“come downstairs & bring popsackles”

A cardboard box filled with kraft paper; I remove gifts, setting them on the counter. Wrapped in tissue: findings from another sea. Teas, candied ginger. A paper-wrapped parcel of fine chocolate. Two bolts of sumptuous flannel fabric – a pea green plaid, a yellow plaid. Set aside and I run my hands over them each; fine robes for Christmas.

A wooden box, masterfully if plainly constructed, with a fire-branded logo. A note. And opening the box: a plastic shark. I recognize it as nearly identical to the one my children used to play with in the bath.

Then when I call my brother – to thank him and his wife, for the package – he laughs about the shark. “Do you recognize it?” I am confused for a moment. He can’t mean my children’s toy, as he never gave them baths and wasn’t there when they were small.

He says, “It’s just like the one I gave you a black eye with!” He is gleeful.

I am thinking, Oh that’s right. A childhood fight – we were still living in the bus, so I was seven years old or younger. I am set back for a moment. I am blinking at the road ahead, the phone on speaker in my lap.

What I say is: “That’s the only black eye I’ve ever had.” But now I’m thinking of a man who beat me. He never gave me a black eye. I think when you’ve been terrorized it can come to you, visit at any time. On a sunny day, in a lighthearted laugh with your brother.

The shark is now installed in my bathroom, hovering above the glass bar lighting fixture. I cooked and cleaned today, instead of leaving it for my children and spouse. I am coming out of a state of living where I was caring for the children, the home. We are moving and growing; I am working more, and the children are learning how to run a home. They are willing participants, and they are strong.

Yesterday they waited at a bus stop and went to the dentist. The children were gloomy; I woke them up and scolded them when they did not do housework quickly enough. We sat in the living room and we talked about the challenges in the household now that I work. The children listened, and ate the simple breakfast I made – creamed wheat, coconut oil, brown sugar. They put the dishes in the sink and I cleaned the kitchen after they left, then moved to the studio to finish my work.

After their appointments, my mother returned them home – food in hand, of course. They quite circumspectly did not eat hot foods for a couple hours, as the hygienist warned them off. Once they were home we piled in the car and off to the beach; meeting with a new friend who was visiting from inland. I realized well into the meeting that I hadn’t taken a break for quite some time.

After a coffee date, we two women and our four children climbed the jetty down to a little partitioned beach. We showed the visiting girls the tidepools: anemone, barnacles, limpets, chitons, starfish – and the little crabs under any rock you overturn. Every size – from a pinhead to a few inches across, and every manner of color: white, blues, greens, deep purples. The anenomes we instructed – you could touch them. Be gentle! They are gentle to you.

I know I live in a beautiful place. I never forget it. But I don’t often see it as it can be seen to visitors. That itself, was quite a blessing.

and miles to go before I sleep

I’m standing in the classroom, stirring a fragrant broth loaded with vegetables, shredded chicken, garlic, spices, and pasta. The classroom I am borrowing is a somewhat-converted Home Ec facility: the stoves serving as counterspace, now, and counters cleared of kitchenware and hosting physics experiments and water testing equipment. Sinks and cupboards full of scientific equipment and rinsed Tupperware. A fridge housing God-knows-what. A dingy space but, as far as classrooms go, a fairly cheerful one. The teacher here loves his job and it shows in how he attends to the children in his care.

I come out every Monday to lead my son’s class through either a bit of arts-and-crafts – or, as in today’s case, cooking. I’d set forth volunteering to cook during Phoenix’s inaugural year, in the sixth grade. Parents who actually spend time in the classroom are as rare as ever. I think it’s because, although schools serve at our behest, they still feel like foreign territory.

This week’s Monday, however, the hot plate I’d purchased for my son’s class proves inept at getting a good boil of soup on; thus my return on a Thursday to finish the job – borrowing another classroom. A lot of driving back and forth to this rural little school but it is worth the effort, time and expense to support my children. The drive is a pleasant one, too. Often on the trip I come across a herd of about thirty Roosevelt elk – I’m so used to it I give them only a cursory glance. Until I think it through and realize many people in the world would be in awe at such a sight.

Finished now, I tidy the kitchen space, thank the resident teacher, and carry the large tureen through the hallways – carefully, arms out ahead so I don’t slosh on myself or the floor. I’ve the soup – which the kids have been looking forward to since Monday – and two loves of day old bread donated by a local deli. The class is happy to eat what they helped prepare – children will dine in a much more democratic fashion when included in the cooking work.

It is a cold and soggy day outside; as a few other classes filter out for a wet recess, I talk with my son’s teacher about her pregnancy – her first. I’m tired, but content to have a job to do, a simple one at that.

***

Tonight, finally – the last work of the evening, making a pan of homemade double-chocolate brownies at my husband’s suggestion. My son stands on a stool, putting clean and dry dishes away. “Mama, I love you. Who wouldn’t love you?”

“Oh… lots of people don’t love me. Don’t even like me.” The moment I say it, I know he will be shocked.

Sure enough: “What? Who? Who doesn’t like you? Mama?” Nels is amazed.

