Tag Archives: 4th of July

Happy 4th of July…and “slow down little missy”

07 Sunday Jul 2013

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WP_000341After last year’s drama over the 4th of July I was ready for a truly relaxing getaway weekend.  And man, how time flies!  Can’t believe all that was a year ago.  If you don’t feel like clicking on that link, we had about a 3-4 acre beach grass fire in front of our property on the Washington coast, set off by an unsuccessful bottle rocket launcher.  No one ever came forward to claim responsibility, and my family, neighbors and I watched helplessly as the volunteer fire crew got it under control while the winds blew hard in our direction.  And my eldest nephew had to stay home with my sister-in-law, as he’d made a trip to the ER after trying a superhero-style leap off of a neighbor’s backyard slope behind a basketball hoop…and missed catching the hoop.

So this year we had nearly all of my immediate family at the beach house in Ocean Park, but not quite as many extended family in the neighboring houses as in other years.  It just seemed, well, a little quieter this year overall.  But we still had the fun crowds watching the parade down the main street, which has everything from the local high school band, people running for office, the car club, a belly dancing troupe…and a shopping cart drill team thanks to one of the grocery store’s employees!  And a fantastic time laughing and talking around the fire pit with other relatives in Oysterville, WA, just a short drive from Ocean Park and on the Willapa Bay side of the peninsula.

As I’ve likely written before, getting there is half the fun.  Meaning, the road trip from the Seattle area to Ocean Park is beautiful.  Even more beautiful once you get off the main I-5 freeway and onto the smaller more rural highways.  I’ve driven the route hundreds of times and it’s different every time.  It’s usually around 4 or 4 1/2 hours…but this year it took a whopping 5 1/2.  Bad traffic and an extra stop I hadn’t planned on making.

I usually grab dinner at the Crow’s Nest drive-in in Montesano.  Fast food doesn’t count when you’re road trippin’, right?  This is my classic although somewhat ridiculous excuse for a good, greasy burger and a shake.  After 3 hours on the road – double my usual time to get to this spot at about the halfway point of the drive, I knew I’d be arriving at the house after dark.  The main freeway traffic earlier had crawled…for some reason I had this silly idea that most other people would get an earlier start getting out of town and on the road, while I still had a full day at the office.  So, I stand corrected!  But it was a beautiful evening, and Mount Rainier was out – it was so clear you could even see the rolling foothills all around it.  Gorgeous.

I’m a pretty good ‘eater in the car’ type, even when driving, but this time I ended up wearing my dinner, as a few diced onions and sauce from my cheeseburger danced down the front of my new t-shirt as I sped down Highway 101.  I was determined to make up time, but the curvy highway keeps your speed in check.

And how interesting a segue is that.  This part of Highway 101 winds over quite a few rivers, creeks and sloughs that all eventually flow into Willapa Bay.  And summer is construction season, so bridge maintenance work is in full swing.  The sun was setting and I realized I didn’t need my sunglasses much anymore as the road wound through the trees.  I made up lost time driving a little faster – getting up around 65 mph on a curvy highway is about my limit.  Then…construction zones.  One of the bridges was down to just one lane, and they had an automated traffic light set up to keep traffic flowing long after the work crews went home. Painfully long light cycle…and I could tell I was just one of many frustrated drivers eager to make up time spent backed up in traffic earlier in the afternoon to get to wherever they were going.

A few miles later the highway straightened out and I was probably doing 65 or 70 again…enjoying the last bits of sunlight, admiring the beautiful bay views – and up ahead was another bridge construction zone.  Speed limit 25mph so says the warning sign.  So I gently started tapping my brakes to slow down…I wanted to do a gradual slow and nothing obnoxious.  As I was slowing down I saw a bunch of County police in their Tahoes facing the other direction.  Suddenly their lights started flashing and I continued to brake.  OK, it’s a construction zone but it’s after hours (around 9pm or so) so nobody is working, and oh, those cops must have been called elsewhere…that’s why that guy is pulling out into the road and turning around my direction, right?  RIGHT?  I keep slowing down and realize OH SHIT, he’s pulling me over!  Maybe I’m wrong and I just need to pull over to get out of his way.  Nooo…I pull over and he pulls over behind me.  FUCK.

As much as I want to tell this dude to get a life and leave us city people alone and go fight some REAL crime rather than trolling for speeding cars in a construction zone where NO ONE is working, I keep composed.  A half hour later he’s completed his paperwork and I get my license, registration and insurance card back.  And a $113 ticket for doing 35 mph in a 25 mph zone.  UGH.  OK, I was in the process of slowing down…I just didn’t slow down fast enough.

baby islandThat was at milepost 33 on Highway 101 in Washington state, if anyone wants to map that.  Right near the construction of the bridge over the mid Nemah River.  Be warned, my friends.  When it says 25mph, they mean it.  And fines double or triple in construction zones, even if no one is working in them.

