Shimmerings of This Freaky Summer

My freaky summer!
Since it's actually been since MAY that I have written one of these things, this has to be a summery(!)(shimmery?) of all that has gone on in my weird world. I can't fit everything I could possibly want to write into one blog. So I will highlight.
There's been lots of river. I mean A TON. And not just one river..... a handful of them! I wore a bathing suit every single morning for two months....working in the garden and working on a tan. There has also been lots of beer. A LOT. I developed a freakish love for 35 mm plastic cameras and what the freaks call "lomography". This here photo was taken at Gringo's, a little burrito shop on the American River that Art was forced to work at.

I went to all those freakily glorious river spots. Sometimes with children like these ones you see.


Sometimes with friends and or my wedded man


that's Doniella and me, I know it's super freakishly tiny.

Mandy!
Thorsby!



I discovered Pony Espresso in Pollock Pines....

cause we were our way to Angora Lake to meet up with the Smith family and dad and Matt and Amy.



I went to my friend Lindsey Melugin's bachelorette party and we had a Cabana Boy.


I made a freakadeek video with Art and Stan and Dan Trudeau.....down in the canyons of yet another RIVER of course.




I went to Jake and Lindsey's beautiful and amazing wedding complete with a freakishly wonderful cake (created by Angela Broward).


I grew and slayed down my hops.



These two beauties came and helped me to pick the hops. There are more photos of us on the roof (scary!), but they are yet to be developed.

Dad came over and visited oft.

I grew my garden and put some transplants into Grandma Vicky's garden....shikes we have a ton of tomatoes RIGHT NOW!!!



I went to GLACIER NATIONAL PARK!!!!!!!
ok hi. I only posted the bathing suit one because it's the first photo of me in a suit I actually LIKE. Chilling!








And, as luck will have it (as well as Art's wallet), next week I am getting the great privelege to go to Moab and see Arches National Park and Canyonlands and such and stay a few nights at the Lazy Lizard Hostel in a little cabin. It's my best birthday dream.
I have had one great adventure after the other and I am so grateful to all the wonderful friends and family in my life for being so spontaneous and brave and crazy and fun. There is so much more I could have included (nights at Powell's, BBQs by the dozens at Heather's, friends from the city visiting) but I am straight OUT of my blogging strength.......
Though me and Art shall be moving back to Nevada City in a month or so, I won't forget all the fun to be had in good ol' Hangtown with my wild, eccentric, FREAKY family. Once we get back to the other side of the canyon I will miss you all terrible. But I am so used to the drive now and I will get much music and creativity accomplished with all that alone time, and when I need to see you, I will come spend the night and bug you, and hopefully not get drunk and rant about humans and personalities and my insecurities........

With all my nightmarish heart


Adie beatty

May Jubilee

Little Black Ghost and Owl


Hi ya. It's been a little while so I felt compelled. In the last week or so, Heather has graduated with her Masters in English, Art has had a birthday (26!), Kim Nicolls Berry had her baby girl Sydney!, we went down to the river with dad, I found rose-flavored syrup at a Mediterranean grocery (it is worth mentioning!!!) and last night Art and I hogged out at the Red Hawk Casino Waterfall buffet. Plus yesterday we made this crazy trip to Folsom and Roseville via Salmon Falls Road, since we live pretty close to Coloma and Pilot Hill. It was an amazing drive with not another car on the road for miles despite it being 5pm and traffic probably abounding on all freeways in a 15 mile perimeter and the road felt like we were in another state or something, like the countryside of the midwest in the early 80's?. The road drops you off in El Dorado Hills and then we followed it into Folsom. The river was so so full I thought it was a lake! Then I realized we were at the Salmon Falls Bridge! The water is only like 15 or 20 feet below it! I can't wait to go back and swim there, it's so different than last year. I was on a mission to go to this place in Roseville called Total Wine and More to get Pliny The Elder. Let me tell you, if you think BevMo is cool, which I do, this place is like 10 times better! It's seriously beautiful in there, filled with tons of gadgets and pretty glasses and ice buckets and wines and spritzers and beers in singles and cold and cases and 6 packs, like- beers you cannot find ANYWHERE! Hence my trip there for Pliny. On the way home we cruised by Trader Joe's and I bought 2 packs of mango mochi which is my favorite summer dessert ever with only 100 cals and 3 grams of fat per mochi. I CAN'T UNDERSTAND why Raley's and other regular grocery stores aren't on the mochi ball yet!

