At Home – Riveted

Catching Up | Seattle Boat Show, Snowpocalypse, and the Grammys

Laura Domela — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 21:32:39 +0000

We’ve been busy! (New) Airship was out of the water for two months getting new floors, new upholstery, new electronics, and a handful of other fun upgrades (if you want to take a look at some before and after photos, click here). We finally got her back in the water just in time to cruise down to the Seattle Boat Show.

We got a nice view of the Super Blood Wolf Moon from Airship in Anacortes before we headed south

We took two days making our way down to Seattle, stopping in Oak Harbor for (cheap) fuel and staying overnight in Langley. It’s so nice to finally be on the water in our new boat!

Airship at Bell Harbor Marina

Kevin presenting “WiFi in the Wilderness” at the Seattle Boat Show

Our Slowboat seminars all went great and were well-attended–another successful boat show in the books!

A few weeks back, we learned that Kevin’s brother, Craig (a classical trumpet player) was nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Instrumental Classical Solo Performance” category, for his solo trumpet recording “Glass: 3 Pieces in the Shape of a Square” of music by composer Philip Glass. We were super excited about his nomination for this album, and then just as we were heading to Seattle, he told us he’d been invited to perform at the Grammy Premiere show, and he was inviting us to come join him! We quickly scheduled ourselves a little shopping party in Seattle to find something to wear, and planned a trip to Los Angeles!

Leaving Seattle

We stopped in Langley again on our way back north. The weather was supposed to get nasty (35-45mph winds, more snow) so we stayed two nights and let the wind pass.

We woke the next morning to snow-covered docks, and spent most of the day cozy inside

It was windy enough to blow a bunch up snow up against the cockpit door, even!

Icicles on the scuppers!

When we got back to Portland, there was a bit of snow as well, and the forecast was for it to dump more starting the night before our flight to L.A., so we opted to stay in a hotel at the airport to ensure a higher likelihood of catching our flight. In the morning it had snowed a bit more, but there were probably only 3-4 inches. Our house is at about 1000 feet and we normally get a bit more snow than the lower elevations, making our steep driveway not so much fun, so we were glad for the easy commute!

View from our hotel

Flights were all on time with no issues.

Portland Airport

We arrived at LAX and grabbed a Lyft to our hotel. I found us a cool hotel online without knowing anything about it, and it was even better in person! We stayed at the Mayfair, not far from Staples Center. I chose the hotel because it was convenient, and because it looked like a boutique hotel with some fun L.A. style. We were pleasantly surprised and would definitely stay here again if, for instance, someone was nominated for another Grammy and invited us to come back.

View from our room

One interesting thing about this hotel that I learned after I’d booked our room was that they had a fantastic art and music program:

“Artist-in-Residence, internationally renowned artist Kelly “RISK” Graval has curated a multi-million-dollar collection that beautifully reflects L.A.’s vibrant and invigorating contemporary art scene. The extraordinary art collection on display at The Mayfair was curated by legendary artist and illustrator RISK, in collaboration with artists Shepard Fairey, Geoff Melville, Richard Mirando, and more. From his early days as a USC Fine Arts student and pioneering graffiti artist, to his celebrated gallery and museum showcases around the world, RISK has left an indelible mark on the contemporary art world and become a hometown hero of the Los Angeles art scene.” [from the Mayfair website]

The really cool thing about this is that I know RISK’s work from back when I lived in Long Beach and Los Angeles in my 20s, and in fact for a number of years there was a large 4×4 foot piece of RISK’s work hanging over my sofa in the house I shared with my then-boyfriend. Said then-boyfriend was a director and he’d done a short segment on RISK for a television show, and RISK had given him/us the colorful, spray-painted 4×4 ft piece of plexiglass he’d made during the filming of the show. I drilled holes in the corners, bolted it a few inches off a piece of painted black plywood, and hung it in our living room. Of course when we broke up, then-boyfriend kept the artwork (as he should have), but I was happy to learn RISK was still working and thriving in the Los Angeles art scene.

