How Much Living Can You Cram Into One Month?

How much living can be crammed into one month? The title was almost going to be “A month jumped up and bit me.”

After my last email “Getting in touch with my feminine side” one of my military friends emailed me back and commented that he never ceased being amazed at how much living I cram into life. That comment struck me in a strange, yet encouraging manner. To be honest with you this single ‘fly-by-th-seat-o’ my pants’ lifestyle is by no means the life that I would chose for myself, but is what I believe to be the path that was meant to be for me.

That said I took a look at all the crazy unusual things that I have been doing and living and I too am amazed at how much I seem to get out of life, or should I say, how much I am able to put into life. I thought to myself that this would be one of the things that I miss when I leave the National Guard lifestyle behind in retirement. I prayed my prayers for continued adventure and such along with all my other prayers and guess what. A month jumped up and bit me out of the blue without any forewarning, pre-planning or preparation.

I knew about my nephews wedding coming up for some time. I had also suggested another back camping trip to Tommy my college buddy from years back for sometime this spring. I knew that the Guard was going to have a language refresher course for summer camp again this year. I know that there is that ‘4^th of July’ thing that Americans like to do ever year and it usually comes in the summer time. I knew these things, but I did not know that the stars would align themselves and I would be off on another journey of mine.

The events all lined themselves up so that I would need to be on the west side four weekends in a row with the National Guard summer camp making for two of those weekends before I would be released from indenture. I decided to just camp and wonder about in between the weekends to keep from driving back and fourth. Without any prior planning and much forethought, I loaded the jeep down with as much stuff as I could so I could stay on the west side for what was looking to be just under a month long journey without having to come back, if I so decided to stay. I had just purchase a year old mountain bike on the back of my jeep and was feeling pretty cool for a forty year old dude.

Nothing went according to plan, which I now believe was the plan. I left for Rob and Shendy’s house on Friday the 23^rd going through Leavenworth and picking up some chocolate for the woman of the house. I know how to keep the welcome mat on the front porch. I had a really good visit with Rob and Shendy that night as they always provide great hospitality in the form of gourmet cooking and fellowship.

I found out that the wedding was for Sunday night and not Saturday night so now I was a day early. Saturday was now spent walking around downtown Seattle where I discovered the old wooden boat heritage museum down on the south end of Lake Union. The photos were great. I had a wonderful time. I got lost wondering around the Fremont area looking at boats and dry-docks. It was wonderful. The next day was Sunday and I went to church with Rob and Shendy at one of the Mars Hill satellite churches. It was very interesting. This was a very progressive church that had long ago outgrown itself and now they were branching out. The music was great and then there on the big screen was the preacher from down town Ballard preaching via voice streaming over the internet. That was a bit weird at first, to come to the realization that the sermon was via telecommunications. I do believe that there was some good fellowship there.

Eventually I made my way up to Bellingham later that afternoon and found the old church. The wedding went really well. It was one of the more beautiful weddings I have ever seen. The best part of all was the red wine at the reception. I couldn’t believe that they had alcohol at a protestant wedding reception. Everyone had a really great time. I assure you that weddings and family reunions can actually be enjoyable if wine and beer is provided. That is something that hanging out with Catholics has taught me.

I stayed in a hotel that night and took off for BC Canada the next morning eh. I took the sunshine coast this time hopping along the coast via the ferry system. It was breath taking scenery almost the whole way. I am so glad I did it. I caught the last ferry of the night over to the Island at Comox and found a hotel late that night.

The next day I found a mountain bike shop for some advice and was off mountain biking around lake Comox. Eventually I found a steep logging road that provided some good elevation climbing for exercise. After 90 minutes and roughly 900 feet elevation later I had stunning views of the eastern coast of Vancouver Island and a small black mama bear with two cubs. I saw her about forty yards up the road from me. Her cubs were cute as could be and they didn’t make a noise. They were slowly moving away from me and looking back every step to see what I would do. I didn’t panic at all. I didn’t get excited, I just turned my mountain bike around and de-elevated very quickly.

I spent the rest of the day hiking and driving around the gravel roads to another lake, the name of which escapes me. I was looking for the perfect camping spot. I was really tired and it was nearing midnight and for some reason I got really stubborn about finding the perfect spot to camp along the lake so that I could just roll over and wake up to a breathtaking view. I also needed to find that spot in such a location that I would feel comfortable by myself enough to get a good night sleep. About midnight I found a spot by a big glacial cut lake where the road widened and I parked my jeep in such away that I had about four feet between the jeep and the drop off into the lake. I felt comfortable and I slept like a baby until that 4:30 am when the sunrise woke me up. I rolled over and put my glasses on and there was that perfect breathtaking view that I had so ardently demanded the night before. I laid there for about an hour on my side just looking at the scenery of steep mountains jutting up out of the far side of the lake with snow still in the upper elevations.

