On Saturday, before it rained all day Sunday, I tortured my hiking companion with two miles straight down into a canyon and then two miles straight back up.
OK, not really. It just seemed that way. I obviously shouldn’t be allowed to lead hikes. Or pick them. Or ignore the part in the article here from the San Diego Reader that talks about two miles down.
This is part of the California Riding & Hiking Trail. We parked in a turnout at the bottom of a hill on Japatul Valley Road and hiked up past some houses, until we saw this sign on the left…
The views were far-reaching, which made it worth it. A warmer day, though, and it would have been an issue…
There’s not much shade and it’s not an easy trail.
A rainy day would be near impossible…it’s probably mostly mud right now.
But deep down there is the Sloan River Valley…
Above is to the east…below is a view of Mt. Sycuan.
This is to the west…
There are large slabs of granite throughout the hike…
But it isn’t until you get way down in the valley that you realize you will eventually have to come back up.
More granite…no water.
This rusted-out jalopy shows off a road off to some rural homes…
It’s been there a while, but someone planted daffodils amongst the rusty bits…
Nice old car…
It had character…
The hot dry trail, still heading down. At one point, an old jeep passed by and the old guy in the old jeep said that if Junior and Morton came by, they were good dogs; they wouldn’t hurt us.
We never saw the dogs, but you can see some winter tree foliage down in the valley…
And there it is. The river valley itself…
With no water to be seen.
There might be water today; it rained all day yesterday. But on Saturday, it still looked like this. At the bottom of the valley. Where we now had to climb back out.
This is 4 miles round trip, and though we thought Jerry Schad must have been running to do it in 2 hours, we also were able to complete it that quickly. The trip back up, while not easy, was not as bad as we thought it would be. So there’s that. Take water; go when it’s cool. There was no one else out there but the guy in the jeep (and the two invisible dogs), so that was a plus. Oh yeah, and a bunch of ravens playing games in the warm air shafts…
This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I live in Southern California. Hiking in snow is just fucking crazy. So we did it anyway.
Sure, there wasn’t much snow at the beginning, but it was cold…it actually snowed Tuesday/Wednesday, and this was Saturday, so not too bad. No chains needed to drive there even.
It was bloody beautiful though…
Didn’t expect it to be as hard to hike as it was though. We did part of the Sunset and Big Laguna Trails, a big loop around the Laguna lakes and meadows.
Thing is, the easiest bit to hike was on the packed snow, but even that required balance…
And the icy bits were hard to hike, as were the muddy bits, and the icy muddy bits with big pools of water underneath. Yeah those were fun.
So I’m a little sore today…two days later.
Totally worth it though. I’ve done this hike in the fall and it’s gorgeous then too…
Not too much climbing, mostly flat…
But we took 4 hours to do 7.2 miles, so you know it was harder than normal.
I’d do it again though.
One of the lakes, seemingly frozen over. When we came back, a lone duck was sitting in the middle of it, like, where’s my lake?
There were snowmen scattered all over the trail…in fact, I’m not sure how we would have known where the trail was if someone hadn’t come through before us and stomped it all down.
Because a lot of it looked like this…
Yup. Ice.
We came back by this lake later and took the Laguna Meadow trail…
The sun was out and it got up to the high 40s, maybe low 50s at one point.
Definitely shedding layers, fleece off, down to long sleeves and an undershirt…
You can see what the trail looked like there…
Poles would have been smart. I do have them. I just didn’t think I’d need them. You’d think I’d learn. Ha!
Gorgeous day, beautiful trail…
Great views…
Two of ours making snow angels…like you do.
This part of the trail was a little less broken in…
But still doable.
I didn’t get snow in my socks until that part…
You can see the trail here is mud and ice…
And the meadow stretches for miles…
More mud and ice…
We ate lunch with this view…
These guys in the distance…
More beauty.
I guess living in a desert means this never gets old. OK, if I lived in Michigan, this might get old.
But I don’t. I live here, in a drought, in the sun. It’s 80 degrees today…
And this stuff is probably melting like crazy.
Even there, you can see the sun has cleared those pine needles…
It wasn’t an easy hike…I mean, I think it would have been easy without the trail conditions.
More trails and the other lake…
No wildlife, except that duck and some ravens…and all the humans out there…
Definitely a great hike…went for the pretty and that’s what I got…plus a monster workout. This hike is out of Afoot and Afield. You park on Sunrise Highway at the 19-mile marker. There are two porta-potties, but they were full to the rim when we got there. Fun stuff! Plenty of parking, nice trail. I’ll do this again, both in the snow and not.
