Rock Garden

Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk that I performed last weekend at the Postcards from Whidbey Island show in Coupeville, USA. Enjoy!  

Greetings, mystery lovers!  Have you enjoyed this wonderful show?  All of this murder and mayhem and dark secrets, and all those other good things we love?  Me too!

So . . . what am I doing here, dressed like this, in a show about such mysterious things?  Well, I’m here to talk about the biggest mystery of all, the one most of us try to solve every day.  I speak, of course, about how we manage to get anything to grow in our gardens on this Rock.  

How many of you have been outside in the last few weeks, putting your hands in the dirt?  Go ahead, admit it.  Confession is good for the soul.  I thought so!  We all claim to be gardeners here on the Rock.  A lot of us moved here just to fulfill the fantasy of growing our own fruits and vegetables . . . and roses and azaleas . . . and every other flowering or edible plant.  All those years of reading Sunset magazine created this fantasy.  And, by God, we’re going to make it a reality here on Whidbey or die trying, aren’t we?

This is the time of year we get out there, rain or shine.  Re-arranging our rocks and hard-pan clay.  Putting in our seeds and starts.  And praying, “Lord, please make this the year our garden looks like one of those Miracle Gro commercials.”  Trouble is, the Lord takes Her own sweet time in responding to most of those prayers.

You see, nature played a dirty trick on us here on the Rock.  About ten thousand years ago, give or take a few thousand, the last of the Ice Age glaciers decided to pick up stakes and move to Alaska.

But, like a bunch of thoughtless overnight campers at Fort Ebey State Park, they didn’t haul out what they hauled in.  They left a lot of garbage behind.  Mostly rocks.  Buried in clay.  And, today, that’s what we spend all that money at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware and Bayview Nursery trying to correct. 

Mulch.  Compost.  Potting soil.  Sand for drainage.  Fertilizer.  Diatomaceous earth. . . whatever that is.  And need I mention all the trowels, forks, shovels, tillers, cultivators, gloves, knee pads, sunbonnets . . . and blister remedies?

This is the time of year on the Rock when we try to fool Mother Nature.  We pretend that plants we admire can actually thrive here.  But, truth be told, those that seem to do best are thistles, nettles, dandelions and black caps, to name a few.  Not to mention the several million firs, hemlocks, alders and sea willows with which we share this space.

Nonetheless, we soldier on.  Believing that we have tamed the soil here on the Rock.  We continue planting when we ought to know it’s too wet or too cold or too shady.  And kidding ourselves that we might finally have a nice warm summer.   

And, talking about kidding ourselves, can we talk about tomatoes?  The most common question I hear among gardeners on the Rock is simply this:  “Have you had any luck with tomatoes?”  Well, after all, are there any greater bragging rights for a home gardener than to show off some big, beautiful tomatoes on their very own vines?  You know.  The kind that actually have some flavor . . . instead of the cardboard type we buy at the market?  Of course not!

The reason most of us keeping asking if anybody’s had any luck with tomatoes is because most of us have not.  Sorry to be the bearer of that sad truth, but there it is.  Tomatoes like warm soil and sun all day . . . places like California and Mexico.  On our Rock, about the only places that qualify are inside a greenhouse with a sun lamp or indoors on a windowsill with a southern exposure.

There are those, of course, who do have luck with tomatoes . . . and my hat’s definitely off to them.  I am not one of them.  I planted some cherry tomatoes last summer.  I harvested a total of five.  I figure they cost me about ten bucks each.  Then there were those two surviving pumpkins that cost about twenty bucks apiece.  The baby artichokes probably cost six or seven bucks each.  And, oh yes, the scrawny corn was about two bucks an ear.

I will not talk about my eggplants and radishes, which were noble failures.  I will try again, however.  I will not let the rocks and the slugs and the bugs defeat me!

However, I am proud to say that my squash and potatoes and onions did very well.  Why it took me three years to figure that out remains a mystery!  Squash and root vegetables have always done well in our rocky soil and cool climate.  A lot of farmers on the island used to make a good living growing squash until recent years.  That’s when the fast pace of our modern life made it too much trouble to chop up a big Hubbard squash and wait for it to bake.

 A couple months ago, I wrote in the Whidbey Examiner about Dale and Liz Sherman.  They’re long-time squash growers on Ebey’s Prairie who are bringing back the big, homely Hubbard by cutting it up into small cubes we can nuke in the microwave and selling them in little plastic containers.  You go, Dale and Liz!  Making squash from the Rock relevant to the microwave generation!

