Exercise

This writing everyday like it's a journal isn't really working. I can't write unselfconsciously. I can't make the time. I am thinking about things I should write, phrases and ideas and then because they come to me when my hands are full I don't write them down and then they are gone. My mind is mushy with hormones. I can't remember anything and it makes me wonder why we hold memory up as this thing that is so important. Why do we mourn memory loss of the demented and alzheimed, in the the brain damaged and the afflicted? I say good riddance! It's the past, it's gone, it's ether, this moment is all there is.

I am going home next week to the place I grew up, to the town that exists solely in my memory. The town has changed a lot in the 36 years since I lived there. I had mixed feelings about the whole trip. It's a long way and the drive is slightly treacherous. My childhood was filled with stories of horrible car crashes so my mind goes right there. I lost a friend in the second grade to a camper fire—I saw her Friday, Saturday she was dead—it happened in the night when the children were all asleep in the cab-over of some shitty camper and the gas leaked and the whole thing blew up. A fiery crash on some deserted stretch of the Yellowhead 16.

A childhood friends father died tonight. I saw it on facebook. I've been in contact with her, he had cancer. He was a good guy, totally dedicated to his kids. Oh my god he was handsome and so sexy. I thought so at ten. He was a truck driver some times his daughter and I would sleep in his king size water bed in his purple satin sheets. He was an operator I guess but he was her dad and he was there even when he wasn't. They had animals and an unfinished split level house that we used to bring her ponies into. The living room had Hawaiian scene wallpaper, oversize bean-bag furniture, and shag carpet, it was nirvana. We ran wild of course. It was the 1970's and no one's parents were keeping track of the kids. We slept in barns and drove trucks we weren't supposed to, and we rode those damn ponies all over hell's half acre.

It's Wednesday now. The weekend is over, my husband only left this morning to take the long drive into the city to do his radio show. I got up and took the dogs for a little walk in the yard and I let out the chickens. I combined the flocks two days ago and the new girls are still miffed and confused. Only one of them figured out to go into the coop last night, I carried the other five by hand. I am confident tonight will be better. Hens are so mean to each other and especially to the new residents. There's no welcome wagon let's show you around approach. It's more like I am going to peck you and steal your food because that's what I do. Only once has one of my hens taken a foundling literally under her wing and that chicken now enjoys second place in the flock behind the three oldest hens and above the pair of year old hens, a Cochin and a Royal Buttercup. Gingers and Freckles (three of each name) are just 4 months old, still not laying and are now going to bed at night nervous and exhausted in a strange land at the bottom of the pecking order.

The weather has been perfect for an entire month and even though the days are shortening slightly it's still light until 9 o'clock and the temperature is consistently pleasant. I am satiated by summer.

Lo and behold

14942 INSPECTED BY HL KELLER

After a little scrubbing with steel wool and simple green I was able to find the name of the person who inspected the press. Have sent off said information and will now wait, hands folded neatly in my lap. Well maybe I will engage in a little graphic design in the meantime.

The Story of My Press

The press from it's original owners manual.

I found this site the other day while searching for information on the year my press was born. I had learned that each Vandercook press bears a serial number which indicates the year it rolled out of the factory. While on this same site I also noticed a Census section. This intrigued me, so I clicked over and filled out the appropriate form and sent it. Later that day I received an email from the sites webmaster asking a few more questions about the press, whether it was a recent acquisition and directing me to another mark that would let me know who gave the final press inspection before it left Vanderson's so many years ago. Read more...

No Problem

It was my birthday on Saturday. It was a sunny day and I listened to the Beatles, Good Day Sunshine, it was nice. A friend called to extend to me some birthday wishes and we talked for a bit and then she asked about my feelings around my birthday. I told her I felt okay, and I do. I have never been a person who needed a lot of recognition around my birthday. Certainly I like a little and I seem to get it. This year was no exception. There was some build up, some plans for fun and a meal, some anticipation around gifts. I had been working a bit feverishly up until my birthday and I had to take care of some details on my birthday and then I had just had to work like a demon the next day. That was okay. There was one strange little thing that happened though. A few days before my birthday I got thinking about my mother and started to feel pretty sad. I miss her a lot and somehow the whole birthday thing feels a bit lonely without a call from her. There is nothing to do about it. I had a little weep away from everyone who might hear me and went on with my day. Pearl baked me a cake and neighbors came over for drinks and I made a nice dinner for us.

Of course it is a strange business getting older. You gain things and lose things as time marches on pulling us along with it. I did what I could to stay young. I started school early so I was younger than my classmates, I dated older men so that I was always younger by contrast but these days things seem to be evening out. Mark is only a year older than me and for the first time in my life most of my friends are about my age. I have some younger people in my life too and I enjoy being able to offer words of advice based on longer experience. I don't hate my body, in fact I think I look pretty good for my age. I am comfortable with where I am in my life and who I am as a 46 year old woman. So to answer that question again, I have no trouble with my birthday, with the mechanics of it at any rate. I am looking forward to the future but I do miss the past a little as well.

Sunday Again

Sunday again and it's the bittersweet reality of my life kicking in. Had a great week last week, nice times with Pearl before she went back to her dad's. We walked and rode our bikes, taking advantage of the long summer evenings. My sister came to visit on Wednesday and we took a major walk from Fairhaven to Larrabee, a 12 mile return excursion. It's so amazing spending time with her. We have pretty much always been close with a few exceptions and I just can't come close to summing up how important this relationship is to me. We ran a bit on the way back from Larrabee to shorten our time on the trail (and yes it was in hopes of making it to the liquor store and trader joes before they closed) and it was surprising how evenly paced we were. Being both of competitive spirits it felt good to run side by side united in our goal. We knocked 30 minutes off our time there. We hung out at my place and I worked on my book project while Catriona weeded my garden, she's a saint for doing this. We took naps in the afternoon heat and on Friday we came up to Mark's place and she went back home on Saturday. So it's Sunday and the book is still not done and I have to face the week and I really just want to stay in my bubble of ambient music with Mark and the espresso machine, but my heart is pulling me south to Pearl and my home in the country. I was telling my sister how much I loved my place that it reminded me of summers we spent on Salt Spring Island growing up. I find I am immersed in the memory of summers past and fiercely dedicated to creating new ones.