Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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Good riddance meltdown May 2022. For some reason, this year May has been a month filled with meltdowns, including one of my own, (a rarity for me). Although they minimized in severity as the month proceeded, it was slightly disheartening. It started with a friend, who shall remain nameless unless she chooses to reveal herself. As she described her day, it started with receiving threatening hate mail while trying to meet a writing deadline with a computer that went rogue. To add to the madness,...
It was great fun to see the Celebration Days Parade this year. It brought back so many parade memories, from attending and marching in parades. I marched in New York with my 4-H troop. Later, as a High School band member in Tucson, I marched in a heavy wool uniform in 100-degree heat. In Flagstaff, where I went to college, I continued in the band and marched in ten below zero weather. In Los Angeles, I was just an avid spectator past my marching days. A Los Angeles parade would include...
WAITSBURG-I was fortunate to move to the Waitsburg area in 2016 and my move was entirely because of a barn. That barn will be getting some much-needed restoration work, thanks in part to grant funding from the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation's (DAHP) historic barn grant program. In 2016, a friend and I were vacationing here from Seattle and drove down Lower Waitsburg Road at dusk. As I crested a hill, I saw my dream property-a white 1920's farmhouse standing...
While playing tennis and chasing tennis balls at Waitsburg High School, a song from “My Fair Lady” played through my head. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” became “Why can’t a tennis court be more like a bowling alley?” Or even a pool table. Bowling alleys and pool tables have bumpers, gutters, and pockets that return the balls to you. Tennis courts were not designed for easy ball retrieval. I was constantly chasing tennis balls as they landed on the other court, under the fence, in t...
I recently read an article in the New York Times about a woman who inherited her mother’s germaphobia. The pandemic amplified her phobia, and she became obsessed with the variety of disinfectants available and how to use and not use them. Bleach shouldn’t be mixed with anything except water. This lesson I learned the hard way when I tried to clean an ancient and yellowed bathtub years ago. I wanted it clean, so I mixed bleach, ammonia, and a little TSP in a bucket. I nearly asphyxiated mys...
I have been told that the “rule of thumb” is not to plant flowers and summer vegetables until Mother’s Day, or at the earliest, May 1. First, what exactly does “rule of thumb” mean? Do thumbs have rules? Are there rules about thumbs and what they can or cannot do? In general, I am a decent citizen and rule-follower; I wear seat belts, wear masks when mandated or when I travel, pick up after my dog, don’t litter, and stop for pedestrians. Some rules I have learned to follow the hard way. The sp...
Last weekend, a quick 700-mile trip into Oregon's Union and Baker Counties began rolling decades ago when Waitsburg photographer Bill Rodgers studied botany and geology and then worked professionally throughout the western states. His familiarity with the timeless forces shaping the Earth's subsurface informed his love for the mystery and beauty of the landscapes above. This outing was to seek photographs for Volume VI of "The Blues," to be published later this year by the Blue Mountain Land...
The day has come, and this is the test; am I ready to travel maskless? I had an early morning flight scheduled for my next sojourn to Los Angeles this last Monday. It’s a dreadful time to wake up and make it to the airport, but it’s nice to get into Los Angeles around noon. More time to hang with friends and eat sushi. But, as luck would have it, I received a text from the airline around midnight advising me that the flight was canceled. They rebooked me to a flight leaving on Tuesday aft...
Schizophrenia doesn't even begin to describe the weather this "spring." Daniel declared, "this year, I'm not planting anything until May, even before the snow predictions." I rolled my eyes and figured he would suffer his decision to be a laggard. His envy was palpable as my veggies thrived, and he would just be starting his. I didn't figure on a snowy April. I'm not sure which is worse, admitting he was right to wait, or being frustrated at the seeds I planted early, now probably wasted. I...
Is it the water? Relaxed and friendly Lifestyle? Homegrown veggies? The fact that our area has 9 (plus) people over 90 years old is impressive and has given me a push to rethink my procrastination and make a life plan. As I’ve said before, planning is not my strong suit, so here goes: First: Shop less, save more! I may need to make those social security checks stretch more than I anticipated. Saving, like planning, is also not one of my strong suits. Second: Eat better and healthier. I hope r...
Happily and reluctantly, I have shed my mask, knowing that this is most likely a temporary reprieve. The virus is thriving in Europe and Asia, so I assume we will eventually be inundated and back to masking. It may be a brief interlude, but it's nice to show my face and dig out the old dried-up lipsticks again. I need to remember to watch my facial expressions; my smirks can now be seen by all. This week I will be back in L.A. and will plan to maintain a selective social distancing policy. I...
I am still grief-stricken about the war Putin has declared on the people of Ukraine. I did go to the World Central Kitchen website to see if there was anything I could do. Even though I am not a trained chef, I am not a bad cook. I have a passport, suitcases, and am happy to help and work to feed refugees or soldiers on the front lines. Unfortunately, I don’t have proficiency in the Polish language, which is one of their requirements. My few words of Yiddish just won’t meet the proficiency sta...
