News Trend The Maple Bench Of My Dreams|Actual

Hey, remember when I had a dream last fall and ended up creating a miniature art gallery complete with a cute little bench in my bedroom?

If you like, you may refresh your memory here.

But if you're not in the mood to ricochet around the internet, I can catch you up. The art was made by me, and the bench a collaboration between

me (the visionary)

my husband (the tool guy)

a sweet slab of live edge maple and

four hairpin legs.

Together, we created the bench of my literal dream, and we were all very happy.

Then came the winter and our hardwood floor project. In order to clear the decks for the work team, we carted every stick of furniture out of every room on the first floor, and then three weeks later, had the fun of moving everything back in.

I may have made a few small changes along the way, and we ended up with new, smaller desks in the library, which left a big open space in the middle of the room where the bigger tables used to be. And suddenly the couch in front of the window looked sad and forlorn all by itself over there on the opposite side of the room.

In a flash of what I would call genius but my husband would call more work, I imagined my art gallery bench - which I must admit had become a bit of a drop zone for stray objects in my bedroom - as the perfect candidate for a slim new table in front of said lonely couch.

I believe it was around three a.M. When I carried her down the stairs for a trial run. Never too late to rearrange the furniture.

By daylight, anyone could see that the pairing is a match made in heaven and since that early morning in March, my maple bench has been a happy camper in her new home.

Sadly, I must report that during all these months of its adventurous life, my maple bench has been roughing it.

Literally.

Though the wood was fairly well pre-sanded when I bought it, I did not take it from good to great.

Bark crumbled from the live edge.

The wood was pale,

the grain lost to the low contrast.

And the top was, well, naked. Completely unfinished.

What she really needed was a thorough sanding and three coats of Varathane. But I was not up to woodworking in the cold garage.

I'll tackle that job next summer, I told myself for months on end.

But as the summer has come and almost gone, my poor maple table languished in the murky depths of my to-do list.

I am not proud to admit that.

But I'm glad to say that this story has a happy ending.

Saturday, I awoke with a vengeance and in a fresh burst of affection for my maple table, I tackled her first thing. The project unfolded with little drama, and today my maple bench sits proudly in her spot in front of the couch, her rich grain gleaming under the shiny coats of satin finish, her live edge polished to beat the band. I'm so happy with how she turned out.

And though my maple table no longer lives in my miniature art gallery, where I originally dreamed in her into existence, she is making my dreams come true in new and surprising ways.

P.S. Though Gracie patiently dreams during my late night work sessions while draped across this very same couch in front of the maple bench, she was not impressed with my daytime photo shoot. It was high time for our walk, and she had already put up with a number of delays.

Poor Gracie. Her life is rough.

News Trend An ASEAN Celebration|Actual

Happy Birthday, ASEAN!

In case you missed it, August 8 marked the forty-ninth birthday of the Association of South East Asian Nations, a strategic alliance among eleven nations in that region. As the Ambassador to Malaysia, my host led the celebration for all the member nations here in Cuba.

I personally have never been to an ASEAN birthday celebration before, so I was quite interested to see how it would shake out.

^ My friends' second-born son was enlisted to take aerial photos of the opening ceremonies from the balcony above. I was in charge of standing in the shade.

^ Flag ceremony. Don't think I'd ever heard the Malaysian national anthem before. But now I have.

Yo! There's a white lady on the balcony?! Who let her in??

First and most formal were the opening ceremonies: flag raising, opening remarks from our ambassador, and a classic large group photo shoot.

From there, the party-goers divided into four teams and played a variety of outdoor games: musical chairs, relay races, that sort of thing. Prizes were awarded for everyone. Yay!

Then it was time to eat

Oh my goodness. Each country team provided a few national dishes and I was in pure culinary heaven. Turns out that the all-male group of ambassadors sit at one table, and their womenfolk, which included me, sit together at another.

Which is how I came to be addressed as "Madame America" by the wife of the Ambassador from Indonesia, and spoke a bit of Spanish with her counterpart from Laos, who can't manage English.

The event broke up with brisk efficiency after the meal, and we all moved on to the rest of our day. Still, the happy, cooperative, celebratory mood lingered through my afternoon.