Artwork in the lobby by RISK (Kelly Graval)

As we checked into our room and I posted the photo below on Instagram, up came a little pop-up notice on my phone that there was a “RISK Pop-Up Print Sale: Out of the Vault” going on downstairs. Craig had invited us to go to this Grammy rehearsal with him, and we only had about 10 minutes before we needed to be in the lobby, but we hustled down to the gallery and in less than 5 minutes I found find a print I liked, purchased said print, and took it back to our room. Total score!

Lobby of the Mayfair hotel

And off we went to Grammy rehearsal!

Craig and Federico going over their music

The piece from Craig’s album that the Grammy committee wanted him to play was the most complicated piece (of course), and is actually a duet where Craig recorded both parts. Easy to do on an album, but much more difficult to perform in person — so he sought accompaniment from his student and TA at University of Miami, a talented trumpet player named Federico Montes, originally from Columbia. Federico is a wonderful trumpet player and a super nice guy, and they made a great team.

Setting up the music stands, all twelve of them, in the shape of a square

Craig and Federico getting mic’d up

Empty stage with lighting

Rehearsal went great! Craig and Federico played through the piece three times, and they were both extremely pleased with how it sounded! You can hear Craig’s original recording here, if you’re interested. We think it’s pretty cool!

Teleprompter

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Teleprompter in mostly empty theatre

On Sunday morning we arrived early for the Premiere show and hung out in Craig’s dressing room (next door to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ dressing room) until it was time to be seated. The Premiere show was great, and Craig and Federico’s performance was fantastic. What a treat to be able to experience this with him!

Audience, with Craig and Federico on the big screen as they made their way around the square of music stands, playing as they went

Craig did not win the Grammy, but having the opportunity to perform was a pretty big deal, and I doubt this will be his only nomination.

As the Grammy Premiere show was wrapping up, we were driven (via black SUV) over to the red carpet for the telecast show at Staples Center.

Waiting in line with all the other black vehicles

Attendants with mirrors checked underneath the cars for bombs (really)…

…and police officers with canine help kept a nose out for drugs.

Red carpet chaos

Craig and Federico live-streaming the red carpet

Photographers work hard to get J-Lo’s attention

Don’t let Ashanti’s dress touch the ground!

Don’t let St. Vincent’s dress touch the ground either!

The red carpet was enormously fun to get to do. Somehow (probably because we had credentials that said “Talent” on them) we were able to walk through with Craig, and it was a blast. We saw a ton of musicians and actors we recognized (Fred Armisen and Natasha Lyonne, Cardi B., a Kardashian or two, St. Vincent, Ashanti, Jennifer Lopez, etc.), and I’m sure many others we should have recognized but didn’t.

Once inside, Craig and his wife Karen went to their seats on the floor (down there by the circular stage) and we went to ours (see view from our seats, below). When you aren’t nominated for a Grammy, your seats are not quite as good, but no matter…we had a blast.

One benefit of seats up high — we could see down into both performance areas as they were preparing/building the stages for each performance! That’s the stage for Janelle Monae being set up on the right.

After the show, we wandered next door to the official Grammy after party (our tickets got us into both shows and the after party).

“Transforming the LA Convention Center into “Grammy Land,” which emulated the spirit of the classic children’s game, “Candy Land,” oversized candy displays, enchanting water features, and grandiose design elements were brought to life by a troupe of live entertainers, dancers, acrobats, and aerialists to amplify the visual projections. Equating to over three football fields in size, the official Grammy After Party encompassed more than 600 catering and service staff, 400 production team members, 60 dancers and acrobats, and four live performances as it hosted over 5,000 attended guests.” [source]

We had some food, some drinks, and socialized a bit, taking it all in, and then headed back to our hotel to change (SHOES!!!!) and then wandered down to a local bar for a nightcap and some quieter conversation. What a fun night!!

We’re back at home now and after one more business trip we’ll head back up to Airship for some more projects. We need to get the dinghy off the top deck (and decide if we want to keep the Boston Whaler or sell it and get a RIB), finalize the stern davit installation, clean out and organize some lockers, and just generally start getting ready for the summer of cruising to SE Alaska. May isn’t that far away, and we still have a lot to do!

