The Perfectionist Life

My husband has a cousin that we visited a few months ago. She is charming, sweet, cute, talented, smart and creative. She is in the second year of her widowhood and still missing the man who was her best friend. We thought a visit might help her.

While the few days we spent as her guest overlooking the Pacific Ocean and sharing good conversation, good wine, and total agreement on politics were divine, I realized her husband was a saint as I could never live with her.

Whenever she has company she puts out a 2ft by 2ft sticky mat at the front door for guests to stamp on before entry.  This is used whether you are wearing shoes, socks or are barefoot from the pool across the driveway...!  Her home is spotless and she has had the same housekeeper for years.

She has the loveliest guest bathroom. (Please ignore the lack of balance by my toiletry bag hanging on the towel bar.)

Take note that you DO NOT use the towels hanging on the towel bars and wrapped in sashes.  There is a basket on the floor with towels you are supposed to use!

Her home is filled with nostalgic art and a few priceless antiques.  Everything is in its place.  If you move the candles on the table a few inches to fit your wine glass, at the end of the day they get moved back to the exact same place for excellent balance and symmetry.  Even the books are angled in a special way.  She doesn't scold or hint, she just straightens quietly when it is time to leave the room.

And may I point out she is a very snappy dresser for a widow in her 80's!  It is no surprise that the new priest took her under his wing for a year until he was reassigned back to his other Parish.  You cannot help but love her as she is full of good humor and charm, but, I repeat, I could never live with her.  Her husband, God rest his soul, was a saint.

Bedding.

This weekend my son and DIL are coming down to celebrate my husband's birthday.
Mid-week I am having Florida friends staying for a few days.
Next week I get two of the grands for 6 days.
The following weekend I go to a concert with my son and DIL and her parents.
That same weekend those above spend the Friday night.
Then Saturday hubby and I drive to another state for a few days of lake vacay with daughter and SIL and grands.  (They are canoeing and I am babysitting a little tiny fur ball that they call a dog!)
Then the week after the lake trip I get the youngest grand who is almost 6 for a week.

I will return to blogging after all of this if I do not drown in all the sheets I have to change!

Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen People

Thirteen people I met on the cruise:

I met not one but two young men who were veterans who had come home and were on this cruise.  One with his young, lovely, crazy, running, hiking, skinny wife.  She was a psychotherapist and was counting the day until her retirement planned in less than 10 years and her goal to travel the U.S. in an RV (and I am sure hike every trail and climb every mountain!).  Her husband, in his late 20's or early 30's with a gentle and handsome face and a veteran, wore a hearing aid and we had to be careful that he was able to participate in our conversation.

The second young veteran was newly married but off on the cruise with his dad because his mother had a job crises and could not go!  I quite seriously suggested to the dad that he should have given his space to his son's wife...he ignored that.  The young son also wore a hearing device of some kind.  He had wanted to be involved in music in some way, but the damage he received fighting for his country meant he had to find something new to pursue.  (We ask these men to make such big sacrifices and we do not reward them as we should.)

I met two giggling sisters in their late forties and from the midwest who were thrilled to be able to take the cruise and shared that enthusiasm with everyone.  It was exhausting eating dinner with them even though I was happy for them.

I met a retired doctor on the cruise who was there with his young granddaughter and his wife.  They made a very handsome trio...postcard perfect and I was a little envious at their demeanor.

Off the boat, I met a young woman from Moravia.  She was eager to talk about her arrival in the U.S. where she had her passport stolen in New York within days and found that local police pretty much shrugged and said that kind of thing happened a lot.  She was surprised as she thought that most crime was in her area of the world and not America.

I met an author who was a contestant in the very first Iditarod dog sled race and seemed to be focused on talking about that. He was in his late 60's/early 70's and very handsome and healthy looking.  He was selling a book on that iditarod experience, so that was why he was so focused in sharing.

I met another older man at the same place who claimed he only shot film photos.  He said he would never change to digital, but he was quite old and that made sense to me.

I met a tanned blond with perfect breasts that were nestled in a tube top who recommended a high-end very modern Mexican restaurant in downtown Anchorage as a place for dinner.  She was correct except the contemporary metal chairs and tables were a little off-putting.

Murder in the Suburbs

This cat lives in my daughter's neighborhood.  He has a buddy that is just as lovely as he is with longer fur.  Both are very healthy looking and very friendly.  My granddaughter greets them each morning as they stroll like panthers into her yard.  She play with them briefly before she heads off to school.  They belong to someone down the street and are allowed out a good part of the day to roam free.  They have their chips and ID and know to avoid automobiles and are wary of loud teenagers.

Unfortunately they have a routine in the suburban jungle.  Each day they go out to stalk the feather residents and with many still fledging, the two cats certainly have it easy.   My granddaughter has gotten a new dog and spends more time with him than these two morning visitors.  The dog is a puppy and very small and the cats eye it in a predatory way when she plays with it on the porch.  The cats are jealous so they brought her a present to win her back to their side.

It looks like young robin with the soft gray.  Not sure with my limited ID skills.  But the point is, please keep your cats inside unless you are watching them like a hawk.  This is not the only songbird killed by these two.

Call it Home

"When Tom e-mailed me, asking about the trip, I told him Vancouver is nice, it's a great place to visit, but I'm more at home in a cabin in the woods.  I have a feeling that when we are old, Chip and I will indeed be crazy enough to live in ours full-time.  When that happens, we will walk by Tom's place every time we go to town, maybe even with a grandchild or two in tow, and I'll tell them how the old editor of the Chilkat Valley News is a bit like Thoreau, that he dreamed of a quiet place in the country and he built one.  Then we'll probably stop in and help Tom with the shingles, or maybe even a new water system. There's a Buddhist saying that when your house is done your life is over.  I hope Tom works on Camp Weasel forever."

