As You Like It (or not)

I took the two big girls to see Shakespeare's As You Like It Sunday afternoon.  I debated about taking them.  I knew that the timing was bad (canning, birthday parties, etc.) and the tickets were pricey. However, I finally pulled the trigger and asked Matt if he'd order us some tickets.

Let me just interject here.  My first experience with seeing a Shakespeare play performed live was in Ashland, OR. at the outdoor Elizabethan Theater.  I went with my high school English teacher and a few other students.  We saw Macbeth (who knew that within a few years I would marry my very own Macduff?!) and A Mid-Summer Night's Dream.  I don't think we could have seen a better combination of plays.  The performances, the costumes, the atmosphere--everything was outstanding.  So basically, every experience I've had with Shakespeare since has been disappointing.

I wish I could say Sunday's performance was different.   The play was set in modern times, which I didn't realize until after we'd purchased tickets.  I saw Measure for Measure in college at ritzy little theater in the big city.  It also was set in modern times.  It didn't thrill me.  Nevertheless, I tried to keep an open mind.  On the drive to the play on Sunday, I told the girls that at the very least, we would get a bit of culture that day.  Or something like that.

When we arrived, we realized that Matt had procured tickets for us in the front and center of the theater. We could have spat on the stage from where we sat.  I've never had any poker face abilities, so I'm sure my distaste during parts of the play were evident to the actors, who probably thought I had a very closed mind.  So be it.

While the performances were very well done (they brought in a Shakespeare troupe from the big city), the play was what I would consider PG 13. Shakespeare's comedies do lend themselves to bawdiness, but this was over the top.  Enough said. For me, the highlight of the play was Jaques' "All the world's a stage" which is a passage I had to memorize in high school.  The actress (yes, three of the traditionally male characters were played by women) did an outstanding job with that.

During the intermission, the girls and I headed out to the parking lot to eat a snack in the car.  We laughed hysterically over Elizabeth's take on the situation.  "That guy who is playing Orlando should have a size bigger pants" ('twas true),   "I couldn't look at the priest in the forest," (who was sporting plumber's crack--on purpose) and "When we go back in, I'm switching seats because the old guy next to me is a creep.  He's laughing like crazy.  It's not that funny.  Maybe a smile would be o.k., but not laughing out loud."

When the play was over (what a relief), we decided to do some thrifting.  This particular town has a great Goodwill.  The girls made a nice haul.  I talked them into heading home instead of eating out. We reached the home place around 7 p.m.  I cooked myself some of our own chicken eggs topped with Tillamook cheese, sliced myself some homegrown tomatoes and toasted a piece of Dave's Killer Sprouted Bread.  Fleur de Sel and freshly ground pepper finished the dish nicely.  A nice ending to long day, except that while we were gone, Matt decided to switch the boys' rooms around and was only midway through the project when we got home.  Oh well.  All's Well That Ends Well.

A Needle in the Haystack. . .

. . . or in this case,  Paul's heel.  Yes, Paul did it again.  He stepped on a sharp object which deeply embedded itself into his flesh.

Liz is feverishly sewing a dress which she hopes to complete and enter into the county fair this weekend.  Thus the needle on the family room floor--the needle that found its way into Paul's foot Tuesday night about 9.

After unsuccessfully attempting minor surgery ourselves (Matt with his reading glasses, me without--thank you very much), we realized it was time to consult the professionals.  The urgent care clinics in our area were closed for the night, so I gave Paul some Advil and told him to go to bed.

Yesterday morning, I left nearly 200 lbs of peaches waiting to be canned at home and took Paul to the urgent care.  Even though we arrived within a few minutes of opening time, there were already two laceration cases ahead of us.  When the doctor came in to see Paul, he explained that foreign bodies in flesh are notoriously difficult to retrieve, but he would give it a go.  I liked the doctor right from the start.  He was an older man with a pin on his white coat that said, "I treat.  Jesus heals."

First, the doctor numbed Paul's foot.  This was definitely the most painful part of the procedure, but Paul took it like a man.  As the doctor consulted the X ray he had taken to see the needle's placement, he cut an incision.  The needle had gone almost straight in. The doctor made a valiant attempt, but ended up referring us to a podiatrist. He warned us that surgery was a strong possibility.  Before we left his office, the doctor offered to pray with us and we gladly accepted.

The podiatrist was a cool guy, at least in Paul's book.  An avid hunter, his office was decorated with lots of game bird prints and not a few taxidermied birds.  He had a great sense of humor and put Paul at ease.  He told us that surgery might be the only answer, but that he would make an attempt to get the needle out then and there.  After more X rays, another injection and a deeper incision, the doctor managed to retrieve the needle, which he said was pure dumb luck, but I had been praying during the whole procedure :)

Paul now has stitches in his foot and orders to not shower for a few days.  Medical conditions do have their perks.  Not to mention the fact that his mom felt very sorry for him and treated him to lunch at Carl's Jr.  Paul also had orders to stay off of his foot for the remainder of the day, so his dad and younger brothers took over his hand line moving job last night

.  And Liz has been told to keep pins and needles off of the floor.  We shall see.

