Forty

POP TOP: May 18 ... If you lived in the Pacific Northwest (US) 40 years ago, that date is forever etched into your memory. It's the day Mt. St. Helens blew its top. Even a hundred-plus miles away, the ground shook. The plume that shot up was both magnificent and terrifying. Fifty seven souls were lost that day. 

When I came across this vintage ash tray made from ashes from that eruption a few months back at a local Value Village store, I just had to have it, even though the last thing we need is an ash tray. 

Last night, shortly before the clock struck midnight, ushering May 18 and the 40th anniversary of the eruption in, I posted a photo of it to a wildly entertaining and engaging Facebook page,  "Weird Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared." 

The response? Phenomenal. Wow ... As of this writing, over 900 people shared their St. Helens stories on the post. It was so educational. Living in Southwest Washington when it erupted, we had not exactly a front row, main level seat, but front row first balcony. ;) And in those pre-Internet days, the news we read and saw, was very locally-focused. In reading the comments on my post, I learned the ash carried far and wide (there were reports from Wisconsin to Arkansas and beyond). And the sky changed all over Europe. 

St. Helens isn't sending plumes of ash 50,000 feet into the air right now, but it's also not dormant. 

This website contains really interesting data about the current state of affaris on St. Helens.
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/st_helens/monitoring_map.html

OLD SCHOOL ENTERTAINMENT: So, there's still a pandemic, and we're still mostly staying home. Fortunately, we have a couple of new-but old school-things to help keep us entertained.

My sister and I spent hours and hours playing a water-based 'arcade' game when we were kids. You push a button and a jet of water moves little balls around in a vessel. It sounds stupid, but it's really pretty engaging. Relaxing, even.

 Last Thursday this was delivered to our doorstep. A turquoise manual typewriter!

It was a Mother's Day present from Rick and Rachel. We set it up on the dining room table and started to plunk away at its keys. I forgot how physically hard it is to use a manual typewriter. You have to really pound those keys.

When I opened it, I realized that for Rick, some of his very earliest memories must be of sitting on my lap as I balanced him and tapped typewriter keys whilst working on college papers. That was a bit ago. ... Sweet memory. :)

BIG BEE: Saturday afternoon, Christian and I were running an errand that took us by the Renton Municipal Airport. As we were stopped at a red light nearby, I glanced over at the planes parked there (as I always do) and saw yellow and black stripes. I asked Christian to pull into a parking lot overlooking the airfield so we could get a better look. 

Well I'll be - it was a bee plane! 

According to Wikipedia, Buzz was "a British low-cost airline operating services within Europe. It operated from 2000 until 2004 as a subsidiary of KLM and then Ryanair."

So wow, seems like we spotted a really rare plane - especially for these parts!