Life's a Stitch

On the dozenth run to Lowe's I thought to myself how could I be doing this again? It seems like yesterday that I was running back and forth to the home improvement store as we were selling our old house and rebuilding the one we're in.

We've decided to sell the family "cabin," the vacation condo we bought 29 year ago, a meeting place for friends and family and a way to encourage free range kids. I expected more dissent from those now grown up children, but they realize what we do. Our new location has its own holiday feel and is less than an hour from the condo. It's no longer a getaway and selling it will have a positive impact on the daily budget, very helpful in retirement. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself to let go? Maybe.

Wouldn't you know it that the refrigerator died coincidentally at the same time? The realtor says "as long as you're replacing the fridge, do the stove at the same time." Ugh. That and the bathroom vanities, the countertops, the seven different doorknobs and hinges to match, the globular light fixtures, anything that screams the 70's, all the things I couldn't justify in a second home for ourselves I'm now doing for a perfect stranger. Indeed, another one of those first world problems. It's a good time to list it, though, as we recently finished paying the special assessment to cover the recently installed new siding, sheathing, insulation and roof. That should be a strong selling point as other condo associations in the community have that in their future.

Everything has been so tense I took the opportunity to try a course in loose painting. As a photo realist this is very difficult for me. I did a pear, that I call "imperfect." 

Followed by a bunch of flower-like shapes. In my usual style to define items more literally, I've got two versions, one totally loose (don't read relaxed into that phrase) and one with ink. What do you like better? So far anyone who has seen them likes them both. Will you be the tie-breaker?

Ink?

No ink:

I'll end on a good note. Remember the post that included this painting that I did earlier this year? It won third place in our art society's challenge. The theme was “Out of the silence.” 

 

 

 

Looking over my photos from that January day, I realized I must have been in the mood for angles. It was a day of sightseeing in the desert with C's cousin and his wife. We headed south along the Salton Sea, that body of brown water that used to be nicknamed the Salton Riviera, a haven for the rich and famous near Palm Springs in the 50's. It has a detailed sad ecological history that you can read about here.

This one seemed like the angle of destruction. A train, hundreds of cars long, carrying a deadly cargo of military vehicles painted in the camo of Middle Eastern war. Think armoured vehicles, tanks, personnel carriers and infantry fighting machines that went on for a loooonnnnggg time.

It was our Atlas Obscura day, leading us to fluky locations worthy of lengthy description, but I'll try to limit myself to a sentence or two of each.

First stop was Salvation Mountain…..Lots of shapes in there, like a rainbow sand castle, in reality clumps of concrete painted in pastels.

History:

Up the road was Slab City and its subdivision, East Jesus, an art park constructed of recycled junk.

Oddly it isn't what you'd expect with a name like that. There was little religion, more philosophy and oddly a flavour of American patriotism, what with all the flags flapping in the desert breeze.

More angular photos along the way:

Bombay Bay, the town where it used to happen. A graveyard of building remnants, motels, clubs and bars, and a beach made not of sand, but the crushed dried bones of birds and fish, long killed off by the saline brownish liquid, I hesitate to call it water, of the Salton Sea. Not to be abandoned, enter the art installations. It proves there can be beauty, or an interpretation of it, anywhere.

Even the tire marks were creative:

The golden hour was perfect for our version of a selfie.

One more angular wonder. A couple of days prior, we attempted to go hiking at Whitewater, the other side of Palm Springs. We were turned around by a ranger, suggesting we try the Mission Creek trail, a few miles away, as the park was closed due to a helicopter roundup of feral cattle. Our disappointment was quashed a couple of minutes later when we were forced to stop the car to allow a herd of big horn sheep to cross the road. I was torn between taking the time to dig out the camera or to watch this rare spectacle unfolding before us. This is one for the camera of the brain. After they crossed I followed well behind and got this shot of them in the distance. Look carefully.

In case you are wondering, they're not the angular part of the story. The Mission Creek Trail is located on the site of another long gone resort. The shells of the abandoned cabins have been made into picnic shelters.

The sun was just right to capture this:

 

Let me start with the fact that bad habits die hard. A 15+ year history of blogging hasn't instilled in me the good habit of hitting the save button sooner rather than later. And when that's not done, the auto save doesn't kick in and you risk losing everything. Hence, my absence last week. I just didn't have the energy for a do-over.

