Saturday Slight

 

I can't decide if this building or the old junior high/new Sandpoint Events Center is the prettiest Sandpoint landmark.  

It's okay for Mick Duffs, which has served as the old post office and, later, the city library, to share a tie with the Events Center.  

Both buildings are historical, breath-taking and comforting, as a result of their respective restorations.

Our family enjoyed Friday Night Dinner at MickDuff's last evening. 

Twas quite a wait, along with dozens of other diners who stood, sat on the grass or on benches outside the restaurant, but, as always, the dinner was worth the wait. 

While we were having our dinner, we received some reports and photos from Annie who was attending the Portland Fire-Indiana Fever game in Portland. 

She had the opportunity to sit where she could watch Willie's friend Alex as he coached the Fire, a brand-new WNBA team. 

She also saw WNBA great Caitlin Clark set or tie records in the winning effort for the Fever.  

The game was a sell-out with nearly 20,000 fans. 

Annie Love

That's Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama explaining a play.  Alex is a friend of Willie's.  Annie Love Photo

🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

From today's New York Times Morning Newsletter:

  

The genius of “Errands” (I watched every episode in one feverish gulp) is how it provides a window into the personalities and preoccupations of its subjects. 

A stranger appears and announces today’s errand. Then we’re privy to their internal monologues as they carry out the mission, the serendipitous run-ins and pit stops they make along the way. 

The episodes are just a couple of minutes long and waste no time on introductions or establishing scenes. We’re passengers for typically private expeditions, instantly thrust into someone’s personal life. 

Even when his subjects don’t accomplish the errand, Blau told Alex, the concept still works. “The show is about: I set out to do something, and did I accomplish it? So as mundane as the errand might be, everyone understands that feeling.”

When visiting friends, it’s a treat to see the highlights of their hometown, but I always find it more interesting to run errands with them, to see how they live when I’m not around. 

What do they listen to in the car, what’s their hardware store like, who do they run into in the produce aisle? Other people’s errands are revealing of their actual day-to-day lives, not the performed existence — our best restaurant! — that gets presented for company.

On the other hand, I have a friend who loves errands because they’re “excuses to not be with other people,” a rare break from family duties. 

 She praises the “soft-touch socialization” you get while out and about: the salesperson you chat with before going on your way, the neighbor you catch up with when you run into them at the dump. 

I cherish the connective tissue of errands, when you’re between stops, driving or walking. Bursts of activity followed by respites of solitude, each stop its own tidy episode.

Errands get us out of our own homes and out into the world. It’s tempting to hibernate on weekends, to stay in and recharge. 

But the errand allows us to, as Virginia Wolfe wrote, “become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room.”

These paragraphs from the newsletter spoke to me. I totally enjoy doing one or two errands each day.

I've oft repeated that I could spend most of each day perfectly happy in the solitude of my own piece of heavenly peace here in Selle.  

Nonetheless, I look forward to a run to the post office or, like yesterday, a trip to Co Op Country Store to pick up some grain and salt for the horses.  

Both trips are often short and sweet, but more than enough to satisfy my needs for a quick connection with the outside world. 

If I have a brief interaction or two with humans while on these runs, all the better.

Plus, I come home with a new perspective and a renewed desire to enjoy being home. 

Irish singer/songwriter Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle accident near Dublin this week.  He was just 56 years old.  

It seemed appropriate to feature one of his performances of a beautiful Irish classic this morning.

Happy Saturday.  

Stay safe from the wind storm.  

Bye Bye, July!

 

Like every other month this year, July has sped by quickly. 

Overall, it's been a great month for us.  

For us, lots of company has shown up at the Lovestead this month. 

And, we're now enjoying produce, thanks to parts of the garden that have done well this month.  

It's not often that we're eating tomatoes and cucumbers in July, but it's happened this year, and it has tasted good. 

Whenever this day in July comes, it seems like it's all downhill toward fall once the calendar turns over to August.  Football practice has begun, and the fair and rodeo aren't far off. 

Always a busy month, August offers us relief, knowing that cooler nights and days may come. 

Actually, in looking back over this summer, it seems like we've gotten off lucky by avoiding beastly hot nights.  So, no complaints. 

Yesterday, to pick up my computer, I visited what I prefer to call the "old junior high."  It's now known as the Sandpoint Events Center and it's now home to several business and church entities. 

I walked in the door pictured below and immediately remembered Charlie Stidwell, sternly watching us students as we went up the stairs after the school bell had rung.  

His presence not only reminded us of who was in charge but also kept most of us from wearing undesirable clothing to school.  

Back in those days, the no-no's included rolled up skirts for girls and low-hanging pants for boys.  

When I reached the second floor, I looked to the right, fantasizing that Mr. Chronic's science room door might still there.  

After all, it was in Mr. Chronic's seventh-grade science class where I learned rather uncomfortably that removing nylons from my girdle in the school bathrooms did not work well with physics in the science room.  

When the girdle made its way up from around my lower abdomen and began choking off my stomach once I sat in a science-class desk, I knew that different measures were essential for not wearing the ugly seamed nylons my mother had issued to me for wearing during my junior high school days.  

Hence, the  "pocket girdles" was hatched during my science-class discomfort. 

For more details, one must read the book. 

While posting a photo of the beautifully restored building earlier this morning, I wrote that former school is a house of many stories----including girdle problems for Marianne Brown. 

Aimee Argabrite

She's the middle person.  

Aimee owns 7B Copies on the third floor of the Sandpoint Events Center. Before opening her business, Aimee was a familiar face at Staples. 

There's a room off to the side of her business, which serves as the official headquarters of 7B PC's, a computer repair shop owned by Brandon Johnson. 