Here’s my proudest gardening achievement last year.  I harvested almost fifty pounds of potatoes from my little patch of the Rock.  There was something very soul-satisfying when I put my hands into the potato mounds and pulled out dozens of Yukon Golds and California Whites.  The potato vines had actually thrived in my lousy soil!  They didn’t die!  They were beautiful when they were flowering!  And my harvest was so bountiful that we ate potatoes all winter without buying any at the market!  Yippee!  I did it!

The other night we enjoyed the last of those potatoes . . . baked in their jackets and served with a little butter, sour cream, salt and pepper.  Delicious!  They may just have been the best-tasting potatoes I have ever eaten.  No kidding!  I think. 

Oh, I could on for an hour.  We gardeners do like to ramble on about our gardens.  But I know all of you have some planting to do, and so do I.  I’m going to try beets and Brussels sprouts this year.  Anybody had any luck with them?

Any way.  Pray for sun.  See ya!

Rock-Solid Romance

    

Here is my "Rockin' A Hard Place" Blogtalk for Valentine's Day Weekend, which I delivered at the the "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show Feb. 11-12 in Coupeville.       

          Ah, yes.  It’s a great, big love fest here on the Rock on the eve of Valentine’s Day.   You notice it everywhere.  Grown women giggling over some slightly naughty Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards while picking up their prescriptions at Linds.  Grown men awkwardly whispering “They’re for the wife!” while paying for a bouquet at the Red Apple.  Coupeville High students complaining there’s no privacy for their hormonally overheated love life in this small town.  Coupeville Elementary students on a sugar-induced tear from eating too many of those disgusting, heart-shaped “I Love You” candies.

Indeed, from Deception Pass to Clinton, an unmistakable scent of romance is in the air all over the Rock . . . or is that just low tide I smell?  Sometimes I can’t quite tell.

            A year ago when I talked about love on the Rock at the Postcards show, I mentioned that we don’t go in much for gushy, sweetie-pie stuff around here.  We’re not the kissy-kissy type.  Too cold.  Too damp.  Too Scandinavian.  Too much trouble.   When you see a couple walking slowly down Front Street, holding hands and resting a head tenderly on a shoulder.  Well, you just know they’re tourists.  The kind that spend the weekend.  The daytrippers just buy an ice cream cone and a latte, then leave.  But something about spending a night on the Rock just gets ‘em goin’.

            The other evening we had dinner at Christopher’s.  We were celebrating Terry’s birthday.  And, like any good Rock-dwelling couple out for an evening, we ordered . . . we ate . .  we talked about gardening, our chickens and dogs, and the rain . . . we paid with cash . . . which is SO yesterday . . .and we left.  Home comfortably by eight thirty in robe and slippers.  A perfect night out.  No muss.  No fuss.  No gush.

While we were there, however, I couldn’t help studying the young couple at the next table.  She wore a knit cap, a wool scarf around her neck, calf-length leather boots and VERY tight stone-washed jeans.  He wore a knit cap, a wool scarf around his neck, calf-length leather boots and VERY tight stone-washed jeans.  She listened intently and smiled as he read her something from his iPad.  Obviously not from these parts, I could tell. 

They exchanged loving glances as they ate an appetizer plate of Penn Cove mussels.  Terry and I, being good Rock dwellers, had skipped the appetizer because we knew the entrée came with a salad.  The young man slowly poured her some wine from the expensive bottle they ordered.  It sparkled in the candlight.  Terry and I, on the other hand, had ordered house wine by the glass . . . which was cheap . . . but fine, just fine.  The young couple had many questions for the server about where items on the menu came from.  Free-range?  Line-caught?  Grass-fed?  Pesticide-free? Non ovo-lacto vegan?  Terry and I, of course, were more concerned with how long it would take to cook.  Well, c’mon.  You know how we all hate driving on the Rock after dark.    

As we left, the young woman was cradling her wine glass in both hands and staring into his eyes.  He leaned forward to whisper something that made her laugh.  I don’t think their entrees had even arrived yet.  I knew they’d be the last ones out the door.   And I remember thinking it could not have looked better if Island County Tourism had staged it for a glossy tourist brochure on the Mukilteo Ferry.

We do know how to sell romance here on the Rock, don’t we?  Even if we don’t buy it much ourselves.

Part of what sets us apart in the romance department here is how we use words like “love.”  I spent most of my adult life in big cities like Los Angeles and Dallas, so I know a bit about how people back in America talk.  But I’ve had to get used to Rock-speak since I moved to Whidbey Island.  Let me give you a couple examples.

A man in Dallas might give a good friend a hug and say, “Dawg, I love you!”  That’s spelled D-A-W-G.  On the Rock, a man might give his best friend a hug and say, “Dog, I love you!”  That’s spelled D-O-G.   A woman in America might gush to her neighbor, “I just adore you, Rose!”  On the Rock, a woman might simply gush, “I just adore you, rose.”  Referring, of course, to the bareroot Queen Elizabeth she just bought at Bayview Nursery.

