The Westering Hills

This morning, as always, I clicked on Sherry Cermak’s blog “What Did You Eat?” to see if there was a new recipe posted. There was none. From an exchange of emails we’d had earlier in the month, I knew that she was having health issues as well as personal issues, and was hoping to read some good news about her anemia treatment. I happened to click on her site again about 15 minutes ago, only to see that Sher died of a heart attack on Sunday. I felt like somebody hit the back of my head with a bat.

Suffice to say, I’m in complete shock. I cannot stop crying. I don’t want Sher to be gone.

I’m also feeling massively guilty. In our last email, she’d given me her phone number and I was going to call her. I really was. I never did. Now it’s too late.

I see in the food blogosphere requests to make and post about your favorite Sher recipe. I already know what mine will be. I’ll make it tonight or tomorrow, since I won’t be home this weekend. Stay tuned. And keep well, all my dear friends and family.

Yep. Hi, and all that. Not much to tell. Just haven’t been feeling the blogging. I hate apology posts, so I’m outta here.

p.s. - If anyone has any ideas on why on earth I can’t upload a new photo as my banner even though I’ve sized it correctly, please give me a hint. It’s extremely vexing.

Has everyone noticed a significant decline not only in the amount of postings in blogworld, but also the amount of commenting? I know I haven’t done much of either lately and I’ve heard the same sentiment from others. Must be something out there causing this collective lull. Don’t look at me, I don’t know!

Since my last entry, I’ve had a bad back, bad moods, and a disgruntled outlook on life. I almost never do this, but as far as the last two go, I am almost certain I can, in part, blame the weather. It’s June-uary here in the Puget Sound region, as the wags are calling it—around 50 degrees during the day, dipping down into the low 40s at night, lots of rain, very little sunshine, SNOW in the mountains last night, and a wind/rainstorm yesterday that hasn’t been seen in these here parts since 1938. DAMMIT. It’s seriously getting everyone down, especially after our Very Snowy For Seattle Winter.

I’m making tuna salad for tomorrow’s lunch and crawling into bed. Goodnight.

I would not have just now been able to tell Barrett, calling from his cell phone in Barcelona, Spain, what the second line in the first stanza of the song “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss was, so Kinski could nail it when they cover it at the show they are about to play at the Primavera Music Festival. Indeed. (As Anne would say.)

Fried quail egg—so cute!

One day, it was so warm, we put an ice cube on Colin. He left it untouched for a full five minutes.

Trixie: suspicious or content? You decide.

Gaaaah! Freaky double exposure of unknown nature.

Startled close up with paw.

Colin: comftahbuhls or dead? You decide.

Back lawn, mown and unmown.

Mowin’ with flair!

I so fell in love with the tall grass stalks, I asked Barrett if he would leave me a patch to keep growing all summer. He did.

Backyard side bed, patiently waiting for columbines, snapdragons, Canterbury bells, and delphiniums.

Last Wednesday morning, after a bit of a late start, I hopped into my car and drove 130 miles north to visit the fabulous Jeci of Blue Yon Belly! Not only is she as sweet and kind and smart as I knew she would be, she was the consummate host, putting me up for the night and taking me around the town in my favorite mode of transportation–by foot! After lunch at a nearby tavern, we meandered along the seawall:

to Stanley Park, where we took a walk on the trails and saw the swans in the lagoon:

(it wasn’t all misty like that photo and also, swans are bigger than I realized!). We also saw peeping baby ducks sunning themselves on a rock; Jeci took photos of them so let’s keep our fingers crossed that she posts those!

I saw my first inukshuk:

We were very tired after our almost-3-hour walk, so we bought cheese and crackers and went back to her place, where we sipped on homemade wine, ate a snack, and had a gabfest with her very funny friend, Catherine (Katherine?). At 8pm, we met Jeci’s awesome husband, Kieran, at Capones Restaurant & Live Jazz Club :

where we saw this “Ally McBeal” actor having dinner and drinks with a young lass:

After more wine and laughter back at the condo, we slept. The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of coffee and pastries fetched by Kieran and then goodbyes to said working man, Jeci and I wended our way to the little boat that ferried us over to Granville Island:

where we had lunch at the Cat’s Meow before I reluctantly headed back to Seattle before the rush hour hit.

