Happy New Year 2010!

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And Martin Luther King Day. And while I am at it, let me be the first to wish you all a Happy Valentines Day too. The new decade took off without me and I have been running to catch up ever since. This year I have decided to put my holiday greetings on my blog here and will provide you with a succinct synopsis of our lives over the past 12 months. For those of you yearning for more, more, more, you can scroll back through the other 33 posts I have written since last January when I started this new form of written regurgitation, intending to post one per week which, for you math lovers, would mean that I somehow missed about 23 weeks. Not bad for my first year.
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Well, as I sit here feeling rather chilled in our new yurt, up the river and then up the creek from the Oregon coast, my thoughts turn longingly back to last year this time, when I might have been sweating in my bikini while walking the white sands of Playa Conchal, heaving a coconut into the warm waters for Duncan to fetch every now and again. (See photo from March 18 post.) Do we miss Costa Rica? Si, you bet. We miss our amigos y amigas a few thousand miles south down the coast. (And those a few thousand miles to the east of us as well...) We miss the warm sunshine and the blue sky and the palm trees and the mot mots and the howler monkeys and the leaf cutter ants and the playa. Bella and I just read "Slowly, slowly, slowly said the sloth" and reminisced about swimming each evening before dinner as the sun descended and the air glowed orange with the bats swooping the pool and our heads. We had a great year and hope to get back there soon. Micah got a ticket to Tamarindo for his March break from Santa. Lucky boy.
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Hannah is back in the US after living the Rio life in Portuguese for 6 months - running the sands of Copacabana and sipping Caiparinhas. She returned to her second semester as a Junior at Georgetown, struggling with three advanced physics classes and whipping herself back into shape for the rapidly approaching varsity crew season.
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Christiana took on Waldport High School for her senior year with her usual aplomb and adaptation. She played her first season of volleyball and is in the midst of her second season of basketball and second semester of taking classes at the community college since her class of 61 does not merit much of an AP roster. She has been in the throes of college apps and fingers crossed for an ambitious list of choices, hoping to continue her Spanish and Portuguese studies and major in Marine Biology.
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Micah is in the fifth form at St. Georges in RI and we miss him. My birthday present from him was joining the swim team where he has made great strokes and plans to swim the bay with me again this summer. I will be lucky to see his wake. He was happy to be back on the gridiron this fall but misses CR very much, as do we all.
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Isaiah is loving the fourth grade at his new school and is looking to be a great fan of reading, yahoo. He was also happy to play football again and is currently tearing up the basketball court after all the days he spent after school in the open air gym last year with his pal, Jackson. He misses hockey and will hopefully get to play again some day.
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Bella Grace is loving Kindergarten and learning to read. She gets home at noon daily and we are going agate hunting on the beach today with our west coast UB - Uncle Buster. She is dancing ballet and learning to jump rope.
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After last year's letter, a good friend heeded Andy's siren call for employment and he is now busily engaged as the General Manager of Silke Communications in Eugene where he toils away most days and nights of the week. He spent the fall building the yurts (see archives) and is happy to be back on the left coast again.
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Me? Well, I am writing. I finished my book, for the fourth time, and am seeking an agent or a publisher if any of you know anyone in the industry. I am the new Co-Hag of a local writer's group and we host authors monthly for our workshops so I am networking and meeting interesting people and loving that. I have just dug out my old fish biology hat and will manage a restoration project for coho salmon habitat through our local watershed council.
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Andy and I are on the steering committee to get the high school moved out of the tsunami zone. With the Cascadia subduction fault about 50 miles off our coast a massive earthquake is building that will generate a tsunami of freezing cold water, inundating our town within minutes sometime between now and the next 50 years. Time to move the kids to higher ground.
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With three thin layers of high tech fabric separating us from Mother Nature we are getting to know her ways intimately. The whistles of the elk, the hooting of the owls, the winds that threaten to blow our house down, and the many sounds 70 inches of rain can make on a vinyl roof all surround us with intimacy. The ocean here is mighty and majestic to behold but not something to take lightly or turn your back on. The hills are alive and the trees and rocks pushing each other off in a constant battle of rock, paper, scissors which encourage watchfulness. We are paying attention.
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I hope this finds you all happy and healthy through the wonders of cyberspace. Give yourselves a chocolate-covered kiss from us here on the edge of the continent. Happy Aught-Ten from our yurt to yours.
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Beisos - Kelly, Andy, Hannah, Christiana, Micah, Isaiah, and Bella Grace!
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You Better Watch Out...