The day after Christmas dawned bright and clear, although a bit cold for us Southerners (high of 60?). It was warm enough for hiking, of course, and after dealing with a variety of crap in the household that never seems to loose its hold on me, I donned my hiking boots, found someone willing to traverse the wilds with me (not hard), and took off on a trail that I’ve gotten lost on twice.
You’d think no one would dare come with me with those odds, and sure enough, I took one wrong trail, but quickly found the right one and actually made it around the whole loop (about 6 miles) without any trouble…
Holey crap. Love being outside. Tired afterwards, not a bad thing.
Looks like Spring! Yes, it’s December still. And now I know how to get back without getting lost. Finally. It’s only been a year. Honestly, I shouldn’t be allowed to lead anything.
When I came back, I had to go to a soccer game, where I stitched more on birds (nothing completed) and froze to death, not so quietly. It’s funny…the temperature seems OK when you get there, and then as time goes on, you get colder and colder, yes partly because the night is slowly creeping towards 38 degrees, but also because you’re sat frozen on a metal bleacher bench, not the warmest place in the world.
After that, warming up, and feeding children, who are picky as hell about their Mexican food (food is fuel, people), I came home and tried to pick out some bird fabrics…actually, I think I did this one before the soccer game.
This is another Hey Bird, number 3 I think…requested. Oooh. A commission. He was easy to do, because I can still find the original fabrics, although I don’t know what I have for the background…I’ll find something.
But this is Owl #3, a whole ‘nother colorway. I actually went for realism…the iPad is there because it had a picture of an owl on it, a barred owl of some sort…
The background will be harder to choose for this, I think, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of fabric here.
I’m glad I got those two to the next step…moving on. I’d like to get them done next week.
Then I quilted for a while…finished all the outlining and started the background quilting…
I didn’t get super far, because I got tired…but I’m about 6 hours in. More today. I already emailed the photographer, so now I have to be done by Tuesday morning. Can you say crazy? I can. I have somewhere I need to be this afternoon, but it won’t take long, then my evening is booked, happily. So there’s this morning, all day Sunday mostly, and all day Monday. If I can get it all quilted by Sunday afternoon, I can go get binding fabric.
Probably not this…
Although I can’t wait to use this somewhere…I love that Julie looks out for crazy fabric for me. Apparently there’s more coming at the next meeting.
It seems I spent 24 hours straight cooking and cleaning and doing household mom-type things. I’m exhausted. How weird. Some people like doing this shit? Whatever. They crazy.
So this is how Kathy’s brain works: Yes, these are homemade cinnamon rolls…
No, they are artistic shapes. See how they expand to fill the space and the spiral changes to fit that shape?
And when the dish is a different shape, they do even weirder shit? Yup. Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you have Kathy’s brain. On the positive side, we did just freeze that last dish of cinnamon rolls, because otherwise there is entirely too much sugar in the house (they are now covered with a river of maple-flavored sugar that might kill the diabetics among us). Plus there’s a drawing (or seven) that I need to do BECAUSE of the cinnamon rolls. Totally.
So Christmas morning started late, due to teenagers who sleep in (oh hell, I slept in)…
So did Grandma. Besides, it’s all about the children…I mean, the dogs. Calli got a tummy rub from everyone.
She loves Christmas. She doesn’t seem to notice that Jake is gone, but she’s never been the smartest dog in the world…Babygirl is getting used to boychild again…
Mostly, though, she sleeps a lot in the sun and on the chair in my office. She is directly behind my butt, even as I type.
I had two hours yesterday after gift-opening and cookie delivery to finish all the cooking and get to my ex’s house (turns out, I really had three hours, because girlchild was behind)…so I made green beans, cookies, and deviled eggs all at the same time while watching an amusing Wild West movie on television.
I actually frosted MOST of the cookies this morning. I took some over last night, but the frosting is supposed to dry, and I didn’t have enough time to do that. These are the POST-Xmas cookies…for the POST-Xmas sugar hangover. Which is why I’m going hiking in about 20 minutes. Probably I should go run 10 miles (not happening).
While waiting for dinner to get done, I drew…
I really like the dog. I might mess with this a bit more, try again maybe. I want to be in the habit of drawing.
Then I remembered I only had 10 minutes left on this bird…so I finished it.
