Category Archives: Daily Life

Day to day happenings, the usual stuff, about me and life

Paddle Out for Randy Today

Going to Michigan .. again

The ‘paddle out’ for Randy is today. We are in a winter storm warning.. with rain snow and freezing temps. I hope everyone makes it over the hill safely. A lot of the Aikido family and Randy’s surf family will be there.

Russel has been sick with a chest cold for over a week now. Today is his birthday and he still feels punky. But he is going to the paddle-out.

I have been making all the travel arrangements and contingency plans for being able to get out of here and to Arcata to catch a flight on Tuesday 16. Flying into Salt Lake City then Detroit.

We will be at Dad’s Dec 16-Dec 28. I am hoping my nieces show up at some point and my brother. Dad is eating better now and we just hope for improvement in energy and well being.

To all who may come here:
Hold those you love close. Enjoy each minute as your last.
Happy Solstice !! (early )

Randy Foster – RIP

Randy Foster caught his last wave Tuesday November 25 at Shelter Cove.

Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light

~ Bruce Cockburn, Closer To The Light

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night

~ Bruce Cockburn, The Charity of Night

His bright light of being will be missed.
Randy and Sarah with their Aikido family at Benbow in 2004.

Randy Foster with Mateel Aikido family -2004

************************************************

I love the pounding of hooves
I love engines that roar
I love the wild music of waves on the shore
And the spiral perfection of a hawk when it soars
Love my sweet woman down to the core

There’s roads and there’s roads
And they call, can’t you hear it?
Roads of the earth
And roads of the spirit
The best roads of all
Are the ones that aren’t certain
One of those is where you’ll find me
Till they drop the big curtain

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days

Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days

~ Bruce Cockburn, Child of the Wind

Home at last

We had a few glitches and Kaya had to live out side in the heat and smoke while we were gone, but we came home to a good garden:

Harvesting: 4 kinds of summer squash, basil for tons of pesto, eggplants, tomatos, red and yellow potatoes, lots of salad greens.
Peppers on – waiting for them to go red.
Carrots, beets and green beans a bit slow, planted late.
Peaches so heavy breaking the tree limbs, but I have my doubts as to whether they will ripen.

We also made it to Reggae on the River at Benbow, a one day event this year and quite comfortable, good food, good music and a great crowd.

A couple of visits to Eureka,saw “Iron Man” and “Hancock” on 2 separate visits. Got sushi and bought some stuff for the house, including a door for an interior room.

It has been hot and smoky this past week, but we had good cool weather and little smoke for several weeks.

We also got the storage shed cleaned out and BIG NEWS Russel got the electrical water pump to work with our little honda generator… this means that I can pump water from here… no having to go down down below to the holding tanks with gasoline to run the pump. (he always does that job)
So this is a good thing, it has been in the process for a couple of years, lots of lines and wires to run between here and there and lots of little issues… but it’s working!!!

I haven’t been swimming all year. Most days I wanted to go up to the Van Duzen River, it was too smokey. And the Eel is so low and full of algae I wouldn’t put my toe in it.

And that’s about it for now. I will leave you with Bucky-boo…
who is sporting a much larger rack now than when this was taken a few weeks ago!!

Michigan July 2008

You can pretty much read this post and get what Michigan was.

I am always glad to see family and especially fun to see Dad and Sue.
This year got to meet great-niece Lauren who is just a delightful engaging young woman. I hope we can get to know each other through emails.

I did get to see niece, Laurie (17) and she is a beautiful as ever. I am so glad brother John brought her down from Alpena to visit while I was there.

Also had dinner and a visit with Lauren’s grandparents, Scott and Donna. Now how this works is my sister (who died at 31 in 1985) had a son with Scott, this is Jamey, and Lauren is his daughter. Scott and I were in school together, he is the only person from my graduation class of 1970 that I still have contact with. It was really good to visit with them awhile. Time is always too short.

My old friend Darlene also came to visit. I am so glad she did. We go back to the 70’s as well. She has been my friend longer than any other. Her life is good, she is a grandmother now and totally into that sweetness.

The thing I am not speaking too much of is Dad’s cancers, both melanoma (neck and shoulder area) which he has had roughly 4 operations on.

And now squamous cell carcinoma in his throat/base of tongue. They have decided to do a 5 days/7 weeks of radiation on that.. the doctors say he should be able to beat it. I don’t know. He was much more active than I had thought he would be. But he doesn’t feel good at all, he is just doing what he can do till he can’t do it any more.