Here are a few photos of Airship in the snow that our friend Glen sent. Sounds like they eventually had about 8 inches up there, but here in Portland, we have zero.

What We Do When We’re Home

Laura Domela — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 00:03:16 +0000

We love being out on the water aboard Airship, spending months at a time exploring all the nooks and crannies between Puget Sound and Glacier Bay, but there are definitely some things we miss while we’re gone. So while we’re in town, we’re doing all of those things in a big way: lots of visiting with family and friends, working out every day, getting rid of stuff, and eating ALL of the fresh produce!

I’ve also been visiting my studio, which means serious quality time with my printer.

I’ve made over a hundred archival eight by ten prints of some of images I’ve taken over the past couple years. Here are a few of them:

SE Alaska Landscapes: Flynn Cove (L) Reid Glacier (R)

SE Alaska Wildlife: Pack Creek Brown Bears (L) Loud Eagle in Hoonah (R)

B.C. Landscapes: Desolation Sound (L) Princess Louisa (R)

Fishing Nets, Hoonah AK

Rocks with barnacles, Sucia Island, WA

Boats and Boatyards: Port Townsend (L) Anacortes (R)

Florence, Italy street scenes

Seeing my work on the computer is cool, but it’s way more satisfying to hold a print in my hand. Perhaps if we had a bigger boat I might bring my printer along on our travels so I could work more on the water, but it’s kind of nice to keep the printing projects for home. Plus, I have a feeling the printer and papers I use are best kept away from the salt air.

We’ll be back on Airship in the next couple weeks…fingers crossed we get some better weather this time and can actually go out cruising!

Sun and Projects

Laura Domela — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 01:33:39 +0000

We’ve been at home working for the past few weeks and will be heading back to the boat in a day or two. I have had some photo shoots in the studio, and we’ve been trying to take care of errand-y stuff while we’re in town.

This morning, we took our Airstream to see our friend Brad Taylor down at Shiny Shacks for a couple of fixes and tweaks. We’ve got a small soft spot in the subfloor (probably due to a leak in a window), and on our last trip to the coast we discovered we have a leak in our fresh water tank. Off to the shop she goes!

Brad has a pretty great collection of vintage trailers. Example: in the center of this photo you’ll see a 1962 Airstream Flying Cloud. It is one of 8 known survivors of Wally Byam’s Caravan Around the World (1963-64). The trailer belonged to Airstream photographer Fran Hall during this historic trip around the world, and Brad’s got a photo of it in front of the Kremlin in 1964. The Kremlin. 1964.

Here’s a zoomed in crop so you can see the tour stops:

Impressive, isn’t it?

Anyway, not much else to report at the moment. We have some boat projects coming up (just regular maintenance stuff before we head to Alaska next month), and we have a new outboard to install (Zoooooom! Enough of the Torqeedo!) so we hope to have something fun to post soon!

Fog and Forest

Laura Domela — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 21:09:40 +0000

I know, we’ve been quiet. We’ve been home in Portland working ourselves silly! (This is the view this morning from my home office.) First we were snowed in for a solid week (!!) and then during that week we’d started some new projects that we didn’t want to lose momentum on…so we kind of kept ourselves snowed in and working for another week! All day, every day, even weekends. The life of the self-employed is not always humpbacks and bald eagles, you know?

We’re gearing up to head north again this week. We’ll bring Airship down to Seattle for the Seattle Boat Show. I don’t remember if I announced this or not, but we’ll be giving a couple of short seminars at the boat show this year. I posted about it on Slowboat. Click here for topics, times, dates, and locations!

We’ll be at Bell Harbor Marina (downtown Seattle) for the week and then doing a little cruising around Puget Sound, finishing up in Poulsbo for the Winter Rendezvous on February 10th and 11th. Should be a fun couple of weeks!

Additionally, we’ve finished up the main backbone of our “Mastering the Inside Passage” video series for Slowboat. If you’ve thought about taking a boat up the Inside Passage to Alaska but felt like it was beyond your expertise, fear not! Remember, we bought Airship in September of 2014, our first boat ever, and did our first trip up the Inside Passage that very next May. We’ve broken it down into sections based on geography, so even if you just want to get from Olympia to the San Juans, there’s an episode just for you. Anyway, check it out if you’re interested, and let us know what you think!