The Tale of Two Vacations--August *2014*

Alright, I found this post from last September in my drafts folder.  For the sake of posterity, I'm publishing it.

This is an overdue post on our family vacation which happened way back at the beginning of August. We went to Rockaway Beach, OR.  We spent the first few days of the vacation with Matt's side of the family and the last few days with my parents (thus the two vacations).  The weather was great and the kids had a blast playing on the beach with their cousins.
First, though, we had a looong drive to get to the beach.  Before that, there was much preparation in order to ready our crew for half a dozen days away from home.  The kids and I worked hard to get a bunch of meals prepped and frozen and to get everything packed the week before we were to leave.

In all of our studying about Lewis and Clark, I can say I felt I could relate in a smallish way to the enormity of the task Lewis faced in preparing for the expedition.  Packing a family of ten for six days with all manner of accoutrement and eventualities is no small feat.  In fact, I missed the mark.  I hadn't expected the kids to get sopping wet and sandy multiple times per day and I forgot how much fresh ocean air increases appetites.   I didn't pack enough changes of clothing (I was trying to pack as lightly as possible, hah!), so I ended up doing several loads of laundry a day while we were at the beach house.  I also did not pack enough food (I know!  Hard to imagine.) and I ended up driving to Tillamook several times to buy more groceries.

Anyway, when the big day to leave for the beach finally arrived, I think the kids were nearly ready to explode with excitement.  We piled into our very loaded van and were on the road by 8:30 a.m.  Pretty incredible for us. (Matt's brother and his family--13 in all--beat us by a landslide.  They succeeded in leaving by 6 a.m. on their day of departure.)  Our family listened to The Frontier Adventures of Elinore Stewart during the drive.  The whole family loved it.  Victoria Botkin has such a soothing reading voice.

 We stopped at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in the Dalles on the way.  We got there just in time for their morning falconry demonstration.  My boys especially liked seeing the hawks and Bald Eagles up close.  They asked many questions of the faconers.  Later, a woman who had been to the show stopped me in the bathroom.  She said she had been an educator for thirty years and she had a question for me.   "Are your kids homeschooled?"  I answered, "Yes, they are."  She said, "I thought so.  I said to my husband, 'She homeschools those kids.' "  That was nice to hear.

 Of course, we all enjoyed seeing the Lewis and Clark cargo exhibits.  However, we did miss not being able to see the life size reproduction keel boat that we saw when we visited the Discovery Center the year of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration.  The boys had a blast in the kids' room dressing up and playing with the long rifles.  We had a hard time convincing them that it was time to hit the road again, but promises of playing on the beach before dinner finally worked their magic and we got everyone loaded into the van again.

We made one more stop on the way.  We stopped at the Tillamook Forest Center.  We all climbed up to the lookout tower, where (mostly) young people took summer jobs watching for forest fires. Matt's grandfather used to be a forest fire spotter, so it was neat to tie that bit of family history to what the kids experienced while we visited the forest center.  The exhibits inside the main building were really interactive and very well done.  And it was free!  Highly recommended.

Our family was the last to arrive at the beach that evening.  Our family and Matt's brother's family stayed in a very large duplex.  Matt's parents and sister and her family stayed in the house next door. The kids never lacked for playmates.  We enjoyed big family dinners, lots of beach time with kite flying and sand castle building, eating smores', playing golf and getting to sleep in bunk beds (that was my boys' favorite.)  We managed to get a family picture with most all of us wearing the traditional Macduff family vacation T-shirts.  For this trip, Matt's sister designed a shirt with a picture of the big rock of Rockaway Beach and this verse from Genesis, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore."

When my parents arrived, we visited the Tillamook Air Museum, got my mom on the beach with a beach wheel chair loaned to us by the local Lion's Club, collected shells and played some wild poker games (the kids and grandma).

We also visited Fort Clatsop.  It was neat to hear the older kids' memories of our first trip there.  The boys' loved the long rifle demonstration (what's not to like?) and the picnic lunch.  Joel, Jude and Isaac all filled out the necessary paperwork to get their junior ranger certificates.  Lydia wasn't able to finish hers before we had to leave (it was surprising difficult) so when she got home she finished, mailed it back to Fort Clatsop and then they mailed her a badge and certificate.  I thought that was very kind of them.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  The kids didn't want to leave the beach, but I told them to best time to leave is when you're still having fun so that you want to come back the next time.