The weather in Vancouver was gorgeous, the city was spectacular (and chock full of sushi restaurants, of which I am greatly jealous!), and Jeci is a delight. I cannot stress enough how much I have enjoyed all of my blogger meet-ups. I love being connected in this way and for this reason above all, I have decided to keep blogging. Ciao for now!

has been good. After prodding Barrett to get up at 7am, I dozed until 9:15. I had dreams about my apartment flooding, wasps taking over my house, and a white bumpy patch on my arm turning out to be the bubonic plague. Since when did my dreams make the turn to Biblical disasters?! I awoke for good to the sound of Colin trying to lift the bedroom blinds up with his paw to take a peek outside. After heating up coffee and reading the paper, I took a shower, got dressed, and ran through my list of errands. That done, I took a book, a glass of wine, and sat outside in the warm, incredibly cloudy day, and read for three hours straight. In between chapters, I listened to the flickers,the Anna’s hummingbirds, and the Stellar’s jays sing their various songs, while I drank in the scent of the lilac bush nearby. At times, it sprinkled, and my bare feet shone with the wetness as I wiggled my toes. I stared at the two foot tall grass in our backyard giving way to seed (our lawnmower has been in the shop for over 3 weeks now) and marveled at how beautiful grass seed stalks are. I sat outside on a day I would normally be inside and was grateful that I was witnessing spring in all its silent glory.

I meant to write more of a proper entry today but I wasn’t feeling up to snuff. I did want to check in, so to speak, and let y’all know that I will be continuing this blog after all. Thanks for all of your comments and thoughtful input!

Today is the first day of my stay-at-home vacation. It didn’t have the best start, though, as 9am this morning found me at the vet’s with one of my dearest friends, sitting by his side as he made the incredibly difficult decision to euthanize his beloved kitty, Eisenhower. It brought me back to exactly three years ago when, on an eerily similar warm Saturday May morning, Barrett and I said goodbye to Enrique. Afterwards, I was incredibly tired and tried to take a nap in the early afternoon. I think I dozed for a little while after an hour of reading a book in dim light, but haven’t yet shaken off this strange exhaustion. Instead of getting outside to start weeding the garden beds, I instead lazed on the couch with Barrett and watched a documentary, while the sun shone its 80 degrees on Seattle for the first time in many a moon. I suppose I should feel guilty for “wasting” a warm day indoors but I don’t. I’ll get out there tomorrow.

A toast to all good kitties. *clink*

I think at some point, every blogger asks themselves that incredibly ungrammatical question. That’s where I have been lately. Why am I writing this blog, what purpose does it serve?

I’m getting bored of it, tired of it, at least right now. The thought of updating it makes me yawn. I don’t have anything interesting to say, frankly. Besides the Recent Unpleasantness of Vacation Cancellation, my outside world is pretty calm. My hobbies of cooking, reading, and gardening–let’s face it, not interesting enough to fill an online journal.

There’s another aspect too, one which, the very minute I type this, is going to generate protests, but I’ll say it anyway: this blog doesn’t fully represent the real me. This is Shannon Light. And the reason this is Shannon Light is due in part to the fact that I have family reading this. I don’t mean any offense whatsoever when I say that, but I certainly am not going to let loose with some of the anger or irritation or angst that goes on in my head knowing that my mom and sisters and other family/acquaintances are reading it. Sorry, but it’s true, family. In the past, I’ve made allusions to things that bother me or anger me, and it was usually followed up by a family member wondering or worrying that I was referring to them, which in turn generated a follow-up comment/email/phone call explaining that it was not, even if maybe it was. I decided that I didn’t want to have that going on all the time, so I stopped posting anything with meat, so to speak.

I told all of this to my sister Kari a few weeks ago and she questioned it, saying, So what if family is reading it? My response to her was, Would you let loose with everything that was going on in YOUR head, knowing that family was reading it? Would you be comfortable showing sides of yourself that you normally don’t in real life? After a pause, she agreed with me that no, of course not. We all of us keep portions of ourselves hidden from everyone we know for one reason or another. I don’t know anybody that is an open book–not my mom, my dad, or my sisters. So why should I be?

Which brings me back to my original point. I’m bored with this blog because I feel that I can’t and won’t blog about anything that isn’t light or cheerful. I think I need more. Maybe a new anonymous blog, maybe just my own personal journal that is not online. I just don’t know yet. Still mulling it over.