gretchin lair: strange and charmed

spring flowers

2011-03-20T22:29:00.001-07:00

daffodils from the farmer's market. okay, i'm starting to believe in spring again.

spring tree

2011-03-06T22:30:00.001-08:00

well, this tree thinks it's spring, even if i'm still doubtful.

october octane

2010-11-13T19:38:00.006-08:00

october is usually our busiest month, and this year doesn't seem much different.

for instance, it always begins with a bang at the hp lovecraft film festival, three days of films inspired by hp lovecraft. this one was bittersweet because, after a run of 15 years, it's the last one in portland.

then we headed to the salem film festival to see the premier of sven’s "mutate" film. it premiered in astoria on the same day, so we had to choose one. we met a young woman from boston who only discovered she had won the day before and scrambled to get here in time for -her- premiere (hi, kassidy!). we also got to hang out with joanna priestly, oregon's queen of indie animation. all that -plus- free concessions for filmmakers! we had a good time.

we had many friends participating in the portland open studios tour this year and we managed to see them all. in addition, we got to see a new artist, thomas hughes, whose "mechanical theatres" are truly delightful. we downloaded the open studios iphone app to navigate between locations: SO much easier than using the calendar map. :)

plus, i attended a reading of sven’s "death of the party" at pdx playwrights, we sat through the final round of the video gong show at the hollywood theatre, watched dinner w/ andre at the 5th avenue cinema, attended the "7-year itch" in st. john's, and ended with the "animation show of shows" at cinema 21 (w/ a gathering afterward at the blue moon).

but i would have done even more if i hadn't gotten sick right after the lovecraft festival. i missed a whitebird performance, the first weekend of open studios, carl & cecilia's birthday at ned ludd, and steve's wedding.

we took the opportunity to finish max headroom (which i found held up even after 20 years) & begin thirtysomething. i read the whole of "night in the lonesome october" to sven, as per tradition. we watched network, clash of the titans, brokeback mountain, and the blob on halloween. i'm not usually a person who games online, nor am i a steampunk aficionado, but i really started getting into fallen london.

when i wasn't sick, watching movies or exploring fallen london, i kept busy working. uws is going well: i got recommended to the "clinic phase labs," which is apparently a distinction of sorts. for me, it means i work with students once or twice a week now, and i leave at an unholy hour to do it. ohsu standardized patient work kept me busy in october, too. and i'm still doing web work for the ebikestore. i also got to participate in a formal iphone usability study, which was a lot of fun: took me back to my HCI days.

my dad's birthday is in october (happy 59th!), and i traded my annual letter to/from roboamn. halloween requires pumpkins and an elaborate shelf sven created above the door to keep the vandals on our street from smashing our pumpkins like they did several years in a row. the "pumpkin faeries" also delivered new pumpkins when sven discovered a group of boys had smashed a neighbor's pumpkins in the street.

finally, svenapalooza began with brunch at old wives’ tales w/ kristen & todd. more about svenapolooza in november!

augember

2010-10-10T11:43:00.021-07:00

blending august and september events. had to make the most of summer while i had it. now that it's raining again, i can write about it.

birthday: the big event of august was my birthday, which really sort of began in july with the visit from sven's parents. to celebrate my 37th year i biked the length of se37th ave, from where it begins at the springwater corridor trail to where it ends at ne liberty. how poetic! i did have to make some creative loops in places where 37th doesn't exist. i stopped halfway to drink some cold water at castle5000 who lives along 37th, then i met sven afterwards at fernhill park which lies along 37th for cake, though by that point it was getting pretty dark. we finished with a late night snack at mcmenamin's kennedy school just a couple of blocks away, where i won a game of pool. to finish this year's birthdaypalooza, i invited friends to tony starlight's (at the corner of ne37th and sandy!) for a louis armstrong birthday tribute concert featuring the trumpeter from pink martini (louie armstrong was born on aug04, too!). i had a great time, even if i did have to wake at 5:30 the next morning. :)

[biking to my birthday, cake in the park in the dark, mcmenamins]

[louis armstrong tribute at tony starlight's]

other events: alex & amelia’s block party, lots of farmer’s markets, art in the pearl, 10 tiny dances (met mike barber at our pre-show meal at the observatory!), anniversary. we also took bridget to lunch at flying pie & bipartisan cafe during talk like a pirate day: she totally dressed up! white bird season has begun: we saw BJM Danse Montréal at the newmark theatre. we celebrated michaelmas in a mild way. our house was egged twice. we got to go to diamond again to watch the full moon rise on the alvord desert behind the steens mountains. it was a bit of a mixed trip: i really enjoyed exploring the land and the actual moonrise, though.

[ten tiny dances]

[svenniversary, sven cleaning eggs in the rain, bridget pirate queen]

[scenes from the trip to the alvord desert]

rosebike: i passed 2000 miles in august! i got a bike trailer for my birthday, so i've been getting groceries by bike weekly. yes! but the highlight of the summer was packing up the bike trailer and heading out to camp by myself at oxbow park! i haven't been camping in years and have never camped by myself -- and certainly never camped by bike! but it was a lot of fun, and the staff there is incredibly helpful and friendly. the trip was full of excitement: as i was riding down the giant hill to enter the park, my bike trailer separated from the bike and began to race down the hill in front of me. thanks to a ninja move i was able to wrestle it against the guardrail -- not OVER the guardrail -- and rescue everything without sprawling it all in front of traffic. the staff was impressed enough at the story that they volunteered to give me a ride up to the top of the hill the next day, which i gratefully accepted. but bridgepedal was in august, too! this is the first time i've biked there, done the ride, and biked home. i managed it on one charge: 40 miles! that's the longest ride i've ever done on one charge. the route wasn't as good this year because so many bridges were closed, but i still had a good time. august & sept also featured the se & nw sunday parkways: one of them was SUPER HOT; the other was very rainy. i also attended the intertwine park(ing) bike tour. ended up replacing rose's back tire after days of wondering why it would go flat.

[camping at oxbow]

[bridgepedal]

[sunday parkways]

jobs: i started working for uws, doing things similar to my ohsu gigs. i can even easily bike there! i also had a few ohsu shifts: it looks like this standardized patient stuff is starting to become a decent source of income. to top it off, i'm doing some regular webwork for the the ebike store: what a perfect fit!

seasonal: blackberries, the night insect frog trilling, equinox walk delayed due to the alvord trip. also, carl invited me to see the perseids but we just couldn't make it work, so i hung out in the field for a couple of hours and saw a few good ones.

media: my so-called life, alias w/ michaelmas, max headroom (still enjoyable!), book of kells movie w/ kristen, todd & sven

other: michaelmas got a prettypretty doctor who art piece framed so i was called upon to help rearrange his art; my dad sent sorta good news about his health: no visible cancer on rescan, but still on chemo for 3 more months.

july jubilee

2010-08-09T22:09:00.005-07:00

july was a huge blur, filled with visits and travels and events and holidays and celebrations.

todd’s birthday started things off, then the 4th of july -- which we celebrated by watching the fireworks from dayna’s boat.

sven’s parents visited and we kept them busy: playing portland bingo, saturday market, trek in the park, farmer’s market, historical bike tour, visiting jalex & abe at her new house & neighborhood, cathedal park jazz festival. we ate our way through kenny & zuke’s, toro bravo, ringler’s annex, ten 01, st. john mcmenamin’s & tin shed.

then leeann visited! we started slowly at loyly & broder, and then i took her on a bike ride to oaks park, where we got a free trip on the carousel. she managed to come during the bridge festival, so we took the opportunity to take the last bridgewalk tour and dance on the morrison bridge while traffic was stopped. the tour guide asked if i was the “famous gretchin lair” at the end of the tour: she’s been using a photo of me & sven on her promotional materials since the last tour we were on! however, we were all disappointed by the lights on the hawthorne bridge. we took leeann to trek in the park, too, where we saw philip. on the last morning i took her to pix high tea before dropping her off at the airport.

when i got back home, sven’s parents had returned! we all hopped in the car and headed to cannon beach. i used a relief band for the first time: whoah! this trip began my birthdaypalooza as sven’s parents treated us to hotel & dinners & gifts. funcycles are a tradition for sven & me, and we rented some for sven’s parent’s, too. haystack rock during a foggy night is beautiful. toby got new shoes and has been able to stand on his own for the first time! the only thing that could have made the trip more perfect was some extra reading time on the beach, but otherwise we had a good time.

in between all that i managed to attend another holgate bike lane meetings, sunday parkways, an ebike meetup, the ramona street fair, housesitting for pdxmph, ended my census job, worked with ohsu’s simulation nursing center (more jobs like this, please!), and attended the video gong show at the know (sven sadly got gonged by an animation guy with a grudge against claymation who actually grabbed another judge’s sign to invoke the gong).

in the meantime we watched big man japan, alice in wonderland. i’ve also been trying free ibook classics on the iphone, which got me through louisa may alcott’s ouvre, jane eyre and wuthering heights.

junuary

2010-06-30T21:35:00.008-07:00

media:
slumdog millionaire, earth 2, glee

events:
shuju play invited us to the "25th annual putnam county spelling bee." sven & i also attended ten tiny taiko dances. al & mike invited us to dinner. sven & i tried pitxi.

[mint juleps i made for dinner w/ mike & al]

natural events:
i can't believe all the rain & cold. so disappointing. apparently i need to vacation somewhere for the summer where there actually is a summer. but we went on our regular solstice walk on powell butte, which is lovely as always. though it was actually clear enough to see the partial lunar eclipse, i couldn't manage it while working, and the rest of the cloudy days kept me from seeing comet mcnaught. i finally gave up on the garden this year; even the loyal raspberries are acting oddly, coming in strange 4-5 seeds clumps rather than forming whole berries.

[sitting in my favorite apple tree on powell butte]

jobs:
one phases of the census ended and another is beginning soon. i did a standardized patient shift at wsu for the first time. bothpieces is still kicking along w/ 2 clients (but no website yet. ha!). decided not to leap back into backline, even though it's up & running again (hooray!).

biking:
would still like to be doing more of this, but i did a few impressive & fun rides. for instance, i managed to make two trips to the little red bike cafe before it closed. went out to the edgefield a couple of time in one week to pick up something for my dad's birthday and to hang out on their porch & read. managed to make it out to oxbow park but had to ask sven to come get me when i realized i wasn't going to make it up the giant hill in time to make our dinner reservation. even made it out to ikea. i've become pretty comfortable getting through ladd's addition and over the hawthorne bridge; also, i enjoy going over mt tabor as long as i don't pass anyone. :) at this point there's not much in portland i wouldn't bike to, given a chance.

[above: the porch at edgefield below: waiting at oxbow]

and this is the season for pedalpalooza (2+ weeks of scheduled bike fun): i only went on 3.5 rides, but they were fun. getting to know sam at the ebike ride was enjoyable, and i appreciated the sol popsicles he bought for us. we also spent some time in a parking lot, trying out each other's bikes. i was delighted my polka-dotted dress helped inspire lisa to wear beautiful things while riding rather than "bike schlub" outfits, as she called them. seeing cute girls on bikes certainly helped inspire -my- bicycling! the ebike ride is the longest ride i've ever been on; it was 43.5 miles when you count the ride to the ebike store and home again. other pedalpalooza rides included the "blessing of the bikes," the fat girls ride, and the hidden se connections ride (which was disappoiningly canceled after we had assembled).

but i've had a couple of unpleasant experiences: one night while biking home in the rain after visiting michaelmas, some guys waiting for a bus jumped into the bike lane to hassle me. i was scared and wet and tired, so i didn't respond appropriately as a bike ambassador. when i yelled "fuck you!" at them they seemed offended. later, on one of my trips to the lrbc, a white truck ran a red light and just barely missed me; i actually had to pull over for a bit and compose myself.

other notable items: i was delighted to be interviewed at pdxebiker as an "ebike success story." i've been heading to the farmer's markets, which makes biking a real pleasure. i made the leaderboard on trailguru (highest rank: 9). and sven & i attended the holgate bike lane meeting.

[farmer's market finds]

mother may i

2010-05-31T22:09:00.003-07:00

may was a blur trying to juggle my job at OHSU, the census, and bothpieces. at ohsu i felt my feedback was ace, census started rough with a dog bite but i'm now getting "census sense" for different cases, and bothpieces finally has momentum (& clients!).

cooking & biking has suffered, but in the meantime we managed to fit in the last whitebird of the season, a denis brown lecture, kooza (followed by pedicab & bambuza), the high tea at pix, and my traditional memorial day at ground kontrol. we also watched the imaginarium of dr parnassus (bleh), hot fuzz (whoo!), and finished the first season of dollhouse (mmm!).

[top: pix high tea. bottom: ground kontrol.]

april showers

2010-05-01T13:28:00.004-07:00

sven & i were supposed to be at the coast this weekend to celebrate bridget's birthday, but we are home recovering from terrible illnesses instead. sick took up about 20% of april. here's what else happened:

events:
bridget & anna & 23 sandy shows, easter eggs, toxic trash event, help kristen & todd move, abe's birthday party, michaelmas birthday, tax refund: $10, dinner w/ kristen & todd at ya holla (vegetarian feast followed by pie at bipartisan cafe), michaelmas' dad visited, we went to cirque du soleil... on the wrong day

[easter eggs]

[kristen & todd moving day crew]

[monty & michaelmas]

edibles:
exploration at the vita cafe's new location (and the place we suspect made us so sick), grilled cheese schoolbus, lomo w/ michaelmas & his dad (thanks, monty!), cha w/ michaelmas & his dad (thanks, monty!)

health:
my doctor checked me for cholesterol again. despite a change in eating habits and a lot more exercise, my numbers are worse than 2006. bummer. at least i have to worry less about whether starting a lipitor habit will affect my chances of getting health insurance in the future thanks to the health insurance law passing: when i was first searching for individual health insurance kaiser denied me because of one abnormal pap smear several years prior and so i've been very careful about what i want on the record at blue cross/blueshield. sven & i were violently ill this week and sven had an additional health scare which has been mostly cleared. my illness coincided with mandatory census training, and i was so sick i actually had to take a day off, even if it meant they would fire me for it (which they didn't, i'm happy to say). but i'm still not up to 100%.

rosebike:
biked to ebike store for the first time, which was an exciting meta accomplishment. i biked to taxes. i even biked to the doctor. i also biked to michaelmas a few times, which is beginning to feel almost normal. i got a higher capacity battery & charger so i can make it there and back without worry, and it turns out the route is pretty easy. i'm beginning to reach a point where if an errand i can bike to in an hour, i feel i might as well bike it rather than do a daily bike ride and then drive to the errand. that means i'm comfortable biking anywhere in SE, many parts of NE, downtown, and some parts of NW, and possibly thorough troutdale. michaelmas' dad tried rose out and he really enjoyed her: "this is something else!" he exclaimed.
[monty and rose]

jobs:
i just finished training for Non Response Follow Up census duties and even completed my first interview in the field. it went pretty well despite a language problem which required talking to three different people and waking someone up (sorry!). had a few roles at ohsu, too, and two weeks of them coming up in may. juggling the census with OHSU, bothpieces or other events is going to be fun because while they say the census is flexible, the expectation is that you'll check in every day. still, it's a delight to be paid for doing something fun! i got assigned to a district along the springwater corridor trail which is almost ideal for me. :)

movies:
imposter, dr. who specials, torchwood's children of earth, one episode of dollhouse but i want to see more, gran torino, ikiru

forward march

2010-04-04T11:55:00.006-07:00

jobs: more ohsu standardized patient gigs: i really, really love these. i also applied to the ppcw call center with no luck. i'm still waiting for the census to contact me.... *cross fingers*

art: sven & i attended white bird's production of hubbard street dance chicago, which was really impressive, especially the last piece with the amazing fence. sven and i had two completely different reactions to one of the dances, though, which i thought was pretty funny. we also attended the Portland Art Museum's free friday night to view the "disquieted" show -- which i did not actually find all that disquieting, but it did have a bill viola piece i saw at the getty and sven was delighted to see a ron mueck piece. then we went to the open studio show at city hall because we know so many people there.

media: lost, alias, 9.99, go, fear(s) of the dark, bamboozled, doubt. i gave up on torchwood; unless "children of earth" really blows me away, i won't be watching the next season. dr. who almost killed me with stupidity early in the season, but i really liked donna and very much wished they had kept her. the way they left her storyline was the worst possible ending for me.

bike: i'm still biking almost every day, even in the rain. i've been testing a poncho not entirely successfully. but i feel pretty confident in biking anywhere within a 9-mile radius, including the parkrose peace labyrinth, dress barn, mt. hood community college, blue lake and all the way up the 205 bike path until it ended at the oregon border. heck, i even thought about "reach the beach," but i just don't know yet if the bike will do a 28-mile trip without recharging. my longest trip has been 23.1 miles, to celebrate the arrival of michaelmas' ipad, but i got to charge her a bit while i was there. i have been SO excited about google adding bicycling directions to its maps; i can only hope the iphone adds it as a layer. still, i often check bycycling.org, too, and compare the routes. sadly, my very favorite bike store was vandalized; i hope it is not too discouraging, because the guy that runs it is the nicest guy. (vaguely related in a transportation fashion: one night while visiting michaelmas trixie got a "turtle," an error where she will not move or only move slowly, but it was only happening in reverse. it finally went away after turning the car on and off a few times and waiting.)

events: jalex birthday at ned ludd, pi day, rebel's housewarming. we also went on our traditional equinox walk on powell butte; the weather could not have been more cooperative. i brought graffiti & trash tools this time; it turned out there wasn't much graffiti, but the spots i cleaned were deeply satisfying. the problem is graffiti on wood posts & benches, so next time we may bring some sandpaper. but there are still trees damaged from a particularly vehement round of graffiti in 2007 i can't do anything about.

food: i got hooked on drinking vinegars the few times i've had them at pok pok or ping, so when i discovered our local asian grocery store carried some, it gave me a good excuse to check it out and find a way to bike there. i picked up plum ("Plum aroma, sweet and sour taste that moisture your throat and quench your thirst") and strawberry ("Scent of strawberry is just like the scent of happiness and sweet love"). i also -love- the sandwiches at a local bahn-mi place, best baguette. also, sven took me to sweet tomatoes, a restaurant i knew as "souplantation" in california. and while i still love making the ny times no-knead bread recipe (now i almost always make a rosemary loaf w/ our own rosemary), i burned my hand pretty badly on the bowl over a week ago and it still hasn't healed.

she cud bicycle dere an nom a sammich!

