The Dog Days of Summer Come to an End

As a native Oregonian, I was shocked to realize recently that it had been more than nine entire months since I had set foot in my home state. Nine months! I could have gone through an entire pregnancy from conception to childbirth in that amount of time (please note I said could have; this in no way a reflection on what actually happened during the previous nine months)!

Fortunately, last weekend remedied this situation, as Michael, Lucy, and I drove to my parents' home late Friday night. Saturday was spent with my parents, dining (I use the word here with just a touch of the facetious) at Sheridan's lone Chinese restaurant - home of Michael's favorite General Tso's chicken, hiking out to the point of Cape Lookout on the coast for some fabulous views and woodland scenery, and letting the dogs loose on the beach, where a piece of kelp stood in quite nicely for a stick for Lucy to chase.

We had picked this last weekend of the summer for our trip as a wedding reception was held on Sunday for my cousin, Noah. The wedding had been in Mississippi, and the reception was a casual one, although the setting, in a beautifully landscaped home garden outside of Newberg, and the weather were gorgeous. The casual atmosphere was apparantly a good match for Noah - well, actually, even this setting was more formal than Noah's wedding attire, which he dutifully wore to the reception. While Rosalie, his bride, wore a lovely, simple white wedding gown, Noah had on a pair of dungarees, a striped Hickory shirt, and red lumberjack suspenders. I'm not sure how he convinced Roaslie that dressing like a logger was the way to go for the ceremony; perhaps the folks in Mississippi figured that this must just be how us Oregonians get gussied up. But hey, at least the clothes were clean.

We were on our way to Seattle following the reception, sadly with one of our family left behind. Lucy will spend the next month and a half as a farm dog with my parents, who have offered to dogsit while Michael and I vacation in Greece. But now that we're back home and still have almost two weeks until our trip, the house feels strangely lonely without our beloved pup. Nuisance though she may be at times, it is comforting to come home to someone who's always excited to see you, always eager to snuggle up next to you on the sofa, and who sleeps only an arm's distance away next to my bed each night.

But I have the feeling the next two weeks will be busy enough that we won't have too much of a chance to miss her. And when we get back, Lucy will be an bonafide Oregonian herself, fully integrated into her country dog ways. But don't worry, I'm sure she'll miss her Seattle sofa, at least a little bit.

Snow Day, Take 2

"Keep your feet up!"

I pointed my toes skyward as I sped down the hill, then WHAM! For a second I was airborne, and scarcely had I touched back down when I found myself in the air for one last split second before landing and spinning backwards into fresh snow.Oh yeah, this was a snow day.

Michael and I made it to my parents' place in Oregon Friday night, having driven down from Seattle. Most of the trip was a breeze, with little or no snow on the roads, but about ten miles out for our destination, the scenery changed. Michael fishtailed the car for the first time that day just as my mom called to check on our status.

"We'll put chains on before we drive up the hill," I told her. About a half hour later we received another phone call, just as our car struggled to make the ascent up the narrow snow-covered dead-end road that leads to my parents' home, literally at the top of an actual hill, behind the tiny town of Sheridan, Oregon.

"How's it going?" my dad asked.

"Not too well, to be honest," I could feel my teeth clench as the wheels of our Pontiac Vibe spun, thankful that I wasn't the one driving.

"We'll be down," my dad replied.

As it turns out, we had lost one of the chains, and despite Michael backtracking a full mile - twice - to look for it, the chain was nowhere to be found.

"Don't worry," said dad. "It's like when they find the bodies on Everest after the snow melt. It'll turn up then." Thank, dad. What a lovely thought.

With the help of the tractor winch, and then from my Uncle Dan in his four-wheel drive pick-up equipped with chains, we were towed easily up the remaining mile. My family's home had indeed been transformed into a winter wonderland, with snow weighing down the branches of the fir trees and illuminating the lacy shapes of the bare oaks. On Saturday morning, there was only one thing that could be done - inner tubing!

Being as they live on the top of a hill, there is no truly flat land on my parents' property, and one of the steepest hills is behind the house, overlooking the valley below. Here we created the ultimate inner tube run, complete with two jumps, and Michael wanted me as the guinea pig.

Fun as it may be to slide down the snow into unknown consequences, it's possibly more fun to watch your dad and brother fly of their inner tubes after the final jump, doing a full three barrel rolls in the snow. The end of the run skirted dangerously close to a couple of rather large wild rose bushes, and since the land never actually flattened out, each tuber tended to go a little father than the one before. Lucy, our dog, was unable to contain her excitement at this point, and would pounce the moment someone landed, covering faces with desperate licks and wiggling as if her life depended on it.

Still, I think the most unexpected gymnastic feat of the morning was when I lost my bearings after the second jump and did a BACK FLIP before landing slightly dazed, and unharmed, in the snow. No kidding, I saw my feet pass over my head, and before I knew it I was lying on my back, gasping a little in shock.

"That was awesome!" Michael laughed from his viewpoint by the first jump.

Yeah, that was pretty awesome. So awesome, in fact, that it was the last trip I made down the inner tube run that day. Sometimes, it's best to quite while you're ahead.