I got a new camera last month and I’ve been loving it! It’s a Fuji X-T2, with interchangeable lenses (so far I have the 35mm, 56mm, 18-135mm, and the 100-400mm…will soon be adding the 10-24mm). I’ll be selling my Nikon D7100 and 18-300mm lens, and then probably my D700 and all its prime lenses. I use the D700 primarily in the studio, so I’ll likely wait on that one until I know for sure that the Fuji will do what I want in the studio. I may even sell my Fuji X100s and its telephoto lens and accessories, so if any of this is of interest to you, shoot me a note.

Meanwhile, guess what? It’s tulip time!! Looking forward to a little stroll through Pike Place Market to pick some up for the boat!

What a Difference a Day Makes!

Laura Domela — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 02:23:00 +0000

Lopez Island was sunny and bright, and SO calm on Tuesday morning!We dinghied over to Sam’s boat and had breakfast with him and Anna, and then headed back to Anacortes. The wind picked up a little and Rosario Strait was, um…fun? Yeah. It actually was kinda fun. Wind was NE 25-30kts gusting to 38kts (we only saw that once), with a fairly strong flood current.

We got back to the marina all salty and…awww….the water is turned off. Hope it rains soon!

In the morning we left Airship and headed back to Portland. We knew there was more snow coming and news/weather was saying 4pm. Our ETA in Portland (according to Google and Waze) was 3pm, so we were feeling okay about it all. The further south we went, the grayer it got, and eventually we had snow on I-5:Portland: Not looking too bad, but the closer we got to our house, the slower we went. Our ETA pretty quickly went from 3pm to 5pm as the snow fell and people left work to try to get home. We spent about 3 hours right IN town just trying to move toward home.After inching along until about 6pm, I called and made a reservation at The Benson hotel downtown. It still took us a while to get there, but at least we were waiting in a line of 85 cars to do so:Ahhhhh.View:The folks at the Benson were awesome. They gave us a discounted rate, then upgraded us to a suite and threw in free valet parking. It was lovely. We put our few things in the room and walked across the street to have dinner (and a cocktail) at Imperial. Also fabulous. The service, the food…all spot on. And this cocktail was amazing:New Money…with smoked vermouth and a giant, super-clear ice cube. Delicious. (We’re suckers for smokey bourbon drinks.)

In the morning, Kevin took the hotel’s airport shuttle to PDX for a quick business trip, and I did some work in the room before heading downstairs for some breakfast.

Morning view:Breakfast view: This is a gorgeous old hotel and the rooms are very nice. My waiter at breakfast was named Bobby and he has been working at The Benson for 36 years. He was fantastic, and so was my breakfast/brunch.

After food, I got the car (we were driving the Toyota Camry Hybrid…not the truck) and headed for Les Schwab to procure some chains. I figured the main road our house was likely plowed and sanded by now, but at almost 1000ft, our steep driveway was definitely going to be an issue.

Heading west on Burnside: The smaller streets were still not awesome, but not terrible:Les Schwab (on NW 19th) put my chains on while I went next door to Pro Photo to look at the new Fuji X-T2 (mistake).

Okay, chains on, and I’m ready to head up the hill!! People out retrieving the cars they abandoned last night: Big tree break at the base of our driveway: Awww, the oldest and gnarliest rhododendron that hung out over the driveway eventually gave out from the weight of the ice and snow and snapped: On the back patio, another casualty. This one was leaning onto our roof, but luckily caused no damage that I could see.

I got out there with the chainsaw and made a huge mess, but there are no longer tree branches leaning on the house. The temperature is supposed to stay below freezing until Sunday, so the driveway will probably be chains-only until then! Always an adventure!

Sightseeing at Home

Laura Domela — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 21:31:33 +0000

We had some friends in town a few days ago (hi Sam, Anna, and David!) which as most Portlanders know is a great reason to head out into the Columbia Gorge to get another look at Multnomah Falls:

We took I-84 out of Portland and then exited to take the Old Highway 30 scenic route the rest of the way so we could drive slowly past a number of waterfalls, slot canyons, and viewpoints.