And songs about love can take on quite a different meaning here.  That Cole Porter classic, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” might refer to being stung by nettles while walking in the woods.  “When Your Lover Has Gone” may be about getting up to catch the five a.m. ferry.  “In the Midnight Hour” can be a reference to the power going out during a windstorm.  And, on the Rock, “The Man That Got Away” can only refer to the Barefoot Bandit.

We are a lovely bunch here on Whidbey . . . and maybe that’s because we have so much to love.

Last weekend, when the weather was so clear and so beautiful, we took our dogs for a walk from the Prairie Overlook to the Jacob Ebey House.  At the Overlook, we turned to our left and saw Mount Baker.  Serene and majestic in its regal robe of winter snow.  We turned to our right and saw the Olympics.  Their jagged icy fingers pointing skyward in praise of the sun.  We looked down on Ebey’s Prairie.  That tranquil farm space that looks remarkably as I imagine it looked a hundred years ago.  And we looked up at a winter sky so incandescently blue we could see it even with our eyes closed.

“Amazing” is all I could say.  “We are so lucky to live here” is all Terry could respond.  And Charlotte and Addie, our Basset hounds, simply wagged their tails in agreement.

Not poetry, I realize.  Certainly not gushy.  And it would never make it as a verse in a Valentine’s Day card.  But, with all we have to love here on the Rock, who needs Hallmark?

Anyway, I promised Charlotte and Addie we’d go for a walk along the beach so they could catch the scent of low tide.  I better not keep ‘em waiting.  See ya!

Retired on a Rock

Here is my "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk for January, which I performed this weekend at the monthly Postcards from Whidbey Island variety show here in beautiful Coupeville, Washington. 

This is my sixth Rockin a Hard Place blogtalk about the peculiarities of life on Whidbey Island. And to think some folks doubted I’d find enough material!

This month I have decided to talk about retirement living here on the Rock. I know that doesn’t sound like it’s related to this show’s theme about families and feuds. Believe me, it is. But let’s start with a show of hands. How many here are retired like me? About as I expected . . .since the average age here on the Rock seems to be somewhere between 50 and death.

There are a whole lot of advantages to being retired on Whidbey. Among the very best is the stress-reducing distance you keep from your family back in America. Don’t get me wrong. I love my relatives. I’m just glad it’s not easy for them to drop by. When I retired here, I made a point of warning them that the Mukilteo ferry might sink or the Deception Pass bridge could collapse. And, thanks to caller ID, I can ignore their calls and blame it on our terrible cell service on the island. If contact must be had, I can always call up their faces on Skype . . . then discretely disconnect whenever I wish and blame it on the Rock’s poor Internet connections.

My relatives do come to visit us, and we are glad to see them. It’s just that we require advance reservations. And we frequently tell them we’re already booked . . . isn’t that a shame. When they do come over, we enjoy showing them around the island . . . and pretending not to hear their occasional awkward comments. My seven-year-old great niece was here before Christmas. Sweet little girl. Just love her, even though she talks AND sings ALL the time. Said to me as we ate lunch at the Knead and Feed, “Uncle Harry, when you die can I have your house?” Everybody wants to live on Whidbey Island. Get in line, girl, with the rest of the nieces and nephews.

A friend told me to expect that my first year of retirement would be a little confusing . . . as if my life were one big Google search on the Internet. Once you’re free from the straitjacket of work, you begin each day intending to do one thing but quickly get distracted. Start to clean the closet . . .and discover your old high school photo album. . . then wonder whatever happened to so-and-so. . .and spend an hour searching for them on Yahoo and Facebook. . .but give up and instead respond to the hundred or so emails you received overnight. . .then realize the morning’s shot so you might as well go get a decaf, nonfat latte and forget it. And so it goes.

One thing I did not expect when I retired on the Rock was that I would be working more hours than ever…..but, of course, not getting paid. You arrive on the Rock having had some success doing something or other somewhere else, and you expect to spend your Golden Years admiring Mount Baker while walking the dog. Then somebody finds out you know how to do something and – kaboom! – you are on a committee! And another! Then you wake up one morning and you’re in charge of a committee! No wonder I don’t talk to my relatives. I don’t have time!

Here’s the bottom line about retired life on the Rock. You volunteer. You take a nap. You volunteer. You take a nap. You volunteer. You take a nap. And before you know it, it’s time for bed.