2010-03-25T16:05:00.003-07:00

sven wrote me a refrigerator lolpoem in part because i've had a string of recent bike victories lately.

for instance, i just passed 500 miles this year! last year i didn't reach 500 until near the end of november, so this is exciting.

then i made it all the way to new seasons, which has been a goal of mine for a long time. doing our weekly groceries by bike would be a pretty happy place for me, but about half our groceries are liquids (soda, juices, milk, tetra packs, etc.) which are heavy and bulky. they do not fit very well in my bike baskets. so i'm only making "light" trips by bike when we don't have a lot on the list, and am looking forward to getting veggies at the farmer's market in summer again.

but yesterday, during the prettiest day portland has seen yet this year, i made it to oaks park! this has been my goal ever since getting a bike several years ago. i've not realized how close i was previously, so it really feels like i broke a barrier: 18 miles easy roundtrip.

but alas, portland is not always bike paradise. witness this bike rack fail:

baby announcement

2010-03-15T21:54:00.003-07:00

i got a lovely email from sandy the other day: it had baby pictures! zachary kevin lay was born march 06. he is adorable and sandy looks -so- happy. i can hardly wait to meet her new family when i visit colorado this year. (um, whenever that might be. it depends on the census, who tells me they'll be hiring in april and people will be working in may.) before her baby had a name she was calling him "button," so i got them a framed quilted piece with a button on it. welcome to the world, zach! may you be blessed with kindness, courage, curiosity and creativity.

gagapalmerlauper

2010-03-07T21:01:00.003-08:00

i know: i should be writing about the oscars, right? but i keep reading about how lady gaga is so weird- and it makes me laugh because i think lady gaga is the cyndi lauper of our time. remember? she was so unusual!

amanda palmer has a song/video about responses to lady gaga: gagapalmermadonna. i think lauper is a better illustration than madonna, but i can agree with the rest of it:

"...and if someone talented wants to make pop music, why should we worry when there's so much other shit wrong?"

sick days

2010-02-20T20:53:00.006-08:00

hey, look! back to lists! i've been sick most of the month, but this is what i've been doing in the meantime:

* making friends with my new laptop, antimony (named after a gunnerkrigg court character)

* attending fertile ground, where sven produced two of his own plays and was in an additional two plays

* bicycling a lot less than i would like. i tried biking during the early sickness on the theory that it would keep me from getting sicker, but it didn't work out that way and i have suffered through the last several beautiful days of weather wishing i could ride. i discovered trail guru and i've ben using it to map my rides. also of note: bike racks are being vandalized at my dry cleaners & at freddys. people are actually unscrewing & prying them from the concrete. also, AAA offers "towing" privileges for bikes now.

[renting a valentine's day tandem with sven]

* other events: unbirthday lunch, massage, soaking pool & dinner at edgefield; powell butte trail & park feedback meeting; kristen's bday; soaking at common grounds; margaret's chinese new year tiger party; foster burger & hammy's pizza

* jobs: i applied for a call center job at ppso thinking it was ppcw; ohsu has been using me frequently as a standard patient, which i truly love; no word from the census.

* movies: avatar, dralion, caprica, royal tenenbaums, the darjeeling limited, ink, 9, i’m not there, the happiness of the katakuris. torchwood is still making me roll my eyes.

* last but not least, i found out my dad has cancer again. they installed a chemotherapy port a couple of weeks ago. he doesn't really want to talk about it.

greek cucina has left the building

2010-01-16T10:41:00.003-08:00

but the octopus is still there a little while longer:

(it's worth clicking on the image to see it larger.)

eggsellent

2010-01-11T12:36:00.004-08:00

when i woke this morning, i thought i was motivated to do a bunch of stuff because mondays are my "get down to work" day. (the weekend tends to be be "plan for the rest of the week" days and "do work because i have less input" days). but instead i'm making beans, tortillas, broccoli salad and fennel-onion-apple reduction for sausages. can you tell what i enjoy more? i used to think cooking was a big waste of time, especially since i couldn't make anything that was tastier; now i have trouble going through a day without making -something-, and our restaurant visits & frozen meals have been greatly reduced as a result. not that i don't like michaelangelo's lasagne or amy's enchiladas, and i'm still not a great baker, save for that no-knead bread recipe i've mastered. for a while we had an organics to you order every couple of weeks which really required me to learn how to cook a wide variety of veggies.

my recent learning curve has been reaching poached egg perfection. i read kyrie's recipe for poached eggs right after i got back from morocco, and combined with sauteed greens atop a biscuit it sounded like heaven. i had been told that protein helps you overcome jet lag and BOY was i suffering from jet lag, so i ate this breakfast every day for a week. my poached egg was pretty inconsistent, though. then i had a poached egg that was truly fantastic at kristen & todd's, which gave me something concrete to aspire to. i began to realize that the shape of the egg is very much dependent on the velocity of the egg hitting the water: too fast and it creates ribbons and strings of eggs floating away from the surface of the egg. shallow water helps, too, because the further it has to fall into the water the more time it has to unravel. k&t used an egg thermometer to measure the temperature of their water but that seemed too fussy for me. there was also much discussion about how to -feel- when the egg was right and that it might take many months of study. so i checked cook's illustrated online (thanks to a birthday subscription from sven, it's my go-to resource for cooking questions), which recommended an incredibly simple and repeatable technique: get the water boiling, take the pan off the heat, slide the egg in, cover the pan, let it sit for 4 minutes. voila! perfect poached eggs every single time with no thinking required -- very necessary in a breakfast food. :)

(this is toasted quinoa w/ a homemade fennel-onion-apple compote, goat cheese, a perfect poached egg, and haleakala ruby finishing salt. SO good and only took 5 mins to assemble, most of which was spent waiting for the egg to poach.)

wimplewimple!

2010-01-04T12:18:00.005-08:00

the wimple i got from ann for xmas is high on the list of things i never thought i needed but has turned out to be invaluable as a biking and casual accessory. much less fuss than a scarf.

capture the flag

2010-01-02T09:46:00.004-08:00

instead of staying up all night to see the first dawn of the new year, this year i promptly went to bed after toasting the fair city of portland and set my alarm for 6 a.m. i wanted to head east before dawn to capture the golden banner of the new year on my trusty bike steed, rose. by the time the sun rose, i was further east than i've ever been on the springwater corridor trail, past where pavement crumbles into gravel:

and this is what the year looks like at its very newest:

end-of-year events

2009-12-31T23:03:00.007-08:00

or at least, since morocco. someday i hope to write more than a listing of events. someday.

events:
* white bird: hofesh shechter co, shen wei, daniel leveille, lectures down below
* animation show of shows
* 23sandy: broadsided & wrap benefit
* philip glass: orphée
* morocco presentation: i've posted a few of my favorite morocco pix on facebook and on flickr until i get a chance to write about the trip. but the presentation went great!
* china design now w/ cecilia
* book arts group at reed
* trillium holiday sale (as a customer this year instead of a Board member)
* little things guardino
* foster indie mart
* edible exploration: swagat, apizza scholls, veggie pho on sandy, great dinner w/ k&t, perfecting a pizza crust, arleta library bakery cafe, exploring recipes in "ratio"
* holidays sales: handmadenw, secret society, bike craft, crafty wonderland, da vinci art fair, union rose
* writing group
* “look at all your neat things!” at alma

holidays:
* halloween sugar skulls
* sven’s 3anim8 birthday
* thanksgiving w/ mph family, dessert w/ carl & cecilia
* solstice walk on the butte: watched construction on new reservoir
* holiday parties (games & gifts w/ k&t, m5000, lindabill)
* catsitting arwen while michaelmas traveled to mt. vernon
* surprise xmas hits: a wimple (thanks, ann!) and salt (thanks, sven!). the JBL speaker that works with the iphone was also greatly appreciated (thanks, michaelmas!)
* nye: so sad to miss full moon, blue moon AND a partial eclipse! at least it stopped raining when we climbed the hill to toast the city at midnight. usually i stay up all night preparing for the new year, greet the dawn & collapse into bed; this year i went to bed immediately and got up to do a bike ride at dawn. lovely!

movies/media:
* fantastic mr. fox
* rushmore
* cirque du soleil videos
* last of battlestar galactica
* caught up w/ lost w/ michaelmas (now starting alias). attempted millenium, season 2.
* up
* the rest of the bourne movies
* bottlerocket
* beijing olympic opening ceremonies (after china design now)
* more i can't remember

homework:
* dentist
* cleaned up garden for winter
* new cookware: calphalon unison (thanks, ann!) and i'm learning to work with a steel pan, too
* plantar fasciitis explains why i've been hobbling around for almost a year. judicious use of ice, stretching, heel inserts and ibuprofen has reduced the pain from 7-8 on a 10-point scale to 1-2. thank god. i hope it stays that way.
* biking every day despite cold, rain, weather -- all the way to 22 degrees! i even biked as far as reed college, which is important to me because it breaks the SE 39th barrier: if i can get to reed relatively painlessly, i can bike almost anywhere in SE. i got a flat tire on woodstock, though: after sven arrived only THEN realized i could have gotten it fixed at the bike gallery a block away. wake at the ebike store is still totally awesome. total miles this year: 732, more than all other years combined.
* mph are collaborating on a very exciting project. i hope it works out!

spice route

2009-09-23T18:58:00.002-07:00

tomorrw i fly to sf to see leeann, and from there we go to morocco. i'm feeling pretty prepared: i've been reading, shopping, packing, learning. i got four vaccinations (tetanus, hepatitis a, typhoid and MMR) and a heavy dose of antibiotics. but i'm still a little nervous. wish me luck!

in between all that i had an interview & meetup with backline, whose services are still suspended. sven & i went to the installation at 23 sandy, where i got leeann a gift and sven discovered a playwriting group. we also saw the bourne supremacy (argh! it's everything i was worried the first movie would be).

i also celebrated the changing of the seasons: i biked to my last farmer's market (it will be closed when i return) and ate my last kahlua pork wrap from lilikoi (they're moving to a new location). for my last bike ride of the summer i biked north on the i205 path to gateway green. sven & i did our traditional hike to the top of powell butte on the equinox, which was very windy and warm this year. but the controlled fires have really taken out a lot of the underbrush and cover, and they have a new bench at the compass rose. because of morocco i celebrate michaelmas a little early this year: i took him to limo, a new peruvian restaurant where cameo used to be and went to the roof for my last stunning view of pdx.

sendin u good vibes through the universe

2009-09-12T00:26:00.008-07:00

i am now 36, but i haven't gotten to write about it yet! i share a birthday with gerrie, maggie & obama. i held an "every minute counts" party: 36 minutes to celebrate my 36th birthday at the corner of hawthorne and 36th. last year i picked a place on se 35th to hold my birthday party, which happened to be laurelhurst park (35th/oak). i enjoyed the unusual format and looked for as many things to do on 36th this year as posisble. so we started at the waffle window, the red light used clothes store, grant park to write my annual birthday poem, had dinner at bread & ink, and then finally to ben & jerry's for ice cream with friends at the 36-minute party. the whole day was a lot of fun. michaelmas took me to the heathman the week after that, per our tradition.

some of my birthday guests kindly posed in the ben & jerry face cutouts:

[1. michael & sven 2. todd & kristen]

[1. miles & amelia 2. teena & philip]

[1. m5000 & mrs.5000 2. shu-ju & the good prince]

but then weird stuff started happening:

* right after my birthday, someone spraypainted graffiti on trixie & the svan: gay, fuck, bitch. when sven contacted the police he called it a hate crime because of the antigay messaging and the crude attempt to modify the "no on 36" bumper sticker. because sven played that card, the police said they were required to respond. it turned out more apt than we knew: the other family in the neighborhood that got hit the same night was a hispanic family -- and someone knew enough about them that they hit a car around the block in addition to the ones in their driveway. our misfortune netted us some neighbor visits, including one who brought sympathetic flowers. mph, al & ben brought pecan pie (thanks!). i felt super lucky that we had bought some anti-graffiti spray a few days before, and it all came off the cars relatively easily. at some point i'd like to do a graffiti patrol to clean it up in other parts of the neighborhood, too.

* not long after all that, we witnessed this craziness at the foster fred meyer. it went on for 20 minutes until the police finally escorted him out of the building.

* then the earl boyles garden got vandalized: vegetables pulled out of the ground, trellis wrecked, the works. that happened in the park nearest us, the one i like to bike to. i went to the community work party, but still: wtf?

* THEN i learned backline is suspending its talkline service indefinitely. my last shift was heartbreaking.