We did the usual 4th of July picnic out on the lake (these are from a few years ago..but it’s the same thing) with a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins. Good to catch up with them, it all seems so surreal at times though. Our life here is so very different than any ones back there.

The Return Trip

I had a total body break down at the end of the toxic Michigan stay.
Part was bad bed and pillow which caused an old injury to arm/shoulder to reappear. I couldn’t even raise my arm to dress, brush hair, eat (right arm). This started the last week we were there.
Not good. And the hives had started too. I try to eat as clean as food as possible, but …. any way for what ever reason my hands were swelling up. Then motel night 1.. got a severe sinus drip and intense whole body swelling.. took a antihistamine and knocked my self out for a few hours only. Got up at 4am.. flight at 6am.. worst airport food any where (Detroit).. got to Denver.. no time to get decent food there either. I did pack some stuff, but wasn’t good enough.

Got into Sacramento… smoke… fires..100 plus degrees… running on adrenalin by now. Russel just muscling me through to our car… the 4 runner battery was dead. Russel jumped started it and we went to Woodland and bought a battery. Ate some not so good pancakes and eggs and he wanted to keep going.. it was only 11 am here. So we drove on too Clear Lake (2+ hours) where I had booked a room (Best Western) in case we couldn’t drive all the way.

Good thing, I was about to lose it bad. Nice motel there .. and friendly staff. But I needed to eat, but felt total nausea, got R to get a baked potato from the motel eatery. What happened next was the total break down. Hives, rapid heart beat, head ache, dizzy, so much more… I told Russel to find out where an emergency room was cause I didn’t know if I would make it. I passed out at this point.

Good bed and we had our pillows, I woke up feeling better than I had in a few days. It doesn’t sound like much when writing this down, but I don’t ever remember having my system that stressed by something I still don’t know why.

It took several days before I was normal… other things I won’t mention here were happening too.

The sun came up like a red rubber ball in the Sacramento valley.
And went down as a red orange ball here in the hills. For some reason my camera wasn’t capturing the redness of the sun??

Full Moon May

The garden is mostly in. The poppys are popping.. the sage is blooming and the wild lilac. We have had a dry spring with mild temps until the last several days of HIGH HEAT (100’s). Watching the clover yard dry up. The deer coming around less as there is less to eat. Haven’t seen the bambies yet, although we had a pregnant doe here for weeks.

Russel’s Aikido teacher from the bay area is here this weekend for a retreat. The potluck was last night and good food was had by all.
He is wrapping up the schools classes. In 3 weeks he will go to Aikido summer camp in the south bay for a week. I hope to have a lot of energy and maybe some money to do some interior work on this house.

The Michigan trip is booked for June 25 -July 11. Dad does have even more cancer. The melanoma keeps spreading, there are spots on his lungs which nothing can be done about, and a lump in his neck that is some kind of squamous, but not skin cancer kind. There is at least one more surgery ahead, if he chooses to do it. Probably just before we get there.

I have started to speak it out loud, that he may die soon… or not .. as he is a tough old guy (86) going on 60. But I need to prepare myself. This one will be hard to let go of.

My friends T and Ter from Florida are actually saying they may come visit this way this summer. I am so hoping that they do. I need them too. I need to see T… just feels like it must happen.

Not a lot of photos to brag about. Haven’t been using my camera much. Got this one in april through the hazy kitchen window:

I have been working a lot.

And Bruce Cockburn, www.cockburnproject.net is out on a short tour which is being recorded and filmed for a new LIVE-Solo CD and DVD. Wish he was doing some shows on the west coast for this, but he’s not.

There is also a lot going on locally. Too much to really go into here, but here is a link to a local blog who keeps everyone informed at least to what is going on with code enforcement, diesel concerns, 2nd district elections and Reggae wars, to name a few. I use it only as a means to being alerted and seeing what some (few) people are thinking about these issues. I do not generally agree with a lot that is posted over there as opinion.

Spring 2008

Spring is here the daffodils and tulips are blooming as are the peach trees. Life should be sweet, and in many ways it is, but I am stressed in so many ways.

First off, Dad isn’t done with the cancer it is back and another surgery is planned for April 23. This time the surgeons are taking ALL the muscle left in his left shoulder.. why I am not sure seeings how the lumps of melanoma are in his neck ..but I am not there to ask all the questions. And they will do what ever the doc says is the best thing to do. Dad is afraid the cancer will spread to his brain, or eyes or ears..and I understand that. But after this surgery, he will have no use or movement with his left arm.

