Kingfisher Cove

Onward!

After a couple of days of “recovery” from the potluck, I’m now stewing focused on Nate and Sandra’s wedding reception coming up in a couple of weeks. (And Nate and Sandra themselves will be here for the full week prior to—they’ll arrive around midnight on Oct. 9th).

[For those of you attending: Dress casually. Wear grippy shoes because the driveway won’t be finished and it’s a gravelly hill (plus, you might want to head to the beach!) Park alongside the road on top wherever you can (we need to keep the driveway open to shuttle older folks up and down it, plus unless you have 4WD getting back UP the driveway won’t work. Trust me on this…). Carpool if you can. Pass the word!]

                                                         

Oh, I wish so much that the driveway was DONE. It’s been a slog and there is a long way to go, with drainage, concrete and block retaining walls, then the paving itself. And the concrete guy is uber-busy and just hasn’t been available to be “timely.” The lower level retaining wall has been poured and John removed the forms this week (ugly job):

And of course I’m worried about the weather. If it’s decent, it will solve a WHOLE LOT of problems because we’ll have plenty of seating on the deck. But not so much if it has to be inside. It sounds like it’ll be a house full!

It’ll be fine.

{{Right??!!}}

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And then there’s the oven.

It has never worked properly, and it took a while for that to register. In fact, it was installed a year ago and shortly afterward we had Carol and Tom over for “lunch” and the crab quiche took for-effing-ever to cook. (It ended up being “dinner.”). That oven has never achieved or maintained temperature, and we have spent the entire spring/summer trying to have Electrolux/Frigidaire honor their warranty and either FIX the damned thing, or replace it / issue us a refund. They refuse. And the Better Business Bureau is a joke. Since Electrolux/Frigidaire responded to my complaint (“we regret that we cannot replace this appliance or provide a refund”) the BBB closed the complaint, as if it was RESOLVED. We could have a so-called repairman come out and shuffle electronic cards until the cows come home (which we’ve actually been doing) and since it’s obvious that the issue is in the programming of those cards, I would never have a working oven.

I can’t tell you the fury I feel about being completely frauded by this company. What recourse do people have when they spend a lot of money on an appliance that doesn’t work, and nothing is done to make it work? Zero customer service, zero honoring the WARRANTY. Yeah, we could hire an attorney, but we’d have to pay for that, too.

We need a working oven, bottom line. And we need to not throw away even more money with legal action (justice is only for rich people apparently), and so we ordered a BOSCH oven that arrived this morning. John and Lee will yank out the shitty oven and install the new one tomorrow. I’m 99.9% sure it will work just fine.

White hot rage for having to do this. But I need a working oven. (Don’t we all?? That’s really not too much to expect, right?)

Don’t ever purchase anything from Electrolux (who owns Frigidaire), and also don’t purchase anything from G.E. because they use the exact same electronic cards as Frigidaire. And it’s clear that Electrolux has no plan in place to remedy their problem. If you go to their website and read the comments, you will see that this issue is prevalent. And they don’t give a shit. They absolutely SUCK.

Pass the word.

Neighborhood Potluck Fun!

Busy week preparing for this day. And it was a challenge because John came down with a cold and then a bad migraine and I wondered at times how this was all going to play out. But it did, and even the weather (for the most part…) cooperated. Well, until it rained. But we were under cover on the deck and it wasn’t windy or cold so it was all good!

I remember at last year’s potluck I raised my hand and volunteered to host this year’s potluck and from that point forward I’ve felt nervous about it. At that time, the house was NO WHERE NEAR ready for such a thing. But a whole lot was accomplished these past 12 months, that’s for sure (as I figured it would be). And my friend, Diane, provided the recipe for the absolute PERFECT main dish for a group of people—the African Stew! Man, was that ever a hit! It really is so yummy! I think people were a little nervous at first that it might be “hot spicy” but I assured them that it wasn’t. It just has a wonderful peanut-y saucy flavor that surprisingly sticks to your ribs with all the chicken and optional toppings. And the accompaniments that others brought were perfect, too! Fresh salads, berries, top-notch appetizers, luscious desserts!

And lots and lots of wine! The wine, it flowed!

A couple who own property just up the road from us, whom we only see at these potlucks, have two dachshunds so we had FOUR weenie dogs running around and they actually all behaved like adorable angels. I swear that dachshunds recognize each other, understand that they are of the same tribe. It was so sweet! But of course I didn’t get a photo. (I was busy, and I’m the picture-taker…)

I knew this would be a whirlwind, and it was! And it was a good “test run” for Nate and Sandra’s upcoming wedding reception, which will be different because it will be catered! And I suspect more people will attend than this one. (And not knowing what the weather will be like. I suspect we’ll need to plan for it to be inside, which will be…challenging. Argh!) Today we lucked out!

Tonight? Tired! G’night!

Gray Days

I’m missing the blue skies, the blue water, and the goldfinches. So many people love fall, and I always feel a sense of heaviness when this season arrives. Not so much when we have an “Indian Summer,” but we are not this year (after having such a stellar SUMMER). The change has been abrupt and, well, so very gray. I haven’t even seen any pretty fall colors yet!

Maybe it would help if the Seahawks weren’t 0-2 (we have yet to redeem ourselves since that excruciating Super Bowl loss in the last seconds of the game). Maybe it would help if the dogs didn’t stink and itch and drive me batty. Maybe it would help if the republicans weren’t so batshit crazy and such vile, deceitful wackadoodles.

So, one uplifting thing! I watched the first episode of the new season of Downton Abbey today (yes, the UK season that the US won’t be able to watch until January!) It’s so stupid that this has to be illicit, but frankly, I’m taking pleasure in my rebelliousness. Against stupidity. One must do that now and then.

Pretty Doggone Excited!

First, the rugs arrived! They are beautiful! I can’t imagine anything else that would have worked any better. Quite the ordeal to “install,” though. Moving (heavy!) furniture, lugging (heavy!) rolls of rugs and pads, trimming pads (partly because the width of the dining rug was narrower than the manufacturer claimed…), measuring and centering, and moving (heavy!) furniture again! Poor John is whupped. I love the result!

(See how well it goes with the lighting fixtures?)

And the living room:

Someone else likes the rug, too!

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Then, John scored some salmon from Will and it’s smokin’ as we speak. Again, what an ordeal. He spent hours filleting the suckers.

Then made the brine and soaked them overnight, then laid it all out on racks to dry, with brown sugar sprinkled on top:

It smells gooooood out there on the Wiener Deck! (John changes out the hickory chips to fresh ones every couple of hours or so). Low and slow at a little less than 150°. For many hours. (Not exactly sure how many!)

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So…a week from tomorrow is our neighborhood potluck. Lots to do, like cleaning the decks and stairway (and ridding the rails from a gazillion spider webs), securing some tables and chairs to seat people, dusting the beams, washing floors*, cleaning-cleaning-cleaning. But honestly we can’t do too much until later next week or we’ll have to do it all again! Fingers are tightly crossed for halfway decent weather!

*I got a new mop system and I LIKE IT. (Can’t love it, because you know, it’s a mop). It works great and it reduces the amount of time by a LOT! Woohoo!

(It’s the little things).

Bullets! Pictures!

It may be the last warm hurrah of the season around here—yesterday was the 50th day of the year that we broke 80° and today is pushing it. It’s lovely out there, even if the tilt of that September sun can get a little intense sometimes. (But I’ll take it).

What’ve we been up to?

• I cooked up all the chicken (challenging in a malfunctioning oven) and made a triple-batch of the African Stew recipe for the upcoming neighborhood potluck. It’s now in the freezer in freezing containers and it feels good to have that accomplished!
• There is a little pub / deli / mini-grocer on the mainland road before the Harstine bridge and I remembered that the owner has done catering. She catered one of our neighbors’ birthday parties a couple of years ago and I remember that the food was very good. So, I stopped by there and chatted with her and got some quotes, then passed them on to Sandra and Nate. Decisions have been made! It’s going to be yummy, interesting, and will relieve a lot of food preparation stress!
• Also ordered a decorated sheet cake (peacock theme, of course!)
• With the help of our neighbor (and his heavy-duty equipment rental firm), John was finally able to get his metal mill removed from the Des Moines garage and hauled down here to Harstine. It’s currently in the garage and he’s still trying to  figure out how in the HELL he’s going to get it down into his shop!

That beast weighs well over a TON. Plus, it’s awkward and top-heavy.

Lordy.

• John’s folks came by to visit! It’s been a long time since they’ve been here and it was so great to be able to visit out on the deck!

