Almost summer

Hard to believe there's less than 10 days of school left, and who knows how many of those I'll actually be working anyway...

I'm actually going to miss subbing a lot...having somewhere new to go and something unexpected to do almost every day is pretty exciting most of the time. Real life is downright boring by way of comparison. I am planning on taking a couple of classes this summer, but otherwise I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. It's something I really haven't dealt with yet, but in about a week, I'll be dealing with it, ready or not.

Suffice it to say, anywhere I DO end up working will no doubt involve squirmy, restless, checked-out teens...that's a fun combo anytime.

digestion is not your friend...

One of the least fun aspects of pregnancy is the way your whole digestive process gets way off track. You can definitely count on fun things like constipation, heartburn, nausea, indigestion, to make an unwelcome guest appearance in your life. Compounding the difficulty of the above is the fact that I'm still in that phase where food in general is just NOT appealing...especially not the things that are supposed to be healthy and good for you. 70+ grams of protein? Dairy? *hurl* *gag*

Things that have been helpful for me:

Fresh or dried fruit (fruit still sounds appealing, and I don't mind eating it when nothing else sounds even remotely interesting. I've been eating a lot of trail mix during the day while I'm at work, and bananas and other fruits seem to help during those times when you just don't really feel to excited about eating anything else. Hooray for fruit! The other day, a kid gave me some of his blueberries, and they went down real nicely.

Beverages are tricky. I'm not craving or even really needing caffeine at all, so I rarely have any tea or coffee. Anything carbonated makes me feel bloated, so that's out. Some fruit juices are okay, others are not appealing at all. It's pretty random what sounds okay at the moment. Acidic things like orange juice generally don't make me feel too good. Asian tropical fruit drinks have been working out really well, and coconut juice is usually easy on the tummy. Most of the time, water just makes me feel overly full, so I'm not currently driving myself crazy trying to drink the recommended 8 glasses...just when I feel like it. Mint tea is soothing, and when I'm feeling queasy, ginger is even better.

Food has been the hardest part...what works tends to change from day to day, but two constants are nothing greasy/spicy/overly acidic and all eating has to be done by 6 or 7pm or I'll be up all night long with heartburn thanks to those lovely raging hormones that slow down your digestive tract. Anything I eat tends to stick around for a long long time, so generally I'm NOT ever hungry, and on a typical day, when dinner time rolls around, I'm still working over whatever I had for lunch. Uggh.

(And this is just the first trimester, I hear this sort of thing makes a comeback later, oh joy!)

Japanese food seems pretty agreeable most of the time (because it's pretty light), so I've been eating a lot of that lately, and sushi is one of the few things that consistently sounds appealing, no matter how off I'm feeling. Another thing that usually works well is Mediterranean food-not too spicy, and pretty good for you.

Like some people have discovered, all eating goes much better if you aren't the one preparing the food. This is one of those times in my life when I utterly miss my college dorm cafeteria. Although it was dorm food, my particular dorm was way better than most in this department, and having an infinite variety of choices at such a finicky time in my life would be fantastic. I'd love to be able to graze, instead of have to actually think about preparing food.

Can you believe it?

It's so hard to believe that there's only 13 days of school left...where has the year gone? It's starting to get to that point in the year that I know when I work somewhere, it's probably for the last time this year...it's unusual to get a multiple day job this late in the year.

Last year, around this time, I was finishing my last term at PSU for my Master's Degree, and I was probably up to my eyeballs in projects and papers and such. I remember feeling pretty burned out by that time. This year, I'm winding down the year at a more leisurely pace, but watching the kids go through the end-of-the-year wake-up call brings back a lot of memories of my own.

This summer I'm going to try to take a couple of classes, so hopefully I'll be able to finish everything for me ESL endorsement (except the practicum--can't do that in the summer). Don't know when I'll ever get around to that, but that's how it goes...

I'm on the list for summer substitute teaching, but if I ever get called, it'll be a miracle. A lot of people are talking about jobs...or the lack of them. I'm not expecting to do anything next year but sub, and that's fine with me. I don't think I need the stress right now anyway.