About the Red Hawk Casino buffet. Perhaps you are thinking "gross" which I usually do about most buffet style places, for the most part. The thing is, I only eat fish and veggies and this place is wonderful for that. There is lots of vegetarian fare, which I am stoked about. Most notedly, they actually have lots and lots of different kinds of fresh steamed veggies like green beans and broccoli and asparagus and sqash, and they aren't sagging into a pool of greasy butter or oil, they are actually fresh and clean and steamed. They have an entire asian section with my favorite rice noodles and veggies (the little tiny rice stick noodles that are white) and they have veggie sushi and veggies and tofu. Plus they have really nice fish, and tempura sweet potato, and baked potatoes, mashed potatoes (which did look a bit too buttery) and the desserts are out of control! It's the biggest buffet I have ever seen. They have a complete gelato station. They have scores of little tiny fruit tarts and lemon tarts. And you can order any kind of soda with your meal plus have coffee after and seriously, the place is worth the money. It's 18 dollars, and thought that might sound like alot, when you think about what paying for a drink, dessert, salad (their salad bar is HUGE and beautiful!), plus a vegetarian meal...it would be at least 20 bucks.

The down side is we each played ten dollars on the way out and lost it in LESS than ten minutes. But oh well, we had Plinys to come home to!

Kimmy with her new baby girl!

Flowers at the bus stop.

Arth and Darin at the Brick Oven later that day.


Heather getting her golden ticket!

Afterwards, she's a professor-to-be!





Our tiny plinys last night!

This Golden Eternity, Mothers, and Other Seedlings

Happy Mother's Day! I have another blog I started called Coffee and Audio and there I posted some tidbits of my wonderful mother today. That blog is more little fragments of daily life and this blog is more for my rants and rambles of everything and nothingness.

This week I started back at work after 3 weeks off....how my feet hurt after these past few nights! But how grateful to have dollars in my pocket....because for the last week and a half of my "vacation", I was broke as all broke could get! It's hard to think of things to do when you can't even afford gas money or a cup of wine at the bar...etc. Luckily I have a terrific family to help me get by, and my Arthie of course. And not that I can complain, I have beautiful food and drink every single day thanks to him. And a garden to watch and tend to, and books and movies, and music to play and write, and photos to take, and friends to squeak with. This week has been so lovely going back to work, in fact, I even LOVE it! Everyday I drive the one hour it takes to get to Grass Valley down the everbeautiful Highway 49, from Placerville through Coloma, into Cool, down into the gorgeous ravine (with it's greenblue RAGING American River down under the bridge), and up over the hill into Auburn. I have been driving with the top down and with scarves wrapped tightly over braids and the driving has been glorious! Despite my owning a beat-up rusted jalopy of a convertible, loud as she blows, creaky and bumpy and wild ride, she is a convertible nonetheless and that makes all the difference! The 80 degree air is pure inspiration as the sun hits my cheek and the radio blasts out whatever comes next be it New Order, Band O Horses, Led Zeppelin, Ryan Adams, etcetera! I love going to work! And then from the glory I am much energized to take on lots of hungry yuppie-hippies (nice and kind they are almost all of them) eating crikeloads of sushi and drinking giant Sapporos and sakes! Sorry carbon footprint, right now I just am so grateful to have such a beautiful drive to work. And coming home, though not yet warm enough to leave the top down then, there are beautiful yellowcream full moons to watch over me.

This week my edemames have sprouted! So happy for that, I just hope the caterpillars don't eat them like they did my basil sprouts. And a few other sprouts are up, and runner beans and hops and squash and zucchinis. I love Summer!!! All this beauteous food on the way. I love living in the country too, and to be close to such creative young-uns. We had a bit of a Cinco De Mayo party the other night at Becky's and Jordan's and it was very nice talking with the girls and wearing Mexican dresses. And then Wednesday night Mom and Heather and I took off to Sacramento to The Idol Hour which is Scott Sowa's and Ryan Jaurequi's bar and we had too much fun! At one point I vaguely remember trying to teach people the Running Man, Roger Rabbit, and Kid'N'Play.....early 90's rap abounding........



Nancy and Sherry having a great time!


Heather's looking GOOD!


Mom is such a dancer, I had no idea, I guess if you were born pre-1970's you just have an automatic know-how on how to dance to rock and roll WITH a partner. I sure as hell can NOT!

Heather on her way to Los Angeles for Dave's (Darin's brother) wedding. She looked amazing.

April Goodbye

It's the last day of April, and I am just fine with that. Not that April wasn't green, it was! It just flew by, and that's OK.















It's just that miraculous and evolution-promoting passage of time......and all the changes that us hu-mans and womans must go through because of it. God (or whatever higher power that you believe in if there is one for you) has a pretty mindblowing and humbling ordeal going on. Though the passage of time can be sad, it brings the truth about. That's what I love about it.

