Author: susank456

I love to be outdoors, hiking, pheasant hunting, playing with my dogs. And I love to take pictures of the things I see and write about my experiences. I don't take life too seriously, I poke fun at myself and just about everybody else. I've gotten selfish as I've gotten older.

All I Want for Christmas

I already know what I want for Christmas. Normally I have a gazillion wants on my wish list and as soon as someone asks me I draw a complete blank. Everything is gone and I’m left sitting there with a blank face. But not this year, I know exactly what I want. Now that I’m living in Seattle but work for the same company I have for eleven years that is in Kansas City, I’m doing a fair amount of travel back there to check in, do some training and let everyone know I’m still alive and kicking.

One of my most favorite things to do is to “people watch”. It is so entertaining, sitting in the airport waiting for my flight and watching all of the different people walk and run by. As I was sitting in the airport on my return trip to Seattle I had wait for the plane to arrive that would unload its passengers, load us up then turn around and fly back to Seattle. I got to the airport early and had plenty of time to sit and watch my fellow passengers’ position themselves around gate area looking for the best vantage point.

There was the “super important” business traveler that walked up to the front of the First Class boarding line and looked around for everyone in the gate to acknowledge his presence and awesomeness, then went back to reading his cell phone. Behind him strolled up the woman business traveler who had ignored the sign right in front of her that allowed two carry-on pieces, a personal bag and one other bag. No, she had her purse, tote and rollerboard bag, three bags, no wonder there never is enough room in the overhead bins. Then there was the couple that walked into the gate area, the man carrying a portable oxygen canister and his wife. The man sat down six seats away from me and since there were no more seats around his wife decided it was best to just plop down on the floor in front of the arrival doorway and spread all of their bags around her in a semi-circle. This was going to be entertaining when the arriving passengers tripped over her and her bags.

About thirty minutes before departure the inbound flight rolled up to the jet bridge. It was only a few minutes later that people started coming through the gate from the jetway. The first man off looked like he had rolled out of bed after oversleeping, jumped in the car and flew to Kansas City in his pajamas. Seriously, he had on red plaid pajama bottoms on. The next three people that came walking by had dazed looks like they had just experienced the worst ride ever and were just glad to be alive. Then there she was. All I could think of, was does your mother know how you are dressed? Did you not look in the mirror before walking out the door and going in public? The woman came walking into the gate area wearing the strangest hat I’ve ever seen. The hat was a knitted hat, at least five or six inches tall, round and stiff sitting high on her head, it didn’t droop over like a stocking cap, made of brightly colored yarn and there was a long blond braid of hair sticking out on each side of the hat. And no it wasn’t her hair, her hair was dark brown.

I sat there and worked overtime not to laugh out loud, which would have been rude, but still it was so entertaining. I wish I had a camera with me, but that would have been too obvious and again rude, so the best option brings me to my Christmas wish. I want a GoPro camera.

Wouldn’t that be a hoot? I could strap it on my chest, camouflage it with a scarf or something and just sit and wait. I know, I have way too much time on my hands.

Anniversary

Today is my anniversary. It’s definitely a cause for celebration but at the same time I wish I didn’t have this anniversary to celebrate. Two years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I made the decision to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I’m still taking a drug to keep any estrogen out of my body, but other than that and my six month checkups I am living my life as I did before cancer.

I want to shout it out loud, “I beat you Cancer! I beat you!” I want to spin around in circles with my arms wide and head tipped back in pure joy. Of course with my grace and balance I would fall down. But that’s not the point.

Today I want to eat cake and drink champagne for breakfast. I want to go shopping for something fun and frivolous. I want to get a manicure, pedicure and a massage. I want to sit on a beach and drink great wine and just watch the tide. Today I want to just have nothing on my schedule but fun.

Okay back to reality, today will be just like all of my other days, go to work, walk the dogs and hug Mitch (my rock). And most of all this is really perfect too, because I’m still here to do these things. I wake up every morning damn glad I’m alive and hope to stay that way for a long time.

