Back in the Fall of 2016 we needed to evict the tenants living in Sue's childhood home in Arlington, Washington. After several episodes of major vandalism, the house is torched intentionally on Halloween Night.
We intent to rebuild with our insurance money. We hire an architect and submit our plans to the county. Our permit is denied, because the Dept. of Natural Resources has now classified the orchard as critical area wetlands and has discovered a prime salmon spawning habitat in the dry gully 100' behind the old house. We are rebuilding our house (on the same spot) next to a slope greater than 10' in height, therefore to get our building permit approved we need to hire two separate consultants to file reports with the county planning department before we can begin to rebuild.
Business: The second of the two consultants is GeoTest, a firm that evaluates the geology of our land for landslide hazards. We request to be present when they are doing their site evaluation. We schedule to meet the GeoTest field geologist on August 2nd, where we will drive from Polson, Montana after spending a week-plus with my parents and our kids. We arrive in Arlington a day ahead of our morning appointment and make a late afternoon stop by to take a look at our dormant land, now secured behind a bomb-proof US Forest Service-style locked gate.
Sue unlocks our gate, recently re-welded after criminals cut through it with a power saw in June, and I drive down the old gravel driveway to the bare basement foundation where her childhood home once stood.
I unsheathe by dull machete to clear out the aggressive black berry vines as we both are eager to walk around our place. Now overgrown, but wooded and peaceful. Sue points out her favorite apple tree in the old orchard, the King Apple planted by her father, and I hack through the thorns and briers to get to where I can just barely reach up and pluck two King Apples from the low hanging limbs. We spend time wandering, each lost in our own thoughts and envisioning our plans to get back to this place and make a home of it once again.
Pleasure: With the light turning to twilight, I say "It has been a long drive today from Montana to Washington, why don't we go check into our motel, wash the sweat and blood from the berry gashes off our skin, and I'll take you to a nice dinner."
It is getting late, but we are somewhat cleaner, and I head for an upscale restaurant in La Conner, Nell Thorns; for a good seafood dinner - if we can get there before they close.
It is 8:45 and we are informed that the kitchen closes in 15 minutes. We quickly decide on an entree, and then we each order a drink for the end of the day. Most patrons have left their tips on the table and left by now, we are seated in the almost empty half of the restaurant near the bar where we have the place to ourselves, except for 1 guy and 3 gals at table across the room.
As we dine, the conversation at the across the room gets rather blue as a young woman - someone I'd describe as a 'drunk chick', is arguing with another couple of women with constant streaks of profanity about how she should respond to her #*%! boss. She is counseled with additional profuse bad words by the other women seated at a table. The young drunk chick eventually goes back to the bar and then staggers out. At this point the bar hostess comes to our table and apologizes for the obstreperous outpouring. Momentarily, one of the women seated at the table of discord comes to our table an slides in tight on the bench next to me and slurs her apology to me as well. She returns to her table and I follow her there against my wife's protest; "Mark! Stay! Don't go over there, jeez, Mark!" I go anyway and take a seat across from my loose-lipped apologist.
She motions for Sue to come join her table, and Sue joins us - now that her inhibitions have been dampened as her first drink ordered kicks in. As it happens we have been invited by Rhoda to join her at the "Wednesday Night Book Club". We learn this Book club never reads or discusses books, they just drink every Wednesday night. We have a roving conversation with Rhoda (as Queen) and Heidi and Jeremy. Queen Rhoda offers to buy each of us a drink, I take a Long Island Ice Tea and Sue, against her better judgement, is persuaded to get a Mule for an over-the-top second rounder.
We close Nell Thorns down as if we were kids again. We have a good time at the Book Club, we thank Queen Rhoda for the privileged of joining her at her table, and I raise a toast to Drunken Chicks and to the Queen! By the way, the first Drunk Chick who brought on the apologies, apparently invited herself to Rhoda's table, though nobody knew who she was.
I ended up taking one of the drunk chicks back to the Tulip Inn with me for the night. Cheers to an unexpected ending to our first day back in Washington.
