It’s a wind-whipped rainy afternoon in Washington, and I’m trying really hard to stay focused on my writing instead of drifting to the couch with a book and a cookie.  I look over at the canine comedy duo of Ruby and Maggie with curiosity, realizing no one has spit a mucusy chew toy in my lap for a good ten minutes.  Whatever could they be up to?  Ah!  sleeping, something they devote 90 percent of their lives to.  But I notice the sleeping arrangements have been changing a bit lately.  We have dotingly provided two capacious green tartan Cabela dog beds to keep our darlings off the cold tile floor, and more and more, only one’s in use–to the apparent annoyance of Ruby. 

When the dogs come in the house, Ruby’s routine is to bee line to the bed by the leather easy chair.  Why that bed?  I don’t know, except it has a bit more room around it, not crowded by furniture and people, and it’s out of the traffic patterns more so than the other dog bed located near the back door.  Ruby seems to like space around herself.  She’s not a snuggler, either.  For a dog, Ruby has a pretty voluminous personal bubble.  Maggie, on the other hand has the personal space norms of a Siamese twin.  Where Ruby is a tad standoffish, Maggie is entirely standonish.  She tries to climb on my lap, even when I’m not seated.  Maggie is a toucher.  She stops to kiss my hand each morning with an echoing slurp when I let the dogs into the garage for breakfast; Ruby, on the other hand, whirrs by me like a passing comment headed to the big brown food bucket, which she pokes repeatedly with her nose to remind me why we’re all together at such a ridiculous hour.  Tom often finds adoring Maggie at his feet–correction, on his feet, as if she’s hoping for a free ride wherever he’s going.  For whatever reason, our two pups are Felix and Oscar when it comes to body boundaries.

So I’m a bit puzzled by developments on the napping front.  Tom had tried to tell me and had taken pictures to prove it, but I was skeptical.  Well, now I’m a believer.  Our dogs are sleeping together.  Okay, to be more accurate, Maggie is sleeping on top of Ruby, and Ruby is only mildly objecting.  It’s a strange thing.  Since Maggie came to join us, she has been making overtures to be more than Ruby’s play mate, to be her bed mate, too.  Up to now, Ruby would have none of it.  Each time Maggie stepped onto Ruby’s bed, Ruby would pop up like a maiden whose honor was threatened and stalk off to the other bed, recently vacated by Maggie.  But there, today, I observed with my own eyes, Maggie cuddled up close to Ruby (in fact, overlapping Ruby at the back end), and Ruby didn’t move.  Sure, her head was lifted at an awkward angle and she looked at Maggie with what amounted to hauteur.  Ruby’s expression seemed to say, “I will not deign to acknowledge you by moving, but I won’t give in to you by going back to sleep, either!”  I guess it’s the snooze-and-you-lose position for Ruby, but really, the only position Maggie was aware of was prone.

I continued tapping away on this computer for a while longer, keeping the dog drama at the corner of my eye.  After about ten minutes, Ruby finally tired of the showdown and wriggled out from under her kennel mate and then stood by the back door staring into space.  She didn’t go over to the other bed, she didn’t come to me to lodge a complaint, she just stood looking wronged.  And little does she know how much empathy I have for her.  While I really, really like my mate, I am a lot like Ruby, preferring more than an arm’s length of distance between me and most of the world.  Ruby and I find that physical contact can obscure our view of things, can be too noisy, an interference to our mind’s busy work–or so I surmise, where my dog is concerned.  A part of me wants to chase Maggie back to her own bed each time she encroaches on Ruby, but Ruby has never stepped between me and a stranger to protect my space.  Big girls have to figure out what they want on their own, and big girls can change their minds and preferences.  I’ve discovered over the years that hugs aren’t so bad after all–though I still want the right to refuse–and Ruby seems to be warming to the idea of spooning with Maggie, even if “warming” is simply giving up.

Oh, I’m having a great deal of difficulty adjusting to the rain and cold of Washington in late October.  I suppose if I had allowed myself to sink slowly into autumn, you know, note the darkening days, start layering sweaters one by one, and monitor the growing pile of leaves in the yard–and the inversely proportionate number of leaves left on the giant maples–then I might be better prepared for this week.  But instead, when I should have been helping Tom electrify the dog castle (AKA, the Hot Dog Project), I threw myself into the time warp that is Palm Desert and hurtled back to summer last Thursday, along with my birthday-girl big sister and five other women of a certain age.  As a gift for her big 5-0, my sister’s boss gave her, and six of her most fawning fans, five days use of his (and I say this without exaggeration, honestly) chin-dropping sculpture of a home in one of the finest oases in California.  Shelley and her very, very lucky girls traded a five-day deluge in Washington for lounge chairs by the shimmering slate-edged pool.  Ahhhh…

