Jaunty July Juxtapositions

(For the record, NO, I have no idea what the title means...so don't ask....the words are far and above me, I know not their meaning....nor care to.  And on that note, I pass you along to the rest of this delirious post......)

Well well, it's the 4th of July.  No, not just a date on the calendar, but the birth date.  Happy 235th birthday, US of A.  You've come a long, long way.  And you've got a long, long way to go.  Let the sparklers, watermelon, and bar-b-ques begin!  It is one of my more favorite holidays.  I love the community feel, the whole front porch and backyard gathering romanticism of the day.  The sunshine, the outdoors, the after-dark colors in the sky.  It should have been my own father's 80th birthday.  But he didn't make it past age 62.   I think he'd still be full of vim and vigor if he were alive today.

Friday will see me on my way to the Northeast Coast of the US.  Provincetown, Massachusetts, for Bear Week.  Year three.  We stay in a home that used to house the rail master.....Provincetown is at the far tip of Cape Cod....and the yard next to the house we stay in was the turnaround point for trains.  And the railmaster lived in the home we now stay in.  The town is filled with thousands of good looking men who either are bears, cubs, otters, dolphins, or some other form of animal.  Don't ask.  It is a busy week filled with all sorts of activities from morning until late at night.  A couple of things are on my list this year that I have not done in years past:  Spiritus Pizza with hundreds of guys at 1am and the boat shuttle out to the Long Point lighthouse that sits, quite literally, at the last piece of land on Cape Cod.  I can't wait.  Plus, I have tickets to see Pam Ann for a one-night-only show. 

I'm continuing to put in a ton of work hours on a special, ongoing months-long project developing training for our flight attendants.  I've really had to get my head around the thinking, plotting, planning, writing, developing piece of this whole thing.  I've been out of practice on those sorts of things for years.  Serving drinks year in and year out can lead one to a soft brain.  The piece that I'm crafting is Being the CEO Of Your Own Life.  Taking charge, being the boss, not being the middle manager of....you.  Just you.  Your choices, your decisions, your reactions.  It has been through redraft after redraft already -- and I imagine that process will continue until the mid-September rollout.

We finally have a bit of summertime temperatures here in the Pacific Northwest.  I'm telling you, there's nothing like the mornings and evenings -- with the blue skies, light breezes, and all of the amazing natural beauty that our area offers.  I did try to get out to Sauvie Island one of our two clothing-optional beaches last weekend.  The Columbia River water levels are super high right now which led me to having to wade through more than two feet of water just to reach dry ground.  The mosquitoes were something else.  But I did enjoy a few hours of sunshine.  I'm more than looking forward to more trips to the beach as the summer progresses.  Our other beach, Rooster Rock, is well under water for at least a few more weeks.  Here's a map that I developed a few years ago.