Here's the view from the Vista House, looking east:

Inside the Vista House:

I don't remember which waterfall this was:

My favorite spot out here is Oneonta Gorge: a moss-walled slot canyon where fairies and unicorns live. Later in the summer when it's warmer, you can hike (through water and over a big log jam that wasn't there the first time I came here, but has been the last several times…it's a fun climb-over) all the way to the Oneonta Falls (and if it's really warm, go swimming!). There's no real trail…the river is the trail, so warm weather (or really tall rubber boots) are recommended. We did see a few brave souls wading through in tennies and shorts and no shirts, however, so suit yourself.

Oneonta Gorge Tunnel:

Log jam in Oneonta Gorge:

For a whole lot more photos of this incredible place, check out this link.

After exploring the waterfalls, we stopped at McMenamin's Edgefield to grab a bite and a beer cider (pomegranate cider…so summery!) The weather was gorgeous (as you may have noticed from the above photos) so we sat outside and soaked up the sun.

On Saturday we all went to breakfast over on Mississippi Avenue…a new spot we hadn't tried before called Gravy. Delicious (especially the gravy!). Super fun weekend with super fun friends!

Today we both did rowing workouts in the morning (because, gravy!), and then we headed out to Fisherman's Warehouse to pick up what I'm pretty sure is the Chuck Norris of coolers: the Yeti Tundra 50. We've been using a little Igloo that doesn't keep things cold (or ice ice) for very long, and when it rains, water gets inside. Then we switched to using our shiny metal Coleman that we use with the Airstream, but it's not all stainless steel so a couple of small spots on it are starting to rust. People talk about the Yeti like it's the holy grail of coolers, and so far, it seems to be. For a longer trip (like, Alaska) it's nice to have the extra space for produce and stuff when you need to stock up every couple of weeks.

We're picking up our lithium batteries on Tuesday in Eugene at AM Solar and then will head up to the boat to install them on Wednesday. We've got several more projects we want to finish before heading to Alaska (batteries, removing the last of the carpet and replacing it with Amtico, making sure we have all the spare parts we need, fixing the shower want holder, and oh yeah…attaching our new ring buoy!

This is much cuter than the blue throw cushion, for sure.

Home, Work, Hike, Work

Laura Domela — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:18:23 +0000

We've been quiet and boring, I know. We just left you there with that bread maker thing for a week and a half! Sorry. Here's a photo of the (muddy) hiking trail near our house:

It had been raining for days and days, but we had a nice stretch of a week or so with some dry times so we made sure to do our 3-4 mile hike every day that we could while we were home. We've been working quite a bit, but guess what? We're heading back to the boat tomorrow!

We're taking Airship over to La Conner on Sunday to get some electronics upgrades. Those upgrades will take about a week, and then we've got a guy who is going to replace a couple of the spots where there's carpet with Amtico (the flooring we have in the rest of the boat), and we're going to also talk to him about upgrading the countertops from laminate to Corian or something similar. There will be a night or two where we can't stay on the boat and we contemplated driving up with the Airstream and using the La Conner Marina RV Resort (the Airstream and Airship, together in one place!) but it's a bit too much hassle, so I'll probably just take the boat from Anacortes to LaConner and Kevin will drive the truck and meet me over there so we have a car while we're there, and then we'll get a hotel when we need to. (The doctor today said Kevin can start some weight-bearing things with his right hand, like doing dishes and carrying groceries, so I think grabbing the dock lines for me is totally within his therapy now, too!)

I mentioned that we upgraded Airship's solar system the last time we were in Anacortes, but it was so crappy out that I didn't get many photos (plus, I was doing all the wiring!) so as soon as we get up there and get a few more photos, we'll post about the upgrade. (Also, we're selling the solar kit that we had before, so let me know if you're interested in that and I'll send you the craigslist link…it'd be great on a boat or an RV.)

More boaty fun, comin' up soon!