Let me paint you a picture, as they say.  Our five days in Palm Desert went something like…get up, whenever; make an espresso or two, or just pop a beer (I’m not telling who), put on a swim suit and bake in the sun with a good book for an hour or four; then take a swim or a shower or just open another beer; have some cookies or a sandwich–is it happy hour yet?  Our afternoons, though, were bustling by comparison:  some light shopping, have our make-up done at MAC (tip:  you shoulda bought that stock last week), hike–lightly–in Joshua Tree National Park, because who doesn’t love hiking in 95 degree weather in a remarkably rocky, spiny, desert?  And each evening we liked to shake it up a bit:  Mexican Cantina for Margaritas and beer Thursday night, Grill-fest at the ol’ gleaming Hope Diamond of a ranch house and a sampling of the wine cellar for Friday fun, Saturday dressy dinner on the town ala limo, and an exhausted “Can I get Advil with that hamburger” low-low key Sunday night.  Old girls know how to live (Steph excepted; she not old, just precocious).

As with all excursions, there are a few memorable-est moments.  I particularly enjoyed watching Shelley and Pam learn how to use the GPS on the fly–and through the intersections (Sorry, Mister!), and past the police station, and, of course, right to our destination, where we discovered we didn’t have the requisite keys to get in.  No matter, not even two-foot walls were going to keep my sister out of her birthday party; she’d just make a quick cell call to her benefactor.  Oops!  funny how the geography of the Coachella Valley messes up cell phone reception.  Within seconds of arriving at Chez Boss, every woman with a cell (and no, that wasn’t every one of us, believe it or not) had powered it up and was dashing to and fro to find a spot where if she stood on her right foot and kicked out her left leg for balance could lean 45 degrees north/northwest to summon enough bars to let her honey know reception was lousy in paradise.  Praise be, some miracle combination of cell phone service providers allowed enough of a connection to guide Shelley through an entrance exam, so to speak, that got us and our baggage–real and emotional–into the house.  There was that moment when Shelley spied Albert and froze for a split second, because this was to be a no-male party–we wanted to wear our swimsuits off season.  Fortunately for Albert, he’s just an old, stuffed, dummy of a guy–but impeccably dressed, which I cannot say for the other old, stuffed, dummies I know–and Shelley assented to his company.  Luckily she did, since he became the default date of every girl at the party Saturday night.  We have pix to prove it, too.

The highlight of the short week was telling the limo driver Saturday night that his passengers for the evening were seven beautiful women, to which Joe replied, “Ah!  I’ve won the lotto!”  And he had, because we looked like a million bucks, let me tell you!  Seven hot dames cruised El Paseo Drive, then hoisted stemware to my sis’s good health and her generosity in sharing her special gift with us.  To mark the occasion, we gave Shelley a sterling silver charm bracelet sporting miniatures of some of her favorite things:  a red stiletto, a sparkling handbag, and a dumbbell, to name a few.  She’s a multifaceted woman, that sis of mine.

The indulgence and merriment were over too soon.  Kim and Steph left Sunday to get home to babies and jobs; Shelley, Sherry, Cindy, Pam and I dawdled ’til Monday, squeezing all we could out of one last morning in the sun, then parting with a couple precious hours to clean the house with the efficiency of high-octane merry maids.  (And this is why I would run away with this group of women again–not just fun and funny, but tidy!)  Thinking back over it all, I welcome the shock of the cold wet air if it’s the price of a few days of summer reprised.  Happy Birthday, Shelley!  I can’t wait for you to turn sixty–maybe your boss will spring for a cruise!

Party Girls' Limo Legs

A week or so ago we had our first freeze here in the uplands of Puyallup.  We woke up to grass and leaves crisped by a clear, cold night.  When Tom went out to feed the dogs, Maggie and Ruby emerged from the bedroom of the dog castle with hearty appetites as usual, but also looking a degree chilly–at least that was Tom’s highly empathetic assessment.  There was no shivering, no blue noses, but Tom believed he could hear dog teeth chattering, or something like that.  Whatever the prompt, Tom decided that the dogs needed more warmth than they were getting in the current dog castle configuration, so he set about engineering a plan for adding central heating, of sorts.