I just got back from a trip to Provo, Utah and Twin Falls, Idaho. I took the train out of the sweet little old-fashioned pickup in Colfax over the Sierra and crossed beautiful and desolate Nevada into Utah all the way to Provo. I got there at 5:30 am and had to call the only cab in Provo to get to Matt and Amy's house since they were in Africa, of all places! Actually, I was visiting to see their kids and my mom and sister, who had been kid-sitting for the 2 weeks. I had quite the bout of PMS by the time I arrived in my brother's living room. I think I must have cried for 15 minutes, quietly, to myself, for no good reason other than the cab driver in Provo seemed too creepy and I had just recovered from a hangover due to a very very fun Coal Beautiere show the night before my train. Sleeping on a train is full of starts and stops. But all my emotional displeasure was worth it to see the childs, Jarom, Bella, and Oey. I had a beautiful time!



And Mom and Heather were great fun. Matt and Amy's return from Ghana on Monday evening was quite a hit. We hid out for about an hour, waiting to surprise them with a group "Welcome Home!" when they walked through the door. And then mom and H and I were off to Idaho to visit Uncle Dan at the care home he lives in currently. We had a very sweet visit with him. I want to get him out of there if I can ever help it though. But he put on his Civil War coat and even made some jokes with us. Idaho was the last state in the west I had not been to! It was quite beautiful there, alot of farmland, open open vast skies, friendly people. Mom and us girlies had a great time. Mom met some cowboys along the way, most notedly in Ogden, however she has THAT picture and I can't wait to take a look at Roy and Eugene again. And I thank the stars of Burger King for FINALLY putting veggie burgers on their menu list nationwide! And Self magazine for reminding me that was even a possibility! Fries, chips, nuts and diet cokes can't sustain. A lady's got to have some REAL food....and that can be kind of hard on a fast road trip thru Idaho. So thank you, BK.











My train's a'comin! The station at Colfax.











See the gorgeous view from "Cape Horn". We are in the train 1800 feet from the American River below.




A little Target extravaganza.


































Bella and I at the Penny royal Cafe and then Bella took some portraits of Mom and Heather and I.








We decorated with chalk and made welcome home signs with construction paper and posterboard and got all ready for the big moment of Matt and Amy's arrival home and their wonderful stories and photos of Ghana. They looked beautiful upon entrance!







We stayed up late hearing tales of Ghana and it's peoples and traditions and Matt and Amy's Tro-tro drivers and hikes and elephant sightings and then we slept a few hours and awoke to drive to Idaho. After a lunch at Bajia of course (where one of these kids was doin' his own thing).











Not without good reason of course. The poor little man just had a surprise from the dentist......1st tooth pulled! You can't really tell cause his permanent tooth was growin' in already, right behind it!






The Snake River Canyon!


Mitch is Uncle Dan's roommate and he is an absolute nicey. I really liked him. Uncle Dan was very sweet as well. I wish we could visit him more often, and that I had come sooner. But also, it was perfect timing cause Mom said this was his best visit ever there. Perhaps someday he can live a whole hell of a lot closer than IDAHO!



I think Mom and Uncle Dan look great in this photo.







Happy May!

How many addresses in cyberland?

Wow. At this point it's gmail, yahoo mail, facebook, 2 myspaces (one for music), twitter, blogspot, the family blogspot, bank accounts, paypal accounts, cd baby accounts, amazon.com accounts, ebay accounts, esmarttax accounts, the list goes on!

The world is turning inside out. I don't really have a problem with it, it's just hard to NOT be on the computer like 7 hours a day. It's such a gorgeous, spring-loaded day, and here I am (well I went out in it for a bit) on the compute, doing loads of EDD stuff because Art's hours are so low at his work he qualifies for part-time unemployment. It's such a pain in the arse. Plus I am mailing things 3 weeks late. I should be out planting my lupine and columbine seeds! But then again, has anyone else heard?, they expect snow down to possibly 1500 feet this weekend! Hard to imagine what with it being GORGEOUSLY 72 degrees outside.

I know I never really finished my Inaugural stories, oh well. I have lost track of time. Time just keeps going and going....not slowing down, and I am like "HEY WAIT! I need like 10 more hours to each day!" I go to bed at 3:30 and wake at 10:30 and it's just not enough time to do all the fantastical, educational, physical, adventurous things in between! And eat! And make coffee! And play with cats! And to think, I only work 3-4 days a week! How do other people DO IT????
Some photos from of recent just to keep up with the beatty chaos and echternacht chaos and all the fun friends we share our life with.
These lovely girls came to visit us during a true winter snowstorm of the likes that Placerville's not seen for years. It snowed huge through their entire show at Cozmic Cafe. Prior to their show they recorded with Art for 2 days in our little shanty. We woke to gorgeous whiteness, blanketing all. My work ended up closing because of snow, and I got to hang out at their show! Agent Ribbons, you're beautiful!













Art with the friends.












Frostina!














Me in the first snow a couple nights before the major snow!













Oh Owl-ish!













