Poultry, briefly updated

Mom commented to me yesterday that I had not, at least, described myself as a "chicken with its head cut off". That's true--I am not completely directionless, nor am I spewing geysers of blood indiscriminately around the house.

Which, at this stage, is DEFINITELY a good thing.

Poultry

In these final hours in the Wallingford House I have become a hen, where my abilities are largely of two sorts: inefficient pecking; and ruffled-feather, flustered, squawking hyperbole.

I know it will end, and I know there are still things to be done that I will be glad to have done, but I can't seem to get on track.

I am as effective as a chicken.

The packers come in 36 hours.

Best Intentions

This is one evening recently in Hogan House, after Ian had gone back to Seattle. Just came upon it now in Blogger's green room, where it was languishing because it did not, actually, work one-fingered on my phone, as it says at the bottom. The pictures were too much for it. 

I thought some sort of porridge would be good, and Ian had bought this complete protein grain and legume cereal mix, to snack on at the Dacha, but he hadn't taken it down before leaving. It had instructions for cooking (heat, with soy or almond milk and water), and I had some raisins and I . . . I paused and considered, and I thought, what are all those grains, etc, anyway? And then I saw that they included lentils. I thought of the mealy texture of lentils, and the sweet nature of porridge, particularly as I was envisioning it, and my digestive tract paused its habitual gurgle. 

I considered a moment, then decided that, for primarily moral reasons, I would go ahead as planned and cook this lentil porridge that was so nourishing and complete. 

I measured and poured, cereal and cow's milk (note: not a milk on the recommended list).  Hogan House is well-stocked with small sauce pans (if not teaspoons), which is nice as you cycle through them. It is particularly not nice when you remember that Hogan House is not well-stocked with dishwashers, especially with one of them--the preferred one--back in Seattle. But I was in the well-stocked phase, so the issue of saucepans didn't come up. 

As the porridge warmed and began thickly to simmer, I tasted, then put in a little more sugar and cinnamon, and another toss of raisins. The sense that I was throwing good raisins and sugar and cinnamon after bad was subtle enough that I could elbow it out of the way. 

When the porridge was finished, I ladled myself a bowl and made myself comfortable on the sofa in the living room. I took a tentative bite. 

I managed to worry down, with increasing difficulty, about 6 spoonsful. Each spoonful tasted more like lentils. Each spoonful felt more like lentils--warm, creamy, raisiny, cinnamony, lentils. I finally had to admit defeat--I had created a culinary disaster. Even my moral sense agreed. I put the bowl back in the kitchen and found a suitable replacement. I did not feel guilty throwing the porridge out the next day, when I found its congealed mass still in the bowl on the counter from the night before. 

That's what I'm talkin' about! Cocoa Krispies with VITAMIN D! And milk with VITAMIN D! Take that, Ezekiel!!! (oh, boy was it tasty)

                  

one-fingered on my phone

Transitional

I know, I know--this was from the last post. But it's still pretty representative. 

Boy howdy, things are swirling around here in Wallingford in a maelstrom of dog beds, toiletries, laundry, hake, dentists, friends, last meals, repairs, tiles, laughter, trash, boxes, valuables, fruit in all stages of ripeness (and beyond), keepsakes, tears, fixtures, appliances, and, although it's becoming cliche it's still true: a billion other details. The one thing notably not swirling around is our mail. Before heading up to Orcas with our core desirables a couple weeks ago, I officially forwarded our mail to our new post office in Eastsound (PO BOX 3, 98245, if you're wanting to send us postcards), and very little of it arrived before the post office closed for the weekend on Friday--and I had to place a mail hold for the next three weeks. We may end up losing several weeks of mail, all told. I find myself feeling a surprising benignancy to the idea.

It's been strange to notice habits over the last two days here in Seattle that don't serve us anymore. In addition to having to stop myself from checking the porch for mail (actually, I still check at least once a day), I keep stepping out of the kitchen to play something on the piano, and being reminded, yet again, that it's on Orcas. I hadn't realized how much I really was playing it. We're sleeping on the pull-out couch in the basement because our mattresses and a Hollywood frame are on Orcas, but our usual bedframe and our dresser and bedside tables are upstairs . . . and some of our clothes are still in the dresser, but many more of them--including all my shirts--had been taken to Orcas and were dirty yesterday when I needed to get dressed and take Spackle to the vet. Ian, who has brought his dental care paraphernalia to the downstairs bathroom, just tried to open the framed mirror hanging on the wall to put his toothbrush away. It's a bounded chaos, at least, as far as chaos goes. We do find ourselves able to eat, sleep, and inch forward through the storm, breathlessly knitting loose threads into our lifeline.

For better or for worse, though, it'll all mostly be over in just a few short weeks. The movers will lade, the home coolers will celebrate, the cleaners and repairers will tidy and fix, the realtor will list, the buyer will buy, and just like that, our homes will be reduced to two; and the counties, islands, and even communities will be reduced to a blessed, quiet, slow-paced, salt-aired, nature-filled one.


Please enjoy the latest photos here! (note: I did some captions on these new ones!)

The Exodus Begins

Ian and I left Seattle yesterday morning, following my piano, about twenty minutes behind the guys from Can’t Stop Moving. We would’ve left sooner than that, but they forgot the ramp to their moving truck, which they’d removed and placed on the parking strip of 39^th Street while loading our 500 LB, newly refurbished, thick old iron clawfoot tub.  They had my cell phone number but I didn’t have any of theirs, and it was well before nine, when their office opened.  I flapped around in a brief but useless panic while Ian strapped the ramp into the back of Nublu (thus doubling her length), carefully wedging scraps of Polartec fabric under the ropes he used, to keep the end of the ramp from sawing itself free on our drive up I-5, and tying some bright red scraps of warning nylon on the end. I left a breathless and quavery message on the voicemail at Can’t Stop—we had to meet up with the van and transfer the ramp before checking in for the ferry, so please  . . . help . . . uh . . . somehow . . .

