I'm On Mrs. G's Open House Tour!

Mrs. G. of Derfwad Manor had a great idea. Let's everyone

post photos and write about the heart of our homes.

So, come on in . . . or as the little sign in my

mom's kitchen said,

"Come in, sit down, relax, converse.

Our house doesn't always look like this.

Sometimes it's even worse!"

Don't trip over the dust kittens.

The two most expensive window seats in the state of WA.
I had to have 'em.

Aforementioned window seats, the piano,
and the fireplace. Comfy chairs for reading,
plenty of room for people and animals to lay around.
We spend a lot of time here, listening to D. play the
piano. He can play ANYTHING. Dog.

One view of the kitchen. Not quite the
heart of the home. More like the elbow.



I do love my new pot rack.


OMG. The cutest fur family EVER! This is Elica's bed
and the stuffed animals are hers. The real ones are ours.

Summer evening in the Pacific Northwest. Chilly, cloudy.

Flowers trying desperately to conjure up some show.

The good thing about our weather? There's
never a bad time for a nice hot bath.

That's it, folks. A tour from the front door to the back deck. Do come again.

And next time, bring some wine!

Thoughts from a Belgian Bakery

We moved to Bellingham from the east coast five and a half years ago. We wanted the fresh, crisp air, the recreational opportunities, the laid back, liberal atmosphere, and the cultural opportunities we'd have in a college town. And a bakery. Specifically, the Mount Bakery. During our weeks of online research deciding where exactly (more targeted than “as far away from here as possible”) we wanted to move, one of us (can’t remember which) found this little jewel and said to the other, “and there’s a REAL BAKERY! A REAL BAKERY!” and that pretty much sealed the deal.

Have you clicked on the link yet? Do it! Listen to the delightful accordion music and let it transport you to a Parisian sidewalk café. Imagine that you’re lifting a flaky, buttery croissant or pain d’chocolate to your eager mouth. Visualize the crumbs all over your lips and chin. Revel in the orgasmic waves of pleasure that engulf you.

Ahem. Before this becomes a post for an erotica site, I should digress immediately.

I was sitting in the Mount Bakery a couple of weeks ago, awaiting the arrival of my breakfast date. My friend and I meet for breakfast once every month or so. We don’t meet for drinks (she’s a non-drinker) or for lunch or dinner, or for shopping. We don’t visit each other at home. We see our respective spouses at occasional community events. But other than our breakfast dates, we’re not in each other’s lives. And that works for us.

Except for when she forgets and doesn’t show up. Then I have the pleasure of sitting in the café, sipping their delightful organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee and just looking around. All alone—just me, my fellow breakfasters and my observations:

• Deep, not-too-bright red and mustardy-goldy yellow is one of my favorite color combinations. Vivid and cheery, with just the right amount of depth. And perfect for a breakfast café (or a fast food hamburger joint, come to think of it). Hmmm . . . would that work in my home office?
  

• Apparently some people in this world actually sit around and eat chocolate croissants on regular, old, average Wednesdays in April. And they don’t look the least bit guilty or worried about it. Imagine that.





• Is there a more beautiful word than creperie? But then, there are patisserie and boulangerie. Ooh, and I also love toile. Why, oh why did I have to be born in New York instead of France?? The injustice.

• I can’t decide whether to be a pastry chef or a brewmistress when I grow up.

Either way, I’m guaranteed to be happy. (And fat. But happy fat.) And I wonder. . . what am I waiting for? Like George Burns said, “I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate.”

Isn’t that a delicious way to think?

A Blizzard, A Mountain, and Me

I have returned—completely unscathed—from that exotic, exciting world known as skiing. For the uninitiated, skiing is a popular activity for which you get to dress interestingly. First, you don tight, every-bulge-revealing underwear, plus as many layers of fleece and down that you can pile on your body. Then you shove your feet and calves into heavy, bloodflow-restricting, stiff, uncomfortable, unfashionable boots, grab these things called poles (and I don’t mean the people) and clamp long skinny skis onto the boots. This ensures that you a) cannot manage anything closely resembling a human walk and b) will immediately fall over sideways, relying on the kindness of strangers or young children to right yourself.