What I Do When I’m Home

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:42:32 +0000

One of the things I can't take with me when we're traveling is my Portland photography studio, so when we're back home for a few weeks this usually means scheduling photo shoots. I do have a compact, portable setup for doing location work, but nothing beats my nice big studio space for ease of use.

Just for something different, I thought I'd share a few photos from a couple of recent studio shoots!

This is my incredibly talented friend Storm Large (yes, that's her real name). She is an amazing singer, and you can learn more about her here and listen to her here (scroll down and watch/listen to her version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" … it's SO GOOD!) I've been shooting her publicity photos for over ten years now, but we still manage to come up with new things in the studio each time.

(Storm's hair by Tuesday Teal.)

There are several more shots of Storm on my web portfolio here if you want to see more.

These next few are of Lily and Maya. They're both super-talented young ladies and we did an all-out editorial model photo shoot last month…for fun mainly, but also to add some different looks to their portfolios.

Hair by Tuesday Teal. Makeup by Lydia Anderson

Anyway, just thought I'd share a little of my professional home life with you guys. We'll be heading back to the boat this weekend, so more on that front in the very near future!

Where’s the Rewind Button?

Laura Domela — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 21:20:08 +0000

You know that moment, right? The moment when you think "Aaaauuuuggghhh!! Thirty seconds ago everything was great and now it's not! Rewind!" but you can't, because life doesn't work that way? Well, last week we had one of those moments.

We returned to Portland on Tuesday night. It had been snowing and temps were low, so by the time we got to our house it was a little icy. The truck made it okay up our sloped driveway and we were cool. I had a photo shoot scheduled for the next night (Wednesday night) but it was still icy. I opted to reschedule it, and we stayed in and made dinner at home. Later in the afternoon I went out to check the conditions. Yep, still icy. (We live on a hill that's at about 900-1000 ft elevation, and so even if the rest of the city is clear, it can often remain nasty up here for a few extra days.)

We'd been inside all day working, and Kevin decided he wanted to stretch his legs and walk down to get the mail. I'd told him it was still icy, and as he left, he said "Wish me luck" to which I replied "Good luck!" (and what I should have said, in retrospect of course, was "No, it's icy, don't go.")

He was careful (he said) and was walking slowly in the black tire ruts that didn't have any ice…until they had ice, and then he slipped and fell backwards. His right arm (the dominant one) of course tried to help catch his fall and it succeeded, and broke. (Hey, at least it wasn't his head!) He came back inside, holding his wrist, just as I was pouring wine to go with our dinner. "Honey, I fell and broke my arm."

Super sad face.

I put dinner (Mexican short ribs and green beans) on "keep warm" (a nice function on the electric pressure cooker, turns out), grabbed the car keys and off we went to the ER (sliding on the icy driveway a little bit as we made our way down).

We checked in just before 7pm. They X-rayed Kevin's arm and then put a temporary splint on it, and we settled in for what turned out to be a 4.5 hour wait before they could get us into a room and do anything.

Note: During this wait, we passed some of the time by having a discussion around this scenario: What if this accident had happened on the boat in SE Alaska…say maybe in Ford's Terror, where you can get in or out only at high slack tide every 12 hours, and you're about a two-day cruise (weather permitting) from Juneau and the nearest medical services? We decided we'd have found something (spatula?) to splint the wrist with and then wrap it (we carry Ace bandages), iced it, and taken advantage of the pain med prescription we got from our home physician for just such emergencies. If the injury had been an open wound, we might have kicked in the antibiotics we keep on board as well. If it was more super-urgent, we'd have activated the distress signal from our DeLorme satellite device, since there's no VHF or cell service in Ford's Terror. Definitely good to have a plan for such an event, should it happen, which perhaps we just took care of right here in the comfort of our own driveway so we won't have any such drama on the boat, ever. One can hope.

