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Stoneboy came down and stayed with me for a whole frickin’ week!

He had a stone work symposium to attend down hereabouts and sculptures to work on for his upcoming gallery show(WOOOT!)..

So he had a lot to do, but we found time for lots o’ fun too and it was a marvelous thing to just do the silly little everyday boy/girlfriendly things that we generally miss out on, being citizens of different countries and all.

There was much beach time, cuddling, playing crazy ninja snuggle-monkeys with Sam, reading each other stories, lazing in the sun, cooking, eating, ‘xplorin’ parks, hanging with friends(who now believe he actually exists-isn’t merely a figment of my fertile imagination) and he even turned my mattress over-

-erph! Of course, for such an heroic effort, I had to reward him:

As only a bad faerie can.

A thoroughly enjoyable week. Too long ago, now.

Damn I miss that boy.

Added even more sand bunny(not to mention Led Zeppelin) goodness to my PNE sand sculpture set on flickr.

Many kisses to Delayne for the photos.

A sweet beach afternoon with Sam and Rowan..

Led to the creation of a bizarre articulated sand worm that Rowan says looks like a Pokemon-eeep!

Then the tide came whizzing in and we had to abandon the worm to the inexorable fate of all sand creations as we retreated to a more expansive part of the beach. Soon, the lovely miss Rita joined us and I made her a troll foot and built a small crowd of little rock people watching the multitude of parasailors leaping in and out of the water, with varying degrees of skill.

By and by, to my delight, Delayne made it into town(after much harrassment at customs-forgetting his passport didn’t help, but they never can resist f—ing with his irrepressible inner coyote) and restored the kidz swiftly drooping spirits with delicious sparkly beverages.

A brilliant launching point for a scrumptious week.

Pics in the usual location.

Sam and I had a lovely weekend staying at a little farm on Whidbey Island.

We met Velvet,

a very sweet jenny(female donkey), a bunch of buttheaded goats, chickens, ducks, an overwhelmingly enthusiastic young german shepherd named Savannah and a sweet kitty whose loft-leaping prowess has been sharpened to ninja-worthy extremes by Savannah’s ebullience.

Many thanks to Ginger, Delayney and Caden for sharing their beautiful place with us. It’s a gorgeous cabin and the loft was very cozy and happily for Sam, the dog could not climb ladders. Sam and Caden had a ton of fun bouncing madly on the giant trampoline out back.

Whidbey is beautiful too. We browsed the Langley galleries with their gorgeous bronze animals, awesome carved wood thrones and glass menageries and spent long, luscious afternoons on the beaches.

I made a sand dreamer

and Sam and I created a fort with three entrances and three bridges to reach the tunnels in the outer walls..

Beware the catapults of doom!

‘Twere a loverly weekend, capped off with a waffle(to the joy of my waffle-crazy boy) brunch in Langley on our way home.

Not so lovely to come home to clouds of flies hiding out in my eyrie and corpses all over the kitchen! Apparently Sophie waged war against the midges while we were gone and the ones that didn’t get bombed to death all flew upstairs. Gack.

More pics here. Of the trip, not the fly massacre.

Delayne sent me some of the pictures he took at the PNE. I added them to the flickr set.

He also posted some on his deviant art site. Which you really ought to check out-it’s free to register and there’s tons of great art on there.. But, for those of you whose head will asplode at the merest whisper of a thought of filling out yet another profile, I’ll have mercy and pilfer my two favorites to show you.

Behold, my bunny of awesomeness:

(click to enlarge)

and sculptin’s amazing tunnel of doom.

(click to enlarge)

Is that not the prettiest sand forest you’ve ever seen?

Had a sweet, sweet weekend up in Vancouver.

Delayne was carving sand into a rollercoaster for the PNE and I got to assist him and meet the rest of the team-what a great, goofy, talented bunch! It was so fun, the sand is amazing-so fine and silty and perfect for shaping. It holds it’s form exquisitely too. Such a joy to work with and so cool to learn new techniques and use all the clever tools(other than my own two hands!).

We made a little forest on the side of the rollercoaster, which I populated with birds and a rabbit.

