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John (being much taller than me) harvested a whole bunch more grapes!
And then I had some fun messing around with this picture in various iPhone photo apps!
This was from Instagram:
This (above) was from the Instagram shot and I took it into my Tilt-Shift Generator. Then I took IT and brought it into the PicTwo app and combined it with a picture of the grape plant, then futzed with it again in Instagram:
That one turned out pretty bizarre, but it’s still kinda cool.
Also? The grapes are delish!
Finished my latest work deadline yesterday and took off a little early – and caught John before he laid down for his nap, so we headed to Harstine. Nice to get here before dark for a change. The only downside is that Mojo missed the bus.
John’s been involved with the road work-party most of the day (as well as meeting with our contractor and signing papers). Me? Heh. Mostly relaxing! I do that well, especially after brutal deadlines. I did harvest some grapes from our rockin’ & rollin’ grape plant:
This is just a FRACTION of all the grapes on that plant! There are tons more (well, maybe not tons…) but a LOT more, mostly that I can’t reach. These were just some of the easier pickings. Oooh, they taste good! I’m surprised that birds hadn’t gotten to them, but maybe birds aren’t all that into grapes? I dunno. I don’t know much about grapes – my blogger/FB friend, Elena, said they look like “table grapes” and so probably wouldn’t make good wine. I don’t know the difference, but I have to say that I’ve had a hankering to take my shoes off and mush ‘em up like Lucille Ball!
It took a while today for the clouds to lift, but it sure is pretty this afternoon.
I don’t think I mentioned that after we took the tour of the Renton Boeing site last Sunday that John and I perused the Renton Landing – a really nice new pedestrian oriented retail shopping district with fun shops and restaurants. It’s a style of shopping I really like because the “streets” are townish and pretty. There will be mixed-use areas with apartments above with retail below. You feel like you’re in a nice little town with quaint street lighting, benches, little or no traffic (because parking is in separate lots). I’ve been to a couple of these now, and I like them! A movie theater on one corner, kitchen shops, bath and body shops, clothing boutiques, lots and lots of restaurants, and usually anchored with a Target or other chain-type stores. We had lunch at The Rock, and visited a couple of shops. I bought two of these:
And I’m really tickled how well they go with my new dishes!
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There is some talk about needing to remove our Harstine camping trailer sooner rather than later – although we are trying to put that off as much as possible. We need a place to stay here during construction for one thing. The other thing is the daunting task that it will be to dispose of it. *Shudder* It cannot simply be pulled out of here – it’s not road-worthy. The very idea of packing up every damned thing, determining what is salvageable (like the $1,200 refrigerator…), unhooking all the utilities, no longer having WiFi (for a fairly long while). Probably when the time does come, we’ll empty it out down to bare bones and fill dumpsters or make dump runs, then have one of the big excavators crush it and then sawsall it down into pieces. I really can’t imagine this.
It’ll be bub-bye landscaping, beautiful deck, anti-white-trash screen, and grape plant! And a ton of memories. Like John says, we’ll have to look at it in terms of progress. But…ugh.
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Also this week, I had lunch with my (former, sniff) boss. I have missed her so much! We had become close. Friends in many ways. We supported each other, we were a great team. And it evolved into personal, venting about life, sharing life’s ups and downs, our mutual love for Mad Men and Dexter and True Blood. I respected her as my supervisor, and she didn’t lord the fact that she was over me. Like I say, we were a strong team. When the new COO decided that her position was “no longer needed” we were both in such shock, totally blindsided. So it was great to meet up for lunch, and for me to see that she is doing just fine (I knew she would/will – but still…). It was a very FUN lunch and it was just so good to see her!
I slept horribly last night, dreaming nightmaring about the damned Boeing project I worked on all last week that is in the hands of buffoons at Kinkos. I will pick it up in the morning to be presented at a 10:00 a.m. meeting, but they had told me it would probably be ready today (they run 24/7). I figured it would be a wise move to drive into Seattle (we were already in Renton, more on that in a bit) so that if they were f***’d up, there would be time to remedy the situation. But when I called this afternoon, they hadn’t even begun the job yet. I hate Kinkos with the white hot passion of a gazillion blazing suns.
(That said, we couldn’t have done this in-house. Our print production equipment is, shall we say, not stellar…)
I’m certainly hoping that my hatred is tempered with relief and joy and an actual reversal of hatred tomorrow morning. God. Talk about a heavy weight on my shoulders during my coveted weekend. I loathe depending on other people!
