Jenny O Does Maui

Okay, right off the bat I need to admit that I am not going to do a post for every day I was gone; I am going to cluster them all into one loooong post.  Which is to say, this post.  Because Momma's gotta sleep, ya'll.  Plus I still need to do updates for "post-Hawaii"...  those might happen tomorrow... anyway...

01.21.18:

It was a 12+ hour travel day.  I did a very quick ink sketch on the plane.  It's not worth sharing, so I won't (no wait I lied: you can see a bit of it in the corner of the photo below).

01.22.18:

The view from our lanai

I don't normally enjoy landscapes, but this one?  This was an absolute delight to paint: sitting in the warm air, smelling the plumeria, listening to a variety of birds chatter, and watching whales spout their little hearts out.  And the nice thing about painting a scene rather than photographing it is that you can automatically edit out things like telephone wires and cars.  Winning.

01.23.18:

A quickly sketched impression.

Did I say a variety of birds?  I should have used a capital V: Variety.  Hell, maybe even all-caps VARIETY.  So many beautiful birds.  Pretty sure that if I spent more time in Hawaii I'd turn into a bird-watcher, I was that charmed.  I splashed down the color for this little guy, and then added some questionable line work later:

The surrounding splotches were me demonstrating things for the niblings.

01.24.18

Love that color combo.

I managed to make it into the ocean every day except the last day (more on that later), so it shouldn't really be surprising that I also spent some time trying to capture it with my brush.

01.25.18

There's even more experimentation over the rest of the page.

I tried to capture some of the brilliant sunset effect, with considerably less luck.  I need to circle back around to this eventually, but it's really had to capture both vivid color and the bleeding effect.  Challenge!

01.26.18

This is the day we drove the Road to Hana.  It was amazing.  I swam in so many bodies of water!  Hah!

The first place we stopped at was Twin Falls, and I snapped a photo of Malachi that I then sketch-painted once we were back at the condo:

I mean it's not bad, per se, but I craved more definition.

It just wasn't doing it for me, tho', so I added in some line work to the foreground, and now I like it much better.

Those roots were too cool not to define.

01.27.18

SUPER king-ish!

I had a story seed plant itself in my brain this day, but I wasn't in a position to write, so I painted one of the characters, instead.  He's the High King.  And he's totes gonna' die.  Sorry High King.  Don't worry: your baby sister will avenge you.  Probably.

01.28.18

The day started out promising, with Nathan and I heading down to the beach at 0700 for our snorkeling date while his sister watched TLG.  But instead we had a date that consisted of me spraining my right ankle on an ocean-hidden rock and ripping open my left shin (on the same rock!  Talent!) and then driving to get pain killers, hydrogen peroxide, and so many bandages.  ::sigh::  I spent the rest of the day with it propped up, reading my book.  I did not sketch, I did not paint.  I feel zero guilt over this.

01.29.18

I had hoped to swim the morning before we left, but the previous day's adventures ruled that right the hell out.  Damn it.  Anyway, Sunday was another 12+ hour travel day, made extra miserable by my inability to carry things or really walk at all (thank goodness for airport wheelchairs!)  I didn't even manage a sketch.  Again: zero guilt felt.

I do, however, have paintings for the past three days, but they're going to have to wait until tomorrow, because Bedtimes, she is a'callin'.

Tribute

we are spending the weekend
gloriously unplugged
just our little family
and the sea

i took my son down to see
the lord poseidon
in his cold and glorious
foyer

the last time we visited
(on my birthday)
i anointed my blood
with a bit of the lord's
(a pagan-catholic baptism
as it were)

today my blood
holds my hands
walks unsteadily
across the shifting sands
to greet our patron
properly

laugh and shriek
as the foam swirls about his ankles
ancient and newly-born
playing together
beneath an opalescent sun

grains

On Being Great Parents

We're in Las Vegas on our layover.  Nathan and Neeps have been diligently doing laps around the waiting-area, with the occasional waving-pit-stop (waving is a brand-new Neeps skill as of today, and I'm pretty sure a direct result of all the attention he's been receiving).  Slowly but surely the two of them make their way back over to me, as it's drawing near to boarding time.

An airline associate comes up to our small family group and says he's been assigned to help us with pre-boarding.

"Gee, how did you know it was us?" I grin, gesturing with my crutches.

"Well," he says with laugh, "In my twenty years of working here, you're the first 'wheelchair-with-infant-in-lap' I've ever come across."

***

Neeps smiles and giggles for the various strangers who are more than willing to be charmed by him on their walk down the aisle.  He nurses lustily during takeoff, and is plenty pleased about being passed back and forth between Nathan and myself once we reach cruising altitude.  We have an empty seat next to us, so sometimes he just looks out the window in wonder.  Sometimes he fusses a bit, so we we play the, "Who can you see when I hold you up high?" game, which seems to work pretty well as it generally results in peals of laughter and reaching for strangers.  Sometimes he sleeps, and I balance my tray-table on the curve of his little rump, my magazine perched on top of that.

