A Tale of Two Gearhart Vacations

I’m back from my 45th summer vacation in Gearhart. As I mentioned before I left, Gearhart is my most favorite place on earth. Gearhart is a village of just under 1500 residents located on the northern coast of Oregon.

The First Tale

In August 2008, a small plane crashed into a home in Gearhart. “The house exploded into flames, killing three children: Julia, 10, of Southwest Portland, and her cousins, Sam, 12, and Grace 7, of Denver, Colo.” (Kimberley A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian). Julia’s mother and two siblings were also home and were Life Flighted back to Portland with serious injuries; they are all physically recovered now. The other adults in the house that morning had walked down to Pop’s Sweet Shop for coffee and scones, as is customary in Gearhart.

That’s all they did. They left to get coffee and returned to a house in flames and three children dead. For those families life would never be the same; Gearhart would never be the same.

The Second Tale

We got to the beach on Friday the 3rd. Brigid asked me that night if I would rent the girls wet suits for the week. Yes!  That is a great idea, they’ll be warmer in the water and have more fun and exercise.  I have been going to Gearhart since I was 2. I have a respect for the ocean and grew up instilled with awareness of the Pacific Ocean’s undertow and warnings to not go too far out. After renting the wet suits, I told the girls that wearing them could give them a false sense of security. “You still have to be careful.” They loved them! Lisa and her girls came down on Tuesday and brought their wet suits. Yay for wetsuits!

Early in the afternoon, last Wednesday, we all loaded up bags and towels and chairs and magazines tromped off to the beach for another glorious sunny day in Gearhart.

Before letting the girls take off for the water, Lisa and I got a bunch of pictures of our Malibu Barbies.

Annie, C., K. and Brigid

The girls went into the water. Lisa and I sat in our beach chairs flipping through magazines and chatting, chatting, chatting. Not much time had passed when I looked at the girls out in the water and thought, “that doesn’t look right.” I told Lisa that I thought they were too far out and she said, “but they’re standing.” I don’t care, I don’t want them standing in water that deep. We continue to talk and I’m watching the water.

Lisa’s daughter K. is waving at us and yelling, “Mom!” And Lisa says, “ohhh, she wants me to come swimming.” Lisa is a swimmer. I don’t like the looks of things and get up and start walking toward the water. Then K. is screaming my name. I pick up the pace and keep yelling at her “what?!” I thought if this kid is just screaming to scream, I’m going to punch her. When I know for a fact that she is screaming with fright because something is wrong, I start running into the water. I dive in and start swimming out. Lisa’s 15 year old, C. is coming at me and tells me that my girls can’t get back. I tell C. and K. to get on the beach and keep swimming. Brigid is closer to me. I realize that I can’t do this. I’m not physically able to get out far enough.

I feel like such a loser but I know I have to stop and leave my kids.

Leave. My. Kids.

I turned around and screamed for Lisa, who came running into the water and she went out after Annie. I swam out where I could talk to Brigid and told her I was there and it was okay. Told her to rest on her back for a bit and I would watch her. She finally got close enough that I could get an arm around her and swim her back in and get her on the beach. There was a woman and another couple on the beach calling 9-1-1. Gearhart is not a busy beach. Even on her busiest days, it’s not that crowded and there are not any lifeguards.

I swam back out and waited and watched Lisa swim out to Annie. I prayed. I think I had a second of  wanting to get hysterical but knew that was not going to help anything. So I waited and prayed and believed that I had made the right choice in letting Lisa go get Annie.

I’m writing this today so clearly there was a happy ending. The police and the fire department arrived just as Annie and Lisa were coming out of the water. They had called a Coast Guard helicopter which was en route and happily they got to tell them to turn around.

I think the whole event took less than 15 minutes. I think.

As Lisa has said, that day we all had to choose between the tough option and the tougher option. All the choices made were the right ones and resulted in a positive outcome. No one panicked. I think Annie was in shock but she listened to Lisa and didn’t claw at her or flail around in the water. Lisa’s 30-year-old lifeguard training came to her instantly. I didn’t add fuel to the fire and get myself stuck out there. K. listened to her sister, when C. said, “get out of the water and get mom.”

None of the girls could pinpoint when the fun stopped and the riptide took over. The Pacific Ocean in Oregon is cold. I never got cold. I didn’t even realize how freaked out I was until I had to sign waivers for the girls not to go to the hospital. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely sign my name. Lisa and I have both tried to downplay the severity of the situation but at the time we didn’t know if anyone was coming. We didn’t know a helicopter was on the way. We didn’t know if Lisa, without a wet suit, would get cold and cramp up or if Annie would panic and take them both down. We just didn’t know.

Two Families, Two Vacations

I have no idea why this summer my children were spared and in 2008, the other children weren’t.

No one did anything wrong. As I told Annie, her number wasn’t up.