• John’s also done some more gold prospecting. This time, the wheels broke off his dredge cart and they had to haul all of their equipment and buckets of materials up and over fallen logs and inclines. He was whupped when he finally got home. But, you know, gold!

• So excited to start getting some pictures hung on some walls! This is the entrance foyer:

(Beautiful numbered Sawada prints, plus my comparatively humble glass picture —click to embiggen).

And this one works well by the Wiener Deck door:

(It’s a rowboat).

More to go, but it’s a good start! Looking forward to having some up in the living room, although we really don’t have that many walls.

• This is the time of year when Will, the Squaxin tribal fisherman, sets up his boat and net between our place and the neighbors and works at capturing the tribe’s farm-raised salmon returning to the area. (They collect the eggs for the farm, and sell the fish to people along the beach and to restaurants). John has been gathering together his smoker equipment and I got lucky and found his brine recipe on my computer! The plan is to acquire a few salmon from Will and John’s gonna smoke ‘em up! It’s been several years since he’s done this (he was on strike at Boeing and really got into the smokin’ in between walking the picket line!) I remember that it was very tasty, and he experimented with several different brines. This should be FUN!
• We spent many days with a smoky haze from the horrific wildfires in central and eastern Washington. (A hefty wind storm finally blew through with lots of rain that has helped to clear the air and slow down the fires).

 

It was weird to be able to peer directly at that red sun:

John took this one from the kayak:

It was beautiful in its own eerie way, but also oppressive. I much prefer this:

Finally Found the Perfect Rugs!

Ever since John installed the flooring in our Harstine house, I’ve kept my eyes peeled for area rugs, especially for the dining and living room spaces. I was willing to spend some money on quality (and pads), but I wanted to LOVE the rugs and know that they were perfect for this house.

Heh. Tall order.

Our tastes are very similar, and it’s a challenging taste that runs “modern,” but not starkly so. I had an idea of what colors we wanted, and a rough idea of design, but apparently rug-designers weren’t on board with our ideas. I’m here to tell you that THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF BUTT-UGLY RUGS OUT THERE. I’ve looked just about everywhere and rarely saw anything that came close to ringing my chimes. And when I did see something I liked (sort of…), they didn’t come in the right sizes. (Or, it would have been prohibitively costly to have custom sizes). I also had a hard time envisioning these rugs that I “sort of” liked, so they ultimately did not pass the “must love it” test.

Until today!

I’d received a catalog in the mail (yep, all those catalogs have found our new address) and I started flipping through it with a jaundiced eye. “Touch of Class” tends to be horribly frou-frou, which is SO not our taste.

(See what I mean? Blech!)

And then something made me do a double-take. Out loud, I said, “Oooooh.” I got out the measuring tape and went, “Aha!” I showed it to John, who nodded definitively.

And I placed an order! A big rug and pad for the dining room, and a somewhat big rug and pad for the living room. Perfect or what?

 

Teals, beachy, wavy, coastal, plush. Modern, but not stark.

It’ll complement my dishes really well!

I hope they’re here in time for our neighborhood potluck! Everything’s in stock, so it’s possible! (For sure in time for Nate and Sandra’s reception!) I thought about also ordering a runner for the entry hallway, but that might be too much. I’ll assess it once these are in place.

I’m also hoping that these rugs will tone down the echo in this house. It drives me nuts! (‘Course, it would also help to get some pictures on the walls…)

Squeeeeee!!!!

Logistics

I have a whole slew of them facing me on the near horizon and I’ve begun the stewing process (and maybe even the tackle process) with an emphasis on begun. First up will be hosting the neighborhood potluck at our house the last weekend of this month and I’m gearing up to make a triple batch of the African Stew and freeze it. I think that will be pretty easy, but I’m more worried about figuring out where to seat people. (Especially not knowing what the weather will be like and if we’ll be able to use the deck). There could be 25 or 30 people and I don’t know how that’s going to work. There can’t be a Plan A and a Plan B; Plan A needs to be able to quickly segue into a Plan B, if necessary.

Hmm.

I should learn enough from that event to be able to figure out Nate and Sandra’s reception two weeks later. I’m hoping for a magical answer for that one, because I have no idea what the food plan is!  (I’m waiting to hear from the kids…)

Speaking of the kids, I finally got their wedding photos taken from the professional photographer! Here are a few of my favorites:

 

For those of you who are planning to attend the reception, they are registered at Amazon.com under Nathan Berens and Sandra Ellis.