Well, I've reached that familiar stage of summer where I wish we'd gone camping more, I wish we'd gone to the pool more, and I'm remembering that we never did go to Raging Waters or the fun pool complex in Elk Grove. Regrets... I've had a few.
Ah well. I always feel that way, and then I get back to work and remember that there are weekends! And there will be Apple Hill and Halloween and park playgrounds when it's NOT blazing hot, and we'll all be fine and have lots of good times.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
I hated a book and it was all my fault
I recently read Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, and it was just an awful, teeth-pulling experience, and yet it was probably more about me than about the book. Here's how it felt for me to read the book.
The dean laughed. "Well, we have all been on our toes after last spring's events, of course."
Miss Lydgate flinched. "Surely we don't want to bring up all that again?"
Harriet looked from one to the other, "You're not saying...?"
The bursar interrupted. "Never! Only that if it were to have happened that way, it would surely be a black mark on the school."
Miss Hillyard disagreed; "Only some would take it in that fashion, I'm sure."
The warden bristled. "Miss Hillyard, I'm sure you wouldn't want to offend our guest?"
Miss de Vine argued that all that was in the past, but Harriet wasn't so sure.
Now here's my problem as a reader. First, although it seems like there may be seven people in the room, the dean, Miss Lydgate, Harriet, the bursar, Miss Hillyard, the warden, and Miss de Vine, in fact the proper names and the titles are used interchangeably, so that although there are about thirty characters to keep track of, you also have to remember which one is "the fellow" and which is "the scout" and I'm not good at that sort of thing. I needed a chart.
Furthermore, whatever "last spring's events" and "all that" are were COMPLETELY unclear to me. I had no idea what they were discussing most of the time because they were being so goddamn coy about everything.
She walked along the High Street where she had agreed to meet Peter. Good looking, rich, well-mannered, smart, and loyal Peter. He had asked her to marry him every six months for the last five years, but she obviously couldn't agree to it. There he was, waiting for her at the tea shop. He was prompt, she'd give him that. They strolled to the gardens.
"What a lovely morning, my dear Harriet. Or as the old poet said, 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.'"
She chuckled, and finished for him, "sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."
So first of all, it's not at all obvious why she can't marry the guy. In fact, she seems downright hostile to this perfectly pleasant dude. Apparently, the answer is to be found in some previous book, but I'm sure as hell not going to read a bunch of other books to find out. I am too lazy.
Second, perhaps in 1935 most halfway decently educated people had a passing knowledge of Latin, but that is no longer true. And there was a LOT of Latin in the book. In fact, a pivotal final scene made no damn sense until I Googled it.
Peter and his nephew, Saint-George, ambled across the courtyard to her. "Well met, my lady," said the lad. "Say, why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!" He amiably nudged her elbow.
Well! If she was going to be treated that way, and publicly, she'd have something to say about it. She penned a strongly-worded letter of rebuke to the boy, and a brief note of apology to Peter. Peter's apology note for the poor behavior of his nephew arrived in the post that afternoon, and he must have sent a strong message to the boy himself, as Saint-George's profuse apology came by courier after the dinner hour.
Seriously, this is why I can't read Jane Austen, Henry James, etc. Someone is always getting wildly offended at someone's act or remark and, because I have so little understanding of the social mores of the day, I have NO IDEA why. I remember in one of the books I read for college, a girl was being courted by a guy, they went to a dance (with permission), they danced, and the next day the family was ready to leave the country and burn the house down in embarrassment over the damage done to her reputation. I had to ask the professor what the hell happened. (If you're wondering, too, the chaperone had to take home a sick kid, so she was unchaperoned, even though she didn't know it.) Anyway, I know that's the way it was back then, but it's insanely stupid, and I can't get past my modern sensibility to pretend otherwise. I'm making up the sections above, obviously, but there was seriously a scene where the kid told a joke and a flurry of apology letters and rebukes were sent around over how badly Harriet had been treated. I still have no idea what happened that was so offensive.