I know and love plenty of people who don’t believe in God or believe in Something but not sure what it is or are devout Christians or Catholics or Jews. I believe in God. I believe in the power of prayer and the comfort of knowing that I have back up. I’m not alone. I am grateful for that faith. I’m grateful Annie has that faith; that she prayed while she was out past the second break of the waves. She didn’t know if anyone was coming. She thought she was going to die. She was calm and prayed.

I don’t think God is micro-managing earth and picking and choosing what happens everyday. I think the same thing that saved my kids was the same thing that got them out there in the first place…those wetsuits. But belief in God comforts me and I hope it comforts the families who tragically and horrifically lost children four summers ago.

I pray for the parents of Julia and Sam and Grace.

Grace and Sam. Photo Courtesy of St. Anne’s Episcopal School

I remember clipping Julia’s obituary out of the paper and saving it to remind me how short and precious life is.

Julia. Photo courtesy of Oregonlive.com

I don’t even know where I’m going with this. These are two stories from Gearhart, that shook me deeply but I thought of God instantly. We weren’t alone out there.

I’m Going on Vacation

so you won’t be hearing from me for awhile because I’m a “no computers on vacation” sort of person.

I’m going to load you up with a bunch of stuff here so that you can just pick and choose and not read all at once so you don’t have Maggie withdrawals.

This JUST happened:

I went out to my car to get my phone. I park in the lower level parking lot which, as you may imagine, is darker than parking on top out in the sun. I got my phone and was walking to the exit stairs when a man and his 5-6 year old son came running down the stairs and the man let the kid run through the parking lot, between cars to the next row, between cars out to the next row. Wow, REALLY?! You dumb shithead, if you don’t care whether or not your kid gets hit by a car, I guess you really don’t care how the driver of the car would feel after hitting a little kid that just ran full speed in front of their moving car. People can really piss me off. I made a LOT of faces in the elevator after that!

Search terms

I have been noticing some odd internet search terms that are bringing people to my blog. I don’t know that I want people who are searching for these things reading my blog. Sampling:

Fat stay at home mom — you know what? you watch your mouth!

oh my big teenage boner! – yes, with exclamation point!

tattooed guys give me lady boner shirt — wear that with pride

how do you know if you still have your ovaries — Wait, what?! You would notice if your ovaries dropped out? Right?

justin bieber boners 2012 — ick icky icky mcick ick

emu fat butt — hahahaha

and my all time FAVORITE…drum roll, please…..

what my spam do in your body when I fuck you — I don’t know, you tell me. What does your spam do? That means the guy is doing it wrong because after that act there should not be any canned lunch meat or junk email in anyone’s body.

Gearhart

I’m going to Gearhart which is a very small town on the Oregon Coast. Gearhart is my most favorite place in the world. My family has been going there since I was 2…gack! That’s 45 years!!! ermergerd! It’s going to be hotter than balls in Portland which means it will be crazy beautiful weather at the beach.

We have rented a house that I hear is wonderful. My sister Molly, her husband Sebastian and my nephew Matt are there with Brigid and Annie and I are going down tonight. Next week my pal Lisa is coming with her girls and my ex is coming for a few days and then we will wind up with Derwood and his daughter, Q. Yayayayayay!!! I’m bringing tennis racquets AND we are going to play golf. I haven’t golfed in almost 20 years so that should be fairly entertaining.

Gearhart the best place on earth.

I will be back on the 13th. Don’t have fun without me.

And Now, the List You Have All Been Waiting For!

Here it is, the list of all the things I HAVE done. I have done half of the things from the original list. My life isn’t that exciting and I’m not particularly brave as you know from the Wouldn’t Be Prudent List. My point being… whoever wrote this list really should aim higher.

100 Things To Do That Make Life Exciting, Fulfilling or Better Than the Lives of People Who Haven’t Done These Things.

The “Been There Done That” Edition.