“Oh…” I tell him. Thinking of a few names. Then I say, “I can’t tell you. Because actually – I don’t know for sure.”

“Who wouldn’t love you?” He is less distressed than confused.

Then, when he sees I am still not forthcoming:

“Can you tell me a little bit, maybe just someone you guess might not like you?”

“No, Nels.” I am firm. “It’s not my business anyway.”

“Oh. … then can I have some cake batter?”

We finish up in the kitchen – I place the batter in a pan in the oven. Nels finishes the dishes. 

Today was a good day.

A Little Bit Damp

here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool

We’ve been hit unbelievably hard with flooding.

Sunday night after yoga class I noticed the rain was fantastic – even for an area known for its rain. Deep in that evening while we slept the county – especially Aberdeen, and to a lesser extent Hoquiam – absolutely went awash.

By nine in the morning my entire family and I had (carefully) made our way to a grocery shop to get enough supplies for a day or two – as many roads were impassable. I passed someone in the aisle I’d known since I was eight – I was to find out later, they’d lost a house only hours before.

Both the kitties’ trip to the vet (offered by a friend helping us out) and my daughter’s doctor’s appointment were cancelled. School was cancelled. Ralph’s workday: cancelled. Almost all the roads in and out and everywhere: closed!

My social media stream began trickling in photographs of basements and homes flooded – cars submerged, streets absolutely awash. I comforted my friends and neighbors, I updated my own feed with our day’s events. I thought a bit about those working hard to help – especially the road crews, police, aid workers, and all who had to brave the elements.

Our house stayed warm, and dry. Our animals and human family members stayed safe. Nels even made a little newscast last night.

Life goes on even during catastrophe. Last night at 1:30 AM, and quite improbably, the neighbors across the street – who yesterday had a lengthy, out-of-doors, screaming, I’m calling the cops! fight – suddenly blast a soulful, sexy R&B tune.

My son: kept up into the wee hours by night terrors. This morning, my heart is sad.

The doctors don’t seem to be in just yet. My attempts to reschedule Phee’s doctor’s appointment – I am concerned with her cough – go in vain. A glass of water, a couple ibuprofen for my own sore throat – and then falling into bed with an anxious little boy, who is home from school.

A Little Bit Damp

vesti la guibba

 
My husband is all kinds of talented. Seriously. And if you’re wondering – yes, he wrote and performed the song in the video. Yes, he is better at makeup – and heels – than I.

Yeah. He’s a good egg.

So, yesterday marked the last performance of the Rocky Horror Show here in Aberdeen. I attended as many performances as I could – four in all. Not only did they do a great homage to one of my favorite bits of cinematic “trash”, they gave so many laughs, so much joy, to our community. Just GAVE those gifts to us. I am so impressed with how much work went into this production. Talk about blood, sweat, and tears!

I am also proud of my community, which supported – and enjoyed – the show in a big way. Grays Harbor is fabulous!

And by the way, there is nothing less glamorous than theatre. Yesterday I helped out after the show on a few kinds of rather intense cleanup, and today I think I need a tetanus shot.

we’re really not so clever as we seem to think we are

I don’t know how much the world really is changing, but something tells me you didn’t used to often see t-shirts like the one I’m looking at now: “I Just Might Fuck This Bitch!” in garish letters surrounding the figure of a hand pointing off the shirt’s regions. I’m putting a few dollars in my gas tank and this fellow stands just a few feet away doing the same, shrugging his arms across the shirt, a shirt that it’s a little too early in the morning for. Finally he says to me genially, “Oh man… It’s raining!”

Boy is it raining. Buckets. The kind of rain we get in Grays Harbor and it’s kind of indescribably lush. And I’m in a t-shirt and it feels wonderful; all morning as I’d packed up for our trip the windows were open in my home and I could hear the absolute roar of the rain and it is down-to-my-bones home in a way I’d never be able to accurately describe. I tell this fellow now, “It’s warm out though,” and experience that moment, just a joy to be alive, a joy to have a few dollars in my gas tank and have food for my children.

I kept feeling home, and feeling this joy, throughout my day, even though I was very tired for this-and-that reason. The rain dried up for our outdoor walk at Northwest Trek, and we enjoyed a wonderful warmth almost like a greenhouse. I had a surreal sense of place over and over this afternoon, to be at a wildlife park and with regularity hear people exclaiming over flora and fauna I can’t remember not knowing: blacktailed deer and red cedar, raccoons and red huckleberries, the last of which were consumed in vast quantity by my son and my friend’s daughter I. consumed a whole lot of by the way. I often feel fortunate to live here and just walking down some paths today reminded me of this.

Northwest Trek 2013

Phoenix, Nels & I. wouldn’t look up for me to take a photo, so I gave up. Looking back upon our trip a year and a half ago I was shocked how much my children have grown (aren’t I always?). Today Nels was very tender to his new friend I. and they goofed together a lot (Nels’ grouchy face in this picture is a weird coincidence as he loved the attention), and my daughter led us through the park through the use of her map.

