Cut and Run

After almost two hours at the church on Saturday morning, helping with setup and prep for a large funeral meal, Jeff and I went home to get ready for a date-like excursion to Vancouver to watch a track meet. Jay would be the man of the house while we were gone. He had already been the man of the house while Jeff and I were helping at the funeral. During that brief time, Amber managed to sneak off with a pair of scissors and a mind for mischief. When Jeff and I got home from the funeral, Jay and Rose were brimming with concern and indignation: Amber had given herself a very thorough, very short haircut.

It was jagged. 

It was raggedy. 

It was tiny and short in the front, and long and scraggly in the back. It was a jagged, raggedy, scraggly mullet. The most surprising part of the whole event was how I felt nothing when I saw Amber's hair. No sense of indignation, no sadness, no frustration, nothing. I lifted various uneven locks of her hair, examined the full extent of the damage, and started laughing my head OFF. Trust Amber to give herself the most epic hack job haircut of all time! She does nothing halfway. She is all-in, all the time. I love that about her. She experiences everything each moment has to offer. When her hair was in her face for the thousandth time, she took care of it. Amber has been such a refining catalyst for my patience. I'm not perfect, but she teaches me over and over that it's usually better to laugh and move forward than to rant and rave over the past. This may have been the first time I felt zero twinges of frustration at her antics. I honestly felt nothing but humor at the sight of her self-inflicted mullet.

Jeff tipped Amber's head into the bathtub and washed the remains of her hair. Then we sat her on a stool and I went to work (with some actual haircutting scissors) to even out the damage. Amber's curly hair is thick! I was snipping and chopping away at it for much longer than seemed necessary, given that she hadn't left much hair to work with. Once it was all trimmed up, I gathered all of the scissors in the house and hid them in a secure location. Then I got ready to go to Vancouver. We went the easy route with kids-at-home-while-we're-gone and gave the kids permission to watch cartoons and play Minecraft the whole time we were gone, as long as they took a break for dinner and went to bed on time. That way we knew Amber wouldn't get into any further mischief, because even with all of the scissors under lock and key, her imagination and boundless enthusiasm would make causing more mayhem simple.

Jeff and I left home around 2pm and talked for the entire drive. Three uninterrupted hours of one-on-one time was like an oasis in the middle of this busy track season! We stopped 2/3 of the way to Vancouver along the waterfall corridor off of I-84 on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. Jeff had been looking forward to a cool green run, and I was kicking myself for not deciding to come on this excursion until after finishing my run that morning back home. I dropped Jeff off at a gorgeous paved pathway that ran parallel to the highway, drove to the next exit, and went on a walk while waiting for him to run. I walked two miles and saw three waterfalls. The scenery was green and gushing and glorious. I climbed up rocks and took pictures of the tall skinny waterfalls. The pine-fresh, lush green perfume that defines the forests of the Pacific Northwest filled my lungs, heart, and soul with an invigorating calm.

Eventually amidst my tree-hugging euphoria, I noticed a text message from an unknown number. It said "Shaina, pick Jeff up at Wyeth exit." That was the next exit down the highway from where I was. He had borrowed a passerby's cell phone and sent me a text. (Jeff dislikes running while carrying a phone.) I had to walk a mile back to the car before I could leave to pick him up, and the on-ramp only allowed me to head east, so I had to go east a few miles before I could exit, turn around, and finally drive west all the way to where Jeff was standing on the side of the road by a stop sign. He had been waiting for nearly half an hour by the time I got to him. 

Jeff was colder and hungrier than I've seen him in a long time. Due to the necessity of managing Amber's impromptu haircut, we had left later than we planned, which pushed Jeff's run later (and farther from his early lunch) and left him with a gnawing gaping hunger that took hold halfway through his six mile run. I shared my small bag of snacks with him and drove us to the nearest fast food place, which happened to be a Popeye's Chicken at a truck stop. Not an exceptionally unique or glamorous choice, especially since we have a Popeye's in Sunnyside, but desperate times and all. 

After eating our chicken sandwiches in the car at the truck stop, we checked online to see if the nearby Portland Ikea had a cheap table we wanted to use for a computer desk. The tabletops were in stock, but the legs were listed as out of stock. We figured we'd get the table top and maybe find a few undocumented legs lying around the store, so we drove to Ikea. We were in and out of Ikea in 15 minutes tops. It was pretty impressive. We looked up the aisle and shelf number of the item we wanted before entering the store, and poof! It was quick. The store really was out of table legs. So weird! But we snagged a box full of a half dozen cinnamon rolls on the way to the checkout, which came in handy later. We didn't even need to get a cart! Jeff carried the tabletops (we decided to get two) on his head. 

