2/27/07:
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds —
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
— excerpt from "The Swan" by Mary Oliver, in The Paris Review # 124, Fall, 1992
2/24/07:
We met with an architect yesterday after Jay got out of work. As it turns out, adding on to our home is very, very complicated. Because our home is on a small lot we have constraints about building closer to the back or front property lines than we currently are and because we live on a floodplain (Mrs. Becker who turned 90 last week remembers several floods, none of which impacted where our house is) we would be required to go to the expense of raising our entire house if we added more than 50% to the value of just the house (not the lot) by adding on. See what I mean by complicated? To make matters worse, the value of our little home is small, so it does not take much adding on to go over 50% of its current value.
We met with a very nice architect, Jamie McNett, who is half of a local design-build team. She helped us clarify what we need to do to proceed, so that we could define what is, indeed, possible given our constraints (which you will note discriminate against the owners of small, efficient homes). If we had a 2000 square foot home we could easily add an addition as large as our current teeny 512 square foot home with no restrictions. Alas, America is a land of excess.
Our next task is to get an new appraisal of our home, and then our constraints will be defined— we will be able to determine how much we can add on before having to raise the whole house, and then we will decide if this is enough or if we will just go ahead and raise the house. Lots to do and decide, so more later.
PS: I took the picture of blue sky out our kitchen window yesterday afternoon, when the snow was almost completely gone. It links to an idea for conserving energy, one we don't plan to use.
We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.— Robert Wilensky
2/23/07:
I have been laying about at home all week with some flu symptoms. Jay is incredibly kind, working very hard to not disturb me as he gets ready for work, then leaves the table set for my breakfast along with a carafe full of hot coffee and a note… As he left for work today, Jay told me it was a few degrees above freezing outside and raining. When I dragged my butt out of bed at 9AM I discovered a world of white— perhaps the last blast of winter, melting as I write this at noon.
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.
It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last thoughout life, as an unfailing antidote against boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.— Rachel Carson
2/21/07:
When my folks came here the summer of 2005, we visited one of the traveling replicas of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as it stopped in Sedro-Wooley. It was my third time seeing one of the wall memorials, always a moving experience. The particular wall we visited is 4/5 the size of the DC monument and, in searching about the web, I discovered there are at least two traveling wall memorials that are 1/2 size and one that is 3/4 size. When I told him, Jay wondered aloud how many our country needs, I wondered if we would ever have enough.
I have twice visited this particular traveling memorial, which a local man, Norm Bergsma, is involved with. Mr. Bergsma travels with the wall, displaying and selling breathtaking artwork drawing from his personal journey and healing— check out his website.
While I was at the wall with my folks, I picked up a postcard near one of Mr. Bergsma's paintings that was promoting a book by Bridget Cantrell and Chuck Dean called Down Range 
. Later I discovered a table selling that very book and began talking with a nice lady there, mentioning to her a recent experience talking with a WWII vet. Of course, as it turned out, I was talking with Bridget Cantrell. She gave me her business card and signed my book, then also got Chuck Dean to sign it. Serendipitous… The book is easy to read— a good gift to give to the right people.
Lots of veterans show up at the memorial as it travels around, some follow it for hundreds and thousands of miles. That afternoon I bought two $2 raffle tickets from the American Legion Post #43 with a $5 bill, declining the change. The man selling me the tickets looked up in a startled way and told me that was good luck. I got a call a day or two later and my folks went with me to pick up the tricycle planter made by one of the Legion's members. It is getting some rust on it now, but does a good job of holding up the flowers.
The great error of nearly all studies of war… has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics…— Simone Weil
2/19/07:
It is Presidents' Day and I am home with a bit of a virus, somehow fitting. If we are lucky, we will live to see the end of the current President's reign of terror, we will live to tell about it. As Jay says about Presidents' Day, you get the good and the bad, Washington to Bush.
The cracked airplane windshield links to a Time Life Pictures photo by Carl Mydans.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have.— Abraham Lincoln
2/16/07:
There seems to be some sort of theme, or maybe conspiracy, going on. Recently I have read a couple of books written by men who immigrated to the United States, one from Mexico and one from Argentina, and became professors here. Interestingly, both authors within their stories spoke of how acculturating to a new country distances a person from their original culture. The old always remains a part of you, while the new changes you.
I also recently met two ladies born in the United Kingdom, one in Scotland and the other in England. One told me how she had become a citizen as soon as possible after coming to the United States because I knew I could never go back. A friend of mine met her American husband during the war, World War II, and they came here after the war. She always complained that she wanted to return to live in England and I told her over and over: no, you cannot go back, you can visit but you cannot go back because IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. Eventually they moved back to England after her husband retired, and I visited them a while later. She was not happy, it was not the same. Shortly after that she went into the hospital and died. Her husband returned to the United States. Life changes, you just can't go back, you have to move forward. The other lady I met told me of the many places her and her husband had lived: Scotland, London, Iran, Washington DC, Belgium. More than once she lamented that her daughter had been taught French when she was young, but she just doesn't use it now, I don't know how much she remembers. She showed me a picture of herself with Churchill and spoke of pleasant times when Eleanor Roosevelt would come over for tea. She knew she had a special life story to share and I remarked that I loved hearing peoples' life stories, that every person has an interesting life and story. She responded really? In a surprised and snooty tone that, well, surprised me. I assured her indeed, all people have interesting stories to tell, but I wasn't sure she believed me. She was not aware that her own odd skepticism confirmed for me how very interesting every person is.
It is funny how we concentrate so on our differences, when all the while it is the fact that we are all so similar that makes the differences stand out. And at the same time we bring attention to our differences, we assure and reassure ourselves that the things that make us different also, somehow, make us better.