I did book flights back to Michigan last month. We will be gone end of June through early July. I would like to go back now.. or when he has surgery, but they ‘can handle it’ and I am sure would prefer I am not there.

I am on a hormonal roller coaster just now. But hope to end that all soon. I may stop the estrogen as well, but have to see how bad the hot flashes get again.

I have been working, a local woman who I have written about before, Estelle Fennell is running for Humboldt County 2nd district supervisor. I have made her a website.

And I am working on a new version of Russel’s Aikido for Kids website.. this one will go live in a couple of weeks.

I did manage to see Prezident Brown a few weeks ago at the Mateel Community Center. It was a good show and I danced in a new dress! (Yes finally finding the rayon batik dresses I like really did lift my spirit a bit!!).

That’s pretty much it. All the usual spring projects and clean up and dump runs, and getting the garden ready, and figuring out what projects, if any are going to get done this summer. Our summer here won’t really start until middle of July! Yikes its so hot by then nothing much can get done. I hope Russel feels good enough and has enough energy to actually get some stuff done before school is out.. other wise, it mostly won’t I fear.

Painting on Silk – Margriet Seinen

I went to a Margriet Seinen’s Painting a Mandala on Silk workshop last weekend. I didn’t know but one day in advance that I was going, so I had no thought to what I would do. I do not draw. I do not paint. It was challenging and totally fun.

This is something I would encourage anyone to do. It is empowering and did I say, Fun! Watching the dye/paint go onto and over the silk is very mesmerizing and the whole process could be addicting.

Even though I didn’t do what I ‘thought I wanted, in design or color’ … this is what came out of that:

The colors here aren’t quite bright enough … and I have it on my wall, but I need to stretch the silk and get it framed. And I hope to do this workshop again. For that matter, I would love to learn the mixing of dyes for the colors I really want to use, so I may pick up some dyes, resist, silk and frames so I can play with this at home!

I also got my beads out, and repaired a necklace last week. This of course inspired me to want to start beading again. (a very old page with some of my beads and baskets photos)

I am going to be laying out a palette of beads soon. I hope to work with 14s (very small) but will probably start with 11s, as I have tons of them to work with.

Need to book a flight to Michigan soon. Thinking of end of June – early July for 10 days or more. Just thinking of flying again gave me a disturbing dream/nightmare last night. I just hate giving all that control to these people who ‘claim they are making me safe’. Oh well, I will work on letting go of that stress!!

Winter

The holiday season brought with it winter weather. From freezing temps and water lines to snow to hurricane force wind and rain back to freezing again. There has been some sun in there as well, but weather is dominate this year.

A murder of crows:

With so many gray dark days I haven’t had as much power as I would of liked. But mostly the big storm was just a windy event that took out our internet satellite tria.. the dish was ok.. and that took a few days to get replaced. We had a few small water leaks where it shouldn’t be issues too. Still have a couple of those.

Solar Power is wonderful to have though. So many people here and across the state were without power for days on end. We were warm (wood) and had lights and phone and internet and directv most of the time 🙂 Being off the grid does have its advantages.

Dad is not going to get full range of motion back into his left shoulder. The pain is getting less and they are planning a vacation to white sandy beach for a week here soon. So that is good. Meanwhile, I really need to plan the Michigan trip for the summer now. With all the news of airline mergers and prices going up, I don’t know whether to wait or book soon??

I have been archiving and jacketing dozens of live Bruce Cockburn shows that have been sitting here waiting for that for a couple of years!

I also got the Ion Cassette Tape to PC and the Ion turntable to PC. I have only used the cassette to PC so far.. finding out that many of the cassettes I wanted to get onto cd are just too far gone to be worth the time. I fear how the albums may sound!? But it’s a project that I have wanted to deal with for many years.
Hopefully by spring it will be done and new space will appear in this small house 🙂 [not done yet!]
Then I will tackle the vhs to dvd tapes that I want to keep and get rid of or store somewhere out of the house the rest.

Went to Eureka last week and we saw Cloverfield. A monster movie.
Doesn’t really live up to all the hype and yes it has all been done one way or another before…yet it was gripping edge of your seat 90 minutes of ..”What is that!?” Great monster.. 🙂

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt