Home! Sort of.

I'm back in Portland and pretty excited to be back on familiar turf again. I am set up in a sweeeeeet apartment, the part time residence of a friend's parents. It's big, clean, stocked with the basics and situated next to a Trader Joe's and across from a Max station, so I can hop on the train pretty easily and get anywhere I need to go. The only down side is that there's no internet access there, but that's literally the *only* downside. I'm really feeling blessed that I have friends here who are so willing to help me out.

At the moment, I'm hanging out at the downtown library and pretending to look for jobs. No, actually I did apply for one, but I really need to quit procrastinating and channel my anxiety into this whole job hunting thing.

As my life is not likely to be particularly interesting for the next few months, I don't anticipate writing much more on this blog. I know I promised all kinds of posts about American food, and about the King of Thailand (who I am no longer forbidden to call a 'giant poopy head' if I so wish... I don't really wish to, but it's nice to have the option) but now that I have real live people to talk to, pouring my guts out online is not so much of a driving need. But who knows?

My beauty

I cannot emphasize enough that taking public transportation gives you a view into humanity that you just don't get driving around with your windows up.


The other day I was waiting for the Max... just sitting there minding my own business, ready to go home after a long day of running errands. There was a scruffy looking older man in a wheelchair waiting nearby.


He rolled up to me and said "Sorry to annoy you, but would you put my books in my bag?"
"Um... sure" I replied.
Reaching behind him he pulled two books from between his back and the back of his chair and handed them to me. As I put them in the backpack hanging behind his chair I noticed that one of them was the Alcoholics Anonymous big book - I couldn't tell what the other one was. I zipped up the back pack and went to sit down again.
"Thanks" he said.
"No problem."


So I continue sitting there, trying to decide if it was worth it to pull my own book out of my backpack or if the Max would be there soon enough for me not to bother trying to read. But it turns out Mr. Wheelie Drinksnomore wanted to chat now.


"I want to compliment you on your beauty*." He said.
Oh lord...now I try to be good about accepting compliments but on this particular day I was no where near beautiful. My hair was in a pony tail and I was all sweaty & tired from being out and about but... not wanting to be rude I just said a modest "Thank you." and tried to think of something witty to say about inner beauty.
"Thank you for your beauty*. It's nice to give a man something good to look at."

And wow - there's suddenly something very interesting on the other end of the platform!





*I should mention that I happened to be wearing a low cut top... well not so much low as loosely cut top because it was hot - but you know if I leaned over or slouched at all.... anyway I'm pretty sure you can substitute "low cut blouse" for "beauty" in his comments and get his true sentiment.

Everything's alright yes, everything's fine.

(Listening to Jesus Christ Superstar… quite an appropriate song for me right now actually “close your eyes, close your eyes and relax think of nothing tonight…”)

For the first time in a while now I’m completely dependent on Tri-met for my transportation needs. Now, I count myself extremely fortunate to live in a city where relying completely on public transportation is even a viable option… but it does make life interesting. I also count myself as extremely fortunate not to have to work right now, because if I had to run all my errands after working an 8 hour day, I can assure you that these stories would be far less ‘interesting’ and rather more ‘infuriating’.

Last week I was riding back to downtown on the 12. It was not a peak commuting time so the bus was somewhat empty.

Ok – a (not so) quick aside, I am a total bus dork, and I have a favorite seat. Well, I have a favorite seat on the new buses. On the old buses, pretty much all the seats are the same… but in the new buses the section behind the back door is elevated (to make room for the wheel well & all that stuff I guess). Anyway… ALL (save one) of the window seats on the new buses have compromised leg room. There’s some weird indention that makes it so that you can’t just sit with your feet straight in front of you – your foot closest to the window needs to slide over a bit – which I guess normal people don’t really care about. But it bugs me, and there are only TWO window seats on the new buses that have full leg room – they are in the back section, the second row behind the back door. And actually, the one on the right side has a weird box thing on the floor. Which I think makes an excellent footrest – so that is my #1 favorite seat on the bus. My #2 favorite seat on the bus is the identical seat on the left (which has full leg room and no box). In my aspergers-esque mind – it is a GOOD DAY if I get to sit in either of those seats and a VERY GOOD DAY if I can sit in my favorite spot. I’ll sit in anywhere if there aren’t a lot of options, but seriously – favorite spot. I get a little cranky if someone beats me to it.

In addition to having full leg room (and a foot rest in the case of #1 favorite seat), I get a pretty good view of everything that’s going on in the bus. So when you read my stories about the bus – imagine me sitting up there in the back, leaning against the window, right foot on foot rest, probably attempting to read.

So anyway… I was riding the 12 back into town and there was a Middle Eastern looking Muslim woman sitting at the front of the bus in the sideways facing “honored citizens” seats – her infant son was in a stroller in the aisle. There were only a handful of other people on bus (so the stroller wasn’t a nuisance). The baby was fussy, despite his mom’s attempts to calm him – rubbing his belly, shushing him or stroking his cheek - he was just fussy. It was the end of the day, and he was clearly done with sitting in his stroller. He’d arch his back and squeal loudly, then his mom would try to distract him for a minute. Nothing seemed to be working. She rummaged around in her purse and found a pen. She waved it in front of him and he was temporarily distracted. Of course he grabbed it, and seeing that this quieted him down, she let him have it. Now if you have ever seen a human child – you know exactly what happened next. He threw it down. Then he started to squeal again. A white teenage boy sitting a few rows back, got up, picked up the pen and handed it back to the woman with a smile as he went to exit the bus.

The woman tried distracting her squealing son with the pen again, and again he grabbed it – played with it for a few quiet seconds, then threw it down again. This time it was a young black man who got up, picked up the pen and handed it back to the woman, then sat down again within arms reach of any more pen-throwing the little boy might do. And I just thought to myself… you know, it’s times like this when I think everything’s going to be okay. When safe & well fed I think the basic instinct of humanity is to just be nice to each other – regardless of differences in race or creed. And I felt a lot better about the world… or at least that tiny little slice of the world at that moment.

Portland, how I love thee

I originally started this post back on a very sunny day in February... not sure why I never got around to finishing it.* But the other day I was wandering around Portland just thinking about how much I love it, so here is my ode to Stumptown.

What I love love love about Portland:

1. Metro free Wi-Fi which allows me to go online from anywhere downtown.

2. Pioneer courthouse square, where there's always something to see. Today is a Jazz concert..."admission $5" but the music falls on the ears of the just & unjust.

(edited to add pictures of "Sand in the City" another even that charged admission... but really anyone walking by can see the fun)

3. MAX for $2.05 you'll take me from the square to the convention center, to the airport, to Orenco station and beyond.

(here's a shot from the Punctuation Max stop, one of my favorite stops)

4. Saturday Market... from March through December displaying crafts and foods, music and magic. The creative heart of the city.

5. PSU farmer's market, crisp veggies, ripe fruit, smoked salmon, fresh baked bread. Families and friends, children and puppies, a plethora of knit hats & scarves in the fall.

6. Central library, Ramona would be thrilled. Free books for book group, events for all. Intellectual transients lounging at long tables.

7. Protesters loud and proud... dissent is patriotic.

8. Portland Art Museum, Tlingit masks, Haida carvings... such a quiet wing, many hidden treasures.

9. PDX - you welcome me home and give visitors their first taste of our city, Made in Oregon, Powells, Good Dog /Bad Dog... and the most rockin' awesome parking lot EVAR.

10. Powells - a city of books for our city of readers.

11. Moonstruck chocolate, why yes I will pay $5 for a piece of chocolate that good!

12. Hoyt Arboretum with trails of trees from near & far. The most beautiful, of course, our magestic Firs waving green arms against a sometimes blue sky.

13. Benson Bubblers - water water everywhere, and plenty to drink.

14. Free news! Portland Tribune tries hard to be a real paper. Willamette Week is the entertainment bible of the city.

15. Mt. Hood... how can anyone live in a city without a view of a snow capped mountain?

16. Mt. St. Helens... how can anyone live in a city without of a snow capped volcano?

17. Bagdad, Laurelhurst, Mission - beer, pizza and a $3 movie, life is good.

18. McMenamins - who else takes a church (or a school, or a poor farm) and turns it into a pub?

19. Speaking of which - BEER! With four brew fests a year there's a reason why they call us the microbrew capital of the U.S.

20. It's home... it just is.

* I remembered why I put off finishing this post - uploading all the pictures is a pain! Even with my new lightening fast cable internet connection.

Solar Panels Charged and Ready

Ahhhhhh... now that's a beautiful sight!


The sun came out Thursday afternoon, so on Friday I went to the Portland Japanese Garden. I'd never been, and it was really relaxing. I didn't get any good pictures, too busy actually enjoying everything. Then I walked down to the rose garden which was another treat - the air was filled with their fragrance. Mmmmmmm. I just plopped down and soaked up the rays... and the roses for a while.

I feel human again!

Keepin' Portland Weird

Here's yet another post about how much I love Portland.