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.— Barry Switzer
2/13/07:
To those of us who knew the pain
of valentines that never came
and those whose names were never called
when choosing sides for basketball.
— Janis Ian
It's been a long, long time since I sat at the dining room table in my parents' old house on Clinton Trail, engrossed in the demanding task of determining which valentine card went to which of my classmates. Such weighty decisions! Nice, pretty ones to girlfriends, cool ones to boys I liked, and a special one to the boy I had a crush on. So much, my very future, hung in the balance, in those naive days when ideas of romantic love were magical and familial love was a given. Looking forward to an exciting future filled with many places, people and ideas, who then would have thought that love, merely love, was the raison d’être, the reason for being? Have a happy day.
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)
2/10/07:
The weather here has been rather balmly, especially in contrast to our weather the last couple of months— our thermometer read 64 degrees this afternoon before 
we headed over to Rexville Grocery to enjoy their Cheese, Champagne & Chocolates celebration. For a $2 admission you could taste wonderful cheeses, gourmet chocolates and champagne from all over. We bought a bottle of local Samish Island Blue Heron wine (blueberry and blackberry), French brie and Irish blue cheeses, and some organic dark chocolate made in the Fremont area of Seattle. Decadent… and fun.
Today was also our neighbor's 90th birthday party. Mrs. Becker (Margaret) turns 90 next Tuesday. If you click on the picture of the flowering plant Mr. Becker gave us a few years ago, it will take you to the Skagit Valley Herald's announcement about today's birthday celebration at Mrs. Becker's church. I visited Margaret Wednesday evening and gave her some of her favorite zucchini bread wrapped in a dishcloth handmade by my work partner Barbara Roessler, plus a birthday card. She seemed to enjoy the present and the company.
Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.— Henry George (1839 - 1897)
2/9/07:
Time for writing entries has been elusive, with days feeling short and evenings feeling compressed full of things to do. It is good for life to be busy; it does not appear we are here to get our rest, whether this is our only time around or not.
My work schedule allows me to have every other Friday off, so today's the day…
This morning I have continued to observe the activity visible from our kitchen window. Across the field behind us, across the road, and across another field, the house that used to be has become a smaller pile of rubble during the week. Today's manly activity has transformed the old fruit trees into matching piles of wood. C'est la vie.
I want to pass on some more information about niacin, since I had talked last month about its role in helping me reduce my cholesterol levels. Jay pointed out an article to me last night that recommended using slow release niacin. Niacin causes an uncomfortable flushing, especially when getting used to it. Niacin also is processed by the liver and therefore can be hard on it. Niacin was used in the '80s for lowering cholesterol, but about 10% of people on high dose regular niacin developed liver problems, thus development of the extended release formulations. Timed or extended release formulations help moderate the jolt to the liver and moderate the flushing effect, but (the article pointed out) formulas that release niacin over too long a time put a continual stress on the liver for that much longer. I guess the slo-niacin formulation releases it slowly but only over a few hours, giving the liver a built-in break. Anyhow, the article made sense, so I am passing along the information. I am taking niacin at my doctor's direction—
it was her idea, so I and my liver function are being followed. I understand niacin's greatest cholesterol-lowering effects are reached at daily doses of 750mg to 1000mg and then it takes substantially higher doses to effect further response. I only take 500mg a day and have not been able to tolerate a higher dose, yet it does not look like I absolutely require a higher dose. At any rate, I take my baby aspirin, at my doctor's suggestion, one half hour before taking the niacin (luckily I was already taking Slo-Niacin), to help minimize the flushing effect. For me, I take a baby aspirin as I am starting to get dinner ready, then take the niacin at the end of my meal, figuring that is close enough and gives me a rhythm I can maintain and remember. I suspect there will be more about this, later :)
What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.— Edward Dahlberg
2/3/07:
Back in 2002 I got an AT&T cell phone, then after a while Cingular bought AT&T. I kept my account the same until this last fall when I needed to finally update my phone and its service. Jay had not had a cell phone and we decided to ditch our land line and use its number for a cell phone for him, switching my service to a Cingular family plan. Now, maybe three months later, Cingular is changing back into AT&T. Is it What goes around comes around or Damn, that was fast?
February has snuck up on me, with spring just around the corner. The view from our kitchen window has changed dramatically in the last few days. I can't keep track of what I have talked about on these pages, but I think I may have mentioned that the view from our kitchen window includes an old ranch or rambler style home set back from the main road, almost up against the river's dike. Jay remembers the home being a large dairy farm, and it boasts a stand of fruit trees that have been cared for in the past but now are on their own. We have watched as whoever lived there amassed a collection of old cars, including a number of Nash Metropolitans, which were strewn about the yard. We frequently watched visitors drive in and out, down the long drive, and saw local law enforcement vehicles visit once. Visitors were often greeted by an ever-changing gaggle of dogs, and sometimes there seemed to be no dogs. More recently we have watched a small travel trailer come and go, park facing one way, then turn around by the next time we looked. Last weekend we noticed the large RV had disappeared and some of the cars seemed to have been rearranged. Then
Wednesday most of the cars disappeared and the home had become a pile of rubble by the time we came home from work. Coming home the next day, we found the large outbuilding was a similar pile and the nice, large tree had disappeared. Yesterday I saw two large trucks hauling stuff out as I headed for work. A lot of debris remains to be hauled, but it appears our spring and summer kitchen window views this year will contain less man-made material…
We're here, and we don't know why. We can philosophize all we want, pursue the key to that secret along a thousand different paths, and we'll never be any closer to unlocking it.— Ken Grimwood
Jardot's World: February Edition, 2007
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