Once properly equipped, you stagger and skid your way to the chair lift, a most enjoyable place where you get to humiliate yourself before spectators of all ages. You stand, legs shoulder-width apart, poles in one hand (to ensure that if you lose your balance, you will again fall sideways and require assistance), and wait for the chair to swing around and smack you in the back of your thighs, knocking you off your feet so your bum is planted precariously on the chair while it is still moving. Then, you get to ride up the side of a hugenormous mountain, clinging to the bars of this most dangly open-air bench, out of which you could tumble with the slightest puff of wind—or a decent sneeze.

If you’re me, you have the added enjoyment of riding up the chair lift alone. How did that happen to the girl who was a bit terrified at the prospect of riding up the lift at all? One moment, there we were, D. and I, in line together, side by side, waiting for the proper moment to advance up to take our places. An empty chair went by, and then it was our turn. I dutifully waddled to the correct waiting spot and was immediately thumped in the back of my thighs and whisked up, skis and boots over my head, desperately attempting to hang onto the chair while I settled my feet back down below my knees, suddenly realizing I was doing all of this completely alone. I turned around (without falling off! yay!) to see dear husband gracefully landing on the next chair.

There was no turning back. The lift does not run in reverse. Anxiety tried to set in; I pushed it away. Alrighty, then, you can do this, I thought. I whistled a happy tune, pretended I was comfortable, and looked everywhere but down. Instead, I gazed far off to the horizon—which in the whipping wind and blowing snow was oh, about 25 feet. Squinting through my cool new amber goggles, I focused on gentle white meringue slopes and the green tops of trees poking out of freshly fallen snow. Tops of trees? Dear jebus. . . save me from this day. I don't WANT to be on the tops of trees!

As I approached the end of the lift, I readied myself to disembark. Off I went, upright and on two skis. That went well! I thought, as I glided about ten feet—and fell down. D. was soon beside me, helped me up, and away down the hill we went. It was fun, it was scary, and skiing very slowly, I made it back to the lodge in one piece. And I even went up for a second run. And again I jumped onto the first chair that came along while D. waited for the next. Was he trying to tell me something?

Despite wind and heavy snow, two sore knees and shinsplints from dragging those monstrous boots around for hours, it was a successful day. While it’s not like I can’t wait to do it again, I am looking forward to getting better at skiing.

Honestly, I think the fear of being cold was my biggest roadblock. I am your witness: it is amazing how $175 worth of long underwear, wool socks, and fleece will warm a girl’s soul. And how a few hours on a mountain top will make it sing.

Sunday Photos

On this rare sunny and relatively warm January day in the Pacific Northwest, the late afternoon (3-ish) sun looks lovely in and around my house.

Squirrel Nutcracker

Doesn't work worth a shit darn.

Nuts seen here will never be consumed, but D. had to have them.
We have a whole bagful.

Dreaming of Glory, Same Squirrel

One of these days, I am SO out of here!

Windowsill Rocks

Hiding the dust.

Kidney Stone

Har.

Winter Garden

I use the term garden liberally here.

Waiting For Spring

Honey, I know what you mean.

Winter Sky at Sunset

And it's only 3:30!

Short Days, Long Nights

As much as I love summer in the Pacific Northwest, I relish this time of year, when I feel the real beauty in the change of seasons. Not the colors, but rather the quiet.

In the park, hoards of screaming kids have been replaced with a dog or two and their humans.

The brilliant hot pinks, purples and oranges of our daily sunset have turned to a warm golden glow filtered through a hundred hues of gray.

The days seem longer to me—or rather, the evenings do . . . and since that’s my time at home, it makes the whole day seem longer and much more relaxed.

It’s dark so early now. Looking at the clock, I catch myself being surprised at how much evening is left. I would sometimes feel dread in August (“Oh god, it’s time for bed already, which means I have to go to work AGAIN.”), but I smile in November (“Wow, it’s only 7:15? I have almost three hours left in my day! Yay!”).

A slowness, a relaxation, a stillness settles over the house. We’re not running, running, packing as much as we can into our long, perfect summer days before they’re gone. As the long fall and winter stretches before us, we have no choice but to hunker down, settle in, and enjoy.

I really love this time of year.

Falling Into Winter

We live across the street from a beautiful park, full of huge trees and flowering shrubs of all sorts. Since we moved here this past spring, we’ve observed them all in their seasonal glory: light green leaves, white blooms, red berries, orange foliage.

We went away for a few days, and the brownish-orange leaves were still hanging to the grandest of the trees, perfectly framed in the high leaded-glass window over the piano.