* then shelley & i had a hard conversation, which i think we worked out. but it capped a long string of difficult and baffling events.

in between all that we managed to have a little fun: i performed one last time at opsfest on mt tabor (starveling, cobweb & moonshine). thanks for coming, sven, michaelmas, kristin & todd! and bridgepedal is one of the highlights of august for me: this year i went all the way to the saint john's bridge! i've also been biking to the farmer's market every chance i get and even stopped by the clackamas town center farmer’s & artist’s market. we put bigger baskets on rose and have been tracking down stray rattling noises. sven & i went on a jet boat ride on a very hot afternoon and snuck off to the beach a few days later to find perfect weather. sven & i also got a chance to see cecilia sing in the choir and visited the new apartment she shares with carl. we watched harry potter, bourne identity, district 9 (which made me physically ill), panyo, and have finally finished babylon 5! we also did a few tba events: 10 tiny dances, small metal objects, & erik friedlander. we tried andina (nina gave us delicious cookies!), i finally got to try the "bourgeoius z" cafe (a vegan-friendly deli hidden in the antique mall near us), and portobello cafe (after a failed attempt earlier this year). i've been surprised to discover i'm starting to like coffee -- at least, prepackaged coffee. still, it's a surprise.

alas, the moonlight obliterated the perseids this year. and we're never invited to "bash on the butte," a loud & yearly tradition for our neighborhood. but i finally replaced trixie's windshield, so only the dents on the roof are left to remind us of her brush with a tornado in minnesota.

as far as work is concerned, i was surprised to learn that diylounge won't be offering adult craft classes at collage starting in november, which means i picked up a couple of classes at the studio from refugee instructors. i also resigned from trillium once my two-year term was up, though i'll still be helping them recruit board members. but i'm still a patient advocate with ohsu because it pays so well and is so rewarding.

sven's parents visited last week, and we painted the town red with them for three days: the little red bike cafe, renting bikes on the waterfront, oaks park, tthe whisky soda lounge, the market street mcmenamin’s (marred by poor service), the ohs will vinton exhibit, knit purl (and boy did we have more yarn stores we could have stopped at!), reading frenzy, andina, saturday market, art in the pearl w/ an awesome cajun band, craft museum ("touching harms the art." ugh.), powell’s technical books & silk. whew! i gave sweet bree a trillium catnip that she madly loved.

of course, the big news is that leeann invited me on a trip to morocco. for free! well, i'm paying for the flight to san francisco and the travel vaccinations. still, it's an a amazing opportunity that just dropped into my lap and i'm suddenly glad i've been divesting myself of obligations so i could be available for it. if all goes well, i'll be gone sep24-oct13. eeeee!

in the meantime, i'm looking forward to the new green line max opening tomorrow. until then, i leave you with a text i accidentally received last week:
"Hey its blair. Thinkin of u, sendin u good vibes through the universe. Mis u and how fantastic u are.”
gosh. someone is going to be very sad they didn't receive this. what is appropriate texting etiquette here?

road tripe

2009-08-29T15:47:00.006-07:00

the wisconsin trip we took in july was quite long and not long enough -- i find that true for a lot of trips. of course, more of this trip was spent in the car than in wisconsin, but that was part of the fun. we were gone for 2.5 weeks and could have easily eeked out some more time in south dakota or at craters of the moon.

the goal was to drive to wisconsin, spend some time w/ sven's family, attend kenyon's memorial service, then drive home, stopping at places like the caves near mt. rushmore & craters of the moon on the return trip.

we tried to make roughly 500 miles a day:

to wisconsin:
wallace, id: a sweet town with a nice interactive mining exhibit.
miles city, mt: i was surprised to find i couldn't make it through montana in one day.
glendive, mt: a dinosaur museum w/ giant bible quotes on the walls.
enchanted highway, nd: gigantic sculpture garden & metal maze in the middle of nowhere.
fergus falls, mn: a pool shaped like minnesota & a very cheap whirpool suite.
coloma, wi: our destination!

i enjoyed getting the chance to experience a part of sven's family life i've never known: coloma is an area sven's family has lived in for generations. our first night we saw fireflies, which felt like it made the whole trip worth it. we spent a lot of time with people i haven't seen since shield's wedding and edmonton. they're a fun bunch, though, especially sven's nieces and cousins. we spent a lot of time barb's lake house, and i loved the pedalboats. i could get used to lake life! sven sorted through a bunch of childhood stuff still stored in the old church. 4th of july had plenty of fireworks and i brought lots of glow necklaces & glowsticks to pass around. shield's birthday is on july 4th, so there was cake, too! the memorial service itself was a "celebration of life" at the claussen family music show barn, after which we all drove to the cemetery to witness the internment, then headed back to the barn for dinner. it was quite nice, actually, and it went off without a hitch.

returning to portland:
worthington, mi: tornado hail shattered trixie's windshield in two places.
sioux falls, sd: vegetarian meats! in the midwest!
mitchell, sd: the corn palace
wall, sd: wall drug, which mph recommended but we couldn't have missed because there were 84 billboards promoting it.
rapid city, sd: very expensive during tourist season. saw saw jewel cave, wind cave and one of the most peaceful campground location i've ever seen (pity we didn't camp there!).
devil's tower, wy: i'd never been here before, but it is pretty awesome and the trail around it is quite nice.
billings, mt: two more scary storms.
yellowstone: google routed us through here but it cost an extra $25 and a lot of time. we skirted the edges to get to Idaho so we didn't see much, but I was impressed with beryl springs. we also saw antelope, deer, buffalo, a bald eagle, and a coyote on the road eating a bird.
craters of the moon: what a neat place to camp! we climbed around in indian cave, dewdrop cave & boy scout cave, which still has ice in the summer. boy scout cave also had two boys that were stuck and one was crying; sven had to talk them out. sven also explored buffalo cave while i stayed outside w/ a walkie talkie. the stars were beautiful, and i took advantage of the "sky walk" iphone app to look up some messier objects while sipping warm french onion soup. jupiter almost blew me away: it was so bright i thought it was faumalhaut!

i was dubious about getting a new piece of technology right before a big trip, but i have to say the iphone was a perfect travel companion. having access to driving directions and "where is the closest health-food store or taco bell" was really helpful. and without it i certainly wouldn't have regularly updated twitter, twitpic and youtube with silly videos of toby & gregory. i feel like i got more pictures because i could easily carry it around in my pocket. i switched between pandora & the ipod depending on whether i had an internet connection or not. also, how could i have kept up with the wailing from portland's first heat wave this summer without it? ;)

but trixie was surprisingly temperamental during the trip, frequently throwing suspicious, unresolvable errors. once she didn't start her gas engine at all and i thought we were going to have to stay an extra several days in rapid city. we found the jumpstart battery box very helpful in that situation (and later we used the box as a power source to recharge the iphone and inflate the air mattress). i love trixie to death: she was a great deal better to bring than the svan and she's behaving fine now, but it makes me a little nervous to take her on a big trip again.

i appreciated mph watching over the house while we were gone, checking to make sure the watering system sven set up for the garden this year didn't explode and sampling the raspberries that were ripe right while we were gone. i kind of missed not being able to ride rose for so long, especially since i had just converted her. (barb just got a new bike (an ice-blue Giant named "freya"), but she was a 21-speed, which i still don't understand, and made a terrible racket.)

only a few minor things were less than stellar: wisconsin had pretty awful food (doubly so if you're vegetarian like sven). minnesota & wisconsin have a really disconcerting amount of anti-abortion billboards. the fireworks on the 4th were a little too exhuberant and the people shooting them weren't being very careful: two of them zipped back into the crowd (us!). i had a little meltdown in a grocery store in idaho. i got a cold on the way home. i lost my back filling while brushing my teeth camping. at craters of the moon, there was a terrible ampitheatre astronomy program that was much more like a mangled book report than anything with interest in, love for or knowledge of stars.

but overall, i really had a good time. i'm still playing catch up on some tasks over a month later (like, say, this blog), but we got unpacked and back into motion pretty quickly. whew!

powell butte green walk

2009-08-20T16:04:00.009-07:00

right before the wisconsin trip i have yet to write about, sven & i went on a walk on powell butte w/ a parks & rec biologist. powell butte is our playground, but i don't actually know much about it -- except that the hill outside my house is very steep. :) construction for new reservoirs may close the main road up to the butte for a while, so despite bumping against our packing deadline, we decided it was worth it.

the biologist was a bit of a crusty curmudgeon who obviously loves powell butte but must have been "volunteered" to lead us. powell butte is a square mile of extinct volcano on the outer se edge of portland. it's the second largest park in portland. our biologist showed us "lidar" images which were fascinating and clearly showed the geological processes that formed the it. the City bought powell butte in 1922, when it was still a large farm, and there is a row of oak trees to mark a prior windbreak. but it's only been open to the public since the 90s. (side note: clackamas means “lots of kamas,” kamas being bulbs native americans used to eat.)

the job of the biologists is to return the landscape to a more native habitat. powell butte has been attempting to hack back its 30-60 acres of blackberries & hawthorne, replacing them with thimbleberry & ursine native blackberries. he brought a camera with embedded gps to document invasive species. fire prevention is another large component of the biologists' job: they burn 20-30 acres a year and trim the doug fir skirts to keep low bush fires from consuming the whole tree.

the reservoir construction will alter the butte: some trails will be rerouted during construction and some trails will remain rerouted afterwards. the concrete ditch will be removed, too. i was very happy to learn the compass rose will be replaced as part of the project, but i was sad to see the compass rose bench is gone -- they simply sawed it off after vandals damaged it. i hope they replace it and place benches on the new trails, too, but this marked one of our biggest disagreements. he says he wants to promote walking, not loitering, and that benches attract vandals and drugdealing. however, i feel quite strongly that offering rest points and vistas is a prime way to enjoy powell butte -- one does not need to be in motion to appreciate the outdoors, and places to contemplate and relax are rare. plus, benches help people who may not be in a good shape get in better shape by allowing them to go at their own pace and rest when needed. that's how i explored the springwater early in my biking days, for instance, by hopping from bench to bench (and why it's so difficult for me to see the damage done to some of the benches lately).

near the apple orchard (which will remain, thank goodness!), he showed us three memorial oaks planted in honor of former powell butte attenders. they have no plaques or designations because they wanted the memorial to be about the planting of the tree, so it's neat to know what they're for.

near the end of the walk he turned some mountain bikes around on a path reserved for hikers & horses. i'm always interested to see how people respond and use authority in situations like this. apparently, the way you do it is by overwhelming an otherwise well-meaning couple with biological repercussions, rules and lingo. it was pretty awesome.

while i'm still 35

2009-08-03T23:18:00.005-07:00

tomorrow's my birthday (which i share w/ gerrie, maggie & obama!) and i still have to write about wisconsin. in the meantime, here's what i've been up to since returning from our 3-week long road trip:

* surviving the heat wave: i wait anxiously for the pacific northwest summer and most of the time it's simply glorious. however, we do find ourselves in hot weather occasionally, and like the snow, portland is ill-prepared to deal with it because hardly anyone has air conditioning (including us). so a whole week of heatwave was pretty crippling (as bonnie said, you had to stay inside almost like you were snowed in). i got through it by using a complex system of opening/closing the shades & windows, putting my hair up, drinking homemade iced chai tea lattes & homemade lemonade, wrapping a wet cloth napkins around my neck after letting them chill in the freezer, and when it got to 106 degrees, i kept my feet in a tub of ice water.

* biking: i was housetending for pdxmph and was happy to use it as an excuse to ride rose (thanks for chocolate-covered cherries, too!). i attached a cupholder to rose and have already broken it just by pressing against it, but sven modified rose's baskets so they'd stop drooping from the weight of the battery and scraping against the fender/wheel. rose lost a whole lot of her native domed hex nuts for no good reason, so we had to replace them with less spiffier ones. i took a bike safety class from the ebike store, which i enjoyed primarily to be with the company of other ebike owners. i had to bike late at night because of the unusual heat (biking with the breeze was cooler than being inside the stuffy house or even outside with no breeze). one night i found an easy route to clackamas town center so later i biked to rei to get my bridgepedal vest & explored the new renovations (the sidewalks are so shiny!). i had several weird bike interactions this week (a woman at the bike rack yelling at daughter, a man asking weird questions about rose at target, a family sitting with their grill in the middle of the path at raymond park at 10pm). i also got squeezed between a driving car and a parked car on holgate. when he stopped to drop off someone off, i stopped to talk to him. he seemed initially reluctant to talk to me, but when i told him i was scared he took it well and we parted amicably.

* eating: when we got back from wisconsin we wanted to get chinese & watch bablyon 5 (ala lily allen), but the "lucky corner" chinese restaurant down the street from us remodeled and drastically changed their menu so that there were no vegetarian options for sven. fortunately pho van is as delicious as ever. michaelmas found a cheap & delicious savory pie shop on 23rd and a new frozen yogurt place for us to try. sven & i went to ping for the first time and i had a really wonderful "african chicken" dish. i also lovelovelove their drinking vinegars. i've been using the hot weather as an excuse to visit dutch bros coffee, who conveniently sent us a slew of coupons i've been using on dutch freezes. dutch bros is a straight shot down 136th and seems to be the replacement for our much beloved coffee people.

* stargazing: well, not too much of that, strangely enough, though july was an excellent month for iss watching thanks to @twisst. i also finally got my galileoscope (!!!), which i plan on setting it up later this week.

* entertaining ourselves: sven & i saw quantum of solace, which i liked less than casino royale. we also saw the movie "moon" at fox tower, which i quite enjoyed. we saw one of the last of the amok time trek-in-the-park plays and afterwards had dinner w/ bridget & darren -- which was apparently so much fun we missed the beauty salon explosion and fire down the block. i've been delighted to return to my sunday farmer’s market routine, though i was crushed to find that lilikoi will be moving to a mississippi site since lents is still so slow. (lilikoi makes fabulous kalua pork wraps. i really want more food vendors there!). michaelmas & i went to saturday market to celebrate the beginning of our relationship 11 years ago (though rob bowman introduced us in 1996!). we saw a bagpipe player on a unicycle and i found my favorite new skirt at shabbyknapsack. i also popped over to mt. tabor's 100th anniversary and plein air exhibit. sven & i attended anna’s fortuitous 40th birthday party: we had a pretty good time for a couple of introverts, playing bocce, volleyball, and tarot.

[amok time: oh, iphone, how i wish you had zoom. and that we had gotten there 20mins earlier.]
[my tarot reading at anna's fortuitous 40 birthday party]
* working: i prepped and taught a new class: creative business identity. it went really well, though i had a question at the end that threw me for a loop. also, it's worth mentioning that it looks like i'm in the market for a part-time job again. i'm not in a rush and am pretty open to the field, though my ideal job is something low-key and/or in the reproductive health/counseling areas. please keep me in mind! :)

last testament

2009-06-26T15:57:00.005-07:00

sven & i are about to leave to wisconsin, so i want to post this before i have to write an even longer long travel post, too! we'll be gone for about 3 weeks: first for sven's grandpa's memorial service, then with the last week or so stopping at mt. rushmore, jewell caves, and camping at craters of the moon. mph is kind enough to check on our house from time to time. thanks, mph!

so the last month has been joyful and sorrowful all at once. the month began with dr. tiller's assassination, which was a big blow. i cried for 2 days and attended the vigil at the new planned parenthood being built on mlk. my heart sank further when i read an article about how clinic violence surges during democrat presidents, which just indicates we're in for worse during the next few years. but i've been repeating the blessing of abortion to myself every day since. i continue to support backline as a talk line advocate & planned parenthood as a patient advocate, which gives me a very practical way to contribute in the face of fear.

fortunately for me, everything else in june has been delightful. it's been a big month for biking, for instance. the big news is rose is now an electric bike! i spoke to wake at the ebike store on alberta, who was kind, enthusiastic and competent. this is in marked contrast to the ebike/scooter store near me, who i talked to last year: they didn't think it would work and would require majorly modifying rose if it did. they treated me as if i was a bother to them, but talking with them last year made it easier to talk to wake this year, who seems to love rose almost as much as i do. i only had two small setbacks: the shifting cable & gearset broke & had to replaced. and when driving rose home afterward fixing that, she jumped off the back rack of my car into freeway traffic! it was really scary and i was just lucky part of the bike remained attached to the rack while the back dragged along the road. despite all that, nobody was hurt (including trixie) and rose escaped with just a large scrape on her back fender!

[wake with rose]

i tried to use my trusty stella while rose was being converted, and i have learned rose really is the right bike for me because all other bikes feel unnatural and difficult. (but wow, stella is SO much lighter than rose!) having a pedal assist has done exactly what i wanted it to do: allowed me to range further and explore in any direction without fear of hitting a giant hill. i still have to help pedal up big hills, but i no longer feel like i'm going to die or have to stop halfway up. and it's all totally reversible! wake did such a great job that when i take rose to events, nobody knows she's an electric bike unless i tell them (in fact, even boys go out of their way to tell me what a pretty bike rose is).

events like... the blessing of the bikes (blessed by both our lady ghisallo & saint cupcake ;), after which i biked to visit michaelmas & lunch at elephant's deli. but june is really all about pedalpalooza, 2+ weeks of bikey fun i look forward to every year. i tried attending the "food not lawns" events, but nobody showed up, including the ride leader. instead, i took the opportunity to bike down to the waterfront and through laurelhurst & eat lunch on stark, which confirms my suspicions that if you live in se, you could get almost everywhere you needed to on bike west of 39th. i went on the lents bike boulevard w/ mph, alison & ben (who said me & my bike were "beautiful!") where i got pretty lost, actually, but discovered a delightful eastport snickleway. i went on the big girls bike ride down the esplanade to the sellwood bridge, which was beautiful and fun. i was so happy to find i could bike to the trillium/target/toyota trinity, which is now the outer markers of an "easy" range for me. the biggest ride i've ever been on was dekum to woodstock (and back again!): 20 miles, but primarily an exercise in learning to stay upright in a big group ride. alas, though i had been looking forward to it for weeks, i missed the oregon sesquicentennial ride because i was just too crunched for time so close to the wisconsin trip. i even had a yellow-and-blue outfit all picked out to celebrate oregon's 150th anniversary!

when i haven't been biking, i've been preparing and performing in the original practice shakespeare festival. i didn't think i'd get to perform until august, so i was delighted to be able to be performing a midsummer nights dream ON the summer solstice, which is midsummer! (though in oregon it's hard to tell, and a little depressing that we've passed the climax of summer when it's just starting to be nice out). as actors in opsfest, you don't "rehearse," per se, but there were fight & dance calls to practice the things that require slightly more coordination than improv. i was also happy to be performing at laurelhurst park, which is such a stately, grand park, and we performed right at the place i celebrated my 35th birthday last year! also, as opsfest actors we don't know what roled we'll be playing until the day of the performance: that day i got to be snug the joyner & the lion, which means i get to be a big adorable goof. sven & michaelmas came to see me: thanks, guys!

in the meantime, we saw storm large's "crazy enough" which was better than i expected though i was disappointed with the tone of the ending. we also saw "inviting desire" w/ bridget & darren and stayed up late talking about it at pix afterward. in other events, we went to the book launch for "hidden portland," "missile to the moon" with mph, ppcw cpr/aed training (now i can save your life! it's also good to know you can’t make dead people deader), ohsu standardized patient (asthma & pelvic: whoah!), and helped trillium paint the back rooms. i missed some hooping this month, but am still enjoying it. in terms of edible explorations, i took sven to dinner at iorio; michaelmas took me to burgerville, our traditional celebration of what is now my 6th portlandiversary; we're making an effort to eating everything perishable here before the trip; i ate a pretty good sandwich at meat cheese bread on one of my bike rides; we had lunch w/ dayna on her boat "rapture" but i had to cancel plans to have dinner w/ susan once it became clear we needed the time to prep for wisconsin; and i'm sad i'll miss the farmer's market for the next few weeks. we saw a few movies this month, too: love me if you dare, slaughterhouse five, terminator, casino royale, and the last of lost season 3.

[sven & dayna on her boat, "rapture"]

and last but certainly not least... i finally got an iphone! when the 3gs came out, i knew that was the right one for me. this is the first cell phone i've ever owned (csusm owned the one i used there), and i feel like i'm mostly paying the monthly fee for a tiny computer, not a phone. but i'm glad to have a handheld computer again: i loved the newton when i first got one way back in 2000, and this feels very much like its natural evolution. i immediately installed voodoopad reader and an astronomy program, but i really love the maps, notes & internet functions, too. i wish the camera was a little better indoors, though, and i've been surprised that "shuffle by album" is no longer an ipod feature. (you can shuffle songs in an album, but you can longer shuffle albums). but overall, i think it's a pretty impressive piece of equipment. now i'm modern again! :D

(all this activity means i've paid less attention to the garden, and leaving right at the height of raspberry & strawberry season is so sad! sven installed an awesome self-watering system which i hope keeps the plants alive and doesn't burst while we're gone.)

picking up where i left off

2009-05-25T22:14:00.007-07:00

* activities: for memorial day i took my annual trip to ground kontrol to revel in my manitou springs arcade nostalgia. sven & i played a lot of joust, michaelmas played dr. who pinball, and sven, m5000 & i played gauntlet. i've been strangely into games lately: i also played some braid (interesting game mechanics) & meeblings (like lemmings). the only thing missing is air hockey. the big news is that i attended the national abortion federation conference earlier this month and had a really great time. i skipped stumptown this year, though, and we've attended our last white bird dance. but bridget hosted a pottery painting party for her birthday where i created address number tiles for the studio and walked around lake oswego for a bit. because my index finger burns due to trackpad use, i've been trying to use a mouse or other device. my wireless mouse is a pain because if it loses connection, you have to fiddle with the bluetooth preferences panel to get it to be recognized again. also, i don't have a very good place to mouse. but i keep struggling with it because a burning index finger is worse. i was excited to send 365 starry nights to one of my favorites authors, chet raymo, to sign. last but certainly not least, at jalex's baby naming ceremony we discovered her son's name is abraham charles meyer. hooray!

* jobs: opsfest has finally worked itself out. it looks like i won't be performing until august 16, but don't let that stop you from attending a performance near you! i would have liked to have been more involved, but apparently there is a surfeit of women interested in shakespeare who have the summer free. go figure. ohsu continues to be a lot of fun: i played a mother of a child suspected of lead poisoning and i had to give feedback to two doctors by myself (usually a faculty does it). i was just involved as an extra on the TNT tv series "leverage," which was a lot of fun, and strangely exhausting. i also got paid to be involved with a seafood taste & packaging test at the food innovation center. i was delighted to schedule a private gocco lesson at the studio; it would be nice to do more of that; i really miss teaching gocco. backline is sometimes quiet, sometimes busy. but i got two calls i had been dreading (a male & a parent) and they both went exceptionally well! the funding calls are actually hard for me, though. i took sven to the backline mother's day fundraising brunch, which was tasty & pleasant. but i haven't managed to be both a patient advocate and a talkline advocate at the same time yet: i usually do one backline shift a week and that takes most of my emotional support energy in that arena.

* garden: after growing several sweet seedlings, i lost almost all of them when i optimistically planted them in april before a cold week. meh! so i reset my garden with portland nursery starts and they're doing pretty well so far. sven created a pretty amazing watering network for the garden boxes. we've found three grasshopper pupas so far though we haven't seen them hatch. but we have seen clusters of baby spiders hatching, which are cute because they're so tiny (when they get bigger i won't find them as cute, even though mph says they're beneficial orbweavers). the empty house across the street that's been for sale for months has these giant rosebushes that are getting all floppy and wild, leaning out into their driveway and the clawing their way onto the sidewalk. so for the good of the roses and the safety of the neighborhood, i run over there at midnight and trim the rosebushes, filling jars with these huge yellow blooms. now that the weather is warm enough, we leave the back door open and the cat speaks to the birds outside, plotting her escape. after garden labours, i spent a perfect afternoon out on the porch w/ homemade lemonade reading a book. heaven!

* hooping: my progress continues, slowly but steadily. i learned some double hoop tricks, some fancy foot recovery and understand float up/down better. i'm better at knee hooping than most, but none of us can get it back onto our hips. surprisingly, clothing makes a difference while hooping: if the fabric is too slick the hoop is much harder to control. it turns out that skin works best to keep the hoop up, so hooping fashions that expose midriff, chest and thighs are more practical than they first appear. i'm still too self-conscious for that, but for class we often tuck pant legs and shirts up to expose more skin area.

* biking: biking season really starts for me with the "pretty dress bike ride," where everyone wears a pretty dress (even the boys). we stopped by sock dreams, the alice & wonderland mural, the organic gardens going up at city hall and ended up in the park across from city hall with the rocks that look like dinosaur bones. but in my neck of the woods, the springwater corridor has been a little shaky lately: there have been 2 reported sightings of tacks strewn across the path, it doesn't look like the johnson creek bridge is ever going to be reopened, and the sheep bench & the compass rose bench both have their outmost slats broken. so i've been heading west: fred meyer's on johnson creek involves a short sprint at the end without a bike lane on 82nd. i could go to the freddy's that's closer to me, but that would involve coming up the 136th hill, which is still intimidating, and this way i get to visit pdxmph on the way home. once after a bike ride i discovered 3 little girls and a boy selling flowers like a lemonade stand. they were so cute and the tulips so beautiful i bought one, and even though i gave them exact change they insisted on giving me 16 cents in change as part of the transaction. :) i still love rose, and everyone loves rose, too: even boys go out of their way to mention her. but after visiting the new ebike store, i took rose in to have a conversion kit added! i don't have her back yet, but i'm really looking forward to it. :)

[pretty dress bike ride. wish i hadn't worn pants.]

* movies: the day the earth stood still remake, signs, philip glass documentary, sound of thunder, the new star trek, benjamin button. none of these are particularly noteworthy.

* food: sven & i alternate taking each other to a new edible place each month. sven chose flavorspot, which created delicious waffle sandwiches. don't roll your eyes till you've tried one. i attempted to go to the vegan portobello trattoria, but was rebuffed by a sign that said they had too many reservations for the holiday weekend -- even though there was nobody there and no waiting list. so we went to nedd ludd instead, where i had a pretty phenomenal trout. we celebrated the housiversary w/ flying pie pizza in gresham, the first time we've been to that location. i was excited to learn about a fried pie foodcart at the hathorne lot, but the fruit pies aren't all that great, actually. and the last time sven & i got burritos at ole ole their chile rellenos were filled with nacho cheese rather than cheddar: blech! but the thing that blew my mind was that i learned how to make my own butter! it's fantastic, incredibly easy, and goes great with that nytimes homemade artisan bread. speaking of which, i was inspired by that nytime bread recipe to try a chocolate chip cookie recipe where the dough rests for 24-72 hours, but it turns out they weren't really worth the effort. but then i tried a vegan feta cheese recipe which is surprisingly good.

* my photo system is well & truly broken. i still take pictures, but iphoto is so slow that i resist loading & labeling them. now it's may and i'm still sorting through xmas 2008. i suppose that would be an argument for a new laptop...

inside and out

2009-04-15T17:35:00.001-07:00

* another baby report: jalex had a baby boy apr13! we stopped by today to visit. the naming ceremony is saturday.

* april is the month to start biking again! on one of the first beautiful days (i saw a sundog!), i biked down the springwater corridor trail and thought i was really out of shape because it seemed like i was going so slow. on my way back i passed someone on a bench who called out "you're back tire's flat, ma'am!" and so it was. i walked her home and took her to the bike gallery the next day -- but when i got her back, she was missing two gears! so i returned her to the bike gallery and they got it right the second time. despite the chainguard, rose caught another pair on my pants on the chain, so I'm going to have to start tucking my right pant leg into my sock. in warmer weather, i can go back to wearing just skirts! on my way home from the trillium board meeting, i got caught in the rain: i discovered my raincoat is only semi-rainproof. :)

* ohsu's osce was a blast! i cried when one doctor insisted on putting me in a position that "hurt" me, and another doctor surprised me by asking me detailed questions about my sex life that i had to create answers to on the spot. but overall i had a great time. it's fun to see the various ranges and styles of doctors-to-be and makes me feel good to be contributing to the next generation.

* i attended another opsfest playgroup. it's a neat format where mistakes are funny, not frowned on. i do angry shakespeare really well, but soliloquies need some work. i'll know more about what performances i'll be involved with at the end of the month.

* hooping class is going well: we were hooping blindfolded and learned elbow hooping! (not at the same time)

* michaelmas turned 47 last week. he spent it quietly at home watching the dr. who easter special. on tuesday i took him out to dinner, and afterwards we had an ice cream cone and watched the maltese falcon.

* mph had a birthday, too. i dropped off the birthday card sven made for him, and he showed me his kindle (much nicer than i would have guessed from the pictures). ben gave me a tootsie roll pop & a bracelet. :)

* sven & i watched "the invasion," the best part of which was that it didn't contain a monster that roars before it attacks you (this is one of my least favorite scifi movie tropes).

* we like to celebrate easter even though we're not religious. i like dying and hiding eggs and we eat egg salad and shepherd's pie. but this year we realized it sure is a lot of cooking for a holiday we don’t really celebrate! :)

* we helped mph's family move to their new house in lents. i brought a yoyo, hoops, bubbles, kite and a soccer ball to distract ben during the move but we played "rescue ben & verl before they fall off futon mountain" and "zombie blueberry" instead. afterwards, mph took us all to izzie's.

* trixie got a flat tire on the way to help mph move, though, so i changed my tire on the freeway by myself! a woman stopped who wanted me to wait for someone to help, and then a man stopped to divert traffic around my head. thanks, linda & mark!

* my taxes are finally done. thanks to the stimulus package, my tax person waved her hands and amended a previous tax return to get me some money back. bless her!

monday's child is fair of face

2009-04-06T11:38:00.005-07:00

i'm so glad april's here: i really needed a dose of sunshine. april is also national poetry month! & national grilled cheese sandwich month. with that in mind, here's something completely different:

* michaelmas & i have finished the first season of heroes. he's not inclined to watch the second or third season, so we'll probably finish the veronica mars series or go back to lost.

* i finally got a chance to go to the hawthorne food carts, which are usually only open w-sa after 8 p.m. i had poutine once in canada so i wanted to try it here, and they had a vegetarian version, which warmed my heart. pretty good, though i liked the canadian version better. also a nice crepe cart. (speaking of which, michaelmas & i noticed the crepe place on 23rd that was always randomly open is now gone. unsurprising, but still sad.)

* now that april is here, i am compelled to do more biking. i'm trying to tackle the hills around here, because 136th scares me. so i'm practicing on what i call the "starwatching hill," a former horse pasture that has been a development in limbo for over a year now. no traffic, beautiful views, very steep hill. i noticed bike gallery is finally carrying an electric bike option: the a2b, which is disappointingly ugly, or i'd be considering it.

* every ohsu job has been interesting, but this one is particularly so because it's more than a week of it, roughly 8 a day. also, i'm responsible for evaluating them. these are first-year med students and this is their final exam -- and so even though they're not supposed to be perfect, it's still intriguing to see the range of approaches, manner and competence. this is especially awkward because it involves a chest exam, and asking me to lower my gown and reaching inside my bra is obviously not something they've practiced much. :)

* i took a huge load of clothes back to savvy plus, my original introduction to the world of stores that featured nice clothes that fit me, and only got $8. most of the clothing was stuff i had bought there! so that was ... disappointing. now i'm wishing i had brought them to fat fancy instead.

* i taught "starting a creative business" at the gresham library on saturday. a small but enthusiastic group. i really love that class: it's the one i feel is most well timed, well-paced, engaging and encouraging.

* i'm slowly working on gardening: all the garden boxes have been cleared and i've started seeds inside. i probably should have started the seeds last month because i'd have lettuce by now if i had. but the radish sprouts were immediately entertaining and it looks like the corn and pumpkin seeds are gonna burst out of their little pods and destroy tokyo soon. i'm trying a method called "square foot gardening" and sven made me a collapsible grid to put in the boxes he made several years ago. i really missed gardening last year, so i hope it's better this year.

* i finally received an invoice from the lawyer for my mom's estate and paid it. it's a remarkable amount of money for what amounts to less about an hour and a half of time.