Unfortunately, I was too absorbed to take many pictures, but Delayne snapped some, so hopefully he will get ‘em to me(nudge, nudge) and I’ll show y’alls later.

Despite an SUV vs. train wreck that caused my bus to sit(with me in it) for TWO HOURS at the King St Station before departing, much drenching rain and a certain lack of privacy(ahem), it was a succulent and rejuvenating trip and I daydreamed of sandy goodness, of smooth jazz and salty, sun-bronzed muscles, of the superfox waitress serving us luscious mussels in her tiny, slinky, sequined, suspendered minidress while we kissed and spun tales, all the long busride home.

Man, oh man, I needed that.

Life is gooooooood.

Once we nabbed our Delayne from the Coho, we hopped on 101 west to curve and twist and wind around the lovely, sparkly Lake Crescent on our way to Fairholm Campground.

Fairholm is a gorgeous, large campground and we lucked out on a spot not far from the lakeside that just fit our humonguous tent palace. Hurray for tall trees, chortling ravens, campfires, wading, cookin’ over campstoves, giggly tent mornings…

We hiked up to Marymere falls, where Delayne played Fallsmonkey.

(photo by Rita)

Sam collapsed dramatically at the top, almost missing the sight of the falls itself in his grand display of exhaustion. Downhill is always reinvigorating though and we found a wonderful wandering stream to follow as we got lost on the way back to the car.

D built an exquisitely balanced, pretty rock stack by the stream side whilst Sam and Rita skipped stones and I dreamily clambered about on the many wondrous logs piled topsy turvy over the river.

The next day the ocean beaches were calling us, so we piled in the car and followed a road that kept getting narrower and narrower, but did eventually bring us to the promised coastline and a perfectly marvelous beach.

We spent the whole day there exploring it’s bumpy cliffs, tidepools, amazing islets, driftwood fortresses and kelp whiptastic beaches.

Delayne showed Sam how to build sand pancake arches and drip trees, Rita made an awesomely spikey fort,

and I created a sleeping Sea witch.

Arrr, it were a grand day!

My full set of flickr’d pics live here and Rita’s(I must confess I stoled some), here.

Rita joined us the next morning(such a courageous road warrior-she took buses all the way from Seattle!) and Sam and I showed her our favorite coffee shop, sculptures, bookstores, grotty underpiers and of course, the beach.

I made a rock-happy sea monster while Sam and Rita conducted a major giant squid vs. supersoldier battle. I believe the squid won.

Sam made his first sand dragon too!

We picnicked and skipped rocks and lounged in the brilliant July sun ’til it was time to go meet Delayne’s ferry.

As we waited, the sun painted abstract works of fine art on the water, using the Clipper terminal as it’s medium.

Miro, eat your heart out.

Sam and I left Seattle behind today on a wander in Carkeek park.

We discovered a wonderful log-jammed stream, waded into an alternate universe…

…followed the silty sun-dappled water way down to the joy of triple culverts-

-emerged from the dark wet tunnels into the bright sunshine beach world full of stinky muck and glittering streams. Sam wandered off to discover the mysterious origins and ends of all creeks and I set off along the railroad embankment to find a spot o’ sandy goodness.

We rendevoused for a rock climb and Sam created strategic battle terrains whilst I coaxed a rhinoceragon out from the sand(they’re quite shy, when not terrorizing tourists).

Yay summer! More pics here.

I made this heart for Svadesh, my friend and meditation/massage teacher. He had a heart attack last friday. He’s recovering well, but I figured he could use a little heart strengthening energy. The yellow irises striped it sweetly with their lovely shadows.

It’s been a strange week, Sam’s summer vacation started this week, but he came home from his dad’s sick.. Then my mom’s message about Svadesh(I hooked her up with his extraordinary massages a while back and they’ve become good friends) and today, a kitty emergency-Kaya, my mom’s kitty who used to be ours, had to be rushed to the kitty critical care.

Apparently she’d tried to eat a barbed seedpod and the darn thing bit her back!-it was working it’s way up into her nasal cavity-yikes!

Anyway, man and cat survived and Sam is sniffly but on the road to recovery, making strange origami things on the bed whilst I blog…

So, on we go with this precious, messy, fragile, silly thing called life.