1. Sleep under the stars – Back in the old days before my family had central air conditioning, we would sleep on the patio furniture out on the deck when it was really hot.
2. Visit Hawaii — check (and for the record, my visits to Hawaii have been in person).
3. Watch a meteor shower – I did this the last time I went camping.  In 1977, I went camping on Mt. Washington. I returned home to the news that Elvis had died. I haven’t gone camping since then due to my concern for the well-being of cultural icons.
4. Give more than you can afford to a charity – My ex-husband was no stranger to bidding against himself at school auctions or buying things by accident when he thought he was just “bidding them up”. Once he spent $900 on a wine collection. I don’t need no freakin’ wine collection, I’ll drink vinegar and I wanted the mosaic garden pillars!
5. Go to Disneyland/Disneyworld – Pictures from Disneyland contributed to the creation of this blog.
6. Climb a mountain – I don’t think I climbed all the way to the top of Mt. Washington but some of it, I had to see the meteor shower.
7. Sing a solo—it doesn’t say “sing a solo in front of a paying audience” so I have definitely done this.
8. Visit Paris – I have been to Paris a few times all while I was going to school in Dijon (and yes I do have a mustard story). If you are going to Paris, stay at the Hotel du Comfort in the 6th arrondissement (it has the delightful aroma of overcooked cabbage with just a hint of old litterbox. They may have a room named for me and my roommate — who they described as “affreuse” which means “hideous” in French.) Drink at the Pub St. Germaine. And perhaps repair to Pussy Bar for an after dinner cognac. Or stay the hell away from any of those places and most others that I frequented during my 1986 European tour.
9. Teach yourself an art from scratch—I don’t really know what this means. I took up needlepoint before I had my first child because I thought it seemed like a maternal activity. I also vowed to start drinking hard liquor once I had kids because that also seemed more maternal. My mother knitted and drank Black Velvet, perhaps at the same time, I don’t remember.
10. Have food poisoning – Not sure why this is on the list but I have….thanks to a chicken panini. And if you haven’t done this, don’t go out of your way to try it.
11. Walk to the top of the Statue of Liberty – I have been to the Statue of Liberty but it was not open for climbing to the top. I give myself a half point for this.
12. Grow your own vegetables – Yes I have. There is a garden tomato story involving Brigid when she was 4.  I may write it up in the future to prove what a good (read: horrible, negligent) mother I am.
13. See the Mona Lisa in France – I don’t know where else you would see Mona unless they move the Louvre out of France. I have seen the Mona Lisa. It is much smaller than I expected and I had to fight through throngs of photo-snapping Japanese tourists to see her. I didn’t have all day, we did the Louvre in about an hour because we were late for the Pub St. Germain.
14. Sleep on an overnight train – I slept in a couchette from Paris to the south of France and it was one of my best night’s sleep EVER.
15. Have a pillow fight – check.
16. Take a sick day when you’re not ill – Duh.
17. Go skinny dipping — Done. Unless you are my children reading this then NO I would never do that! Girls! Go do your homework!
18. See a total eclipse – I don’t know if this is referring to a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse, or a total eclipse of the heart; but I have seen all of those things.
19. Watch a sunrise or sunset – Check. Who hasn’t? Blind people haven’t, Maggie you insensitive cow.
20. Visit the birthplace of your ancestors, as well as their burial places – How far back do you go for someone to be an “ancestor”? Do my parents count? If so, yes I have done this.
21. Teach yourself a new language – a new made up language or a language already in use?
22. Had enough money to be truly satisfied – Probably once for like an hour.
23. Walk on a beach by moonlight — Check
24. Go by ambulance – Yep. Did the ambulance ride after the elective surgery adventure.
25. Have your portrait painted — I had my portrait pastelled during same trip to Vancouver BC when the Emu tried to capture my sister Molly.
26. Kiss in the rain — Check
27. Play in the mud – I’m guessing I have. Does gardening count?
28. Go to a drive in theater – I first saw “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” at a drive-in.
29. Start a business – I once had cards and letterhead printed for my business. I didn’t actual do or run a business but I did start it.
30. Sell Girl Scout Cookies – I was a Bluebird/Campfire Girl, even then I knew my limitations as a salesman. My mother had to buy my allotment of Campfire candy because I absolutely refused to sell candy door-to-door.  I have stood outside Zupan’s with my children who were selling Girl Scout cookies.
31. Get flowers for no reason – I don’t know if this refers to giving OR receiving flowers for no reason; I definitely buy me flowers for no reason.
32. Donate blood, platelets or plasma – I have done this but  not an activity I excel at.
33. Bounce a check – Duh. And once again, don’t make this a goal.
34. Save a favorite childhood toy – can I save adult toys? (Girls! Go do your homework!)
35. Eat caviar – Yes and I ate it like Tom Hanks in “Big”.
36. Piece a quilt – I did piece together an afghan that I knit, like a quilt afghan not the Taliban.
37. Stand in Times Square – Yep.
38. Be fired from a job –- Strangely enough, that’s only happened once and they called it “laying off”.
39. Break a bone – check… one elbow, one leg not at the same time.
40. Have your picture in the paper – check
41. Visit the White House – check.
42. Have chickenpox — yes, that was quite an accomplishment in my youth
43. Join a book club — and then made a fool of myself by picking “Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas” for the group to read. Don’t read that book it is complete treacly melodramatic shite.
44. Lose a loved one — I’m assuming this means have someone you love die, not just lose them in a mall. Either way, I’ve done both of those.
45. Have a baby –check twice.
46. Save someone’s life — I think I’ve done this. A couple of years ago during a heat wave (100-105ish), I checked on my elderly neighbor Darlene and she was walking but not responsive, she couldn’t see or hear me and I was in her face yelling her name. Had to call 911 and she never came back to that house. She is still alive but living in an assisted living facility.
47. Be involved in a lawsuit – I am involved in a class action suit right now!  It’s somebody against Netflix and I’m in line to get a cash settlement. My ship has come in!!!
48. Own a cell phone — Grudgingly.
49. Be stung by a bee — Check, again why is this necessary before I die? Doing this could kill some people, which I suppose brings us full circle.
50. Read an entire book in one day — Check.