Anyway, I hated the book, not because it was a bad book, but because I can't keep track of so many characters (and their various titles), because I don't know Latin, and because I have very little understanding of (or patience for) the stuffy politesse of the time period.
The dean laughed. "Well, we have all been on our toes after last spring's events, of course."
Miss Lydgate flinched. "Surely we don't want to bring up all that again?"
Harriet looked from one to the other, "You're not saying...?"
The bursar interrupted. "Never! Only that if it were to have happened that way, it would surely be a black mark on the school."
Miss Hillyard disagreed; "Only some would take it in that fashion, I'm sure."
The warden bristled. "Miss Hillyard, I'm sure you wouldn't want to offend our guest?"
Miss de Vine argued that all that was in the past, but Harriet wasn't so sure.
Now here's my problem as a reader. First, although it seems like there may be seven people in the room, the dean, Miss Lydgate, Harriet, the bursar, Miss Hillyard, the warden, and Miss de Vine, in fact the proper names and the titles are used interchangeably, so that although there are about thirty characters to keep track of, you also have to remember which one is "the fellow" and which is "the scout" and I'm not good at that sort of thing. I needed a chart.
Furthermore, whatever "last spring's events" and "all that" are were COMPLETELY unclear to me. I had no idea what they were discussing most of the time because they were being so goddamn coy about everything.
She walked along the High Street where she had agreed to meet Peter. Good looking, rich, well-mannered, smart, and loyal Peter. He had asked her to marry him every six months for the last five years, but she obviously couldn't agree to it. There he was, waiting for her at the tea shop. He was prompt, she'd give him that. They strolled to the gardens.
"What a lovely morning, my dear Harriet. Or as the old poet said, 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.'"
She chuckled, and finished for him, "sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."
"Ah, Peter retorted, but 'Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.'"
Harriet blushed, and they turned away from the river. But the thought nagged at her. Why had he, after all, used the present plu-perfect form? What the devil could he mean by it?
So first of all, it's not at all obvious why she can't marry the guy. In fact, she seems downright hostile to this perfectly pleasant dude. Apparently, the answer is to be found in some previous book, but I'm sure as hell not going to read a bunch of other books to find out. I am too lazy.
Second, perhaps in 1935 most halfway decently educated people had a passing knowledge of Latin, but that is no longer true. And there was a LOT of Latin in the book. In fact, a pivotal final scene made no damn sense until I Googled it.
Peter and his nephew, Saint-George, ambled across the courtyard to her. "Well met, my lady," said the lad. "Say, why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!" He amiably nudged her elbow.
Well! If she was going to be treated that way, and publicly, she'd have something to say about it. She penned a strongly-worded letter of rebuke to the boy, and a brief note of apology to Peter. Peter's apology note for the poor behavior of his nephew arrived in the post that afternoon, and he must have sent a strong message to the boy himself, as Saint-George's profuse apology came by courier after the dinner hour.
Seriously, this is why I can't read Jane Austen, Henry James, etc. Someone is always getting wildly offended at someone's act or remark and, because I have so little understanding of the social mores of the day, I have NO IDEA why. I remember in one of the books I read for college, a girl was being courted by a guy, they went to a dance (with permission), they danced, and the next day the family was ready to leave the country and burn the house down in embarrassment over the damage done to her reputation. I had to ask the professor what the hell happened. (If you're wondering, too, the chaperone had to take home a sick kid, so she was unchaperoned, even though she didn't know it.) Anyway, I know that's the way it was back then, but it's insanely stupid, and I can't get past my modern sensibility to pretend otherwise. I'm making up the sections above, obviously, but there was seriously a scene where the kid told a joke and a flurry of apology letters and rebukes were sent around over how badly Harriet had been treated. I still have no idea what happened that was so offensive.
Anyway, I hated the book, not because it was a bad book, but because I can't keep track of so many characters (and their various titles), because I don't know Latin, and because I have very little understanding of (or patience for) the stuffy politesse of the time period.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Lochlan and Clifford
Thus far, Lochlan hasn't really gone crazy for a toy when we've been in a store. Well, up until last weekend. We had waved stuffed animals at him on any number of occasions, and he was happy (he's always happy), but had no strong reaction. But last weekend was different.