But today was fun! John was my personal tour guide at the Renton Boeing plant – it was Boeing Family Day – and it was awesome! (My word, there were a ton of people there! Holy moly!) He was able to take me into areas that were cordoned off and that was cool. (Made me think of Nate’s Navy ship tour). We went up to the crane barn high over the assembly plants and what a stunning view. No pictures allowed, which was a bummer. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. It’s astounding what it takes to build a Boeing 737. I’m sure Everett totally poo-poos it all in comparison to their 747s, 767s, 777s, and 787s — but those 737s are Boeing’s cash cow! They make 34 of them every month, and they are ramping up to build 42 of them every month. Lots of construction going on to get them to that point (plus to accommodate the new-fangled 737-MAX), and the irony is that my company is very involved with helping make that happen. In fact, that 10:00 meeting tomorrow morning? Takes place in a conference room just a few feet away from John’s “office.”
Yeah, not very fancy digs, but at least he has dual monitors! (I sure wish I did! I used to at my previous job, and what a time suck to not have that!) You can see his Keurig there in the background. We have one here at home, too. We both have to bang them to get them to work. (Aside from that, they’re great!)
Lots and lots and lots of walking. Those assembly plants are cavernous, and getting anywhere at all is a helluva hike.
They had a huge tented area of foods (Brinks BBQ pork, burgers, snow cones, ice cream, you-name-it) for the families, plus tents for face painting and temporary tattoos. There must have been thousands of people in that area and John and I couldn’t exit it soon enough! Yeah, we were hungry and thirsty, but the lines were really long and the screeches of hundreds upon hundreds of children were making us twitch. I have to say, though, that the sight of all that was uplifting. Boeing makes it possible for so many families to live a decent life in our neck of the woods. (Er, and the union!)
The plant is surrounded by a couple of parks. (Click to embiggen – a guy petting a duck!)
With all the walking John has to do (with his plantar fasciitis…), he has not yet had to deal with a drop of rain since he was transferred to the Renton plant the 1st of August. (Mist one day, but no rain). He’s in for a rude awakening, methinks.
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OK, this is pretty funny. They wouldn’t allow pictures, but there are plenty on the interwebs! This is exactly what I saw today from way up even higher than this!
John is the manager of the crane maintenance crew (as well as the paint hangars). The cranes operate along those yellow rails overhead – they move to and fro and side-to-side on a grid above the assembly floor, transporting fuselage, wings, rudders, engines, large parts, you-name-it to the next assembly station:
Woo!
Yet another simply gorgeous Harstine day that began with a simply gorgeous lifting of the fog over Peale Passage.
This picture below isn’t from this weekend, but I just rediscovered it on my iPad and it shows an interesting contrast with the photo above. High tide!
Today, our house designer guy, Dave, came by to discuss some design changes (we’re going to lower the house a few feet from the garage, which will solve a lot of issues and ultimately make it a lot more accessible to the beach, although it does mean a full flight of stairs down from the garage to the entry. It sounds like a lot of work, but John nor Dave think so). So John and Dave were pow-wowing over that while Mojo spied on them:
Speaking of Mojo, we haven’t seen him all afternoon. He’d best show up in the next couple of hours when it will be time to head home. *sob*
I took this one (below) yesterday while we were at our neighbors’ for the potluck. They’re the MacMansion next to us, so it was interesting to see our lot from that vantage point after all the trees are down. You can see how dry the piles of limbs are everywhere. We’re waiting for the burn ban to be lifted so we can finally burn (likely not until well into October):
And…we have grapes! Most of them taste darned good, too! We figure we’ll give them one more week of timered watering and sunshine (yes, nothing but sunshine for the foreseeable future!) and harvest them next weekend. There are a lot!
See that little curly cue thingy at the bottom right in that picture above? (There are lots of those, too – part of the character of a grape plant). I attempted to take a macro shot of it:
(Still kind of struggling with that lens!) Nature fascinates me!
John’s been chain-sawing and chopping up some (and I mean a fraction!) of the trees he cut down for firewood. We go through firewood so fast with our evening and morning deck fires in the fire thingy. It’s amazing how much we’ve gone through over the years!
He also got himself a used “Job Box” for locking up tools and saws when construction begins. (Yes, there will be a significant amount of the work that he will do himself).
