Looking back ten years to May 2012 05-23-22

Late May 2012 I started a long trip to Kalispell, Montana, to take a workshop with Ruth McDowell.   I had driven up there sever years previously for the same purpose, but this time I picked up a friend from the east at the Las Vegas airport and we stopped many places along the way to the quilt shop in Kalispell.  It was a great trip through wide open country almost the entire way.  

First day on the road - I-15 north of Barstow where the north and south bound lanes are wide apart.  The desert sometimes seems unending. The smogless blue sky stretches from horizon to horizon.

Further north the highway winds through Virgin River Canyon.  Glimpses of the river deep in the shadows of these great grey walls. 

We stopped at Zion Nat'l Park, but it was blazing hot and we stayed in the air conditioned car.

 

Miles and miles of open country - meadows, mountains, piles of clouds. 

We spent some time driving around Butte, Montana, with old mining shafts and many explanatory signs about the gold and silver mining in the past. 

To be continued.............

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Quiet weekend = Memories 04-25-21

This is the week that in years past I have frequently spent at Empty Spools Seminars in Pacific Grove, CA, at the Asilomar Conference Center.  Due to the pandemic the seminars were canceled last year and again this year.  I have already sent in my registration for April 2022.  Fingers crossed.  After attending every year since 1991 I really miss this annual trek to one of my favorite places.  Most of those years I took at least one week class with Ruth B. McDowell, trying to learn not only her techniques but her method of choosing fabrics.  I think it is intuitive, not something anyone can teach and I certainly didn't learn.  However, I always learned a lot and I suppose I have developed my own "eye" for fabric selection.  But I still struggle. 

 

This is Ruth in April 2011 using her own quilt "Gilia"  (22.5" W X 38.5" L  All machine pieced except for those bright blue dots in the centers of the flowers) to talk about  technique.  The quilt came home with me that year and is part of the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection.  I especially like the lacy black and white prints she has used in the background - like the dried grass and weeds in the natural meadow where this flower would be found.   Ruth has retired from teaching, but still makes quilts using the extensive fabric library she has collected over the years.  

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Friday Food 07-31-20

As a child I read everything I could get my hands on and it seems that many of those childhood stories took place in England.   The only one I can recall the title of is "Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett.   But in all those books the children sat by the nursery fire and ate crumpets.  Crumpets were not part of my world, but I created an image of a muffin like cake with butter and jam.  I guess I never thought to ask anyone or look it up in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  When I was 17 my best friend Arlene and I took what we called our "maiden voyage", surely the beginning of lives traveling the world.  We took our first airplane flight from Portland, OR, to Vancouver, BC, and then the ferry to Victoria.  We dressed in nice suits, heels, hats and gloves, as was the fashion in the 1950s.  The high point was tea at the Empress Hotel, an experience that we had anticipated for months.  We ordered, of course, tea and crumpets.  When the oh-so-proper waitress delivered our order I was aghast.  I said, "Excuse me, we ordered crumpets with our tea."  She looked at my plate and said "Those ARE crumpets, my dear."  There on the plate were two fat pancakes, they looked nothing like the muffins of my imagination.  Arlene didn't have any preconceptions and dug right in.  After I got over my disappointment I did to and found they were okay, just not what I had dreamed of. 

Since then I have eaten crumpets in Canada, England, Wales, and the USA.  And I do like them.  Trader Joe's sells them sometimes and I indulge.  just recently I have finished the six in the package.  The final two with avocado mashed on top.  Instead of avocado toast it was avocado crumpets.  Delicious. 

Just a fat pancake with butter. 

Avocado crumpet.

Not found in an English novel! 

Remembering Corky 06-06-20

It is an anniversary of sorts.  On this day in 1997 I started being nanny to Corky Loos, the nicest little poodle I have ever met.   His parents live in Long Beach and had busy lives, so they needed someone who could keep Corky when they had to be gone and to teach him some ways of the doggy world.  This association lasted until November 2013 when Corky went over the Rainbow Bridge.  He is still missed in my life and probably the lives of everyone who knew him.  He was a prince among poodles .

Jim and Sherry Loos, Corky's parents.

