comedy of errors

Berries in the snow, Portland Oregon
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

This has been the ultimate comedy of errors vacation! So the main point of me coming here was to see my daddy, who I try to see once a year. Usually I don't come in winter, and I picked a fine winter to come to Oregon! I ended up in a once in 40 years snowfall event. The thing is, I was supposed to fly home on United on Christmas day. I took a jaunt up to Tacoma (outside Seattle, WA) to visit my cousin, and had planned on coming back to see my dad on the weekend when he was off work. But because my dad was snowed in, and because I wanted to get home early to see Doug before he went offshore, I changed my flight to the 22nd - today. Well, last night I got an automated call that my flight was cancelled...

So Annie Rose was supposed to fly home also, and I was going to catch a ride with her since her friend was driving her, and I'd stay at the airport and just try to get on a standby flight. But her flight was also cancelled! I also have a rental car that I somehow have to get back to the airport but they are requiring chains on all vehicles driving around and I'm stuck without any chains. I can pay the rental car company to pick the car up, or I can risk driving without chains. Mind you there's like a foot of snow and ice on all the roadways and I have no idea whether I could make it! I can't get a shuttle or a cab because everyone's totally in the same boat. It's just a snowed in crazy mess. So I'm just biding my time, waiting and praying for a miracle that I can get a way to the airport, get on a standby flight and get home before Doug goes offshore. This morn he got the call he may be leaving... today. Nice luck I have. :(

Snow-covered lawn...
Icy evergreen
The Hanukkah hookers transformed into the Hanukkah housewives, making potato latkes!
Rose mixing up potato latkes :) Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah Hooker party

In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically.
– Vincent van Gogh

What can I say, life is always odd and fun! I somehow found myself at a Hanukkah Hooker Dance party! Because of the snowy icy blizzardy conditions, instead of getting to visit my daddy (he is snowed in!) I am staying with my friend Annie Rose in her pad in Portland, which is about 5 miles from the airport (whether I'm going to be able to make it there at 4am tomorrow morn is another story altogether. Chains are required all throughout Portland, the streets are completely snowed under and iced... and I may have to find some alternate plans to get to the airport and get my rental car returned!)

But I digress. Annie Rose and her friend Samantha had planned a Hanukkah Hooker party Sat night and despite the crazy weather the show went on as planned! What a blast! It was the 5th annual one, apparently, which Samantha had previously done in Boise. We all dressed up in crazy hot hooker clothes, and dressed the guys up too. I am gonna have to have one of these at home. They do lots of funny costume parties including a mustache party, and an ugly sweater party. ha ha! What can I say it's Oregon, hippieville, my home state! Love it!

serendipity

I took these pics with my phone so bear with the poor quality! Yesterday Holly and the kids and I walked down to the fish market on the waterfront to get some salmon. As soon as I walk outside, it snows. LOL. Little J loves trains and sure enough we got to see a train passing by. We came back up the hill and stopped into Starbucks where I got my latest fave, a salted caramel hot chocolate with a shot of espresso - yum! By the time we started to walk the three blocks back to their house, the snowflakes were giant! I was jumping up in the air to catch them on my tongue! They were so large, and the snow was so powdery it made me want to go skiing! :)

Holly and her two adorable kiddos as we walked to the waterfront.

Snowy rocks on the waterfront.

Another view of the waterfront in Tacoma.

OK I had one of the weirdest bits of serendipity tjust a few minutes ago. I had just arrived in Portland after a treacherous drive down I-5 from Tacoma. It started out fine but about an hour out of Portland it started snowing and the snow started accumulating on the freeway in parts, swirling about. I thought it was fine but it started getting worse, and then as I watched, the truck in front of me fishtailed to one side, then another side, and I thought they were going to correct and straighten up but then the truck went sideways all the way across the freeway and smashed into the bank and rail, flipping halfway sideways. I would have stopped but I was afraid I'd fishtail and crash myself and I wasn't able to slow down in the snow/ice and I saw a couple others stopping so I knew it was ok. But I went about 30-40mph all the way to Portland!! So then I arrived at my friend Annie Rose's (who owns the business Moon Pads) and I parked in front of he place and she was at the coffee place so I walked up the street to Random Order Coffee house.

So I'm there at the counter, ordering a fried egg sandwich and a mocha, and he asked for my name, and I said, Wendee. And another guy behind the counter says, "Holtcamp." And I looked up and see Jacob Elliot - a guy I'd met randomly at the Portland Saturday Market like 4 years ago. He is an extremely talented musician and at the Saturday Market I was blown away by his talent and went up and introduced myself. So we had emailed a bit when we first met and then sort of lost touch except being Myspace friends. But he had moved to L.A., and what was he doing here in Portland, in the same coffee shop that I was at.... I was like Oh my God what are you doing here?! It was pretty cool! Then my cell phone, which was in my pocket, randomly called my boyfriend, who heard me talking all friendly and surprised like to some guy... LOL. He he -- the way the world sometimes works cracks me up! :)