Yes, so we did see Santa way back when. I took the kids nostalgically to the old Meier and Frank in downtown Portland where the first four used to sit on the old guy's lap. They always had the best Santa and there was a wondrous village set up complete with a monorail the kids could ride that was suspended from the ceiling. Unfortunately, the store is now Macy's and Santa's floor is no longer. Santa has been relegated to the basement and the monorail sits resignedly on the floor, alone and stationary, the sad little so-called "monorail museum," boo hoo. But we made the best of it and Micah even posed with Santa and Bella asked for a Barbie and Isaiah requested that his whole family to be together and everyone got their wishes and they were filmed by a new crew but we have no tv so never saw it. And, as an added bonus, we watched the mounted police arrest a homeless guy out in front of the store. HE should have called for Santa...
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And then there was the Nutcracker. Bella was an angel and a bon bon but she did not get to be the "naughty" bon bon at any of the three performances and I am not sure if she should be congratulated or straighten her tights and work harder. Mostly she was just happy to be wearing makeup.
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We have five noble fir trees lining our
driveway of staggering sizes so the kids each decorated their own live tree with different colored lights. It got very frosty for the week before Santa came to eat his cookies and every morning we awoke to a winter wonderland with everything coated in a heavy load of white. No snow. By the day after Christmas we were playing on a sparkling sunny beach with the girls running in their sports bras - quite a temperature fluctuation but no complaints, especially from Hannah who was still tan from the sands of Copacabana.
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The propane heaters were finally hooked up and running on Christmas Eve, in the nick of time, and we all slept in the yurts for the first time that night. We slept in our caps reminiscent of 'twas the night before xmas' - and Santa found us! We had a little live tree under the central domed skylight, the focal point of our round room, and Bella and Isaiah made ornaments at school to decorate it. We have a 'frig and a toaster oven and a crock pot and a coffee maker and that allows us to eat pretty well. Hannah brought pastries from Brazil and we had cookies Santa left us and a wonderful Christmas morning. Everyone got a new hat. Ho! Ho! Ho!
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K3
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Sea Lions, Sea Lions, Everywhere...