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In the Beginning 09-24-19

I started this blog twelve years ago and below is the first post.  It has been interesting and sometimes a real burden.  For years I just posted every day, then I took a week or so off, which gave me a new view of blogging.  Since then I usually write every day, but skip days now and then.  I'm always surprised that people still read my words and always grateful.  I have been a widow since March 2, 1990, and have lived alone all those years.  Life changes and we change.  I am not unhappy, but I do get lonely at times and writing the blog is like writing letters to someone far away.  So, I will keep doing it as long as I can, not necessarily when I have something to say, but on a somewhat regular basis.  Drop me a comment once in a while, just so I know someone is still out there in blogland.   Love, Del & KoKo

Monday, August 20, 2007

A thought about age

"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in inellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways." Edith Wharton

Preparing for a dyeing class with Sue Benner 07-15-19

To be honest, if I had realized how much work was involved just getting ready for the class I might have taken a pass on it!!  All that fabric to scour and then soda ash, all the odds and ends of equipment almost overcame me.  I think I am ready and have almost everything, guess I will have to do some more shopping after I get up to Washinton state.  We had planned to leave today, but since I always leave too many things for the last minute, we just werent' ready.  So, tomorrow morning we will be on our way.  KoKo has never been on a Road Trip, I hope he enjoys it.  Since we are leaving a day late our driving hours will be longer each day.  I think back to when I was 19 or 20 and would drive from Arcadia to Portland to see my mother and it only took 24 hours.  It was at that time not an Interstate Highway most of the way and the distance was exactly 1000 miles from portal to portal.  As the years have passed I have gotten slower and cannot drive as long in a stretch as I once did.  More breaks along the way are necessary also.   Now each long Road Trip I take I think it may be my last.  My late husband and I talked often of driving the perimeter of the lower 48 states, but never could schedule the time.  I'd still like to do it, but don't think I could go alone.  It would take months to do it, it is something over 12,000 miles.  

Placentia, CA to Mt Vernon, WA. is 1,225.6 miles - total driving time is estimated at 19 hours and 48 minutes.  That doesn't count gas stops, pit stops, eating, or sleeping.  And it is all on Interstate 5.   

I'll try to keep you posted along the way. 

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Sweet memories, Corky Loos 11-17-18

Corky Loos   07-29-96  -  11-17-13

April 2008 in his stroller

Nov 2010 with a giant sycamore leaf hat

April 2010 with bunny years for Easter

I was Corky's nanny for about 15 years and I miss him still.  He was much more dignified than KoKo, who loves to play with his toys.  Corky wasn't much interested in toys, but he was willing to do "dress up" which KoKo doesn't tolerate well.   Distinctive personalities for each of them, but both loving and well behaved. 

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Cooler, but still the lingering heat and drought 08-21-18

  I was looking something up in the labels in the sidebar and came across Underwear Dust.  What on earth?  Why would I write something like that?  It was August 29, 2009.  So, here is your giggle for tonight. 

BEWARE OF THAT UNDERWEAR DUST!!!!  One evening a husband, thinking he was being funny, said to his wife.  "Perhaps we should start washing your clothes in 'Slim Fast'.  Maybe it would take a few inches off of your butt!"  His wife was not amused, and decided that she simply couldn't let such a rude comment go unrewarded.

The next morning the husband took a pair of underwear out of his drawer.  "What the heck is this?" he said to himself as a little 'dust' cloud appeared when he shook them out.  

"April," he hollered into the bathroom.  "Why did you put talcum powder in my underwear?" 

She replied, with a snicker, "It's not talcum powder, it's Miracle Grow!"

And what led to this was I posted that I had discovered a picture of a pair of men's underwear in my picture files.  What?  One of my blog readers explained to me that it probably came from an ad that had automatically download to my files.  She also told me how to stop this from happening, lest something even worse than undies appeared.  I don't remember who it was or what the solution was, but bless her for saving me for the last nine years.  And beyond.  