We went to Beers Books, a used and new bookstore, as we often do. I wandered with him over to the kids area, where, for decoration, they have several stuffed animals high on top of the bookshelves. "BUH!" Lochlan practically shouted. Now, Lochlan calls nearly everything some version of "buh," but that sounded like his buh-that-means-dog. I followed his gaze. He seemed to be looking at a large, red stuffed animal of Clifford the dog. "BUH! BUH!" He reached his arms out towards it and bounced up and down. "BUH!" He was definitely looking at Clifford. That gave me an idea.
I turned around to leave the section, and he turned, his eyes never leaving Clifford. He seemed distressed as we walked away, and he continued to hold his arms out toward it. "BUH!"
I asked at the front counter the author's name for the Clifford books. The young lady looked it up for me, and we went back. "BUH!" In a few minutes' searching (the alphabetization is somewhat suspect), I found the original Clifford the Big Red Dog book. I bought it for him.
Now here's the funny thing. He loves books. He looks around the page at the pictures, crawls to me if I lay down with one of his books, and seems generally interested in other books. But the Clifford book -- he grins, he laughs, he pats the pages, and he interacts. Oh yeah -- if I ask him on the page where Clifford is "hiding" if he can find Clifford, he either looks right at the spot or touches it with his finger. He is legitimately thrilled about this Clifford book.
Anyway, in a year, maybe he'll be over Clifford. Maybe by the time he's ten, he'll ask what he liked when he was a baby, and I won't remember. But I'm putting it down here so there's a record. At 11 months old, the first book he really loves is Clifford the Big Red Dog.
We went to Beers Books, a used and new bookstore, as we often do. I wandered with him over to the kids area, where, for decoration, they have several stuffed animals high on top of the bookshelves. "BUH!" Lochlan practically shouted. Now, Lochlan calls nearly everything some version of "buh," but that sounded like his buh-that-means-dog. I followed his gaze. He seemed to be looking at a large, red stuffed animal of Clifford the dog. "BUH! BUH!" He reached his arms out towards it and bounced up and down. "BUH!" He was definitely looking at Clifford. That gave me an idea.
I turned around to leave the section, and he turned, his eyes never leaving Clifford. He seemed distressed as we walked away, and he continued to hold his arms out toward it. "BUH!"
I asked at the front counter the author's name for the Clifford books. The young lady looked it up for me, and we went back. "BUH!" In a few minutes' searching (the alphabetization is somewhat suspect), I found the original Clifford the Big Red Dog book. I bought it for him.
Now here's the funny thing. He loves books. He looks around the page at the pictures, crawls to me if I lay down with one of his books, and seems generally interested in other books. But the Clifford book -- he grins, he laughs, he pats the pages, and he interacts. Oh yeah -- if I ask him on the page where Clifford is "hiding" if he can find Clifford, he either looks right at the spot or touches it with his finger. He is legitimately thrilled about this Clifford book.
Anyway, in a year, maybe he'll be over Clifford. Maybe by the time he's ten, he'll ask what he liked when he was a baby, and I won't remember. But I'm putting it down here so there's a record. At 11 months old, the first book he really loves is Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Saturday, August 08, 2015
Sunset Bay, Oregon
You're going to need this as a soundtrack. Just push play. Go ahead.
We decided to drive to Sunset Bay campground near Coos Bay, Oregon for our mostly-annual family camping trip. We checked the Google Maps. We checked the GPS. No matter what route we selected, it ended up looking like close to ten hours. So we packed up some road snacks and an audio book and some tunes and Z's Kindle and hit the road at about 8am last Friday, after stopping for fresh bread and coffee.
