What a Day!

 

The thought of being 80 years old next year is about the only downer that I can pin on to yesterday. 

It was a fun, busy and memorable birthday celebration.

This morning it's 79 years plus one day for me on this planet, and I am actually grateful to be alive, relatively healthy and having to dread the thought of being 80. 

The fact that we're still living and functioning at this age is definitely sustaining.  

I can remember the days of thinking 65 was pretty dang old.  I can almost not remember just how long ago that was.  

And, so another trip around the sun for me was marked with one great day.   

Telephone visits with siblings, lunch with friends and family, visitors from Michigan whom we'd never met before rolling into the driveway, dinner at MickDuffs with those visitors and then a walking tour around downtown where I actually saw more people I knew than strangers. 

Now, when does the latter ever happen for the locals in Sandpoint IN THE SUMMER anymore?

I guess the stars were lined up.  I saw Mitzi and her sidekick Millie who were out for a walk. 

I told our new friends about the time Mitzi and Jeralyn and Steve and I met up in Los Angeles and spent 24 hours together seeing the sights, including 12 hours at Disneyland. 

When we stopped later to talk with some friends that Bill knew, I learned they were related to Jeralyn and that Jeralyn was just down the street at the 219 helping her brother Jim, the dentist, celebrate his retirement.  

So, off we walked to the 219 where Jeralyn and a lot of other former students were having a great time. 

So, that meant our new friends got to meet two of the three former students who had joined me in Los Angeles back in the 1980s. 

As we walked on, I peeked through a window and saw someone inside at a new bakery (old Image Maker) called Sawyers. 

Turns out it was the owner Becky Sawyer, and, yes, she's a former student. 

Becky gave us the lowdown on when she intends to open Sawyers.  That includes a couple of soft openings and then full time by mid-July. 

I couldn't be happier for her, having remembered how devoted she was as a graphic arts student.  She told me that she still had some of the graphics she created in that class. 

It was almost overkill on the locals' sightings, and that was a great thing AND a very nice touch to an old lady's birthday. 

Our visitors, Tom and Colleen, are friends of my cousin Rich.  

Rich suggested that they stop at the Lovestead on their cross-country road trip (lots of back roads and mountain trails) to  Whidbey Island for their daughter's wedding. 

We have discovered much in common during the first hours of our new friendship, and we'll learn a little more as they spend the day recreating and visiting. 

By the time they roll out of the driveway headed to the next place, I'm sure they'll fit in the category of "old" friends, and we'll all have good memories to savor. 

Thanks to all who made turning 79 much more special than foreboding.  I've still got a lot to think about over the next 364 days about turning 80.  Ouch!  

The only good part of that thought right now is that I have a lot of contemporaries who will turn 80 before I do, so that means they are really old.  

They know who they are, right Ann???

Enjoy the photos.  We're planning to enjoy this Friday with our new best friends. 

Happy Friday to all and Happiest of Birthdays to my sister-in-law Mary.  

Colleen, Jeralyn, Marianne, Bill and Tom. 

Tom and Colleen, both teachers specializing in experiential disciplines.  

Tom's originally from New York, while Colleen's from Pontiac, Mich. 

Mitzi and Millie.  Mitzi's newly retired from Litehouse Foods.---she's another Sandpoint local. 

Bill gave me the beautiful metal flower circle for my birthday.  It added a nice touch to the greenhouse metal flower garden. 

Becky Sawyer, owner of Sawyers, soon to open on First Avenue in Sandpoint. 

Thursday This, That; TBT

 

I have heard the bird for about six weeks and have even asked in another blog post if anyone had any idea what the one-syllable tweet could be.  

My friend Becky suggested a flicker, but this sound is different. 

I could hear the bird almost every day up and down the Meserve Preserve fence line but never could pinpoint exactly where it was to see it. 

Last night I heard the distinct tweet out by the road, so I grabbed my camera, hoping that I would at last see the actual bird. 

Pay dirt!  

I looked over and there the plump bird, looking somewhat like a grouse, sat on the mailbox frame and OH SO BEAUTIFUL. 

It remained there long enough for me to take three or four photos and then flew off to the south, landing in the roadside.  

In the meantime, thrilled that I had finally nabbed an image, I enlarged the image on my camera.  

Bill was sitting at his desk inside when I showed him an enlarged image. 

Without much thought, he said, "California quail!" 

Next, he looked up the species and its sound on his laptop, and, sure enough, the laptop sound matched what I've been hearing and wondering about for weeks. 

Bill noted that usually these birds are in a covey.  We don't know if there are others, but we do know that a very pretty bird with its distinctive tweet has been hanging around for weeks. 

And, now we know what it looks like. 

We're also wondering if any of the neighbors have been raising quail. 

When we lived over on Great Northern Road, Bill raised a few pheasants and some quail. 

This fun piece in the Sandpoint Reader by our friend Marcia reminded me of the Driftwood Restaurant (just across the Idaho-Montana border near Comptonville)  salad dressing recipe from many years ago.   

If I remember correctly, Patricia McManus Gass raved to my mother about it and maybe even gave her the recipe.  It was perfect to pour (right before eating) over fresh tossed green salads.  

I don't know where the recipe would be among my mother's belongings, but I do remember mixing it up back in the day when we fed the hay hands two sumptuous farm meals a day.

I know that it had oil and onions and vinegar and some sugar, along with bacon bits. 

Twas so good. 

I wonder if the Driftwood folks "invented" the recipe like Marcia's family reputation (noted in the link below) for inventing fry sauce.   

https://sandpointreader.com/the-sandpoint-eater-food-facts-or-fiction/

Thursday Throwbacks:  fun fotos of people, places and happenings from past times. Enjoy. And, do try scrolling with the music. For some reason I can identify with this song today.