Ozymandias

The poem of the month for July is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792--1822) illustrating the bleak legacy of a narcissistic king called Ozymandias. It may remind you of a past or present leader or even of someone you have known, to a lesser extent. Again, this is one that I learned in Mr. Robert Ames' 12th grade English class in 1966. It's a warning to those who are great in their own eyes and who devalue and manipulate others for their own self-interest.

Photos from Google Images

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Sunday's child

On Sunday, grandson Drew (a year and a half old) and I were all ready to go to church, but we had some time to wait, so Drew decided to sweep the upstairs deck of the condo with a fireplace broom we found out there. He was trying really hard to sweep bits of pine tree detritus off the deck between the rails. Sometimes, while holding the broom, he would lean over and pick up a little piece of tree stuff and toddle over to the railing and toss it out. Talk about a work ethic!

Drew pauses in his work for the paparazzi. He is a very serious boy, serious about his work.
He even worked on cleaning the sliding door track. I told him he had a future in janitorial work, because he was obviously very dedicated to cleaning.

He inspired me to go get a regular broom and start sweeping, too. Always looking for bigger and better tools for his work, he insisted on using the big yellow broom, even though it was somewhat unwieldy for him.

We felt good about ourselves, sweeping that deck. At last it was time to go to church and we found a great Port Townsend church, Calvary Community Church, just a mile or so from the condo on Airport Cutoff Drive. It was a lot like our home church with lots of contemporary praise and worship music along with a hymn or two, friendly people and a great message. And a bonus was that Drew had a good time in the nursery with several other toddlers and lots of fun stuff to play with.
After church, we returned to the condo and had sandwiches for lunch. Drew's mommy and daddy had theirs out on the freshly swept deck and they looked cool in their shades.

Drew, exhausted by then from his broom work and dealing with new fellow toddlers in a new place, took a nice long nap. I think he's an introvert like me, so social interactions with new people can be draining. Plus, it was past his nap time.

We had decided to go to a concert in the park, Chetzemoka Park in Port Townsend, WA, in the afternoon, so as soon as Drew was awake, fed and alert, we piled into the van and headed off to the park. It's a lovely park situated at the tip of the peninsula which protudes into Puget Sound, NW of Seattle. Jerry, especially, wanted to go to the concert because one of the French horn players, Bob, was the conductor of the 59th Army Band in Sacramento for Jerry's first 15 or so years of being part of that band. Jerry enjoyed chatting with Bob and catching up on his news.
Just outside the park I saw this van with a car cover unlike any I had ever seen before. It was all quilted, with screening in the areas where there were windows. It was beautiful quilting, too, very detailed. That must be a very special van for anyone to put that much work into a cover for it!

We arrived at the park about 20 minutes before the concert, so Nathan took Drew for a walk to explore the area. They spied blackberry bushes, the telltail sign of a creek flowing through, so they made their way down the path to the little creek.
Drew stood barefoot in the cold creek for awhile and enjoyed it, as long as daddy stayed close by.
We spread out towels on the grass and waited for the concert...Cori, Drew, Nathan, checking his messages.
There were about a hundred people there, spread out in the shady places throughout the park, some having elegant picnic lunches.
This is our view from our spot in the park of Port Townsend Bay, which opens into Puget Sound. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon concert in the park.

Family fun

Having my toddler grandson, Drew, around, takes me back 30 years to when his daddy was that age and I was continually entertained and busy with taking care of him. Now I enjoy seeing my son, Nathan, and my dil, Cori, doing the same thing.

We drove up from Portland on Friday to Port Townsend, on a peninsula northwest of Seattle, for our last week of vacation. In the evening we picked up Nathan, Cori and Drew from SEATAC (the Seattle/Tacoma Airport) and since then we've been enjoying their company here in Port Townsend.

We all slept a little later on Saturday due to the long day of traveling on Friday for all of us, and then stayed around the condo area for the day, visiting and going to the playground, the beach and the pool nearby.

The Nathan VanderBeek family all had sunglasses on...
...including Drew! Cori is careful to protect his eyes and his fair skin from the sun.

Cori and Drew were on one end of the teeter-totter and Nathan was on the other. You don't see teeter-totters in California playgrounds...CAL OSHA.