So now I'm buckling in for the cold and waiting til Monday morn to fly home, hoping the airport stays open and I can manage to drive there at 4am Monday! It's 26 degrees with a wind chill of 14!

snowed in

Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
--Emily Dickinson

Boy it's been a snowy, wintry wonderland since I've been here! We'll get one clear day then a boatload of snow. I am still in Tacoma and pondering whether to return to Portland, or my dad's log cabin (about an hour away from Portland) today or tomorrow. I leave home Monday morn super early so need to be in Portland by Sun night at the latest but a huge storm is predicted with ice and snow Saturday afternoon, so I definitely gotta get there before then. The downfall is that I may not get to see my dad again! The original plan was to spend this coming weekend with him while he's off work, but... we got a very rare snowfall event. Like a once in 20 years snowfall snowstorm event! Apparently the area only gets about 11" of snow a year (which is nothing, compared to Colorado and other snowy places!). It typically snows about once a year here in the coastal Pacific NW and it rarely sticks for long. So I picked a fine time to travel! However I am blown away by the beauty and peacefulness, and I'm cozy inside (except when we venture out to play!).

So I've just been hanging out with my cousin Holly, her husband Ross and their adorable two kids! They have an awesome home with a view of Puget Sound and it's very peaceful and cozy here. I am trying to get caught up on some work, such as teaching my writing class, which ends this weekend (a new one starts up Jan 3!).

My latest article is out, in Scientific American Magazine, Jan 2008. Check it out...Fury Over Conservationists Taking Fees from Developers: proposed megaport and a sea-turtle nesting beach collide within the group that maintains the endangered species list. Here's a PDF of the story that looks really cool with the sea turtle image.

We walked down to the Starbucks a few blocks away and it started snowing. We caught snowflakes on our tongue! :)

My niece making snow angels!

The "Snowhead" Ross and the kiddos made. It started to melt a bit when the weather warmed up, but then it snowed again yesterday and they made an even bigger one!
The view out their window. Looks like a Norman Rockwell painting!
My cousin Holly and I. We grew up together pretty much until I was about 8 and moved to my dad's!

magic

I've had an awesome few days. Tonight I took my kids and a friend's son to the TobyMac concert, or technically the Winter Wonder Slam which also had Relient K, Family Force 5, and B. Reith. It was great! TobyMac is one of my all-time favorite musical artists. He rocks! I enjoyed the other three artists as well, but TobyMac was just incredible. I had to convince Savannah to stand up and rock out with me, jump up and down, and be wild and crazy. Sam and Conner didn't during the first artists... but they did stand up for TobyMac. :) There was a part during the concert when he told a story of his childhood, and then said "don't despise your youth" and that sometimes things are planted that you never know how God will use when you're an adult and it brought tears to my eyes.

I also thought that it was totally cool that the promo materials had the abominable snowman because I LOVE the abominable snowman! In fact, I bought myself a Christmas present this year that is.... a fuzzy abominable snowman with moveable legs and arms, and he growls if you press his belly. I have the cutest pic I'll upload soon but I had to take my camera to the shop because it is giving me an error message (which is totally freaking me out because I need it on my trip to the Pacific NW and I leave Sunday!) The last week has been magical... though busy!

I've had one of those weeks where it's just one magical moment after another, with little things and cool happenings. For my memories: moonshine, sunshine, mad libs, snow, snuggles, unexpected surprise, hats, tears, full moon in the afternoon sky, flowers, fluffy purple elephant, abominable snowman, joy...

Twirling in the snow!


A picture of the sparkly snow. I loved staring at the sky and watching it come down in the giant flake.s I felt like I was inside a snow globe!


Doug showing his skateboarding skills.


Me trying to remember how to balance, and not doing a very good job!


Doug and I being silly. Or maybe just he is being silly!

it's snowing in Houston!

Sam and Savannah skiing at Monarch Mountain, Colorado in March.
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

I kid you not. It is actually snowing in Houston. I've been here more than 10 years and this is a first. Actually we got snow one Christmas, but I had the gall to be in the Bahamas "skipping Christmas" with my awesome best friend Daline, since it was my first without the kids after the divorce.

I've been swamped, trying to wrap up some things before I head to Oregon and Washington so I have nothing too profound to say right now. OK I did have one little nugget. I talked to a dear friend today about letting go of the need to control versus feeling the need to KNOW what is going to happen. I'm not a big fan of uncertainty. I'm used to being in charge of so many things - my finances, my house, the kids, my students, yada yada yada. I have a really hard time letting go and letting God. I struggle with a sort of anxiety when I want a particular outcome. I know I've said this all before in so different words. But how long does it take before I can truly be in a place where I can let go?

You hear all this advice "if you just think positive" or "everything will be ok" - but the reality is, and this is what my friend and I were talking about, we really do NOT know that everything will be ok. We don't know a LOT more than we "know." All I know is that I love God, and that God is FOR me not against me (even as I struggle to truly incorporate that thought into my psyche), and that our actions have consequences on this earth.

OK I'm gonna go catch snowflakes on my tongue now!