These past few weeks have been heart-wrenching. The feelings of grief, sadness, anger, and hopelessness are all swirling within me as I watch this dreadful war unfold in Ukraine. My paternal grandfather moved to the United States as a child from a small town in Austria in the late 1800s. That town is now part of Ukraine. I feel connected to this war in a way that I hadn’t imagined. Hindsight being 20/20, I am now embarrassed by my last column. While the people in Ukraine hear the constant b...
I love music. My parents and many relatives had both musical talents, a great appreciation for music, and there was almost always music playing in our house. My father loved classical music and grew to love opera, influenced by my grandfather, who lived with us who loved both of those genres. My mother owned every Broadway musical album ever recorded and was a big fan of Frankie Lane. We were the first on our block to have a HiFi which was constantly played. The first “big” gifts I received as a...
The day before we left for Los Angeles, we enjoyed lunch with our friend Eric on our backyard deck. Eric declared, "I'm calling it, Spring is here." Right! Heard that before. While in LA, I received a text from one of my Waitsburg friends with a picture of crocus springing up in her yard. She also wanted me to know that Spring had arrived. I texted back, "Yeah, I remember last year when we had two feet of snow the last two weeks of February." I have a picture of a vase of my daffodils sitting...
The hazy sky, parking meter-lined streets, and a baby pink Tesla in front of me, blinded by the sun reflecting off impeccably clean, shiny cars, with not a pick-up truck in sight. Yep, we're back in Los Angeles for our Doctors and Dentist tour. Daniel had hernia surgery, and for me, it was mammogram time (or smash & dash, as my friends call it). We landed in Los Angeles and sat on the tarmac for forty minutes, waiting for a gate to open, then another forty-five minutes in line to pick up our...
DAYTON—Columbia County Health Systems (CCHS) is proud to announce a new program for 2022 called Partners Improving Patient Health (PIPH). This program came out of a multi-year grant awarded to CCHS by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to help evolve the way we care for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive health failure (CHF), and cardiovascular disease (CVD), including difficult to control hypertension (high blood pressure, HTN) and those who have had myocardial infarctions (h...
While some people study great philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, my current frame of reference are more Broadway Musicals and popular songs. Lerner & Lowe’s clever lyrics, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” from their show My Fair Lady have been playing through my head daily. Just reversing the genders. The song laments that women are temperamental, flighty, vain, and generally self-centered spoiled creatures, unlike men who have none of those pesky traits. Well, wake up...
We have shortened the hours at the restaurant to dinner service only on Friday and Saturday nights. No more lunches, and no longer opening on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We have added Take & Bake, a much simpler undertaking. Theoretically, with the reduction in the hours, I should have much more free time. Where is it? I am working out more. It turns out that last year’s insomniac impulse purchase of the Mirror was a good decision. I am taking all sorts of classes, including Zumba, stretch, weight...
Cole Porter, known for his profound lyrics, was “en pointe” with this particular song relating to our recent reopening of the restaurant. I have familiarity with this song title from the Broadway show Kiss Me, Kate. The show, roughly based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, is also somewhat “en pointe” because, on a rough night in the kitchen, Daniel can be shrewish. Porter’s lyrics reverberated in my brain all evening during our recent reopening. The new reduced hours and reduced men...
I am finally mobile again since the weather has warmed up, enough rain fell, and my car is now out of its “stuck in the ice and snow” mode. It is no longer an ice sculpture but a dirty, mode of tranportation, all gassed up and ready to go! I am grateful I didn’t have COVID fever, just a mild case of Cabin Fever these past two weeks. It’s probably psychological because there was no place I needed or wanted to go. We had food, water (after the pipes defrosted), and every Netflix, Amazon Prime,...
This past week of rough weather has been an important lesson and slapped down my hubris. I recently discovered, or instead, learned the hard way, that over confidence was a huge mistake. It seems we’ve had a year’s worth of weather in the last week, with snow, a little warming sun, below zero temperatures, howling winds, followed by more snow falling right now. I was confident my new snow tires made my car impervious to snow; evidently, I was wrong because it is currently a snow-bound scu...
As I’ve frequently written, I am not a reflective person. However, I do appreciate traditions. Therefore, as I did columns for my first and second anniversaries in Waitsburg, I decided to make it tradition and do a third-anniversary column. First, I am still amazed that my original attempt at a column was published; that the column continues is still beyond me. Full disclosure, after reading my initial essay, my first English class professor immediately sent me to the remedial class. Q...
My life seems weird now that we have decided to slow down the operations at the restaurant. Our new focus on catering, take & bake, and working with some winemakers for special dinners is more fun and for sure, less stressful. Now I have time to go to the gym, but am I? Not as much as I should! The excuse is I’m still decompressing, although I’m not sure how long that will be a viable excuse. I’m finally reading again and recently finished two books and am on to a third. I’ve perfected downloa...
While hunting is still largely viewed as a man's activity, the number of women hunters increased 25 percent between 2011-2016, according to US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the numbers continue to climb. Embracing women in the outdoors is not news to Pheasants Forever (PF), but their "Women on the Wing" (WotW) initiative is relatively fresh. "In 2018, Pheasants Forever & Quail Forever's Women on the Wing Initiative officially kicked off in response to the rapid interest and engagement among wom...
