It is fully summer, even here on the Oregon coast, where some years (looking at YOU, 2025) we don’t even get a summer. This year is so extremely summer that I do not quite know what to do with myself, but I’m regretting my fully rational decision not to even try growing peppers and basil this year. This year, I could probably do it.

Summers are glorious for me because my workplace closes on Fridays in July and August. Thanks to Juneteenth and a sane PTO policy, I have added the last two Fridays in June to that already generous and wonderful list. Three day weekends! Three days! So I have started a little art project I’m calling the One Hour Painting, in which I am going to make at least one painting or print or piece of actual art every weekend in, you guessed it, One Hour. Well, actually, it could be longer I guess, but One Hour is the minimum and, knowing me, it will just be One Hour. This is a great idea and I already feel better than I have in a while, even though I drank 4 glasses of red wine on the phone with my Canadian friend yesterday and my digestive system is furious.

Here is my painting. It is the very first of a series I’ve been planning called 100 Views Of Saddle Mountain. By planning I mean it keeps running around my head and I think, oooh, I should do that, plus occasionally I take photos to use as references except then I lose them. I recognize that this is a hubristic take on Hokusai, who famously did 100 Views of Mt. Fuji, and none of mine are going to be even half as good as one of his, but! I too live near a volcanic mountain! Plus I don’t think anyone has ever done it on account of Saddle Mountain is just not that famous. So here is #1. We can but hope that they get better as we go along.

And now, the week, in which I really didn’t take any very good photos. Well, one. Maybe two. Some weeks are like that. On Sunday I stayed home and here’s a little collage of my messy bedroom on one side and my messy courtyard on the other. Monday we all went to the beach and here’s Four striding along with Harvey the dog. It was an awesome walk. Four has been going through a Thing where she had gotten a terrible fear of sneaker waves (this is mostly my fault, see February 22 although her mother says it has happened at least twice before) and has been refusing to go to the Beach. But she was very brave and stayed up at the high tide line* and a nice time was had by all. I like this photo a lot. Tuesday, this was so beautiful, the fog and the gillnetter and the still sky that I had to stop and try to take a picture on my way home. This photo is just okay. I wish it was better. Wednesday the palliative care nurse who comes to visit my brother every six weeks or so was here and after everybody left I made myself an egg sandwich before I went back to work. Thursday morning on the way to work we had to stop the car for this deer and twin fawns and then, eleven hours later on the way home from work, we had to do it again for the same little family. So these are two terrible phone photos jammed together. Friday, I finally got the whole courtyard settled and I love it so much. And yesterday, Saturday, I was mostly home and this is from quality time on the couch with Mr. Binks. I just discovered that there are several seasons of Downton Abbey I never bothered to watch because I got so fed up with everyone, so I’m trying that again. And that was last week, the week before the solstice, and here we are, midsummer!

* I like to walk the high tide line sometimes as a sort of meandering meditation, like a labyrinth only with seaweed. I recommend it!