Happy Anniversary to me.

Waxing Poetic

I woke up to fog this morning and felt a little poetic.

Fog

The fog creeps in coming across the water
To spread along the beach
Blanketing the rocky shores
Cloaking them in the mist.

The foghorn sounds to warn of danger
In coming too close
The denseness of the fog
Dampening the sounds of the foghorn.

Seagulls flying unseen in the mists
Their calls muffled as they search for food
Drifting on the slight breezes
Diving to the water’s surface.

The water lapping at the shore
The tide flowing in and out
Gently to not disturb
The fog creeping in.

Fall Photos

After a 10 trip to Kansas City on business, I came home sick for the next 10 days. I’m not sure if it was a cold, the flu or the plague but it sucked, that much I do know. We haven’t looked for doctors or dentists out here yet so I suffered through the misery pumped full of Nyquil and Tylenol PM. It didn’t help a lot but I didn’t care as much. This morning I felt almost human again and thought it would be great to get some pictures of the fall colors here. We live across the street from Lake Washington and a beautiful park, Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park. The only snag is that they don’t allow dogs, can you believe that, a park with a no dogs sign? So we were limited to walking along side the park on the railroad tracks so I could get some shots. Lucky us no train came through. It was another sunny gorgeous day not a cloud in the sky.

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Photo Shot Sunday

With the long weekend we had an opportunity to do a little exploring. We drove down to Saltwater State Park at Puget Sound and then on to Dash Point State Park, also on Puget Sound. This was the dogs first experience with saltwater.

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The dogs checking it out

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The coast line along the Sound

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I found moss and ferns growing on the side of a tree, weird!

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The dogs were really happy to find a fresh water stream

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Mitch was going to get wet whether he wanted to or not!

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Lush ferns on the trail at Saltwater State Park

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A shot of the horizon to the north

OSHA Would be Appalled

My workplace environment is an accident waiting to happen. There are trip hazards, objects blocking all of the exits and concentration distractions. My daily commute is short, I walk from the kitchen in our apartment to my “office”, a desk holding my computer in front of the bay window in the living room. You would think that this would be super safe, no driving in rush hour traffic, no walking on sidewalks or crossing intersections, no climbing flights of stairs to get to your floor, just a very short fifteen foot walk to my desk. Oh, but then you would be very wrong.

First off I am quite capable of self-inflicted injuries all by myself. But now working from home I have more opportunities to do some real damage. Yesterday, I pushed my chair back stood up to turn and walk into the kitchen to refill my coffee cup turned and promptly tripped over Orso who was stretched out sound asleep right behind my chair. Good thing we have carpeting in the living room and my cup was empty. I’m sure somewhere in the OSHA handbook there is a clause about sleeping dogs.

Another hazard that happens here frequently, is the “hot coffee in the lap” danger, just like going through the drive through except I’m not driving.. That happened when Charlie came over and wanted to be petted just as I had lifted my freshly filled coffee cup to take a sip. He whacked my arm with his head to get my attention. He was successful. I guess I need to use my “to go” cup even here.

Working from home reduces the “Cube Farm” distractions, but there are still many other things to distract me. The worst distraction is the “I’m so cute rolling around here on my back, come scratch my belly” distraction. All of a sudden five minutes have gone by and the thing I’ve accomplished is now I have a boatload of dog hair on the carpet that I have to vacuum up. Oh well, stress level has dropped.

I wonder if the insurance company will lower my auto rates since I’m not driving nearly as much. Probably not, since my Alfac claims have gone up.

Apartment Life

There should be a handbook on apartment living handed out to every renter as soon as they are given the keys to the apartment. Because it seems that in this day and age, people need to be told what the proper etiquette is for living in close quarters to other people. They have no concept of what is going on around them that there are other people in very close proximity to them. I have been living in an apartment here for almost a month now coming from living in single family dwellings, (houses) for almost all of my life. I had no one above or below me, no one on either side of me and no one in a building within ten feet of me. Granted I didn’t run around stark naked with the blinds open for the world to see, I had a neighbor that liked to run around outside in the wee hours of the morning naked, watering his plants. I had some sense of privacy, but not here.

