Green Grass

One of the things I truly love about where I live is that I can be on snow, xc skiing, snowboarding or just running around , maybe sitting on a snowbank....

....and then with a 30 minute drive?  I can be in a completely different place, usually 10-20 degrees warmer and the grass is green!  By February the Seattle area has flowering trees and shrubs in bloom, everything is green, though a bit soggy, and it really feels like spring!  But with the snow pack we have this winter, we will be enjoying "winter" sports well into May.  Not a bad deal really.

It was actually a bit warm for her at 50 degrees!  Used to the snow and cold weather.

Back Track

First, let's get the photos of Mae out of the way....I realize I should possibly change the name of this blog to Mountain Mae instead of Me.  But if you own a dog, especially a young dog, you know that they completely take over your life!

the "I hear a Subaru" face

close up

Snowshoe trail , so perfect for Mae~

Ok, now that that is done...let's back track a bit.  

Remember the book list?  There were a couple I wanted to mention.  The most memorable book I read last year was "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara.  Huge book, over 700 pages, and the Amazon description made it sound like a nice little romp through the lives of a group of college friends.  It was so much more!  And I won't spoil anything for you but I will say the reason it stayed with me and was so memorable is that the story was not what I expected at all.  The other reason was that the writing was VERY good , and in places (little places) even reminded me of Whitman.  However, there were a couple of flaws in the book that really made it  tumble off the GREAT list. One is the fact that you had to read about 500 pages to find out what had happened in the main character's life.  By then did I care??? No.   I pretty much skipped through that part of the book.  The other thing was that in places it started to feel like a script for Law & Order, SVU.   

A nice surprise was James Robertson's , "The Testament of Gideon Mack".  Very enjoyable, fun read about a man, a man of the cloth, who meets the devil!

Biggest disappointment?  Donna Tartt's , "The Goldfinch".  I had heard and read so much about this book and it is a good story, I'll give it that.  But I don't know....again, very lengthy and in places I felt it was just d r a g g i n g.   It wasn't completely satisfying for me. Was it for you?

The most unusual way to find a recommendation? Well it was word of mouth but I can't follow the dots on this one.  Too much music, too much beer perhaps.  I was out one night to see a band and met a professor of biology who was sitting next to me .  We got talking about beer, as he ran a beer club at the college.  Somehow he ended up recommending The Unbearable Lightness of Being....Remember that movie?  Well, it was dreamy right and  it certainly made me have a little crush on Daniel Day-Lewis.... it  was 1988, of course I had a crush on him.  But I had never read the book and of course the book is TOTALLY DIFFERENT.   Author Milan Kundera said later that he would NEVER allow a film from one of his works. I can't say that I blame him.

Running.  I will be honest I haven't had a real run since October!  I felt great then but in early November I got hit by some nasty virus that had me out for 3 weeks and then bad weather bollowed by our current snowpack have made actual running a bit problematic.  That's where snowshoes, xc skis and snowboards come in handy!  

Coffee.  Yup, still drinking it.  In moderation mstly.  I think I have found a balance with the bean.

Not much else to report here.  I got a splitboard for Christmas and hope to get out and use it soon.  A splitboard is a snowboard that essentially has been cut in half!  You can then wear it like skis with "skins" on the bottom to make it sticky and walk up the mountain. When you get to the top you  put it back together to ride down!   

"skinning" up

Happy trails!  Hope the new year has brought good fortune and good times!

Happy New Year!

View at the top of Hyak

I hope 2016 is treating you well so far!  Since my last post, we have had a huge amount of snow! At one point we had 9 feet in 7 days!  That resulted in road closures, a power outage and lots of snow clearing!  But the power came back on Christmas eve and Christmas morning the highway reopened so we were all able to be together, the best gift of all!!

I spend nearly every morning playing outside with Mae. She is loving the snow! It's fun to have such an energetic companion! It gets my day off to a good start.  

The morning routine

I'm not the resolution making type. Sometimes I make goofy resolutions, "Buy more shoes" or "wear more dresses".  And often, I wish that it was a new year 40 years previous!  If I woke up and it was 1976 well, that would be awesome! The fact is, that 40 years has been an eye blink.   How do you slow it down? Sigh.   Well, make great moments happen!  My best moment so far?  A great big snowboarding turn in fresh snow ~  beautiful!    What's your best moment of 2016?  Got one yet?    I sure hope you have lots of them!  cheers~

Snow Day With Mae

Yes, perhaps I do have too much time on my hands today ?  You think?  What better way to spend it than playing in the snow with Mae!

Stumps

Mae At The Creek

I know it's been awhile and I need to write about the rest of my book list, but I can't resist sharing this photo of Mae checking out the creek.  The weather has been beautiful here!  October!!

Mae at Gold Creek

Summer Reading and More

I've been wanting to post about reading and all the great books I've read this summer.  I usually have a summer reading list but this year, I actually have been reading all year, because I've had the extra time to do so. (current total 13)   Reading lists can be divided up so many ways.  To borrow from the book I am currently reading,  Italo Calvino's  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler", there are books you've always wanted to read, books you can borrow from somebody, books you mean to read, books that everyone else has read so it's like you have read them, books that you might read this summer and, my favorite, "books that if you had more than one life you would certainly also read but unfortunately your days are numbered."

You can also categorize them by how you came upon them.  There are books you have already read and are re-reading, books that someone you know has read and suggests them to you, books that you find on lists, Amazon suggestions and books you pick up on vacation.  

So, where do I start?  Let me start with my favorites:

MOBY DICK.  Hands down my favorite book ever.  Love this book, have read it several times and keep it handy to just randomly read parts of it when I feel like I need a dose of Melville.  It's not easy reading. It's a chore really.  But this year I did read it all the way through....yay!

Anything by Haruki Murakami.  Most recently it was his collection of short stories in "The Elephant Vanishes".

Need some super easy reading? My favorite is Daniel Silva.  I have read every single one of his Gabriel Allon novels, including the latest.






And lastly, an old favorite that I had to dig around to find and ended up getting a cheap ($3) edition from Amazon that is a bit off, but for $3?  Why not? It's
D.H Lawrence's "The Man Who Died, or The Escaped Cock", in which a man who died (Christ) does not die, is not resurrected because he wasn't really dead when they buried him .  He wanders and has a relationship....

Next time, books recommended by people I barely know, a book I can't decide about, and the rest of the list.  Pick up a book! Tell me what you are reading!