WITH A BIT OF LEVITY

I bought this 1998 camper van that I don’t need. My family believes it to be a ridiculous idea. “What are you going to do with it?”  I’m not sure yet!

Many times during the last 30 years I’ve been in situations where I would have liked the convenience of visiting people and going places without  inconveniencing friends or staying in a hotel. Those occasions come up rather regularly.

It was a great buy, clean, low mileage and easy to handle. If I stopped to question my motives too long, I wouldn’t have bought it.

One asset to owning this type of van is that I have the ability to park it on any city street or neighborhood without having to pay park charges.  It goes anywhere, the beach, the mountains and narrow roads, with ease. Now I have to build a garage to store it!  I should probably stick to cooking when I’m home. Human psychology is as difficult to understand as electronics and who can understand electronics? I should probably stick to cooking when I'm home.

BIZARRE SEXY FUN

You may NOT wear any revealing or “skimpy” clothes. If deemed too revealing, we will ask that you put your pants back on. This includes thongs, jock straps, a**-less chaps, whitey-tighties that can be seen through etc. Please use common sense. You are responsible for obeying the law.
Those are the stated rules. This is Seattle’s big, bizarre fun day-IT IS  JANUARY 8th. PANTS LESS SUNDAY.

Officially called No Pants Light Rail Ride, it is just a fun, kind of bizarre way to start the new year when the weather chills. A bit like a polar bear swim.
The “No Pants” event  stunt started on New York’s subways about a decade ago, and it has gained popularity in other places. Pictured are people from Seattle’s event.  Word of mouth usually spreads through e-mail lists and Facebook — kind of like the Occupy Wall Street movement.
A week ago, Seattle Post Intelligencer learned that about  90 locals had RSVPed to the ride, with about 60 on-the-fence “maybes.”
“I am shaving and shivering for this event,” one fan wrote. “I am so shopping too for some lovely panties.”
The SPI pictures are from Joshua Trujillo’s blog which shows  guys in pink-flowered shorts and others wearing tights. Crazy socks. Women with net stockings. Fun. The photos are from the 2011 event.

 

The No Pants Light Rail Ride in Seattle on Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011. (Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com)

Once on board, the pants come off, one leg at a time.

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Shirts and shoes!   No problem.

ADOPTED, I HOPE.

A few years back I had my yard registered as Certified For Wildlife and it has been an interesting panorama of wildlife frequenting my small acreage. Mostly they come for the water. I have had deer, cougar, bobcat, fox, raccoon, squirrel, owl, bat and various cats and dogs stop in to have a drink.   Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen this chicken pecking about. She is bantam of a mixed breed. During my 40 year marriage, we had chickens in every yard we had until this particular spot. The hawks came by and gobbled up my last 17 chickens as we were moving here.  I never replaced them. I never cooped them, either, they were always free range. And this little bitty seems to have survived the predators on her own. My kind of gal.
I know she must belong to somebody, but she seems to have adopted my place. She isn’t wildlife. I don’t feed her. One neighbor down the way may be her owner and I’ll check with him, but, chances are, she is going to stay.  And, I hope she does. Karen’s cat took a swipe at her, but she just ignored him and Wiley just doesn’t know what to make of a bird that isn’t afraid of him.


The woodpeckers that regularly meet on my power pole and I had a conference, and they agree with me. She is here to stay. (I hope.)

BUDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Grandson, Theo, was requesting a monopoly game, a game I dislike.  He settled for a “camera assignment.” I asked him to choose from three colors, blue, red and yellow and go outside and take pictures of (he chose red), red items  on his short street.

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He is nine years old and did very well. I always learn something from my Grandson’s. He had read a library book  called Zoom, in which a photo is reversed from close up to far away, showing for example  a roosters comb, then the rooster, then the barn where the rooster lived, people looking in the barn, the magazine the picture of the barn etc. was on, a person reading the magazine, the chair he was sitting in and so on. Hmmm. Intriguing and challenging.
So he took this photo:
which is part of his:

slip on Croc.
Later in the day we visited my sister’s grandson, Jeff and great grandson, CJ.

And, I forgot my camera and had to steal this photo from facebook.
We did manage games after dinner. We settled on  Bananagrams and Quiddler instead, both  fast moving and can reasonably be played by all ages. But, now I know I have to try a “zoom” assignment.

BOB CAT, COUGAR AND BEAR GULCH TRAILS.

Thousand Trails Thunderbird at Monroe has several woodsy trails. Though wet from rain the previous night, we decided to take advantage of a sunny afternoon and try the steep, somewhat muddy Bear Gulch Trail.

Walking under moss-covered branches, stepping over downed logs, seeking out areas disturbed by animals and guessing whether it was a fox or ring tail cat, or bob cat temporarily gives you the feeling of being miles away from civilization.

A small animal burrow. Oh, that I had my biologist daughter with me.  She would know in an instant what animal created this distinctive hole. She is more fun than anyone I know to take a walk with  in the woods.

Two  slugs were the only creatures we saw. At two inches long  when tightly snugged this slug was a real curiosity to me. I had never seen one like this before. Wikipedia tells me it is an Arion Slug. When disturbed, it stretched out by another inch.

Damp mosses cover everything that doesn’t move.

Old growth giants provide the deep shade.

Trees struggle to reach the sun.

Giant ferns make up the under-story.
Where ever sunlight filtered through, a  plant with leaves  resembling maple  overwhelmed the ferns.

We walked every trail in the woods and reluctantly returned to civilization again.