After the flight multiple people come up to us, to compliment us on what great parents we are.  It feels good to hear, but we also feel a bit like frauds- as I say, time and again, "Thank you, but the truth is that we're just lucky: he's a great baby."

And he is.

Melting, and Other Discomforts

I should have saved yesterday's title for today's entry.  Ye gods.

We met up with our old friends, the Coopers, to swap out family portraits (ie canceling out the "Photographers have no photos of themselves" curse of being a photographer).  It was murderously hot, so we did them as quickly as frigging possible.  That being said, we still got some great shots out of the session (Thanks Meredith!)

Before I gave up and took my and Neeps's shirts off.  Not even kidding.

The place we met up was actually the neatest little planned community, which reminded me of nothing so much as a fusion of the military bases I grew up on with an old European city (which, technically, I guess I also grew up in).  It was a really, really well-done place, and Gentle Readers, I looked on it with Lust In My Heart.

Which has sort of been a theme, lately.

Nathan and I have said repeatedly that we made a mistake planning back-to-back vacations staying in people's much-larger-than-ours-houses.  It's been making us feel... well, discontented.  And I don't like feeling discontented.  I like feeling like I have the best little house in the world, in the best little area in the world.

But seriously I might shiv someone for an extra 1000 square feet, and the ability to let Neeps eventually play outside with a pack of neighborhood kids/run free on about five acres.

::sigh::

I comfort myself with the thought that my house will go back to feeling perfectly-sized once there's no longer Giant Baby Things (like highchairs and bouncers) everywhere.  And my neighborhood is in the middle of being revitalized, so I'm sure that more young couples with kids will be moving in soon.  And although I'd like to live on a stretch of land someday, today is not that day, because I love being able to commute by bike, and being so close to the culture/conveniences of downtown, including the airport, which we need to be close to for all the traveling that we can afford to do because we chose to buy a small house in a borderline neighborhood.

Sweet Home (No More)

It's an unmistakably Southern Evening; the deep blue air of twilight is almost too warm, heavy with the scent of honey-sweet blossoms, and cicadas are droning on in that timeless summer soundtrack.  A firefly winks at me from beneath a distant tree, a promise of the dance to come, and I laugh, delighted by his magic.  How could I have forgotten fireflies?

Moments like this, perfect moments, remind me that as much as I do not miss living in the South, I do miss certain aspects of it.  There is a deep and abiding nostalgia that will never fade- nor do I want it to.

But loving memories of a time and a place is not the same as wanting it back.  I am far happier in the corner of the world I've claimed as my own, in the life I've carved for myself from cold mists and silver rains.

(But I do wish the fireflies would visit.)

First Flight

One week ago my son traveled by sea- today he traveled by sky.

All in all, I'd say he's off to a good start, as far as the life of an Adventurer goes.

Reach out and touch the sky

It's difficult to explain how I felt as today drew near- it's not so much that I was nervous about flying with an infant it as I was feeling like I should be nervous about it.  The media would have it that anyone flying with an infant is basically a martyr- that your baby will scream and people will hate you, but there will be that other faction who will tell the first faction to leave you alone, because you are Noble and Suffering and Human Too.

But I had a sneaking suspicion it was probably going to be Alright.  And, honestly, what the hell could I do about it, anyway?  Nothing.  So why stress?  Except that I felt like I should...

As it turns out Neeps was a pro, so stressing would have been a complete waste, anyway.  He nursed on all the take-offs and landings (except the one he slept through) and generally was just very smiley and charming towards everyone in both planes.

(I will admit, however, that at one point another baby started crying, and I couldn't help but do a tiny, internal fist-pump because not mine!) (But then I did my best to exude support for them.)

A Three(-to-Five) Hour Tour

We started our little mini-vacation today, spending five days hanging out with Lara up on the Peninsula.  Generally speaking, it's a three hour drive.

Or at least it was, before Neeps got to his current developmental stage.

Now, don't get me wrong- I'm no fool.  I  know that now that we have a kid, things take longer, period.  So I told Lara that we were planning on leaving around 10am, and should arrive between 1 and 2.

It is to laugh.

We did leave at 10 (okay, 10:06), but we didn't get here until after 3pm.  Because even tho' I'd carefully planned our departure to coincide with Nap Time, I had not planned on someone waking up a full hour and a half early, thereby throwing off his entire freaking schedule for the day.

::sigh::

So instead of sleeping through a large chunk of the trip, Neeps was awake.  And... not necessarily pleased about being stuck in his car seat with no one to entertain him (because the back seat was full of away-from-home stuff).