There’s another soccer game tonight where I can start the next color way.
Finally, I left the ex’s house at around 9, after listening to girlchild read out all the comments on his old report cards (nothing was a surprise…to anyone at the table)…I fortified myself with caffeine, because yes, I was tired. I don’t want you to think I never get tired. I do. Freakin’ exhausted sometimes…but I bully through, have a cup of tea, and persuade my brain to keep going. Usually if I can get beyond the 8 PM slump, I can go for a while. And I hadn’t quilted during the day…I flat out ran out of time. So I was determined…
I got 2 1/2 hours in. That was good. The whole body is done and I’m up in the tree.
My goal is to finish the outlining tonight (after the soccer game) and start the background quilting. Of course, I also have to fit in some hiking, some hanging out, some eating, some soccer, some cleaning (again? WTF.), and who knows what else. I did just bribe the kids to do one of my errands though, so that is cool. Checks one thing off my list. Because part of finding the right balance in your life means not taking it all on yourself. Saying yes when people need help, but then also saying no. Or putting your foot down and saying, “I’m taking this time. It’s mine.” I’ve been working on all that shit for so many years…I’m almost getting good at it. Sort of. Going to put my boots on now…
Car died yesterday morning on Sunrise Highway, about 40 miles away from home. Luckily the hiking group behind me stopped and picked up me and the boychild and took us to the trailhead, where we hiked 11 miles (more on that later). Then we got towed back to town (oh holey moley) for a million dollars, and this morning, when I called the car guy, he said, “I thought that was your car parked out on the street.” So he recognized it. Not good. We are down to one car. Three drivers. Errands galore. Girlchild wants a social life. I want her to finish her college essays.
Christmas dinner has turned into World War III. We are going to prepare an 1890s Christmas dinner with peas in turnip cups (you totally have to check out this website if historical food descriptions amuse you at all). And you’re going to eat it and like it, dammit. Then the girlchild was sick, so I had to cook a complicated dinner, which turned out fine, but the drama around it was no fun, and then I came home to a Hamlet essay. I don’t even remember anything about Hamlet, except that he was an asshole and “Alas poor Yorick…”. So I think I came in here, my office/studio/retreat at about 9 PM, meditated for the first time in a million years, and then put my head in my hands for 10 minutes, processing all the stress into a tiny ball that I could gack up like a cat’s hairball. Except that didn’t work.
So I tried stitching on this for a while…
I really wanted it done this weekend. Ha! Weekend fucked me over on that one. I was so tired, I realized my eyes were closing while I sewed. Um. Bad. Stop. Now. So I did. And I went to bed. Best decision I made all day. And the gack ball is mostly gone this morning. I’ll draw later. Seriously. I NEED to draw.
Boychild nicknamed me the Diplomatic Avenue…the one who has to negotiate between all the conflicting forces. Funny, my SIL has said that before. And I didn’t have the energy for it. I just want us all to GET ALONG. Without my help. And help me make decisions and clean up please.
The boychild is here…
Calli is happy. And he is calm and easy to deal with. He hiked with me yesterday and dealt with the towed car and handled a million questions from the grandparents, and then he ate all my chicken salad. Sigh. So I’ll make more. Better, I’ll buy the ingredients and show HIM how to make it. And make enough for your mom while you’re at it, eh?
A little chaos today…Christmas gifts to be shipped, car to deal with, a final game in a soccer tournament, more grocery shopping, and then maybe some quiet moments tonight with the sewing machine and my quilt.
So yeah, I’m back. I’ve actually been here all along, but as I’m sure you realize, that whole holiday-with-family thing kind of eats up your free time. So I sleep even less. And at 1:30 AM, I’m not willing to START writing a blogpost. And mornings have been fraught. So here’s what happened.
On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time cutting out Wonder Under for the new quilt, which is for a theme of Women at War, with interpretation pretty open as to what that meant. I’ve felt like other people have been coming after my uterus and everything within and around for quite a while, despite some nice-guy misogynists telling me I was imagining it. I mean, what the fuck do you know as a privileged rich white man? Best thing you can do as a man? Admit that you mostly don’t have a fucking clue what it’s like to be a woman. You might have an inkling, but otherwise: Not inside, biologically, with periods and pregnancy and mood swings and menopause; not outside, trying to walk somewhere in public, dating, safety, being perceived as an object, wearing the wrong thing, whether you’re showing stuff off or not, it’s always wrong. Not breastfeeding, not being the mom, not with society’s expectations. I’m not saying being a man doesn’t have similar issues; I just think there are more “acceptable” options for men (in terms of what society believes). And I full-on admit I don’t understand what it’s like to be a man. Some men have some of a clue, but mostly it seems not. The better men are understanding even when they don’t understand.