Then we walked down to the beach and found rocks and shells to throw into the water. I love viewing the world through the eyes of a toddler! This beach is along the Hood Canal which empties into Puget Sound. It's a great fishing and crabbing area; we saw several remains of crabs along the shore.

Next stop was the pool where Drew enjoyed the shallow wading pool with his daddy. He even blew bubbles in the pool, i.e., got his face wet.

Nathan, Cori, Drew family portrait

Drew liked sitting precariously on the ice chest. I love his smile!

So we had a low-key day of recuperating from a day of travel. As Esther Garvi says, it was full of life quality moments!

Equine Matters 3 55-word story

“John will drive Frosty and I’ll drive Flynn. We’ll do half miles and full miles alternately this week.” Jim sounded frustrated; he knew he could not persuade Dennis to give him more time to prepare Flynn. “Good.” Dennis had gotten his way again. A salesman, he could persist tenaciously to closure. Flynn would race Saturday.

Skywatch in Portland, Oregon

Yesterday, Jerry and I were tourists in downtown Portland. When we were in the business district, I saw a really tall building, and I said, Hey, let's go up to the highest floor of that building and take a picture of whatever we can see from the window. It was the Wells Fargo Building and we later learned that it is the tallest building in Portland. It was a very new, very sophisticated, marble-floor-and-walls, state-of-the-art kind of building and it was definitely all business. There weren't exactly crowds of tourist-type people in it. It was quiet and cool. We had no idea how many floors it had and the directions said to push the floor number on the keypad that had digits 1 through 0, and then it would display the letter of the elevator door that we should stand in front of. There were about 8 elevator doors, each with a capital letter next to it. So I pressed 9. The display read "B," so we stood in front of B. It took us silently to the 9th floor. A nice lady there explained how to get up to the top floor: Do the same keypad deal for the 21st floor, then go around to another group of elevators....anyway, eventually we got to the top floor, the 38th floor and only one of the two offices was open. The people working there kindly let me go into a room with huge windows and snap the photo you see below. We could tell they thought we were weird.
So here is a view of Portland and the Willamette River (pronounced wil-LAM-it) taken on the 38th floor. Double click on it for the full effect. I showed the ladies what a great shot it was and what a great view they have, and they agreed. I apologized for interrupting their work and thanked them profusely for letting me take the picture.

Join the sky fun at Skywatch Friday!

Skywatch of the Oregon coast at Hwy 101

I took this photo as we were driving south from Newport to Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast. When it's hot inland, there's a fog layer in the mornings, but it quicklydissipates

See other interesting skies at Skywatch Friday!

Wednesday's wonderful wet and wild waterfalls

If you enjoy scenic hikes, then the next time you are in Portland, Oregon, drive out Interstate 84 east about 18 miles to the "Bridal Veil" exit, and you will be entering a most beautiful world. There are easy hiking trails that begin at several spots along the old Columbia Highway 30 which runs parallel to I-84. These trails take you up the mountain to incredibly beautiful, powerful waterfalls. We spent Wednesday hiking up and down the trails and saw six lovely waterfalls. First was the Wahkeena Falls, above

Then we hiked along the trail, and this is a view of the Columbia River from the trail. The river is the dividing line between Oregon and Washington, so that's Washington across the river.

I'm on the trail to Multnomah Falls

Jerry in front of Multnomah Falls


Multnoma Falls

Multnomah Falls

Along the trail to Triple Falls...there was a rocky overhang, so I'm holding it up.

Trail to Triple Falls

Horsetail Falls Trail

I'm on the bridge that is in front of Triple Falls.

Triple Falls

Jerry is in the cave behind Ponytail Falls.

I crawled as far back as I could in the cave behind Ponytail Falls.

This is the view from behind Ponytail Falls. Can you see the yellow lab swimming in the pool at the base of the falls?

Behind Ponytail Falls.

We continued hiking along Horsetail Falls Trail; this is the view from there of the Columbia River again and the state of Washington across the river.

At last we reached the end of the trail to see Horsetail Falls--a long skinny one.

Jerry tried to capture as much of Horsetail Falls as possible, so he took this one of me while pointing up from the ground. I was hoping I wouldn't slip on those rocks.