Eventually I made my way to Torfino and Uckulet (sp?) where I got some wonderful pictures. I made my way to Port Albirni where I again found another bike shop who gave me some advice on where to ride and he told me that I should stay at the Fat Salmon Backpackers Hostel. I had a great time there. It was really a lot of fun. There were many Germans there so I got to practice my German a little bit.

The next day I raced down to Victoria and checked into the most reasonable hotel in downtown Vic, (Strathcona lodge) got my stuff settled in and put my mountain bike in their storage room and sat down to prepare for the first interview on conservative talk radio. The phone rang and the interview began. It went so well that the woman, Sharon Hughes demanded to make two interviews for two consecutive weeks out of it.

Now there is one thing I need to tell you all. After two deployments into theater working in a plethora of positions, I have information in my head that could land me in jail for a long time if I were to discuss publicly. I also am a naturally born, how shall I put this, talkative, opinionated, antagonistic blather mouth. I was practicing for this interview with the help of Rob Kuchcinski who did a marvelous job by the way of helping me prepare. I was practicing and praying that I wouldn’t say the wrong things, that I wouldn’t accidentally be offensive or say something that I would later regret, you know, I was praying and practicing not to be Tim for an hour. I had many anxieties over the past several days over things that could happen during this interview. The words of my older sister kept coming back to haunt me in the form of intrusive thoughts. I could hear her 12 year old winy nasaly voice coming back to haunt me over and over, “Timmy, if you ever know anything you’ll be dangerous.” Oh my god. My older sister is a prophetess.

The interview went off great and I went pubbing after that. I had a really great time too. The next morning was Friday the 29^th when the camping buddies were supposed to meet in Steven’s Lake to launch off on a long weekend of backpacking and such. The borders were horrible and I spent an hour and a half at the ferry dock, two hours in line to get through customs and the traffic was pretty bad coming down into Everett. I got to Tommy’s house late, but that was ok because so did everyone else. We went out to a small town restaurant in an old house and it was all about meat and bar b’ queue. I was in heaven and we hadn’t eve reached the trail head.

We drove to Leavenworth before heading up into the mountains and got to the trail head at Midnight. We set up camp real quick and bed down. There were six of us all together. We took off the next morning for an eight mile two thousand vertical accumulative climb to Lake Anne above Leavenworth and Plain. It was stupendous. We took all day and had to cross many snowfields above the 5500 foot mark. The snow was everywhere at 5800 feet and dripping into the lake. This was one of the most beautiful alpine lakes I have ever seen. I was so hot and tired that I went swimming and yes it was INVIGERATING!

Now Tommy has made himself a bit of a chef and he prides himself in doing very well at a campfire. So there I was relaxing my paws and salivating over the marinated filet steaks that Tommy packed up the trail. Another guy from the group had packed in some various forms of alcoholic beverages and that first night I watched the sun go down over the peaks behind the lake while smoking on one of my cigars whilst sipping a dram of single malt scotch whisky after a good medium rare beef filet steak that was about an inch and a half thick. Camping with Tommy is good. The next night was marinated chicken.

We camped for three days and I left by myself on Monday the 2^nd making the hike down to the jeep in two and a half hours. I drove from there back to Pullman because I didn’t want all my camping gear locked up in my jeep and a nice bike on the back while I would be studding Japanese at Ft. Lewis during the summer training camp. I arrived home at the Kevin Johnston Farm where I live to find that I had gained weight during this odyssey thanks to Tommy’s cooking. I cleaned up my mountain bikes and stored them, I washed all my gear and stored it all away and prepared for the next phase of my trip. The 4^th of July. I have missed out on many of these celebrations along with just about everything else in life over the last five years, so I wanted to do it up right.

Wednesday morning on the 4^th: The fist thing was to get to the Blooms house for a communal breakfast. We then all went together to the Johnson parade. The Johnson parade is the world’s largest unincorporated parade. There is no organization to it at all. If you want to be in the parade you show up and get in line and march down the town’s main street which is paved now. The town has about 25 people in population. 30 plus years ago, two boys decided that there should be a 4^th of July parade and so they got some kids together and rode there bicycles up and down the road. Today it’s about 5k people watching another 500 people involved in the actual parade. It was truly an all American parade. I loved it. This was my first time attending the Johnson parade after being on the Palouse for 12 years now.