Now most dog folks would probably just bring their pups in for the winter, have the dogs sleep in the house or the garage so they stay warm.  But our dogs don’t like our house at night.  They don’t even like our garage at night.  The few times we’ve tried a sleepover, one of us has had to camp downstairs with the mutts to keep them from wandering at night and using the living room as a toilet.  The garage, too, has been soundly rejected by the dogs.  They get restless for some reason and chew things, like car tires.  Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but we have a lot of valued, if not valuable, things in our garage, and we’ve seen enough demolition talent from Maggie in particular to warn us off leaving her and Ruby on their own with our stuff overnight.  So, Tom’s solution to cold dogs is, essentially, an electric blanket.  (If you’re wincing or rolling your eyes, you can stop; I’ve done that already.)  Ever mindful of the dogs’ propensity for deconstruction, he engineered a bomb-proof smarter-than-a-canine heating solution.  I can’t wait to watch the battle of wits that will ensue.  Tom versus dogs.  Someone/dog is bound to be electrocuted.

Last weekend Tom took the ritual trip to Home Depot prior to beginning his Project.  (Project has a capital “p” to distinguish it from a project with a lower case “p”, which is usually finished in a weekend and under a $100.00.)  Two days of labor later, he was siphoning water out of his utilities trench and threading wire through conduit.  He had turned the power off to the garage–whose circuit includes random outlets in the house, like the ones I like to use–for which I was grateful, since, you might recall, it rained torrents last weekend while he was doing all this.  But to give fair credit, by Sunday we had a hole in the garage wall, a trench in the dog yard Maggie kept falling in, and dead outlets throughout the house.  There was evidence a project was in full swing.

Sometime in the near future I expect there to be a heated dog house.  Tom does finish projects, even Projects.  But for now, the dogs better hope for mild weather, because until Tom can pour cement or something like it over the trench to prevent Maggie and Ruby from digging up the conduit–which they’ve attempted already–there can be no electricity switched back on.  For me this means few lamps and little vacuuming and a lot of curiosity about what the hell a circuit is and why the accent lamp in the dining room is complicit with the garage wall.  Of course there’s the whole matter of plugging in an electric dog bed (see Cabelas) to the ceiling drop-down outlet that completes the remodel of the dog castle.  How can we disguise it so the dogs won’t be curious and chomp on it?  Tom hasn’t solved that problem yet, but as a stop-gap measure, literally, he hung a heavy blanket over the door to their sleeping box, and they seem quite content with that.  Before the whole electrification project began, my suggestion was to buy the two of them fleece coats and stuff their box full of old blankets.  I’m an old fashioned gal who was raised on the admonition to “put a sweater on” each time I complained about being cold.  Our dogs will be sleeping in better conditions than I spent my childhood, where I woke up to frost on the inside of my window most winter mornings.

Truth is, I’m getting ahead of things here.  There’s still plenty of opportunity for the dynamic duo to short circuit this Project.  As good as Maggie is at digging, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just buries the dog box in the trench and covers it all up for a geo-thermal approach to solving the winter heating problem.  We would be smart to turn things over to the pups from the very beginning.

Out of the delight of having finished my novel, I find myself blurting to just about anyone, “I finished my book!”  to which the generous, albeit uninformed, reply, “Oh!  Congratulations, who’s your publisher?  Can I find it on Amazon?”   My response to that is a big sigh and bit of embarrassment.  There’s a long, long trek between a pile of papers called a manuscript and a neatly bound book available at Borders for $23.00.  Many writers, in fact, never attempt the journey or fall victim to voracious slush piles along the way.  It’s a fool’s errand to seek publication, truly, when you are a first-time novelist.

Well, never one to avoid being foolish, I’m off on that journey.  I have a plan for contacting several agents who specialize in my genre:  women’s fiction/mystery, which is promising for publication, because that reading demographic goes through books like kleenex.  (I’m sure many of you recognize yourselves in that description)  No, a book that seeks to attain American Novel status, looking to live for generations on the library shelf, that is not my goal.  My goal is for my book to populate the grocery store check-out aisle, for as long as possible, enticing readers with the promise of hours of entertaining distraction–a bit like a Desperate Housewives marathon, but much easier to take to the beach.

Of course, contacting an agent is not the same as contracting with an agent, so there’s a boatload of hope invested in just that step.  If I can get a reputable agent (AKA, successful at selling others’ books) to agree to represent me, then there’s a pretty good chance a publisher will come on board.  But publishers are as varied as cell phone companies.  It could be that the only publisher interested in my book could drop me for no reason at all early in the process.  I am confident, however, that if my book passes muster with an agent who passes muster with me, I can be fairly confident it will be published.  Now, first time authors are rarely able to pay their bills from a first-book contract.  There are exceptions, of course.  That teenage vampire writer hasn’t done so poorly.  But I’m not in it for the money, or I’d really be deluding myself.  A first book published is usually encouragement to write a second and third.  A series writer can develop a reading audience which demands additional books–that’s my hope.  So, for me, success looks like the invitation to keep writing, with the possibility I might be able to keep the electricity on, so I don’t have to convert my laptop to solar.

