Well, I just packed the last box.  What I’m most pleased about, though, is installing a smoke alarm ALL BY MYSELF!!!   I used to see a page of instruction and get this defeatist attitude.  Now, I just forge ahead, step by step.  I have the tools and I know how to use ‘em.  I can hardly wait for the movers to bring the stuff over here.  Friday morning I will wake up, go downstairs and there will be furniture in my living room.  It’s been five months now without furniture.  Five months of driving back and forth every day to water.  I don’t know how I stood it.  The other great thing about Friday is I get my puppy. 

I talked to my middle daughter, who is going to school in San Francisco.  She and her best friend are coming home in late October.  She’s calling me a bunch now because she broke up with her boyfriend.  I love it when she wants my advice.  I mean I’m sad that she is having a hard time but I get an opportunity to pass on what I think is good advice.  The other thing I am liking is that she is really focused on school.  She’s studying advertising but every once in a while she thinks fine art sounds better.  I try to stay calm.  “Why don’t you take a painting class”, I say.  For living away from home, working, going to school full time, she’s doing great.  I’m really proud of the way she’s navigating her life. 

Have you priced boxes recently?  I could have dinner in the Pearl, for the price of a standard-sized box.  I have been on a two-day hunt for free boxes.  I’m sure I will have fruit flies, now, from the produce boxes.  The other ridiculously expensive thing, and there was no way around this, has been the flea campaign I’ve waged.  This new house has fleas.  My dog now has a full-time occupation, and the sound of it is driving me wild.  It’s left her with an exposed knob at the end of her butt, where her pretty tail used to be.  I took her to one of those places where you wash your dog, while I waited for the toxic fumes to dry.  Between the spray for the carpet, the bath, and the Advantage you drizzle on their backs I have spent well over $200.  This includes Advantage for the cat and puppy.  I can’t wait to pick “Melissa” up on Friday.  That was the name of a friend I am no longer speaking to.  I will go into that later.

Whoa!!!! I see tools.  And there’s even a spellcheck.  Yesssss.  I just wasted a half hour picking out colors for my page.  It looks better though.  I have no idea what a skin is or how you go about getting one.  I wanted to write about mowing my grass for the very last time, at the old house. I laid on the trampoline and looked up at the trees and said my good-byes.  I had a hard time starting the boxing process.  For some reason I didn’t want to do it.  I kept going outside, taking one last look.  I am soooo proud of the job I did there.  I worked my ass off to get that place looking good.  And it doesn’t just look good, I’d say it looks …I had to think a minute.  Okay, it’s not perfect but it’s close.  This place, the first time I saw it, wasn’t even worth getting out of the car to look at.  My daughter made me though.  It had exactly three bushes, well, maybe four, and some trees.  And this is on a third of an acre.  Someone had designed beds but never planted them.  It was the perfect house for me.  I hadn’t had dirt, in full sun, since 1983.  

Sun

I’m becoming dangerous, just to myself.  I bought a puppy today.  This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing where I saw this darling litter and just had to have one.  This has been something I’ve been toying with for a couple months.  Before I fix this house up, while there’s still brown carpet from one end of the house to the next, including bathroom and kitchen, I wanted to train a new dog.  Especially while the 11-year-old Brittany was still up to it.  Last night I came home from the beach and she didn’t even wake up in time to get off the bed.  So this new dog is a German Shorthair.  I went to get another Brittany but some nerdy little boy beat me to it.  I got there first but they had called ahead.  You know, like a normal person would.  Like I used to.  The way I like to do things is get the paper on Saturday, call ahead and narrow the field, then beat everyone out so I get pick of the litter.  This showing up at the last minute, picking not even the sex I want and just going by personality is not the way to do things.  I mean this dog is not even that good looking.  But it was the most mellow, if you can refer to a shorthair as “mellow.”  The other thing I liked was that while all the others were whining at the fence, she was busy checking me out.  The guy called her “Indy,” short for independent.  She was the firstborn.  See, I am identifying already.  But lets not get into the family dynamic just yet.  So now I have to go over and box everything up so it will be ready for the movers by Thursday and then go pick up the puppy on Friday.  God, she smelled good.  I love that puppy smell.  I am already on bad terms with my new neighbors, to the right.  And I can just see this puppy digging her way under the fence and into their yard.  All it is is chicken wire and stakes.  Easy.  Oh, well.  That’s just part of life with a dog.  You gotta go through the puppy thing.  I’d tell you about the neighbor thing but I’m not sure if that’s why they don’t seem too friendly any more.  It could be that I don’t mow my lawn or it could be that time my dog snuck over there and took a shit.   And I gotta think it’s been more than once.  You should see their back yard.  She could charge admission.  Anyway, I’ll never see it again.  Is it just me or is this really hard to stop?  I mean I am basically just writing to myself but I tend to go on and on.  And then when I am finally able to stop, I get up to do the gillion other things I should be doing but I am back in 2 minutes, just checking to see if they showed me in the new-people’s section.  Not that my life’s any more interesting than the next person’s but half of the people they show are … well, let’s just say I don’t find their words compelling.  I mean sometimes it’s just lyrics, which I prefer to the:  Hi, my name’s Ashly and I live with my mom and dad and brother.  Granted she’s 14 but, come on, give me something more, “Ash.”  Let me feel your pain.  Nah, just kidding.  But 14 is a bitch.  I’d sure never want to go through that again.  Listen to me ramble.  I’m stopping.  RIGHT NOW!