So I took a similar shot of Jerry. It looks like lightning is striking him.

Then we drove over to Bridal Veil Falls and took a short hike out to the falls, and this is Bridal Veil Falls...It had the most water going over it of all the falls.

Bridal Veil Falls

Some fellow hikers offered to take our picture in front of Bridal Veil, so here we are after two hours of hiking, still looking fresh....lol :D

Portland's Rose Garden and Arboretum

Driving up from Port Orford toward Portland, Oregon on Monday, we stopped at a rest stop south of Portland. It had all the amenities, of course, but it also had hundreds of tall pine trees, a veritable forest, with picnic tables and grassy areas for resting and eating. I'd never been at a highway rest stop with so many tall trees.

Rest stop in northern Oregon (above)

On Tuesday we went to Portland's Washington Park to see the International Test Rose Gardens and also the Hoyt Arboretum. It was already hot in the morning. The Rose Gardens are spectacular...acres of roses, one of my favorite flowers, We wandered among the roses enjoying their beauty.

These are some of my favorites...

Aww...Jerry and me under an arbor. We hiked around lots of trails, one of which led us to a Holocaust memorial. There was an 8 foot by 30 foot black marble wall with a narrative of the events leading up to and through the Holocaust, as well as a long walkway going up to the wall with bronze sculptures along the way, things like a child's scattered shoes, a broken suitcase, a teddy bear, a doll, broken eyeglasses. a partly torn book, a menorah. It made me teary-eyed....man's inhumanity to man.

Topiaries shaped like deer just outside of the Rose Gardens.

Then we went over to the Hoyt Arboretum, a 187 acre refuge with more than 1000 tree species and 21 trails covering 112 miles. We hiked for miles through the beautiful forests, up and down hills. It was very hot in the sun, but nice and cool in the shade.

Hiking (well, resting here) on the Wildwood Trail in the arboretum

An upward look from the Wildwood Trail

After 4 miles of hiking in the Arboretum, we drove out, got a bit lost, but found a Taco Bell, and since we were very hungry by then, and also very hot and sweaty, we stopped there for lunch. My Fiesta Chicken Salad was great, as always, but I liked it better when it came with salsa rather than ranch dressing. Since we didn't know exactly where we were, but wanted to drive to Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, we asked the manager for directions. So, with his initial directions on how to get to the right freeway, along with my GPS, we managed to get to Beaverton and then to the Visitor's Information Center. The very helpful woman there suggested that we visit the brand new Cooper Mountain Nature Area and she even gave us detailed maps and brochures. I thanked her profusely and told her she should get a raise.

The Cooper Mountain Nature Area in Beaverton is so new that they just had their Grand Opening a couple of weeks ago. It didn't have much shade, but there were new plantings of trees and shrubs all over, but they were still just small plants. By this time of the day, it was very hot--in the 90s, but we gamely began the trail called the Cooper Mountain Loop, a 1.5 to 2-mile trail. The first part was all downhill and we were already sweating. The only other souls we saw were a woman with 4 little girls collecting insects with nets. We'd already hike 4 miles before lunch, so coming back up the loop in the full sun, 90 dgrees, was a killer. We had to keep stopping and resting in the few spots of shade we could find.

But, at last we made it back to the parking lot and visitors' center (which was closed), where we had long drinks of water from their drinking fountains. The visitors' center had solar panels on the roof, very state of the art.

It was so state-of-the-art that it had special toilets that used less water for liquid waste than solid waste. You pull the handle up for the former and push it down for the latter. Oregon is totally environmentally correct, but sometimes it makes you laugh!

View from Cooper Mountain Nature Area of the distant hills

I'm catching my breath on the Cooper Mountain Nature Area trail in the hot sun going uphill.

Jerry on the Cooper Mountain Nature Area trail

We stopped at a nearby vineyard (Cooper Mountain Vineyard) after the torturous hike to taste some of their wines, and then made it back to the hotel, via a very long and circuitous route due to horrendous freeway traffic and trying to take a shortcut on surface roads during which time we got a bit lost. I thought LA traffic was bad, but freeway traffic through the center of Portland is so congested you move only 25 to 35 miles per hour just about any time of the day! But all's well that ends well. We slept well last night!