winter - - a poem by Jason

(Remember, this is the same Jason who supposedly dislikes poetry but unknowingly writes it all the time. This was uttered through bitter lips upon his looking out the window this morning and seeing the following scene.)

winter

why
oh why
oh why
oh why
oh winter
won't you release your grip
and give way to another season,
one with more light
and hope?

road trip, part 5: ski races

Okay, I promise that this is the last post about our road trip. I've really drug it out; we've been home almost two weeks by now! But as you could see, I had too many pictures to put into one entry, and several days seem to pass between bloggings. Same with floggings. It's nice that they rhyme so I can easily remember I'm due for both.

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From Portland we and Rachel drove to Sandpoint, Idaho for Cameron's ski race. We had a wonderful drive and plenty of time for Rachel and Jason to discuss/argue politics up in the front seat. I do emphasize plenty of time, because Jason drives precisely the speed limit (which my family likes to pick at him for as they find it a curiosity). We were also happy to be trapped by a tourist trap since it was a chocolate factory, salsa factory, and icecreamery all under one roof. Here's Zoralee in fact, eyeballing the chocolate.

potty-in-the-Tupperware break

When we got in to Sandpoint, we had dinner with Cam and his ski buddies. We met a famous, local hot shot skier (whose name I forget. Sorry, dude.) and got a little better grasp on the ski racer scene. Really, they're just like any other guys but with advertising labels all over their clothes. See, because they get free gear from companies, event hosts, etc. Back at the motel, Zoralee practiced her screaming skills with Rachel (video posted earlier), and then we settled down for the night.

footprint on the mirror

The next day we went to Schweitzer Mountain Resort. It has been awhile since I've been around the ski subculture. I forgot how slick and cool everybody looks in their slicky pants and coats and sunglasses...except us, the Clampett family with our random assortment of clothing and handbags.

Zoralee is taken aback by Auntie Rachel's

description of the ski jumps.

Knowing what a tough course it'll be,

Zoralee is showing Uncle Cam how to chill before the race.
watching the races

So, in this Skier X thing, from what I can tell, there's not a lot of trick-doing. They just speed down a course as fast as their legs can carry them, over jumps and around bends, occasionally crashing into one another and very rarely into the spectators that are littered about the mountainside. Except, they don't ever hit the lady spectator who rings a cowbell, as evidenced by the fact that she rung it all the day. Cameron was easy to spot, as you might note from his outfit. We got to see him ski four times or so. He did great the times he made it to the end! Unfortunately, he was twice taken out by fellow skiiers and wound up not placing high. But it was so great to watch him and his friends race, and to spend a day in a new little world.

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Our day ended on the incredibly traumatic note of Brian (Cam's best skiing buddy) wrecking in the semi-finals, immediately going unconscious and not regaining it. I wrote some about that when we first got home, so you can read past entries if you're interested. The short of it is that we didn't know for a couple of days whether or not Brian would survive. By now he has had successful brain surgery, been brought slowly out of sedation, and is recovering.

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So, that was it then! Our road trip was complete. We knew sunshine, rain, and blizzards, felt the wind in our faces, reconnected with family, sang old songs, sat Zoralee in the laps of two old great-great aunts as well as two women who are themselves with child, tasted exotic blends of spice, stepped through the soggy woods, and slept in six different beds.

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We noticed so much change in Zoralee, somewhat because of this age where it seems she has grown each time I pick her up from a nap, and somewhat because of the elapsed time being framed in by a trip. She started grasping, screaming, and talking more consistently while we were away. Thanks to all of you we got to see; we hope to be around again soon! Or, come see us! Summer is around the corner, I'm told.

road trip, part 4: Portland

Rach and Cam had been unable to come up to Sequim when we were there, so we decided to hit up Portland. We intended to stay only one night and sadly thought we better not visit friends in such a short time. Mostly because Jason had scads of paperwork to get done and a limited amount of time for it. BUT, one thing led to another. Jason accomplished a bunch via the olde world wide web, Rach happened to get "sick" while we were there and thus had extra time to stay home with us, and we learned that Cam had a race at the end of the week in Idaho. Well, we would be driving right through there to get home - why not wait a couple days and see him ski?? So that's precisely what we did, which enabled us to see two of my great-aunts who are best friends, one being my grandma's sister and the other my grandpa's sister, as well as a few friends our last evening in town.

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I will say that this trip to Portland was rather baby-centered. And not many trips to Portland are. Portlanders just don't have loads of children. It's neither strong Amish nor Mormon country. But two friends happen to be spregnant and one family had just come home from Ethiopia with their adopted daughter. Plus, Rachel and I watched the movie, "The Business of Being Born," which I recommend for any American or Canadian, regardless of their interest in childbirth. Click these words that you're currently reading for my sister's review of that movie.

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There are so many pictures that I will let them tell the stories. If I try to type more, I'll never get this stuff posted. And I want to be done telling of our trip, because other life things are happening! Like tap dancing children. Just kidding. I've got to get...them...out...of...my...head.