Memorial Day

After years of getting rained out, we've learned not to plan anything too elaborate for the Memorial holiday weekend...so naturally, this year the weather is absolutely fabulous. Oh well, we had plenty of fun the previous weekend, and I kind of enjoyed the low-keyness of just puttering around the house all weekend.

Aside from going out for dim sum, we didn't do anything "social", which is fine because I'm going through an asocial phase, and tend to enjoy a lot of solitude. We bought a few more plants for the greenhouse, and I planted 4 flats of assorted veggies and flowers. I pulled tons of weeds in the yard. I took the dog for lots of leisurely walks. I sat in the backyard and did absolutely nothing. We went for a bike ride one afternoon. And honestly just sat around most of the time...

Not doing much of anything is definitely where it's at, these days...

Monday morning came and went

The trip was fun, but pretty hard on me, so I spent as much of Sunday as possible taking naps. I slept about half of the return trip home in the car, and a few more hours when we got back, plus went to bed an hour and a half early, but that in no way prepared me for the ritual of call-outs. Instead, I turned off my phone and resigned myself to missing the most lucrative day of the week for substitute teaching--Monday morning.

It may be a blessing in disguise. The sun's out, and there's lots of things I need to do around the house anyway. There's a mountain of camping supplies that need to go back in the basement, a veritable Mt. Hood of laundry that needs to be done, the two blueberry plants that didn't make it through the winter need replacing, I need to get a couple more raspberries planted, and I still need to figure out where the rhubarb is gonna go.

My dog sure seems tired. She's been a big mope-sickle ever since we picked her up from boarding. I wonder if she was stressed out by us being gone (fear of abandonment), or was just overstimulated by being around strange dogs for a couple of days. Hard to say with this one. Given her prior history, it could go either way.

To eat or not to eat, that is the question

I haven't had any crazy food cravings as of yet. Maybe it's just too early, but people always ask if pickles and/or ice cream are sounding more attractive these days. No, they aren't folks...

If anything, I have the opposite problem. Nothing food-wise sounds even remotely appealing to me. Nothing! Not even things I normally really enjoy. I've never been less interested in eating and food in my entire life. I can tell you that it makes it hard to eat healthy when everything edible inspires a feeling of infinite blahness! I'm not even really grappling with morning sickness in the classical sense, just a total and complete lack of interest in food.

Right now it's difficult to find ANYTHING that sounds appealing. Occasionally some fleeting thing will inspire me, so I've learned I better jump on it before I lose interest altogether. I am having some minor food aversions (this unfortunately seems to include greens, which I really should be eating more of, not less). Apparently, that's really common.

Right now, I guess you could say that I don't know what if anything sounds good to me. I'm usually fine once I actually start eating, but getting there is tough. I'm trying to eat healthy, though, but it sure feels like a chore most of the time. Decision-making around food is pretty problematic...it's hard to want to eat when you don't know what you want. I almost wish I was institutionalized some days so the choice would be out of my hands entirely. I've noticed that I do so much better if I don't have to actually prepare the food in any way, but eating out is far too expensive to do it more than once a week, and I can't get Brian interested in cooking.

The other piece of weirdness is that I never feel hungry, even when I am...and I also can't seem to eat very much at one time (which was never a problem before)-so a lot of the time, I have to eat meals like dinner in two shifts.

I miss being able to eat like a normal person...

Coming back home

Truckin' - got my chips cashed in,
Keep Truckin - like the doodah man,
Together - more or less in line,
Just keep Truckin on,

It would have been nice to sleep a bit longer on Sunday morning, but the key to getting out of the Gorge alive is definitely pulling up stakes and leaving before the party hangovers wear off and the hordes start packing up and moving out. We managed to get up and out before the traffic had a chance to build up, so the way back home was pretty easy.

I was so tired that for the most part I dozed off and on the entire way home, waking up only to look at some of the scenery now and then.