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Remembering 08-09-18

Today was my mother's birthday.  She was born on August 9, 1906, but she only lived to 65 when she died of an aortic aneurysm in February 1972.  I think she had a sad life and I believe she suffered from depression, as I do.  Her father was a tyrant and took her out of school when she was just a sophomore and got her a job as housemaid to Dr. and Mrs. Babbitt in a big house in NE Portland. They paid him for her service.  She never did go back to school, but worked at a number of different jobs.  She met my father when she was working for a huge laundry and one of her fellow employees was Ella Spencer, whose son, Ellery, came to pick her up after work.   His family didn't approve of her, mainly, I think, because she was not educated.  She was "common" besides.  Not that the Spencers were gentry.  So, they made it difficult for her.  Then my father died in 1942 of kidney disease and she was left with two babies and a house that was only about three quarters built.  My father was a millwright and he was building the house after work and on weekends.  As many people did then, they lived in the basement while he continued building the two stories above.  

She had to work and it was difficult finding child care for her two little girls.  We lived various places for short periods of time and for about six months in a Catholic boarding school for children whose parents couldn't take care of them.  That was an adventure as we were not Catholic.  I don't know how we happened to be accepted.   However, we kept getting sick and the school couldn't keep us.  About this time our grandparents house burned down and the decision was made to move to Los Angeles where their daughter, her husband, and their baby girl lived.  Vernice was the only daughter and Gordan, the other son, was off to war in the Pacific.  They convinced our mother to let us live with our grandparents in LA and we drove down the coast in an old jalopy with grandmother, aunt, baby, and the two "orphans".  Grandpa traveled down on the train with Buddy the dog in a crate.  

When World War II was over in Europe in April 1945 mother married one of her co-workers at the Railway Express Agency, where she was a package handler.  Soon she and her new husband came down on the train to retrieve her two girls.  It was not a happy marriage, he was a drunk, and a mean one at that.  We regarded him as our mother's husband, but not as our father.  Very sad all around.  

My sister married and had four sons and a daughter who lived nearby, so mother was able to enjoy her grandchildren.  I moved to SCalifornia as soon as I turned eighteen and could legally do so and eventually lived with my grandmother again for a couple years before going out on my own again.  I visited Portland every year or so.  I could drive the 24 hour, 1000 mile trip easily when I was in my twenties.  And mother came down on the train a couple times to visit.  But the years passed quickly and she died in February 1972.  I was divorced and had yet to meet my 2nd husband, who I think she would have enjoyed.  

Hers was a sad life and she was so talented.  For many years she made costumes for the Portland Rose Festival parade.  And repaired and dressed dolls for the "Toy and Joy Makers" which was operated by the fire department.  That was an era when toys were not discarded, but repaired, repainted, and redressed for some other child to enjoy.  She was the personification of the saying, "make a silk purse from a sow's ear".  And I do believe she could have.   

Colleen Dingley with brother Arnold  c.1912

Colleen Dingley  c1926

This is a studio portrait taken at her work, a photo studio where she did the hand tinting of photographs since this was before color film was used.   She tinted this one.  

Colleen Dingley Spencer  c1941

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Remembering Things 06-16-18

When driving alone, cross country or just up the length of California, there is a lot of time to think.  And that is one thing I love about driving alone - lots of time to think.  When Liz and I were driving home from San Luis Obispo we talked about the jumble of memory; why do we remember some things forever and yet can't remember what we ate yesterday?   We don't have an answer.  I think that sometimes it is because there is a picture of that event or location that keeps reminding us of a certain person or event.  Here is one of my mother with a group of children in about 1942:

I was four or younger in my California sun dress (front 2nd from right) and my sister, about six in her matching dress stands in front of our mother.  I'm not sure who the other children are, possibly out Palmer cousins from Idaho, they appear to be the right ages.  But my point is that when I think of my mother this image frequently comes to mind.  I can't possibly remember the event, but I have seen this picture over the years and because of that it seems like a memory.  

I just read Anna Quindlen's book "Alternate Side" (which I highly recommend) and marked a sentence that struck me right between the eyes!  "Nora could remember it all so well, better than she remembered what she'd done yesterday, how smooth and warm his skin had felt against hers.  She'd realized that that was how life was, that certain small moments were like billboards forever alongside the highway of your memory."  

But what puts those billboards there?  How can I remember the name of someone I knew in grade school seventy plus years ago and have had no contact with since?  But I sometimes can't remember the name of a dear friend that I see frequently and talk to online and on the phone.   Some of my "billboards" seem to be blank most of the time.  My little California grandmother said her memory was like a bucket, when it was full everything new that went into it fell out and all the old, old memories were still there, way at the bottom, but there.  