You do have to make a few adjustments when you retire on Rock. In America, you went out for dinner at eight o’clock. Here, the restaurants close at eight o’clock. You rushed to the supermarket in the evenings after work. Here, you hurry to Red Apple before the high school lets out. You used to enjoy the Tonight Show before falling asleep. Here, you fall asleep watching Jeopardy. In America, old folks hang out at McDonald’s and nurse one cup of coffee for hours as they watch the traffic go by. All afternoon. Here, old folks hang out at places like William Bell’s on the wharf and nurse one cup of coffee for hours as they watch the kayaks go by. All morning.

There are other retirement oddities on the Rock. After wearing a business suit almost everyday for 40 years, I haven’t put one on since I moved here. I’ve been told reliably that it’s against the law in Island County. I tried to donate my old suits and ties to a thrift shop but they just chuckled. Who’d want ‘em here? So they still hang in my closet, forlorn and lonely. . . food for the moths. We call that organic recycling on the Rock.

As I think about what I’ve just been saying, it dawns on me that I have become my grandfather. He got up at six and had cereal and juice. So do I. He complained about the sad state of modern society. So do I. He fell asleep in his chair in the evening. So do I. He tinkered his way through retirement. So do I. Except I use Google.
Then again, my grandfather always kept himself busy, never got bored, had a twinkle in his eye even when his eyesight failed, and died in his own bed at the age of 87. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Any way, thanks for listening. Now I have to go. It’s way past my bedtime and I have two committee meetings in the morning. See ya!

Macrame Memories

Here is my "Rockin' A Hard Place" blog-rant for March, which I performed on Sunday March 27 at Coupeville High School's Performing Arts Center. 

So here we sit on a Big Rock.  A bunch of dudes and dudettes, many of us looking a bit gray around the edges, trying to squeeze our aging behinds into high school auditorium seats designed for much narrower teenage butts.  And feeling all warm and fuzzy about that peace, love and flower power stuff we had back in the 60s.

Well, before we go on, let me remind you of what a wise person once said:  If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there. My friends, I was there. So you will kindly disregard everything I’m about to say.

It was pretty amazing and it happened so quick. In less than five years, I switched from reading Time magazine hoping I’d be smart . . . to reading Rolling Stone hoping I’d be cool. I careened from the sweetness of Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” to the grunge of Dennis Hopper in “Easy Rider.” I went from Lesley Gore’s “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” on AM radio and to a well-worn vinyl track of Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane’s “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all . . . Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall.”

Wow, man. What a trip. I gotta lay back.

 I was a University of Washington student in the 1960s. I started out as a fresh-faced kid wearing neatly pressed corduroy slacks and white shirts. By 1968, I was heavy into raggedy jeans and army jackets. I confess I wasn’t much of a hippie. Way too Scandinavian for that. But I did consider myself a hippie wannabe. Cool but careful.

I grew my hair pretty long on campus . . . ah yes, I do remember my hair! But I always got it trimmed before going home to Tacoma. My mom would yell at me if I walked through her door looking like a beatnik. I tried to tell her she was a generation behind and maybe she meant hippie. She never understood the difference. As far as she was concerned, they all needed a bath.

We really thought we could change the world in the 60s, and maybe we did . . . but not quite the way we hoped. We held Gentle Thursdays outside the Husky Union Building and drew pictures with colored chalk on the sidewalk. It was all about liberating ourselves from racism and materialism and the military-industrial complex. Not too successful, were we?

We protested pretty much everything: the war in Vietnam, anybody over 30, the draft, the midnight curfew at the girls’ dorm, racial segregation, the buck-a-day that U-Dub charged to park in the landfill lot by Lake Washington where you needed an umbrella to dodge the deadly seagull bombs, and -- worst of all -- the U-Dub tuition that cost us a hundred and forty five bucks a quarter. Outrageous!

I visited Whidbey Island a couple times during those years. It was like traveling to a strange, exotic land lost in time. Let me tell you about one particular time. Three of us piled into my friend Charlie’s ‘55 Chevy one Saturday. We grabbed a burger at Dick’s on 45th and headed up Highway 99 through far distant Edmonds to the ferry dock in Mukilteo. Ferries didn’t run as often then and there was no Internet to check when they did. But there was a place to eat at the dock called Taylor's Landing, if you had the munchies while you waited. Now they call it Ivar's. 

We had no idea what we’d do on Whidbey. We’d heard that some mellow people lived there. In the 60s, mellow usually meant glassy-eyed college dropouts in tie-dyed tee-shirts who said “wow” a lot.

Imagine our disappointment when we got off the ferry to find mostly bait shops and beer joints. And old dudes who looked like our dads and spent their weekends on Whidbey fishing and playing cribbage. Bummer.

Today, I realize those old dudes were just like hippies, though they’d ferociously deny that. Every weekend they turned on, tuned in and dropped out. Now, of course, their turn-on was strictly beer. And their tune-in was the tide, weather and fishing report. And their drop-out was from their wives’ list of planned weekend chores. But see what I mean? They did everything but say “wow.”