Yesterday I turned 54.  It was a great day, but the night before I dreamt I drove off a cliff.  If that wasn’t bad enough, it was preceeded by picking up a hitchhiker.  Luckily, for him, just as he was getting in, his friends came back for him.  He hesitated but closed my door and headed the other way.  Because I lived to tell about it, I’m going to.  I’m going to tell you all about it.

I watch those people who play high-stake card games, with the whole world looking over their shoulder, and I marvel at their fortitude.  Maybe that’s not the right word … foolish is more like it.  Taking that kind of risk is foolish.  Doing it in public is…Well, I’m not sure what I think it is.  I just signed a seller’s counter offer and, to me, it feels just as dangerous, and I’m the seller!  This two-week negotiation has culminated with me feeling not quite right about it.  Something’s off.   Oh, well.  Tomorrow I will be gliding down the river, in a kayak, in my happy place.  It’s my birthday gift to myself.  I said that when I went shopping on Monday, too.  Just writing about this has made me feel more calm.  The calm before the storm. 

So I went to see who else was on here and it appears I have joined some sort of dating site for teens.  I don’t really care if I’m read or who I’m read by, but I certainly don’t want to bore anybody.  And given the median age looks to be about 16 I think it’s a pretty safe bet that I will. 

Sat night

Kayaking is something I have to figure out a way to do, without driving to the beach.  Though the drive home was beautiful.  The truck ahead of me was so tall it took the leaves right off the tree.  I drove through a flurry of red and yellow, floating down like confetti.  It looked just like fall.  And the best part was that I was listening to hillbilly music as I drove through some of the …well, it was hillbilly country.  The sun was setting and the air was crisp and it was one of the last great weekends of the season.  I parked where you go clamming, in Garibaldi, and walked out onto the pier, just to get one last look at one of the last sunny days.  Even the train cooperated and went by with a toot!  I love that train.  I used to love hearing it go by, sometimes able to feel it go by, at the beach house.  I drove by the beach house, just as my ex-husband was pulling into the driveway.  He saw me and we both just looked at each other.  He probably was wondering what the hell I was doing there.  It’s fortunate I had a great place to stay so I didn’t have to ache for my little piece of heaven back by the tracks.  That’s his little piece of heaven now.  It was always his, really.  My place was going to be in Bay City.  But enough about the past.  I am creating new places, new memories.  I stayed in Wheeler, at my friend’s place.  Maggie’s is a bed and breakfast above the book store.  It’s perfect because the coffee shop is right around the corner and Nina’s is just up the street.  Or if it’s nice I like to sit out on the deck, at that restaurant across the street, and watch the boats.  So this morning I got up early and went around the corner, for Chi tea with soy.  I hardly miss my double tall extra hot latte with one pump vanilla and it’s only been one week.  It was a smooth transition. So I go back to the room to get on this strange outfit they said I was supposed to wear.  And as you peel it off, layer by layer, depending on the weather, it all has to fit in the garbage bag you are supposed to have your raincoat and lunch in.  And that all has to fit down inside the boat, in front of your feet.  There’s a secret little hatch and you stuff it down in there.  Pretty slick.  Anyway, I get there and it turns out the truck broke down on the way from Portland and all the kayaks are sitting on the trailer , by the side of the road.  The guide just happened to break down in front of one of those incident response vehicles or whatever they’re called and they had driven her all the way to Nehalem.  So I volunteer to take her back there because I just happened to have the trailer hitch on my truck.