...a passage from Alaskan journalist and NPR writer, Heather Lende's book "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name" which I purchased in an Alaskan bookstore.

Below are photo-paintings of some of the smaller homes and and more quaint places that I saw during my travel through Alaska, each revealing the strength needed by people, and perhaps, the loneliness of living there.

Signs of the Times?

I still have lots of fodder from that trip I took a month ago and it is too hot for those "little gray cells" (please read with a Belgian accent) to come up with anything more interesting than a photoblog post.  I hope some of these bring a smile to your face.

Best breakfast in town.

When we put Fairbanks into our GPS it deadended here at this community garden shown above in downtown Fairbanks.  Our GPS knows us well.

It is an old joke but still made me smile.

This sign above was posted outside a small hotel in a famous mountain climbing town in Alaska.

Lots of these signs above posted outside communities.

These are all symbols and banners of captains of ships that have sailed into this harbor in Skagway(?).

Another garden in another town.

This was in a fancy restaurant "ladies room" in Vancouver.  They also had tiny phone screen size TVs on the back of the bathroom doors.  You would never miss that goal shot!

This sign is in that town that is so far way even an RNC celebrity could not make it to the convention on the mainland.

This speaks for itself.

Not enough for a Thursday Thirteen...but it is all I've got.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

On my prior post I got some interesting guesses on the towel art.  I think the first was a sting ray, the second a seal or walrus, the third a scottie dog, and the last towel-with-eyes a monkey of some kind.  Well that was fun and since I am in a bad mood with this election and all of its craziness making me a reluctant voter, but a voter still the same, I will add some more fun from the cruise.

Up ahead we cruised by The Made Hatter's Tea Party.  The guy on the left sleeping is the Dormouse.

The guy on the right is the Mad Hatter.

And here comes Alice.  "No room!  No room!" cries the Mad Hatter.

And Alice replies "Of course, there is room!" and gets her ample rump up there and stakes her claim.  The Dormouse remains undisturbed.

Then before she can sip her first cup of tea, Alice sees something just below her and starts shouting "No room!  No Room!"

The one in the water looks pretty big and there is certainly no room for him/her floating below.  The Dormouse opens one eye and the Mad Hatter ignores the ruckus.

He/she gives up and swims away and the rest are enjoying their victory as they bask in the sun.

Life in the slow lane in the inner passage at Alaska.

Nightime Visitors

Hubby and I have been at cross purposes for days.  I do not know whether it is the heat, the stress of grand children visiting, my immaturity, or his failing hearing.  Anyway I need some humor and escape from reality.  Cruises are an escape from reality. The steady motion of the boat, the moving scenery outside large windows, the huge selection of foods you would never prepare at home make for a temporary magic reality.  And then at night you get magic reality with humor.

Can you guess the animals? Those plastic stick-on eyes do help.

Let Us All Just Cook/Cool Off!

Today reached record levels where I live.  The deck was so hot I barely got outside.  My grandson went fishing with Hubby and while he was miserable he did catch a bunch of fish (all of which were below the 18 inch size and had to be returned).  I have pictures of Alaska which may be worth a bunch of money in a a decade or so because Alaska also had temperatures in the high eighties and even nineties Fahrenheit!  Record braking breaking. Below are some pictures (no, they are NOT National Geographic) taken in Glacier Bay with some actual retreating glaciers.   Get some iced tea, turn on the fan and put on your tiniest outfit and cool off!  Click on the pictures for more air in your face.

Holland America Staff serving some bean soup to the passengers.

A bald eagle with cold feet.

The beginning of the calving of some ice as the first hits the water.

A Little About Those Cities

Since some of you asked  (well you actually DID), we spent a few days in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada before boarding our ship for the inland passage cruise and few days in Anchorage, Alaska, USA after leaving our ship.  Vancouver is expensive if you want to eat at any nice restaurants or stay downtown, and since I come from the rural woods, we went with expensive.  The city is nestled against the back of of high mountains.  It is a temperate rain forest climate and rained most of the time we were there, unfortunately.  Weather was a tiny bit chilly as well.  Note the traffic sign below shows a bicycle path! (You have to click on the photo, perhaps.)

We got a "great" (see below) view from our expensive hotel...not expensive enough I guess for a real city view.

But we were only walking distance (in the rain) from our hotel to many restaurants...most with higher price tags.  There also were several reasonably priced places.  Thai food (hubby's favorite) is EVERYWHERE.

Anchorage, smaller in population, sophistication and expenses is a very simple square city to drive around.  Although there are just enough streets that dead end or are one way that make you be sure you have a map.

Just in case you forget that at least 8 months of the year it is hard to do anything outside in Alaska the sign above reminds you.

 Clearly Anchorage survives on tourism with at least two if not three cruise ships coming in each week and an endless supply of planes.

Gwennie's is a popular place for breakfast and has been just outside of town for decades.  Certainly a colorful place that lets you know you are in Alaska.  HUGE breakfasts, so be prepared.

And everyone has a story and something to sell.  The man on the far left is a film photographer and I paid $20 for a handful of nice photos as he was such a delightful "codger" it was money well spent.  We bought the other gentleman's book about dog sledding.  He was involved and raced in the very first Iditarod.  I have not had time to read his book!

And just outside the city and down by the river we discovered that the salmon were running!