* my current snapshot song is lily allen's "the fear": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F-lqOrRcIY

the light returns

2009-03-31T13:27:00.003-07:00

i'm so glad the vernal equinox has arrived! i can't believe how light it is until 8 p.m. we took the traditional walk on powell butte to celebrate the changing of the season. little known fact: up to 2007, the equinox could happen either mar20 or 21, but now it will only happen on mar20 -- until 2044, when it begins falling sometimes on mar19. astrologically, the equinox marks the new year, with the sun in aries (though astronomically, the sun is still in pices).

now the clouds just need to back off a bit. i've been keeping a starjournal since january, and march is the most depressing month, filled with entries like "more clouds," "too cloudy to see any stars," "clouds again," and "WHY DO THE CLOUDS HATE ME?" i've missed several sighting of the iss and space shuttle this month.

though i've been keeping busy: ohsu is in the middle of final exams for their 1st-year students, so i've had "asthma" and i'll have a whole week of "chest pain" starting thursday. the iprc "starting a creative business" class last week was packed and always goes well, so i'm looking forward to teaching at the gresham public library on saturday. alas, the census didn’t call, but now i'm in the pool, so maybe next year? backline breaks my heart every time i do a shift; it's much different than being a patient advocate, and i haven't been able to manage to do both at the same time yet. i just finished one hoop series class and i'll start another on wednesday.

haven't eaten out much lately, it seems. though i had coffee w/ shuju at half and half; for st. patrick’s day michaelmas & i ate ruebens at kornblatt’s; sven & i celebrated an anniversary at belly timber (where i had a good hamburger & an interesting beet mocktail); michaelmas & i celebrated our awkward anniversary at thai orchid.

sven & i watched the flaming lips' "christmas on mars." i expected it to be more painful than it ultimately was.

gardening is coming along. i have a blueberry bush in one corner and muscat grapes by the back porch. i've got two boxes cleared and trellises on one one box. the lettuce box still needs to be cleared and then i'll add some new soil to all the boxes. i'm going to start seeds inside today (i hope); the soil still seems too cold to start anything. then i'll attend to the herbs, which have been neglected by the sidewalk and are all leggy and rampaging over each other.

and last but certainly not least, the mead's new baby "bee" was born this week. welcome home, willa jane.

simple stories

2009-03-15T21:38:00.005-07:00

i applied for the census. it sounds like a good job for a curious introvert. i took a test but the background check takes a while, so we'll see if they call me for training in a couple of weeks. but even if they don't, ohsu invited me to be a standardized patient for their end-of-term clinical exams for the 1st-year med students. whee!

in the meantime, i've had my first two primary backline shifts. the first one was pretty mellow, with two completely different calls. the second shift was really long and intense and dramatic, with two dropped calls and someone having to pretend i was her friend "megan." one woman called after she found the the nuremberg files (which i am not linking to because it is so awful), which really frightened her.

i haven't had further contact with my aunt about my mom's estate, but her lawyer recently sent a letter to me and the "surviving spouse" that she's choosing an informal probate that won't be finished until at least august.

while michaelmas was at acrl, i catsat arwen, who was happier to see me each time i visited. i'll bet she's really happy michael's home again. sven took cleo into the vet to get her nails trimmed and a cyst on her neck removed. afterwards, she was scratching it & making it bleed, so we made her wear a blue cone around her neck that she hated. fortunately, she seems to be over it now.

for fun, sven & i went to another whitebird performance and to see the play "how to disappear completely." we also watched juno (i must be the only person in the pacific northwest who doesn't like this movie), watchmen (better than i expected) and spiderwick (meh). we tried eating at several new places: blossoming lotus, dechutes brewery, lovely hula hands to celebrate jalex's birthday, the waffle window and pine state biscuits. also, i've started a new hooping class w/ the same instructor at somaspace. this intermediate class is all about transitions, and it seems so much harder!

personally, i love daylight savings time and am looking forward to the equinox this week. and i -finally- got to see comet lulin! it was just a smudge near regulus, but i was very proud (thanks for the good weather, carl!). i also modified stellarium to include comet lulin, which totally rocked. in other celestial news, saturn passed opposition, the moment it lies exactly opposite the sun in the sky (which means it rose at sunset and set at sunrise). in addition, uranus reached aphelion, the furthest it will get from the sun in its 84-year orbit. for the rest of our lives, uranus will be just a tiny bit closer every day.

just when you think it's over

2009-02-22T22:31:00.005-08:00

more death news:
* i took kamron to lunch so she could notarize the "renunciation" form for my aunt to be the personal representative for the estate. i never expected anything from my mother, but it's still hard to give up all hope so tangibly. i also requested a copy of the death certificate.

* sven’s grandfather died: food poisoning from a crab enchilada, they think. sven and the other grandchildren (from canada & india) gathered in tucson to pay their respects, though the actual memorial service won't be until july in wisconsin.

* we discovered michaelmas' friend bryan died a few weeks ago, too. bryan helped michaelmas move into 1010 before i arrived and into 306 after i left. we helped him move from an apartment into a house. my first thanksgiving in portland included bryan and we watched a few geek movies together. but my favorite memory of bryan was when he took us to the airport when i came to visit michaelmas -- upon discovering i had lost my wallet, he urged michaelmas to give me some money for the trip home. i was touched at his thoughtfulness.

in medical news:
* i went to the dentist. ouch. i've had trouble with one of my back teeth because it's difficult to clean since getting my wisdom teeth out several years ago.

* i'll be attending the NAF conference in april since it will be in portland. according to the washington post, med students sometimes practice abortions on papayas, so i tried it, too. though i don't have the tools, i only missed a couple of embedded seeds. whether i did it gracefully or painlessly is another matter, of course. it was interesting to review the procedure i've now seen dozens of times as a patient advocate from a different perspective. it was definitely a different mindset and it makes me even more grateful that ppcw has a patient advocate program, someone who's totally focused on the patient.

* i was a standardized patient at ohsu again (abormal pap smear again). i really love doing these roleplays: in addition to being a whole lot of fun, they feed you lunch and pay you. i hope i'm not -always- the abnormal pap smear, but so far it's been incredibly interesting to witness the range of responses to the same scenario.

in other news:
* michaelmas took me to dinner at 23 hoyt for a belated valentine's day meal (thanks, michaelmas!).

* i applied for an "original practice" shakespeare performance here in portland over the summer. OP means they do it the way they did it in shakespeare's time: without rehearsals. instead, each actor is given just their own lines on a scroll they carry with them on the stage, and each show rotates the cast members for each performance, so each show is unique. wish me luck!

* venus reached her peak brightness this week. she'll still be brilliant for a while, but she's on her way to becoming the morning star again. alas, i haven't managed to see comet lulin yet. assuming it's not too cloudy, this should be a good week for it! *crossing fingers*

bullet time

2009-02-15T22:01:00.004-08:00

* groundhog day was completely uneventful.

* i spent some time at the edgefield for my unbirthday, thanks to michaelmas & sven. i was hoping to decompress a little and write some poetry. delicious food and a massage and soaking in the pool made me relaxed enough to write. returned home to tulips & a clean house. ah!

* i got to see the premiere of coraline w/ sven. the movie was okay, but the afterparty at the portland art museum's masonic ballroom was really amazing! they had sets and props and models set up so you could touch them and ask questions of the people who worked on them! sven soaked in the armature ambience for hours. i got near neil gaiman but never actually spoke to him because i didn't know anything i could say that would make it worth it. i got into a shoving match with someone who stuck his arm in my face trying to get teri hatcher to sign a poster. a sweet detail i think most people missed: the O in "arlene schnitzer concert hall" was a big black button. :)

* i attended jalex's baby shower but had to leave early.

* i attended my last hoop class until march and then hopped over to the hoopjam at nia afterwards. didn't stay as long this time because i was so wiped last time, but i'm finally getting the chest hooping thing.

* i taught another creative business class. while I have very much enjoyed separating the audiences for the Creative Business Basics class, one of the things I have found surprising is that we usually have to review the previous steps, and that takes longer than I expect, which sometimes keeps me from talking about the more advanced concepts like Allies or Identity. for instance, only one participant in the advanced classes has ever had a formula for pricing. talking about pricing your work to make a livable wage is a huge chunk of the "starting a creative business" class: it takes 30-45 minutes to talk about completely, so even in the non-basic classes I end up spending more time than I expect covering this very basic step. so i'm wondering how i should approach the classes now. breaking them into smaller topics may mean the classes don't fill.

* ohsu is treating me well: i am in a video to stimulate small group discussion about medical ethics. next week i'll be in another standardized patient scenario.

* i've had two backup shifts for backline but no calls yet. i hope i still remember everything when i get a phone call!

* this was a strange valentine’s day. sven & i attended a "puppetlove" show and it was pretty terrible. well, at least i was wearing a really awesome dress.

* romaine and i met at pix and cried a little about her fiancee's cancer and my mom's death.

* my aunt's lawyer sent me a document to sign naming her as the personal representative. we agreed to do this over the phone, but having to sign & notarize it feels like i'm signing my mother away.

do the right thing

2009-02-02T22:28:00.004-08:00

last week began with bubblewrap appreciation day, which i failed to appreciate. i hope your bubblewrap feels appropriately appreciated!

most of this week was spent talking to lawyers about opening probate on my mother's estate and mediating, if necessary, between me & my aunt. at this point, it looks like she'll be the "personal representative" and i will sign things. there are all sorts of reason why this is problematic & even more complicated than it looks, but i feel i made the best choice i could given the information i had. the bright spot, believe it or not, was one of the lawyers i found. gordon williams was everything i was looking for: a kindly, smart, responsive and reasonable probate lawyer who could handle an emotionally messy family situation. i spoke to over a dozen lawyers, so i feel confident that he's exceptional and i would recommend him to anyone without hesitation.

in the meantime, michaelmas & i helped an old woman who fell in the street back to her apartment. "i'm drunk!" she cheerfully shouted at us. a man was trying to call the police and another woman had stopped in the street to help her, but she begged us to just walk her home, so we did.

also, sven & i went to a whitebird dance performance that was pretty neat, and we saw "apollo" at portland center stage (3.5 hours!). narrative-driven, presentation-like performances don't do much for me, but sven thought it was one of the best plays he had ever seen.

i also scrambled to prepare for the trillium board meeting, which was notable in part because i biked there & back using my new bike helmet with the ear flaps! it worked great. i have found that if i keep my ears, hands & feet warm, everything else basically takes care of itself. on the way back it was so foggy it was if i floated home on clouds. you couldn't even see a whole block in front of you. but there was so much moisture and it was so cold... frost collected on. my. face! my eyelashes, eyebrows and each tiny face hair was tipped with white sparkles when i got home. i barely had enough time to be amazed before it melted, but it was magic for a moment.

saturday was busy with hooping, a backline meet & greet party (i'm finally scheduled for a shift! ee!), and kristen's birthday bash at casa de k. we gave her a copy of the eclectic abecedarium & a gift certficiate to roller skate at oaks park. it was a big noisy party where we didn't really know anyone but had a good time, anyway -- and i meet karen, a volunteer coordinator from naral. it's always nice to meet someone else who can say the word "abortion" without flinching. :)

stargazing has been mostly disappointing, though, as it's been mostly cloudy at night. i missed an annular eclipse of the sun in indonesia. (i'll also miss the longest eclipse for >100 years in china in june.) i'm looking forward to comet lulin, but it's not quite visible in binoculars yet, i think. but venus has has been simply dazzling, and she'll shine her heart out until march. in a dark location, she's bright enough to cast shadows! but in portland, she's just bright enough to be the only thing visible in a hazy fog.

half and half

2009-01-26T00:26:00.005-08:00

start with the good:
mlk day, homemade caramel popcorn on national popcorn day, inauguration, testing the roomba, breakfast w/ michaelmas at joe’s cellar, attending the handwriting day seminar w/ michaelmas, finding a cute coat & skirts at fat fancy, hooping (which was wonderful but after being gone for so long was pretty exhausting), snow!

then the bad:
sam adams. oh, sam adams. he's not my hero anymore, but i can't think of anyone better to be mayor. i hate that he lied, but i also recognize that gays are socialized to have to lie about their relationships and however they approach it they will probably be damned for it. i don't think he'd lie about anything related to his job, but i think an inquiry is appropriate.

my mom's death is becoming quite the soap opera: there's now a contested will, fear, betrayal, lying, scheming, grifters, a potential common law marriage, anger, crying, pressure. many difficult phone calls have been made. more will be made this week.

on top of it all, i was sick: a minor cold that made me sniffly, scratchy & tired. i slept downstairs because of my congested snoring.

so. everything feels like it's falling apart. it will get darker before the dawn, but hopefully that's not too far away.

thorn among the roses

2009-01-19T12:42:00.006-08:00

* i've started my new hooping class: hooray! on the first day i discovered a hoopjam right after class so i went to that, too (beautiful space in the building between art media & finnegan's). but that much intense hooping left me sore & bruised for days. alas, then i missed two weeks of class because it conflicted with backline training (below). i really wish i could have done both!

* i went to the living room theatre to see let the right one in, a swedish vampire film, which i am still thinking about (i think that's a good sign). i didn't leave the theatre cheering, but i really appreciated its fairly deft touch and things left unsaid about the relationships. now that i've checked the wikipedia i realize some things are different than the book, but i think i might like the film better because of the changes.

* i returned a rainjacket to patagonia, which is primarily worth mentioning because i bought this jacket in april. they have a lifetime return policy and i wanted to see if they honoured that -- which they totally did. i tried this jacket a few times while biking but because it was unlined it stuck to my skin & felt clammy, so i traded it for a different jacket that i hope works better.

* i had another standardized patient role at ohsu: this time me & my "son" had food poisoning. i really enjoyed myself -- though after 4 hours of acting sick, i was starting to feel a little queasy. :)

* sven & i saw hancock, which i was expecting to be pretty bad based on the first 10 minutes, but then turned out to be pretty good. i have a fondness for stories about how people with extraordinary powers get along in the mundane world.

* sven & i went to vindalho, which had some really fantastic dishes, a couple of less-than-fantastic dishes, but weird service.

* sven & i also watched the day the earth stood still, which i have never seen. i was pleased to find that i liked it.

* i was delighted that oregon & 6 other states were willing to sue the federal government over the dhhs rule which forbids federally funded sites from taking action against health-service workers who individually deny legal goods & services to women. i hope it comes to something.

* during the height of the windstorm, we had a blackout for over and hour and a half. i love blackouts, in part because it's so much easier to see the sky from our house. so i took the opportunity to starwatch: i was finally able to see lepus and the whole canis major constellation. i was also finally able to see cancer, which is an incredibly faint constellation between the twin stars of bright gemini and the regal and distinct figure of leo. when the lights came back on, it became even harder to see, but now i know what i'm looking for, at least!

[lepus]

[cancer]

* over the last couple of weeks i spent over 50 hours in training & doing "homework" for a position at backline. pro-choice is so often fought about abortion because it's the choice that's most likely to be taken away, but i like backline because it simply lets women talk about their pregnancies and supports any decision they make, whether it's parenting, abortion or adoption. i met a lot of great people and feel pretty good about the organization. i'm still nervous, but working as a patient advocate has helped me feel more prepared for it.

* my mom died unexpectedly. sandy was the first to tell me, then others saw the obituary and contacted me (thanks, everyone!). i hope to write more about it soon, but emotionally and legally it's complex, and it was harder to deal with because of all the backline training i was doing. i'll probably be spending the next few weeks sorting it out. i'd prefer not to travel to colorado if i can help it, though.

wrapping up

2009-01-12T16:35:00.003-08:00

augh! i'm in the middle of some pretty intense training so i'm just getting this out while i can. maybe someday i'll have pictures, too...

christmas 2008: a lovely blur of shepherd’s pie, scrabble, a walk around the neighborhood knee-deep in snow, fireworks at midnight, cookies & milk, tucking the "boys" in bed, sirius the christmas star and some wonderful presents from wonderful people. also, i finally closed my studio's artist’s way group support list after almost 4 years. alas, trixie's battery failed and had to be replaced when it became clear enough to drive to the dealership, but the melting snow revealed strange pockets of river stones, potatoes & ecstatic, ravenous robins. sven & i ventured forth to try ya holla, which was fairly tasty.

nye 2008: we had a leap second at 3:59 p.m.! at midnight we ran up the hill carrying tiny bottles of champagne and straws with firework tinsel. we heard our neighbors count down the seconds and then watched portland erupt in fireworks while we sang auld lang and “this will be our year.” a little boy up the hill kept yelling “happy new yeah!” i have a tradition of staying up to see the first dawn of the new year. staying up late this year was HARD, and by the time we got outside torrential rain was blowing sideways. we slept in and had just enough time to make it to grace's potluck and housewarming, to which sven brought rumballs. i finished a whole book in one day (this common secret) and the next day received a personally inscribed copy of david allen's "making it all work" from paul & shelley (thanks, guys!). then michaelmas sent a bunch of itunes gift albums for me. watching david lynch's "inland empire" wasn't nearly as successful, though.

happy new year to one and all!

out with the old, in with the new

2008-12-31T23:05:00.005-08:00

i can’t believe tomorrow will be a new year! 2009 is lurking in the wings, but to be honest i won’t be too sad to see 2008 quietly exit stage left. it hasn’t been the best year. but interesting stuff keeps happening (for some value of “interesting”). december is always busy, but made crazier with the snowstorm and the other events that all happened before christmas. (i guess i’ll have to write about xmas in january.)

* i finished my last hooping class. i’ll start another series saturday in the “intermediates,” though i still feel like a beginner. i need to find a place to practice where i won’t hurt anything when the hoop goes flying.

* i got a call from someone who lives in michaelmas’ building. remember when i helped a persian gymnast fluent in 4 languages carry his bag up the hill near michaelmas' place? well, he’s an old man, easily in his 70s. i’ve seen him from time to time since then, when i go to visit michaelmas, and we wave or chat in a friendly & casual fashion. once he stopped both of us to tell michaelmas what a great girl i am, which i guess should have been my first warning sign. then a couple of weeks ago he called my house because we exchanged business cards. sven answered it and handed it over to me. this was the entire conversation:
me: yes?
saul: hello, gretchin?
me: yes!
saul: i was wondering *long pause* is that man i see you with your.... steady friend?
me: yes!
saul: and the man who answered the phone, is he also your friend?
me: yes!
saul: oh. all right. well, that’s all, then. and i just wanted to tell you that you have a great personality. there is something about you that draws people to you.
me: okay! thanks, saul! goodbye!
saul: goodbye.
it’s funny when i write about it because he clearly isn’t a threat. but if he was any other man this would be creepy. i still lean towards creepy.