Kind of an ugly ol’ thang, but it’ll be worth it. He had a toolbox stolen out of the boat tent earlier this year. It sort of blows our minds because this is such a great little neighborhood, plus we all chipped in and installed a gate at the top of the road a few years ago. But there is one neighbor who frequently rents out his place for weeks or weekends and we know things have gotten a little out of hand there at times. Best to be as preventative as possible.
We took a beach walk (again, no sign of Mojo who often joins us) and what a stellar day. My heart was just filled with it, encountering neighbors on the beach and soaking in the warmth and all the blue! Sigh.
Agate hunting! Actually, I didn’t find a single one during that walk until we returned back to our beach—and then I found a nice lil’ handful! Right in front of our place!
John found several, too, and most of them on our beach!
OK, pic-blogging all done. It’s fun to do because this is such a happy place.
C’mon, Mojo…
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Update: I swear, 30 seconds after I pressed the “publish” button and everything was in the midst of uploading, Mojo leaped in through the open window. All is well!
It’s feeling Septemberish here at Harstine this morning with the marine layer just finally starting to break free. My toes are cold in my sandals! But again, I really can’t complain because we’ve only had about 0.001 inch (if that) of rain since the 20-somethingth of July. Unheard of! It’s dry-dry-dry, and a lightning storm in the mountains set of a series of wildfires, causing what would have been stellar blue skies here on the west side to haze over these past several days.
Busy day here! John-the-contractor came by to visit with John-the-husband and take a first look at our site (“No big deal!” he said). (Whew!) What a character! I could hear a lot of guffaws down there at the landing where they were pow-wowing. (Click to embiggen, as usual!)
(You can also see how *brown* that pile of tree limbs have turned in short order!)
Then, our friend/neighbor JOHN (who recommended this contractor) stopped by to visit, too! So here we have three Johns! Plus a little long-haired weenie dog:
I’ve got my grape tomatoes cut in half and marinating with the mozzarella cheese balls in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper. Our neighborhood potluck is this afternoon! Time to skewer the little suckers with fresh basil.
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Update: Did I do good or what?!
Nate’s ship firing a missile. (Exercises…I was relieved his destroyer isn’t one heading to the Middle East—yet). Remember this picture when we toured his ship?
Those hatches are where the missiles are kept, ready for launch.
And we stood right underneath that gun thingy:
(Heh. It appears to be a little “excited” in that top picture. OK, my bad).
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GOD what a week. It’s been crazy all summer long, but now I am beyond fried. The fetal position is calling my name.
I am now handling the work of two people.
It’s probably a good thing that I am balls to the walls busy at work. I’m still reeling from last week and I’m torn because being busy keeps me moving forward, but it also exhausts me and I need to take mental breaks now and then – but that allows my thoughts (and stomach) to start churning…
I’m a dog chasing its tail. But half-heartedly. In fact, heavy-heartedly.
I just want to flee. I just want to retire. Now.
Three years seems like an eternity.
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This Saturday is our annual Road Maintenance Committee potluck at Harstine, which is always fun. And interesting, too. They’re not like any potlucks I’ve ever experienced before—the food is always upscale and unique. Many of the neighbors are world travelers so you’ll see foods from Tuscany and Istanbul. You’re not going to find Tupperware bowls of Cheese Puffs or celery sticks smeared with peanut butter. I stewed over what to bring and decided upon Caprese Skewers:
It could be considered an appetizer (I should say hors de oeuvres!) or a salad. I’ll pick up the ingredients at Trader Joe’s Friday so that everything is uber-fresh. That combo of the mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil drizzled in olive oil and balsamic vinegar (and salt & pepper) is really a treat! (And pretty, too!)
Tonight? Meatloaf in the oven. I’m in need of comfort food.
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It’s been 11 years since Nine Eleven. Seeing the images all over Facebook and news sites brought it all home again. Which is a good thing. Never forget.
Woo! Sounds like we have a new contractor! And John is delighted – they met today and totally hit it off. As John said, “It went really really really well!” He knows Harstine Island, he’s up for a challenge, he isn’t into ripping us off, and he and John appear to be two peas in a pod.
And yes, his name is John, too! (Just like our previous contractor-that-didn’t-work-out. And our neighbor, John, who recommended this guy. Er, John).
It can get really confusing.
Forward!