There. My work on this list is done. I have no idea why #38 hasn’t happened many times, what with my work ethic and all.

I am just like Mrs. HuWhiggins

 

Question: Do You Still Have Your Ovaries?

and other things I wasn’t expecting over the girls weekend in Black Butte Ranch.

I took Friday off work to prep and pack and then drive the almost three hours with Calamity Jane (CJ) and Slim Whiskey and Jane’s dog Bailey.

Bailey discovered she thoroughly enjoys sitting in a booster seat.

Aside: we took aliases to protect us from…from really nothing, it’s just fun to pick aliases. Bailey is actually the dog’s name, she couldn’t decide what she wanted for an alias and we eventually got tired of quibbling about it with her.

I picked CJ up at her house and then we went downtown to pick up Slim. CJ informed me that Slim worked in the building “across from the food carts.” Sweet feathery Jesus! We’re in Portland, please see map below and pick out that one building across from the food carts.

See all those little spoons and forks? Those represent food cart clusters.

So CJ texted Slim, “Cross street?” We received the reply, “sure”. It’s no small miracle we ever left the city limits. Eventually, we had a great drive full of fun conversation about our past selves in high school and college; our parents; jobs….nothing heavy just good conversation.

CJ and I have only known each other since 2005 but have become very close friends in that time. Seeing as how we are in our late-ish 40s and we both are big talkers, sharers, story-tellers; I wasn’t expecting to be surprised by anything she said but that’s what surprises are, the unexpected. During the drive, I didn’t expect CJ to tell us that a couple of weeks ago while standing in the kitchen, watching her coffee go round and round in the microwave, counting down the seconds to hot coffee “25, 24, 23…. ” nodding hello to the dog, just about out the door for an appointment…Calamity Jane without warning of any sort, shit her pants.

Typing that made me laugh out loud and every time she told the story this weekend. I laughed till I cried.

Welcome to the 40 Something Edition of Girls’ Weekend.  Topics may include:

• Hysterectomy, if so Do You Still Have Your Ovaries?
• Waxing…yes? no? where? did you let it grow back once you had kids?
• Colonoscopies… Yes but noooo!
• If you could, would you have sex with the pan of salted caramel butter bars?
• Would you harvest your eggs to pay for college?
• Are we too old to harvest our eggs now?
• What do you mean Ryan Gosling doesn’t do anything for you? are you dead? (this conversation was had Saturday night while the six of us sat in our jammies and fleeces eating burritos and watching “Crazy Stupid Love”.  I win Ryan because I have had Ryan love since “Remember the Titans”.)

Really? Ryan does NOTHING for you? NOTHING???

That's right, I've loved him since waaaaayyyy back in 2000. So back off ladies!

Smitty or Shorty, depending on the mood of our elfin hostess, opened her house and her hot tub to us ladies. Smitty is a wonderfully generous and crazy funny woman, who does a great Hop Sing from Ponderosa imitation. Sure, it’s offensive but it’s also funny as all hell and it’s our weekend, we can offend if we want to.

There were two teams for the hot tub: the Free Team and the Never Nude team. The Never Nudes were comprised of the three women who were raised as Catholics (me, Smitty and Cracklin’ Rosie); the Free Team included CJ (once again was never expecting to see Calamity Jane in the hot tub buck ass naked), Slim and Auntie Mame. Auntie Mame is mother of Lydia. Lydia got her ass dumped at day-care first thing Friday morning because her mother, had “a bag of booze and a bag of food” and wanted to get the party started. We were lucky to have Slim with us because she provided the only level of serenity present for the weekend. Slim’s laugh is sparkling, she is smart and witty but not quite as explosive as the rest of us. I don’t know if she farted all weekend.

We had such a wonderful time because for those three days, six women were content in our lives.

Work is fine, no one is in the throes of a painful relationship, children and step-children seem to be doing okay, no parents are dying. While all of us have waded through the walk of fire that can be life; for three days we were plain old happy. No one talked about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket, no arguments, tears were reserved for hysterical laughter. For three days the sun shone; the house was filled with laughter, good drinks and even better food, and a giant bowl of jelly bellys; we were not moms or wives or bosses; we were sleepy but not tired; our little copper sombreros runneth over.

Cracklin’ Rosie is a media maven, well-versed in US Weekly and a PR star; she will help the six of us forge ahead with our screenplay, the story must be told.

*No garments were soiled in the writing of this blog.