ORCAS ISLAND!!!

WHAT a great weekend. it's always a treat to see maddy, besides being genuinely good for my soul. but this trip was wicked awesome 4-eva. i was worried that a weekend trip so far away would be tough. but it was just the best!! i only wish i had pictures of the White Dragon, our most excellent rental chariot. here are the pictures i do have, with narrative.


we saw alpacas on the drive up!


me and mads on the drive up. we stopped at this gorgeous ravine (where boston friends colby and blair got married!!)


gross crumbly gluten-free sandwich before the ferry ride to orcas!


the ferry to paradise!


a glass of wine on the coast. and maddy chilling with a book in front of our cottage (the beach was in front of our cottage!)


the incredible view from our cottage. and our cottage itself (it was named "blue moon")


the top of cascade mtn (um. i think it's cascade mtn...) and me in a perilous position (this is a classic mele photo, btw)


view from our cottage (daytime). we had an unprecedented 3 straight days of sunshine and clear skies!


hanging out at the lake....and the lovely sunset just steps away from our cottage.


maddy making a ROARING fire. she said roaring about 15 times. as in "this is going to be a ROARING fire." i have to admit, it roared.


my favorite little church in the world. and the view behind it. located in eastsound village on orcas island, on a cliff over looking the inlet.


sigh. the ferry ride back to the mainland....looking majestically back to orcas.


more ferry. sigh. what a beautiful, beautiful trip. orcas island is definitely one of my favorite places in the world. so peaceful. and quality time with maddy is such a gift! i didn't even mind that we missed the 1pm ferry and had to wait for the 4pm. or that we got stuck in traffic on the way back to seattle. i was thinking of my little blue moon in the woods, on the beach......


oh, yeah, and on the drive back there were lots of eggs.

leaving on a jet plane

and i have a head cold. ugh. the worst. BUT i'm heading up north to seattle to visit with maddy and go to orcas island!!! one of my favorite places ever. can't wait. will take pictures.

"I like words that begin with the letter C." Why? "Because they sound like they're just coming out of the water."

A four year old said this to me today. I wasn't sure I heard her properly, so I repeated her words. And she just quietly nodded and kept working on her clay.

Like poetry. Just like that.

R.I.P.: Me

Jessica Mele, 27, of Wrentham, MA, died today after eating an impossibly heavy deep-dish pizza pie. She was alone, living in someone else's house, and accompanied only by a dog, Rudy, who had obscenely bad breath and a gimpy leg. Rudy finished off the pizza before calling 911 to report the death.

Autopsy revealed that self-pity was a contributing factor.

(Her surviving family, parents Pam and John, and brother Timothy, inexplicably erected a celtic cross in memorium, even though they are not irish)

FLUFFERNUTTER!!!

so this jingle has been bugging me for a solid 6 months now. and all i could remember were the last words "then you've got a fluffernutter!"

and all i could picture of the old commerical was a kid on a skateboard skating home for a fluffernutter after school. well, i FINALLY tracked down both the jingle AND the commercial with the skateboarding kid!!!!!

**for those of you who DON"T know, a fluffernutter is a sandwich made on white bread with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. i've been told it's "disgusting" but that's clearly the opinion of someone who has never tried the wonderfulness of fluffernutters.***

SO. there is an entire website devoted to fluff and fluffernutters: www.fluffernutter.com. and there you will find the jingle and the commercial "oh, you need FLUFF, FLUFF, FLUFF, FLUFF and peanut butter...."

"when you SPREAD, SPREAD, SPREAD your bread with peanutbutter...."

"then you enJOY JOY JOY ENJOY your fluffernutter..."

gosh, what a great site.
ps. i'm watching 'what about bob?' on tv and finally getting all those jokes that leia thought were so hilarious in 7th grade when she thought this was the funniest movie in the world.

i don't want to be a pill but

is it me, or is EVERYONE IN LOVE?!?!!??! i'm really starting to get sick of it. seriously. this is ridiculous. RIDICULOUS.

just bought a nina simone album

and have been crying my eyes out ever since. she breaks my heart every single time. achingly cracks it down the middle.

but then again, i am premenstrual.