A major windstorm hit while we were in New York. All the leaves are gone.

And the sky is grey.

And that’s the way it will stay until the spring.

A lovely, sleepy intensity lives in the tree branches and the prickly bushes lining the park. The playground waits, too, like a big fish at the ocean floor, watching unmoving until something comes along and it wakes it, suddenly alert and at the ready. An occasional dog roams by, sniffing the base of the monkey bars. The playground waits for the hardy children who are allowed out in the cold.

Soon the big tree's branches will lie under snow and we’ll gaze from the window seats, coffee mugs in hand, appreciating the warmth of the fire.

Dogs Who Walk Themselves and Other Hometown Stories

Sitting in one of our favorite pubs last week, I turned my gaze from my table mates when I spotted two dogs strolling down the sidewalk. Apparently alone and walking side by side, their easy rambling way reminded me of two old friends. Two old men, perhaps, heading out for a drink or to meet their lady friends at a dance. Or maybe they were just getting in some much-needed exercise. No humans followed them. I’m still wondering about it.
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Dogs are everywhere, including out on dates with their humans. One of my favorite summer nights out starts with a walk downtown to the best pizza place in town, where dogs are welcome on the deck and they can help themselves to the big water bowls. Afterward, we saunter over to a live-music pub where we try to choose from among the excellent beers on tap and where, again, dogs are welcome to hang with their people. Ours lay among the peanut shells and took a nap while we enjoyed beer, tunes, and friends.
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I pass an elementary and a high school on my four-minute drive home from the gym. Every morning, I observe a simple act that many don’t have a chance to see anymore: kids walking and riding their bikes to school. At both schools, the bike racks and the sidewalks out front are full. I love watching the little backpacked boys and girls hurrying down the street, and I gauge my lateness by how fast they’re going—because we both need to be somewhere by 8:15.
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What else do I love about my town? While it might not have been apparent in a previous post, I do love the political climate—because in our city’s recent mayoral race, we actually had to choose between two liberal progressives. Wow!

Finally, It's Summertime!

The temperature is about seventy degrees, a light wind blows, and there is nary a cloud in the sky. Finally, the perfection that is the Pacific Northwest summer has arrived. Only this year, Mother Nature is a little off in her timing. Instead of looking forward to two months of glorious weather--our "get outside and stay there" weather--the calendar on the wall features a flame-orange maple tree and I know that the rains of autumn are soon arriving. Instead of reading on the porch tonight until 10 p.m., the sun will set at 7:36 p.m. (This according to The Original Farmer's Almanac.)

Our season of cocooning has already begun. We're watching more movies, reading more books, and staying in the house. Our Netflix queue is becoming an important topic of discussion. We're planning Thanksgiving already, for godssake.

But not today. Today, we'll squeeze the sun as hard as we can. We'll pour it over ourselves, and feel it soak into our skin. We'll hold onto it tight, and turn it into a memory.

Because this glorious sunshine week is likely the last we'll have until next summer. And that seems like a very long way off.

Yikes! No Bikes!

Where have I been? Nowhere. Did the bike trip happen? Nope. Why not? Nowhere to stay.

You see, the place that I live is beautiful and everyone wants to be here in the summer. Not so much in the winter, however, unless they want ski/snowboard heaven. So, for a few locals to think that they could find a fairly reasonable cabin or campsite on the San Juan Islands in July was, well, ludicrous. There was no room at the inn, or the campground, or the cheap motel on the island we wished to explore by bike.

And so we tried to reschedule for the next week, but there was the company coming from out of town, the work thing (blast!) and the scheduling conflicts among us and it just didn't happen.

Maybe in September. Sigh. Something to look forward to. More time to be on my bike, "training."

More on the goings on in between later.

I Must Be Insane

I have committed to a forty-miles-each-way bike trip. In ten or so short days, I will be expected to sit my wide ass on a bike and pedal it, steadily, for forty effin' miles. At which point I finally get to rest and take a little ferry ride to a hardly-inhabited island, upon which we (D., other friend D., and I, plus whoever else is silly enough to come along) will relax for a few days. We'll be riding the bikes anywhere we need to go on the island, as well.