From what I've seen this week, it's used mainly as a pickup and drop-off place.  Aimee takes care of the paper work while Brandon repairs the computers. 

I'm extending thanks to Aimee and Brandon for helping me out with my computer. Both were very helpful, and I now seem to be back on track with my computer life. 

 

I found a parking space right in front of the store, and the display cases filled with adorned pastries. 

So, I won the lottery yesterday after deciding to drive down First Avenue in Sandpoint and see if I could find a parking space near Sawyer's Bakery. 

Then came the hard part:  deciding which items would go home on my first time of patronizing the new bakery, owned and managed by my former graphic arts student Becky Sawyer. 

I first picked out two different flavored macarons, and, yes, I selected them for Bill because I knew he loves macaroons.  And, yes, I knew there was a difference between the often confused treats, but Bill and his sweet tooth wouldn't care.  

Macaroons Are Not Macarons

Macarons and macaroons are two completely different cookies. Macaroons have an extra O in the name and are coconut cookies. 

Macarons are delicate sandwich cookies.  Though they are both cookies made with egg whites, they are much different.

I selected the Bigfoot Almond pastry for Debbie who loves all things Bigfoot.  

She is on her way to pick it up as I type. 

I saw Norma for the first time in many years yesterday.  

She walked into Sawyer's Bakery while I was still visiting with Becky, the owner. 

When I first looked at Norma, there was a sense of familiarity, especially with her reassuring smile.  

On second look, the light went on, and I recognized her. 

Norma and her husband Lonnie both graduated from Sandpoint High School with Annie in 1997. 

We enjoyed our brief reunion, and when I asked her what she was doing these days, she told me about recently moving back to Sandpoint and about Busy Bee Jumpers, which has been a very successful business.  

Of course, I told her I'd be happy to pass the word. 

So, check it out! You'll enjoy Norma!

Bill's new chainsaw

He picked it up yesterday from Pac West Parts.  

Besides the fact that it's 15 percent lighter, the saw is battery operated, which means no more pulling a cord to get the machine started. 

Battery-operated implements and machines are making our lives much easier---chain saw, two weed eaters, leaf blower and cordless vacuum cleaners. 

Admittedly those battery chargers take up room, but it's a small trade off in exchange for ease in operation. 

When I'm finished with today's blog post, I'll head downstairs and pull out the cordless vacuum cleaner for today's carpet sweep, and I'm sure Bill will have his new chainsaw off in the woods. 

Happy Friday. 

Thursday This, That; TBT

 

No coyotes. 

Just a full moon. 

A quiet morning. 

In comparison, today has been a non-event compared to yesterday's start to the day. 

The two deer I mentioned yesterday enjoyed more in their morning diet than a couple of leaves from a Virginia creeper next to the barn. 

I discovered after posting my blog that one of them had eaten my pumpkin from the garden on the west side of the barn. 

It was the one most visible and the one that I observed each day to see how much it had grown after popping from its blossom. 

Yesterday's decapitation ended its lifetime growth.  

I wondered if the deer had chewed it or if it had swallowed the baby pumpkin whole,  On my Tuesday morning monitoring, it was about twice the size of a boulder from a marbles game.  

The discovery of the missing pumpkin led to a session of adding netting to the flimsy twine fence that generally takes away temptation from the critters. 

At least, it has been effective until edibles started showing up among the leaves. 

Potato stems have also been snipped off.  

It truly amazes me how deer can differentiate between weeds and actual veggies. 

They hate weeds as badly as humans do, so they leave them intact. 

Anyway, on today's morning reconnaissance mission, I've seen that the 4-legged thieves had not yet tried to penetrate the netting and steal anything today. 

The day is young, though, and my fingers will remain crossed from this day forth that the rest of my little pumpkins can have a chance for a full life cycle, which includes a pie, of course. 

I just hope these daily incidents with the garden enemies don't start looking like the tit for tat of the Iran War which has ended 38 times. 

A link to thoughts well worth the read . . . 

"Before I met a single soul, the landscape had already told me why a person might drive across an entire continent to live here and never explain themselves to anyone again."

https://sandpointreader.com/a-stranger-by-the-lake-notes-from-a-pole-in-north-idaho/

I really like the sentence above.  It can be true of anyone who knows or discovers this place we call home.

Seldom a need for explanation, thanks to the mountains, the waters and, for the most part, those who make up the community. 

One would think this might be a photo from out of the past. 

Well, it WAS yesterday, so it's the past. 

Still, I found it to be a serene and nostalgic scene. 

Mom who brought the three anglers in the front to McArthur Lake, chose to sit on the dock and relax while the kids enjoyed their summer recreation.

She told me that she lives near the airport north of Bonners Ferry.  

When I asked how things had turned out from the Turner Hill fire, where families had to evacuate several days ago, she told me that it was somewhat miraculous to hear from three different evacuees that they had sustained no major damage to their respective properties. 

This is truly a testament to the professionals who spearheaded and carried out fire-fighting efforts in what could have been a major disaster. 

We happen to know Jyl Wheaton-Abraham and her hubby Toby, so it was neat to see this display at McArthur Lake yesterday.

 

Thursday Throwbacks:  Past images of people, places and events from my photo collection. Hope you enjoy the photo and the music. 

I have no idea about the origins from this photo, but it certainly brought back memories of the early days of teaching English and advising the Monticola yearbook and the Ponderettes Drill Team at Sandpoint High School. 

I can make out the bulletin board in my classroom, and, of course, it makes me wonder if everything I posted there in those days would be acceptable in these days of overzealous scrutiny. 

Those were good times, and I was fortunate to work with a lot of students who have remained lifelong friends.