2014

Don't worry. I'm not going to get all mushy and reflective on you.

Why start now?

Instead, let me tell you a few of things we're teeing up here in Bermtopia for 2014. . . stuff you'll ultimately live and re-live with me through this blog.

I have no filters.

WORK

On New Year's Eve, at the Chamber of Horrors work, I walked into my boss's office and handed in my early notification of retirement. I am outta there August 31. The best part -- she one-upped me: My boss is retiring July 7. Hilarity ensues.

HOME

The Nine-One-Four goes on the market by mid-March. My date and I are still negotiating a few of the touch-ups required for this auspicious occasion, but it will happen. We have NO IDEA OF WHAT WE WILL DO OR WHERE WE WILL GO if the house sells fast.

But right now, I am more worried about accidentally leaving dirty underwear on the bathroom floor while it is listed. It happens, people, it happens.

And hilarity ensues. Again.

WORK

I want to work part time after I retire. At something fun and hip like Trader Joe's or Williams-Sonoma. . . just like every other 60+-year-old woman who fancies herself a Martha Stewart on steroids. This, of course, means getting back into the job market. And we all know how well THAT went the last time I applied for a part-time job.

You guessed it. Hilarity ensues.

P.S. If you've got a fun, hip part-time job -- call me.

TRAVEL

It's time to unleash ourselves on the European continent once again. Spain, maybe. Or Greece. Or, what the hell, maybe both. September feels like a good month for this to happen.

EU, you have been warned. Ole.

PEE

Yep. Pee.

Poor Ben. He's having some night time incontinence. Don't judge. It happens when you're 91-years-old in dog years.

The good news: There are pills for it. The bad news: Ben doesn't like them. And has figured out how to eat around pretty much every type of food camouflage we've tried. Except for the Christmas turkey. And we're out of that.

Hello, leaking hilarity. And rotisserie chicken.

Ben: You're right. You have no filters.
But I will consider rotisserie chicken.

And finally, HUGH JACKMAN

Being the wild, crazy party animals that we are, my date and I ushered in the New Year by heating up a jar of Newman's Own spaghetti sauce and watching "Wolverine," reinforcing a profound universal truth that we should all remember. There needs to be more Hugh Jackman in all of our lives.

Who knew a bad haircut and terminally furrowed brow could be so cute?

Let the ensuing hunky hilarity begin!

Now, please.

Here's to a Happy Hugh Jackman New Year
for One and All!

Ben makes a house call

Since my foot surgery Friday morning, Ben has been a constant at my side. We doze together, read together (well, he still dozes) and watch Food Network and "Frankenweenie" (Ben, STILL dozing). 

At night, he hunkers down in a pile of comforters next to me, issuing disgruntled, disapproving sighs as I wrestle to find some normal way to sleep with a left leg suspended in pillows. Around 4, he slips off the futon and patrols the Nine-One-Four, returning later to quietly assume his spot next to me.

This whole process of recuperation, and the wrench it's thrown in his routine, completely perplexes Ben, and he has been particularly concerned by the big wade of dressing swaddling my left foot. Yesterday, he pounced on the opportunity to investigate this  cottony white interloper when I had tossed off my comforter for a little while. (P.S. Apologies for the shadowy pix -- the lighting in this particular room is a little bit of a challenge for the old cell phone.)

Good afternoon, Two-legged Missus. Mind if I come in?

So let's have a look-see at this thing.

Pulse and position is good. Little or no drainage.

Keep it dry and elevated. Ice often and I think you'll be okay.
Can we go to the park?

Ben's bedtime: In three parts

Oh for gawdsakes. Would you put the cell phone down? It's time for bed.

You are SO annoying. Put the cellphone down. I mean it.

OK. This time I REALLY mea zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The end.

3 a.m.

It's fire season in Eastern Washington. 

While we in Bermtopia have seen relatively little fire action, our brethren and sistern in central Washington and parts of Idaho have not been so lucky and are dealing with fairly large fires that have been burning for two to three weeks.

We don't have the fires, BUT we do have their smoke. Lots of it.

The smoke has been thick and heavy over the friendly skies of Bermtopia since the middle of September. They have taken on a torpid peach color, flat with the smoke converging on us from the west and south. The air is thick, faintly pulsating with dust and ash, and morning, noon and night, it smells like a thousand neighbors all revved up their barbecues, fueled with Ponderosa pine and juniper, simultaneously. Mountains and other familiar landmarks are gone for the moment, shrouded by heat, smoke and dirt.

There's a reason why they say "Bermtopia: Near Nature, Near Perfect."