I don’t know any of my close apartment neighbors personally, but I know a lot about a few of them. We should feel either very safe or very scared because I think the Abominable Snowman lives above us. I don’t have a clue what he or she looks like but whoever it is they have the heaviest footsteps. I always know what room he is in by the sound of the footsteps. That he hasn’t come through the ceiling is a testament to the construction of the floors. I just hope the snowman likes dogs, as friends, not food.

Then there is the couple in the next building one floor higher that our apartment. They either are hard of hearing or don’t like each other much. On more than one occasion we have had the “pleasure” of listening to their conversations. One night their very animated heated conversation woke me up. Their voices echoed down and in the windows of the bedroom and from the tone I waited for bullets to fly or the sound of plates smashing. I couldn’t tell what they were saying because it was in a different language, which sucks because here I was wide awake in the middle of the night listening in on a huge fight and had no idea what they were saying.

Lastly the woman who lives in the next building on the same floor as us likes to sit out on her patio and have conversations on her cell phone in speaker mode. The two patios are about fifteen feet apart with some bushes to give each some modicum of privacy. I can’t see her, but I know all about her mother and her mother’s relationship with a man. It seems the daughter doesn’t approve.

I just shake my head and wonder what goes through people’s heads at times. Do they not have a clue that they are not alone in the world? Or is it me? Am I the weird one because I am not a long time apartment dweller that these things bother me? Do people get de-sensitized to the close proximity of other people just like everyone seems to be de-sensitized to violence on television? I hope I’m not here long enough to find out.

A New Trail – Tiger Mountain Trail

We finally got to do a little hiking. We drove out to Tiger Mountain Trail in Issaquah. It was beautiful. I took my cameras to take some shots of the area. The trail system where we were had three trails, the Iverson RR Trail, Preston RR Trail and the NW Timber Trail. Because of the amount of people and bicyclists going toward the Preston RR Trail and the NW Timber Trail we decided to take the Iverson RR Trail. There was no one on that trail just us and the dogs so it was quite nice. The trail is a primitive dirt path with tree roots and stones sticking out of the dirt along the uphill climb. We didn’t make it to the top this time because we had to get back in time for Mitch to get ready for work, but what we did see was so beautiful. Below are a few of the pictures I took. There is one I took looking up at the tree tops that I plan on blowing up and framing. But even with the tree top canopy and ferns everywhere, you could still see how dry everything is even on this side of the Cascades.

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Photos taken on my Canon

One Week In

Well it’s been one full week here and adjusting to life in the Pacific Northwest. There have been a lot of adjusting for all of us. The dogs are trying to figure out what is going on, from one home totally chaotic at the end to no home staying a pet spa during the day and sleeping in hotels before getting on the road, to a three day road trip, sleeping in better hotels. Walks consisted of rest stop strolls along a busy highway. Now they have been thrown into apartment living, with people and dogs always close by and walks are done always on the leash, sidewalks and groomed landscaping. So far no place to get off leash and run until totally spent.

I’m going from a home I didn’t like but knew every corner to homeless spending time driving around trying to get everything wrapped up before a long tiresome three day road trip to coming to rest more than eighteen hundred miles away from the city and state where I lived my whole life. Apartment living here means no real privacy because of the climate, there is no air conditioning so everyone has their windows and doors open. I got to listen to a fierce argument between the couple in the next building at eleven o’clock the other night. The downside to hearing the fight was that the couple fought in their native tongue and I didn’t understand a word. How am I supposed to eavesdrop when I don’t understand a thing said?

Poor Mitch, he probably has the hardest adjustment of all of us. He’s been out here displaced since mid-May and has had to find a place to live that would eventually house all of us. He had to find where to shop, where to get gas and how to get back and forth to work and home all by himself. We have one couple living here that have been good friends for a long time, Mitch works with the wife and I worked with the husband, that live here and have been so helpful for him, but it is still a huge adjustment.

