How many people over 65 (and that includes me) are roaming around the halls of mental asylums, clicking on every doorknob and cutting and pasting their inmates as they search for old photographs and lost documents, repeating, hysterically, pdf. mpf, hypertext,.doc.? I have come up with a solution: a new organization,Technology Anonymous for Technotards (TAT). It may not sound politically correct, but it will save your sanity. Who would like to join me? It meets every Wednesday at 6 PM at the Langley Marina on Puget Sound. Come dressed in your diving gear. It will be a long, dark night, but it sure beats Bedlam.
All of which is to announce that at long last I have had my website upgraded with new photos, incredible insights (just ask my children if you don’t believe it), and a clickable map of my travels that exhausts even me. It will be launched by the middle of May (cross your fingers), so watch for it! If my erstwhile webmaster, Matt McDowell (www.screenthumb.com), survives the ordeal, he has very kindly agreed to be the premier advisor to TAT. That’s the first split infinitive I’ve used in years, but Matt deserves it!
As a heralding of spring I want to share this beautiful African lily, the rare yellow clivia, which my son, Tom, brought me a few weeks ago when he moved to Langley. And there is another orange one just getting ready to bloom. Doesn’t it make you want to dance? 
On the first day of March, Jon Pollack and I celebrated the beginning of the hiking season with a day trip to Park Forest near Eatonville. We were accompanied by old friends, the prolific historical writer, Dennis Larsen, and his wife, Pat Ziobron. Mt. Rainier was overpowering, with views all along the trail. I was unable to get a photo on the winding road back, but I did catch some beautiful shots at the marina in Tacoma near where Jon lives.
The closer you get the more beautiful it is!
Life continues in Langley, with enthusiastic Art Walks, excellent theater–a superb production of Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz–and an original musical, Pasture-ized, by Whidbey’s own Ken Merrell and Eileen Soskin, which could well start, immediately, Off-Broadway. And, of course, volunteering in the garden is in full sway as the fresh produce has returned in abundance, thanks to the tireless work of the garden experts and their apprentices. I haven’t forgotten about Yolmo/Helambu. Just had a little detour, but it’s on its way….
worldofjules
Hi Meg!! Ah yes the stresses of technology- I could have smashed the computer (actually I am more likely to just cry truth be told) the other day making midterms cause I could not get the dam graph to cut and paste without changing it’s format – suddenly the graph turns into numbers, so I ask for help again and again…almost done. 9 weeks and teaching is OVER.
Ranier is a most glorious mountain, I have seen others- you have sen more- but she is so, well, shapely! It is already hot here in Taiwan , I am biking further and further every weekend and feel great. In July I will go to Kauai for 6 days, whoopee!! and then to Harbin Hot Springs in Cal where I hope to become a resident, doing whatever to be with community, good people gardens, nature in general. Enough city!! Good to read from you! Best of luck! Julia
Jon Pollack
I love that picture of Rainier!