Lindsey at our aerobics/ excercise birthday party for Jeff Thorsby.
Me at the same party! In full gear.
Ruebi and Art at a little breakfast diner overlooking the Sutra Cliffs in San Francisco.
Heather and Em at the very snowy Karaoke night!
Darin and Heather there ...my camera got snow in it!

Here's my Ghost and Owl. They absolutely love getting IN things. Or under things. Like blankets, baskets, laundry baskets, luggage bags, etc. Grabby teaches Owl.
Heather and I recently went on a road trip to Santa Rosa to say goodbye to Nichole who we have known since we all lived in Sebastopol. She is moving back to Maine. There was a great party and then we met some new friends. This one is Michelle. She just got back from 2 and a half years in Niger, Africa. Needless to say I had like 1000 questions for her. I learned much from her. She speaks fluent Zarma!

Nichole and Michelle.

More excercise party photos.


Mom acting like a little kid at Mikie's birthday dinner. It was delicious by the way. Veggie Texas Hash and Vegan Texas Hash. I loved it.

Mikie and Marma.

The Inaugural Days We Won't Forget

I have been busy since I got back Friday but I thought I would just drop a photo down on this here blog and say a couple words about the inauguration. An in-depth story shall follow.

A. It was the coldest weather I have ever been in for 16 hours straight.
B. Wearing 4 pairs of socks doesn't matter, toes freeze no matter what.
C. I met more amazing people in 3 days than I ever have before.
D. I still haven't seen the inauguration at all.
E. I saw Barack from the parade side, and he stepped out of his limo and walked on down the line.
F. Micilin, Steph, and Jacob saved our souls.

Here's 5am on January 20th, 2009. At 7th and E Streets in "line" to get past security.

Barack it like it's hot!

Hi friends. That's Art's slogan by the way.
It's real early on the morning of the 19th and the reason I am blogging is because I am kind of forcing myself to stay up and I needed to think of something to keep my interest and so I thought I might describe the things that are about to take place!

We are headed off to DC tomorrow.....and a long day of 2 plane rides and 1 train ride. We got super cheap tickets from Expedia, but those can often involve 1 stop in the middle of nowhere and a transfer....and these do!
But anyhoo, we shall arrive in DC at midnight and once we get there we plan on not sleeping for about 24 hours. So I am trying to swing my sleep cycle into another direction so that I can sleep while traveling tomorrow.

About a year and a half ago I had a dream at night that I was with a small group of people, musical revolutionary types and good friends, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a big city, running around with excitement under overpasses and through tunnels into music halls and meetings and gatherings....and it was all for Barack Obama. When I woke up there was a very magical feeling that I had, one of purpose and love and revolution and politics...all mingled. I wondered if I should go on some kind of musical Obama tour...or work on his campaign....or something/ anything! This was like August 2007. I ended up not doing anything really HUGE about Obama, but believe me I promoted him in the best way I could to everyone I met and as much as possible. And I researched his history, his campaign, his personality, and I posted a bunch of myspace bulletins about the primaries - practically BEGGING the young kids to get out and vote, as the elections came to each state- and I remember the joy as he slowly took the ones no one thought he could.....and I just crossed my fingers that he would beat Hilary. I don't know why I liked him so much better. For the most part, I would have to say it was a gut instinct. I know that real politicians and scholars would kill me for such a notion and, what with all the other bullshit that goes on in this misguided world, I don't care. I think intuition should be the first thing we base our actions on, and book knowledge and media and such can come second and can verify if our gut instincts are correct. And sometimes they aren't, but often times they ARE. I am a big believer in the workings of things that are invisible. And besides- I knew Obama's differences in policy issues, especially on health care and true justice and taxes. And he seemed more down-to-earth and truly in touch with parts of our world that people like Hilary Clinton had only ever seen from a fancy bulletproof windshield. I loved that about him. And I loved that his father was from Kenya. And I love that Kenya believed in him from before he was even Senator, and so very strongly did they.

Anyhow, it is now January 18th. And in a few short hours I will be on my way, along with 3 of my most favorite magicians in the world, to the other side of our nation to witness his Swearing In as our 44th President. My little night dream is going to come true. I can feel it. I have had a couple of dreams that have come true before, and I know that this is one of those ones. The feeling that was in that dream is about to be in my flesh and blood bones real life! I am so so excited. And to be with Heather and Joey and Emily....who else to be more courageous counterparts in the face of sleep deprivation and jet lag and claustrophobia and no toilets and freezing weather?!!! I can't wait I can't wait! I am actually stoked to be an American.

I know things won't change overnight with Obama, but I know that they will be PRESSURED to change in a way that WILL be realized. Things already have changed. The faces of our country are more optimistic and more inspired. It will take action on all of our parts, but, thank the dear kind lord, I finally have the motivation to take some action and not feel that it would be COMPLETELY IN VAIN, as I have the last 8-12 years. We can do something about things. And MAN, how things are going to change! For the good of all.