So the drawing was full of all these stereotypes and yet she stands tall on a pile of men. Because every man came from a woman, y’all.
Anyway, my rampant feminism aside, I need to get the quilt done in the next…um…5 weeks. Yup. So speedy mode. Midnight? Not helping…
Licking my elbow does not help me. This might even have been the night before. It looks awfully dark. It is! It’s Tuesday night. I sit on the couch and watch all the stuff I have saved on Tivo…
If girlchild is still awake, I have to watch her stuff. Some of her stuff is also my stuff…top box is pieces, bottom box is trash…in case I drop pieces in it (which I often do).
In the late afternoon (because I had to run a thousand errands), I managed to finish cutting and sort them all into bins by 100s. This is a smaller quilt, so there’s only 8 bins! A miracle.
Of course, I also did the two birds that need to be done in December, so that was two more bins.
And then because this time of year isn’t crazy enough, girlchild and I hiked Iron Mountain in the dark with the group I often hike with.
She wanted to show she had conquered the mountain.
That night, I realized I would need to clean the office up a bit to be able to cut fabrics out. I hadn’t put everything away from last time (and honestly, it’s a disaster area in here anyway, because all my school stuff lives in here too). So I had drawers open that cats had slept in and fabric piled everywhere…
I like a fresh start. Plus I need that table cleared off because that’s where I put the Wonder Under pieces.
And one section of the floor, I think the cats had knocked a bunch of stuff down (they get a bit rambunctious sometimes), so I needed to clean that up. Finding floor space in here has been a priority this last month. Two feet at a time, people. Two square feet is all I ask.
I had a ton of fabric to put away, both from the last quilt and from Houston, so I started by stacking by color, because everything in here is stored by color, except for the ones where I can’t figure out what color it is.
That was about halfway through. There were some issues with storage. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I use…it is not enough.
And I found this from a million years ago, from an Ellen Anne Eddy class.
Hand-dyed silk velvet plus thread-painted fetus. You know, like you do. That may still be in here when I die.
So at that point, it was Thursday, and although girlchild does most of the cooking, that means I get stuck with the cleaning (and then she complains that she can’t find anything because I moved it…from the couch to her bedroom), and I also cook a few things and I constantly try to clean up in the kitchen, which drives her nuts, but I can’t stand having to do it all at once.
So this picture is about 10 minutes before dinner is served. She’s making gravy. The fire extinguisher is out because she spilled turkey juices on the stovetop and it got in the box where the controller things are (technical term) and short-circuited something, and for a few minutes, we had loud popping noises and big sparks and electrical fire smoke. So yeah. A typical Thanksgiving…
The wine? Well. Obvious. See fire extinguisher. Especially after loud pops and sparks. And no, it’s not fixed yet. It’s actually not top on my list at the moment. The rest of it works, I got everything cleared off of there because of the fire danger, and I have other things that are more pressing. No really, the sink is completely clogged and getting fixed this afternoon, so I can finally do all the dishes. THEN I will deal with the stove.
Thanksgiving was small this year…just my parents, me, the girlchild, and the ex…
Guess he has decided Brits can celebrate that holiday…food was good, of course…
She makes a mess in the kitchen, tries to set the house on fire, but it always tastes good.
And yes, we’re still eating it. Ex came over last night and took away two platefuls of food. Sent a bunch home with my parents as well. And then we realized girlchild wouldn’t be around next year to cook.
Shit. I think we’re going out. I do cook. I just don’t want to spend that much time cooking for so few people.
Or dogs. I don’t feed dogs people food. Dogs LIKE people food.
Oh yeah. Pie and pi. All good.
Once the food was all eaten and I had cleaned up as much as I could with a nonworking sink, I finished cleaning up the studio (ah, much better)…
Hung the new drawing where I could see it, assumed the background fabric I had would work, and started the next fabric-picking adventure…
I don’t know what YOU do when chock full of tryptophan. I told you I was a bit crazy.
I picked all the stuff on the bottom…
And then started thinking about the fleshy issues…a pile of 7 or 8 bodies that I need to be able to distinguish from each other? Need at least two sets of flesh runs…
Luckily, they’re pretty simple bodies, so I don’t need the usual run of 7 fabrics or so. Although on the right, that’s the run for the main female figure, I think. The stuff on the left was the first of the male bodies.
