life with the furry and feathered crew

Kalaloch, Hoh Rain Forest and Olympic Peninsula

- Do we have everything?
- We must have, the back of the car is overflowing.

As much stuff is needed for a 2-day trip as for a 2-week trip it seems. We had the esky (cooler), sleeping pads for Jarah, boots for hiking on the beach, snack food, clothes, rain jackets, hats, gloves, and cameras (several).

Our first stop was at [2] on the map, where Terry showed Chris around a USDA meat plant and I waited in the office with Jarah. Lucky for her (Chris that is), the inspector wasn’t around so she didn’t have to wear one of the very cute little hair nets.

From Tacoma, it should be about a 3 hour trip to Kalaloch. That’s 3 hours if one doesn’t have a dog that needs to stretch her legs several times on the trip. At one stop [3] we had a picnic lunch in the car because there was more than a bit of rain spattering the windshield. We skipped the harbor view. Not long after going through my favorite named town in Washington, Humptulips [4] (don’t blink or you’ll miss the town), we arrived at Kalaloch [5]. Kalaloch is a haven on the Washington coast. A haven because it is in the Olympic National Park and safe from logging. Outside of the Park, in order to see the beauty of the Olympic Peninsula, it is necessary to filter out the clear cuts.

Olympic Peninsula Trip Map

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Michael Moore

Last Tuesday evening, Chris, Terry and I attended a talk by Michael Moore (of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Farenheit 9/11" fame). He is on a 61 city tour ! to encourage "slackers" to vote. The slackers in the audience, those who were eligible, but didn't vote in the last election, stand up and pledge to vote this year. For that, he distributes a 3-pack of Fruit of the Loom underwear to the men and Ramen Noodles to the women.

Most of his message is about the war in Iraq. He touched on other political issues (e.g., economy, assault weapon ban, Ralph Nader) but didn't dwell there. He was his funniest when imitating Bush in the first debate. -- "It's HARD work being President". For a shy guy, he does an excellent job of rousing the crowd. To spice things up, one of the Pearl Jam group played acoustic guitar and sang a few songs, including one of Dylan's best anti-war songs - the song was timely during the Vietnam War and back in fashion again. Kind of like tie-dye shirts.

I admire Michael Moore for his bravery at speaking out - although I bet he doens't think of it as bravery. Clearly, the Republicans (and also Pfizer as we found out) are afraid of him. Afraid of his influence and his exposing the truths that our mainstream media won't show. In fact, he mentioned the two scenes in Farenheit 9/11 that shocked me - both for the event and for the lack of news about the event. They were the egg-throwing protestors at Bush's inauguration that kept him cowering in his limo instead of walking to the inauguration (which EVERY prior president has done) and the Black Congressmen and women who wanted Congressional intervention in Florida because of disenfranchisement of black voters. That scene was especially poignant I thought, because their efforts were to no avail and because Gore had to preside over it. The news media these days is worse than I thought.

So THANK YOU Michael Moore for standing up and speaking out.

A RED LETTER DAY !!!!!!

Yesterday, a "miracle" happened. On his own, Geikie walked up Terry's arm and sat on his shoulder. Terry has been trying for 1.5 years to get Geikie to step up on him. Considering that they started at a level where every time that Terry approached Geikie, Geikie exited stage left, they have come a looooooong way. I have never seen Terry smile so much. It made me very happy too. We memorialized the event --here is the picture.

"Anna of the Tropics"

Not a movie- but a play. About a cigar factory in Florida in the 1920s / 1930s. The family that owns it is Cuban. They still make cigars the old-fashioned way - by hand. To ease the tedium, a 'lector' reads novels to the workers. At the start of the play, a new lector is arriving from Cuba. He reads Anna Karenina to them. The lives of the workers and the lector mirror the story in the book, so that they all become incredibly caught up in - and repeating - the plot. We were caught up in the play too, especially as we sat in the front row! Excellent characters, the young girl was especially good actor, and a surprise ending all contributed to a wonderful theater experience.