Cam, Zor, and Rach

Zor and Aunt Nadine
Zor and Aunt Virginia

Steve and Darla (24 weeks along with child!)
Jeff and Kezia (35 weeks along with child!)

Dan, Autumn, big brother Rhett, and new baby Mezmur
poor people, they'd only been back from Ethiopia for 2 days Cam and Zor at Powell's Books
going for Lebanese food, which you don't get often in nw MT

I love this pic because we're all wearing the most energetic color available, yet we are sloppy and slouchy, as are our surroundings (the main office of the apartment complex)

when blogging gets weird

I posted a youtube video today of some adorable tap-dancing siblings. If anyone was offended by my comments or those of my family members, please read the comments section of that post for an apology and an explanation.

And leave a comment telling what you think about any of it.

Zoralee learning to scream with Auntie Rachel

The screams are few and far between, I'll warn you. This probably isn't a clip you want to gather everyone in your house together to watch....unless of course they're as in love with Zoralee as we are!

road trip, part 3: Tacoma

After five days in Sequim, we headed to Tacoma to visit Jason's cousin, Mike, his wife, Megan, and their little boy, Jack. Megan's mom was also there for a short stay. I have no photos. We were there with only enough time to eat dinner, chat it up for a couple of hours, and hit the hay. It was good to see them, and so sweet of them to let us stay even though they had more company due in the next night.

Mike and Megan are in their residencies as doctors, so they had to get up early Monday to start in with their 80+ hour work weeks (aaaaaack!!). You can imagine then our horror at Zoralee choosing that very night to be the loudest yet with her vocal experimentations. She would breathe in deep and let rip anything ranging from a sigh to a shriek. We, of course, were ringing our hands, tiptoeing around the room and making discouraging faces at her, wishing she'd just be quiet. And naturally, the more we interacted with her, the happier she got. Which was funny, so we were trying to laugh quietly, which made it harder to stop laughing. It was a paradoxical half hour.

We wadded up a blanket and covered the crack between the door and the floor. When it appeared to be over, we tried to put Zoralee down for bed. Nope! She then started in, seriously, on the most cryful she had been in a very long time. Would not go to sleep. Uncanny, this sense babies have of knowing what you want and somehow doing the opposite. What lousy guests we were.

In EC news for this trip (which I've forgotten to mention until now), Zoralee was able to carry on with pottying on command, no matter our locale, if we were observant enough to catch her cues. Granted, sometimes business was stalled by the variation in bathroom decor that required her careful scrutiny, but she recognized toilets at any house and knew what to do. I thought that traveling would make EC too hard, but it was actually a progressive time for us, because whenever we drove, I was monitoring her more intently for a few hours at a whack than I do at home. She even used a Tupperware bucket in the car with success several times. Is that crazy or what?!

Monday, we were off to Portland in the drizzle and fog. And I gots me some pictures of them apples. Apples being a slang word that refers to our time in Portland.

road trip, part 2: Sequim

Sequim is a funny-sounding little town where my aunt, uncle, three boy cousins, and one girl dog live. Taylor, the oldest cousin, is away at college in New York City, but we were in the essence of his presence because we slept in his room, which has black walls and a black ceiling with flourescent paint all over, multiple lava lamps, orange shag carpet, and rock and roll posters and paraphenalia throughout. You feel like you should pay admission just to walk in and have a look.

Connor and Dalton are still at home and in high school, and we delight in their perspectives about school, classmates, and Sequim. Whenever we're in town, we eat lots of delicious food since Dennis and Melody are fantastic in the kitchen, learn what makes a red wine good, go on walks through the neighborhood and the woods, play music, catch up on the boys' activities, and now that we have her, sit around trying to make Zoralee do tricks. This time was no exception.

stripes, stripes everywhere

I get a real kick out of this one -

me gathering the group as the

camera timer is going off

that's better

One day we visited the town of Port Townsend, with its quaint shops of various wares and one of the raddest used book stores I'd been to for awhile (where we found Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, which we'd been yearning to own). I got to ride back to Sequim on the back of Dennis' motorcycle. It has been years since I've ridden - what a thrill! I sure thought more heavily about it this time 'round, with a baby in my life, but Dennis is very safe and steady, so I went for it.

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And nobody even noticed Zoralee tucked into my coat.

Kidding.

A few people did notice, but I pretended she was a doll.

Kidding again. She rode in the car. See here?

Thanks for the wonderful stay, family!

road trip, part 1: the drive to Washington

There's so much to tell about our first road trip with Z that I'm doing it in installments. What happened to the days we took a single disposable camera on a trip like this? And actually looked forward to getting it developed? That would be utter nonsense now.