We took a lot of breaks.

It wasn't all that bad, to tell the truth.  We weren't really on a schedule, so I wasn't actually stressed out about it taking so long.  And it was actually quite pleasant to take a long, picnic break in a park, where we all enjoyed the shade and wind and ate junk food and watched Pokemon Go players wander about amongst the pigeons.

family picnic in a strange town!

But we did finally make it!  And Isis is happy as happy can be with her fur-breathren, and Neeps is gratifying pleased to see his Auntie Lara (whom he hasn't seen since January) and of course I am looking forward to a few days of not-working.

And then there's the freaking delicious wine we've been drinking, all grapefruity and wonderful.  Woo, vacation!

Head Towards the Light

Most of today was taken up by driving to Spokane, and endeavor rendered positively enjoyable by a) our lovely new car and b) a Terry Pratchett audiobook.

Our appreciation of the comfort of our car was swiftly eclipsed by our appreciation of her traction, once we hit the east side of the state, because the snow and ice out here does not mess around.  The main roads in Spokane were all plowed, of course, but as we turned into my brother's neighborhood (which seems to be uphill both coming and going so how does that work?) we found ourselves driving on sheets of ice.  But our little goat-mobile took no notice, and kept right on getting us to the places we needed to go.

And now here we are!

and I still don't have a voice

My Focus

We're back on the road again today:

Taking off before the sun comes up!  Sorry loved ones!

 and we spent much of the morning drinking in the beauty of western Idaho.

pretty impressive

Looking over Lewiston

Looking over Nathan looking over Lewiston

 The nice thing is that we actually had a destination in mind: Nathan did some research over the weekend, and decided that we needed to check out Wallowa Lake State Park.  If it was everything he thought it would be, he could see us doing many trips out this way.

(spoiler alert: we're going to be making many trips out this way)

We got her early enough to set up camp and get dinner at a great little place in the nearly-unbelievably-charming town of Joseph.  We chose Ember's because there were three dogs hanging out with their people on the deck, but as it turned out the food was every bit as enticing as the hospitality.  My burger was possibly bigger than my face.  And delicious.  And people cooed over Isis, so obviously this town is amazing and full of intelligent, discerning individuals.

Also it basically looks like the Bavarian Alps around here.  It's insane.  Words don't do it justice.  Neither does my iPhone.

After dinner we headed back over to the lake so Nathan could attempt some sunset photos...

that guy

...while Isis and I explored the shoreline.

The sunset was a bit sulky about things, so we ended up heading back to the camp with enough light to let us get the fire started without using headlamps.  And, as it turns out, the fire-making lessons my brother gave us really work, so we had a roaring fire in no time flat, swiftly followed by roasted marshmallows because why else do you go camping?

Coeur D'Alene

Today's Grand Adventure was venturing into Coeur D'Alene, about which I have heard many wonderful things but had never actually been to.  Which, when you consider I've never actually been to Idaho (driving through at top speeds on a 3000 mile road trip doesn't really count), makes sense.

Anyway, now I've been- and it was lovely!

Nathan, Chelsea, Eaglet and I all went together, and our first mission was to find some delicious lunch, which we did at a little place called Cafe Carambola.  Seriously you guys- if you are in CdA, you need to eat there.  Holy cats, everything was so amazing.  Plus the workers were super sweet.

Anyway, after that we headed down to the charming downtown area, strolling in and out of shops and investigating such important cultural touchstones as Mrs. Honeypeep's.

CULTURAL!

Then we headed over to a magnificent playground*, which included a small-children's playing area that kept Eaglet engaged for approximately negative three seconds before he went tearing off for the Real Deal, his Auntie Jenny O scurrying behind him.

Kid has good climbing instincts, that's all I'm saying,

So an excellent time was had by the two of us (and Nathan and Chelsea seemed entertained by our antics), but eventually we abandoned the playground to do a hike around Tubbs Hill.  Chelsea carried Eaglet for a while, but eventually gave in to my begging to let me take him.  He was a pretty good passenger, but I was reminded of why one has to build up to carrying a 30 pound pack for miles on end... (and by miles on end I totally mean only two miles.  If that.)

There were some excellent views on that little hike, but unfortunately my little iPhone was not equipped to handle the high contrast, so you don't get to see any of my shots.  Maybe I'll come back and add some of Nathan's, once they're processed...





*oh my goodness watch the first video on this page it's so great!

Happy As...

Isis got to run off-leash at the beach today, through sand and surf and back again.  I ran with her, and it was good.

very good

It was the first time she's really been able to run in over four months.  I think she regained some of her intrinsic self as a result.  I think I did, too.