Deep breath, here we are again. I must add I love having a computer again as almost two years of phone and iPad blogging leans toward the onerous. Hit save, I remind myself right now, as I have to check on dinner.

OK I'm back again. What have we been up to?  Once again full credit to our house sitters. Who knew when we weren't looking, Bryant and his friends became responsible enough to entrust with the care of our new home? The stories we have from the previous house in the rain forest… You don't want to know.

I'm feeling a bit distracted, can you tell? Too much on my plate in retirement. Really? Since we've been back there's been my new Zumba endeavour, a compromised credit card, painting classes, sifting through two months of mail, a trip to Washington to visit Blogless M and Dave as well as preparing our condo for sale. And we've only been home for a week.

The dry desert seems like a dream compared to the atmospheric river we've had since our arrival. But it's good to be home, cozied up in our house, C back to his woodworking and me with my painting. 

 

 

The Ham Scam is officially over, having received a full refund from Paypal. I'm happy to say it was a relatively easy process. 

December’s art show was an overall success as well as a personal one. I sold four original paintings and cards made from prints.

Remember this, started years ago, now more than half finished? Can’t fudge that first fact as there’s a photo buried in the blog somewhere. 

Our holiday break was both busy and relaxing as I made space for painting, including two sessions with local artist, Diane Morgan. This one was finished today.

Lots of company made for many blogable adventures. In four days we covered Joshua Tree National Park, Pioneer Town, the Salton Sea, Slab City including its community of East Jesus, Salvation Mountain, an obsidian butte and Bombay Bay. Thanks to Atlas Obscura for sending us to interesting quirky places. More to come. 

 

 

If you do it three times, does that make a tradition? SIL KC was with me for my 400th, 500th and now 600th geocache.

While caching in the desert my junior catcher successfully searched between a dinosaur’s toes.

Then we found a scorpion under a rock.

We were’t actually looking for a cache, instead fulfilling the dream of SIL Sean, who was diligently searching in hopes of seeing one in its natural environment.  

We cooked then feasted. M made homemade pappardelle without the benefit of a mixer, rolling pin or pasta machine, to go with KC’s short rib ragout.

and when there’s pasta in our house, there’s pavlova, as one requires egg yolks while the other the whites.

More creative endeavours included another painting

B performing at open mike night at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneer Town

C and M played with gelli pad prints that eventually will become a collage.

There were 19 members of the Wilboe families present in three houses in our snowbird community. There were a variety of levels of accommodation from one house dubbed the Taj Mahal, complete with elegant small swimming pool with seven mini waterfalls and spa…

… to the garage mahal – the tent in a garage with real mattresses, surprisingly comfortable. No picture, use your imagination.

Here's a selection of the participants:

The kids

The adults

The entire group

We were Alberta Proud, that's where all but four of us live.

 

That's an Inflatabull from Canadian Tire

We celebrated

Skoal!

We fished the drone from off of the roof

And I even got in some painting time.

 

 

 

 

 

The Wilboe Family Christmas Reunion produced many memorable photos. This one was meme worthy.

Here’s the back story: the people at the table next to us noticed I was taking a group photo and offered to include me in one. Concurrently they read incoming texts as they appeared on my phone, hence the facial expressions.

 

I’m partial to all things treasure hunting. Geocaching, mushrooming, bargain hunting in liquidation stores where items are returns from the likes of Target, Walmart or Amazon. Daughter M and I went to one last year that had heaps of open box Instant Pots. One whiff was all it took to realize they were after use returns. Think the scent of leftover meatloaf. No thank you.

We returned for Christmas shopping, accompanied by B, who inherited the bargain hunting gene from both parents, and girlfriend, S. We were greeted by a herd of pastel ponies to match their outfits.

Then came the edible eye shadow.

What the heck? Was it designed to lick off of eyelids?  Reading the steps it was even less clear:

1. Mix and color

2. Fill

3. Eat

4. Wear

Next we found Glenda Glitterpoop, a Feisty Pet. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Among my actual purchases was a brand new (no trace of meatloaf scent) open box Instant Pot for $30. At our Christmas Wilbo Family Reunion C mentioned twice that he wished he had one. His wish came true and it was used five times over the course of the week. 

And this one made it under the tree. A perfect choice for four boys, ages 3-7.