Today I hopped on the #8 bus and went downtown, as I like to do on Saturdays. First stop was the Farmer's Market. It's winding down for the season, so a few of the regular stalls were missing.... in particular the one with the super yummy sausages. But I made up for it by getting a pulled pork sandwich... mmmmmm. Ok... that part isn't weird at all... just yummy, and nice because it wasn't too crowded.

From there I walked down towards Pioneer Courthouse Square, about half-way there I heard a guy across the street playing a tuba by Pizza Schmizza. That isn't even particularly weird. But when I got to the square (or as the newscasters like to call it 'Portland's Livingroom') I noticed more and more people with tubas, in fact the entire square was full of tuba players, seriously I've never seen so many tuba players in one place, easily 50, maybe 100. Several of these people were wearing matching hats that said "Tuba Christmas." Apparently I'd missed the show, because most of the people were lined up to get food or just milling about. But yeah... Tuba Christmas in the middle of downtown Portland. Just a little bit weird.

Weirder still, just walking around downtown... three fully-dressed Star Wars Storm Troopers and one very short (if I do say so) Darth Vadar, sans cape. Now I am irrationally afraid of Storm Troopers, Cylons, Borg, and all those humanoid-robotic-bad-guys from science fiction (just ask anyone who heard me screaming bloody murder at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas). But thankfully Darth Vadar & one of the Storm Troopers had their masks off when I first saw them, so I didn't feel the need to run screaming in the other direction. But I saw them again a little while later and they were just, you know, walkin' around being Storm Troopers and Darth Vadar. So yeah.... kinda weird... and a little creepy.

The final bit of weirdness was really just fun. I went to the mall to do a little window shopping. As I walked through the atrium I noticed something light and fluffy drifting down from the third floor. Just a flake or two and then more, and more. It was snowing. It was snowing - inside! Of course it wasn't real snow... it was some kind of foamy soap bubbles. But it looked like snow... and that's what counts. The kids just had a blast dancing in the snow bubbles. Well, the kids and a few adults... okay the kids and me. ;)

After that was a quick trip over to the Saturday market... a place so quintessentially "Portland" that it doesn't even register as weird. Not the marimba band playing, nor the pseudo-statue man, not the creepy greasy Elvis guy, not even the Spoon Man.... that stuff's all normal. As is this knitting bag I bought after chatting with the guy who made it.
Man, I love Portland.

Aligning myself with a friendly universe

My therapist used to tell me to "align" myself "with a friendly universe that has good gifts" to give me. She really stressed that you create your own happiness; if you expect good things to happen, good things will happen. Now, let me stress that she is a very compassionate and intelligent woman who helped me learn a lot of important things. But I could never get on board with her "friendly universe" theory. No matter how hard I try, the universe just does *not* work like that for me.

For example, she suggested that I join a bowling league so that I could meet people*. So I put my positive attitude in full gear and decided to have a good time. But the first night of bowling, someone broke into my car & stole my CD player. Oh, and two of the people* on my team were not so closeted racists. So much for the friendly universe.

Anyway today as I was walking home, I was absolutely over come by the beauty of where I live. The trees were gorgeous, all gold and red. The sky was pink... cerise one could say... and Mt. Hood & Mt. St. Helens were practically glowing white with fresh snow against the twilight sky. I mean, it sounds all kinds of cheesy when I try to describe it. But it was beautiful, really really really beautiful. The kind of beautiful where you can't not believe in God or *some* higher being. Anyway I was walking home from work having all these transcendent thoughts about how incredibly amazing the universe is.

Then I got home, and saw this at my front door.

Yup. A dead bird. A poor dead little Junco. A poor dead little Junco that I now have to clean up. A grizzly reminder that my sweety-pants little kitty-girl, who is curled up so adorably in the chair beside me, is just a cold-blooded murderer in a fur coat.

I guess the universe just wanted to make sure I remembered that no matter how wonderful I think things are - life is unfair, and we're all gonna die.

*single male people

The first three

This week's blog-stalking assignment is to list three things I love and three things I hate. It's going to be hard to trim down the list, as there are many things I love and more than a few things I like to say I hate.

Three things I love:

1. My mother's handwriting. Back in the day they actually taught penmanship in school, Mom learned the Palmer Method of handwriting. So her handwriting is nice and even, properly slanted, just loopy enough. But above and beyond the fact that she has nice handwriting - something about it just says "mom" to me than almost anything else about her.

I remember in college one time I was cleaning up my dorm room and I found a piece of paper with her writing on it and it almost made me cry. I don't even know why, I guess I was homesick or something. But seriously, it was just a list of things I should pack or something generic like that. She's good about writing me letters, and I really appreciate that. Actually, she hasn't written to me in a while, but I think she's still writing to my nephew (in boot camp) several times a week and that's fine.