Not sure what I'll be doing next year to recognize the fiftieth birthday of the proud ASEAN allegiance. But if I do nothing more than reflect back on these 2016 festivities, it will be a good day indeed.

* * * * *

Check out more stories about my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cuba and my wonderful friends who lived there:

I Will Bake You A Pie

Cuban Makan

Cuban Economics

El Malecon Cloudburst

A La Playa

Creepy Cuban Kudzu

Plaza De La Revolucion

Old Havana

Poolside in Havana

A Cuban Sunset Story

Sunset Chasers, Cuban Edition

The Puppy At The Castle

Old Havana On The Eve Of Fidel's Birthday

An ASEAN Celebration

Nayli's Bedroom

Varadero, Cuba

Winding Down

Dear Cuba

Aqil's Chicken

The Gentle Art Of Reframing

My Cuban Home

Tickled Pink

Full Circle

Chicken Drumsticks

News Trend Wide Open Spaces|Actual

With the tent staked, the clothesline strung, and a proper makeshift kitchen set up, we officially kicked off this year's Kalaloch camping trip by heading down to the beach.

As we dropped down the steep path from the cliff-bound campground to the beach, Gracie all but hauling me headfirst, I bubbled over with anticipation. In all the twenty-five years I've been coming here, this magical place is always the same place but there's always something fresh, something different, something new with every visit.. I held my breath as I stepped out from the massive driftwood staircase to find...

^ ...Wide open spaces.

^ Where in past years lay a tumble of massive beach logs - silver white trunks of trees stripped of bark and branches by the awesome power of crashing waves - so thick and wide that in order to get to the sane, we had to scramble hither and yon, working a maze from the bottom of the stairs to the open beach. But this year, at the end of the stairs lay nothing but a flat, wide expanse of glorious grey Pacific Northwest sand.

^ Straight ahead, the Pacific Ocean towered over us, crashing waves that threatened to wash us away only to break themselves far from shore and harmlessly peter out around our ankles.

^ In the wide stretch of sand and shallow water, we found plenty of places to play.

^ Gulls swooped around is in the clear blue sky, adding a third dimension to our sense of unbounded space.

^ Where Kalaloch Creek flows down to the ocean, in a little corner we fancifully call the Lagoon, we felt the difference too.

Tumbled heaps of massive beach logs that had rested half-buried in the sand here for the better part of a decade had disappeared.

Huge fields of flat stones were mysteriously disappeared.

An enormous sand bunker on the far bank of the lagoon was gone, leaving exposed rock jutting out into the water.

^ No longer pinned between the logs to its usual narrow banks, the creek flowed wide and shallow, soft with sand. Normally, my dogs take no more than a step or two into the lagoon as the sides drop off into a deep flowing channel. But this year Gracie could easily keep her belly dry as she pranced from one side to the other, and she did so many times over.

^ Heading north from the lagoon, we see evidence that recent high tides have picked up and tossed around some low lying beach logs. Sure enough, later in the day, we saw some floaters and I had the educating experience of bumping into one. I learned that even a small log becomes a lethal weapon when tossing and turning unpredictably in the surf, and I was horrified to think how quickly one could mow down my dog. We steered well clear of the water until the tide turned and the water dropped away from the beached logs.

^  Then we were once again free to walk along the sand, through the shallow waters, in the glistening sunshine under the crystal blue sky.

^ And I fell in love with Kalaloch all over again, for her wonderful wide open spaces.

* * * * *

My family and I go to Kalaloch a lot. Here are stories from our trips over the years:

2019

Wide Open Spaces

Whale Bones

Ways To Play

The World Of Packet Dinners

Windows

2018

Walking On Rialto Beach

2017

Gracie Goes To Kalaloch

2015

The Last Day Of My Summer Vacation

2014

With Joy And Wild Abandon

With Hope And Desperate Longing

With Peace And New Beginnings

2012

It's All About The Food

It's All About Playing On The Beach

It's All About The Sunsets

It's All About The Artistic Inspiration

It's All About The Memories

2011

Discovering Tide Pools

Discovering Sunsets

2010

Balanced Rocks

sometime before 2010

Golden Pup

News Trend The First One|Actual

Last summer, with little advance notice, my two elder daughters moved out of the house.

