Sometimes you need to stop

The wind is howling outside the window, the leaves are skittering across the field behind my house, and thank God--the hay is gone. I know it's hay because someone actually mowed it this year. Guess they needed it for the cows or something. There's a drought going on and it hasn't rained in weeks. There are wildfires on the other side of the mountains and up north--occasionally it swings down this way when someone throws a cigarette on the side of the road, but they put it out quickly. Five hundred acres out in the back of beyond are maybe a dozen houses. Five hundred acres in the Seattle metro area is crazed panic.

I'm back on Benadryl. The hives have returned with a vengeance, although telling a doctor I suffer from "stress" just makes them roll their eyes. The funny thing is I break out even when I don't feel pressured, and I'm starting to think I've been running crazy for such a long time I'm stressed at not being stressed. I work better under deadlines anyway. My kid has stabilized for now, and is back to being his normal grumpy self which gave me a little time to organize some folders I created back in June. One contained pictures I took when my friend Laura stopped by on her way to Alaska. It'd been raining for days and then--out of the blue, stopped for twenty-four hours. Just long enough for her to drag me on the Ducks--singing, dancing and boppin' to eighties music while we drove around Seattle in a WW ll amphibious assault vehicle rigged out with a duck bill and loudspeakers. Gotta say, it was the cheesiest thing I've done in...ever. In a sneaking kind of way, I really enjoyed it. Even the bit where the driver got everyone singing Village People songs.

We took a ferry ride over to Bremerton

 ...and I got lost looking for the way home. I carry a map in the car, but forgot Bremerton was in a different county. I figured if I drove around long enough I'd run into something I recognized. I found a church instead--a very cool white one with green trim. It said, "Stop!"

It's been a long time since my last set of church pictures, and I felt goofy making a u-turn in the middle of Bremerton, but the star and Christmas lights were so...I dunno, "folk-art" compared to Holy Rosary in Tacoma. Pretty though, and I have this thing about green.

Gorgeous windows.

I found the sign a few minutes later. Guess I just needed to turn around to see where I had to go.