July Ends in Pictures

 Yeah, I know:  July ended a few days ago.  But I was on a river trip, and I just got home.  This was my view on waking up:  Snake River from the Idaho side, looking across at Oregon.  Look how smeary my lens is!  Pisses me off!  All of my photos from this trip are smudged.  What's up with that.  My camera is only 9 years old, after all..

 When you pee on river trips, etiquette demands that you pee in the river.  This was my view from my morning pee spot.  The night before, I peed in the middle of the highway before going to bed.  No one uses this road except to maintain the dam downriver, and to start river trips. It was kind of fun to piss on the center line.

 We slept in the tent, because the wind was driving me crazy - flapping the sleeping bag up and down my body.  It was like being shaken awake over and over again.  I finally surrendered and asked Chuck of we could get inside.

 Typical back seat prior to a river trip:  water bottle; whiskey; t-shirt; granola bars; glasses case; camera bag; baseball cap...


Still clean.

 

Looking down on the put-in from the top of Hell's Canyon dam



 For those of you who, like me, are still learning about river running, here is the boat-slide.  The boat is belayed down the metal sliders in the middle, and the stairs on the side are for people to scurry up and down. 


Supplies and gear are sealed up in these rubber dry-bags.



 Here is Chuck's boat, ready to go.  The bigger boats were rigged for oars, but this boat is only 10 feet long, so we paddled it.  It was by far the smallest boat in our group - people were afraid to ride the big rapids with us.  For two of the biggest rapids, we were able to persuade someone else who was a passenger in another boat to ride with us, lending weight and an additional paddling arm. On the last big rapid, no one would do it - Chuck and I paddled it alone.  Hey!  I'm still here to blog about it...

 Chuck and I camped with Chuck's brother, Mike and Mike's friend Larry.  We camped near the put-in and got up early to rig the boats before the day got too hot.  But then, the rest of the people in our group didn't show up at the put-in... didn't show... No cell phone reception, so we couldn't call anyone...  Here is Larry waiting.

 Larry and Mike, waiting...  They finally showed up, almost at noon.  We had imagined death!  Destruction!  Illness!  Car accident!  No... they just like to get a slow start  in the mornings.

They rigged their boats in the heat of the day.  Including a cooler with 400 pounds of ice and beer. 



Life vests on!




Waterproof camera ready!



 We got sick of waiting around.  When the others took a break after rigging their boats and broke out beers, we decided to get our show on the road. 


Lunch break.  Pat caught a nice little bass.




Scouting Sheep Creek rapid




Chuck, looking at Sheep Creek rapid.

  I wish I had a waterproof camera.  We were pretty impressive, doing Sheep Creek in our little boat.  The others said there were times when only our heads were out of the water.   


In calmer water, my day was like this.



 Here we all are, setting up camp on the first night.  To me, as a backpacker, river trips involve an obscene amount of gear.  But big rafts hold a lot of stuff.  Chuck says, "It's like car camping, but with a rubber car."

Dinner, complete with margaritas.

 After that, it got dark, so I couldn't take any more pictures of my day.  Anyway, it mostly involved drinking too much and experimenting with sleeping on the overturned raft.  Nice idea, but it was saggy enough in the middle that after a while, I started feeling like I was trying to sleep in a Chuck-taco.  The beach was rocky, but I was too lazy to hike up into the woods to look for a softer place.  As the night wore on, the rocky beach next to the raft started looking softer and more comfortable.  We tossed our bag down onto the shore and slept great. 

I Feel Like Rip Van Winkel

Well, shit!  How do I start after not blogging for so long?  Sometimes I wonder why I do this.  I am not a talented writer.  The stories that form in my head are cloud-like and dissolve before I sit down at the computer.

There is a treatment:  ice cream.  Be right back.

I don't have a desk lamp:  just a little lamp like you may find on a guest-room nightstand. Its light is dim and has cast a little island of light around my desk.  A small oasis in a very large, darkened bedroom.  Chuck is in bed way...the...hell...over...thar in the shadows.  We had planned to go to a street dance tonight, but he can't shake a nagging headache.  I lay next to him for a while and rubbed the back of his neck, but then I got to thinking, "What does a girl do when her plans change at the last minute?  When she is at home, but not obligated to do chores?"  Decisions, decisions.  I could read...oooohhhh....I could actually BLOG!

I stopped for a while, thinking it might help Chuck in his negotiations to move back into his house.  The negotiations continue; but we are settled, and Chuck is back in his natural habitat.  I begin to wonder whether giving it up has affected any change at all.  

Since I last wrote, Chuck asked me to join him when he returned to his home, and I accepted his offer.   We held a family meeting, so his kids and mine could give their opinions of this new step in the relationship.  When the suggestion met with unanimous approval, Chuck suggested that we carry it a step farther and get married.

Which we haven't yet!  I asked if we could get settled into cohabitation first, see how everything goes with money, family, etc...  We have lots of discussions about time and place.  Soon the perfect situation will present itself, and we'll know it when we see it.

We moved in on June 4th.  Chuck's ex-girlfriend (we're going to call her Henrietta in this incarnation of my journal) is living next door. 

