New Shoes and Clicking Heels - I'm Home.

A rather shoddily shot picture of my parent's backyard. Yeah, we live in a forest. The maples look positively gorgeous in the late afternoon sunlight. We also live in a valley (which makes running tricky, since I have to go somewhere so I'm not constantly running at 30 degrees up) I'd blame the camera for this shot, but it was actually my fault. I got excited and took the picture as I walked under a fir and quickly scrambled to capture the moment. I did not capture the moment, but at least I captured - for me anyway - something. The apple trees are looking splendid, the pines, firs, maples, birches, all the trees in the backyard are so amazingly beautiful. I needed this vacation. I went and bought running shoes with the mother, had dinner with the family, and then we started playing bananagrams. Turns out, my dad is a secret champ, mother is a bit slow, Sam makes up words, and Phil gets to be a combination of Sam and mother. I think my dad is also siphoning me terrible letters every game (or just not mixing them). Then we played quiddler (rummy with words), and Mother won the first game, Phil the second. It's so good to be home, almost moves me to poetry. I can wait until sunny-tomorrow for that, though. I really wish I had come home earlier in the summer season for more of this. I miss the Redmond (Carnation) country-scape so very much: the valleys, the mountains, the rich greens, the smells of pine and rich soil, the bears trampling our apple trees (just once I think. But he knocked over the whole tree to get apples. Gluttonous bear), the windy hills leading home, the waterfalls and mountains less than an hour away, the half-price books. I admit, the first place I went to was not home, but in fact the bookstore. And half-price books was having a 20% off sale! (2/5's price books?)

It all makes me want to weep with joy, write stories all night long, drink all the apple juice and chips and salsa and oatmeal raisin cookies that my parents treated me. And I want to climb that mountain. I also have a strong desire to see mount rainier.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Mount_Rainier_from_west.jpg

I have a feeling the clouds are rolling in. By Wednesday (my mid-week fun day), I think it might even be too rainy for a good view of the mountain. We'll see.

Several summers ago, when I worked at camp, I was not given much warning or information on what to bring (I only knew I was working at camp for a day before I flew out). One of the (many) things I forgot was a good pair of shoes. I brought old shoes that were almost worn out, and camp destroyed them. Because I did not have time for a lifeguard certification, I did only field activities for the kids: baseball, archery, soccer, running around, and so on. My shoes almost immediately fell apart. Especially since at the start of summer there was still quite a bit of snow (7000 feet up in the mountains?), and it shortly switched to over 100 degree days, I'm fairly certain my shoes just gave up on life. Shoes falling apart was a big deal. The second biggest problem I faced was that there was no cell service for an hour in any direction. Everyone brought calling cards with them so they could use the camp phone. I didn't know about the calling card setup, and had no calling card. I thought about writing a letter - no stamps. That was the easier of the problems, but writing a letter to ask the parents to ship you shoes? (because it was 3 hours to a location that sold shoes as far as I could find out. I had no car). The turn-around time on that is intimidating.

Instead, I borrowed a calling card, and quickly called my parents and asked them to send me shoes. This is where I made another mistake. I forgot to tell them my shoe size. I simply stated, as quickly as possible, that basketball shoes should work just fine. Apparently my parents believe me a clown, and they bought me 10.5 men's shoes. I'm not a short person, but I'm a bit below the national average for males (a little over 5'9"). My foot size, however, is not 10.5. When I got home, I bought some 9.5 sambas, which turned out to be too big also, but lasted me almost 4 years. Two years ago, I bought my current pair of shoes, another pair of sambas that are 8.5s. Today, I finally bought the first pair of shoes that I think truly fits my feet. They are 8s. Yep, 2.5 sizes smaller than my parents believed. I even have some extra wiggle room at the end for my toes.