Friday morning dawned nice and clear, and soccer was first on the agenda…of course.
Girlchild decided to play for another team, because hers didn’t get into the tournament they wanted. Luckily, it’s local, because we have a game a day.
I graded papers (ah, back to reality) and watched her run around and score one goal…
They beat an Alaskan team 5-1. I’m sure that team was a little hampered by the over-80-degree weather. Then I came home and helped dad do some yard things and went and bought two trees with him to block off that big open space that has been there since April? March? Don’t even remember how long. I need to go out there today and dig holes and trim off dead stuff and be a responsible homeowner (my neighbors will be thrilled). And I went to the gym. See, this is where time goes. But at the gym, I wrote…yes, I’m still writing. The story’s still not done. And I finished my book (the one I was reading). And these were good things. And then I traced some more Wonder Under for another piece, a small one that’s been lying around for a good long while…
Of course, technically it has nudity in it, so it can’t go into any of the shows coming up that need smaller pieces. I’m tired of making things FOR something, though, even though I don’t mind the themes that I’ve been in…sometimes you just have to make the stuff you WANT to make. I’m getting a wave of that feeling coming on…strong. I traced this also because I was watching something on Netflix that I couldn’t watch in my studio and I wanted to finish the episode.
Anyway, then back to the studio…where I kept going on the pile of flesh…
Which is taking significantly more time than I usually take, mostly because it’s complicated to figure out what is overlapping where, and to make sure I have all the pieces for that body, and that the fabrics don’t overlap in the wrong way.
After 4 hours of ironing, I am barely in the 200s. The plus is I should finish the pile of bodies today, so it will go faster after that. I think. I hope. Because remember how I said I wanted to be done with the ironing by the time school starts again? And there are two more soccer games? Plus I have to plan for school, because hey, we do have to go back there, despite the scary adrenaline rush I get when I think about it? I calculated grades yesterday from the stuff I had graded so far after break. It’s possible I should just quit teaching right now. I’m an absolute failure.
Sigh. So. And on top of all this, I slammed my finger in the door and I keep reopening the wound (bandaids forever!), a Golden Retriever is currently trying to play ball with me, my kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it, and the fish at school has probably died because I keep forgetting to go over there and feed it. Girlchild has applied to her first college, boychild got food poisoning on Thanksgiving from something (he did not have turkey dinner), and I’ve been living on deviled eggs for three days (I’m not sure that’s a bad thing).
This time of year just kicks my ass. So I’m going to kick it back by making lots of art. Yup. You can’t stop me.
Here’s Aug(de)mented Reality 2…for some post-turkey amusement…
Last Saturday (like 4 days ago), I hiked Morena Butte, which overlooks Lake Morena in San Diego County’s eastern mountains. The hike starts at the Lake Morena campground in a PCT parking lot. We hiked a bit through the campground…you can see the butte rising up in the distance.
The weather was nice, although it felt a bit too warm at times, bordering on the mid-70s (when you’re climbing, that’s warm), but mostly in the high 60s.
Ranchers like to use their own locks…and lots of them…
We started out on mostly road…
Lake Morena is suffering from the drought and has had water drained to fill reservoirs closer to San Diego for resident use, taking the lake down to 4% of what it normally has.
The lake is actually a manmade reservoir, but local residents are not thrilled about the hit to recreation in the area. The boat ramp seems mostly stranded and most of what was lake is now dry.
Here we are further up, still with the butte in the background. Of course, I need to look that word up. BUTTE. An isolated hill with steep sides and a relatively flat top, smaller than a mesa. I wonder what measurements they are using. In this photo, we are standing on the concrete foundation of a house, of which only a chimney and steps remain.
There weren’t many trees along the way…
But there were a few.
Some more alive than others.
This is the view as we start to climb up towards the butte, facing south, with Mexico in the far distance.
Facing north as we climb through the brush.
The clouds were beautiful. Although it was just a bit breezy at first, as the day went on, we got some significant wind up top on the butte. Hence the pretty cloud trails.
Lots of boulders and rocky terrain.