On that particular visit to Whidbey we found a hippie guy selling tie-dye shirts and macramé by the side of the road somewhere near Langley. He said there were quite a few mellow folks on the island but most of them lived in the woods so they could do whatever they wanted. He told us to drive up the island to a little ghost town called Coupeville. It had a lot of cool old buildings.

Old dudes and hippies got along just fine in Coupeville, he said, not like in Seattle. And the brand new state highway on the island would get us there in only half an hour. So off we went in that two-toned Chevy, racing up Highway 525 that at some point turned into Highway 20 for no good reason. Wow, man. That was weird then and it still is.

I don’t have much recollection of our visit to Coupeville that day, except I think we had a good time. That was years before the tourist hordes started swarming the place to enjoy a quaint shopping and dining experience. Front Street was mostly a slow-paced hangout for locals. It even had lots of places to park.

 I asked my good friend Judy Lynn, who’s writing a book about Front Street, to help me picture what it must have been like when I was there. Judy said it’s very true. Old dudes and hippies did get along fine in Coupeville. They always have, she said, and they still do.

 She told me that in the 60s there was even a head shop in Mariners Court. Well, actually, it was an import shop called the Asian Moon. But it sold a few items that . . . well, let’s just say they were designed to enhance your smoking pleasure.

In Mariners Court there also was Knots and Bolts, a shop that sold macramé of all kinds. Macrame was so cool in the 60s! Those hippies did find some intriguing uses for hemp, didn’t they? I can just hear an old Coupeville fisher-dude back then telling the hippie at Knots and Bolts that he thought hemp was only good for making rope. But, right there in front of him, it was twisted into everything from shoulder bags to bookshelves!

 All in all, it’s easy to see why Whidbey has become so popular as a place to retire for those of us who survived the 60s. The old dudes and the hippies still get along just fine. And people still do pretty much whatever they want in the woods.

 Anyway. It was really cool to visit the Rock as a hippie wannabe in the 60s . . . even though I don’t remember much. But I’ll tell you a secret. Forty years later, it’s WAY more cool to live here as an old dude!

Peace, love and arthritic brotherhood, everybody!

Love Without The Folderol

[Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk delivered last weekend (Feb. 19-20) at the "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show performed at the Rec Hall in Coupeville.]

The theme of the “Postcards” show this month is everything to do with love and sex and romance, and I’m supposed to blog about how all that applies to us on Whidbey Island. Well now. That shouldn’t take very long, should it?

I think I can sum up this whole subject by repeating something I heard a guy say to his female companion in line at the Red Apple the other day: “I love ya and all that . . . but do I have to keep sayin’ it?”

Here on the Rock, we’re just not the gushy, sweetie-pie type. We don’t go in much for moon and June and swoon and croon. As my Tacoma-born mother used to say, “For heaven sake! This ain’t New York!” No, indeed, it’s not. We’ve got too many fish to fry . . . or mussels to steam . . . to waste much time on that gushy stuff.

Now, for instance, you take the conversation I overheard a week or so ago at a restaurant down on Front Street. Picture this with me. There sits a long-married couple, having lunch. Let’s call them Kat and Bill. I know this couple is long-married because they are dressed alike: all denim, flannel, fleece and New Balance. Her hair is short, gray and curly-permed, and his is gone. She wears no makeup and neither does he.

She’s eating a plate of Penn Cove mussels, nicely steamed in white wine, garlic and butter. He’s having some broiled salmon on a bed of Ebey’s Prairie vegetables. I’d call them locavaores, except I imagine these folks were eating mussels and salmon with veggies before most of today’s trendy locavores were born.

Like most long-married couples at lunch, they aren’t saying much to each other. When they speak, it’s in a sort of Neanderthal code. He leans over and examines her plate of mussels.

“Your mussels any good?” he asks. “May want to try one.” She says nothing but grabs a mussel with her fork and spoon and puts it on his plate. Obviously, this is a ritual being repeated for the umpteenth time. He eats it and smiles.

“Salmon’s good too,” he says. He takes piece from his plate and sets it on hers. She eats it and smiles. “Good,” she nods and then says, “But way too much food. We can’t eat it all. Get a box.”

He knows the routine and signals the waiter to bring them a takeout container. “Looks like it finally stopped rainin’. Glad we got out of the house,” he says, helping her on with her fleece jacket. “Um hum. But just look at those clouds. Let’s get home before it starts again,” she says.

As they walk out the restaurant door, one of his hands gently rests on her shoulder and the other carries the leftover mussels and salmon.