It wasn't that bad. We stopped about three times -- at a rest stop, for gas, and for Taco Time, and we did make it by about 5. Everyone else was already settled in, and our sister Michelle began cooking dinner while we set up our tent. We had masala burgers on naan with garlic chutney -- delish! Our site and Michelle and Bruce's site were adjacent, and we knew that two groups would be staying for only part of the time, so we decided to let the larger campground be for the eight of us (us, our kids, them, their kids) and all the cooking stuff and the fire, while the smaller one would work for the people who were only staying for two or four nights.
Across the pathway and down one was a HUGE RV site with a nice big pad for our sister Maryam and her partner Allan. Better still, they were next to the really nice bathrooms with hot showers. Even better in Z's opinion, there was a sort of no-man's-land with a little creek and logs and things between the sites that all the kids converged on to pretend they were in the wild, while still basically being visible from every angle.
Maryam's daughter Kelsey and her husband Wes arrived, and that was the first time we'd met him. He seemed like a really decent guy, and I'm glad to have him in the family!
Friday night we sat up talking and drinking, and that night it was pretty cold and uncomfortable. We'd bought these new "camp beds," but they weren't much better than sleeping on the ground. I was warm enough when I rolled onto my right side to nurse the baby, but if we adjusted to my left, my sleeping bag gaped open, and I suspect it was in the 40s. So a rough night, in general.
But in the morning there was coffee and pancakes! That solves a multitude of ills! We enjoyed the lovely morning, and then we all trekked out to Shore Acres and the Simpson Estate, where an interpretive ranger told us all about Louis J Simpson, a rich gadabout turned timber tycoon who built an amazing home and English gardens in what was otherwise a wilderness. His house burned down, but he donated the estate to be turned into a state park. It was a great tour, and then we went down to Simpson Beach, which was one of those ones with the nice rocks and shells to make shining piles of.
That afternoon we dinked around (Wes and I played a card game) and for dinner that night Maryam made spaghetti and Kelsey made garlic bread. We ate ourselves silly, drank some more, and stayed up late talking again.
Saturday night I was kept awake by someone hammering in tent stakes -- forever. By the sound of it, he was hammering in about sixteen of them, and it was after ten! When he finished, a car alarm went off, and if the length of that episode was any indication, the owner had to dig for their keys in a deep gravel pit. So I was almost but not quite asleep when I saw the flash. I thought for sure it was lightning, even though the evening hadn't seemed stormy. Sure enough, about 25 seconds later, thunder BOOMED overhead. A few minutes passed, then lightning, about 20 seconds, and thunder that didn't so much boom overhead as shook the air and rattled your eardrums. It was one of the loudest thunder crashes I've ever heard. I am fairly unflappable, and I know perfectly well that thunder can't hurt you, but I was flapped. It was gut-roilingly loud. It sounded like two locomotives had crashed right about where my car was parked. There were about six more thunderclaps total, and of course Sweetie and Bruce got up to protect our things from the rain, Maryam got up to check on Kelsey and Wes, and there was a great deal of movement and noise from the campground, but we all counted under our breaths, and it got down to 8, then 5, then started going back up. Shortly after it hit about 25 again, it was gone and we all settled back in. It didn't even rain that hard.
The morning was an eggs and bacon and toast morning, and then Zadie and I went to a camp activity where we made beads out of elderberry twigs (and sanded them with horsehair, "the potscrubber plant").
Then we all went to the Sunset Bay beach, which was a short walk from the campground, and we took shovels and pails and dogs and snacks and just generally had a lovely, beachy time. Michelle made dinner that night, a wonderful tomato-y Persian dish called Lubia Polow (forgive my spelling!). Kelsey and Wes had to go, but my father-in-law and his wife, Hossein and Anne, arrived and took their campsite.
That day during our tent clean-up, Reza asked what the valve on the end of our camp beds was. The what? It turns out that they self-inflate!! Yay! So that night was far more comfortable. Plus, I figured out a fix for the cold, too (my bag has an extra snow flap thing, and if I zip it on just one side, it can cover the open zipper like a blanket).