Black and White and Blue All Over

Today I walked on what can only be described as a fairy tale beach.

now imagine a silvery selkie dancing in the surf

The Classic

We started our four-day coastal camping trip today.  Nathan asked me what I wanted for dinner and I was like...

duh

Following the Crescent

Crescent Bay

We thought we might go surfing here, but as it turned out we had to travel farther afield.

Valley

in the abstract

Shelter in the Stone

We got up relatively early this morning in an attempt to take a (much-enthused-over) gondola ride, but apparently those don't start up until the 13th of this month.  Lame.  So instead we just ventured back over to Emerald Bay (now we've driven all the way around the rim!  Hooray!) to do a hike that Bridge's dad highly recommended.

And boy was he right to recommend it!

Niiiiiice trail surface.  Goooooood trail surface!

The hike was up to Cascade Falls, only about two miles round-trip, without much in the way of elevation change.  The only thing that made it at all challenging was the relentless sun, which wasn't even all that bad so long as there was wind going.  At one point Nathan stopped to take some shots of Cascade Lake, and I found a convenient stone to snuggle up to.  Here's what I jotted down at the time:

I love how I can be almost too cool here in the shade of this rock.  I feel sheltered, safe from the too-harsh sun.  I always knew I was a water-girl, but it took me until my thirties to realize that I am a stone girl, as well.

We reached the top and I had a lovely time splashing about in the stream, and scrambling over more rocks to the edge of the waterfall.  Nathan was dubious about me doing these things until I coaxed him close enough to see that it was basically broad, flat stair-steps all the way: nothing precarious about it!

Plus, like I said- I'm a stone girl, as well.

The Day of Recovery

It's been a Recovering sort of day.

We slept in as long as we could, then drove slowly (more slowly than we'd have liked, thanks to a combination of road work and a seemingly unending bike race) down to South Lake Tahoe, where we proceeded to nap for a few hours.

Then I went out walking, to explore the area, and spent some time down at the "beach".

(I will never never never accept "beach" as an acceptable synonym for "lake shore".  QUOTATION MARKS FOREVER.)

It was a nice start to the sunset, but I hustled my way back up to the hotel because Game of Thrones was coming on, and for the first time in four years we're staying in a place with HBO on Sunday night.

(Good night, sweet prince!  And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!)

The First of Four

Bridge got married today, and it was Good.  Definitely in my top five weddings ever, and not just because I was rocking a cute red dress and perfectly matched shoes-and-nails.

Love Is a Stain Beneath my Skin

Festivities lasted long into the night, and I did my best to keep the dance floor rocking, as I do.  The DJ was not making it easy, with his terrible transitions and occasionally questionable song-choices, but fortunately I am essentially a dance-slut and can/will dance to just about anything.

The Race that Knows Joseph

Things happened today, but none so excellent as what happened in the evening.

Rustic!

We rolled into our new digs in the afternoon, and I chilled out and read whilst Nathan produced larger and larger fireballs in an attempt to get the charcoal grill going without a charcoal chimney.  It did eventually work, and after we'd eaten the dinner he grilled for us, we wandered about two miles down the road to Twenty Mile House, just in time to catch the dessert-and-drinks portion of Bridge's rehearsal dinner.

The next five hours were... well, pretty amazeballs.  You know how sometimes you meet new people, but it turns out they're not new at all, they're just old friends you haven't yet encountered in this life?  It was like that.  With a lot of drunken, glowing bocce ball.

Yeah, definitely my kind of kindred spirits.

What More is There?

I mean really: penguins and bling.  C'mon.

Today was a bit of a cram-it-all-in sort of day.  We started out in Truckee, where we ate at the oft-recommended Squeeze In (I had French toast!) and explored the "historic downtown", which probably would have been of greater interest to us if either Nathan or myself were even remotely "shoppers".  But we're not, soooo... that sort of thing can only entertain us for so long.

From there we indulged my macabre side by visiting Donner Memorial State Park, where I proceeded to depress the crap out of myself.  Woo?  On the upside, it did provide me with fodder (sorry) for one of my stories, which was the underlying point of my insistence on going there.  Plus we did a little nature walk, which I gleefully narrated.  (Increasing my husband's Suffering Levels is always highly entertaining).

Then it was drive, drive, drive, all the way down to Emerald Bay, because a) we'd heard it's gorgeous and b) I wanted to see Vikingsholm.  After a descending hike that reminded us (rather ominously) of the one down to Crater Lake, we discovered that we'd gotten there just in time to miss the last tour of the day, so instead we toured the museum, went scrambling up to see Lower Eagle Falls, and then walked around the outside of Vikingsholm peering in windows like the creepers we are.

(As it turns out, the hike back up wasn't quite so bad as the one at Crater Lake, but I think that was mostly due to it being well-shaded.)