* michaelmas & i tried tanuki, a japanese restauraun near his house. the night we went they didn’t have power in the kitchen (why? the waitress said she didn’t know) but they still had a limited menu, which i found pretty tasty. but then, i like eel.

* i didn’t have much xmas shopping this year, so i missed much of the madness. but the “bike craft” show was packed! too bad, because i would have liked to have bought something there but it was too claustrophobic; i made a round of the tables saying hi to people i knew and then left.

* art in december: i saw 23 sandy’s maternal book show with the local book arts group and there were only 3 of us! plenty of time to handle the books. sven & i saw scratchpdx and it was terrible: the acts were good (or at least interesting), but the MCs were lewd and they took more time than the acts! my gocco class cancelled, which i discovered after i had packed my supplies and showed up at the callbox. but at least i got a gift certificate to half & half, and i got a chance to see a small press show (red bat and loaded hips: red bat colors her letterpress cards by hand!). while we were at it, we rescheduled the creative business class, too since, the weather was so terrible. i also got to see shu-ju’s relay/replay exhibit at the rare book room at the central library, we well as the “gems of small press” exhibit, which was beautiful.

* the amanda palmer concert rocked. we got there early enough to be in the second row, which made standing outside in the cold worth it. we met a woman in line who had gone to the seattle show and snogged a member of the danger ensemble, and was at the portland show to see him that night, too. jason webley performed the exact same thing we saw him perform at the crystal ballroom with the dresden dolls. in addition to amanda’s fine song repertoire, i was hugged by a different member of the danger ensemble as part of a performance piece. during one song they shook water onto umbrellas and shook them into the crowd. only two things marred the night: sven lost his jacket, and i accidentally ran a red light afterwards, which got me a citation from a relatively kind police officer.

* watched idlewild: a pretty movie, but a couple of spots where i was all, “what? they’re going to do THAT?” and we had to watch it w/ subtitles on, like vera drake.

* the weather hasn’t left much opportunity for stargazing: either cloudy or freezing. but it’s been a delight to watch orion rise, one of my favorite constellations, and with him the other stars of the winter hexagon. also, i got a chance to show sven the star Fomalhaut, which made news last month by being one of the stars where exoplanets are directly observable.

tonight i'll stay awake to watch the first dawn of the new year, as has been my tradition since i lived in pueblo over 12 years ago. i'll wrap up the loose ends of 2008 so i can greet 2009 with a clear conscience. see you next year!

snow stories

2008-12-23T00:44:00.003-08:00

the snow, especially where we are, is as bad as they say. portland doesn't salt its roads and only barely sands major arteries, leaving the neighborhood streets to fend for themselves. we have three ways to exit powell butte, and when there's snow & ice two of them become as dangerous as walking over the backs of a pit of crocodiles in your bare feet. one of them is flatter, so if you can get onto 136th you have a decent shot at getting around town if you stay on the main streets. that's how we made it to see kristen & todd before they left to california, even though it was silly to do so; i didn't even have chains. sven sweetly put some on while i was being a patient advocate at planned parenthood a few days later, but then broke them when he drove too fast on the highway, cutting trixie's wheel wells. the storm has not been kind to trixie: the cold seems to have put her in a coma and she doesn't respond to anything, despite an attempt to jump her. though at this point, though, we can't get out, anyway; the snow is piled high and only big trucks & snowmobiles are making it through the powdered streets here. in town is easier (michaelmas & arwen are managing to survive), but multnomah county has declared a state of emergency till january 5.

even before it got really bad, the gocco class i was scheduled to teach last monday was cancelled because of the weather. too bad i didn't know it until i arrived at the iprc, though! i had gone into town early to do some xmas shopping & errands, so i missed the call. for my trouble i got a gift certificate to the half & half cafe and i saw the small press show by red bat and loaded hips. we also decided to reschedule the other class i was supposed to run that week. january is going to be a busy month! the next day i visited michael & got stuck a couple of times in his steep neighborhood. i took the opportunity to see shu-ju's exhibit at the central library's rare book room and took a bunch of pictures of the "gems of small press" exhibit, which were beautiful.

the good news is that the solstice was sunday. that means we've had the longest night of the year and the sun will begin its six-month return northward, bringing spring with it. to celebrate, we tried to take the semiannual walk to the apple orchard on powell butte, but we only made it to the "kissing trees" in the wooded area before we turned around. fortunately, i'm getting better at dressing for the snow: rainboots, 3 pairs of socks (1 wool, 2 knee-high), 2 pairs of sweats, a skirt, long fingerless gloves over isotoner gloves, red coat w/ liner, 2 hats and a scarf. toasty! on our way up the hill to the butte a woman clearing her driveway wanted to chat with us -- until she learned we were from "the red house," which she had a visibly disapproving reaction to.

on the day of the first good snowstorm sven sledded on the hill outside our house right into a curb and is still nursing a bruise that covers his whole leg now. but lots of other people have been playing with sleds, skis, snowboards, innertubes, etc. last night they built a ramp of snow and were flying off it as i shoveled the sidewalk. people have even come from other neighborhoods, and in general i have discovered that 3 or more boys together will average a curse word for every three words in a sentence, sometimes stringing together whole sentences of curse words loosely joined with conjunctions or pronouns.

a snow story that cracked me up today: a young girl pulled her mom down the hill in a sled. when they reached the bottom the mom said, “now i should pull you!” “no,” the daughter said. "are you sure?” the mom asked. "my hands are cold," the daughter responded. "but it's fun!" the mom cried, clearly confused. the daughter rolled her eyes. “fine," the daughter said, crossing her arms and stomping up the hill.

anyway, this has been the most snow portland's seen since 1968. even if the rain melts the snow and we don't get a white christmas, it's been pretty amazing. sometimes i feel like i'm living in colorado again! facebook has been overflowing with updates on the "snowpocalypse." leeann is sending missives about her trip to see her idaho inlaws. with all the holiday parties that cancelled, we don't have to go anywhere or do anything. i'm just grateful we have heat, power, food -- and the internet.

sunday's child is ready for bed

2008-12-07T23:40:00.005-08:00

* we hosted thanksgiving with the always delightful hall family & cecilia. carl was sick on thanksgiving, unfortunately. but we cooked a mighty fine vegetarian feast w/ homemade spiced almonds, quorn roast, sven’s cranberry sauce, the best and fluffiest savoury biscuits, gravy (tofurkey & brown gravy), mashed potatoes, stuffing bought at new seasons, green beans almondine (i was very pleased with how this turned out), sven's pumpkin pie, mph’s pecan pie, alison’s salad, cecilia’s tofu olive dip & veggies, homemade whipping cream, sparkling apple cider, and reisling wine.

[the thanksgiving placecards i created]
* sven hung a painting i bought at open studios, concluding that event. then sven & i attended the "little things" show at guardino gallery because we knew so many people in it. i bought a prayer flag (a prayer for an inspiring future). i went to handmade nw and contributed to the local economy: it was a pretty space in the world trade center plaza, but after a while it got a little cold. sven & i also went to "i love this town!," a show at city hall by an an artist we know. there was a simultaneous & enticing print show, where we saw jason, someone michaelmas & i hung out with several years ago.

["raven 2" by cirocco moody]

["a prayer for an inspiring future" by jennifer mercede]
* sven & i watched "monkeybone," and audrey tatou's "he loves me, he loves me not." eh. michaelmas & i are going to see "australia" when it reaches the mcmenamin's pubs (ideally, the mission theatre).

* i got paid to be a "standardized patient" at ohsu: you are assigned a case & diagnosis and the doctors interact with you to develop their clinical skills. i loved it! i often say i'm not good at improv, but i realized that's not always true: in a situation where you are all trying to create the illusion of a shared reality, i'm great at improv. that's why i enjoy certain rpgs, role play events like the go game and things like this. (what i don't like is anything that requires me to be quick-witted or improv situations that are much more defensive in nature, like most improv comedy.)

* sven & i saw jesus christ superstar w/ ted neeley and it was HORRIBLE. we complained all through intermission & all the way home and all the way on a walk afterwards. the singing was awful, the movements were sloppy and the direction was gauche. i compared it to watching TBN's "holy land experience" in florida. ted neeley made jesus -creepy-. i saw a high-school summer production of JCS in pueblo that was so much better than this. ugh.

* we ate a pretty good meal at south park, which was only marred by a bland dessert.

* 'tis the season for holiday parties, and ours began with an annual curry party hosted in the west hills. it's the same place the "create the world day" event is held. one woman told me that i changed her life: she attended a collage night and makes one every day now. it's not often you get to hear something so dramatic or sincere!

week mend

2008-11-24T20:31:00.005-08:00

the house across the street has been for sale for months (over a year, but i'm not quite ready to say two), but the owners finally moved out last week and ever since it’s been a hotspot of real estate agent tours, sometimes up to 6 a day!

on friday, sven & i had dinner at park kitchen, a "tasting menu" that was heavy on the vinegar. afterwards we stopped by the "pretty girl" holiday sale, whose traffic had been so bad this year they were closing early. i really want to support small artisan businesses but it's hard to shop when people are rolling up around you (and when they don't make things that fit -big- pretty girls). afterwards, we watched sarah silverman's "jesus is magic," which i think sven liked more than i did.

on saturday i went to my hooping class and did a little window shopping on east burnside. later that night, sven & i attended "sam adams! sam adams! mayor ex machina," which was billed as an improvised musical. it took me a LONG time to figure out that it was not an improvised musical about sam adams; rather, sam adams ex machina was just going to be the way they rescued themselves from an impossibly ludicrous improvised situation.

on sunday i took rose to "scoot on this," a store that specializes in scooters & ebikes. for the last month i have been seriously considering adding an electric assist option to rose to tackle our hills, to keep them from adding to any inertia i have about fearlessly going north in the city, especially now that it's winter. i've been sticking to the south because it's easy to get home on the springwater corridor trail -- i think over time i could get used to the hill on 136th, but i'm too afraid to really practice because there is always fast traffic on it and no bike lane. an electric assist could help me keep pace on hills like that, which would really open my range of options. anyway, the tech at scoot on this has been a real sweetheart: happy to answer all my questions and seems to understand i'm not willing to do it if the solution is ugly. after visiting the scooter store i went to le sorelle, a trendy-looking cafe in an urban renewal building on foster. it's got a lot going for it and i really wanted to like it, but the food i've had so far isn't worth writing home about. i got home just in time to watch the international space station drift by overhead for several long minutes, as bright as venus (have you -seen- venus lately? yowza!). but after a week of being ill, a 6-mile bike ride that was uphill and had a strong headwind all the way home really kicked my ass. :P

in the midst of all this, my online artist's way community had a big falling out. it remains to be seen what will happen to it.

not dead yet!

2008-11-18T17:42:00.003-08:00

last week was the last stretch of a lot of projects. the holiday sale went well, thank you! i appreciate it if you showed up to support local artisans. i was in charge of food & scheduling cashiers/gift wrappers, so i had just enough time to set up the food before i had to leave part to go to my hooping class (where i bought a small & lighter hoop to do arm tricks with). when i returned to fill the cashiering shift, i totaled up a couple of pretty big sales at the end of the day and held minda's baby for about 20 minutes, so it all worked out great. :)

then i had just enough time to run to the last fidelio performance, which really rocked. we celebrated a birthday for some of the kids in the cast and along with last-night energy there was enough cake and soda to make everyone cheerful and talkative. a woman also passed out yellow roses and tiny trophies that had "fidelio 2008" written on them. i spoke to a super who said she was a classical music fan and she said she wanted to be an opera super because she wanted to be IN the music, which i loved. alas, apparently we got a terrible review in the oregonian, who said, "crowds in the finale moved artificially, ...smiles plastered on their faces, looking desperately elated. Not for a second did I believe them." oh, well.

sven & i watched vera drake, which, unsurprisingly, made me cry (but what was up w/ the music?)

then... i got really, really, sick. i haven't been this sick since i was living with michaelmas, not long after i moved to portland. he kept me alive by feeding me orange juice ice cubes & boiled potatoes. this time sven made me rice and i ate apple chunks. i'm feeling better today, but still weak.

keep peddling that bike

2008-11-13T15:56:00.005-08:00

fidelio performances have begun! thanks for coming, sven, kristen & todd, kamron, michaelmas & shu-ju! on opening night apparently there's a tradition of bringing small food gifts for the other supers: we shared pfeffernussen cookies & m&ms. that first night i also sat by the stage and watched as the curtain rose for the first performance. very exciting!

[oh, gott...]

...and i attended a trillium board meeting & am busily promoting the holiday sale saturday, sven went to brietenbush for a few days, michaelmas observed his 4th arwen anniversary, i went to my hooping class (i love exercise that doesn't make me want to die!), i attended the iprc text ball (more on that later), i officially stepped down as meetup organizer for the portland artist's way meetup, sven & i took carl out to screen door for his birthday and then over to cecelia's for homemade banana cake and a rousing game of uno, i took my dad out to whiskey soda lounge and pix w/ michaelmas & sven, and i wrote my last full moon poem for this series.

election partAY

2008-11-12T15:09:00.005-08:00

a week after the election and most of the close contested races have been decided. we had a small party to watch the results w/ michaelmas, sven & cecelia, which gave us a chance to celebrate obama's acceptance speech w/ freshly baked apple pie.

but i wanted to be happier about the election results than i am. nationally, i'm hugely relieved we aren't facing a mccain/palin presidency, but some of the states really passed some bad stuff.

the good:

* obama won! and remarkably early, too. i'm a little unfcomfortable with the republican framing of this as a "historical moment" for blacks everywhere, as if they didn't play his race as something to fear during the rest of the campaign.

* colorado failed the "personhood" amendment! resoundingly! not one county passed it, even el paso! colorado also (barely) rejected an affirmative action ban. maybe i can go visit again. :)

* south dakota failed the abortion ban, even with exceptions for rape or the life of the mother. i thought after last time they would add the exceptions and it would pass -- so what a big, wonderful surprise that it failed! way to go, south dakota!

* california narrowly defeated the parental notification measure. this is the third attempt. i wish they'd give it a break. thank you, california!

* jeff merkley won the oregon senate by the skin of multnomah county's teeth. gordon smith was pretty gracious about it and yet emotional about the loss. i almost felt bad. he seems like a nice enough guy, but i'm still glad merkley won.

the bad:

* arizona, florida, california all voted to ban gay marriage. wtf people? why do you CARE? though i guess it helps if the mormon church pours over $30 million into a campaign (so much for separation of church & state). and one of my disappointments about obama is that he doesn't support gay marriage, either. i hope california successfully challenges the decision.

* i can't believe arkansas took that one step further and banned gay couples adopting children. not only is this initiative anti-gay, but it also denies adoption rights to unmarried straight couples -- and could affect single people as well. wtf, arkansas? why don't people who don't support birth control or abortion support adoption? are you saying it's better for children to remain in abused situations or in foster homes than with a gay couple? are you kidding me?

* nebraska ended affirmative action. ergh. electing a black president doesn't mean racial prejudice is over, folks!

trillium artisans holiday sale saturday

2008-11-10T15:30:00.004-08:00

this is an event i'm helping to organize for an organization that values art & artists. even if it's still too early for you to think about xmas shopping, look below for a coupon you can use until dec23. you can also use the trillium coupon in your chinook book for additional savings!

holiday sales represent the majority of almost any crafter's income. if you want to have the most direct impact on a person, buying a handmade object benefits you, the creator, and the recipient!

--*--

Make this a handmade holiday! Give meaningful gifts this year by supporting low-income artists, your local economy & the planet all at the same time. Meet the artisans, enjoy wine and goodies, and take 10% off your entire purchase!

* Free eco-friendly gift wrapping
* Make & take your own holiday ornaments using recycled materials
* Locally handmade, quality, earth friendly, fair trade gifts

Giving recycled is twice as nice!