At this point, I'm going to admit that I didn't keep any notes, or even take many pictures (my phone died the first night, because I forgot to turn off the searching-for-signal things), so I sort of forgot what we did. I am pretty sure we had sort of a low-key camp maintenance day. We got more ice from town. We ate some soup. We had a hot shower in the family showers. We went to junior rangers and did a scavenger hunt. Maryam and Allan had to leave in the morning, and they took our niece Katie with them, since she had college classes to attend. I think her brother found this somewhat of a relief.
On Tuesday, Zadie and I went to the beach alone (well, with Lochlan) because it was low tide, and we wanted to tidepool a little. We saw an octopus tentacle (well, part of one) and a gross fish head and entrails. We also saw about a thousand little bubbly spots where crabs were under the sand, but we never could quite dig one up.
That afternoon, we all packed up our beach things again and went to Bastendorf Beach, a couple miles north on the coast. It was one of those perfect, sandy stretches. The kids played Frisbee and built a sand castle with their grandpa. Sweetie and Bruce took a long walk. Michelle and Anne and I relaxed and kept an eye on the baby, who was mostly eating sand. It was perfect.
That night I made "Yum Bowls," a rice bowl with toppings like beans and tomato and avocado. At some point, we did let Zadie toast marshmallows. She mostly likes to light them on fire and blow them out.
On Wednesday, we caught the actual tidepool walk, guided by the ranger. Unfortunately, I felt a little unstable on the seaweed-covered rocks with the baby in a carrier, so Michelle and Zadie went by themselves. They made their way out slowly, but ultimately got quite far and went around the end of the jetty and out of sight. I perched on a rock and watched one small tidepool, where I saw a crabfight, petted an anemone, and saw tiny fish dart around. When they came back, we stopped by another scenic lookout where some whales were spouting and sometimes breaching. We also watched seals for a bit. I didn't see a whale spout (I took Zadie to the bathroom), but Michelle did.
That evening I made chili and cornbread on the campfire grill. It was the first time we'd cooked over the fire, but it worked so well that then we made several more meals over the fire! Reza was very proud of his hot cooking fires. We made hash browns, toast, bacon, and grilled cheese sandwiches that way!
Thursday morning Hossein and Anne had to go, so we had one last quiet day. Bruce, Kellen, and Sweetie played a game (Samurai Swords) and the rest of us, Michelle, Zadie, Lochlan and myself, went to the beach again.
We had grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, and it was perfect and we tried not to stay up too late, although I think we all wanted to.
The next morning we had to break camp, so Michelle and Bruce made breakfast while Reza and I packed up the car. Lochie helped me spill my coffee, so we got another cup for the road, and Sweetie helped me spill that one, so it was kind of a groggy, crabby first part of the drive. We were all very sad to leave each other, and not just because we had so much fun, but because we really, really love and like and admire and respect each other and make each other laugh, and we don't get together nearly often enough. For the first time in a long time, Sweetie started talking about how feasible it might be to try to move back to Oregon someday.
The drive home kind of sucked, but not because of traffic or anything. It was just long. And there was smoke and fires and an ugly car accident, and that whole ugly stretch of nothing between Shasta and Sacramento, and also we were bummed to be heading home.
Other non-chronological notes: we had bought cinnamon rolls and "morning buns" from the store for breakfasts, but then we ate hot breakfasts every day, so they were going to go to waste. Michelle and I decided they might make a good break pudding, so I mixed up eggs and milk, layered torn-up pieces of the rolls, and made a center layer of blueberries and a bit of brown sugar, and put the whole thing in a dutch oven on the fire. It was a bitch to clean up, but it made a really delicious breakfast!
Note for next year: we are going to need more tequila.
Zadie lost her favorite pair of shoes to the tide and blamed (unfairly) her dad. That was an afternoon that everyone went to the beach but me and Lochie, who had a lovely long nap in the tent.
One afternoon, Kellen and Zadie and I played a version of Scrabble that, to accommodate them both, was somewhat chaotic. Still fun, though.