 

 

I may have mentioned this in a prior post. I used to work with a wise woman, who would say “Everyone has a story. Some longer than others.” Complicated as it is, I’ll try to spare you length.

Sooo, I followed the tracking of our Serrano ham, all 17.5 lbs of it. Presumably it had originated in Spain, maybe over to China, then to Florida where my tracking notice began. Wait a minute, this ham is following our travels! USPS then showed its arrival in Fresno, California, nowhere near our usual California destination. And not anywhere close to our address. 

That’s where it stayed, delivered to an address in Fresno. Scam complete. Yes, this is an official category of mail fraud. A package is sent, not the expected weight, to a completely different address. Tracking is marked delivered, and the sender collects the payment from PayPal. Communicating with the post office supervisor, she confirmed that it weighed 8oz, originated in Florida, it’s terminus in Fresno.

It’s most definitely, not-so-shockingly,  a scham (a scam ham). There were too many signs along the way. A call, followed by a phone call to PayPal, escalated the case to “claim” status. They have contacted Mr. Kenneth Terrel, of Florida, for an explanation. He has some explaining to do. 

Our family holiday treat will now be a prime rib roast, bought at a local grocery store, and safely stowed in our freezer.

Not so long a story afterall. 

Most Canadians know the story of Dave and the Turkey, from the Vinyl Cafe, a radio show featuring sadly gone-too-soon storyteller, Stuart McLean.

 

Our family is developing its own true-to-life bizarre holiday food story. 

 

Background: The name Wilbo is a mash up of our family name with that of Daughter M’s husband’s family name, Wilson. Our son, as emcee of their wedding, told a Lord of the Rings-esque story of the formation of the Wilbo clan. And it worked for our eldest daughter, whose husband is a Williams and son’s girlfriend, also a Wilson, though not related. 

 

The story starts in Spain, while walking our various pilgrimage routes of the Camino de Santiago, where our primary portable protein was the country’s Serrano style cured ham, similar to prosciutto. No nitrates or nitrites, it is aged only in sea salt and required no refrigeration. We raved about it.

 

This year at Costco in Washington we saw whole legs of Iberico ham, on the bone, complete with knife and wooden stand for $99. A non-option for $549, was an upgrade to the cream of the crop, gourmet ham from pampered pigs that are fed acorns. 

 

Christmas will be a meeting of the Wilbo clan, I think 18 of us. C thought it would be a fun treat to have such a ham on the kitchen counter for all to partake. Everyone was looking forward to this unique part of the feast. Alas, when it came time to buy said ham, they were no longer available.

 

One of my children (name withheld) has always had a difficult time releasing expectations; his/her image of how something is supposed to be. When I texted the kids as to the change in plans, who do you think I heard from? Immediately. “Nooooooo…” It was central to his/her vision of this unique Christmas celebration.

 

Reminiscent of the Cabbage Patch doll, talking Alf or stuffed Barney searches of their toddlerhoods (prior to home computers, mind you), I tried to make this Christmas dream come true, this time via google. 

 

Searching for Serrano ham Spain, clicking on shopping, the following price points appeared: $187.95, $179.00, $349.85, $490. These are US dollars, so add a third for a realistic impact on our Christmas budget. Not. A. Chance.

 

Then I saw it. $79.95! Clicking on it took me to a site for a clothing store in China. 

Scrolling down, in addition to mens and ladies wear there was the ham! Several other food options were listed: crab cakes, sea bass, meat pies, St. Louis ribs and Napa Valley cold pressed sesame oil. 

 

I selected shipping and saw that it would be sent via the US postal service within five days. No way that was coming from China. I zoomed in on the image and determined the brand to be legitimate. Oh, what to do? A Spanish ham on a Chinese site delivered from a location in the US. 

 

We looked at each other, coming to the same conclusion, it’s worth the gamble. If it was a scam ham, we’d have PayPal behind us. So I clicked on “place order.” Our child would be happy.

 

This is where the ham story gets fishy. The PayPal receipt came from an account with a hotmail address made up of random numbers and letters. It also lists TWO hams with a subtotal of double the price and a final payment for one.

 

So that’s where we are. What do you think? Is it a ham scam? Goods from a stolen restaurant supplier? An overage of corporate gifts? A Chinese lookalike? Will a ham even be delivered? Might there in fact be two (35lbs!)?

 

Stay tuned. The tracking number says it will be delivered in time for Christmas.