If, after a couple years, no agent wants to take me on or even with an agent, no publisher is willing to transform my story to print, then I’ll release my novel chapter by chapter here at the blog, and ask you all to use PayPal to keep the virtual presses rolling.  Wouldn’t you love to be a part of the new 21st century publishing revolution?  Me neither.  I wanna go over to the end table, pick up 300 pages of my imagination, and shiver with joy at the thought that I get to produce a half dozen more of those.  So, keep your collective energy in my corner.  Query letters go out in January.

A crisp, sunny fall morning without appointments means I run.  I pop out the door at a relatively early 8:30 AM (okay, not so early for those of you in spinning class at 5:00–Shelley and Pam), and with sneakers double bowed and cool weather layers of technical fabric bunching under my arms, I trot off down the hill for fifty minutes of huffing, puffing, and sweat, and some precious time for reflection, too.  For example, I get to ponder the mysteries of why we give drivers’ licenses to blind people in this country (my apologies to blind people–I really mean stupid people).  It’s got to the point that running the roads of Puyallup, even the roads with sidewalks and traffic lights, has become a version of Russian Roulette.  Everytime I step off a curb I am gambling, and the increase in distracted, internet-obsessed lunk-heads occupying drivers’ seats means the sidewalk is no longer safe, either.

As a runner with a writer’s fascination with characters (and no IPod), I spend my runs scouting for material–and material often attempts to drive me right over!  The other day while waiting for the little green man to light up at an intersection, so I could sprint across four lanes of  impatient commuters, one driver of a commercial van showed a cartload of initiative as he took a free right turn, nearly over my dead body.  He was texting and smoking.  Not for a nanosecond did I see the guy look up to check for a pedestrian, let alone a car with the right-of-way.  Of course I could answer the, “Am I driving safe?” question on the back of his van with a single finger, but he didn’t look up to appreciate the feedback.

Besides the threat of winding up road kill, I’m perplexed by many of the other responses my simple act of jogging seems to inspire, like old men in battered pickups who lean out of the driver’s window and leer at me as they judder by at fifteen miles an hour.  Truth is, I really don’t know if they are leering at me–I’m being a bit self-absorbed, perhaps.  Most of those guys are probably just trying to figure out where they are, the spiderweb of cracks in their windshields obscuring any view from within.  Then there’s their counterparts: teenage boys.  Boys have a more varied approach.  If I’m slogging up a hill, you can bet a flock of shaggy-haired skaters will be coming down, slicing back and forth across the width of the very, narrow, sidewalk-less street, leaving me to either shimmy up a power pole or hold still in the middle of the road, fingers crossed that they’ll slalom right past me.  So far, I’ve avoided hanging an unexpected ten on a long board.

Another boy behavior that leaves me scratching my head is the carful of nasty boys trick–the more boys in the car, the less judgment is exercised is my observation.  Note: good mothers don’t let their boys drive in groups.  You see, I’ll just be clip-clopping along, nice pace, doing no one no harm, and a too-fast car will zip by, laden with young, unseasoned testosterone–the worst kind–and a couple boys will yell out some salacious invitation along the lines of, “HEY!  YOU WANNA_____?!!!   While my first reaction to the crudeness is to threaten to suspend them–those vice principal days die hard–a very small, deeply denied part of me is flattered that, from a distance, I might look much younger and much more attractive than I am.  Of course, preening aside, I realize how desperate that might sound; I know full well boys in cars don’t have finely wrought standards.  It’s more like, “Hey, there’s a female, yell sexual stuff at her.”  But the run-induced endorphins get the better of me sometimes.

Of all the oddness I encounter when out for a run, it’s the “coaching” from non-runners I find the most amusing,  Smiles and waves from folks who either want to acknowledge my healthy choice or see me as a chuckle in their day are always welcome.  I really don’t care what they make of me.  But it’s the occasional–so far always male again–person who sees his role to improve my performance.  One memorable incident was from this past summer in Ireland.  The daily bus rides to various sites of interest with my tour companions left me drained at the end of each day, so whenever I could, I’d go for a run to reinvigorate myself and get a different view of the territory.  My tour mates took to asking me if I planned to run that day and would suggest places that looked good to them–for me, of course.  One fiftysomething gentleman on the trip apparently felt I needed more than a route suggestion, and took me aside one day to explain how most people don’t run correctly.  He held forth for about fifteen minutes–cutting into my running time–about how a girl’s pony tail (I don’t have one) should bounce up and down if she is running correctly, not side to side.  After delivering that gem, he talked about foot fall and…oh, I don’t remember, but when he took a breath, I asked him–the very large, pear-shaped him–if he was a runner.  Most certainly, he said.  He ran in high school.  Mmmm.  And today, as I made my way up the hill to my house, completing the last of my five miles, my neighbor, who passed me on his way down, offered some advice–reminded me of a drill sergeant, in fact.  “Pick it up, pick it up!” he hollered, swinging his arm wildly in circles to accentuate.  He’s in my corner, you have to admit. 