Ah, yes. That’s what I call romance on the Rock. True love without all the folderol. Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it? And right now, who knows? Maybe Kat and Bill are sitting here in the audience. If you recognized yourselves, please raise your hands!

We do enjoy a healthy romantic life here, even if it doesn’t always show. It’s just that our words of love don’t sound like Shakespeare and Keats. Actually, more like Bert and Ernie.

There’s another kind of romance that goes on here on the Rock, and it’s very different from sharing a Penn Cove mussel with the one you’ve lived with forever. This kind is flaunted right out there in public. It happens between men and women, or men and men, or women and women, or even kids and kids.

I call it co-mance because it happens in places where our community gathers. . . like the Post Office, the Rec Hall or, even more spectacularly, at the recycling center. Now I already mentioned our general aversion to folderol in romance here on the Rock. But all those rules are tossed out the window when it comes to co-mance.

Have you ever seen more hugging or shoulder fondling or cheek-pecking than at the Post Office? The other day I saw a woman squeeze another woman so hard she dropped her roll of stamps. And a man gave his neighbor such a warm hug that she got all flush and forgot to check her P-O Box.

And then there’s what happens right here at the Rec Hall. Take a free glass of wine here and the next thing you know you’ve volunteered for the Water Festival or the Lions Club or the noxious weed cleanup at the Town Park. And, believe me, there’s no morning-after pill for what happens at the Rec Hall!

Say hello to a friend at a gathering here and they shake your hand so hard with their big, garden-calloused paw that you feel bruised. Or head for your car in the parking lot and end up in a conversation with a friend for an hour in 30-degree weather, and wake up with a lousy cold the next day.

But the best place by far for co-mance is at our recycling center. Have you ever seen such love and affection as when two strangers toss their empty wine bottles into the dumpster together at the recycling center? Don’t you enjoy those goo-goo eyes they make as the glass shatters and they ask each other how they enjoyed a particular variety?

Well, I should amend that. It’s co-mance when they toss their clear bottles in the correct dumpster and their green ones in the other. If they should happen to co-mingle their bottles, the recycling cop will put a quick end to their co-mance.

Tossing your junk mail into the appropriate dumpster at the recycling center together can also lead to a lovely co-mantic experience. “Can you believe how many Pottery Barn catalogues we get?” somebody will ask. “I know what you mean,” the other will say. “And here we are turning them into packaging for more Pottery Barn merchandise from China,” the other will say. They chuckle. Sparks fly. Ah, sweet mystery of life!

And finally there’s the co-mance that begins while stuffing cardboard boxes – carefully flattened, of course – into the designated recycling container. “Oh, I see from the box that you must’ve bought a new computer,” the boy will say. “Yeah,” the girl will answer demurely, “and I still don’t know how to set it up.” “It’s not too difficult,” he’ll say. “I’d be glad to help if you want.”

Ah . . . Can’t you just hear Cupid’s arrow flying through the air? Before you know it, they’ll be googling. And isn’t it co-mantic?

Any way. I’d like to tell all you folks that I love you. But for heaven sake, this ain’t New York! And besides I’ve got some mussels to steam. So I’ll just say, see ya!

Rockin' a Hard Place - December!

Following is my "blog-talk" for December, which I performed this past weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA. Next month's shows are Jan. 15-16 at the historic Crockett Barn. Merry Christmas, everybody!

You know what I enjoy most about the holiday season on the Rock? Wherever I go, it’s as if the last 50 years never happened. I see hand-painted snowmen along Main Street in Coupeville made out of plain old plywood. They aren’t animatronic and they don’t sing “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” . . . over and over and over. I haven’t seen a single Jumbotron outside a church, scrolling the words to such forgettable modern carols as “Mommy Met Jesus Tonight.” I did not make that up! And, I’ve seen only a few outdoor light displays that require computer software and a digital sound board to perform their coordinated blinking and blaring.

Nope, that’s not how we do it on the Rock. We go in for just a few strings of lights . . . some even with colored bulbs, not all clear white . . . and they usually don’t twinkle. How refreshing is that! I actually saw somebody stringing tinsel on their tree – of course it was vinyl, not the aluminum kind I knew as a kid, and it was probably made in China from recycled TVs and cell phones. But it was still tinsel . . . and they were putting it on strand by strand. Next thing you know, Mommy will be kissing Santa Claus tonight!

A couple weeks ago we enjoyed a true holiday tradition here on the Rock. We attended the annual ladies’ luncheon and holiday bazaar at the Coupeville United Methodist Church. I doubt the menu and the merchandise have changed much since 1955.

