We’ve had a busy week here. Lots of running around (literally) and driving back and forth, and lots of hurry-up-and-wait kind of things. Also lots of new stuff, and lots of interesting stuff.

So – start at the beginning, and go until you come to the end…and a warning, this will be mostly pictures with commentary.

Last Thursday. Mom came by and picked us up at 8am. Drove to Corvallis to pick up my brother. He’s got some stuff he’s been working on, so he spent the summer at a sort of boy’s farm. I was sort of taken aback when we got there – not because of the conditions or anything, but more because of the sign that greeted us at the front.  It wouldn’t mean anything to most people, but it looks like the place is run by Trillium Family Services, who are associated with Waverly.  So what, right?  Yeah…except that Trillium Family Services/Waverly are who mom went through some 38 years ago when she gave up her first child for adoption.  I don’t know if she’s made the connection, seems like she would have mentioned it.  So I wonder if I should mention it, or just let it go?   Dunno.

Anyway.

Next stop, the river.

Here, the kids (including my mom) tried for about an hour to catch some baby catfish to go in mom’s little fish pond.  This is the kind of thing I remember doing with mom as a kid – I’ve always loved this part of rivers, where it’s shallow and the rock are carved out so strangely.  They ended up with two catfish, a tiny crawdad, and three or four of the other little fish that was swimming around in there.

Next.  Fish hatchery.  It looked like it was only partially in use, but there were runs of several size fish at least, and the little food dispensers were working.  They also had a sturgeon tank, but for some reason I only managed to get pictures of this:

Don’t exactly know why I didn’t consider an 8-ft long sturgeon worthy of getting out the camera, but this was…although it is a really neat pattern.  I did get one other picture there:

Dunno.  It just made me laugh.

Next: Waldport.  Keep your old San Fransisco, this is enough for me.

It was a great day, perfect weather.  Stuffed ourselves silly, sat on the beach.  Until my brother comes a-running over, we GOTTA see this, it’s great.  Mom didn’t want to go, but I did.  My kiddo was standing a ways down, guarding the whatever-it-was.  When I got there, I saw this:

Yum.  Dead jellyfish.

Next: Mom’s house.  What you see here is what happens when Mom buys a picture frame but doesn’t have the pictures ready to go in it yet.  

Next:  Kumoricon.  I won’t put up a bunch of pictures of that, you can see that in the gallery thing.

What I do want to do, is make a Public Service Announcement.

The picture you see here is NOT – I repeat NOT okra.  Those dirty bastards at the food court tricked me, and I almost died!

Also, I should give a short narative on the Pocky Club.  Yes, there really is a Pocky Club.

They have this thing they do – it’s Pocky Club Delivery.  You fill out this form, and the person of your choice gets glomped and delivered a box of pocky.  My lovely child saw fit to make me a deliveree.  A lovely young lady in a purple cape and fishnets had me stand front-and-center in the middle of the Learning Japanese class, solely for the purpose of glomping me and delivering me some pocky.  It was worth it.

By the time we got home, it was bitter, broken men pocky.  The irony was my favorite.

Next:  Home, for a short day. Got to see the animals and check on my chicken/egg progress.Got to see the animals and check on my chicken/egg progress.

Got to see the animals and check on my chicken/egg progress.  I got my first full dozen eggs!  Very exciting.

Next: Back to the coast.  Visited the grandparents, helped them disassemble some of the structure they’d put up at the dike field for the reunion, joined them for lunch.  Man, how I’d love to live up there in the hills. It was so quiet, no continuous vroom of cars going by, no buzzing of streetlights or yelling of idjits.  (I recommend clicking to read the signs – it’s kind of funny)

Next:  Local cemetery.  Mom took me there because we’d never gone before, which was surprising considering out family has lived in that area since four years before dirt.  No one in the family knew about it, until the grandparents found it while geocaching.

It was a crazy place, really.  I’ve got more pictures of it up here.  I liked it – I had thoughts first of being buried there, then of starting my own graveyard that was like this.  It was very…oh I hate this term…Organic.  Paths worn by feet led to graves, or clusters of graves.  There was no real organization, no system to it.  It’s hard to explain.  Even looking at a google map, you can’t see it.  You’d think it was just a few random trails in the sandy brush.  But it’s been there for almost 100 years.

Next: Home.  Finally.  I cleaned my chicken coop, rabbit hutch, spent quality time with dogs, cats and comfy couch.  If I’m lucky, I’ll have recuperated enough to do it all again next year.