Across the Gorge from Quincy (the dry side), you drive through some unbelievably dry land covered in sagebrush which I absolutely love
the smell of.

Most of the drive out to the Gorge passes through the dry rocky terrain of the Eastern Washington desert, and it's awfully hard to believe it's the same river that passes through our area (we live on the wet side). Things green up again as you pass through Ellensburg, but as you veer south again on 82, you pass through more desert. At this time of year, it's dotted with the purple blooms of lupines, phacelias, balsamroot, and further south, pink bunches of phlox, and some orange flowers that are unknown to me. With some exceptions, it's a dry landscape until you get near the Dalles back on the Oregon side. There are parts, notably the agricultural valleys around Yakima, where it's much greener.

The drive as a whole is rather scenic and rich with wildlife. Along the river itself, you see a lot of hawks and egrets (and people out fishing). The high ridges and rolling plateaus are no doubt good places to find coyotes, raptors, and elk. Passing through the fruit orchards in the valley around Yakima, you get really dramatic views of Mt. Adams. Along the highway (97), you follow the river that flows through the drier southern stretches of the Yakama Indian Reservation, where you can see a variety of birds such as swallows and magpies. (Something I'd like to check out sometime is the Ginkgo Petrified Forest.) There is a wonderful array of plant life that blooms in the desert of the Columbia Basin. Occasionally you see small stretches of sand dunes, but it's mostly a world of rock carpeted with sage brush, wild rye grass, dotted with desert flowers in bloom. It's not quite dry enough for cactus, and you don't really get the juniper either (like in northern California). As you near Oregon again, you hit the forested areas above Goldendale where it greens up for awhile before you hit the dry slopes near the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side.

From the time you leave the Gorge (near Quincy), it's not until you are basically right on top of it near Marysville, do you see the Columbia river again. And heading back east through the Dalles, it's not until you get to about Hood River, that you get the usual lush topography typical of our area--Douglass firs, ferns, and so forth. After driving past Multnomah Falls (would you just look at the traffic!), I passed out again until we were practically almost home.

Sometimes the light's all shining on me,
Other times I can barely see,
Lately it occurs to me,
What a long strange trip it's been...

On With the Show

We came to the Gorge to catch what happened to be the final show of the Grateful Dead (touring with the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers.

Luckily for us, it was an absolutely beautiful (although rather warm!)day. Since we were out in the desert in Eastern Washington, the odds of getting rained on were way lower than usual (I don't normally dare attempt to go to outdoor events until after Memorial Day because anytime before that you run the risk of being sodden).

We heard about this show about a month ago, and quickly bought tickets before it sold out (apparently there were about 23,000 at The Gorge).

We decided to go about an hour and a half early to get situated. Since there was no re-entry, we had to haul a ton of stuff in with us--food and water for the entire day, clothes for both hot and cold weather (it's freezing at night once the sun sets), blankets and so on. Fortunately, they are pretty open to you bringing stuff in (within reason). We actually had seats down below, but the proximity to all the amps and speakers made me think I'd be better off up in the lawn area. We claimed a spot with Brian and Margo about halfway up in the lawn area, and settled in for the afternoon.

The show started around three o'clock with the Doobie Brothers. These guys have been around forever, and I had no idea how many of their songs I was familiar with (and knew the words to) until they started playing.

The Allman Brothers, I know well, and Warren Haynes played some awesome slide guitar. Apparently a woman behind us knew Marc Quiñones, because she was very interested in borrowing Brian's binoculars to see him play during the show.

The Dead came on right after the sun set over the rim of the Gorge.
I never got to see the Dead while Jerry was still alive, and had the opportunity to a few times in the years after he died, but decided that it probably wasn't the same without Jerry. Fast forward about 10 years, and I think now's the time. They've had plenty of time to do their thing and for people to get over it. They've had plenty of time to prove themselves worthy of carrying on the tradition, and seem to be touring because they want to, not just because they want to make a buck (reasons why I rarely go to see "comeback shows" for aging rock legends). I figured now was a good time in my life. Phil Lesh of course, is amazing. Mickey Hart & Bill Kreutzmann played some pretty amazing drums (they had a taiko stand set up during Drums in Space), and I really enjoyed the keyboardist, Jeff Chimenti, who was very creative. I was slightly disappointed that there was no laser light show (other than that provided by dorky 20-somethings with $5 laser pointers from Walmart), but the stage lighting was pretty cool, especially during Drums in Space.