And with my fourth born off in Asia visiting my globe-trotting third-born, I found myself, for at least a few weeks, sitting on an empty nest.

Now granted, I had no right to be shocked. My daughters had lived at home for far more years than most parents enjoy, and it was high time they were off on some new adventures.

And my fourth born was just on vacation. Two weeks and she'd be right back.

But the effect was powerful. And much to my own surprise, I fell into an emotional tailspin.

The epicenter of my malaise sat squarely in my older daughters' now-empty bedroom. As logic would dictate, they had taken all the life out of that room, and the best belongings to boot, and left behind a sad, stripped down, and worn out bedroom

After a few days of utter shock and deep sadness, I got busy.

I corralled their cast off items into spare storage space in the garage, rearranged what was left of the furniture, and got busy filling in the empty places they had left behind.

Plants

Lamps

Art

Books

Bedding

As I whipped up my to do lists and whistled around town, my mood improved and my heart soared. I was building a new room, a new place for them to come home to, and I felt much better.

And almost instantly, a series of paintings took shape in my brain.

The images I saw were specific and clear.

For several weeks, I thought about them, planning out the colors, shapes, lines. I did mathematical calculations, and drew them out on graph paper.

And then I began to paint.

This is the first one.

News Trend Nayli's Bedroom|Actual

Welcome to Nayli's room.

Nayli is the sixteen-year-old daughter of my host family in Havana, a diplomat's child who has grown up here, there and everywhere around the world. No doubt that experience has contributed to her thoughtful personality. She is sensitive and quiet, qualities that go hand in hand with her natural intelligence and passion for artistic expression.

But one quick visit to Nayli's Cuban bedroom will tell you much more about her than my fumbling words. Graciously, she invited me and my camera in for a tour.

^ The bones of the room belong to the embassy: wall color, furniture, bed linens  and window coverings came with the joint and don't necessarily project Nayli's preferences. But she has reinterpreted the room arrangement to create defined sleeping, seating and work zones, and added some pieces of her own: the chest of baskets, for example, and the oriental rug underfoot.

^ Nayli collects extravagantly. Her pen and pencil collection takes my breath away; her box full of erasers entertains me endlessly. She's drawn to miniatures, like these tiny turtles.

^ This girl also has a natural penchant for organization. Her bulletin board is a work of art, where metric conversion charts and school calendars effortlessly share real estate with amine inspiration and three-dimensional accents.  Craftily, she made her own display cases for her pen collections, and has been creating a second bulletin board for her desk during my visit.

^ Her love of tiny details pops up in every corner of the room.

^ While most of her treasures have been collected over the years, new additions are happening all the time. The vase of tiny blossoms is a Cuban handicraft and the University of Washington sign a gift from her Husky brother.

^ Everywhere I turn, I find tiny vignettes and sweet arrangements of interesting treasures. The red tray full of tins and tiny metal cookware might be my favorite but it's awfully hard to choose.

^ And just when I thought I had seen every magical thing there is to see in Nayli's room, I discovered this: a door that leads to a tiny private balcony with sweeping views of the garden and grounds.

Beautiful as it is, the lush landscape is a perfect reminder that even though Naylis's Cuban bedroom is far from her permanent home in Kuala Lumpur, her little tropical sanctuary is a place that is truly her own.

* * * * *

Check out more stories about my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cuba and my wonderful friends who lived there:

I Will Bake You A Pie

Cuban Makan

Cuban Economics

El Malecon Cloudburst

A La Playa

Creepy Cuban Kudzu

Plaza De La Revolucion

Old Havana

Poolside in Havana

A Cuban Sunset Story

Sunset Chasers, Cuban Edition

The Puppy At The Castle

Old Havana On The Eve Of Fidel's Birthday

An ASEAN Celebration

Nayli's Bedroom

Varadero, Cuba

Winding Down

Dear Cuba

Aqil's Chicken

The Gentle Art Of Reframing

My Cuban Home

Tickled Pink

Full Circle

Chicken Drumsticks

News Trend Varadero, Cuba|Actual

Climb into the dark blue Mercedes in a pounding rain. Leave the flooded streets of Havana behind and travel south.