The Oregon coast is cold. The nearby (but INLAND) town that the weather service reports from is about twenty degrees warmer than right by the ocean, which the campground was. In two hours, we went from about 108 (in Roseburg) to 68 (at the campground). I had packed only two warm long-sleeved shirts, and I really needed something more significant. I don't think I got down to just a t-shirt except for maybe once.
One brilliant decision by me was to bring my fleece footie pajamas. I may have looked like a white trash abominable snowman shuffling to the bathroom early each morning, but my feet were warm (though not constricted), my boobs were easily accessible by zipper without leaving my tummy cold, and I didn't have to sleep in clothes, which I abhor (though sometimes do when camping).
And as for the Bonnie Tyler, on the way to camp we'd played the song (via Sweetie's mega 80s playlist) and gotten it stuck in our heads, partly because we were discussing it. Like, whose job is it to just sing "turn around" a hundred times? And how does that song go from a quiet little duet to "FOREVER'S GONNA START TONIGHT" in like five seconds? Anyway, we kept bursting into song the first day, and it just got stuck in everyone's head. On Thursday, we were still going, "Turn around..." It was the theme song of the trip.
Hossein was a very proud grandpa, and very excited to meet Lochlan.
Cousins. Kellen was super sweet with Lochie.
Sand castle building time!
And just... sand.
The finished product.
Reza's awesome cooking fire (and my chili and cornbread).
I managed to studiously avoid doing any dishes, but I did make it my job to clear the dish-washing area, heat the water, fill the tubs, etc. But here's my handsome hubby (complete with camping beard) and his sister collaborating on the dishes. You can even see Lochlan in the carrier. "What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man..."
We decided to drive to Sunset Bay campground near Coos Bay, Oregon for our mostly-annual family camping trip. We checked the Google Maps. We checked the GPS. No matter what route we selected, it ended up looking like close to ten hours. So we packed up some road snacks and an audio book and some tunes and Z's Kindle and hit the road at about 8am last Friday, after stopping for fresh bread and coffee.
It wasn't that bad. We stopped about three times -- at a rest stop, for gas, and for Taco Time, and we did make it by about 5. Everyone else was already settled in, and our sister Michelle began cooking dinner while we set up our tent. We had masala burgers on naan with garlic chutney -- delish! Our site and Michelle and Bruce's site were adjacent, and we knew that two groups would be staying for only part of the time, so we decided to let the larger campground be for the eight of us (us, our kids, them, their kids) and all the cooking stuff and the fire, while the smaller one would work for the people who were only staying for two or four nights.
Across the pathway and down one was a HUGE RV site with a nice big pad for our sister Maryam and her partner Allan. Better still, they were next to the really nice bathrooms with hot showers. Even better in Z's opinion, there was a sort of no-man's-land with a little creek and logs and things between the sites that all the kids converged on to pretend they were in the wild, while still basically being visible from every angle.
Maryam's daughter Kelsey and her husband Wes arrived, and that was the first time we'd met him. He seemed like a really decent guy, and I'm glad to have him in the family!
Friday night we sat up talking and drinking, and that night it was pretty cold and uncomfortable. We'd bought these new "camp beds," but they weren't much better than sleeping on the ground. I was warm enough when I rolled onto my right side to nurse the baby, but if we adjusted to my left, my sleeping bag gaped open, and I suspect it was in the 40s. So a rough night, in general.
But in the morning there was coffee and pancakes! That solves a multitude of ills! We enjoyed the lovely morning, and then we all trekked out to Shore Acres and the Simpson Estate, where an interpretive ranger told us all about Louis J Simpson, a rich gadabout turned timber tycoon who built an amazing home and English gardens in what was otherwise a wilderness. His house burned down, but he donated the estate to be turned into a state park. It was a great tour, and then we went down to Simpson Beach, which was one of those ones with the nice rocks and shells to make shining piles of.
That afternoon we dinked around (Wes and I played a card game) and for dinner that night Maryam made spaghetti and Kelsey made garlic bread. We ate ourselves silly, drank some more, and stayed up late talking again.