Trillium Artisans
9119 SE Foster Road
Portland, OR 97266
http://www.trilliumartisans.org/
503-775-7993

happied hurried halloween

2008-11-04T00:20:00.002-08:00

in short: more fidelio rehearsals, a white bird performance, a potluck and reading at zenger farm (thanks for coming, kristen, todd & michaelmas! thanks for the flowers, sven!), sven's 37th birthday (which i had to leave early for a rehearsal!), and dealing with cleo's unfortunate pee accidents.

also, halloween, of course! i was a mad scientist, like i am every year i don't get my costume together (which is almost every year). more trick or treaters were actually in costume this year than in previous years, but two of them were talking on their cell phones during the whole transaction! one girl asked me if i was ichabod crane. what?!

a heartwarming halloween story: we carved our pumpkins and sven devised a hanging shelf above our door to protect them from the neighborhood smashers who get us every.single.year. and it worked! one of our other neighbors got smashed, though, so sven & i played pumpkin fairies by replacing them anonymously (and were rewarded with a "thank you pumpkin fairies!" sign on the porch). also, i made the best roasted pumpkin seeds this year.

we will return you to the internet after these important messages

2008-10-27T18:00:00.002-07:00

two events coming up worth noting:

October 30:
http://www.zengerfarm.org/
I'll be participating in a reading on October 30 at Portland's lovely Zenger Farm as part of "Writing our Bellies Full." Bring something harvesty for the potluck or come early to walk around the estate and visit the chickens! 7-9 p.m.

November 7, 9, 13, 15:
http://portlandopera.org/operas/2008-2009/fidelio
I'm SO excited! I haven't been on stage in years and now I get to be in a performance with the distinguished & professional Portland Opera! I love the story, too: Fidelio is about a woman who disguises herself to rescue her husband, a political prisoner in a corrupt prison. Fortunately, good triumphs over evil and there is much rejoicing. If you've always wanted to attend the opera, come to this one to celebrate the courage and strength of women -- and anyone who stands against oppression.

time keeps on slipping into the future

2008-10-26T13:00:00.003-07:00

* i finally installed the new time capsule! sven's new machine "writer" is now using time machine, and celeste is being backed up even as we speak. then it will be confessor's turn. so far the biggest issues are that photoshop broke and i've lost my email drafts folder. *knock wood* but i've been looking forward to using time machine for a long time now. :)

* i've begun rehearsals for fidelio! if you've ever wanted to attend an opera i'd recommend this one, not just because i'm in it (though i'd love the support!), but because the story seems pretty good: a woman disguises herself as a man to rescue her husband, who is a political prisoner. and the best part is, i don't even have to sing. :) it'll take up almost all the "free time" i have through mid-november (including sven's birthday! augh!), but i'm pretty impressed at the professionalism of the company. it's refreshing.

* i was an escort at the ppcw groundbreaking for the regional service center. while i was very happy to be a part of the new clinic on mlk, the protest activity was a little scary. as an escort here, my job was to identify people who looked like they were attending the event, smile & usher them in. but the protesters wanted to make that as difficult as possible and crowded the two of in as much as possible, blocking our line of sight with giant anti-abortion posters. i tried to maintain a casual air and smile, but the woman i was with was visibly nervous and left me alone for a little bit while she went to collect herself. in total, there were >150 protestors praying, shouting and menacing us. my job was also to identify planned parenthood supporters who wanted to argue with the protestors and redirect them to the event, which i only had to do once. but the good news is i got to sign a piece of plywood that will be mounted at the center as well as etched into the glass of the conference room. even better, i got to use the backhoe!

* lane's memorial service was simple but solid. nike provided food, chocolate & candles. sven wrote a long speech about how lane died to clear up any ambiguity, which i appreciated. i read a statement by her therapist who couldn't be there that night (but who i actually know via my art events!). the rest of the night was spent telling stories & visiting with people i only see rarely. at the end, a few of us ended up at lane's house to distribute the last few bits of stuff and to send her parents back home to seattle.

* alas, all this has meant we didn't pick up pumpkins at sauvie island this year. i'm a little nervous about putting pumpkins on the porch this year, though, since someone has smashed our pumpkins every.single.year. this year one of our neighbors had a couple of cute pumpkins on their porch but now they have a sign up saying you're on camera now instead. :(

and now, for your blogging pleasure, a couple of odd & random pix:

[a flyer i saw at the iprc]

[the saddest rocking horse around holgate & foster]

rolling with the punches

2008-10-19T14:22:00.005-07:00

this has been a crazy couple of weeks: two people dead, one new cat, one person divorced and one person sent to the emergency room.

first, sven's friend lane attempted suicide and died 5 days later at the hospital. sven had been spending quite a lot of time with lane over the last month or so: as her disability situation has gotten worse, sven helped her find 24-hour in-home care and began organizing her end-of-life details. but lane decided she didn't want to wait to die and took matters into her own hands. unfortunately, it meant that she was sent to the hospital in a coma for a few days and when she came out of it, couldn't breathe on her own. so family & friends gathered on tuesday to say goodbye after they disconnected the breathing tube. (if you want to make this into a life lesson, please create your living wills and communicate to the people closest to you about how you want to die or what measures should be taken to save your life.)

so we adopted lane's cat, cleo. just call us the powell butte foster home for wayward cats. she's been settling in for about a week. cleo is a beautiful cat but doesn't have good listening skills like amelia or nina. you can shout or clap at her and she shows little sign of having heard you at all. she likes to jump on things. but she gets along with toby and likes being around people.

[cleo]

in the meantime we discovered michael's friend joe died climbing triple falls. joe used to take michael & i to the beach whenever i'd visit portland. we went to the simple & heartfelt memorial service last night at the old church.

also, an old friend wrote to tell me he was getting divorced and moving away from everyone. i was glad he wrote me but really sad about it, too. nobody gets married thinking they're going to get divorced in 8 years.

then someone threw an apple at mph while he was biking to pick up his son at preschool. he ended up in the ER with stitches in his eye! i wrote his story up and sent it, along with the horrible day-after picture of his bruised & bloody face, to all the news organizations and bicycle advocacy groups i could think of, including the transportation office (home of mayor elect & bicycle proponent sam adams). i don't think it did much good, but it made me feel like i was doing something remotely constructive. it looks like mph might not need plastic surgery like originally feared and he's already going for bike rides again with the blood on his helmet as warpaint. (braver man than i!)

speaking of bicycling, i hope my bicycle season isn't coming to an end yet. so far this year i've logged 280 miles, which, as an unathletic geek girl who never liked bikes before, impresses me. i'm still biking to my thursday writing class (even through rain! eee!), but i didn't make it to the final lents farmer's market. i'm really going to miss that as a sunday ritual. once on the way home a man passing me told me my flowers were beautiful, but i didn't understand what he said until it was too late to thank him. :)

politically, we just got our ballots in the mail. i supppose it would be obvious how much i hate the republican ticket, but sarah palin really took it over the edge into almost pure fury (with only occasional twinges of sympathy for the sexism she has to put up with. there are plenty of reasons to be infuriated with her without going there, really). nationally, california has two initiatives i hope don't pass: the one to ban gay marriage and the one to require parental notification for abortions (though it makes me mad people are pushing it again since it failed last time). and south dakota is trying to ban abortion for the whole state again. argh! and colorado is trying to amend the constitution to include the maddening definition of "embryonic personhood" which will erode the rights of the person carrying it. i went to a "politics & pastries" tea w/ cecile richards (the head of planned parenthood), last week and it made me teary. alas, it didn't make me hopeful. all i can do is keep volunteering, voting and contributing to organizations that try to protect our lives and liberty.

also, sven got a new laptop this week (just moments before the announcement of the new macbooks). we also got a time capsule so we can get all the laptops backing up more easily -- but i haven't been able to get time capsule working yet! i'm surprised because all the other airport wireless options i've owned have more or less worked flawlessly. the airport express we bought 4 years ago still works perfectly, thank goodness. but i really want our backups to begin again.

artwise, the sacred circle went into a bit of a meltdown. i keep telling myself i'm just here to provide the opportunity; it's time for others to help provide the community. sven & i attended a great white bird performance (where we were unfortunately seated next to a person with the worst body odor i have ever smelled). we watched "the butterfly effect" (meh), attended two weekends of open studios, attended the portland theatreworks insomniACTS fundraiser, stopped by to see linda's installation at mad/50, roamed through the vegan ghetto at 12th/stark, and tried to catch the first scratchpdx of the season least night but didn't check the time and got there an hour late. oops!

next week i'll start rehearsing for the portland opera's production of fidelio (and i don't even have to sing!) and writing something to be read at the end of the month to conclude the writing workshop at zenger farms. whee!

chang'o and the jade rabbit

2008-10-13T00:23:00.004-07:00

in september sven & i were invited to celebrate the chinese full moon festival in diamond, oregon. there wasn't an official celebration; we just wanted to watch the moonrise over the desert. diamond has a population of 5 and the only thing there is an old hotel. it's like the oregon outback. stark country lined with ledges of columnar basalt.

day1: we left early and made many stops. driving over mt hood, we stopped at the arts cabins where i held my down to earth/andy goldsworthy class. sven hadn't seen it before and we got to see how the piece i created has weathered over time. then we stopped at mill creek, the deschutes river, the old canyon highway, and ate lunch at our favorite place in bend (mirenda). we were delighted to discover a "shoe tree" between bend & burns: 20-25 pairs of shoes had been thrown into a dead tree so the shoes looked like fruit. we reached diamond just in time for dinner. afterwards we shared the binoculars and starcharts and then joined shu-ju & mike for a walk in the bright moonlight. the stars were beautiful and the crickets sang with one voice. later that night i saw four deer munching the grass under the apple tree in the yard.

[shoe tree]

[diamond: population 7 5]

[hotel diamond]

[hotel diamond sign]

day2: after a late start, we ate lunch at the hotel's odd little restaurant/lounge area which used to be the community icehouse. we played two games of pool, both of which sven won: 1 because i sank the 8 ball early, and one based on merit. we explored a fascinatingly burned building next door that housed dozens of dragonflies and then walked about the dirt roads for a bit. then we all packed up picnic dinners and head toward the alvord desert (with a stop in fields). just as we finished setting up and settled down to dinner, the full harvest moon crested the plateau of the steens mountains. we ate traditional mooncakes & washed them down with strong black tea. without anything in the way, i was hugely surprised to discover that auriga/capella rises almost due north!

[gl. & shu-ju with chicken hats]

[moon rising over alvord desert//credit: steve messick]

day3: out on the screened hotel porch for a late breakfast. i wrote a poem out there on the laptop, one in a series of poems based on the full moon. sven & i headed out with plans to see the mulheur caves, the lava beds, and the crane hot springs -- but couldn't find any of them! we went too far past too far, ending up at burns junction and we take the opportunity to buy homemade chocolate-chip cookies from the mayor. at that point, the most exciting thing that had happened to us that day was that we had crossed into the mountain time zone! so we tried driving up the stinking water access road just to go somewhere, but despite some good views, it was very slow going, so we headed back to diamond. however, we took a wrong turn and end up at the malheur wildlife refuge, which added an unexpected hour to the trip home. the hotel had been serving some great food and had been quite good at accommodating sven's vegetarianism -- except on this day, when they they thought he ate fish. oops! after dinner, we played two games of pool w/ shu-ju & mike (we won one, then lost one because i scratched when sinking the 8 ball. sound familiar?). before we went on another nighttime walk, we were enchanted by two new hotel guests singing "golden slumbers" with a guitar on the porch. then the sweetest dogs accompanied us on our walk: we called them the hotel's safety escort service, though we had a close call with a car and the dogs as we were returning to the hotel.

[road to nowhere]

[gl. at burns junction]

day4: another breakfast out on the porch meant we got to wave shu-ju & mike goodbye. not long afterwards sven & i headed out, too. our goal was to stop by john day. first we stopped at the john day outlook which was dizzying & inspiring. then we stopped by john day's archaeology center, which is new and pleasant. finally we journeyed to the painted hills: wow! i was really impressed at the beauty & grandeur & alienness of the painted hills, and especially painted hills cove. we were shocked to discover another shoe tree on the way home. this one had even more shoes and the remains of a sign. toby came with us on this trip and sang spike's parts in "once more with feeling" on the way home. after a brief stop at the prineville pizza hut, we got back home late only to immediately launch ourselves into someone else's crisis (the phone rang as we were unpacking the car!).

[sven & gl. at the john day fossil bed]

[painted hills]

[more painted hills]

[painted cove]

[another shoe tree!]

anyway, overall it was a great trip. i'd love to do it again next year but the date of the full moon festival conflicts with the hp lovecraft fest! aiieee!

any sufficiently advanced art is indistinguishable from poetry

2008-10-07T09:35:00.003-07:00

a gigantic catchup post for september & october (now w/ more pictures!):

* first, this is how i've been feeling lately. (the song, mostly, not the video. i don't get the horse at all):

(Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes. "i can say i hope it will be worth what i give up//if i can stand up mean for all the things i believe")

* art: susan collard's exhibit at 23 sandy, 100th monkey, built, old spaghetti factory, 10 tiny dances (though there were only 8, but i got to finally see taiko!), taught creative business basics (still too long), birth play that jalex helped organize, white bird dance performance with shaolin monks, a weekly writing class at zenger farms, portland art open at milepost 5. also, i closed my artist's way email support group (the "sacred circle"). then i revived it because people wanted a place to check in, but i'm no longer facilitating it.

* travel: hooping in kenilworth park, biking (though rose ate my good pants!), walking about in ladd's addition, lents farmer's market, mt scott park. also, we went to the steen mountains to watch the full moon rise over the alvord desert, but that really deserves its own post.

* eating: tart, old spaghetti factory, arleta library bakery & cafe, ten 01 (wow!), pho van

other events:
* talk like a pirate day w/ kristen, todd & michaelmas. we ate food from salvador molly's & todd's homemade tamales while watching pirates of the carribean 2. we also hosted the fearsome one-eyed toby and his first mate, peg leg greg. they terrorized & scandalized the guests with their raucous songs and fierce appetites. a good time was had by all!

[toby & gregory as pirates]

* equinox walk on powell butte. the ankle i twisted in august meant i wasn't able to climb my favorite tree, but i really adore the apple orchard up there. a spot i used to go is now oddly covered with strange, tall weeds.

[a cairn sven & i built]
[my favorite spot on powell butte]
[hugging my favorite climbing tree]

* sven, michael, philip, teena, bill & i all attended the lovecraft film festival (at differing times). it is, as they say, the only festival that understands. it turns out chile-covered mango slices are good for keeping one awake during a boring movie, or just during a weekend fueled with sugar & popcorn.

[the only festival that understands]

* a big announcement from someone i didn't expect to hear from again. still deciding how to respond.

* i'm volunteering three days a week for planned parenthood during election season. in addition to patient advocacy, i'm going into the admin office to do data entry from their outreach events. if you get called, it's probably my fault. sorry!

the end of one season is the beginning of another

2008-09-08T01:30:00.004-07:00

someday i'll be all caught up. in the meantime, this is what's been happening the last couple of weeks:

* sven, kristen, todd & i went on the bull run watershed tour. i love getting to go places you ordinarily can't go. it's beautiful up there. it's also a long winding road that made me a bit carsick. the tour guide noted that we were about 40 years younger than the other members of the tour.

[lost lake]

[bull run dam]

* we celebrated m5000's birthday with an indoor geocaching & legobuilding hunt (good activities for introverts!). we won a gift certificate to powell's which we have already used on books for an upcoming trip to diamond, near the steens mountain range.

* i'm still going to the lents farmer's market whenever possible, with a stop at trillium artisans. on one trip i stopped for a late lunch at the arleta library bakery cafe: yum! homemade lemonade and some really good biscuts & gravy. plus, the people were supernice.

* i stopped by the park blocks to see obt exposed. i'm not normally a ballet person, but i enjoy seeing the creation process and rehearsals for any stage performance.

* nw has a new paper store at irving & 23rd: paper source. ee!

* i spent last sunday numbering athletes in the pre-dawn dark at the portland triathalon. not long after that i twisted my ankle and have spent the rest of the week limping around portland. fortunately, i can bike again now.

[dark o'clock]

* pix is looking for a buyer! eep! i hope if they find one it will be lavished with attention and care for years to come and that the quality remains the same.

august avalanche

2008-08-27T22:06:00.018-07:00

life keeps tumbling by before i can write about it! there's yet more to say, but here's some of the story so far:

* i celebrated my 35th birthday at the corner of 35th and oak: a fun picnic at laurelhurst park with bubbles, hula hoops & bocce ball. alas, my traditional trip to oaks park was thwarted because it's not open on mondays. oops! but sven & i headed to the rivershore and found an awesome sunbleached stump half-submerged in the water to sit and talk for a while.