Are you thinking, "Well, that's weird"?

Really?  Me too!!

Here are a couple of pictures:


I am learning to use it...



Chuck's house is beyond beautiful.  It is such a huge project, though.  There are still unpacked boxes everywhere.  The yard is in a shambles.  The potting bench was thrown down into the woods and is waiting to be retrieved and put back to use.  There are unhung pictures all over the place.  We have a shortage of shelving. 

After the move, the summer became busy.  A lot at work; a rare opportunity to float the Selway River in central Idaho; a tip back to the Midwest to see Chuck's dad, his grandmother, my mom.



Sara got her hair cut off right before this picture was taken.  Had to get her to take a quick break from admiring herself, to pose.


 Hammock time at the cottage.

  

And here I am again. 

Plenty to Say

I have not been posting, it's true.  I have a lot to say; but most of it is too risky to write about for another week or two.  I will be back.

Budget Babe

To all Budget Babe's fans out there:  get lost!  I am the anti-babe this month! I'm so sad.  I suck.  I thought I was going along just fine.  But then I glanced down at the dashboard for a split second, and my progress skidded to a halt. 

I guess I should just be grateful that neither my metaphorical nor my actual airbags deployed.

The good news was that I came in under or spot-on my budget for utilities, food and gasoline.  A miracle, since I spent most of the month driving any other car but my own:  my friend Cliff's Toyota Sienna mini-van (I learned when I went to gas it, that it has a 250 gallon tank); Chuck's Franken Audi; and a rental car (which I rather enjoyed not least of all because the Enterprise rental car guy was cute and flirted outrageously with me.)

I budgeted $600 for the trip to Mexico, and ended up spending $540.  And NO!  I don't have to feel guilty about Mexico, because I paid for it from the special savings account named "Fun!".  I have another named "Oh, Shit". It has money in it for me to live off in case of disaster.  Mom said I should have enough in there to get me through 6 months without an income.  Now that I have been crunching the numbers for almost a year, I realize that this account holds enough to support me for...more like... three months.  I need to sock some more away there!  But not this month.  Then I have an account called "Serious".  This is where I put the money Si gives me every month as he gradually buys me out of my share of the house.  With it, I will buy my own house one of these days.

He has managed to refinance the mortgage, and I am no longer on it.  While I was, I was unable to get credit, because it appeared on paper that my expenditures far outstripped my earnings.  I tried to explain to my bank that I was on the mortgage, but not paying it; they clucked sympathetically, and told me to come back for a credit card after Si's refi.  I'm fortunate  that I have a credit card from my married days.

I digress.  This month, it is all about the smooshed up Fiat.  $718.74.  Oh, I am grateful to that little gecko with the pratty Essex accent.  (Sorry, friends from Essex...)  Geico has been perfect:  the total cost of repair was $6,900, and I paid $500.  Yes, I know that when it is time to renew in July, I will be singing a different tune.  But for now, I will pay my $500 and sing the praises of that little lizard.  $500 deductible on my insurance; then $218.74 for 9 days of rental car. 

There really weren't any other unbudgeted expenses, except renewal of my little blog widget that shows me who has visited me. 

I spent more than I earned by $400.  Sad.  If I hadn't crashed the Fiat, I would have had about $300 to put in my "Fun!" account.  Instead, I will be tightening my belt.  Two notches, because I already know that next month's edition of Budget Babe will be called, "Uncle Sam gets so much of my ass that my tax preparer is afraid to call me".  I hope you tune in for that one.  Same bat-time; same bat-station.

April Begins in Pictures

April begins in pictures this time, because I messed up yesterday and didn't remember to take photos consistently, all day.  And these, I find uninspiring.  I'm sorry to say that I am still suffering a little absence of effort when it comes to my blog.  

 Gloomy and miserable today.  Thank goodness that the overhang on my little porch is glass, so some light gets into the apartment.

Kitchen made more cheerful by flowers.

  

 The kids wanted allowance, but all I had were fives.

 "In the Garden of Beasts", by Erik Larson

 We're so close to the movies that we can walk. Something tells me the kids would have preferred to drive...

 The Hunger Games!  Oh, long-awaited day in Sara's life!

 Hmmm... How does this look for supper?

 Calling a few last students to start in the new quarter of the Monday / Wednesday ESL program.

 Lunch.

 We went up to Aloha Road to watch the women's semi-final of the NCAA Championships:  Notre Dame vs. University of Connecticut.  Chuck asked us to come over because the star of the Notre Dame team is named Skylar Diggins.  Any relation?  Possibly, but it would have to be the African American side of the family.  I forgot to take pictures of us during the game - I always forget when I'm around Chuck.  Suffice to say we had fun.

 We played with toy swords after the game.  Toni really wanted to be in on it, so Cliff (Chuck's friend and the owner of the Aloha house) handed her a sword and found that she can spar pretty well.

 It was delicious, but it NEVER looks like the fucking magazine, does it?

 Some chores just have to be done, even by us glamorous, jet-setting types.

And if cleaning the fridge weren't glamorous enough...