With such a huge back catalog, you never know what they might get a notion to play. Here's the set list for the show, courtesy of dead.net

(Set 1)
The Music Never Stopped
Loose Lucy
Crazy Fingers
Dark Star
Dire Wolf
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Into The Mystic
Man Smart (Woman Smarter)
(Set 2)
Passenger
Hell in a Bucket
Althea
Eyes Of The World
Drums in Space
Days Between
Dark Star
One More Saturday Night
(Encore)
Box Of Rain

I think the show ended around 12:00 or 12:30 AM. It's hard to tell when you don't wear a watch.

Misc. Notes: I shudder to think how much secondhand smoke/THC I may have inhaled during the course of the afternoon, but at least it wasn't an indoor show. It never got bad enough that I needed my inhaler, but I had to lay down a couple of times (smoke rises!) My other concern was the volume, a big reason why I stayed up in the lawn area. At least it wasn't too loud...being in an open space helps with that, but even so, the music wasn't excessively loud, the way a lot of things are nowadays (don't get me started on the sound levels in movie theaters!).

Another surprise is that the Gorge is surprisingly primitive, considering it's a major concert venue. There's very little permanent infrastructure compared to most amphitheater-type venues. There's no covering anywhere so god help you if the weather's less than optimal...there's nowhere to escape from the rain here (On the other hand, you are in the desert, so I guess it isn't as likely to rain as it is back in Portland or Seattle). Being out in the full blaze of the desert sun can be pretty intense, so you have to come prepared for that. It's very grassy, so the ground is very comfortable to sit on (important for an all-day show), but it looks like they use the land for some farming purposes in the off-season. Annoying was the lack of adequate restrooms (they had dozens of porta-poties, but inexplicably, half of them were locked up, creating totally unnecessary quater-mile long lines. There's handwashing stations, but no water fountains (I'm guessing the water's safe to drink, but who knows for sure, right?). It's a good thing you can bring in your own food because options are limited, (if you had small children and didn't bring food with you, I don't know what the kiddos would eat--and if you're vegetarian, too bad). Another oddity is that the beer choices are surprisingly pedestrian considering that we live in the microbrew capital of the US. $9 Miller lites? No thank you. The exiting process is really disorganized as well--you're wandering around in the dark with no idea where you're going in with a huge herd of people who are equally confused. It's not very efficient, or safe, in my opinion. I would NOT want to do it with small children in tow--they would be so easy to lose in a large crowd. (Tip for parents--you can take your teens to a Dead show, but you can't make them enjoy it...I was amused as I watched some parents with their three very bored looking 7th-8th grade boys. The poor things looked so bored, with lots of incredulous pondering about the fact that their parents thought this music was "cool"...in fact, truth be told, they probably would have been less bored parked in a classroom with me all day, but I'm not volunteering.)

I make it sound all bad, but the scenery at the Gorge is incredible. The backdrop to the stage is the canyon cliffs of the Gorge and the river flowing by, and while you're listening to the music you can sit there and look around at the all the scenery. Watching the sun set was very cool, and being in such a rural area, at night, when the stars come out, it's incredible.

In conclusion, the show was awesome. Because it was a Dead show, the crowd was pretty mellow, and the scene was pretty drama-free and pretty respectful. Because I had brought lots of snacks and drinks (and warm clothes), I was pretty comfortable during the show, and held up pretty well throughout the 9 or so hours of musical entertainment. I was very grateful, though, that we didn't have to drive anywhere after all that, and could simply wander back to our campsite and pass out in the tent.

