the people, who died, in the Mt. St. Helen's blast felt.

NORMAL RESET

I got a notification in the mail a few days ago, informing me that activities in Castle Rock have opened back up – so I drove to exercise class this morning 😊

I drove via Westside Highway because I got a late start … and Westside Highway was the quickest route.

Westside Highway from Longview - 12 minutes.

Sandy Bend from Westside Highway - 8 minutes.

Castle Rock from Sandy Bend - 7 minutes.

Exercise Class was fun.

It was good to see people again: full face.

It was good to see people I haven’t seen in a year.

The morning almost felt normal, again … except for the fact that the building echoed due to the fact that most people are still not comfortable being in large groups of unmasked people: obviously they do not believe “the science”, having been victims of political fearmongering for a solid year (all year, every hour of every day – for 365 days straight).

‘Normal’ may have been killed with the 2020 obamanite-biden-pelosi coup; in which, covid was used as a battering ram to get biden illegally – and shamefully – seated, and harris installed with a meaningless title.

Anyway …

Those of us who did gather, enjoyed the class; and enjoyed spending time together, chatting without having to shout through layers of useless cloth that smothers the wearer, and distorts their speaking.

Exercise class was opened up.

My lungs were fine; the activity was brisk and my breath was short at times, but I did not need to use my inhaler: thank You, Yeshua!

Leaving Castle Rock, I thought I’d drop my weights off at home … then drive into downtown Longview to see if I could get into the Country Folks Deli now, without mask mandate hassle.

Driving into town, while twiddling my thumbs – sitting at a red light, I saw a truck ahead of me with a strange business name; the more I looked at it, the more it tickled my funny bone until I burst out laughing. The business name itself was strange, but wondering (with tongue in cheek) if some of Ireland’s fanciful {Little People} had been drafted into working off their mischievousness – kind of went with the fanciful name 😉

After I got downtown and parked, I walked into Country Folks Deli and seated myself: there was no banshee screaming about being unmasked.

YES!

I was in.

I entered through the back door, and ate in the back-end section of the deli.

I usually eat in the front-end; Bob and I ate in there for decades.

There are 'homey' touches at every booth ... I got the barn booth, this afternoon.

The atmosphere there, almost felt normal too – except that masks were still in evidence on some faces.

Mask wearing for extended lengths of time is not normal.

Feeling the necessity of wearing a suffocating mask, when it is no longer necessary to do so, is not normal.

Behaving in a paranoid manner because political browbeating has eroded rational thinking and behavior, is not normal.

I’m not entirely convinced ‘normal’ will ever again have a normal outcome.

But it was nice to be able to sit inside again, and engage in normal behavior, while in an abnormal environment.

I had lunch at the Country Folks Deli.

I ordered The Cowboy burger; none of it came home with me. I was hungry ;-)

My paperback came with me, to keep me company.

There are 44 chapters ... I'll be choosing a new novel tonight.

YUMMY!

Just before I finished the last of my fries, a song came on that immediately had my eyes tearing up …

Feel Like Making Love: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEuKkcX1uKA)

I pushed the rest of the fries aside, and I couldn’t grab my stuff and get out of the booth to pay my tab fast enough; the whole time, praying I would not break down in front of everyone before I could get to the privacy of the Highlander and cry it out there.

Images of us, came fast and furious to the forefront of my thoughts. Us – young and falling head-over-heels in love. Us raising a family, and grinning over the heads of the kids (and later, grandkids) when the song came on; on the radio while we were driving. Us, eating out, and Bob grinning and wiggling his eyebrows at me when the song played in the background.

The roomy deli suddenly got a lot more confining as the memories grew.

Finally, the tab was paid and I could escape outside – where it didn’t matter if tears fell, before I reached the car.

My {normal} hour had dissolved in a heartbeat.

I have been doing so well in this widow life.

I have been feeling (and hoping) I was past the watershed period in this new life.

I do know that emotionally I am in a better place than I was 10 months ago.

I’ve been walking this solo lobo life for 28 months & 3 days: my heart has scabbed over, but obviously the healing scar is still tender.

Listening to that song play in the background before I could pay and take flight, brought back the fact, that for me – personally and for wholly different reasons than covid madness, life will never be ‘normal’ again. Bob’s absent physical presence, will always be the missing puzzle piece in my personal life’s jigsaw puzzle.

I felt stupid, sitting in the car and crying.

Because of a song playing in the background of a restaurant.

I’ve been doing so well.

I am actively engaged in building a new life.

It’s a good life – even with the missing puzzle piece.

I really need to hurdle these emotional handicaps and grab life by the tail – a ‘normal’ reset.

I dried my face and drove home.

As I parked the Highlander in the carport, I noticed that my Irises are blooming 😊

I decided to finish planting the rest of the garden boxes before the forecasted rain arrives – gardening is a normal activity, for me.

My variegated Irises are 20 years old. I bought them when we bought our 1st home in Longview - they've been moved to 2 other homes.

Planting the pre-sprouted bush beans.

Planting the pre-sprouted Patio Snacker Cukes.

Cucumber cage.

Acorn and Butternut squash planted.

Spaghetti squash & Zucchini squash; wing flapping patriotic bird attached to fencing stake with baling wire.

Pre-sprouted Hopi Corn seedlings planted & staked against the river winds - this is a blue corn.

Hoping to salvage a broken tomato plant - the river wind was strong today.

3 kinds of potatoes planted in color-code baskets; Red Pontiac (Red Basket), Russet Bakers (Blue Basket), & Yukon Gold (Kelly-Green Basket); I know … I’m a weirdo 😉

I hope this frightful looking creature does not pay my garden a visit.

(https://www.gardenandgreenhouse.net/articles/june-2019/the-frightening-but-helpful-potato-bug/)

Time to call it a day - looks like the forecast rain is arriving.

That task accomplished, I worked on some house slippers I’m kitting up for the Rosburg Hall Fall Bazaar – they still need to be shaped to a foot form, and tagged.

This is normal activity in normal days past … current days, and the foreseeable future: in this way, my life is still normal 😉

Knitted Slippers for Rosburg Hall Fall Bazaar. Sizes 6-6-1/2-8- & 10 on the needles.

And I’ll spend the remainder of the evening, watching the sunset while listening to the sporadic rain; and finishing up the novel I had with me this morning.

Tonight’s sunset.

Reading books is normal for me. There was a time I always had a book in my hand – no matter what I was doing: waking up/going to bed/cooking meals/doing laundry/taking a bath/riding as passenger into town … if I didn’t have a dime-store paperback in my hand, I was reading the kids a story from a child’s storybook.

This afternoon was the second time I have carried a book with me when I left the house: it is normal behavior.

Rain falling from the sky is normal Washington weather.

Aside from that one episode in the County Folks Deli, I’ve had a pretty normal day in a continuing abnormal time.