We left late in the afternoon three Sundays ago for Washington - seems like ages ago. We made Spokane the first night and went on to Bellevue the second day. It's usually a one day drive, but we didn't want to risk it with Zoralee, as her true vagabond colors haven't shown themselves yet. We're glad we broke it up that way. She did GREAT, but several hours is her limit. I sat in the back seat with her, which made her much more content, and we hung toys up for her to watch. It snowed most of the way and blizzarded over the passes, so was rather slow going.

first motel stay

some crazy guy with a portable meth lab at a rest stop

(okay, it's Jason with his stovetop espresso maker and camp stove)

Three highlights from the "weird" category are these:

1. Sitting in a truck stop restaurant the second morning (you know, the kind of place where you can see the giant, generic "RESTAURANT" sign from miles away, and where you look around inside and don't understand why people still hang up that terrible wolf art from the 80's that has a black background and a moon, and where they serve you the most basic style of any food offered, including but not limited to the plain bread they had Rosalene pick up on her way in to work, the kind that costs like 50 cents a loaf, and where neither spices nor presentation are valued), we witnessed a bizarre phenomenon.

Behind us was seated a couple in their late 70's. The gentleman wore a sweatshirt that said, "Over the hill? What hill? I don't remember any hill." Halfway through the meal, another older couple pulled in to fuel up, and that man had a sweatshirt one of his kids had special ordered to say, "Over the Hill Club - Sam Jenkins" or whatever his name was. It just happened that the first guy (at the table near us) got up to find a newspaper in the glass entryway/narthex, just as the other guy was coming inside to pay for fuel. So we watched them enter the narthex at exactly the same time from opposite directions, thinking for sure they'd collide. But they simply twirled about in the old-people-wearing-over-the-hill-sweatshirts vortex for about 10 seconds, and then went their separate ways.

2. Shelsea's family so graciously bestowed upon us a portable swing for Zoralee, and we brought it along on this trip. At one point on the drive, we heard it playing music back there in the trunk, but figured it got bumped and would turn off pretty soon. We turned on the radio and kept driving. 45 minutes later, we started channel surfing and came across this series of nursery rhyme dings that sounded vaguely familiar (and had way too simple of instrumentation, even for a country station). We stretched our ears toward the trunk, and sure enough, they were the swing songs. Evidently it puts out a radio frequency that our car was then picking up. Right out of a horror film, that scene was.

3. And finally, the morning of Jason's test, we managed to wake up in plenty of time for Jason to make his coffee, eat a piece of leftover pizza, get ready with all but a couple of hiccups due to test anxiety (like trying to put on his shoes before his pants), and get him to downtown Bellevue nearly an hour ahead of time in morning traffic. Yes, folks. For those who know us, this is even weirder than old men in sweatshirts and hearing a swing on the radio. We were early to a place. I know. I know. I don't know. All I know is that we won't be disappointed to hear a few congratulatory remarks.

update on Brian and new blog

First, thanks folks for your kind words and prayers. Brian is progressing to a degree no one expected. The doctors brought him out of sedation momentarily today, earlier than planned, just to see about his responses. He opened his eyes and looked at Sarah and also wiggled his thumb when instructed to do so. It reminds me of pulling somebody up out of a dark, murky lake, waving hello, and pushin' 'em back in. Kind of strange. I'll be really curious to hear from Brian, Lord-willing, what memories he has of the whole thing, if any.

For those of us who saw Brian while the emergency crew was working on him on the mountain and knew how much time was passing until they could relieve his cranial pressure at the hospital, this comeback is truly astounding.

My sister has begun a new blog on behalf of Brian and Sarah, where she or Sarah will record his progress as the days go on. It is www.milehighbriandtheconnellyfamily.blogspot.com.

Brian's skiing accident

We got home late this evening from a road trip that was unexpectedly full and rich but which ended on an extremely sad note. Yesterday we and Rachel drove to the Stomp Games at Schweitzer Ski Resort in Idaho, to watch Cam and his friends race today. For you friends of Rachel who know Cameron's very close skiing buddy, Brian Connelly, I wanted to post a quick telling of his situation. (Hopefully you'll remember him from being in Rach and Cam's wedding party - he lives in Colorado, is married to Sarah, and they have an 11 month old girl. Tall, dark curlyish hair. Very sweet and sociable.)

Toward the end of the races, about quarter to 3, in either the semi-final or final heat, Brian crashed at a jump and landed very hard. Long story short, he was totally unresponsive at impact and has remained so ever since, was taken to Coeur d' Alene hospital, had brain surgery, and has a 50/50 chance of surviving. His wife should be arriving there about now, having flown in from Colorado.

We would be grateful for anyone who pauses to say a prayer for Brian and his family.

The album in our cd player as we drove away was Don Chaffer's What You Don't Know. The song "Long on Diagnosis, Short on Cure" has these lyrics:

Now you been close dying
In fact you’ve crossed the line
You done sailed right past the turning point,
thinking everything’s fine
But when the gas runs out
and you're sitting there stone cold
You think, “I was young when all this started and now I’m old.”

But when the doctor pushes the triage crew aside
he says, “You’re all long on diagnosis, short on cure.”
And he turns to you and says,“Come on, Darlin’ we can make this.
Yes, I’m sure.”

I hope to tell of our trip soon and show lots of pictures, because it was monumental in so many ways. It may be a bit before I feel okay doing that though, particularly while Brian still clings precariously to life. We are very heartsick, a bit disoriented, and reminded again of the fragility of all we know.