Back in the ER, we got a room (in Pediatrics, because there was room). Eventually, the "do anything" consisted of a closed reduction of Kevin's wrist, which is a pretty cool procedure. They injected a nerve blocker into Kevin's hand, and then hung his arm by his fingers from these finger-trap style things, slowly letting gravity help straighten his wrist. They added some weights to it after a bit, and after they figured it was finished with the straightening it would do on its own (about 30 minutes or so), they gave him some Propofol (the Michael Jackson drug, but they assured us that they knew what they were doing) and once Kevin was out three ER doctors pulled and pressed and pulled and manhandled his wrist and got his bones back into an acceptable arrangement, then splinted it with a temporary plaster U-shaped splint (molded to his arm from his hand to above the elbow, keeping his arm at a 90 degree angle). He was out for 16 minutes total, and woke up with a splint. We left the ER with a prescription for Hydrocodone and the number of the orthopaedist to call in the morning. The nurse told us there was a 24-hour Walgreen's not too far away, so I mapped it out in Google Maps and off we went. (By now it's after 2am.)

Kevin stayed in the warm car while I went in to retrieve meds. I handed the pharmacist the prescription and said something like "Hi. Nothing like spending the night in the ER" trying to make subtle conversation that would indicate our hardship, and that I had a patient in pain, waiting in the car. This guy was like a character out of a Coen Brothers film. He had a furrowed brow, tired eyes, and a creepy vibe (could have just been because it was the middle of the night in a fluorescently-lit pharmacy that was empty save for the cashier at the front door, but if this was a scene in a movie I was watching, I'd think "Something bad's about to happen here.")

The pharmacist was not chatty AT ALL, and when I asked how long it might take to fill the prescription, he replied flatly "Fifteen or twenty minutes, unless someone else interrupts me."

Okay. [shiver]

(I went back out the still-running seat-heated truck to sit with Kevin for those 15 minutes.) Apparently there were no further interruptions, because when I returned after 15 minutes the prescription was ready, and now he was ready to chat. "So, what happened? … "Oh, yeah that ice can be dangerous." … "I hope he heals up fast." … "Have a good night."

We got home just before 4am and dinner was still on "keep warm" in the Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker, 8.5 hours later. (It'll stay kept warm for 10 hours, turns out!) So at 4am we had some delicious Mexican short ribs and green beans!

We met with the orthopaedic surgeon on Friday morning. He said the ER doctors did a great job, and that based on the X-rays there was a slight chance Kevin wouldn't need surgery. He wanted to wait a week see how things "settled" (or didn't) inside Kevin's wrist, get another X-ray, and then see where we were. That next appointment was for this past Wednesday, and things had settled a little past the ideal limits, so surgery was scheduled for Friday (yesterday).

Surgery was successful, and we're home working on the healing process now. Kevin's got some new titanium parts, a shorter cast/splint (yay! he can bend his elbow!), and some pain meds (with a nerve block catheter in his shoulder that meters out small doses of anesthetic to help with pain and minimize the necessity for narcotics). We'll be focused on getting him healed up as fast as possible. This changes our travel plans a bit (business AND boat) but we'll be back and running soon (and I think this means that Kevin finally gets to drive the boat, while I do lines and fenders).

Here are a couple of photos we took along the way for documentation (and to amuse ourselves while dealing with a difficult situation…because that's what we do):

Kevin beginning the gravity part of the closed reduction in the ER:

X-rays (before and after closed reduction):

Pattern dizziness in the orthopaedic surgeon's waiting room at OHSU Physicians Pavillion:

Cool window view from the waiting room at OHSU's Center for Health and Healing, in the surgery center where Kevin had his surgery yesterday:

I won't post the initial broken hand photo. I already did that to all our facebook friends. It's kinda cool, but also kind gnarly.

Thanks everyone for all the well-wishes! It's very much appreciated.

Hiking in our Backyard

Laura Domela — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 14:23:39 +0000

One of the nice things about being home in Portland is how close we are to miles and miles of hiking trails. And by close, I mean roughly 200 yards from the nearest trail.

Fall is a great time on the trails because, well, trees! Look at the richness of color in this one shot:

When the petals from the flowers on a Magnolia tree drop, the center of the bloom transforms into a giant fuzzy seed pod.

Magnolia leaves:

The Magnolia leaves are huge. Here's a shot with my muddy trail shoe in it for scale:

I've got a few photo shoots at my studio in town over the next week or two and then we'll be heading up to the boat for a bit. Yay winter cruising!!