Yup. I’m hot and sweaty. Sign of a good hike. Hell, I’m always hot and sweaty. This is facing east…
And more east…
Facing north…
Ah yes, most of the trail was marked by cairns. Or ducks. Depending on your point of view. This is definitely a cairn. Ducks point the way to the trail. Cairns are just markers. There were lots of them, except when there weren’t, which was when you really needed them. When you’re traipsing across a butte that is mostly stone, the trail gets a bit…um…unknowable.
Wish I could tell you what direction this was…
Still heading upwards…
Finally, we hit the butte. You can see it is mostly rock…
And you try to find the way where your boots will actually stick and not slip.
It is rather a large area to wander…
But quite beautiful…peaceful…
Duck? Or cairn? Hard to say.
Parts of the butte are definitely ice- and water-worn…
And the rock shapes on top are definitely signs that weather has an effect on rock.
On one of the “tops” (there are apparently three), there are these rocky people. The female is a little discombobulated, but the male is rather obvious.
Not a cairn…that is wind and water that has worn that shape in the rocks, which are all still attached to each other.
We picnicked at the top, with a view of what’s left of the lake…which used to fill in most of that brown area…
The view to the southeast, quite impressive.
You can see us all sitting out on the edge, looking east.
Then we traipsed all around, looking for a trail to one of the other peaks on the butte…
To find this plaque on the West Peak…
This is the view from the rock with that plaque, Hauser Canyon going west.
We picked up part of the PCT going back, ending up with 9 miles logged. A stop at Descanso Junction for a late lunch was definitely worth it.
I don’t usually have time for those stops (it ends up being the whole day), but I did because it was the first day of vacation. Good food (awesome burger and draft beer). Yeah, there’s a guy who doesn’t want people to recognize him. Hence the black mask. Whatever. Good times…I want to do this one again. The butte is really kind of a wondrous place, very moonlike, otherworldly. Vernal pools in the rainy season (we had a bit of that, because it had rained on Thursday). Gorgeous views. Definitely worth the time.
I’m not in the mood to write about anything in my head right now. It’s not a pretty place to be. To banish that shit, I often hike, so here’s the hike from Saturday, which ironically I think put my head where it is now. Well, that and hormones and life and my plumbing. And my house. And money. And school. So yeah. Hiking is really better, even when the after effects are bad.
Oakzanita is in the Cuyamacas, just south of the Stonewall/Cuyamaca Peak area. We were a small group.
The hike is mostly through (shockingly) oaks and manzanita…oaks in the lower section, very wooded, almost chilly at times (I left long sleeves on for a while).
The fires have been through here, although some of the dead trees are just dead for other reasons…
There’s lots of brush, and because it’s fall in Southern California, mostly everything is brown and dead-looking…
Fire…
But this is the California I know and love…the California I missed when I lived in Britain, where everything is so green it’s fluorescent. The drab olive greens of a California fall.
The peak on the right is Oakzanita…funny, it didn’t seem like climbing to get there. It was a pretty easy hike, although my legs were dead from not hiking for a few weeks.
I was sick all week, so that’s what made it a challenge. The weather was gorgeous, high 60s, low 70s.
This is Cuyamaca Peak on the left, Middle Peak just to the right of it, and then Stonewall in the middle back.
Here’s most of us with Stonewall and Middle in the background…
The view to the south, where I’ll be hiking in December…there might be snow by then.
The view to the west, with the marine layer still covering most of San Diego proper.
At this point, we’re up in the manzanita and brush that covers the top of the peak.
That’s what we’re aiming for.
And from the top, sweeping views in all directions. I could live up there.
Lots of boulders line the trail to the top.
The last stand of a dying yucca, still looking at major marine layer to the west.
And the south again…
At the top, we perched on the rocks and ate lunch.
It was perfect weather…not really hot, but just warm enough that you dried off (sweat!).
I don’t get many pictures of myself…but Maritie helped out…this is to the east. Yes, I’m sweaty. I worked to get up there.
The trail back was slightly different…
We headed back on the fire road…
Where there was lots of evidence of actual fire…
The Oakzanita sign…
They planted new trees to replace those that were burned…
The fire road back…
Nicely shaded for part of it…
Hmm. Probably should have checked those warning signs out before we went.
Although I haven’t seen a lion up here for over 10 years (I know…it doesn’t mean they aren’t there). Thanks to Maritie and Watson for the people pictures.
Anyway, it was 7.6 miles, a gorgeous day. It’s my fault I hiked it mostly by myself, which is not really a good thing. It gives my brain too much room to think. But it was beautiful and I enjoyed it despite that silly brain…and hopefully I’ll get past this bump and on to the next hike.