I went to another party later that evening hosted by people from the church. It was a ball. We had a really great time and the food was awesome. Some thirteen year old boys set the tree in the front yard on fire with their illegal fireworks, but that’s what thirteen years old boys do. It’s their job.

I left the party and went home. The big fireworks display was still going on in Pullman as I was driving through so I decided to attend what was left of it. I pulled in behind the lengthy line of cars parked by the wheat fields and was able to see the grand finale. I loved it. I wore that day out and it was time to head home.

The next morning I woke up late I’m happy to say. I packed the jeep and was off to Spokane to see Tina Sipp before she left for Africa to teach vacation bible school in Uganda and Rowanda. Then it was off to the west side again. I stayed in the very nice officers bachelors’ quarters in a very nicely restored old building. I love old hotels. I reported to my classroom the next day and found out that this was a 16 day stint instead of a 10 day course that I had two years ago. The course went very well. There had been several teachers cancel out and so our class was reduced from an immersion course to a refresher course. We don’t have to put in nearly as many hours and get paid the same as the other soldiers in the much more demanding classes. Isn’t government employment great?

The class was authorized a field trip so we decided to go to Seattle to the Japanese supermarket Uwajimae. The Uwajimae supermarket is a mainstay in Seattle for over 70 years. Evidently the family was able to maintain ownership through the concentration camps in California. There is a great book store there and it really is a great tourist stop for anyone but we were able to use our Japanese. We later went to Fuji Sushi and talked in Japanese. We then went to a Mariners game. It was my first professional baseball game. We had a great time and the Japanese catcher hit a grand slam homerun to win the game. We got back at midnight. That was the best field trip ever.

I finished up my time of studying and in between the listening test on Thursday and the reading test on Friday, I helped Rob Kuchcinski dig a drainage ditch in his back yard. There is a great allegory for men working in the backyard and on home improvements as a modern feminized way of “going forth and conquering the land” sort of way. Men can live out their failed natural born ambitions to conquer new territories by building a deck. I have often noticed this during my short stint in sub-burbia in Boise Idhao where men tried to out compete the other men in the cul-de-sac by building a bigger and better deck. I can’t make fun of your real grownups out there too much because I am a homeless jobless bachelor and therefore by default I am a deck-less man. Now Kevin my house mate and landlord has out done all-yall. You should see the deck he built. You could drive a Mac truck on it. Of course he lives on a farm and so that doesn’t count. It has to be in the suburbs for it to count at all. That's the rule.

Getting in touch with feminine side

Dear Friends and Family;

How did you all like that catchy title? I just like making my dad wonder.

After the trip from Vancouver Island I came back and finally started the new jingle truck writing project. It was just as rough a start as I thought it was going to be.

The big event was the banquet thrown in my honor for my 41^st birthday party and book signing event at the Big Haus in Moscow Idaho . All things considered it was a big success. The books arrived on time and everyone who went to the banquet had a really good time. I am very fortunate to have such great friends that they would take the trouble and expense to throw such an event for me.

Some where in the midst of the past month I was invited up to Spokane by a wonderful lady who has been a wonderful inspiration in my life. Tina Sipp invited me up and took me out to a wonderful dining experience, not just a restaurant. There are many old buildings in Spokane from the former hayday. One of them has been maintained by a former men’s fraternal organization called the order of the odd fellows. They wore funny hats and they maintained an old building to impeccable standards.

The restaurant has good food no doubt, but what makes this an experience and not a meal is the air of the old building, good live jazz music and the old black and white silent films that are projected onto the FOX theater building next door. There you are, enjoying your meal listening to some really good local jazz and reading the subtitles to old classic films from the twenties. It was amazing.

We walked around downtown Spokane after the meal. It was beautiful and we had so much fun. We stopped into the Davenport hotel to see what it was like. It was beyond belief. The most incredible hotel I have ever been in is now the Davenport of Spokane. The fancy hotels of Europe, don’t compare and neither does the Empress Hotel of Victoria ; not for interior opulence. The Broadmore of Colorado and the Balmoral of Edinburgh don’t even come close. This was incredible. We had so much fun walking around and taking pictures. We later wondered down to the Irish Pub O’Leary’s on the river front there in Spokane and had a pint just to say we’d done it. Did I mention that I drove the Lincoln continental up for the occasion? Had to get the ol’ classic out on the road and burn off the carbon soot.

The next big event was the first National Guard drill back after coming back from Afghanistan . I had some of the most intense pre-drill anxiety I’ve ever had. I was able to take it easy and just turn in much of the Army camping gear I have acquired over the last four call-ups, three deployments and two tours of duty into two different theaters. I had three Kevlar helmets, three sleeping bags, two backpacks and a myriad of other things. I was able to turn about two thirds of all my gear in just to get it out of my hair.

