But then, as happens in all good families, disaster struck.  First a great aunt died, the last of the old ones.  We all held our breath.  Things really DO happen in threes in my family. 

Well we were next.  One of our children was involved in an accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury.  Yeah, that's what has been occupying my time.  

It wasn't so much a matter of things in threes this time.  More like sixes.  Two more family friends end up in the hospital.  Then another friend lost her long - time companion - her dog.  Then a very close friend suffered a heart attack.

I think we have fulfilled our bad moon karma for the decade.

You just can't take a bad picture of crater lake.  It's not possible.

Such a pristine and beautiful place.  Cold, clear water.  Fresh snow.

This little squirrel isn't worried about anything other than where his next frito is coming from.

I don't think his buddy can read.

Well.

We may not have much of a 401k left.  We may not be able to borrow to get that new old car that we need.  In the end, we may not have a pot to piss in, but we will still have this:

Infact, it's all we've ever really had.

We stopped occasionally to behold the pretty water.

And to fight over the camera.

And to soak our feet and drink cold stuff out of the cooler.  I forgot just how cold and clear and lovely looking the water is in this part of Oregon.  It makes a person just want to jump in and drink it all up.

I cry now.

While helping with (crashing) my parent's garage sale a few weekends ago, I managed to take a few pictures as I wandered around in the yard (pretended to help).

I think dahlias love the cool and misty coastal belt.  I live just a couple of miles inland and my dahlias were way behind theirs.  I think the heat has made them cranky.

We took our Labor Day vacation trek early this year.  We left early Thursday and drove around mid/eastern oregon until late Friday.  I didn't see any huge Dahlia bushes during our travels.

If you grow these babies, remember, they need LOTS of room.  You can grow them in pots even, but they have to be exceedingly huge pots, like the ones that are over 20 gallons.  I know this from my years of experience abusing plants.

My flowers are not liking this news.

My parents had their annual Seafood festival garage sale.  So I helped, and hung out, and drank their coffee, and watched the goings about from up on the hill.

For the past two day both the festival and the garage sale have been very, very busy.  Looking over the bay into Charleston, all a body could see was wall to wall cars. 

Lots of people said they were from inland, where the heat was driving them insane.  They oohed and aahed over the plants, as they had to use shade cloth to keep anything but roses burning to a crisp.  Poor city people. 

They also said the whole town, whether it be a motel or a camp site, was totally booked up.  Methinks we should be renting out rooms and rv parking.   But a garage sale is good enough.  People didn't seem too thrilled with the festival itself, but they loved Charleston and just wanted any reason to get out of the heat.  Many said the garage sale was the highlight of the whole trip.  And there are the repeat people, the ones that vacation and come visit us every year.

Today my parents ditched me in the afternoon.  They had previously purchased tickets to see the Lipenzimerblahblah horses at the Myrtle Point fairgrounds.  They did not realize it was the same weekend as their yearly garage sale.  So Derek and I ran the garage sale for awhile and made up stories about some of the items.  It's what we do.

Oh, and about the horsey show?  The parents said the horses were really, really neat.  However.  They had purchased some special tickets for sitting in the front row that cost them extra money.  When they got there, the people had sold more "special tickets" than they had spots to sit.  So they drug out chairs and put them way down at the end.  Basically offering my parents worse seats than if they had just bout the regular tickets and sat in the bleachers.  

So after spending extra money, they just went and sat in the bleachers anyway.  Hoping to at least get some far away view and perhaps a few pictures.  But that too, was not to be.  Oh no.  For the people who planned the building of said bleachers had, in a STROKE OF GENIUS only demonstrated by the people in charge of anything at our small coastal towns, saw fit to build light poles.  That blocked the view in many critical spots.  Then of course there was that blonde doink that was in the front row and had to stand up the whole time blocking the view of everyone behind her.  THE WHOLE TIME.

My parents vowed never to go to a show at that arena or fair ever, ever again.  That was before the $4 parking or the $12 for an itinerary with a glossy horse picture on it.

I finally got that picture of the forked horn I was yapping about.  YOU SEE NOW?  Despite the blurry picture (I'm blaming my husband because, well, it's his fault), you can tell how cute he is.

It wasn't enough to subject you to one blurry deer picture.  No.  I had to subject you to a second blurry picture of previous said deer AND his sweetie.   Then I shopped it to traumatize you further. 

There's something reminiscent about this picture, something very... Last of the Mohicanish.  You know, when the sister's are riding, or walking together or something, right before the battle where the BAD INDIANS go for the attack as their father surrenders the fort and leaves.  When they are looking opposite ways, then they switch and both look the other way at the exact same time, like synchronized swimmers,

Like this:

Don't they remind you of the stupid sister?  The one who drools catatonically the whole movie and finally has the where-with-all (whatever the hell that means) to throw her whining ass off a big high rock.  Go deer girl!