So I didn’t want that episode dampening my mood any longer…I’m headed to the beach!  By now it was just after dark and I had the home stretch of the drive ahead of me.  The curviest parts of Highway 101 actually.  This picture is of Baby Island in Willapa Bay, and the sight of it always makes me smile.  I found this picture online – never have been in a spot to pull over and attempt to take a picture of it myself as the road shoulder is a little narrow and precarious – and you can see the bay, mud and beautiful sky.  I was actually driving this in that kind of not-quite-totally-dark dark.  Instead of beautiful sunset colors, everything had a brown, taupe and dark green glow.  You could still see the outlines of everything so clearly.  It was surreal; I can’t remember the last time I ever have seen the bay at night like that.

Deer are very common on the Long Beach peninsula, and I was crossing my fingers hard that one would not spontaneously leap out in front of me in the dark on the last stretch of the highway to Ocean Park.  Between bad traffic, spilled food and a speeding ticket that was enough.

It took me a good 24 hours or so to wind down.  And nothing better than seeing my adorable nephews and niece to put a huge smile on my face the next morning!  We enjoyed the annual parade through Ocean Park, watching the huge fireworks on the beach in the evening from our back porch, the volunteer beach cleanup (you would not believe the amount of fireworks debris left behind on the beach!) and just playing and relaxing.  Because you just can’t help but chill out and slow down when you get to Ocean Park.  The pace is slower, the salt air makes me sleep like a rock, cell phone coverage is a little spotty but improving…and the TV stays off.

oceanHere’s the view looking south at the (Pacific) ocean on Beach Cleanup day (July 5).  Nice relief from the hot weather we were having at home (but nothing compared to some other parts of the country, yikes).

And a large doe I encountered on a walk about a quarter-mile from the house…she was just standing in the middle of the road and walked over into someone’s yard to start munching grass.

Oh, and what’s with the “slow down little missy” in the post title?  That was J’s wise words to me in a text message after I told him I got a ticket!  Too funny.

Deer

 

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Family 4th of July Weekend…Unscathed Mostly

07 Saturday Jul 2012

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After relentless whining and moaning about the weather in the Seattle area these past few weeks it was time to get out of town…off to the Long Beach Peninsula on the Washington Coast! 

Take a look at that picture above…there is simply nothing more glorious than this.  4th of July holiday weekend and not a cloud in the sky looking down at the tide pools along the Pacific Ocean.  Lots of young cousins running around, splashing in the ocean.  This is what we live for!  I’ve been heading to this part of the state every year since I was, well, just a few months old.  And I couldn’t be more grateful to have this slice of heaven deep in my family’s history.

I’ll have more tomorrow about what I packed for this family getaway.  The weather is unpredictable on the coast year ’round, so more than likely you’ll need both a bathing suit AND polar fleece even in the summer.  Stay tuned for more about that.

What I want to write about tonight is to share the scare we had around lunchtime on July 4 and some other family drama the night before.  Take a look:

This is the view looking east (inland) and downhill from the westernmost duneline back toward our family property, our summer home and a few other properties as well [our house is the 2nd from the left]. If you did a 180 degree turn you’d see a wide stretch of greyish sand and the beautiful Ocean.  What you’re looking at here is about 3 or 4 acres of beach grass that burned in a fire.  A stupid, senseless fire started by some fuckers who thought it would be a brilliant idea to launch a goddamned bottle rocket in the tinder-dry beach grass to celebrate the 4th of July.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  Ooops, I should have probably prefaced this post with a warning that there will be profanity in here.  Guess it’s too late now.  I’m on a roll, people.  Yes, we found said bottle rocket launcher later in these charred dunes, precisely where we’d first noticed the smoke at lunchtime earlier.  CSI Ocean Park!

My youngest brother and his family were planning to arrive at the beach house the night of the 3rd, the same night I drove in as well, joyously tossing the laptop into its briefcase and into my car’s trunk for a 5-day dormant slumber.  Well, things don’t always go as planned.  My eldest nephew, turning 9 in just a couple of weeks, went 5 feet down SPLAT onto a neighbor’s sport court during a block party the night before, while attempting a superman-ish leap from an embankment behind a basketball court onto a bar behind the backboard or perhaps the hoop itself.  Didn’t quite make the bar or hoop… 

The poor guy ended up with a concussion, a fractured bone in his left hand and about 40 stitches in his chin.  Oh man!  My brother and sister-in-law were with him in the ER until the wee hours of the 4th.  My sister-in-law stayed home with my nephew, while my brother brought my niece and youngest nephew out to the beach house on just a few hours sleep.  It was sad not having his whole family there with us, but we were so grateful little C was OK and getting excellent medical care, not to mention an outpouring of support from the families in the neighborhood.  He’s going to be fine; it’s just going to be a bit of a road to recovery.