"Well?" you may well be wondering and rightfully so, what happened to me after the very pregnant pause following my birthday which post was considered to be highly inappropriate according to one very special adolescent, He Who Shall Not Be Named, since it contained several questionably controversial "p" words? Well, having birthed seven babies and shredded most of my anatomical self-consciousness in the delivery room, that is not, alas, the reason for my long silence. It was more like the end of the year got away from me and the new year began before I was ready and I have been running to catch up with "aught ten" ever since. So, this is a catch-up post, better late than never.
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And here, on the beach by Heceta Head - a few miles south of where I sit happily typing in my yurt, live and online in person for the first time from my lovely life in the round since we finally have internet service to our barn even tho we have no indoor plumbing (or outdoor plumbing, so I guess we have no plumbing, to be clear...) and so you can see by that where our priorities and other things lie but I digress and will pick you back up here mid-sentence - yes, here, en masse are the missing California sea lions that once sank the piers of San Francisco with their halitosis and gas-eosis and exuberant mating behavior and blubbery bulk, the same lions of the sea which had everyone wringing their hands with frustration as they flatulated in a most uncivilized manner and openly displayed their affection for one another, causing the well-heeled urban ladies to cover their eyes with kid-gloved hands, fingers nevertheless parted with unconfessed curiosity, until the tourist dollars flowed like so much saltwater into their palms and they threw their arms around their marine mammal friends, embracing their slippery skins which recently slid out from their clutches, leaving them scratching their heads and fingering their empty wallets with wonder. (No, I don't really intend to catch you up here all in one gigantic sentence..)
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"Where did they go?" our neighbors to the bankrupt south of us yodeled in fake Austrian accents with tears matching the salinity of the waters around their shores which now lapped uninterrupted by barking except as emitted by proud pampered poodles being walked by their pooch-sitters and doing their duty with propriety in several different languages. And no, they did not call over their little shoulders in perfect imitation of their governor, "I'll be back..." Or at least not so anybody heard. But it is fun to think about and certainly something a sea lion seems capable of.
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But, anyway, not to worry your permed little heads about it any longer as here they all are, right here in Oregon, safe and sound like so many other economic refugees from the Golden State. Eureka! Perhaps they are enjoying the temperate rainforesty weather for a change, tired of all that sunscreen application, perhaps they are simply following the herring who have done the same, their little fins tired of traipsing off to Rite Aid to stock up. Nobody knows WHY, but the amazing sight we beheld on our Thanksgiving trip down the breathtaking Oregon Coast was thousands of them soaking up some, ahem, rays and catching waves en masse. They looked and sounded to be enjoying their stay and who knows, perhaps they will tarry awhile. Hopefully you can tell that those brown blobs in these photos are, in fact, the missing Californicators, as folks in these here parts have been known to call those who try to take their motto across the border with them crying Eureka! (tr. "I have found it!")
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So, we headed south along the edge stopping briefly to remember ourselves to Paul Bunyan and Babe, the big blue ox with the big blue testicles - never mind, Micah - that Andy had to pose holding up, irresistible to males of all ages. But I will leave you to your own visual imaginings on that one and keep right on moving through the last vestiges of the oldest things on earth, Sequoia Gigantia, which we stopped to admire immensely and on under the Golden Gates of the city where Hannah was born and where we began our happily wedded life together and still keep on going a bit further south to where we ate turkey and celebrated the holiday of my Mayflower ancestors, hosted by Henrietta the chicken and her lovely caretakers, our friends from our days in Costa Rica which seem like yesterday but are fading quickly into the past. Too quickly.
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And what better to do after eating all that pumpkin pie than to walk over the famed Golden Gate. So the next day we did. And I won't bore you with all the dramatic details of how our nephew was married the weekend before in Seattle but chose not to invite us to witness his nuptials because, well, that goes along with why we celebrate holidays with our friends vs. family out here on the left coast, but I might just drop a little reminder about the bitchiness of Karma because who do you think we ran into strolling under the Golden Arches but said nephew and his lovely new bride on their honeymoon. So remember fair reader, as I told him, you can run but you can't hide. And as an added bonus he got to meet Bella and Isaiah, his first cousins, for the first time even though one of them has been on the planet for over a decade now and the other for a half. His blushing bride remarked how much Bella resembles Dakota Fanning, asking, "Has anyone ever told you that before?" "Why, yes," I replied in my perfect Scarlett O'Hara imitation. But then I missed my golden opportunity to add, "And don't you think she would make a perfect flower girl?" Darn it...
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K3

Happy Birthday to Me!

"You say it's your birthday?" You can sing the rest. And all I want is for Bella to poop. I already got my period so that tiny question mark has been laid to rest after battling some kind of nauseous stomach thing for 3 or 4 days now that reminded me of, well, pregnancy. Other things I am not getting besides a 48-year-old immaculate conception since Andy's parts were snipped after Bella was born and I hung a giant CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign on my uterus? Well, the swine flu, I hope, a boob job, a tummy tuck, or any other kind of narcissistic surgery - I'll save that for my 50th, a warm and sunny walk on Playa Conchal, a trip to DC to visit Hannah since she is in Rio, a trip to Brazil to visit Hannah, anything smacking of rampant consumerism, or a trip to Hawaii so I am posting this photo from our aquarium trip the other day instead. It is the Picasso Triggerfish, aka the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the Hawaiian State Fish and I love that fact. Or a move into our yurts. Yes, my third move-in deadline is here and will not be met either. Instead, the carpenter called this morning and is checking himself into rehab. Surprise! Happy Birthday to me!

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Yesterday I went on Isaiah's fourth grade field trip. They are studying Oregon history, timely for us, and we went to two museums in Newport where I learned that Newport, OR, the next town to where Andy grew up in Waldport, was actually named after Newport, RI, the next town to where I grew up in Middletown! Ha! An apparently little known fact that even Andy never learned. It appears that one, Sam Case, hailing from Mom's great state of Maine, came west to seek his fortune and stopped when the land ran out on the Oregon coast where he conceded, founding Newport in 1868. Here he built the Ocean House, also named for a hotel in Newport, RI, which used to be the center of social activity and remains the same, of sorts, as now it is the Stop and Shop plaza. But back here in Newport on the left coast, I figure Sam Case was the first to arrive here from Newport on the right coast. And about 150 years later, I am probably the second.

