grind open but closing soon! shop now!

OK, their hours have changed - now 11-7pm. Eight hours to shop. Open til everything's gone. Percent off sales in the future.

Also hearing that our quickymart minimall will be changing hands. To become more "upscale"! puke. So much for "the boys". Is this all a plot of Fred Meyer to make us shop there? Any other conspiracy theories out there?

grind closed!

The sign says "shop now" but the store is closed. Here's another daily grind photo...

daily grind down!

as in out of business as of 2 weeks from now. Shit!

100% weather

I have a slight weather habit. I don't get the weather channel or stay plugged into my local weather delivery station. I am just picky and have found the perfect weather broadcasting media for me - rainbow bright and super detailed. I just checked in to it to see when the best time would be to take a walk today. Unfortunately, we're not getting out of the dark green today and our 12 hour probability of precipitation is 100%. But check out the contrast between the purple (dark and light) snow patterns in Montana and our green marbling here on the wet side. Foggy days are nice too - the yellow really stands out. And the POP12 readings are like topographical maps of clouds. Thank you NOAA. http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sectors/pacnorthwestWeek.php#tabs

We went to Arizona in March and in preparation I checked out the NOAA graphical for southeastern AZ. There were no colors. Was the website working? yes. But there was no weather there. Just the bland beige nothing that means "none". This picture shows the absence of weather. Makes you nervous doesn't it?

pursed ships

I (I!) have been carrying a purse. I (I!) who once infamously (and innocently) said to my purse carrying friend, "isn't that humiliating? Carrying all that stuff (implication: that you don't need)?" When I was 18, purses (and gardening) represented all that was middle-aged and booooring. What did I have against purses? I guess I thought that carrying around enough stuff that you had to have a BAG for it seemed too encumbering.

But! Now I realize that one thing that I hate is packing up to leave the house. When it was merely finding my ID and stuffing some bills in my pockets things were easy. Now that pockets wont hold my wallet, cell phone and keys (and really, some of my clothes don't even have POCKETS!) I have become increasingly frustrated. And now that I also usually am getting together the baby stuff, man! that is hard to get used to, I can't bear finding all my shit too. So I use a purse. It's one that I'm trying out, one of my mom's. I don't really think it's "me" but I dont really have time or inclination to shop. It does have lots of pockets... Yes, it does have that.

shoes off weekend

It was weirdly warm again last weekend. The door was open and dog sitting on the porch, barking at nervous people and small dogs. We waltzed around without our shoes or soxes on. Like foxes we were.

Sunday had a crockpot full of steel cut oatmeal, all-night cooked. And people over. And two kids - Elsa and Sula. The increasingly rare Lucy made an appearance and T drug her bags of clothes out of the basement and we all got some good stuff.

rememberances of things summer

Is this a Proustian reference? What an egghead. Although I tell you what - I've only ever read Proust when I had trouble sleeping.

Here is another picture of summer times. This one is of me and L in the neighbor's pool. One thing to be said about the weather this time of year - it is interesting. More interesting than a cloudless sky in summer. Clouds come in, clouds go out, clouds turn different colors, clouds dissipate or blow their tops.

Today was the first day of using the furnace. It's hard to be upset about this bad weather when remembering how we've lived the last five months essentially outside, or at least with windows and doors open. And does the rain feel good on your face and hands, yes, yes it does. Mostly.