We dined on chicken casserole with green beans mixed in and topped with buttery bread crumbs. And Jell-O salad with chopped cranberries and walnuts. And a soft dinner roll – distinctly unFrench and not the least bit crusty. Then choice of homemade pie . . . I chose mince and it tasted just like my Grandma Esther’s. Followed by a cup of hot tea poured from a pot covered by a hand-knit cozy. I closed my eyes for a moment and it felt as if Eisenhower was still in the White House and all I wanted for Christmas was my two front teeth.

Thanks to the delicious Methodist lunch, we were fortified for the difficult challenge ahead. Finding all those unique gifts “from Whidbey” that our mainland folks now expect from us. So, that afternoon we began our annual trek to the church bazaars, holiday markets, boutiques, galleries, wood carvers, potters, purveyors of local-grown food and rummage sales.

The first thing I bought was a loaf of pumpkin-cider bread baked by the Coupeville Methodist ladies. Let’s hope it didn’t spoil in the UPS truck on the trek to my sister-in-law in Syracuse. I also bought a hand-knit Methodist toaster cozy for my niece in Phoenix . . . but unfortunately she called to say it doesn’t fit her new, digital combination bread-browner and panini grill. I doubt the Methodist ladies make a cozy to fit that.

Then we headed for a host of other bazaars and came back with lots of uniquely Whidbey gifts. A wreath made out of bird seed . . . two jars of loganberry jam . . . a lavender sachet to keep your sock drawer from smelling . . . a half dozen pieces of lefse from the Lutheran ladies that I sent to my Texas friends, who mistook them for tortillas . . . a couple potholders made out of the Swedish flag . . . a table centerpiece of tastefully sprayed pine cones . . . a bee’s wax candle mounted in a holder made of mussel shells . . . a driftwood garden sign painted with a warning that trespassers will be composted . . . a barometer mounted on a hand-carved cedar branch that fell across a power line last winter. How Whidbey can you get?

Then, after shopping’s done, come those wonderful holiday occasions known as open houses. On the Rock, however, they come with a peculiar danger. I speak, of course, of re-gifting . . or, more precisely, accidentally giving the same useless object or cheap bottle of wine back to the person who gave it to you.

Re-gifting something to the person who palmed it off on you can create an awkward moment anywhere. But the risk is higher on the Rock because too many of us get invited to the same holiday gatherings. So, I invite you to imagine this scenario as yours truly arrives at a holiday open house in Freeland with a bottle of wine for my hosts. I grab the bottle as I run out the door, not paying too much attention. I can’t remember who gave it to me.

In the car I notice what it is. Somebody must have bought it at Trader Joe’s. It’s that brand known politely as a “pretty good cheap wine.” But most of us know it by its price tag – Two Buck Chuck. I hope the pretty wine gift carrier it’s in will hide the label on the bottle. My hosts greet me warmly at the door.

“Sarah and Dave, thanks so much for inviting me! Happy holidays!” I say, handing them the bottle. “Here’s a little holiday cheer . . . I hope you enjoy it!”

I am horrified as Sarah pulls the wine out of gift bag and looks at it. Isn’t that against the rules here on the Rock? Isn’t she supposed to wait until later, when everybody’s gone and she can’t remember who brought it?

“Oh,” Sarah says. “It’s Charles Shaw cabernet . . . Fresno, 2009.” She pauses. “Um. We’ve had this, I think,” she says, faking a smile. “Somebody got us several bottles at Trader Joe’s in Seattle. But I think we gave away our last one. What a beautiful wine gift bag! It looks just like one I bought. We, uh, do have similar tastes, don’t we!”

Then somebody else comes in behind me and briefly interrupts this awkward moment. I see Sarah lean over to Dave and mutter a few words I can distinctly make out. “He brought us back the Two Buck Chuck in the same gift bag. Can you believe it?”
My eyes meet Sarah and Dave’s. Busted. I feel the blood rushing to my forehead and my palms start to sweat. How do I get out of this re-gifting nightmare?

“Well, I hope you enjoy the wine. Looks like you have quite a crowd coming, so I’ll head on in,” I say.

“We’ll catch up later in the evening,” Dave says. Then he adds, “Um. Would you mind putting the Two Buck Chuck over there on the table with the other wine?”

I nod sheepishly and slink away. I set the bottle next to the expensive vintages on the table and quickly move to another part of the room before anybody sees me. I engage in idle chatter with somebody I don’t know. Then I make a mental note to myself. Next year bring Swedish flag potholders or a barometer on a cedar branch!

That’s what I mean about the terrible dangers of re-gifting on the Rock. Too much cheap wine, too few people! Let’s be careful out there!

Anyway . . . Merry Christmas, everybody!