Nope. Not what you think. Sure, I want world peace, but I don’t think we can make it happen with a hike. Personal peace though? Damn straight it works. Unfortunately, it takes giant bites out of my time to get art made or papers graded or apparently even sleeping well. We hiked Iron Mountain last night and had to put the headlights (ha ha headlamps) on before we even got to the top. It’s getting darker so much earlier now. And then we had homemade ice cream, smoothies, fruit, and champagne up at the top (it was someone’s one-year anniversary with the group). It was very cool.
Actually, it was hot when we started, but the cooler air coming back was really nice.
Great views from the top, but it was dark. I actually didn’t take many photos. This was at the table with the ice-cream setup etc. It was good to get outside and move around though, even though I’m feeling it this morning. I thought I would sleep better, but no!
By the way, this is what the fridge of a hiker looks like…
I needed my water to be cold, at least to start. I had packed the whole bag up and realized I wasn’t leaving for 30 minutes, so I shoved the whole thing back in there, poles and all (you should always chill your poles). What I love is that nobody in my house says a word about finding this in the fridge. Not a freakin’ word.
Anyway. The hiking does clear my mind, but it also fucks me for the rest of the night. I couldn’t eat when I got home and thought I could just skip dinner, but then I started feeling it later, too late really. But I had to eat. Diabetes Grrr. So easy to mess with your blood sugar by not following your routine. But the hike! Oh well.
So in the end, I ironed for about 30 minutes last night.
I could have gone longer, but I was SO tired. So I went to bed instead (smart choice, eh?). And then couldn’t fall asleep. And then was awakened by stalking cats and peeing dogs and who knows what else on the roof. So this morning I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Not good. Oh well. More tonight hopefully (after the high-school back-to-school night?). I’m getting close, but I’m not close enough yet. I wanted to be fully ironed by Friday night, and now I’m chaperoning girls at a concert that night, so I won’t be home until really late and you know I’m not going to be fully awake then. Oh well. There’s always Saturday night. The night that chases me around the room trying to rip flesh out. Sigh.
Mood is rough besides the hiking peace. I made it home almost OK and then had to deal with some stuff and go back out in the car and the mood tanked. I’m trying to hold on to the mental state brought on by the hike, but the 17 texts from work don’t help and stupid emails don’t help and having to clean up after everybody else’s stuff doesn’t help. But that’s what it’s always like and maybe I just don’t have the right personality for holding on to the peace. Or maybe it’s that I’ve spent the last 12 years plus trying to manage everything without a ton of help and I just suck at it. I know I was better at it for a while, but then the support disappeared and I got worse. It’s hard to know that there’s something that helps but that you don’t have it and you can’t just go get it and it kinda feels stupid that you should need it, but you do. And it’s not like I don’t have friends and family who are giving support, but it’s not the same. I don’t know why. Something stupid in my head.
Anyway. I have another drawing in my head for a piece that needs to be done by January 1 (oh yeah, baby), but should be smaller (I’m really thinking about how to do that and still have all the details I love). And I’ve almost survived September, one of the worst months of the year for school and life and soccer, and I’m not sure I was even paying attention. My to-do list is growing exponentially, but I’m still getting it done. And hopefully this quilt will turn out well. It’s all still colored in my head and I think it’s turning out OK, but I won’t know until it’s ironed, and then I can’t really show it to you until the opening. Oh well. I’ll show you details. And I’m still working on my brain. I take it on hikes and give it pen and paper and fabric and books, and it’s coming around, really awfully slowly with sometimes what feels like massive steps backwards, but it’s coming. It’s reluctant. It’s having a hard time getting out of bed. It needs lots of encouragement and mental stimulus and I try to provide, but I also know it was badly broken and damaged, so I keep glue on hand. Some of that glue is climbing up a mountain, even when it seems like you’ve got better things to do.
In which another thousand words of a sci fi novel randomly pop out of my head into Google Docs…where they righteously belong. For no apparent reason. After hiking 6 miles. Really, I shouldn’t be capable of much after a night hike, but apparently those words needed out. I don’t actually read what I’ve written, unless I’ve forgotten something, but even then, I usually just tag it with a comment to be fixed later, because I’m over 35 pages at this point and trying to find that one paragraph where I explained whatever it is I explained (probably something to do with government takeovers) is pretty much impossible.