Eyes constantly burning, we cough and sputter during the day. At night, we sound like a dozen John Deere tractors chugging up and down the bed. It's not pretty at the Nine-One-Four.

Ben has hated every minute of this. His need for an orderly nighttime is well known. Plus, given a dog's acute sense of smell, the acrid, voluptuous smell of smoke 24/7 has to be distressing.

Could I get a particulate count, please?

Let's just say, we've heard about his displeasure between 3 and 3:20 a.m. pretty much every night since September 11.

It begins with urgent, rhythmic pawing at the of the bed.

When that doesn't work, Ben goes to the foot of the bed, pulls himself up on his front legs and stares at us.

And when THAT doesn't get the response he's looking for, Ben comes to my side of the bed, goes nose to nose with the nightstand and stares straight ahead, panting heavily. For minutes on end. He then paws the nightstand to punctuate his annoyance with the whole smokey mess outside.

Given the right set of props, Ben has gotten pretty creative in alerting us to his aversion to the current atmospheric aberrations. In Seattle, he found my lap top on the floor, tapped the mouse pad and flooded the bedroom with blazing white light at 3:30 in the morning.

He shredded his bed after being banished to the garage one, in his opinion, too many times.

And, yes, Ben pulled the good old lock-myself-in-the-bathroom gambit one afternoon when I made a quick run to the grocery store. I was gone 15 minutes.

And, oh, there was the morning I woke to find the dog standing over my head. In bed. At 3:15. That was a rare treat.

Luckily, we have found a solution to this situation. It's called the basement. Now, each night, one of us trudges downstairs, Ben in tow, stretches out on the futon and drifts off to sleep in the cool darkness. Happy Ben curls up in a tight ball on his beloved blue chair, relieved to rid himself of the olfactory chaos raging, in his mind, outside.

It's getting better. Just two days ago I could distinguish clouds in the sky, and I saw stars this morning when I went out to get the newspaper. Ben even spent Wednesday night upstairs, stretched out contentedly at the end of our bed.

We'll be back to normal. Soon. But in the meantime, welcome to fire season in Bermtopia.

Wordless Wednesday

Ummmmm, I believe a change in socks is in order. . . IF you can tear yourself away
from that blasted e-reader for a nano-second or two

All the roadrunning

(SUBTITLE: BEN, ME AND MARK KNOPFLER AND EMMYLOU HARRIS)

Ben and I are on the road again -- this time a quick jaunt down to Portland to see the Mom Unit. My daughter-in-law, The Miz, is joining us Friay for a little Ladies' Time.



In hindsight, I'm not quite sure why I decided to drive. Perhaps it was a shout-out to the reincarnated long-haul truck driver in me. Or maybe it was allure of 6 hours of relative solitude -- and the fact I could listen to NPR and my own selection of music. (This trip's playlist includes The Chieftains, Buena Vista Social Club, soundtrack from "Big Night," Bette Midler channeling Rosemary Clooney, Andrea Boccelli, Vaughn Williams' "Lark Ascending," and, of course, the Mark (Dire Straits) Knopfler/Emmylou Harris collaboration "All the Road Running'" Hmmmm. Maybe this schizophrenic collection explains why I rarely get to pick the music when I travel with the Wonderfully Patient Spouse and Family.)

I haven't made the Bermtopia-Portland drive in a while. After duly noting some of the more exciting changes along the way -- prison expansion in Connell! BIG new feedlot just north of Pasco! -- I settled in and enjoyed how starkly beautiful the high desert can be this time of year.

The topography is not for everyone. Take it from a transplanted Portland rat who was born and raised believing it's not beautiful unless it's green. Nevertheless, I've come to love the rolling hills of the Palouse in late autumn, golden brown after harvest and dotted with bright yellow and red fall foliage. The heavy pewter-gray skyline, portending rain, magnifies the land's simple beauty.



With all agricultural distractions stripped away, the landscape and its structures, tinted with dreamlike shades of gray and ochre, seem at peace with the winter days to come.

I'm afraid my travel companion, Ben, did not share these musings. He was less than impressed with the pet areas just above Connell and west of Boardman. Ben sniffed around reluctantly, walking stiff-legged and disapprovingly across the grass as though wading through dog poo. (which, come to think of it, we were.)

He finally perked up at the Memaloose rest stop on the Columbia Gorge. We went "off road" from the pet area and walked down a rocky path to a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. Across from us, although the volcanic cliffs of the gorge were rain-slicked and hazy with mist, we could still see fall's abundant scarlet and gold dappling reaching up to the skyline. It was heart-achingly lovely.



I think even Ben was impressed.