Preliminary Shopping list:
Padded butt bike shorts
Several cute and colorful bike-type shirts so I don't look like the amateur I am
Anti-chafe cream
Tissues to catch my tears and blow my nose after I fall down and weep
Personal battery-operated fan w/mount for handlebars
Bug Spray (we have a few gnat-like creatures in the woods)
Many, many blinking lights and reflectors
Super strong pain relief, like Aleve or morphine
Some of those Icy Hot back wrap things that I can wear all day
Alcohol (the drinking kind)

I need more time to prepare for this, but if we put it off too long, it won't happen. Still, there is time to contract any number of minor illnesses that will keep me in bed where I belong.

Or I could ride my bike everywhere I go for the next two weeks, try to lose a teency bit of extra weight, and be (more than I am now) ready for a great ride.

I am, after all, in pursuit of the BEST SUMMER EVER and this trip will definitely be one to remember.

Keep you posted, n'kay?

Summer is Fine in the PNW

Let's say for the sake of argument that there is a better place to be on this mid-July day than the Pacific Northwest.

Possible contender: Paris.

Definitely not: Las Vegas.

I've been in upstate New York (swelter), South Carolina (gag), Virginia (please), Florida (are you nutz?) and Maine (nice. . . but . . .) in the summer. If you are a fan of sweat and bugs, you are golden in any of these really nice states. If, however, you think that humidity is highly overrated and mosquitoes should be eradicated by any means humanly possible, you should absolutely, definitely see for yourself what a summer day in the PNW means.

Picture it: temps in the eighty degree range (on the high end), evenings in the sixties, a perfect balance of cloud cover to clear blue sky, a fine cooling breeze blowing most days, and absolutely no humidity.

There is nothing finer, in my experience, than the simple duo of sublime weather and breathtaking scenery that occurs in my new home town. And, let's face it--we humans are pretty fixated on the weather and the scenery. And for good reason. As an agri-nation, we are so dependent on our farmers. And here, we are super-focused on keeping local and reducing the impact on the planet each time we buy anything--mostly our food. Luckily, we have an insane farmers market and from April to October I can buy whatever is in season a few hours after it has been harvested, picked, or pinched from its base.

I don't know if the farmers here, where I am so lucky to live, are better than most, but I kind of want to believe in my total naivete that they grow the very best raspberries, blueberries, carrots, garlic, onions, potatoes, cherries and even hay available anywhere. Anywhere! They sell the produce to the grateful people who flock to the farmers market each Wednesday and Saturday, and the hay goes into what appear to be actual happy cows. And they, in turn help make some of the most sublime artisan gouda and mantasio cheeses I've ever tasted.

Summer in the Pacific Northwest. I cannot believe I've lived so long without it.

Best Summer Ever!

We have a goal: to have the BEST SUMMER EVER! To that end, we have attended 1 (one) brewfest (see previous post), traveled out of town for 1 (one) weekend (YAY! Portland!), played in 1 (one) extreme croquet tournament (I did not qualify for the next one), had 1 (one) back-yard party, patronized the farmers market a bunch (rode our bikes down once--yeah!), hiked 1 (one) mountain (pathetic, really), visited the lake to let our dog swim a bunch, took 2 (two) days off work, drank 3 (three) bottles of French rose (that's roz-ay) on the front porch one fine evening, and enjoyed 1 (one) spontaneous outdoor beer-drinking afternoon with some friends.

I realize that the whole numeral (word) thing above is quite annoying, but once I started, it would have been inconsistent to stop.

So far, we are enjoying our summer--very much, indeed. It's been relaxing, and we haven't done much that we didn't want to do, which is always nice. Installed some new light fixtures in our new/old house. Got rid of the previous owners' nasty IKEA chandeliers (one each in the dining and living rooms). I love you, IKEA, but let's be honest: your lights look cheap and dated after a time, and even you must agree that they are not appropriate for a 1908 Craftsman--right? Especially in the living room! What were these people thinking? We also put up some (period-approved)new house numbers and planted some flowers. We're not into large-scale landscape revitalization right now. The yard needs a HUGE overhaul--but after spending the late winter and entire spring packing, moving, unpacking, painting, and hosting three sets of visitors, we decided to let the yard look like crap this year and do something about it next year. There's a lot of freedom in that decision, which was a difficult one, as both D. and I love the accomplishment of a beautiful landscaping job. But the trade-off would be that we would not have the BEST SUMMER EVER, so there you go.