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After lunch we danced at our first Pow Wow! Wow! Such a fun word. Pow Wow! Sorry the photo stinks. The Confederated Tribes of the Siletz are celebrating their reinstatement of tribalhood in 1977 which they lost for 20 years or so after apparently selling off most of their original 1.4 million acres which includes the land I am sitting on right now typing. Even though it is a mixed ragtag bunch of folks in appearance, I nearly wept at the beauty of the tiniest girls dressed in their regalia and dancing on their tip-toed mocassins with their hands placed proudly on their hips and moving with the graceful elegance of their genetic heritage. They, too, might morph into the caffeine-in-a-can-carrying teens who shuffled along behind them, unsure of their place in the world, but for now their enthusiasm remains the colorful and hopeful link between past and present. "Listen," the leader commanded us with the words of his Grandfather, "or your tongues will make you stupid."

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These are the reminders that you are back in the west. Christiana recently played the Chemawa Lady Braves in volleyball. The Siletz team, incidentally, are the Warriors. These folks aren't afraid of racial stereotyping. The Chemawa Indian School is the oldest operating school of its kind, from 1880, and used to be one of those horrid places where they forced reservation kids to board, speak English, and forget about being Braves and Warriors. Their team roster proudly lists what tribes the players are from and these gals hailed from more than a dozen tribes including the Navajo, Apache, Cherokee, Pueblo and Karuk. I sat in the stands and secretly cheered them on with historic guilt, admiring the variety of their ethnic beauty. Last year in Costa Rica Isaiah studied Native Americans and did a report on the Apache. Now this year he and Christiana are playing with them.

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We left the Pow Wow in better shape than my ancestors on the Mayflower afforded their native friends. We were welcomed openly, treated with respect, educated in their ways, invited to dance, and cheered by the crowd on our departure. My ancestors invited their native friends to dinner on the first Thanksgiving. Then they killed them and stole their land. As I sit here on former reservation lands, I am sure hoping the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz have not taken any lessons in history from us.

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Happy Birthday to me!

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K3

Yurts, yurts, everywhere...

Okay, yurt fans, here is the long-awaited sequel to the first, cliffhanging episode of Yurt Building 101. When last we left off, the yurts were basically a supporting structure with nothing to protect us from the elements. Now, they are finished! Well, almost. To recap, we managed to get the smaller yurt closed in before the rain fell. Here is how the structure of them looked before all the supports you can see lying on the floor were screwed into place and the covering process began.
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Working from the hole in the top, the interior roof liner is unfolded and worked around the top.

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Then the space blanket of astronaut-friendly insulation is unfolded on top of that and super heavy top cover is hefted up thru the hole and carefully unfolded as well.

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The interior insulated walls are hung from the interior support cable and the outside walls hung from an extra flap on the exterior roof. It's kind of like hanging a giant, heavy shower curtain. The skylight dome is carefully fed up to the center and put into place. The whole thing is cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And screwed into place. Tightly. Nobody wants a baggy, wrinkly yurt, after all.

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And here's how it looked before the rain began.

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And it did rain. And the larger yurt did get wet. And the water did pool on top and drip thru the floor boards into the insulation, which also dripped, and it was not a pretty sight. BUT. The sun came out and dried up the landy, landy and everything was fine and dandy, dandy. And we managed to get that one enclosed before the next rains fell and now I think we are out of the danger zone. Today we are supposed to get 6 inches of rain so that should be a good test.

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Now we are building the mudroom/bathroom in between.

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We had high winds a few nights ago and I lay awake listening to the howling gusts and imagining all that work flying around up there with my mother-in-law's words in my head, "It can get pretty windy up here you know," but am happy to report that in the morning they were intact and they were like, "What?" when we showed up all concerned and everything. Bella finally found a wall she can color on without getting in trouble.

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And here's a view of our dining/living room view. Lovely!