Heading to the Gorge

We've never been to the Gorge before because it's a bit of a hike at 260 miles, but now we've got a great excuse: The Grateful Dead/Doobie Bros/Allman Bros tour!

The entire trip took about 5 or 6 hours because we stopped at the Maryville Museum on the way there.

The drive out there is pretty scenic--once you get past Troutdale and Gresham on I-84, you have all the scenery of the Columbia Gorge (Waterfalls!). Once you get past Hood River and the Dalles, it flattens out a bit, turning into gently rolling hills, and the drier climate of Eastern Oregon prevails.

Then you cross over into Washington and take Highway 97 through the high desert landscape with great views of Mt. Adams, as you go through a bit of state forest and the Yakama Indian Reservation south of Yakima. Once you get down into the Yakima valley, it's all orchards for miles until once again you climb back up out of the valley, and back into the rocky highland desert of Eastern Oregon (and past the mysterious Yakima Firing Center). Near Ellensburg, you pick up I-90, and take it east through some more arid and relatively empty lands until you once again near the Columbia River, and cross a bridge. Just a little further and you're there.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon and set up camp. At the Gorge, you have two options: Standard Camping (random parking in an open lot) or Premier Camping (a soft much flatter area with a bit more space). If you have small children, you're better off in the Premier section because it's less rowdy and a bit more comfortable. There's also a fairly close by private campground down the highway called the Wild Horse that's quite a bit cheaper.

We went with Premier because it's closer to the venue and theoretically there's showers and bathrooms. Actually that's a bit of a misrepresentation--there's like 2 shower stalls for each gender that you have to share with several hundred people, so good luck getting near one, and even better luck with hot water. You should have seen the lines...The women's restrooms were inexplicably locked up the entire time, so there was a total of one unisex toilet, with a long line, and if you weren't too choosy, you could waltz into the men's room and use the stall. There was no toilet paper in either case. I figured out that it was just a lot easier to skip the flush toilets and use the portapoties, which had shorter lines and more toilet paper.

The camping spots were a pretty good size...at least as good as what you get in a state park, only without any hookups. There's plenty of room for a vehicle and a couple of regular two-man tents or one RV vehicle. It's all grass (no pavement) so it's very comfortable. The bad news is they are definitely first come, first served, so if you have any intention of getting together with someone, you have to plan to enter the venue together. We were a bit disappointed because there's no way to save a spot for someone who is coming later, and Brian and Margo weren't there yet, so it looked like we wouldn't be camping together after all. I was so disappointed, but we lucked out, and a couple of hours later, the people in the space behind us decided to move to another location, and my friends arrived just in time to claim it as theirs. Game on!

There is some potable water on site, but due to the heavy demand, you're better off bringing it yourself if you can. I brought some water bottles, but I wish I had brought more water. That way you won't have to spend so much time waiting. If you forget something, there's convenience store (the prices aren't terrible). They do not allow fires, but camp stoves are okay. It gets really cold at night, so you need to prepare for that. I brought lots of blankets and heavy clothes and was really glad I did because we would have frozen!

So after getting situated, we just spent the rest of the day hanging out and looking around, and watching the kids next to us run around and play all day long. It was fairly cool on the first day, and by the time the sun set, rather chilly. I was glad to have my thermoses of tea already made to help ward off the chill, but it was hard to sleep that night both because my feet were freezing, and because people were pretty loud. We lucked out in the sense that our immediate neighbors were quiet people with small children and early bedtimes, but that was by no means the bulk of the other campers.

Greenhouse

Brian finished the greenhouse today. Since the previous greenhouse blew down in a windstorm (much like the fence), we decided to build something a bit more permanent. It was mostly done a few days ago, but he had to figure out the mechanics of propping open one of the roof panels so it could vent. It's a pretty amazing structure--an 8' cube that he conceived of all by himself. He made it out of cedar and wavy polypropylene plastic sheets. It actually gets some afternoon shade in the summer when the plum tree's all leafed out, which will be nice because otherwise, I think it would get way too hot in there.