I drove by our old house the other day; the front bed is in full, gorgeous bloom. Three years' of growth have matured the plantings into a mass of blue, purple, and pink. Shades of grey and silver, yellow and green add depth. The lavender is huge, the variety of grasses are lovely; the coneflower and scabiosa were blowing in the breeze, and our weeping Black Swan Beech tree, Abagail, was looking healthy and stately. So much work went into that bed; now, we have to do it all over again. Sigh.

Today is my dad's 80th birthday party in New York. Sadly, I am not there. I so wanted to be; but the airline ticket prices are ridiculous right now, and I'm not up for a cross-country trip (a/k/a hell on earth) of cancelled flights, uncomfortable seats, screaming crying crotch fruit, and rude, pathetic security personnel. I'll wait until fall to see my dad. And I'll miss the laughs, memory-sharing, and closeness of hanging with my parents, six or so siblings and assorted nieces and nephews. And my brother's home brew. Damn, they're going to have fun. Here's to you, Dad. You are all a kid could have wanted in a dad, and more than I could hope for as an adult. Your devotion to mom and overflowing love for us kids and your grandchildren make us all real happy. We have so much to be thankful for; I'm so grateful for you!

Brewfest

It's the beer, stupid. It's one of the jillions of reasons I love living here. I love beer, and I love living in the area that is home to hundreds of microbreweries, all working hard to make the stuff that makes me happy.

Yesterday, I was lucky to partake of about a dozen damn fine brews at the Summer Brewfest where sixty or so of the best brewers around cheerfully dispensed their best.

Among my favorites:

Big Phatty Imperial Red from Water Street Brewing, Port Townsend, WA

Summer Brew from Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Company, Snoqualmie, WA

777 (Trippel 7) from Scuttlebutt Brewing Company, Everett, WA

3 Grid IPA, from Schooner Exact Brewing Co, Seattle, WA

Afterburner IPA from Flyers Restaurant and Brewery, Oak Harbor, WA (although I have an inherent distrust of a joint that bills itself first as a "restaurant," and whose url is eatatflyers.com)

and of course

Imperial IPA from Boundary Bay Brewery and Bistro, Bellingham WA. Simply the best and within walking distance from my house! Life doesn't get much better than that.

Seen on t-shirts:
Ithaca is Gorges
The Liver is Evil and Must be Punished
I get shit-faced drunk. How do you handle stress?
Save the Ales

So thank you, men and women of the microbreweries, for working hard at your craft, for caring so damn much about the beer and about your consumers, and for being out there on a summer weekend so we can have a little fun and drink a lot of outstanding beer!

Sliding Into the Lucky Ditch

It's snowing again. In my little town, the trees are covered with white fluff and in the streets are tracks of slush standing proud--at least until the next set of rolling tires rearranges the pattern. It's going to be cold tonight and it snowed today. Not a huge thing, right? One would think there was something tragic occurring. A hurricane, perhaps. Another devastating 85 mph wind storm. More damaging floods. Nope. We're getting a little more snow and it's going to be cold. Yet the news programs are blaring winter storm warnings and promoting their winter storm coverage and touting theirs as THE winter storm station.

Snow. It's white. It's there. It's pretty. I enjoy looking at it and I'm thankful that I don't have to drive more than five miles in it. It's a bitch to be stuck in inch-by-inch traffic for an hour or three, gripping the steering wheel tight with your hole-in-one-finger gloves providing little warmth from the chilling cold, wishing upon wish that you could just get HOME where it's cozy and you're safe, carefully avoiding the stupid crazy drivers who are going way too fast in the next lane while you crawl, crawl, crawl up the highway inch-by-inch knowing you will, somehow, at some point in the dark frozen night make it home, only to land in a ditch twenty feet from your driveway. Talk about feeling helpless. No control whatsoever while your car slides down the hill as if it's a sled except the sled weighs a ton and can hurt or kill anything that pops up in its way. Not that I've done that.

We actually had an employee phone this morning to ask "Are we going to be open today?" Mind you, we had an inch of snow on the ground. Oh, how I long for those days in upstate NY, when the only days the schools closed on account of snow were when the drifts rose twelve feet tall and the winds were forty miles an hour. When the snot froze in your nose before it could run. When, if some escaped your nostrils, it froze to your upper lip, only to thaw and run when you walked into school. If you were especially lucky, you also wore eyeglasses, which would fog up for ten minutes while your snot was thawing and running down into your lip. The only silver in this cloud's lining was that you wouldn't be able to see the stares and pointing fingers heading in your geeky, snotty direction. Did I say I longed for those days? Am I nuts?