Our next stop was Hudson Bay High School for the distance festival track meet. It was an open meet, not a high school invitational, so there was no school bus transportation, official coaching, or school uniforms involved. The runners had to get to the meet on their own, but the coaches were allowed to come separately to watch, which is what we did. This was all for one runner: Reid, our top distance runner, needed stiffer competition for the 2 mile distance so he could make an attempt at breaking the 43 year old Sunnyside High School record. Reid is a senior and Jeff has coached him for the past five years, ever since Reid was in 8th grade. When Reid's parents told us they were impressed and surprised that Jeff came all that way voluntarily and unofficially to watch Reid in one race, Jeff summed the sentiment up in six words: "I'd basically do anything for Reid." Sniff. 

We watched several races before the men's 3200. It was so fun and low key, sitting in the grass with Jeff and the Weavers, chatting and watching some speedy races. Usually at meets, we are in full-on coaching and teenage management mode, making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be, but this was totally laid back. We were there to watch one runner, and we weren't even in charge of his transportation. It felt much closer to our college days, where Jeff and I spent hours and hours and hours together at cross country and track meets. Track meets remind me of falling in love! Haha. Reid ran a strong race with a good pack of competitors and ended up breaking the school 2 mile record by half a second! 2 miles in 9:40 is no small accomplishment. 

My heart felt warm when I thought about Jeff's years of careful coaching and Reid's years of hard consistent work. Excelling at distance running requires equal parts hard work and enough humility to listen to the coach. Reid did both for five years and now holds two school records! (the cross country 5k record and the 2 mile track record) In light of all those hours and years of work, driving six hours round-trip to see a race that lasted less than ten minutes was totally worth it.

We got home at midnight, and when I peeked at my sleeping children, they all still had their hair.

Pictures of the cut and run:

The bedhead post-haircut was formiddable.

Left: more panic-inducing bedhead mop. Right: the only hairdo that hides the tiny chopped-top hairs: triple ponytails across the top!

Pictures from my Oregon waterfall walk:

This paved pathway follows where old highway 30 used to be. Highway 30 was replaced by the interstate, which is at most 10-20 feet from this path. This was not a quiet peaceful walk; the roar of cars on the highway was too prevalent for that. But it was gorgeous and green and the air was still fresh, and when I climbed up to some of the waterfalls, the car sounds faded a bit.

Cabin Creek Falls was half-hidden behind this massive boulder. The Columbia River is visible through the thin trees, along with the brownish I-84 guardrail.

I climbed up behind the Cabin Creek Falls.

I love standing behind waterfalls--they look so different from the back.

Every now and then the paved path curved really close to the interstate.

Hole-in-the-Wall Falls.

I had to climb up halfway to see the hole better. 

I hiked about a quarter mile up Mt. Defiance Trail to check out the view of the Columbia River. Many of the trails in this area are closed due to the destabilizing effects of recent terrible wildfires, so I was glad to get away from the noisy paved path and check out some uphill scenery, however briefly.

The place I parked was called Starvation Creek, which turned out to be very fitting when I picked up my hungry husband later. I was walking faster than the two hikers in this picture, and eventually I came up beside them and passed them. Passing people while walking the same direction as they are is so weird! I'm used to running past people, with a quick "hi" and then they're behind me. But these guys were walking SLOW and I had a husband to rescue, so I passed them at a power walk, which still felt like slow motion as I drew up next to them and slowly inched away from them. I was laughing on the inside and looking the other way on the outside.

Before jumping in the van to pick up Jeff, I took a quick peek at waterfall #3: Starvation Creek Falls.

Ikea exit!

Reid and his coach, triumphant after a great race.

Another one of our runners (Michael) came along with Reid for moral support, and to see his darling heartthrob Lily, (who was our girls cross country team captain in 2019 and graduated last year, and is attending college on the west side of WA). Confused yet? It was so good to see Lily! An all-around lovely evening.

Derek and Brittany took turns getting in the picture. (Reid's parents, members of our ward, all-around excellent people. Derek is also my doctor--he delivered Amber 6.5 years ago. We like them a lot.) 

A quick track date night pic before we hit the road!