My plan this year is to grow some of the tomatoes in there (instead of planing them all out in the garden) so hopefully we won't have to wait until fall for our first ripe tomato (growing tomatoes in this climate can be very frustrating because they take soooo long to ripen because the nights are a bit too cool for their liking). I'm also going to try growing some peppers and eggplants which are also sluggish in this climate. For now, it's nice to have a place to keep seedlings safe from the curiosity of my dog (who got into plenty of trouble last year) and the vagaries of the weather (the freakish random hailstorms).

Sitting on the Fence

We finally got around to replacing the bamboo fence that blew down last winter in one of those infamous Gorge Howlers (50 mph winds that blow out of the Columbia Gorge and make you think your house is gonna fall down). There's a lumber yard near Stark that has some nice pre-assembled cedar fence panels (hard to describe, but they're 3ft high and 4 ft long, and all you need to do is drive some posts between them and attach). It took most of the afternoon to acquire the materials, re-dig all the holes, and pull up weeds, but we were able to finish the assembly in one day because the strip in front of the house is only about 18 ft. (had to wait to pour the concrete for the footings until the next day). We've already had several compliments from people passing by.

I'd really like to convert the median into a perennial flowerbed (so I don't have to mow it anymore), but lack the time and energy to go out and get a truckload of mulch, so it probably won't happen this year. Sigh. I'd much rather have a bed of flowers than random weeds that I have to keep whacking down.

The front of the house, I mulched entirely, the way we used to do at Declerye (only I used cardboard instead of newspaper to smother out the grass--it seems to work a lot better), but around the time I was working on it, the California poppies were exploding and shooting their seed everywhere...so now I have a mulched bed that's full of spring bulbs and California poppies that have pretty much taken it over. And that's fine with me. The poppies don't leave much room for weeds to set up shop, and I find their feathery foliage and orange flowers rather attractive. So the yard has a meadow-like appearance.

The native shrubs (currants, thimbleberries, salmonberries, elderberries, etc) are all flowering or starting to set fruit. The currants bloomed first (back in April) and attracted tons of bees and some hummingbirds. (I recently learned that the color of the flower gives you a clue as to what color the berries will be...the white currants have much paler flowers than the black currants do.) The brambles are starting to bloom now. The thimbleberries have big white creamy-looking flowers. The salmonberries have dramatic purple pendant flowers. Elderberries have kind of an interesting smell to them that I couldn't begin to describe, but I'm guessing is used to attract pollinators, as the flowers, themselves are pretty non-existent...they look like funny 5 point stars and don't have any petals.

The sage that's been in a container ever since I bought it at the Grange Co-op in Ashland went into the ground last fall, and is looking much healthier. It looks like it's going to flower pretty soon. In the backyard, I used to have a huge happy sage bush almost as big as the one we had at Declerye (courtesy of the previous residents), but my dog took a hankering to it, and she ate the entire thing...I don't know if any of it survived to make a comeback at all. (Thank goodness she doesn't seem to like Rosemary or Oregano or mint.)

I bought some more raspberry canes to plant in the backyard and am going to try my darndest to screen them off so my dog can't eat them...she things brambles are excellent snacks, and will nibble them like a deer down to the ground...little rascal! (My dog is such a little herbivore that sometimes I suspect she is part goat).

yum

A new recent development in the past couple of days is an increasing sensitivity to smells (or normal smells seeming a bit "off") and a mild lingering sensation of nausea...real mild, not the sort you expect to go anywhere, but it's enough to serve as a total appetite suppressant. I didn't have much of an appetite before, but now it's really nonexistent.

I've never been less interested in food in my entire life...Now I'm starting to get more way more interested in ginger. Hooray for ginger, in all of its myriad forms. One thing I'm really enjoying right now is ginger candy from Trader Joe's (I carry around a bag in my teaching bag just in case I'm feeling a bit "off" for some instant relief), and ginger tea (I get mine from the Asian market where it's a lot cheaper...).