The town of Ocean Park, WA always has a parade in the afternoon on July 4th.  You see everything from the grocery store’s shopping cart drill team, a bunch of the local car clubs’ prized possessions, local politicians running for office, a few clowns, the local belly dancing troupes doing their thing and kids on bicycles and tricycles, and a super cool flyby of a US Coast Guard helicopter.  It’s great!  One group noticeably absent in the parade this year…the local fire department…they were hard at work battling the beach grass fire near our property!

Earlier, my Mom’s cousin and my Dad were headed out to the main street to stake out spots along the parade route, lawn chairs in hand as we do every year.  I remember calling my Dad on his cell from the house as I had forgotten whether he would be coming back to the house to grab some lunch or if my Mom and I were to just meet him and the rest of the family out on the parade route.  He wanted to come back and grab a quick sandwich and maybe a short power nap too!

Well, notsomuch.  Shortly after sitting down at the table with a nice sandwich he looked out the window and noticed smoke about a quarter-mile out in our large, grassy meadow rising up from the beach grass.  Within seconds there were flames.  Oh my God!  We didn’t see anyone fleeing the fire scene…we just saw the fire continue to spread.  And spread.  And spread.  The wind was blasting in our direction, and the fire was hungry.  When there is nothing but super-dry beach grass and sand to feed a fire, it keeps moving. 

Dad called 911 and, as we learned later, he was the first to call it in.  Within 30 seconds we heard sirens screaming.  Good news!  Right now the 4th of July parade seemed all but a faint blip on our brains. There was a goddamn FIRE burning near my family’s and a couple of other people’s properties and it seemed like no one was around but us to give a shit.  The properties adjacent to ours are far apart and sparse.  Thank GOD we were around and not already out at the parade!

Although the sirens were a welcome relief, it seemed like eternity until one of them (a water truck, not a full-on firetruck…this is a small town) showed up to plow through our meadow out to the fire.  Turns out the fire department did not have updated information on which of the homes on our street had the right access for them to come through!  I learned later that one of my cousins staying in the cabin across the street finally flagged them down, after they were zooming up and down the street to no avail, and showed them the path to take after crossing the bridge over the creek onto our property which would lead them into the meadow to go fight the fire.  Ummm…methinks there is going to be some MAJOR debriefing and documentation updates with the local fire department.

So the fire was burning, spreading unpredictably, about a quarter-mile from our house and I have never been so close to a fire like that in my life.  And I never hope to ever again.  Neighbors were starting to congregate onto our back deck to watch everything unfold.  We were dumbfounded.  I remember my body seething, rippling in both FEAR and ANGER.  I’M SO AFRAID…and WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS???  What kind of COWARD runs away from a fire they started??  I stood on our back deck, transfixed at the fire and the firefighters as they tried to contain the fire, while every single fiber of my being at the same time was SCREAMING at me to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.  And I remember telling my cousin J as he stood beside me on the deck that if I ever found out who started that fire I’d rip their fucking head off.  I remember my Dad mumbling out loud, wondering if he should get the house garden hoses ready to hose down the roof…one side of our property is nothing but super-duper dry trees that would have flared up in an instant had the fire made it that far.  We just sat, watched, dumbfounded.  We just didn’t know.

After about an hour, the fire was out.  I remember screaming THANK YOU and waving my arms at one of the water trucks as they exited our property.  My heart was still pounding…and I was worried about fires flaring up again later in that same large spot. 

And for the first time in my life, I went to a parade with full intent to RELAX…to get back to some sort of holiday normalcy.  Of course that was next to impossible.  It was nice having our lawn chairs reserved on the parade route, but all we could talk about with each other and anyone near us was about the fire.  People were wondering…oh yeah I heard the sirens…you mean that was near you?? Yes, it sure was.  I about hugged Smokey the Bear as he made his way through the parade route, handing candy out to the little kids.

I’ll have more about the rest of the weekend – more normal stuff – tomorrow.  I just am so thankful for the 911 dispatchers and the local fire department for springing into action and saving homes and lives.  Everything happens exactly as it’s supposed to.  Had the parade started at its normal time, noon, we’d have been on the parade route with lawn chairs and beverages, nowhere near the meadow.  This year, for some reason, the parade started at 1pm.  We made the 911 call when we spotted the fire around 11:30am.  See what I mean?