There are a lot of things that if done in public ought to draw attention and comment.  Why my simple act of locomotion seems to attract so much weirdness, I do not know.  I’d sure love to hear from you runners out there if I’m having a unique or common experience.  I’d also like to know where I can buy a very light and compact can of mace.

After more than a year tippity-tapping on my keyboard and scratching my head to promote dendrite growth, I have finally finished my first complete book.  Yippeeee!  It’s true.  I have over 67,000 words devoted to a single plot line, accompanied by a cast of varied characters, culminating in a chapter 15 climax (of the plot–behave yourselves!), and chapter 16 denouement (English degree language for ending).  Now the work begins.  Like my sister Shelley described it, I have drawn all the lines, but need to finish coloring it in.  Revision is the craft of writing, I believe.  The first draft provides the frame, but for those of us who love the magic of language, I must now smooth, and remove, and tighten and elaborate and generally work all that content written over days and months into a coherent, evenly expressed whole.  So for the next six weeks I plan to rewrite and rewrite again.  I hope I know when to leave what’s good alone.

What an amazing adventure it’s been to stick with the project.  Wish me luck finding an agent. 

And by the way, take a look at my new logo designed for the website I’m developing.  Just click on About Susanintherain on the right side of the blog screen.

Buried somewhere deep in the idea of a garden is a see-saw, and the see-saw contains within it the cycles of the moon, and the tides, and the rotation of the seasons, in fact, the very nature of life.  It rises, it falls, and it rises again.  So last Saturday, as I tugged out the sere remnants of the pea vines of summer and Tom finished filling the three beautiful cedar raised beds he built me with rich soil and compost, we began to put to bed this past summer’s urban farm and prepare for next summer’s simultaneously, a moment where the see-saw’s down met its up.  To muddy the image a bit, though, I am interrupting the season’s descent by embarking on an experiment in fall vegetable gardening, hoping for a little more birth when death usually takes over.  I couldn’t stand to just admire the lovely new beds, I needed to plant in them.  So with great optimism, I deposited a package of spinach seed in one end of the first bed and a package of broccoli seed in the other.  Both packages said late summer direct sowing was possible, and so it was!  Sowing was no trouble at all.  It’s the growing that’s got me holding my breath.  But who can resist a smooth blanket of black earth, anyway, even as the light wanes.  I checked this morning for a miracle, but no green replies yet.  Germination won’t be rushed.

Today daylight and dark are even, and the Autumnal Equinox tips the see-saw down  in the Pacific Northwest.  The tide turns, and  for three full months, daylight leaks from the days like water from an old aluminum bucket.  In my neighborhood, the sun spends most of its fall time in mourning, cloaked in the sackcloth and ashes of heavy skies.  Yet today’s forecast suggests none of that.  Temperatures are to be in the high 80’s, fifteen to twenty degrees higher than normal.  The sun plans to make up in intensity what it begins to lose today in duration.  My poor little cool weather vegetables will be confused, I’m sure.  If they don’t pop up through the new dirt, it will be because of fear that they overslept, and here it is July already.

As a well known sun soaker-upper, I cultivate little credibility when I say I’ve been enjoying the cool mornings of the last couple weeks.  But really, I have.  The garden plot Tom and I tested this year on the terrace at the back of the house failed miserably as a place to raise beans–though it’s the best place to grow weeds on the property!  I don’t know if the little plot of land was fearful of being abandoned once again to purposelessness when it observed us building the new beds, or if we are just impatient gardeners (who, me?), but as I was bushwacking about up there last Saturday, doing a squash and pumpkin count (about 10 acorn; four sugar pie pumpkin; one monstrous hybrid of scallopini and butternut, I think; and a veritable plenitude of patty pan–and we’re complaining about productivity), I noticed that the broccoli that had snubbed me most of the summer was suddenly sporting side shoots in all directions.  Well, I’ll be, I thought, just as I planned to toss the ne’er-do-wells on the compost heap.  Perched on one especially robust broccoli stalk was a lime green tree frog in a staring contest with an amber and brown garden spider.  Between the two, they had likely kept the aphids at bay, explaining the abundance of broccoli shoots.  But I suspect all that good work by the spider, while earning my appreciation, just made him appear tastier to the frog.  Yum, aphid stuffed spider.