Making a move that involves riding a ferry boat to the San Juans is not an uncomplicated endeavor. In the summer, there are crowds of tourists and full boats to contend with and so timing is everything; in the winter, the boats are never full, but the schedule is spare and, therefore, timing is everything. For movers who can typically accomplish two jobs in one full day, our job—spending, because of the ferry schedule, 14 hours carrying a small subset of our household goods from Seattle to Hogan House—was essentially a day of paid vacation. The ramp was forgotten simply because it was still early dawn when we all left Seattle, and in the rush to make the boat two hours north, its low profile was easy to overlook in the dim, overgrown grass.

Aside from a small rainy squall somewhere around Marysville, the weather was clear and bright and gorgeous for our drive north, and holiday traffic was light. We met up just outside the ferry terminal in Anacortes, in the parking lot of the defunct Charlie’s, and transferred the ramp. The boat ride displayed the San Juans in all their glittering winter glory; and two of the three had never been up here. I felt the proud, proprietary satisfaction of introducing them to a new and delightful region, regardless of the fact that my “ownership” of this exquisite bit of nature is nothing more than unbelievable good fortune.

After a short stop at the House to leave the tub and then a brief, breathless moment with the piano on the ramp at Hogan, the guys rapidly emptied the rest of our core valuables into our temporary home. They were easily done with us by 2:00pm, which left them more than two hours (at $160 per) to lumber around central Orcas in their giant truck before returning to the late-afternoon sailing.

Here I am. Couch at Hogan. West Sound and Shaw through the window before me. Dog snoring blissfully to my left. My piano, the alembic through which I distill mood into song, on my right--the only piece of my soul that’s been missing up here. Ian, just off the phone, at work in the Dacha.

Seattle? What is that? Are there still tasks there? Responsibilities? Frustrations? Finalities?

Maybe. I wouldn’t know. 

(see a collection of images from our last 48 hours here)

The Water is Wide

I woke up this morning with a song swirling through my mind, a song that I sang long ago, in one choir or another. It was not a song I particularly liked--kind of a simple melody and chords--nothing terribly interesting or challenging to perform--so, the perfect kind of song to get stuck in one's head.

"I have this awful boring song stuck in my head this morning," I said to Ian as I came into the kitchen with the coffee he'd just delivered to me in bed. "The water is wide . . . and I cannot get o'er . . ." I sang, "and neither have I . . . wings to fly . . ."

He laughed, and pointed out that yesterday my life had been all about fixing the side sewer in Wallingford before putting the house on the market (to the tune of about $20,000); and dealing with the annoyances and frustrations of the new Orcas and San Juan Islands ferry reservation system.

SIGH.

The water IS wide.

Namesake

We went to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Burke’s house last evening, at least for a little bit. He and his wife have five grown children, and four were in attendance with various significant others, as well as several friends and their families. It was a far cry from the quiet evenings Ian and I have been spending here in Hogan House (we’re trying to train ourselves to use the actual name of our guest house), but it was a beautiful home (naturally, as it was built by Burke), and the greatroom was perfectly designed to host large numbers of people. New Year’s Eve dinner is traditionally make-your-own pizzas, with crusts and sauce and various other toppings supplied. We brought some pineapple and Point Reyes blue cheese and salami, and our pizzas were delicious. We weren’t entirely in the dark about who the other party attendees were, because there were at least four men there whom we’ve met working on our house (including the one who installed our first Orcas Christmas tree).

One of the builders, introduced to us last summer as a finish carpenter who was slumming it as a framer (albeit a framer using a laser level to make sure our stud walls are square), came by with a young girl, to chat with Ian and me where we were sitting enjoying our pizzas. I had noticed her just before, and idly supposed she looked related to Robert, and then there they were. “Calin,” said Robert, “when Burke and I were in high school together there was a girl named Calin. And this is Cailin,” he said, indicating his daughter. “Calin, Cailin.”

“Do you spell your name C A L I N?” I asked. No, C A I L I N.

“Do you get called ‘Caitlin’ a lot?” asked Ian. Yes, of course, she does. We laughed about some of the things I get called, and how it’s easy to know that junk mail isn’t for me when it’s addressed to Calvin or Colin, but behind the scenes, my brain was doing a rapid-fire calculation. If Burke and Robert were in high school together, and Burke is a little younger than my parents, and Calin is a pretty darn uncommon name . . . “What was her last name?” I asked Robert.

“Marr,” said Robert.

I burst out laughing—the delighted, incredulous laughter that I’ve come to associate with the serendipity of this island for me.  “I was named for her,” I said. “She was my mother’s student when my mom was pregnant with me.”

“But she wasn’t from Bellevue,” said Robert. “She moved from Renton.”

“Yes, exactly,” I replied, “my mother taught her in Renton.”

The story I’ve heard my whole life is that my mother had wanted to name me Angela, but my father was not going to truck with any angel for my name. “Let’s name her Calin,” he said. “I like that name!”

“But I don’t like that girl!” was Mom’s reply.

So there you go. Yet another absurdly awesome—and kind of stunning—coincidence;  yet another tie with Orcas and our blossoming lives here—this one connecting me back to when I was just a gleam in my father’s eye (and a great, distended burden in my mother’s belly).

I feel like I caught a glimpse, this New Year’s Eve, of a network of forces at play above and beyond our ken. A pinprick image, if you will, of the Interconnectedness of All Things; or at least All Things Calin.