This weekend I am especially thankful…for FREEDOM and FIREFIGHTERS!

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Hittin’ the Reset Button

10 Sunday Jul 2011

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So much has happened in the couple weeks since I last wrote.  I feel like I’ve busted through a wall (in a good way) or have gone through a massive kind of human car wash.  I feel great – refreshed, renewed and happy.  Even lighter too, but I’m not stepping on the scale just yet.

My last day of work was Thursday the 30th.  I knew this day was coming, and it was nice having nearly a full month’s notice that I’d be wrapping up then for sure.  When you do consulting/contract work like I have for nearly five years, you learn quickly how fluid and unpredictable work assignments can be.  You don’t always get as much notice as a month.  Hell, I’ve had two weeks, one week another time…and even another time got a phone call driving home one night that I didn’t need to come back to work the next day.  Never knew why.  It was the end of the quarter and maybe they’d forgotten that they needed to trim their contingent workforce.  Who knows.  

Why do I do this type of work, you may wonder?  Well, I consider it a big advantage, as I get the opportunity to zoom in and out of very disparate work environments and see what’s out there.  I do the work they need me to do and then I move on.  I don’t have to insert myself in politics or bullshit that every work environment has.  I learn different ways of solving problems and can apply them in other work engagements.

The flip side is I’m pretty much networking and job hunting year ’round.  Time goes quickly and most of my engagements are a year or less in length.  This one happened to be just over a year.  Felt like the blink of an eye, really.  So while there’s a part of me that gets a little drained having to keep an eye out for my next job pretty much constantly, the advantage is I’ve built up a much stronger network than I would have if I’d stayed in the same job for years and years.  I know how to rock an interview, network and land a job.  I always land on my feet.  Sure, I feel a little envious when I see people around my age who have been at their same jobs for 10-15 years or longer, but I’ve also heard them tell me things like, “Wow, I haven’t been on an interview in years.  I wouldn’t know how to do what you’re doing, fivenineteen.  I don’t know what I’d do if I ever got laid off.”  Guess the grass is always greener.  I’m happy in my patch ‘o green right now.

The job market has improved immensely out there, at least in my little world of perspective.  Once I updated my resume and started getting the word out, lots of calls and emails came pouring in.  That feels pretty damn good, no doubt there.

I’m starting a new position later this week!  It’s at the same company I was at prior, but in a completely different business unit.  Everything about this has felt good and right from the minute I got called to interview.  Including the speed of business and sense of urgency in getting this all put together (paperwork, etc).  Remember how my start date for the position I just wrapped up got delayed some two or three weeks?  And when I did show up for Day One, my manager was out sick and didn’t tell anyone (so I sat in the lobby for two hours with a peer of mine and a sales rep)?  Yeah, I don’t like to remember that either because it sucked royally.  Glad that is all far, far in the rear view mirror.  And it makes for great storytelling too.

So I have had just about a week of downtime between gigs.  Just enough to really “reset,” but not so long that my brain would start going to mush. 

I had an incredible 4th of July weekend with family. I’ve posted about Ocean Park and the Long Beach Peninsula out on the Washington coast before.  It’s truly magical, beautiful and deeply steeped in family history. And it’s fun seeing my nephews and niece discover it too and get to know their other cousins – on both sides of the family!  We had incredible warm and sunny weather – it’s a crapshoot on the coast even in early summer like now.  Polar fleece?  Shorts?  Yes and yes.

Even the drive there and back is relaxing and cleansing.  Once you get off the main freeways and onto the two-lane highways the scenery is amazing.  I’ve driven that route hundreds of times and I never get tired of it.

Know that feeling when you’re on a roll…things just happen in your favor?  Right down to a rockstar parking spot when you’re running late for an appointment…and parallel park correctly on the first try?  That’s how it’s been lately, and frankly I deserve it.  It’s been a real grinding haul these past 13-14 months.  

Just the other day I got an “escrow overage” check in the mail from my bank.  Wuhh?  $212 – works for me.  And within two days I received two very generous jewelry orders from my side business.  One was a guest who couldn’t make my last hostess’ party and the other was a friend who called me when I posted something on Facebook about the new jewelry that’s coming out later this month for the new season! Earlier this week I looked at my post-coast trip feet.  Yuck…I need a pedicure!  My favorite spa had an opening just two hours later.  I splurged and got the pedi with the extra foot and leg massage time.  Ahhh.  I also met with a couple of recruiters I’d not met with before over lunch.  Like I’ve said, you always keep networking.  They know I’ve got something new lined up already, but time goes quickly.

Now…how can I bottle up this great Feeling of Reset?