Road trips in Oregon start being fun at your first rest stop.

Daffodil time:

Classic vehicles:

Fancy tea a little farther on the way down:

Of course, we went for the theatre.  We saw four plays.  All were excellent.  Julius Caesar and Henry IV were done in modern clothes.

Falstaff was in a huge pink suit.

Lots of comic relief was welcome. Julius Caesar does not end well. Lots of special effects.  They know today’s viewers are used to lights and noise and choreography. We had excellent, close-up seats for everything. Don’t expect family groups to be a match, ethnically speaking. Don’t even expect characters to be the gender Will intended.  Took me a few seconds to figure that that girl in fatigues was Hotspur!

A movie turned play — Shakespeare in Love — was, I think, my fave.  It was done in “proper” costumes.

For a change of pace, we walked up the street past the Ashland Springs Hotel one night to the Cabaret Supper Theatre where we saw Noises off.  I had not laughed to much in a very long time.

Actually, we skipped the dinner option and went for dessert during the interim. An excellent decision.

Of course, it’s for the plays you go. But you must hike up Ashland Creek.  It’s really a just walk from the heart of downtown.

Where but here would you see a woman sitting in the rain playing her fiddle for her dog?

Or a little toddler’s bike momentarily abandoned with a helmet bigger than the bike?

The Episcopal Church has a beautiful garden with a labyrinth.

The main shopping street has a place for dogs to drink.  And everyone has a dog.

I missed Roxie but she was happily at 1880 with her best buddy Tita.

Driving home on St. Patrick’s Day, I was determined to have some corned beef.  We found some right off the Interstate at Seven Feathers Indian Casino, a place I’d never been before and will never visit again.  Casinos are mind boggling.

The corned beef was excellent.

A little later, Roxie greeted me at my kitchen door.  A good time was had by all.

Had such a lovely day.  Mother was the first to be in touch this morning with happy birthday wishes.  And it went on all day, including  sweet messages from my two darling un-sons-in-law.  Home from choir now and finishing off the cake left over from tea at Konditorei with Barb.  Found a beautiful branch of flowering plum waiting on the porch from Roxanne.  Then had a message from Kate that I had neglected to download an Amazon gift card she sent early today.  Fun!  Now I have to decide what I want to buy with it.  Big decision.

One of the coolest things that happened was that my wonderful yard guys insisted that Freida should be moved out of the raised bed and into her permanent location.

Not visible in this picture, a Pulaski fire axe, which John used as the primary tool for hacking out the ivy:

John volunteers at a local Audubon site every week where he employs this tool to the extent that he is known there as “Johnny Pulaski.”

He told me a funny story about when, at a much younger age, he showed up to his “tree work” job just slightly hungover and proceeded to swing his Pulaski right into his foot.  John and I always share great conversations and recommend books to read.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have a landscaper who is also a Renaissance Man.

Back to birthday thoughts:  Life is good.  On the outside, I look and feel my age.  But on the inside, I still feel like a girl.

Faithful readers of this blog — both of you — know how I love trees.  Especially coast redwoods.  Sequoia sempervirens.  I once lived in a house that sat in a grove of them.  And when I was forced to leave that house with a broken heart, it was mostly about leaving my trees.  I went out and blessed everyone of them on that sad day.

Coast redwoods don’t grow naturally this far north or this far inland, but there are a few, mostly planted through the intestines of birds, I am sure.  And, I now have a nice little grove of my own.

Last week, I stood in grief to see a giant one being taken down in a back yard next to Fred Meyer’s parking lot.  I always made a point to park beneath it.  It was a prayerful and meditative place for me.  One of the tree-remover-men tried to comfort me, but there was nothing for it.  He was just doing his job.

Here she is being stripped of her fragrant branches:

A few days later, I was  tromping around there, over the railing and down the ledge, meditating, praying, and grieving, when I discovered that, before she was destroyed, the mother tree had planted a child — a small neglected baby trying to survive among a bunch of firs.

I decided I had to bring her home to 1880.  No one but my dear friend Roxanne would have participated in this caper with me.  In fact, she did most of the heavy digging.  I owe her bigly.

Of course, trees always seem much bigger once you try dig them up and carry them up a  ledge and fit them into the back of the Subaru. (Actually, I once had one stick out through the open sunroof of earlier car.)

Now, she is trying to recovery from her brutal surgery in the old crumbling raised bed out back.   If she survives, she may just stay there.  I don’t want to traumatize her again to move her to a prettier location.

I have named her Freida because she came from Freddy’s parking lot.  I think it’s perfectly acceptable to name trees and to pray for them.  Please pray for little Freida.

“The Emperor’s New Clothes”  is a tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”

Episcopalians tend to be well-behaved.  We’re often referred to as the frozen chosen.  Not so much this century. We are attending rallies.  We are marching.  Sometimes silently, but in great numbers.  Our hearts and doors are open to everyone.

Pretty much all our founders were practicing Anglicans, though generally not men of faith.  But patriots? You betcha. Us too.

Our church bulletin is always a very large publication, a folded 11×17 folio in full color.  I have no idea how we afford the ink for printing that out each week.  Today, Our Lady of Liberty filled the cover:

I have stood at her feet.  I am a sentimental old fool, and in that powerful moment, tears fell.  If we could look closely today, would she be shedding tears too?  Did you know a broken chain lies at her feet?

Reading the back cover of our bulletin, I learned a great deal more about her history.  And I thought I knew it all. Emma Lazarus’s entire poem was also printed there as well.  The whole thing.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (Emma Lazarus November 2, 1883)

In the Prayers of the People, we read, “May we be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to the other nations of the earth.”  Amen

Mother of Exiles.   Our Lady of Sorrows.  Our Lady of Liberty.   Dear Lord, teach us how to wipe away her tears. Amen