At this time of year, I miss the farm of my childhood, the smell of warm apples buzzing with drunken hornets and rotting in the late summer sun, the withering corn stalks clattering in the breezes, nothing more than old skeletons, and sparkling  jars of peaches and pears covering every level surface of our farm house kitchen.  It was a rich way to live.  Here and now, Tom and I smack our lips at what our scant half acre has given us this past summer.  We have a surfeit of carrots for our labors, and some tomatoes, and of course the broccoli, late to the party.  As my mother would say, it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

This post is dedicated to my friend, Leska, who when she reads about chickens, thinks of me.  Thank you ( :

I was tidying up the bonus room today and stumbled across a package of cleaning supplies that came with the sofa we bought last winter.  (From this you can infer either that my sofa is as pristine as the day it was delivered–who needs cleaning supplies–or that it’s in quite the opposite state, seeing as that package of cleaning supplies has not been cracked open in eight months of sofa use.  Have fun; visualize whatever suits you.  But, I digress) One of the bottles in the package is called “Worrynomore” (see trademark symbol here).  I found myself lingering over that product name, Worrynomore.  Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could really, truly buy that in a bottle?  For every feather of anxiousness that makes up that turkey called Worry, we could simply sprinkle a few drops on, and poof, the feather wafts zig zaggy to the ground, gone.  Enough drops and all you have is a naked turkey, and that’s pretty easy to laugh at. 

If we could buy bottles of Worrynomore, wouldn’t it be nice to pick up a can of Courage or a couple boxes of Energyfortheworkweek, or best of all, a Costco sized bundle of Time?  I’d sign up for the bonus card for those products, by golly.  In no time, I’d be getting 20 percent off coupons in my email.  Generally, I hate the label “consumer,” but I’d be willing to wear it proudly if the marketplace offered me something as useful as a bottle of Worrynomore that really delivered (Yes, Shelley, I know that a good red goes a long way, but it’s not quite the same thing).  But getting back to earth, I’m pretty sure my bottle just treats spots on the microfiber sofa, and as fastidious as I can be, I really don’t worry about the sofa…not the upstairs one, anyway.

While I’m wishing, I’ll add that I wish corporations couldn’t trademark useful expressions that I’d like to use, such as Worrynomore, without guys in dark suits popping out of the bushes to fine me for infringement.  All sorts of good words have been appropriated by corporate America (and corporate world) to serve as little prostitutes for their nefarious purposes.  Just try saying “Olympic”  in public without hearing a cash register bell somewhere in the atmosphere.  The word actually belongs to the International Olympic Committee.  I am risking my life–okay, life savings–by using the word here in my blog without express permission.  In fact, if any of you readers feels compelled to mail me a very large check in response to this particular blog post, as tickled as I might be, I would definitely be commiting a trademark violation, since I would profit from using someone else’s trademark.  Let’s defy that ridiculousness!  Send me check as an act of civil disobedience!

But you know, there’s always that old saw, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”  I’m thinking of trademarking Susanintherain.  I can hawk t-shirts and ball caps and Susan bobblehead dolls here at the blog site.  I’ll even bottle some Susanintherain.  It will come wrapped in bright yellow handmade paper, tied with a leaf green cord, and smell like a blue sky.  The only purpose it will serve is to poke a smile out of you.  Do you think there’s a market for that?

Cole recently successfully summited Mount Rainier, the tallest peak in Washington.  Called upon to report on his adventure, Cole wrote a piece for his company’s newsletter.  I asked him if I could share it here.  Perhaps you’ll find him a chip off the old blockette in his writing style.  Feel free to comment; I’m sure Cole would love the response.

Mt Rainier 4 Day Summit Trip

August 22 – Check in 3:00 PM

-         I am late. My guide calls me out in front of class. Oh well. I say I’ll make up for it on the Mountain–now I have a sign on my back.

-         Liability form filled out : (It says I might die. I tell them I hope not; I have work on Wednesday. They laugh; I say I’m serious.)

-         Route Details and Schedule Explained: we are doing the Cowlitz Glacier Route, the normal route up the mountain this time of year.

-         Gear Check – Our packs will average 40-45lbs. I don’t think this is a ton of weight, so I’ll see what happens.

Note: I borrowed much of my gear for this climb, some of it dating back to the early 1800’s, I believe, as I pull out my glacier glasses and my guide looks at me like I just pulled out an abacus. But my ice axe is super cool and makes me feel really manly.