Home after a bit of traffic, we ate dinner – a black bean and quinoa salad, sliced baked potatoes, and buttered broccoli – then Ralph and I painted a bit more on our current home project and the kids ran the neighborhood like they do.

Now, late tonight: windows open again and hoping for rain.

viajar en autobús

Wet Kidlets, Playing

My friend on the bus with her newborn son, she tells me she just ran into the father of the child and they sat only inches from one another without acknowledgment. She tells me this was awkward, but I can tell it was upsetting and as tough as she is, she’s a bit rattled. A few minutes later and we tell her goodbye and I sit and look straight ahead out the steamy bus windows as much as I can. The diesel smell makes me ill. People smile at us a lot, perhaps because my children are cheerful and beautiful, perhaps because it is unusual to see a mother and school-age kids riding at this hour, perhaps it is simply because many people are having a Good Day today.

The bus fills up gradually and it lumbers through the wet grey streets it seems I’ve never not known, and after what seems like a long, long time, but a peaceful enough ride, we arrive at the grocery store. I pick up: red leaf lettuce, cucumber, mint, carrots, beef, rice noodles. Nels gets a complimentary cookie for himself, his sister, from the bakery. The children are hungry but we’ll have to wait until home to eat. We pack our groceries in my backpack and I carefully allocate things so the lettuce won’t get bruised, then heft the bag onto my shoulders and step out into the cold.

We walk several blocks along highway traffic and the rain has set in in earnest. Into the health food store and pick up the teas Ralph likes, along with fresh yeast, ten times cheaper here than anywhere else. Packed away and back outside and now the rain is horizontal into our eyes and the children suffer as we walk about a half mile, a little less, to the bus station. Phee puts up her collar but Nels falls behind and cries out. We pass the dancing Payday Loan employee, dressed as a Statue of Liberty a young man wearing a dazzling smile, even in this weather, but I am cold cold cold.

On the bus and even with the stench of fuel I am feeling relieved. I am cold, my body so cold it is tired simply from being cold. The kids are cheerful and have kept up their wrestling and singing and most of the time on the bus or on foot Nels has been holding my hand.

I get home and put my hands in hot dishwater and I’m a special kind of exhausted. I make a pot of hot tea for my husband and put it in the oven, after preheating then switching the oven back off. The cut of beef is cheaper than past cuts but Ralph transforms the rest of the ingredients into a delicious meal and we fold clothes and draw the curtains and a friend stops over to visit,

and Phee & I will finish watching the documentary on American whaling tonight,

fin

Wet Kidlets, Playing

the covered button says, “I LOVE YOU”

Local class: I teach you how to sew a cup cozy at Grays General. The class is in one week and registration is due today. This cozy can be used on the trendy Cuppow/Mason/Ball jar, on your favorite mug (or an ugly one you want to cover up!), and even as a sleeve on disposable cups. The design idea comes from Ashley, although I winged it & wrote my own instructions etc.

Cup Cozy

Cup Cozy

Sew a Coffee Cup Cozy
December 4th @ 5:30pm
$20 Registration Fee
Instructor: Kelly Hogaboom
This easy-to-sew coffee cozy works on the Cuppow, on to-go coffee, or even at home with your favorite mug. All materials provided including an instruction booklet to take home. Coffee, tea, and biscuits served! Signups due one week prior to class.

some bitchin’ stitchin’!

(or is it “sumbitchin’ stitchin'”? Depends on our mood I guess!)

Gray's General Store, Embroidery

I’m teaching a beginning embroidery class at Gray’s General Store!

“May 17 4:00pm to 6:00pm, $30. Learn the versatile skill of embroidery with Kelly. She will cover the basics of embroidery and the class will include a project kit of a tea towel, pattern and your color choice of embroidery floss.”

Skills taught: Selecting fabric, thread, needles, & notions; tracing patterns or making your own; stabilizers and hoops; knotless or knotted construction; 5 stitches: stem, running, backstitch, rice stitch, and French knots; pressing and washing.

For more questions call or text me! 360.500.3287

Gray's General Store, Hoquiam

TODAY IN ELMA

Nels

Pumpkin patch with friends, then to Saginaw’s for lunch (FRENCH DIP OF CHAMPIONS), then Wolf Cafe at the Elma Timberland Library (where my kids cracked me up with their high degree of participation, joy, and nature-knowledge), then to the park for a loooong time where afterwards we caught this horrible huge grasshopper thing (which was wrapped up in a coat and later fed to the leopard gecko), then jumped over ditches and walked through neighborhoods so very very Grays Harbor, and finally got an impromptu tour of the hitherto-unknown-to-me Elma Theatre by a rather eccentric character and I think our kids were almost smashed by unsecured debris at least once.

Or I could just show you some of it.

Pumpkin Tally

Cutaway

(pssst, check out Phoenix when she was a very wee lass, in a similar contraption!)

Surly Fish

Pumpkin & ... Other, Very Odd-Looking Pumpkin

E. As A

Ralph, Clowning

Seats, Lighting

Snacks

Letters

Not A Real House