Oops. There's a highway bridge closed. Ask a friendly local for directions. Backtrack and find the unmarked detour route.

Follow the twists and turns of the jungle road. See the backbone of Cuba, the Sierra Maestra Mountains, marking the center of the islands to your right. Watch for glimpses of the Caribbean Sea on the left.

Take note of the entrepreneurs selling cheese along the side of the road. Here and there, a hopeful Cuban holding a hunk of homemade cheese on a piece of wood, standing on the side of a not-that-busy jungle track. Imagine what they would say if they could see the cheese selection at the average first-world grocery store.

Loop back to the main highway and zoom on. Two hours into the trip, descend a smooth hill into the cultured city of Matanzas. Roll out to the Hicacos Peninsula where the resort town of Varaderos sits, poised just above the waters of the Caribbean.

Park the car, grab the cooler, and climb over the ridge of dunes to find this.

After the sun has set, slip back into the car. And still wearing a soggy swimsuit under sandy clothes, reverse the trip. Drive all the way back home in another wild torrent, knowing that this is a day you will never, ever forget.

* * * * *

Check out more stories about my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cuba and my wonderful friends who lived there:

I Will Bake You A Pie

Cuban Makan

Cuban Economics

El Malecon Cloudburst

A La Playa

Creepy Cuban Kudzu

Plaza De La Revolucion

Old Havana

Poolside in Havana

A Cuban Sunset Story

Sunset Chasers, Cuban Edition

The Puppy At The Castle

Old Havana On The Eve Of Fidel's Birthday

An ASEAN Celebration

Nayli's Bedroom

Varadero, Cuba

Winding Down

Dear Cuba

Aqil's Chicken

The Gentle Art Of Reframing

My Cuban Home

Tickled Pink

Full Circle

Chicken Drumsticks

News Trend Whale Bones|Actual

As we strolled north on Kalaloch Beach, Gracie slowed her pace to stop and sniff at a beach log lying silver and splintered near the high tide line, and that was my first clue that something very strange was going on.

Unlike my dogs Casey and Ranger before her, Gracie is not, under any circumstances, a beach log sniffer. She prefers dead birds or seagull poop.

So we stopped to investigate what had captured her curiosity and quickly made a fascinating discovery.

This was no beach log. It was a skull.

My fourth-born and I began to speculate, but it took us only a moment to draw an inescapable conclusion.

A whale skull.

As we stood over the bones, trying to wrap our heads around this amazing find, a man stopped by to chat.

"Yeah, a class of pilot whales washed up here a couple years ago," he informed us.

Well. We can get LTE service on the beach nowadays so the moment he stepped away, we Googled.

Bless him, our informant was mostly wrong.

This was in fact the skull of a malnourished, underweight grey whale who washed up here on Kalaloch Beach last May.

Scientists have noticed an uptick in grey whale deaths along the West Coast this summer. Apparently, for reasons not yet clear, the dead whales are skinny and underfed, maybe because of problems with last year's food supply.

Nearby, perched on an actual beach log, we found several sections of vertebrae. This one was about the size of my hand with fingers extended.

To be this close to the bones of a giant beast was a thrill. We circled round and round, imagining where the eyes fit into the skull, where the baleen plates would hang from the jaws.

We pondered how many sections of vertebrae would be required to build the spine of this 32 foot long animal. Our best answer: a lot.

And then, just as our brains began to ache from all this imagining. Gracie decided it was time to go.

And so we said goodbye to the whale bones, and set off down the beach, in search of our next big adventure.

* * * * *

My family and I go to Kalaloch a lot. Here are stories from our trips over the years:

2019

Wide Open Spaces

Whale Bones

Ways To Play

The World Of Packet Dinners

Windows

2018

Walking On Rialto Beach

2017

Gracie Goes To Kalaloch

2015

The Last Day Of My Summer Vacation

2014

With Joy And Wild Abandon

With Hope And Desperate Longing

With Peace And New Beginnings

2012

It's All About The Food

It's All About Playing On The Beach

It's All About The Sunsets

It's All About The Artistic Inspiration

It's All About The Memories

2011

Discovering Tide Pools

Discovering Sunsets

2010

Balanced Rocks

sometime before 2010

Golden Pup