After spending the gasoline money to drive over to the Ft. Lewis area, I decided to visit my sister Linda again as our only visit in two years was way too short. It was great. She lives in Bellingham in a nice new trophy home that her husband built for them. It is really beautiful.

After spending all that money to drive over and being so closed to Vancouver B.C., I decided to just go up and visit the city for the first time. It was not nearly as nice a trip as the one to Vancouver Island , but I’m glad I did it. I had no idea that Vancouver city was so big. There is a lot of money in Vancouver . I was amazed.

I left the next day and decided to take the scenic route home. I went over the cascades through Manning National Park . It was beautiful. The sun followed me the whole way. I came down HW 97 through Oreville where I stopped for dinner. The waitress talked me into taking a smaller road that wasn’t on the map that crossed over the mountains into Kettle Falls River area. It was really beautiful. I headed south into Spokane .

I wanted to spend the night in Spokane because I had business to take care of in Spokane the next day, but I was too tired to think logically. I didn’t want to go home to sleep in my own bed and then turn around and drive right back up to the “Queen of the Inland Empire .” There are two homes that I am welcome to stay at anytime and I didn’t think of either one of them so I pushed on to Pullman . The scary thing about that last leg of the trip was that I couldn’t remember any of it. When I got home I could only remember a few points along the way. I am getting too old to be driving long in any one day like that. When my friend Tina who is one of the two living in Spokane found out she gave me a good chewing out for it.

The next day I had to drive right back up to Spokane to take care three big errands.

The driving force behind the trip was that I needed a woman’s feminine touch on my part of the house that I have been redoing the interior decorations on all by myself. Now think of a little three year old boy who comes out of his room and says, “Look Mommy, I dressed myself.” We have all witnessed this and we all know how well the little tot does at dressing himself for the first time. Now picture ol’ Uncle Tim coming out of my part of the house and saying, “Hay look everybody, I decorated my room all by myself.” Got the picture. Dad you can start wondering where this is going.

Several people have commented on how masculine the room is, “what a guy’s room,” was what one lady said. I realized before I left for the National Guard that I had gone way overboard and needed a woman’s touch for the room to counter all the dark wood furniture, dark tiled floors, hardwood floors, and the soon to be arriving dark leather chairs.

There is was one problem; there isn’t any feminine touch in my life. So what was I to do? I had to dig down and find that feminine side deep down inside of myself some where. I found it and after conferring with this feminine side for a while, we decided that artificial flowers would be the way to go to liven up the room and give it a certain “Balanced” look to all this sheer manliness.

While looking for the perfect manly chair for myself I came across a furniture showroom that had magnificent floral arrangements. After inquiring I found that the owner, a Vietnamese woman was the artist who had put them all together and the salesmen insisted that she was the very best at that sort of thing. Tammy was in Asia at the time so I left two of my black (manly) vases at the store. She came back, but didn’t want to start a project without knowing what it was that I wanted.

While I was on the road I sent her an email detailing what I wanted. I used phrases like “bright and cheery” and followed by “springy, but not too springy.” I knew that last phrase didn’t make any sense at all to me, but I reasoned that maybe my feminine side could communicate to women, even better than I can do my normal self. No such luck. Tammy replied that she couldn’t understand what I wanted and that she wanted me there to show her what I wanted, or at least what my feminine side wanted.

It was obvious to me that I had reached down and gotten a hold my feminine side only to find out that it was confused. Here I am a bachelor in Pullman , Washington in my forties finding out for the first time that I have a confused feminine side that makes no sense at all. No wonder dear ol’ dad wonders so much.

I arrived at the store front the next day to find that Tammy had the vases out and stacks of artificial flowers to put in them. She had already completed the small vase that I wanted the “wilted flower” look to it. She used white roses that had been died to appear as if they were passed their prime and were about to be thrown out. I had asked for purple and deep red colors, but Tammy being a pro at femininity, chose wilting white roses on a black vase. It was stunning. What could I say. I loved it. So far so good.

I then had to explain what I meant when I wrote, “bright and cheery and springy, but not too springy” in the e-mail. I told her that I wanted reds, purples and blues with less whites and yellows. I wanted the flowers to look natural in times other than spring. She looked at me and treated me as if I were sane, which is much more than I deserved at the time. Evidently my confused feminine side was just as incoherent in person as it was in writing.