Here is my "blogtalk" for November that I performed this weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA:

Welcome to November on Whidbey Island. Don’t you love it? So delightfully cold and damp and dark. That unique, squishy sound I hear when I walk across the grass. All those brown leaves I didn’t bother to rake . . . just lying there, taunting me, daring me to get out in rain and do something about them.

Yes, indeed. This is one of those months they don’t talk about in the tourist brochures you pick up on the Mukilteo Ferry. They skip right from Oktoberfest to MusselFest. Nary a word about some of those Fests in between . . . like the All-Whidbey Moss ‘n’ Mold Expo. That’s a big one. Or the Island-wide Rat & Mouse In-Fest. So many of us never miss that one. I’m just glad the eat-local movement doesn’t participate in those.

But we love it here in November, don’t we? It’s that time of year when we ransack the closet to find something, anything to keep our feet warm. When we finally scrape last November’s mud off the waterproof shoes we haven’t worn for months …. you know, the ones you quickly discover aren’t really waterproof when you step into the puddle in the driveway.

It’s time to drag all the sweaters out of the drawer and hope others won’t notice the musty odor when you sit down next to them. And, it’s time to check the propane tank and discover the meter’s been on “zero” since April . . . then make a panicky call to the supplier and hope the truck arrives before they find you frozen in your Snuggie.

Ah yes, November . . . such a great month. We have several wonderful holidays during the month. We just had Veterans’ Day, and we really appreciate our vets here on Whidbey. How many veterans here tonight? Great! Thank you! I’m a veteran, too…..Uncle Sam gave me an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam in 1969. Thankfully, it was a roundtrip! Let’s see, Vietnam….I think that was about four wars ago, wasn’t it? I can’t remember . . . there’ve been so many.

Any way, I still feel goose bumps when the Navy guys march down Main Street in Coupeville on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. And I’m happy to be living someplace where I can attend an Interfaith Peace Vigil one moment and watch a precision military drill team the next. I love this mixed-up, diverse, military-respecting, peace-loving Rock we live on!

Of course, Thanksgiving is coming up next Thursday. A lot of us take the opportunity to fly away to some dryer, warmer place . . . but many of us are descended-upon by mainland folks eager to say they ate a drumstick on an island. As for me, I give thanks for that enzyme in turkey that puts you to sleep. Otherwise I’d have to spend the afternoon listening to our relatives complain about life on the mainland.

We’ll also be dining on the most expensive turkey we’ve every cooked. How expensive, you ask? Well, let me explain. Last spring while I was off-island, my partner Terry went with some friends to the annual Lions Club auction here at the Crockett Barn. Now don’t get me wrong. I know the Lions do a lot of good work, and their auction raises a lot of money every year for scholarships for local students.

But those Lions have been doing this auction for a long time and they know all the tricks to make sure the bidding goes through the roof. It starts with lots of wine before dinner. Then lots of good food. Then lots more wine. And then the auction begins.

When I got home, I discovered we were the winning bidders of a beautiful Narragansett turkey from a local farm. Live or dressed. Free butchering lesson included, if desired . . . it wasn’t.

Not until I googled Narragansett turkey did I discover that it’s a breed that may be descended from the wild New England birds the Pilgrims ate. Which offers me at least some comfort. Considering that Terry, after several glasses of Lions Club wine, had made the winning bid of 200 dollars. Two…..HUNDRED….dollars.

So, stop by our house next Thursday and see Old Tom if you’d like. At that price, we ought to use him as a table lamp or something. But I’m sure we will savor every costly bite of that bird.

There was a third big holiday here on Whidbey this month, although it only comes around every couple of years. This time it was Wednesday November Third. Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day! Maybe the best holiday of all, don’t you agree? It was such a relief watching people tear down all that wasted cardboard and plywood along our two-lane state highway. And finally getting back to ads for Preparation H and Polident on TV . . . instead of that annoying woman whining that the healthy snacks she makes were being taxed like candy. And imagine my delight when the recorded 800-number call we got on the evening of November Third was actually somebody pitching a credit card . . . and not Sarah Palin pitching Dino Rossi.

Of course, the downside of Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day is that now we don’t have nearly as much to complain about while kibitzing over a latte. Before November Third, I think every ear on the island was burning from all the scorched talk about politics. You’d have thought that world would end on Election Day. But didn’t. We’re all still here … a little worse for wear, perhaps, but not dead or owned by the Chinese. Yet.

And, if we’re going to argue about the hand basket to hell we’re in, is there a better place to do it than here on this beautiful Rock . . .where not much really changes? Where the tide still turns twice a day . . . and the sun still follows the rain . . . and the trees still grow oh-so tall . . . and Mount Baker still looms majestically over us . . . and in November the leaves still turn a glorious red and yellow before falling to the ground and daring us to do something about them?

We do have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!