Note: Smoke made itself at home in the Silver Valley today.
1. I had a good time listening to the Billy Collins poetry broadcast today. His wife, Suzannah, posts the poems he reads each day when the broadcast is over, but she was under the weather today. As of now, she hasn't posted the poems or the poets from Monday's broadcast. So, when I write in this blog tomorrow, if all goes well for Suzannah, I'll be able to note the names of two poets Billy Collins introduced. I'd like to have a record of them -- and if Suzannah doesn't write the update, I'll go back and listen to the broadcast again.
2. Christy fixed one of my favorite of all family dinners for late this afternoon. Carol, Paul, Everett, Christy, and I made ourselves comfortable in Christy's she shed to enjoy it together. We started by pouring glasses of bourbon lemonade from a pitcher. Christy made the lemonade from scratch and it was a most enjoyable and refreshing cocktail.
Before long, she and Paul brought the main course into the she shed. Christy made two salads, a delicious potato salad and an awesome Mexican street corn salad to complement the tender, flavorful slow cooked bbq chicken drumsticks she prepared. She made quite a few of those drumsticks and it was all I could do to stop myself from eating the entire platter after the others had served themselves. Likewise, if I could eat the way I could when I was younger, I would have eaten additional heaps of both salads.
For dessert, Christy baked a moist and tasty Amaretto pound cake with a spot of Amaretto liqueur to drink with it. Perfect.
There was a time in her life when Christy spent a lot of time out at Rose Lake, way beyond our family's occasional visits, way beyond the annual 4th of July party out there. This past week she and Joyce L., who spent many summers with her family at Rose Lake, went out to the lake to spend time on the Jacobs' deck with Carol Lee. I don't know how long it had been since Christy visited Rose Lake, but much of our conversation tonight centered on Rose Lake/Park Road history -- who lived where, who lives there now, what remodels have happened, what new structures have been built and so on. I realized while Christy was looking back and contrasting the past to the present, that I never kept all that straight when I visited Rose Lake. I knew where the Turnbows' cabin was because that was party central, but it didn't really stick in my mind, then or now, where all these other people lived. I think my silence during much of the conversation last night had two sources: one, I didn't have much to contribute, except an occasional wise crack and, two, I was in awe of how much Christy remembered and knew. She was a living Rose Lake Park Road atlas! Very impressive!
3. After dinner, I spent time reading the animal rescue work that a non-profit in Springfield, OR called Lucky Paws is doing, not only with animals in the Eugene-Springfield area, but as they send volunteers into the McKenzie River Valley searching for animals who have survived (or are surviving) the Holiday Camp Fire. I'm going to help them out a bit. I'll wait until I've actually done it to write about what I have in mind. Likewise, I want to donate some aid to Paul's brother and sister-in-law whose residence at Harbick Country Inn was spared by the fire and who are now volunteering at Harbick's which has become a kind of command center in the Blue River/Rainbow area. At tHarbick's, firefighters and others can eat, and portable stations have been set up so these workers can shower, use toilets, wash their hands, and enjoy other relief from their arduous work.
A limerick by Stu:
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