Just musing.  
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Looking back 06-10-17

I am one of those people who likes to look back to see what was happening on any given day in the past.  I don't record something every single day, but the advent of computers and digital cameras has given me a photo record on Picasa that stretches back to a few pictures from 2005 and some very old shots that have been scanned in at different times.  I have boxes of photos and slides going back from before I was born, but not the energy or inclination to go through them and scan them into the digital files.    Maybe some day in the future I will find time and interest. 

This is a week with several special memories.  Fifty-five years ago on June 9, 1962, I married my first husband with all the wonderful future stretching out before us.  We were divorced in 1971.  Such mixed memories of those nine years.  In 1991 I took my first class from Ruth McDowell (whose birthday is June 8th), one of many over the years.  A great teacher, a lovely friend, and a large part of the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection.   On June 6, 1997 I started being "nanny" to Corky, the Poodle Prince.  He had a great influence on my life and took me on many adventures I wouldn't have had without him.  He wasn't quite a year old and rather a handful at first.  He died in November 2013, leaving me bereft of a lover in my life.   A job taken in August 2016 by KoKo. 

Here I am with my sister, Ellamarie, taken in Portland, OR, sometime in 1941, I think.  Do I look like I am three-something and Ellamarie is six-something?   I had bangs and pigtails because my hair is as straight as hair can be.  Ellamarie has flowing locks because she inherited the natural curly hair gene. 

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Pictures from the past 09-04-14

I do love Road Trips and digital cameras have made them even more enjoyable.  Being able to edit the pictures and put them in albums to view on my computer screen is a continuing thrill.  Sometimes I pick an album of a trip and just live it all over again.  And sometimes I am looking for a picture and come across pictures that make me smile when I remember.  Here are a few....

 

One hot August Corky's parents wanted to go fishing and selected a fishing "camp" (read motel) in the area of Weaverville.  I went along in my own car with plans to drive on to Washington State for a visit with Mabel and other friends.  Of course I took sewing!  After all, I wasn't going to fish, I was just going to hang out with Corky while his parents fished.  I took a couple boxes of fabric and spent some time matching up selections to the focus fabric in the lower left.  This quilt had a deadline and I missed it and still haven't finished it.  Corky's parents never even saw a fish, but he and I had a good time just loafing around and walking on the grounds. 

This is a very large Russian olive tree.  Imported from Europe during the mid 1800s the trees have become a scourge in some places, but they are so beautiful against the blue sky or along the edge of a dark green forest.  This one was in Fort Collins, Colorado.

 

I miss lilacs - they were abundant in Portland, Oregon, where I spent most of my childhood.  When I see them along the way I have to stop and steal a sprig to brighten my life for a few days.  This is the way I usually have them - in a bottle in the cup holder of my car.  The fragrance lingers but briefly, but I breath in as much as I can before I have to return them to the earth.   This sprig came from a backyard in Butte, Montana.  It was hanging over the fence into an alley - it only took a minute to jump out with my clippers and be back in the car.  The lady had a whole tree full of blooms left. 

 

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A prairie story 08-04-14

In fourth grade kids learn about their home state, so I learned about Oregon.  And my imagination was taken with the Oregon Trail that led so many people to the new territory and, eventually, state.  I read lots of books about pioneers, both fiction and non-fiction.  Some fascinating memoirs from those who had been children on the Trail.  It was all so adventurous and exciting - imagine walking all the way across the country and seeing wild animals roaming, Indians in their natural culture, and, finally, the mountains after months of flat rolling land.  I've often wondered if these memories gave me the wanderlust to travel. 

 

