• I'm reading The Big Burn by Timothy Egan (which is excellent) while the sky here in Portland is hazy from the Dollar Lake fire up on Mt. Hood. I've read past the Theodore Roosevelt/Gifford Pinchot bromance (more on that in future) and now I've read up to the middle of this raging fire. Terrifying! I can't even imagine how horrifying it must have been to have your choices narrowed to burning to death or - if you were lucky - most likely suffocating in an abandoned mine. Fire prevention, detection, and fighting is more sophisticated now than it was in 1910, but it's still scary business. All fire-dousing thoughts to those fighting fires all over the west this summer and fall.
• Yesterday was blackberry picking day and my arms are covered in tiny scratches. Worth it, though! My sister and I were part way down a horse trail at the Willamette Mission state park when a voice asked us if we would step out of the bramble. Weird, right? Is this a stick-up? But no! It was a woman on her horse, and the horse was freaked out because he could see our bright colored shirts and couldn't tell that we were mild mannered cheapskates picking berries on public land. We stepped out, and he was no doubt still a little freaked because of our giant bug sunglasses and shiny bowls. The horse lady was very nice and explained that the world looks different to horses. I was not offended. The horse even aalllmost took some berries from my hand, but in the end decided that he would decline all offerings from bright shirt wearing bugeye having shiny bowl holding mild mannered cheapskates. I can't say that I blame him. (although I ate the berries he rejected because those were some good berries!) We also picked up some hazelnuts since it's getting to be that time of year and the park has a hazelnut grove. I think those will be better in a few weeks.
• I'm trying to be organized for my painting project. Instead of my usual pell-mell slapdash of rushing out to buy supplies and starting RIGHT NOW, I'm trying to plot it out. It's more complicated since I'm going to paint the floor without taking all the furniture out. I have to paint the walls before the floors, but put up baseboard (which I need to paint to match the walls) after I paint the floor. It's turning into one of those "if a train leaving at 4pm has apples on it..." kind of math problems - when I think about it too hard I just want to lie down. One step at a time - I don't think it will be nearly so bad once I get underway.
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