There is a cat ballet going on in my house at the moment, as the most likely petter of cats has left for college. Yes, boychild was home the most and would search out cats and scratch their heads and pet them and sometimes comb one or two of them. Without him here, they are constantly gathering around whatever space I inhabit and I will turn around and try to shepherd one into the space and one out (none of them like each other, some actually hate each other). Last night, while letting one out of the laundry room (home of food and litter trays), Babygirl came kamikazing out of the boychild’s room, front legs cycling like a windmill, caterwauling at Kitten like she was a foreign invader. Made me scream. Little pyscho. Aren’t you the oldest one? Kitty equivalent of 80 years old? Feisty old bitch. It’s the only excitement I get at night.
So I hiked last night after school. It was nice, but it will be my tutorial day in a few weeks, so I probably won’t be able to do it again. It was hard enough to find the energy for a Tuesday night…I suspect Thursdays will be considerably worse. When I showed up for the hike, I was told I looked like I was moving slowly (I was…it was after school…I was tired), but my body eventually figured it out and got moving. The group I hike with mostly looks normal…until cameras come out, and then the weird happens…
See? Normal…for zombies. Well, we started out normal.
We did Cowles Mountain to Pyles Peak from Barker Way, leaving at 6 PM and coming back in the dark.
Yeah, it was hot yesterday, probably in the high 80s when we started, but it wasn’t too bad…do you see the little tiny thundercloud in the back of that picture?
It got bigger.
I kept trying to get the color that was really showing, but my camera wasn’t quite up to the task.
The sunset reflects off the clouds to the east. This one is from the top of Pyles Peak.
It was nice and cool by the end of the hike. And dark. Yes, dark. But in the beginning, you could see all the clouds and marine layer in the distance to the west…this is from the top of Cowles.
This is facing north from Cowles, looking out toward Pyles Peak, which always looks a million miles away from here.
And from Pyles, here’s Cowles Mountain. At this point, we’re halfway through and it looks like a million miles to get back. It’s not really. It’s only 1.5 miles to the peak and then another 1.5 down. At 8 PM. On a work day. Before you’ve eaten dinner. Yeah. A little crazy.
As the sun set, we had popsicles! It felt really good to have icy sugar with the heat.
It’s hard to capture the look of the hills. I love looking at them, but I can never get a good picture of what I love looking AT. The graying out of the different layers of hills in the distance. Totally opposite of what they taught us in painting class.
There was wildlife. This scorpion is maybe 2-3 inches long.
I decided this was a gopher snake because it’s skinny and has a pointy tail.
Lovely. Spider creepout.
When I got home, I was feeling tired (OK, physically exhausted but mentally alert), but I really want to make a point of art every night. It makes me feel better. I’m still falling into these nightly downspaces, especially on the nights when the girlchild is not here. Plus I have deadlines. I want to be making progress. I need to be able to show that something is getting done. That there’s a purpose to everything. That it’s not just Go To Work. Go Home. Watch TV. Like some people.
I had decided in order to reduce the price on the two quilts that will be in the Art Produce show, which is being installed this weekend (some pressure to get done, eh?), I wasn’t going to bind the edges. In the olden days, I used to participate in a weekly or monthly challenge (don’t actually remember) that was one word? Maybe two? And you’d make a small quilt for it. I have about 7 or 8 of them. I’ll try to find them maybe. They were fun to experiment with, but I didn’t want to spend the time binding them, so I remembered a technique that I think Ellen Anne Eddy taught us using cording to help satin stitch an edge. Now I’m sure I could do the same thing without the cording, but for some reason, the cord seemed to make it work better.
Unfortunately, I think it took 20 minutes last night to FIND the cording.
Once I did, I finished the two edges…it was kind of amazing that I had thread to match the lighter one.
OK, maybe not so amazing. I do have a lot of thread. Now I just have to figure out how I want to hang them. Keep it simple.
I was really tired when I finished all that, but I think it was better going to bed with something completed, something that I’d accomplished…yes, besides teaching all day and hiking 6 miles. I didn’t say any of it made any sense. I do spend a lot of hours not talking to anyone though and it wears on me. Girlchild is still coming to school each day with me, so that helps, but that ends this week. Then I go back to talking to myself. I already know how those conversations will go. Anyway. My goals for the week are to get the other three birds and the house done and get that damn drawing done. Holy moley. That needs to happen.
Apparently I will also be writing more sci fi…it’s crowding into my brain even now, waiting for the end of the day when it can all spill out. I guess that’s a good thing.
Kathy Nida 