August 23 – Snow Class 8:00am

9:30 AM

We set out from base camp to Paradise at Rainier National Park.  We have only an hour and a half trek to the snow field for basic training. On the way up I meet several of my fellow climbers. I find out I am only one of two locals and most of the others are from sea level states: Florida, Georgia, etc. I realize now this could be interesting.

11:00 AM

We reach the snow field and for the next hour we are taught how to walk on snow. Mind you, I was walking on snow before I was walking at home, so watching many of these people learn how to walk on a 45 degree slope is like watching a two year old take their first steps.

12:00 PM

After learning how to walk, we begin with self-arrest class. Self-arrest is what you do when you screw up and start sliding down the hill yelling various profanities and messing your pants. Much of my group is very good at self-arrest so I assume many of them are good at falling at their other hobbies.

1:00 PM

Our next session is team rope walking where we walk around on the snow with a rope with four other people. It is quite easy but many people having just learned to walk on snow find it quite difficult to multitask. Each rope length is approximately 10 feet and must stay on the low side of the mountain

.

1:30 PM

We take off back to base camp for an early dinner and rest.

August 24 – Climb to Camp Muir 10,500ft.

8:00 AM

Fully loaded up with gear, we take off from Paradise. The weather is gorgeous. It’s nearly 75 degrees and we all put on spf 70 sunscreen for the hike up.

11:00 AM

We reach the Muir Snow Field at 7500 ft. The field is reported to be the lowest it’s been in 100years, so there are cracks, sheer ice, and sink holes the entire way up. I feel great and know now my training was worth while as I see much of the group is struggling.

2:00 PM

We have made it nearly all the way up the snow field. Much of the group is in pain from their packs and wearing crampons on sheer ice and rock most of the way up. The guides however look like they’re ready for anything; these guys do this three times a week.

3:00 PM

We arrive at Camp Muir. I have been here several times during my training and feel excellent. We are told to rest up and eat a large dinner as we will be waking up at 11:00 PM to begin our climb.

4:00 PM

Realizing I packed not nearly enough food (3 PB and J sandwiches, 3 power bars, and 2 apples) I ration my food intake and realize I’ll have to preload in the morning. Everyone else seems to have brought a Thanksgiving Day feast with them. Not happy.

5:00 -11:00 PM

I am bug-eyed and ready to use my ice axe on the guy sleeping next to me. He snores like a moose with a cold and has passed gas every 10 minutes.

11:00 PM

The wind is blowing approximately 30 mph outside and it is 35 degrees. We get our packs ready and dress appropriately: head lamps, helmets, gloves, ice axes, and crampons.  Fully roped, we set off on the glacier

August 25 – Glacier to summit

12:00 AM Cowlitz Glacier

We begin to cross the Cowlitz Glacier and it is gorgeous outside. The open skies seem to show me every star that exists. We are the first team to depart since the lead guide asked me to be his rear rope man. He just got back from Everest last week. As we cross, we make our first jumps across crevasses not much more than a 3 ft leap but still a little freaky

.

12:45 – 1:45 AM Cathedral Gap

Upon arriving at a sketchy area called the Cathedral Gap we start climbing rock with our crampons on. This is weird and spooky because it is pitch black and all I see is my light in my eyes and the boots of the guy in front of me. After 30 minutes of climbing we hear what sounds like a stampede and my guide begins to yell “Rocks, Rocks, RUNNN!”  We look below as 2 rope teams sprint away from a large rock slide. Luckily everyone is okay and only one guy had a small rock hit his leg. We are all left a little shaky and move very quickly up the face.

1:45 – 2:45 AM Ingraham Glacier Flats

Let me remind you we are the second to last party to climb this year and the glacier is completely cracked. As we cross the glacier in the middle of the night every time I look up from the trail I see blackness on the sides of me, these are 400ft crevasses.

2:45 – 4:15 AM Disappointment Cleaver

After a break we take off towards what we are told is the hardest point of the climb. A nearly sheer face of broken rock with hundreds of switch backs that we must maneuver with crampons and full gear. On the way to the Cleaver we have to cross through the Ingraham Glacier which has the most crevasses on the climb. We must cross 3 ladders that are laid across crevasses. One has only 3 of 4 holds and shakes when you walk on it. Almost everyone stops and shakes for a minute while they look at the ladder. As we approach the Cleaver we must still shimmy around a cylinder of snow with a fixed line wrapped around the circumference of it with an 18 inch foot hold that allows you to look at the wall while you side step. Luckily we couldn’t see behind us till on the way down; it’s a 1000 foot fall. We get to the Cleaver and begin our ascent of what I can only describe as a never-ending climb of broken rock on a sheer face–if you slip there’s no way of saving yourself. My adrenaline is through the roof.