When I woke up in the morning, I discovered the drunk chick I'd picked up at Nell Thorn's the night before - ah, she's my wife.
We intent to rebuild with our insurance money. We hire an architect and submit our plans to the county. Our permit is denied, because the Dept. of Natural Resources has now classified the orchard as critical area wetlands and has discovered a prime salmon spawning habitat in the dry gully 100' behind the old house. We are rebuilding our house (on the same spot) next to a slope greater than 10' in height, therefore to get our building permit approved we need to hire two separate consultants to file reports with the county planning department before we can begin to rebuild.
Business: The second of the two consultants is GeoTest, a firm that evaluates the geology of our land for landslide hazards. We request to be present when they are doing their site evaluation. We schedule to meet the GeoTest field geologist on August 2nd, where we will drive from Polson, Montana after spending a week-plus with my parents and our kids. We arrive in Arlington a day ahead of our morning appointment and make a late afternoon stop by to take a look at our dormant land, now secured behind a bomb-proof US Forest Service-style locked gate.
Sue unlocks our gate, recently re-welded after criminals cut through it with a power saw in June, and I drive down the old gravel driveway to the bare basement foundation where her childhood home once stood.
I unsheathe by dull machete to clear out the aggressive black berry vines as we both are eager to walk around our place. Now overgrown, but wooded and peaceful. Sue points out her favorite apple tree in the old orchard, the King Apple planted by her father, and I hack through the thorns and briers to get to where I can just barely reach up and pluck two King Apples from the low hanging limbs. We spend time wandering, each lost in our own thoughts and envisioning our plans to get back to this place and make a home of it once again.
Pleasure: With the light turning to twilight, I say "It has been a long drive today from Montana to Washington, why don't we go check into our motel, wash the sweat and blood from the berry gashes off our skin, and I'll take you to a nice dinner."
It is getting late, but we are somewhat cleaner, and I head for an upscale restaurant in La Conner, Nell Thorns; for a good seafood dinner - if we can get there before they close.
It is 8:45 and we are informed that the kitchen closes in 15 minutes. We quickly decide on an entree, and then we each order a drink for the end of the day. Most patrons have left their tips on the table and left by now, we are seated in the almost empty half of the restaurant near the bar where we have the place to ourselves, except for 1 guy and 3 gals at table across the room.
As we dine, the conversation at the across the room gets rather blue as a young woman - someone I'd describe as a 'drunk chick', is arguing with another couple of women with constant streaks of profanity about how she should respond to her #*%! boss. She is counseled with additional profuse bad words by the other women seated at a table. The young drunk chick eventually goes back to the bar and then staggers out. At this point the bar hostess comes to our table and apologizes for the obstreperous outpouring. Momentarily, one of the women seated at the table of discord comes to our table an slides in tight on the bench next to me and slurs her apology to me as well. She returns to her table and I follow her there against my wife's protest; "Mark! Stay! Don't go over there, jeez, Mark!" I go anyway and take a seat across from my loose-lipped apologist.
She motions for Sue to come join her table, and Sue joins us - now that her inhibitions have been dampened as her first drink ordered kicks in. As it happens we have been invited by Rhoda to join her at the "Wednesday Night Book Club". We learn this Book club never reads or discusses books, they just drink every Wednesday night. We have a roving conversation with Rhoda (as Queen) and Heidi and Jeremy. Queen Rhoda offers to buy each of us a drink, I take a Long Island Ice Tea and Sue, against her better judgement, is persuaded to get a Mule for an over-the-top second rounder.
We close Nell Thorns down as if we were kids again. We have a good time at the Book Club, we thank Queen Rhoda for the privileged of joining her at her table, and I raise a toast to Drunken Chicks and to the Queen! By the way, the first Drunk Chick who brought on the apologies, apparently invited herself to Rhoda's table, though nobody knew who she was.
I ended up taking one of the drunk chicks back to the Tulip Inn with me for the night. Cheers to an unexpected ending to our first day back in Washington.
When I woke up in the morning, I discovered the drunk chick I'd picked up at Nell Thorn's the night before - ah, she's my wife.
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