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K3

You will know us by our layers

Columbus Day has come and gone and, as usual, I wondered, "Okay, what would Columbus do?" Especially if his kids were home from school on a 4-day weekend. There being no edge of the world to sail off and certainly no hope of discovering a new nation complete with old inhabitants, I, like most Americans, celebrated with the closest approximation available to us - I gathered my kin and sailed up the coast of Oregon to Lincoln City to the Tanger Outlet Mall. I think Columbus would have approved, not being much of a stay-at-home-and-watch-the-Red-Sox-lose kind of guy. He would definitely have sought an adventure of this kind, I am sure of it.
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While on our voyage, we slowed down in Depoe Bay long enough to annoy the traffic behind us until we spotted a whale spouting just off the surf, both of which seemed something else Columbus might have done. Whales aside, just imagine the tailgating and bird flipping that went on back in the glory days of the high seas.
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Once safely in port, I beat out my fellow celebrants for a prime docking space. No mooring buoy for us. I located my AAA card and got a free coupon booklet for fabulous discounts at each store which drew us lemming-like through its doors with the promise of giant Columbus Day markdowns, just as the old salt himself probably would have done. I think Columbus was your early day bargain shopper, after all, judging by the continent he scored. And my AAA card is gold, something he shopped around the world for. The only thing I perhaps did not do as well as Chris, himself, was spread pestilence and disease, but the verdict is still out I suppose. Another 24 hours should tell.
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So, why were we outlet shopping when earlier this year I lamented this all-American pasttime as a terrible waste of time and money right here on this blog, all but proclaiming it the harbinger of all things wrong with our society, albeit from the relative soapbox safety zone of my tropical paridise? Oh yeah, good point. But the answer is - layers. Layers, my girl, layers. Lots of them. As in name this movie: "You're so wrapped in your layers, onion boy." It is only mid-fall, I know, but already we are piling them on and we need more. Today I have on boots that seem stylish at first glance but are rated to 40 below, a good Canadian brand and those Kanuks know how to be stylish and warm. I have on thick tights and a dress and a belted sweater dress, don't tell Christiana, and a scarf and all this just to putter around the house and type away at my keyboard. I am in search of fingerless gloves. And when I dare to venture outside I will really have to get serious.
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Okay, so the temperature is still in the 50's. And I am still surrounded by central heating. I am worried. One year of all that wonderful tropical blood thinner and we are all freezing, all the time. I am looking at deer and elk in a whole new way. I don't want to eat them; I want to wear them. Last week we almost hit a huge elk in the road. He bounded up off of the road, revealing the yellow road sign that he had been blocking with his bulk. Elk Crossing, it said. Well alright then. At least he was in the right place and it would have made us look rather, well, illiterate had we crushed our car on his broad side. "Well, officer, we were just approaching the Elk Crossing sign when we came upon this big bull, er, um, elk..." I was busy imagining how many mukluks I could get out of that gorgeous pelt.
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Melanie wrote today and invited us to move to Dubai. I googled UAE quickly, even tho I admit that I was a geography major. Anyway, it was probably called something else back in those days. It's one of those fields of study you have to keep up with. Now, as a swimmer, deserts don't really interest me. They make me thirsty just thinking about them. But immediately I noticed it is a coastal country. I am not even sure what sea it lies on but Iran is a short sail away. Perfect! One of my top ten vacation destinations. I will pack Lolita and visit Tehran. The truth is, I fear the cold more than I fear terrorism. (And now I wonder how many Homeland Security types are about to read this blog because I used that last word.) Oh well, maybe they will offer me a job in a warm climate.
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Thanks, CC, for the great holiday. What was your middle name, anyway? Sure, we all struggled to get out of bed this dark and rainy morning, but honoring you with all that shopping was worth it. My AmEx card thanks you as well. My husband? Probably not so much. I can hardly wait to honor the pilgrims, my own ancestors, with even more blessed bargain shopping. We give thanks that here, in our beloved country, there is no end to the money you can save by honoring our past and simply spending.
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Amen.
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K3

So, What Exactly is a Yurt?

Okay, alternative dwellings fans, listen up. Your mongolian housing education course for the day is here, in case we have not already answered this question in person. All you ever wanted to know about yurts and more, coming right at you. So, what is a yurt? No, it is not yet another clever word invented by Dr. Seuss - remember Yurtle the Turtle, the king of the pond? Well, you should. Yertle wanted to reach higher than the moon so made all his fellow turtles stack on top of each other to raise him higher and higher until one of them burped, once considered a vulgar word for a children's book, landing Yertle in the mud where, you might conclude, he belonged. But I digress.