4:15 – 6:30 AM Disappointment Cleaver to High Break

We are now on the high glacier which looks like a never ending snow field. We have had 4 people turn down from altitude impairment and we are on our way to our last break before summit. The sun is beginning to come up, but I don’t care. All I can think of is getting this done with now as the winds picked up while we were on the Cleaver. We are now on a stair stepper in 50mph head winds. Every time there’s a gust someone falls, and we get pushed back 3 steps. The guides look like they’re at another day at the office. Im drooling.

6:30 – 8:30 AM High Break to Summit

We take a break to watch the sun come up. I take as many pictures as possible but my hands are so numb I can’t feel them. I also can’t talk as my tongue is frozen. I have been in very cold conditions before but the wind, elevation, and lack of calories to burn makes me feel weak. The winds make a 45 minute climb nearly double as we fight to climb against head winds. At this point, I’m sure we will turn around as we are climbing on nearly all fours.

8:30 AM SUMMIT

I am excited to be at top and want to make a call. I try to talk to my climbing buddy but realize I can’t speak, and sound like I have no tongue because my mouth is frozen. We spend 5 minutes on top because it’s so miserable. We then set out for our descent.

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

The rest of the day is spent walking down from what we climbed. Absolutely amazing and scary, we cross all the ladders and crevasses we just came over hours earlier to be able to see down into the abyss and it is humbling. I love it but am very weak. The walk down seems to take forever as everyone is very tired and needs to rest every hour or so. Getting to the bus I sit down and realize I just worked my body the hardest I ever have.

Summary:

Mt Rainier is a pinnacle in my life. To have climbed an iconic land feature that I have looked at all my life and wanted to conquer makes me incredible proud. However I do believe anyone can do it if they really want to. It is not so much the physical aspect of climbing as it is the mental that breaks people. So being able to recognize one’s weaknesses allows them to grow as a person and Mt Rainier is a great way to help a person find new weaknesses to work on. Mine was food. I didn’t eat nearly enough and my body was running on empty. Above 10,000 feet food tastes like sand and I had a hard time eating anything once we left. The climb also was a very humbling experience.  Seeing the shear mass and size of the mountain made me realize how small we really are. People ask if I’ll do it again and all I can say is, I’d love to and next time I’ll respect her that much more. However, I do want to take this climbing hobby to another level in the future, and my step dad and I have already begun talks of other higher mountains to test ourselves on someday.

I must apologize for producing very little this past week.  Usually, I try to write at least one post each week, if not two, to keep my fingers nimble, my mind tuned, and you–my kind readers–amused.  But Susanintherain has some competition–the murder mystery I began writing a year ago–and I am now pounding out the last few, grueling miles of the marathon that is writing a book.  My goal is to have “The End” typed by September 30,  so the energy I might have poured into a blog post this week was instead directed at progress on The Paperwork Will Kill You, a novel about a high school vice principal and her fourteen-year-old son and the puzzling death of an English teacher.  Well, they say write what you know, and I know schools, boys, and small towns, though the mysterious death part is all imagination, I assure you.

Once I have printed the last page of the novel’s first draft, I will go immediately to the first page and begin revision.  I’m giving myself two months to spit and polish the manuscript, then I’ll be sharing it with a focus group to get some responses from my readership demographic.  From all I’ve ever heard, it’s pretty difficult to get a first novel published, a trial of finding an agent, then submitting the manuscript, likely receiving rejection, and submitting again, and probably again, and so forth.  In the present state of mixed media, so-to-speak, where electronic books look like the future to some and most definitely not to others, publishers are supposedly publishing fewer actual  books.  Authors have to be a sure thing for the publishing companies, their books guaranteed to sell.  A new novelist on the scene with a light and amusing take on the venerable Whodunit has more than an uphill road to get her book to an audience.  But, oh what an adventure!

I plan to spend a couple years trying to move my book from manuscript to beach read paperback occupying a couple inches of shelf space at Borders.  Meanwhile, in January, I’ll begin the next Pauline Dear mystery.  The paperwork will still plague her and another teacher may be sacrificed for plot development.  Most important, Michael, her son and tug o’ war partner, will turn 15 and challenge poor Pauline with all the ploys teenage boys use to get what they want–and what they want is rarely what their parents want for them.

Stay tuned!  I promise a far more interesting post very soon.  I will be traveling for a short while and should have a story or two to share.  I appreciate your apparent enjoyment of my writing, or you wouldn’t bother to dial in here.  But do set aside about $23.00–less 20% if you are a Borders Rewards member–to buy a hard copy first edition of my book, sure to hit the stores in…(hmmm, let me do the math…)  November of 2012…2013?