I left Tammy there with my manly monolithic black marble vases and went to the Spokane Armory where my tuff box had arrived from Afghanistan . In it I found another marble vase along with yet another hand made Persian wool rug that I literally found the week I was leaving Afghanistan . I brought the vase back to the store with me. Tammy was completing the second vase when I arrived back at her store. The second one was absolutely beautiful. She really did a great job at getting the “springy, but not too springy” look that I had so incompetently conveyed to her.

She looked at the third vase that I was holding and with an anguished look in her face, she asked me what I wanted to do with that one. I told her that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with, but I just couldn’t describe it to her. She again looked at me as if she was politely trying to treat as if I were a sane man for the sake of making a profit off of me. I love paying people to be nice to me. It’s so much better than going to church where they tell me things about myself I never wanted to know.

I went through the back the store where there was an incredibly display of artificial flowers from all over Asia . It was photogenic heaven for me. You would think you were in an amazing florists shop and everything was real. These artificial flowers were just amazing. It was absolutely beautiful.

Tammy followed behind me. I waved my hands over one section of her amazing inventory and said, “I want this floral arrangement to be like this” meaning the colors, but I didn’t say colors. She looked at that section of the store and then looked up at me with much less politeness in her eyes, and said, “well I can put some of those flowers into an arrangement for you.” We grabbed flowers from this pot and some from that bin and some from the ceiling that were hanging down. It was really fun. I felt the full measure of my confused feminine side as I went through the length of the corridor saying I want some of those, and some of these and those over there. Feeling feminine was fun.

When all was said and done Tammy had a pile of flowers up by the newly arrived vase. She began jamming flowers here and there and soon it was absolutely beautiful. There wasn’t a single flower from that original section of the store that I had first waved my hands over.

I could hear the voice coming from the mother of the little boy who had just dressed himself for the first time, “that’s a wonderful Johnny. Now lets go get you dressed a little better before we go outside and play.” I was not crushed. My feminine side is confused and clueless, but by the grace of God, I have found a true woman artisan who can overcome my bewildered and perplexed inward femininity with competence and experience.

I paid an outrageous sum of money for the floral arrangements. I am embarrassed to say and so I wont. As we packed the florals into boxes to protect them it became obvious that each artificial bouquet had flowers in the back of the arrangement that would go up against the wall or window. I asked them why I was paying for flowers that I’ll never see. They responded with, “all you men always say the same thing. You need those flowers back there.” They didn’t say why I needed to have flowers in the arrangement that I’ll never see, but I was a bit insulted, or at least my feminine side was insulted at this. I didn’t say anything else, but to this day I still wonder why they always put flowers in the back of the arrangement when you never get to see them.

The story gets gooder at this point. I doubt dad is wondering any more. He is probably signing the legal papers disowning me by now.

I took the floral arrangements home and set them exactly as I had imagined. The wilting flowered vase went on the bed stand in the corner of the room. The last vase was now in the window and the “springy, but not too springy” vase was now sitting on top of my filing cabinet next to another window.

I liked what I saw. I had to run and take care of other errands. Later that night I came back home to see them with a fresh set of eyes. “Oh my Gawd. That is soooo Gay.” Was my response. I was wondering about myself at this point.

It just looked way to feminine. I was taken aback and wondering what I should do. I had gone way overboard first with manliness and then with femininity. The whole collage just screamed “turn down the contrast knob.” After assessing the situation I realized that I had put the two big vases too closed together and the small vase at one end of the room by itself. “WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!” That was just too gay. So I moved the “springy, but not too springy vase to the opposite side of the room about half way in between the other two vases and my little world on the Palouse was now balanced. All was right with the world.

Karen arrived home and I asked her to tell me if the room just looked too gay with the floral arrangements. Her reply was not helpful, “No Tim not at all. I have gay guy friends who have a lot more flowers than this and gay guy friends who have a lot less flowers than this. You’re sort of in the middle.” That’s the last time I ever ask Karen for her opinion.

I wonder how many relatives I am still going to have after this email. How bout them Cougs anyway!!

Before all is said and done I have one more event to talk about. I was asked to photograph the graduation at a local private Christian school in Moscow Idaho . The graduation class boasted five seniors and the ceremony took place in the Nazarene church commonly referred to as the Nazi-Dome. I should spell that one out phonetically as the N-aa-zee- Dome (a as in apple). It was the first time I have ever attempted to do senior pictures type photography. Nothing went right during the reconnaissance and nothing went right during the rehearsal, but the lessons learned paid off in dividends and everything went just right during the final shoot. Some photos are included, but understand I was shooting in a dark church without any flash equipment. I am thrilled with the outcome.

Hope you like the pictures and the stories.

God Bless

Tim (the man with a confuse feminine side)