Saturday night I was kept awake by someone hammering in tent stakes -- forever. By the sound of it, he was hammering in about sixteen of them, and it was after ten! When he finished, a car alarm went off, and if the length of that episode was any indication, the owner had to dig for their keys in a deep gravel pit. So I was almost but not quite asleep when I saw the flash. I thought for sure it was lightning, even though the evening hadn't seemed stormy. Sure enough, about 25 seconds later, thunder BOOMED overhead. A few minutes passed, then lightning, about 20 seconds, and thunder that didn't so much boom overhead as shook the air and rattled your eardrums. It was one of the loudest thunder crashes I've ever heard. I am fairly unflappable, and I know perfectly well that thunder can't hurt you, but I was flapped. It was gut-roilingly loud. It sounded like two locomotives had crashed right about where my car was parked. There were about six more thunderclaps total, and of course Sweetie and Bruce got up to protect our things from the rain, Maryam got up to check on Kelsey and Wes, and there was a great deal of movement and noise from the campground, but we all counted under our breaths, and it got down to 8, then 5, then started going back up. Shortly after it hit about 25 again, it was gone and we all settled back in. It didn't even rain that hard.
The morning was an eggs and bacon and toast morning, and then Zadie and I went to a camp activity where we made beads out of elderberry twigs (and sanded them with horsehair, "the potscrubber plant").
Then we all went to the Sunset Bay beach, which was a short walk from the campground, and we took shovels and pails and dogs and snacks and just generally had a lovely, beachy time. Michelle made dinner that night, a wonderful tomato-y Persian dish called Lubia Polow (forgive my spelling!). Kelsey and Wes had to go, but my father-in-law and his wife, Hossein and Anne, arrived and took their campsite.
That day during our tent clean-up, Reza asked what the valve on the end of our camp beds was. The what? It turns out that they self-inflate!! Yay! So that night was far more comfortable. Plus, I figured out a fix for the cold, too (my bag has an extra snow flap thing, and if I zip it on just one side, it can cover the open zipper like a blanket).
At this point, I'm going to admit that I didn't keep any notes, or even take many pictures (my phone died the first night, because I forgot to turn off the searching-for-signal things), so I sort of forgot what we did. I am pretty sure we had sort of a low-key camp maintenance day. We got more ice from town. We ate some soup. We had a hot shower in the family showers. We went to junior rangers and did a scavenger hunt. Maryam and Allan had to leave in the morning, and they took our niece Katie with them, since she had college classes to attend. I think her brother found this somewhat of a relief.
On Tuesday, Zadie and I went to the beach alone (well, with Lochlan) because it was low tide, and we wanted to tidepool a little. We saw an octopus tentacle (well, part of one) and a gross fish head and entrails. We also saw about a thousand little bubbly spots where crabs were under the sand, but we never could quite dig one up.
That afternoon, we all packed up our beach things again and went to Bastendorf Beach, a couple miles north on the coast. It was one of those perfect, sandy stretches. The kids played Frisbee and built a sand castle with their grandpa. Sweetie and Bruce took a long walk. Michelle and Anne and I relaxed and kept an eye on the baby, who was mostly eating sand. It was perfect.
That night I made "Yum Bowls," a rice bowl with toppings like beans and tomato and avocado. At some point, we did let Zadie toast marshmallows. She mostly likes to light them on fire and blow them out.
On Wednesday, we caught the actual tidepool walk, guided by the ranger. Unfortunately, I felt a little unstable on the seaweed-covered rocks with the baby in a carrier, so Michelle and Zadie went by themselves. They made their way out slowly, but ultimately got quite far and went around the end of the jetty and out of sight. I perched on a rock and watched one small tidepool, where I saw a crabfight, petted an anemone, and saw tiny fish dart around. When they came back, we stopped by another scenic lookout where some whales were spouting and sometimes breaching. We also watched seals for a bit. I didn't see a whale spout (I took Zadie to the bathroom), but Michelle did.