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According to the dictionary, a yurt is "a circular, domed, portable tent used by the nomadic peoples of central Asia." Think Mongolian yak herders... In our case this might read more accurately, "a circular, domed, tent made with high tech insulated astronaut-friendly fabric resting on a wooden platform with a lovely pine floor and technically considered "portable" but I would sure hate to move the darn thing(s), yak backs or no. But don't worry PETA supporters, no yaks have been harmed in the process.

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And why are we living in Oregon for a year? Well, because we rented our house in RI out for 2 years to a proper British naval officer and his family and spent only one of those years in Costa Rica before coming up with this brilliant next adventure. Three weeks ago we sat down with said proper British naval officer and he assured us all was in order in proper British naval officer fashion. So we loaded up all our belongings and sailed across the USA in a manner unlike my Mayflower ancestors but with perhaps some of the same ideology and motivation. Two weeks ago we arrived at our destination here on the left coast and unloaded our precious possessions, got the kids settled into their new schools, and continued pounding nails and generally getting our yurts to rise up in order. One week ago we received an e-mail from our proper British naval officer's housing and relocation department notifiying us that said officer and his family have been relocated back to England and effectively giving us 30-days notice of their impending departure as per their "military clause", a standard cursed feature of any military rental agreement. Did you hear that primal scream?

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Okay, so I digress, but if you know anyone in need of a lovely home in Portsmouth, RI to rent or buy please don't hesitate to holler! Meanwhile, back at the yurts... So, because there are five of us and we like a little bit of stretching space, we are actually building two yurts. Why not. And with a regular old rectangular-shaped building in between which will serve as the mudroom and official entrance to our little yurtdom. Yes, we are expecting a bit of mud. This is a photo of the larger of the two yurts so you get an idea of the structural framework.

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Next the floor is insulated and a lovely pine flooring nailed on and the whole thing cut into a circle to fit the yurt itself.

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Last Wednesday we took a field trip to Pacific Yurts in Cottage Grove where we could walk around in a yurt for the first time and get a feel for our new concept of home, sweet home and start to envision where the furniture might go. We drove thru the equivalent of New England on our trip around one small section of this vast State through the land of magical words like Umpqua, Siuslaw and Siletz. Or Alpine. Or Drain. They loaded up the neat packages containing our new home on Andy's white truck - and here I could add that this is also the land of the white trucks. Trucks, in general, are abundant but there must have been an oversupply of white paint in Michigan in the past decade or maybe it's just like anything on your mind like when you want a baby you can't move without tripping over one. And even though I swore I would never live in a home that came on wheels, I am granting this one exception.

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So, by now you might have guessed that there is some assembly required. And soon you will be scratching your head wondering how the average Joe manages to erect one of these things. To begin, you put on a ring of insulation to prevent those nasty floor drafts and attach a ring of hardi-plank cement siding. Then you unfold the exterior like a baby gate and attach it.

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Now if it rains or floods inside you will effectively have a nice barrier which prevents the water from escaping, leaving you with a water feature. So you start to feel the urgency. Next comes the most dangerous part - inserting the roof rafters between the ring in the center and the high tension cable that runs around the top of the lattice. This is when Randy, one of your helpers, will stand on a 10 foot scaffold and regale you with the amazing story of how he fell 120 feet when a building he was working on was hit by a crane and collapsed around him. Three hours later they dug him out, finding him miraculously alive but quite broken. He was in a drug-induced coma for 3 months and 30 surgeries and so many pounds of titanium later here he is scampering around overhead declaring, "But I love heights!"

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Yesterday Christiana and I drilled and screwed four metal plates to the ends of 81 (That's 81x4x2 holes each!) vertical supports and attached them to the floor and rafters and sides, effectively screwing the whole thing together so the yurt does not collapse in case of snow or excessive rain or high winds!

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Today, with any luck, we will get the ceiling and walls and skylight dome on before the rains fall and the swimming pool forms. Pray for us, please, and look for the next cliff hanging edition of Yurts are Us...

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K3