HELLO

 March began with truly dear friends visiting us from Pennsylvania. . .lovely Sal, Bea's best buddy, Will, and beautiful Michelle.  The month progressed in a flurry and ended with a crescendo at Easter.  I have also been trying to wrap up a novel and Martin has been applying to various jobs.  I say this because. . . .

My girls and me at Bloedel Reserve, a few days before Bea turned 5 and I turned. . .well, thirty years older than that.  All photos, courtesy of Lindsay Joss-Iudicello and her ravishing I-Phone.

I do not know why my text is underlined.  This I must say first.  Next:  I have received comments as to the absence of Wazoo.  One person suggested that my joints may be becoming rusty as a result of the damp Washington weather.  That may be true.  However, I am here giving evidence that I am still alive and that though I have not documented any of my life for the last month, it has been lived.  Here is proof, though it is not perfect and it is strangely underlined, a thing I cannot remedy.  I am returning to my existence in this place. . .Wazoo, as it was also hinted to me recently, has not moved into some nether world.  Let it be known that however rocky or busy life becomes, you can always count on the prescence of one's wazoo.

 Now I cannot edit that last bit (which is now not underlined in the published version but is underlined and completely untouchable now)!  I am well and truly rusty.  I would have corrected the wacky pronouns in the last sentence and the oft-mispelled word (can you find which one it is?:) but fate is against me.  Moving on, though: here you see how we spent Easter.  After the service we scrapped a formal dinner and packed up food and took it to Fey Bainbridge State Park, where the adults took turns paddling the kayak out through the waves and walked along the beach through warming tidal pools.  Mama watched the kids play for hours in the sand and driftwood.  It was a magical Easter.  Here you see Beatrix taking a turn in a calm tidal pool, and Charley, whom Martin was trying to convince to become a water dog, seeking dry ground wherever he could find it.

 Our dear friends of over a decade, the Joss-Iudicellos, spent a blissful week with us.  Here I am with sweet little Bertie, walking into the Japanese garden at Bloedel Reserve.  The rain just made the colors glow more intensely and we wandered through the deep greens of the forest there, studded with wildly bright rhodies, fragrant trees, and spring ephemerals.

We spent many hours down at the water, here in downtown Poulsbo, just a short walk from our house.  On this particular evening we ended a turning-over-rocks-and-finding-eels-and-crabs session with fish and chips as we stared out at the water and boats.  A wonderful, wonderful day.

 

And now I've broken the silence.