That evening I made chili and cornbread on the campfire grill. It was the first time we'd cooked over the fire, but it worked so well that then we made several more meals over the fire! Reza was very proud of his hot cooking fires. We made hash browns, toast, bacon, and grilled cheese sandwiches that way!
Thursday morning Hossein and Anne had to go, so we had one last quiet day. Bruce, Kellen, and Sweetie played a game (Samurai Swords) and the rest of us, Michelle, Zadie, Lochlan and myself, went to the beach again.
We had grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, and it was perfect and we tried not to stay up too late, although I think we all wanted to.
The next morning we had to break camp, so Michelle and Bruce made breakfast while Reza and I packed up the car. Lochie helped me spill my coffee, so we got another cup for the road, and Sweetie helped me spill that one, so it was kind of a groggy, crabby first part of the drive. We were all very sad to leave each other, and not just because we had so much fun, but because we really, really love and like and admire and respect each other and make each other laugh, and we don't get together nearly often enough. For the first time in a long time, Sweetie started talking about how feasible it might be to try to move back to Oregon someday.
The drive home kind of sucked, but not because of traffic or anything. It was just long. And there was smoke and fires and an ugly car accident, and that whole ugly stretch of nothing between Shasta and Sacramento, and also we were bummed to be heading home.
Other non-chronological notes: we had bought cinnamon rolls and "morning buns" from the store for breakfasts, but then we ate hot breakfasts every day, so they were going to go to waste. Michelle and I decided they might make a good break pudding, so I mixed up eggs and milk, layered torn-up pieces of the rolls, and made a center layer of blueberries and a bit of brown sugar, and put the whole thing in a dutch oven on the fire. It was a bitch to clean up, but it made a really delicious breakfast!
Note for next year: we are going to need more tequila.
Zadie lost her favorite pair of shoes to the tide and blamed (unfairly) her dad. That was an afternoon that everyone went to the beach but me and Lochie, who had a lovely long nap in the tent.
One afternoon, Kellen and Zadie and I played a version of Scrabble that, to accommodate them both, was somewhat chaotic. Still fun, though.
The Oregon coast is cold. The nearby (but INLAND) town that the weather service reports from is about twenty degrees warmer than right by the ocean, which the campground was. In two hours, we went from about 108 (in Roseburg) to 68 (at the campground). I had packed only two warm long-sleeved shirts, and I really needed something more significant. I don't think I got down to just a t-shirt except for maybe once.
One brilliant decision by me was to bring my fleece footie pajamas. I may have looked like a white trash abominable snowman shuffling to the bathroom early each morning, but my feet were warm (though not constricted), my boobs were easily accessible by zipper without leaving my tummy cold, and I didn't have to sleep in clothes, which I abhor (though sometimes do when camping).
And as for the Bonnie Tyler, on the way to camp we'd played the song (via Sweetie's mega 80s playlist) and gotten it stuck in our heads, partly because we were discussing it. Like, whose job is it to just sing "turn around" a hundred times? And how does that song go from a quiet little duet to "FOREVER'S GONNA START TONIGHT" in like five seconds? Anyway, we kept bursting into song the first day, and it just got stuck in everyone's head. On Thursday, we were still going, "Turn around..." It was the theme song of the trip.
Hossein was a very proud grandpa, and very excited to meet Lochlan.
Cousins. Kellen was super sweet with Lochie.
Sand castle building time!
And just... sand.
The finished product.
Reza's awesome cooking fire (and my chili and cornbread).
Returning from the tidepool walk.
The three Peigahi men. Reza says that in this picture, he might perhaps see a resemblance to his dad. Maybe the nose, a bit, he says.
"We're gonna teach you how to walk."
I managed to studiously avoid doing any dishes, but I did make it my job to clear the dish-washing area, heat the water, fill the tubs, etc. But here's my handsome hubby (complete with camping beard) and his sister collaborating on the dishes. You can even see Lochlan in the carrier. "What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man..."
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