At the end of the 1960's my husband and I took a two month tour of the country, driving north to Oregon and then east to see some of the sights along the route of the pioneers.  In my reading I knew that Chimney Rock was an important landmark; this spire of rock towering above the trail gave the travelers encouragement in a land with few outstanding features.  The day we were to travel the stretch of US26 from Wyoming into Nebraska I was prepared with maps, camera, binoculars and high anticipation.  There are lots of large bluffs along the way so the road follows the North Platte River which provided a pathway for the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Cutoff Trail and even the Pony Express route.  Not far beyond Scottsbluff, Nebraska, with the bluffs on either side is Chimney Rock.  I waited and searched as we drove along the highway.  After we had gone further than it showed on the map I knew we had missed it, or it was gone, worn away by the weather.  My husband turned around and we went back toward Scottsbluff.   I still didn't see any towering spur of rock, one that the pioneers traveled toward for weeks.  We turned around again and suddenly, there it was.  A little stump of rock atop a sloping base, pointing to the sky, only about 300 feet high!  It took me miles to figure out the discrepancy; the pioneers walking or riding in mule-drawn or oxen-drawn wagons traveled fewer than ten miles a day; on the modern highway in our powerful automobile we were doing 65-70 miles per hour.  So, in an hour we traveled as far as they did in a week!  I had a lot more respect for Chimney Rock after that revelation, but I had never driven that way again. 

 

On this Road Trip I detoured off of I-80, up US-26 just to see that stone tower again and visit the new interpretive center built a few years ago.  It was 102F when I returned to my car and the wind was rattling the dry grass and bushes.  I stood there for just a few minutes and imagined what it must have been like for the pioneers to have finally arrived at this way point in their long struggle to reach the Western lands.  But I couldn't imagine it, I'm sure I would have fallen by the wayside long before I reached this point of the journey.  Then I got in my air conditioned car and drove off in 70F comfort.

Chimney Rock in the distance.  

 

Sign directing to interpretive center.

Parked in the lot - to prove I was there!

Very dry - telegraph weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) against the sky.  A plant that may not have been there in pioneer days, but is everywhere in the country now.  It does "telegraph" seeds as it dries.

Chimney Rock (approx. 300" tall)

Chimney Rock Interpretive Center with the Rock in the background.

The rattlesnakes were surely there back in the day. 

Lots of sagebrush and wild grasses.

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Remembering 05-31-10

Three years ago in 2007 I was in Indiana with Ruth Powers on May 31st, en route home from the SAQA Conference and Quilt National in Athens, Ohio. I had driven to Kansas where I stayed with Ruth and we went on together to Athens.

Driving back to Kansas we saw a lot of Midwest farm country and the weather was mostly clear and not too hot. My post on this date in 2007 was:

Ruth Powers at Ritter's Frozen Custard, Indianapolis, IN. We stopped at a Ritter's in 2004 on our way home from Spring Market in Pittsburgh and have been drooling over the memory ever since. So, we looked up a Ritter's close to our route and stopped again. Last time the flavor of the day was Red Raspberry, which we think was better than the Black Raspberry w/choc. chips we ate this year. But both were delicious. Next time we'll call in advance and tell them what day they need to serve Red Raspberry 'cuz we'll be coming through!

I caught Ruth laughing, something we did a lot of, and sputtering ice cream.

And she caught me hanging onto my ice cream as if someone was threatening to take it away.

We loved this sign in the window at Ritter's, but it made us yearn for the company of our two white doggies - Grif, Ruth's Komondor, and Corky, the Poodle Prince. They also love ice cream!

It was a great trip and we had another planned for 2009, but then I developed some health problems and couldn't go - so we didn't see what Ritter's had on offer. The 2011 SAQA conference is scheduled for Colorado, so we may never make the trip to Athens, Ohio, again. We need to take another trip together, we traveled well together.

Hoku, the hummingbird, may take flight tomorrow. He/she was 21 days old today. http://www.ustream.tv/hummingbirdnestcam

Where was I then? 11-07-09

I started blogging while on a Road Trip to Kansas, but not on Blogger. At that time AOL had a blogging service, which they have since discontinued. Then I did some blogs for individual Road Trips and finally started this blog August 18, 2007. I've been downloading digital pictures since 2001. So I now have enormous files of both blogs and pictures. They aren't good for much - sort of like old newspapers, but I can't use them to start a campfire or line the canary's cage or even to train a puppy. Makes me wonder where all this information will eventually end up.

Today I looked back at 11-07-04 to see what I might have been doing and I came up with these pictures. Five whole years and I have yet to make the seagull quilt these were intended for. Always more ideas than time, right?

These gulls were bathing in the Oceanside Civic Center pool. There are always at least a few there and sometimes squads of them. It is a very lovely place to sit and watch the birds, or the people. I was in Oceanside because Visions 2004 was about to open - it was a great exhibit and I'm sure 2010 will also be excellent.