Now I come crashing back into his life bringing all of my chaos and lack of organization. He has had almost three months of orderly boring routines and all of a sudden there are messes in every room in our two bedroom apartment. Even though we still have no furniture or most of our personal possessions, which it seems takes longer to travel from Missouri to Washington than a 1995 station wagon with two dogs, I have managed to upend every room. I can make more and bigger messes than the best, I am quite the pro, so you can imagine adjusting to me again is taking its’ toll on Mitch.

The biggest adjustment overall is that now we are retraining the dogs to be better leash walkers. With all of the people and dogs squished into such close quarters we constantly run into other renters and their dogs. Charlie and Orso have not done well in the past with other dogs walking in their path. We always found an escape there and here there isn’t an escape. We have not been consistent with leash training and other dogs in the past and now we’re paying for it. Oh I forgot to mention the bicycles, there are bicycle riders everywhere. It’s very popular here and that’s another problem for the dogs. They lunge and try to charge the riders. Bad, bad, bad. I am trying to redirect their attention to me when we walk by carrying dog treats and feeding them to the dogs as bikes, walkers, runners or dogs are around. Of course after one week I can’t tell if it is working or not. I think that Orso has gained five pounds though.

I have decided that I want to move to a house that is secluded without so many people around. Now I’m looking online for houses that are a ways out, maybe in the booger woods and who knows maybe I will find one before our furniture gets here.

On the Road – Day Two

It felt so wonderful waking up in a soft king size bed with clean sheets. Clean sheets and a super soft pillow, in a nice cool air conditioned room, life doesn’t get much better than this. That was my first thought, my second thought was it’s time to feed the dogs and take them for a walk after I got a big wet nose in my face. Even on the road, nothing changes.

We made it to Gillette, Wyoming without any more incidents. I took the first exit that had hotels listed on the lodging sign options. I found a Holiday Inn and pulled into the parking lot. Wonders of wonders they had a room available and they allowed dogs, double bonus! I didn’t care that the only room available was a king suite, I didn’t care that there was a pet fee and I didn’t care that it was a lot more than I usually paid for a room. I was tired and I wanted to sleep in a clean soft bed. Even better there must have been a state police convention in town, because we counted nine state police cars in the parking lot. The state police cars outnumbered the motorcycles in the parking lot. We never felt safer than we did that night.

After breakfast, we loaded up and hit the road, there were still more than a thousand miles to go. Monday, well west of Sturgis, traffic on the highway was minimal, the occasional semi and pickup truck, but for the most part we were alone on the highway. Thankfully most of day went without incident and we made good time. By midafternoon we were almost through Montana and decided on Coeur d’Alene, Idaho as a stopping point. As we got closer to Idaho, road construction slowed us down to about thirty five miles an hour. We came up to a point where the road narrowed to one lane and as I headed in a pair of motorcycles came shooting up from behind us trying to cut us off and get ahead of us. One motorcycle cut off my friend but couldn’t get past me so he ended up sandwiched in between us with his friend behind the truck.

All the way through South Dakota and all of the motorcycles neither one of the dogs made a peep, but after this jerk came barreling up and almost landed in my back seat, Charlie went crazy growling and barking hitting the back window in an effort to eat him. I thought if I could go the rest of my life and never see another motorcycle I would be just thrilled. Then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that he was even dumber than I originally thought. This jerk stood up and started to perform acrobatics on the bike. He stood on one peg then changed to the other peg, all this on an uneven surface sandwiched between a pickup truck and a station wagon both from Missouri and both driven by two women who were willing to run over him and keep going. What a dumb ass.

We finally lost him and his friend after we got into Idaho, and found a Best Western in Coeur d’Alene that allowed dogs, clean sheets and a soft pillow ahead. Oh, and a bottle of wine too.