No. The snow is pretty and it can go right back where it dropped from. Still, I recognize the comfort of knowing that most of the other drivers on the road know the hell what they're doing in the snow and ice. And I know I won't find that here. But then, I live five minutes from my job, so who am I to even think these thoughts, much less write them down? Well, what else would you have me do with them, huh? Please. I was thinking today how happy I am that we planned our little tiny short commute; how ecologically aware and smart we were to reduce our drive time so dramatically from those old misguided days on the greedy east coast. Then I remembered that we didn't. We bought our house then found our business location months later. It's another ditch I slid into. Am I lucky, or what?

Am I Lucky, or What?

Today was a typical, but overwhelmingly wonderful, day. We set off on a standard, average walk with our dogs. But in this part of the world, standard and average means the most remarkable scenery coupled with solitude and tranquility.

We put our two dogs in the car and headed for one of the many nearby picturesque mountain lakes we have to choose from. Lucky, right? A ten minute drive and we're there. We helped our old guy out of the car, put leashes on both and set off down the trail. The old one walked about fifty yards or so through the woods, smelling the air and the leaves and sticks, peeing on a few rocks and enjoying looking around. He tired out pretty quickly, but kept going strong until we could tell it would be difficult for him to make it back, so we turned him around and guided him back to the car for nap while we took the younger dog for a frolic along the lake. Pretty average so far, wouldn't you agree?

Except that the lake is a huge, glacier-formed beauty surrounded by pine-covered hills, which lead to craggy mountains capped with snow and ice. The only human on the water today was a single, quiet, surface-skimming kayaker. No speedboats, no jet skis, no noise. The trail is situated between the lake and a mountain of sandstone boulders on top of rock on top of more layers of sandstone all covered with a dense forest of Western red cedar, pine, alder and maple. Waves of sword ferns cascade down the mountain, bright green against the darker green cedar. Even more green explodes before us as furry moss climbs the hill, blanketing limbs, blanketing tree trunks, blanketing rocks.

Walking down the trail, we heard water flowing fast down the mountain, and held our breath in anticipation. And just a few steps later, there it was: a picture book waterfall, a "next to the word waterfall in the dictionary" waterfall. Not real wide at the top where it starts falling in white foam, then it hits a pool and rests before it falls another fifty feet or so, where it ends in a bubbly little creek, strewn with rocks, limbs, boulders, that slow down the flow a bit but it won't be stopped because of gravity and force and so much water melting, draining from the glacier source a distant mountain away it comes down, down, down, settles and turns under the wooden bridge and out to the lake.

And I'm standing on the bridge, lost in my thoughts, watching the water flow, listening to the rush, while he is throwing sticks out into the lake for the young energetic dog to swim out, scoop up, and bring back, over and over. And all is lovely in my world today.

But there's more. Another waterfall and then another. Three waterfalls, the lake, the mountains, the trees, the boulders. Someone has stacked three or four groups of rocks on the shore, perfectly, precariously balanced. Our pup runs around them, picking her way carefully without disturbing a single one. We let her run, swim, jump, while we walk for a few miles altogether.

Then the tummies start rumbling and the idea of pizza and beer is too irresistible for words. Off to a favorite spot on the side of the road that leads to the big mountain, twenty or thirty minutes away; this is farther than we usually drive, so it's a rare treat. As I'm riding, I'm looking out the window and I see something large and black flying along the river. I watch the bald eagle fly with us for about a half mile, casing the riverbank for salmon carcasses. He's in for a treat, too. But he looks so much more elegant in his pursuit.

He doesn't know the joy of hand-brewed beer, though, and there is nothing better to top this day off than the IPA we slurped and swallowed. It is worth walking thirty miles for, if necessary. I have been on summer hikes when only the idea of this IPA sustained us. And the pizza? Divine.

Yet I think of millions of people on the planet, living in squalor, living in slums, in cities far too over-crowded, never able to escape their surroundings for a day, an hour. Millions of people who will never see a waterfall like I saw today. Never see the lake, the mountains, the moss that I wanted to etch onto my memory because it is all so unbelievable beautiful. Who will never know the joy of walking along a lake trail on an average, normal day and see the beauty I saw today. And I know I am lucky. So fortunate to have been born in this country, with this skin and the privilege that comes with it. I'm lucky and I don't know what to do with it except to try to appreciate and to protect what comes my way.