2. I love this picture of me. My nephew took it when he was all of 3 years old (I believe he was sitting on his tricycle), and it's seriously one of the best pictures I have of myself. How cute was I? Even with the big dorky glasses. =) It was actually winter when this picture was taken. I can tell because I'm wearing jeans. Were it summer, I'd be in a swimsuit & towel.
But man... what I wouldn't give to go back in time and have a nice long chat with my 17 year old self. We'd start with a good long hour lecture on the topic of "You're not fat!" starting with "No, your calves are not 'too big', your thighs are no where near 'flabby', and that bit of your stomach that rolls over the top of your jeans when you sit down is called 'skin' and it's supposed to be there." and ending with a trip to the mall to get a smokin' hot bikini to wear the next time someone wants to go to the beach!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I could say soooo much more about what was going on when this picture was taken. That smile hides a lot of teen angst, high school drama, and emotional turmoil. It was taken just after I broke up with HS boyfriend, but just before I got back together with him. So if I could continue that conversation with my 17 year old self, I would admonish her to run screaming in the opposite direction if anyone should even suggest that the ex-boyfriend 'wasn't that bad'.

I don't know.... I love the picture, I love that my little nephew took it because he was playing with my mom's camera, and I love my 17 year old self for being able to smile through the traumas of adolescence.


3. I love my country.

I am a very patriotic person. I tear up when I hear the National Anthem, I love singing all of our other folk songs like America the Beautiful. I love my country because of it's diversity of people, ideas, climate, geography... there's really something for everyone. And I love my country despite the truly horrible things we've done, like slavery, or sending American citizens of Japanese ancestry to internment camps during WW2. Because eventually we do sort it out and try to make things right. I believe in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I feel very honored to get to participate in that government, and I take my civic responsibilities seriously (most of the time... I'll admit not voting in some of the local elections when I haven't had time to figure out what the issues were). I consider jury duty a privilege.

Of course, one of the things I love best about my country is Portland. It's so beautiful here. We have all the benefits of being a city, a good local music scene, lots of art galleries & a museum that's small but gets some terrific visiting exhibits, the public transportation is great (even if Tri-met cannot always be exactly on time) and it's just got a cool vibe here. The other great thing is that you don't have to go very far to get away from city life. The mountains and the coast are each just a couple hours away, not to mention all the parks and hiking trails in the city itself.

So those are my three loves. As for the three things I hate - stay tuned, I've got quite a bit to say on that subject as well.

Portland Rocks

Portland rocks. It just does. There's always something going on, and I love just taking the bus downtown to go to the Library, the Museum, or the Farmers Market, but I never really know what I'm going to find. One time I heard drums, followed their sound & found a troupe of traditional Mayan dancers doing a performance in front of one of the musuems. Who knew?

This Saturday - surprise! The Iranian festival in the South Park Blocks. I wandered through but they were only just getting set up so there wasn't much to see. A few booths with traditional textiles, one with a lot of pictures, maps and other information.

Next I went to the PSU Farmers Market.

Lots of different tomatos!

Pretty pretty flowers!
Unblossomed Thisle.... yummmmy.

I picked up some squash, a pepper, some tomatos, and basil (for a tasty roast vegetable soup) along with some bread & cheese.

Then I walked down to Pioneer Courthouse Square where all kinds of stuff was going on. I should have taken a picture of the title of this project, because I can't remember what it was called. The project took up several blocks - convieniently closed for construction of the green line Max from PSU to Clackamas (or as I intend to call it - the Clackamax ;) ) Anyway there were dozens of these black boxes, which will at some point have back-light pictures of a sporty nature. Yet another thing that was not set up yet. Yes, I guess it was a bit early as I was wandering around.



But there was also a project going on for the Library. It was called 'Chalk it Up for Kids" and there were a bunch of chalk artists drawing, a used book sale, and a stage set up, either for music or a reading I'm not sure.

After all of that I walked over to the library. After reading The Poisonwood Bible*, I decided that since I'm woefully undereducated about geography and the various political situations around the world I should start learning a bit more. However, to be honest, there's no way I could make it through some of the books that Mistress J., the economic genious goes through. So I visited the children's section and picked up several books about Africa. I read the first one today, and what with the pretty pictures & short chapters... they are just my speed. I figure if I keep reading the kids books, I might even end up smarter than a 5th grader!

Altogether a pretty fun & productive weekend.

*Oh I've just finished The Poisonwood Bible, I picked it up at Powells while waiting in line for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As soon as I collect my thoughts, I'll be posting on that.