"The Motorcycle Diaries" - movie review

We have been busy, busy, busy since Chris arrived. She hardly had a chance to get over jet lag before we were going out, exercising, walking the dog pre-dawn, and going to see this movie. The Motorcycle Diaries is about a cross-continent (South America) trip traveled by Che Guevera, then a medical student in Buenos Aires, and a friend of his, a biochemist, in 1952. They began on the friend's Norton motorycycle, which like every other Norton spit oil and was constantly in need of repair. After the death of the bike, they walked, hitched rides, traveled on trains and buses. The plights of the poor that they encountered as well as their volunteer work at a leper colony in Peru had a profound effect on Che Guevera. The movie depicts his awakening and realization that his life will take a different turn than he had previously planned.

The scenery was especially interesting for Terry and myself as much of their travels went through areas we visited in Argentina and Chile. It is a subtitled movie. The acting is great. We all enjoyed the movie. 4.5 / 5

Good Political Bumpersticker

"Privatize Bush"

Chris is HERE!

After a typical carol-like series of plane changes and delays, Chris showed up around dinner time on Thursday. Amazingly, she was able to get up at 6.00 am the next morning to accompany Jarah and me on our walk. Even more amazing, we went out for lunch, a bit of shopping, and cruise Pike Place Market, and she was AWAKE and ALERT. Good-oh. Hehhehe, because this morning at 8 am, there was only zzzzzzzz coming from the lump under the doona.

Yesterday, Chris bought a game for her family that we have been playing with. It's the most maddingly frustrating difficult game I've seen. So, I'm going to go back and get one too.

What happened to your shoe?

The other night, Terry came in the house and asked me in a tone that was cautious, "why do you have only 3 shoes outside?" We have a long covered area over the front door and so I had been taking off my muddy, sandy shoes there and leaving them outside. At times, there are more shoes there than in the closet. Nonetheless, that day there indeed were 3 shoes sitting there, one was a bit lonely for its mate.

The other shoe just happened to be downstairs by the back door, but inside. See, I came home from somewhere, let Jarah out to greet me and in her exuberance, she picked up my heavy hiking boot and proudly carried it around. She wanted to take it in the yard, but visions of the shoe being buried in the garden for a later date was enough for me to pry it from her mouth.

The lonely shoe outside came inside the next day in much the same way, but this time got dropped in the living room, spattering dried mud on the floor. Gee, thanks Jarah. She and the vacuum cleaner are not friends, so it will be up to me to once again clean up her mess.

Books I've been reading

"The life and times of Michael K"The story in this novel takes a back seat to the thoughts, feelings, and philosophical evolution of Michael K as he makes a journey to his mother's birthplace. Along the way, he is placed in a refugee camp, but escapes and hides out on an abandoned farm. Finally, he is discovered and imprisoned back in Cape Town, where he started from. It is not the kind of book I really like - I prefer more of a plot and let the discoveries and insights come from myself. If you like books that delve deeply into the psyche of the protagonist, then you will probably like this one.

"The Great Unraveling" Everyone should read this. Economics and its relationship to politics, with the economics explained so that even I could understand it. Krugman's criticisms of the present administration have a great amount of substance.

"the curious incident of the dog ..." I pick up almost any book with the word "dog' in the title, but I don't read them all! The cover blurb caught my attention and so the book took its place on my nightstand. I'm a little over half-way through it, and it is good. The story is told from the point of view of an autistic boy. He is quite intelligent and very analytical. Moreover, he used the analytical part as a coping mechanism. The author worked with autistic children before, so I assume that the lead character depicts what autism is like and how difficult it is for these children to conform to societal norms and even to partake. The boy decides to investigate the death of a neighbor's dog, despite his dad's admonition to leave it alone. The boy discovers that his mom is not dead, as his dad told him, but left the family to live with another man. Because he now fears his dad (who also confessed to killing the dog), he starts a journey on his own to get to him mother. To do this, he has to overcome all his issues - such as not being able to stand being touched, the panic that ensue from an overload of information and so on. The author gets us to empathize with the boy, but we don't pity him.