I too love the sound of the kids on our street playing outside on a spring day. I also love all the other sounds they make like crying for a bottle, squealing as they run from the waves and shouting at each other as if being louder will win the argument…or will it?
Even on an airplane, the sounds they make don’t trouble me. They are just being kids. Kids who don’t know why they must stay buckled into a chair for hours. It must be very frustrating to be held captive and not to understand why. In fact, when I hear a child screaming five hours into a flight, I am thinking “You said it, buddy, I feel the exact same way.”
There are also days when I have to use all of my "adult power" not to:
Hop around, wildly flapping my arms when I find a dollar bill in my coat pocket
or
Scream because I can’t have any dessert
or
Make faces at people during a meeting to try to make them laugh
or
Throw myself on the floor because I don’t want to go to the grocery store
or
Tell the airport security agent to, “Make me!” when he asks me to take off my shoes.
How delightful to be able to express what you are feeling. It is truly joyful noise!
Besides finding the100 year old shipwreck , we really haven’t found too many treasures while beachcombing. The good news is we haven’t found too much garbage either, our beach is pretty clean. All that might change in the upcoming years as researchers in Hawaii have created a simulation showing exactly how the houses, tires, chemicals and trees washed to sea by the March 11 tsunami will float across the Pacific and eventually hit the US coast.
“PSU oceanographer, Curt Petersen, has studied ocean currents for years. He says debris from the Japanese tsunami is currently making its way across the Pacific Ocean. Debris is getting caught up in the system of ocean currents that will eventually circulate it over to our coast. Peterson believes the heavier debris will sink, but he predicts we will see the lighter stuff, including washed-up timber from all the devastated structures, in about a year.” Source: The Oregonian.
The devastation of the tsunami will be undeniable for those of us living on the Oregon Coast.
This guy never minds taking a dip in the water either, although he was hunting not washing last week!
With hair wet enough to cause streams of water to run down my forehead into my eyes, I stomped back down the street. Along the curb beside me, the water rushed toward a storm drain. The drain at the corner drain was clogged and had caused a rather large puddle to form. Smack in the middle of the puddle was a crow. This crow was having a fabulous time in the water. He was dipping, flapping, rolling and splashing like a character from a cartoon shower scene.
His antics got the better of me and a smile crept upon my face. Just upturned corners at first, but then a wide grin followed by laughter. Apparently, one woman’s puddle is a crow’s afternoon at the spa.
It was also huge--easily the biggest piece of driftwood I have ever seen. Bob stands next to it give you an idea of its sheer size. 
How did something this huge make the journey from being a tree to washing up on an ocean shore? The power of nature constantly astonishes me.
These strange stalks are coming up everywhere in Saltair Station. Seriously, everywhere! My sister says they are alien beings. I would be very appreciative (and much more at ease) if someone out there could identify them, preferably as some type of plant. Please let me know asap! Thank you.
When I say everything, I mean everything. Doorknobs, cars, outdoor furniture and food containers are all fair game. The metal tins of spices in my cupboards at first just clumped all of the contents into an unusable wad of spice and then proceeded to rust around the edges staining the cabinets.
I thought it was so strange the Tillamook Fred Meyer’s had plastic shopping carts when we first moved here. Now I get it. The realtor who sold us the house told us the type of door locks to buy that wouldn’t rust shut. I get that too. I try to use stainless steel, glass and wood whenever possible (although our stainless steel heater managed to rust indoors, over the winter).
Our recent trip to the local hardware store for a wheel barrow was another reminder. The clerk was extremely excited the best one currently on sale. When she brought it out for us, we saw that it was molded black plastic. The disappointment showing on our faces, Bob questioned her about it. Her response, “Really, sir, it won’t rust!” We shut up and bought it.
Braving the weather, I pulled up at the store and opened the car door. It caught a gust of wind and quickly blew back on its hinges. Hopping out into the downpour, I wrestled the car door shut. Running the 20 feet into the store caused me to get completely drenched and wind whipped. The store's door opened with the same velocity as the car door just had and closed with a similar amount of effort on my part.
Once the door was secured, dripping wet and disheveled, I turned around to face the shopkeeper who had been watching my struggle. Without batting an eye, in a completely monotone voice, he said, "They say it's supposed to rain today."
Coastal humor!
Yes, radiating out from the corners of my eyes were crow’s feet—three telltale wrinkles. Oh, how happy I was to see them on my own sweet face.
Even as a young girl, I always loved crow’s feet. My grandpa had them. So did Robert Redford as I gazed up at him on the big screen in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I saw them on sailors who spent time in the wind and the sun and the water. I savored them on old women, whose wrinkled faces radiated compassion and told the story of their lives.
Gentle, beautiful wrinkles accentuating the eyes that have witnessed our entire lives. They are the sign of time spent outdoors in nature, the sign of aging with grace and the sign of wisdom. I wear mine proudly for they are a symbol of the understanding I have gained thus far and the knowledge still to come.