* sven & i celebrated our 5th anniversary: i made him a little book and we went to chez machin for our traditional crepe lunch. usually we also pick blackberries on powell butte, but when we got to the top we found they had all been bulldozed out! it really changes the nature of the landscape up there.

* sven, kristen, todd & i went to see the rose city rollers. it's the kind of thing that's fun to do once a year -- if you bring earplugs. there was a marriage proposal at the beginning; kristen & i groaned because we think that's a terrible tactic. also, it turns out people who go to the roller derby have the best bumper stickers.

* i did my first bridgepedal! i did the 6-bridge family ride. i was worried i wouldn't make it to the top of the fremont bridge before they closed it so i got through the other 5 bridges as quickly as possible. going down i5 on a bike is like riding in a mad max movie! but riding to the event i scraped my knee pretty good when i slipped on the streetcar tracks on sw 6th. it wrenched my handlebars -parallel- to the bike! fortunately i wheeled her down the street and someone helped get rose straightened out. it was my first accident on her and i'm glad neither of us was seriously or permanently damaged!

(that last image from bikeportland)

* later that night i attended sven's clown soiree, a culmination of the classes he's been taking from barnaby.

* sven & i watched the perseids in the field down the road until dawn. in addition to dozens of shooting stars (including he best one i've seen in years), we saw eight(!) satellites. around 4 a.m. i heard a rustling behind us and i turned to find a fox passing us in the tall grass less than 8 feet away.

* sven & i went to the oregon historical museum to see the puppetry exhibit and afterwards we had a summer dinner on the patio at lovely hula hands.

* i've seen "iron man" (not bad), "wall-e" (pretty good) and "the last mimzy" (bleh. but i see how i really would have liked it when i was 12, and it's based on one of my favorite scifi short stories).

in other news:

* i've been doing a lot of patient advocating at ppcw and it looks like i'll be doing even more volunteer work during political season.

* i've also done a lot of gocco teaching at the iprc, but i worry that january will be a difficult month, as supplies are expected to cease being manufactured in december.

* i took a class on "ninja stitching" which has been helpful in knowing how to mend clothes and sew softies, but the class is over now and i have a half-finished apron to show for it.

* last but certainly not least: sandy's getting married next month! :D congratulations, sandy!

leeann's visit

2008-08-14T00:41:00.012-07:00

i am quite far behind retelling the month's events: visits & holidays take up a lot of time! here's the first installment, the last week of june:

* i helped a persian gymnast fluent in 4 languages carry his bag up the hill near michaelmas' place

* michaelmas & i celebrated our 10th anniversary! :*

* leeann visited: we visited multnomah falls (alas, on the day it rained!), we saw kim at powell's, attended the 31 show, visited 23sandy, did the poetry bridgewalk tour (which included talking to the morrison bridge operator and watching the counterweight swing from the inside), went to saturday market, rode the tram, checked out 10 tiny dances at the south waterfront (interesting dances included "Wet?," "See/Spot/Run," and "Project X," where i wrote about needing to contribute to consumer spaceflight), a collective letterpress yard sale, scrap, lark press, and pix. we ate homemade crepes, oatmeal, french toast, and at the restaurant at multnomah falls (they have surprisingly good onion rings), sushiville, pho van, and the little red bike cafe (i wanted pok pok or nutshell, but they didn 't work out).

[leeann at multnomah falls]

[inside the morrison bridge]

[the tram]

here's a little movie i took of the morrison bridge counterweight swinging as the bridge is lifted! it's the whole thing, so about 5 minutes; the person walking in and out of frame is the leader of the poetry bridgewalk. my camera apparently only takes 3 minutes of video at a time, so there's a little glitch where i had to splice two videos together.

(but i don't know why it's doing this weird double video thing. just look at the first one: the second one looks like a rtsp call for no good reason. a little help?)

hypocritical oath

2008-07-29T23:55:00.003-07:00

this makes me so angry & horrified i haven't been able to write about it for almost two weeks: the department of health & human services wants to allow employees at federally-funded sites to refuse to participate in "abortions" -- which i put in quotes because it defines "abortion" to include contraception based on "commonly held views on the question of when a pregnancy begins." my jaw and my stomach dropped through the floor when i read that. i think it's completely absurd for the USDHHS to use "commonly held views" to conveniently redefine medical terms. they say "...both definitions of pregnancy are reasonable and used within the scientific and medical community." NO. THEY ARE NOT.

ultimately this proposal would mean that anyone who wanted to opt-out of providing, participating, assisting or referring things like birth control pills, plan b, IUDs, norplant, rape kits, or even condoms would be able to do so without fear of reprisal for NOT DOING THEIR JOBS. it's called a moral decision, but i don't see anything moral about joining the medical profession and then refusing to treat patients. plus, i'll bet no other "moral" objections would be approved for this or any other profession: can you imagine if a doctor refused to treat jews due to her moral beliefs, or a pharmacist decided vaccinations were against his moral beliefs, or if a programmer working for a defense project refused to write code for weapons due to his beliefs? why is this particular belief receiving special protection?

this proposal is entirely beyond the pale: it protects "institutions" but not patients, and could eviscerate states who have done the right thing by passing laws to protect patients. this is the letter i wrote:

Don't allow medical professionals to deny healthcare to women!

The HHS proposal that deliberately confuses the definitions of contraception and abortion is deceitful, distasteful and discriminatory. If the device, drug or procedure is legal, it should be dispensed to women -- regardless of the personal beliefs of staff members.

Patient rights should be paramount in the medical system. I encourage the HHS to support patients, not propaganda. Anyone associated with the medical profession should put their personal beliefs aside in order to serve patients. All patients deserve being treated with dignity, respect and equality rather than shame, scorn and denial of legal services.

Redefining abortion to include contraceptives is a radical leap with neither scientific or medical grounding. Tying it to federal funding is completely unreasonable. At best, the HHS proposal is unnecessary: federal law already allows doctors and even health-care corporations (hospitals, HMOs, and health plans) to refuse to provide services or make referrals for abortion. I don't think that's fair to women, either, but it makes this new proposal to limit birth control (which reduces the rate of abortions) even more alarming and incomprehensible.

First, do no harm. Please do everything you can to try and convince the HHS to abandon this proposed regulation.

you may send your own letter objecting to the proposal to:

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt
Office Phone: 202-690-7000 
Email: mike.leavitt@hhs.gov 
Fax: 202-690-7203 
Correspondence Secretary: 202-690-6392
(Anyone outside of the DC/metro area can call 877-696-6775 toll-free and ask to be transferred to the Secretary's office.)

also, i would encourage you to sign the petitions at planned parenthood & naral. (ann has already done so. thank you, ann!)

and in other depressing fanatical news, doctors in south dakota must tell women seeking abortions that the procedure "ends a human life" and may cause them psychological harm. of course, a fetus is not yet a human life, and carrying around and giving birth to an unwanted child also causes psychological harm, both to the mother and the child. to be fair, perhaps every doctor in south dakota should be required to warn pregnant women about the psychological harm of post-partum depression, the statistics on infanticide, and the medical risks of childbirth. and then have a mandatory waiting period of 2-4 months before returning to see the doctor again.

weather report

2008-07-28T16:31:00.003-07:00

* michaelmas, mph, sven & i went to see the dark knight, which i liked till rachel got killed. and though i liked gordon's character a lot, i was irked that his son was the most important person (why didn't we even see barbara gordon's face? it's not like she's going to be important someday or anything). one of the best things was that this was the quietest theatre i think i've been to in years. i think people were enjoying themselves, but nobody felt compelled to comment about it every 2.5 seconds.

* but sven & i saw beowulf later in the week and it was TERRIBLE! i don't have anything against the original literature, but this movie made me wince the whole time. i didn't realize that it was essentially an animated movie, and it felt like i was watching 2 hours of animated interstitials in a computer role-playing game. the most enjoyment was trying to figure out later which part neil gaiman had any hand in: it seems like he could have said interesting things about the old gods leaving and the new gods arriving, or about what it means to live most of your life as a lie. but that certainly wasn't how the movie played out.

* i visited melanie, who lives not far from here, but it meant i got to bike to her place! it was a lovely visit, since i got to meet her son, her cats and her new puppy anna freud. i really enjoys days where i just get to sit and talk with friends, though i still don't have really good answers about what i want to do in the studio come fall. i'll start thinking about that in more earnestness after my birthday next week (eek!).

* i bought a new-to-me art table via craigslist. it's like the ones in art departments: the large table top is easily adjustable from flat to almost 90 degrees, it has two storage drawers and electrical plug-ins from the side.

* i'm taking a hooping class in kenilworth park on saturdays. now i get the trick i've been trying to do for a year: i can bring the hoop from my waist to over my head and back down again! not consistently, but i understand the mechanics now (understanding hand placement & timing is pretty important). i need a place to practice where i'm not going to destroy something, though.

* after the hoop class i went to the division street fair and bought shiny things from local artisans. in fact, i'm wearing some right now!

* i biked to the lents farmer's market after i woke up and couldn't make myself go on an organized bike ride i had planned on. i came home feeling better and with blueberries, honey, lettuce, basil, cilantro, flowers, a ring and earrings. then i stopped at trillium since it's open on sundays while the farmer's market is happening (yay!).

* on my way home from the farmer's market i passed a house in the neighborhood that has a cherry tree that was a little overripe, so i knocked and asked if i could pick some. i rode home, grabbed a ladder, and picked whatever i could reach that didn't have worms. as i walked home i knocked on dinique's door and shared the cherries w/ her family. the cherries were a bit bitter, so when i got home, i made a cherry sorbet that was intensely flavored and delicious.

* i finally got my inbox to zero! i only had to take 2 months off to do it. :)

* i saw an interesting bumper sticker: "militant agnostic: i don't know and you don't know, either." it caught my eye because chet raymo writes a lot about being able to say "i don't know," both in science & religion.

unhook the stars

2008-07-22T15:14:00.004-07:00

some lovely astronomical tidbits to share:

carl sent a link to brilliant noise, a film that focuses on solar videos. instead of cleaning them up, they keep the noise and graininess inherent in the original recordings, using the evidence of their interactions with the recording equipment as part of the art itself.

then susan sent a link to the moon transiting the earth. it's pretty awesome. she says, "it actually brings tears to my eyes to watch, it's that beautiful."

in fact, when i read this in chet raymo's the soul of the night, i almost got tears in -my- eyes -- i LOVED how it made me reimagine the universe filled with tiny shadowthorns: "Every object near a star wears a cone of night. Near every star there is a ring of cone-shaped shadows that points into space like a crown of thorns. The sun's family of nights includes the shadows of nine planets, several dozen moons, and an army of asteroids. Every particle of dust in the space of the solar system casts its own tiny pyramid of darkness. The sun bristles with nights like a sea urchin prickly with shadowy spines."

speaking of chet, i've been slowly going through his blog and found this wonderful hypothesis about how cloudier societies may have developed more slowly than those that could watch the stars more regularly. interesting.

plus, sven & i are watching "cosmos," which i didn't see when i was a kid. carl sagan is a trip!

also, i just finally figured out stellarium's zoom feature, too. watching jupiter & its moons move in realtime is amazing. i want to start learning the names of stars (or at least the ones that have common names), and discovered stellarium's handy settings for constellation boundaries and hiding everything but the selected constellation. this will make for some nice screenshots someday.

previously

2008-07-21T16:07:00.003-07:00

* jalex & mari are now married! (or at least as married as they can be since oregon voted against gay marriage.) a lovely ceremony at the overlook house and a test of our new domestic partnership laws. hooray!

* i taught another gocco class at the iprc.

* i enjoyed watching dr. horrible this week. i didn't enjoy hellboy 2 as much, though the company was good (hi, michaelmas, sven & mph!).

* sven & i attended a performance by a fellow creative at the super project lab. the next night we attended "promenade" at the sw waterfront.

* i was planning on attending my ninja stitching class and worked on my apron, but the instructor decided to cancel the class at the last minute because there were only two of us. what? how can you stop a class partway through? i just bought some sewing books at powell's, too. meh.

weekly review

2008-07-16T23:59:00.004-07:00

first, shout outs to dang & markalope, who are having a hard time of it at the moment. in comparison, my week was really boring, but it still bears documenting:

* michaelmas, sven, alex & i had dinner at the siam society & then went to see the wrong trousers at the know. i wrote about how i loved their version of "video killed the radio star" and i bought their first album when it came out on cd baby. thanks for noticing they were in town, alex! alas, we were just 4 in an audience of 5 and it was difficult to hear the lead singer between songs. they must have been disappointed at the turnout, but they were total sweethearts. too bad the venue was terrible. i'm looking forward to the no-smoking ordinance to take affect in january! here's their writeup of the oregon tour.

[alex w/ the wrong trousers]

[alex, sven, me, michaelmas and the fifth audience member]
* sven & i watched persepolis. i'd already read the graphic novels, so it wasn't a surprise, but still good. i don't think the scene in the airport works very well, though.

* sven & i attended jalex's aufruf, a special blessing before jalex & mari's wedding. it was neat to see; i haven't been to a jewish service since high school.

* i finally washed trixie and her magnets. let a new poetry season begin!

* my dad visited: it's the first time he's ever visited me. he's here on business for two weeks and thought he could fit in a lunch. fortunately, portland is easy to fall in love with, especially when the weather is as beautiful as it is. we took him to edgefield and walked around the grounds.

[can you see the resemblance?]
* also, it turns out that putting silver on aluminum foil and pouring hot water & baking soda over it really does remove tarnish.

two weeks, one post (now with more photos!)

2008-07-07T00:56:00.000-07:00

week one:

* i was just well enough to go on the big girls ride, so we met at the esplanade and headed up the springwater corridor trail to the sellwood bridge. i've never been on this side of the springwater so it was a neat & easy exploration. we even heard bagpipes practicing as we passed oaks park!

these are pix from our first stop. i love that big stone/glass combo!

* i finished reading the secret history of moscow: urban fantasy set in russia? that's like pix macaroons dusted with edible glitter.

* sven & i attended avenue q. a lot of people walked out on it. i don't mind shock value but i don't like mean humour, and if you're going to do shock, then you shouldn't have such a freaking mundane storyline (boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again). the best part of the night was afterwards, watching drunk teens get naked in keller fountain. "have a nice night!," one of them called out to us when they finally left. then we stopped by voodoo too for the first time. i would have never found it if sven hadn't been with me.

* one day i found strawberries at my door! melanie left them for me. thanks, melanie!

* i got to go on my belated solstice walk on powell butte: i like to go up there on solstices & equinoxes to see how it changes seasonally. the grass is so tall! i went to my favorite place, which has the perfect climbing tree. but i was also disappointed with how much trash is there and how the plaques on the compass rose are being destroyed.

* on the day that was so hot i survived mostly by driving to different events in trixie's air conditioning: visited romaine at fat straw, went to the fat fancy sale, and ended up at the multnomah county bike fair, which is presumably more interesting if you know someone there.

* new neighbors moved in across the street. they speak english, so now i don't know if i'll take russian in the fall, like i had been planning. everyone else across the street is or has been russian.

* we celebrated todd's birthday by taking him out to brunch at the matchbox lounge (tasty & easy to get a table out, but did you know pokpok is closed on sundays?), then to baskin robbins (since he turned 31) and then for a long talk at creston park.

* yay, a lightning storm!

week two:

* despite my neglect, the first raspberries showed up this week. perfect timing, too, as it meant i could make raspberry ice cream for 4th of july.

* michaelmas & i celebrated my 5th (!) portlandiversary, where we saw kristen & todd at the hawthorne burgerville. also i got to watch the hawthorne bridge rise for the first time.

* i went for a 10-mile bike ride and watched another lightning storm from the sheep bench on the springwater corridor trail. when headed for home i had lightning flashing behind me and fireworks exploding before me.

* at midnight jul03/04, earth was at aphelion, its furthest distance from the sun. (94,513,144 miles, or 3.4% farther from the sun than at perihelion in january)

* on the 4th of july, michaelmas, kristen & todd came over to watch 1776, which is a tradition for michaelmas. then we ate delicious veggie riblets, fantastic corn, sausages w/ sauteed veggies, that raspberry ice cream and sven's infamous popovers. when we went to the waterfront to watch the fireworks, ash & firework detritus rained from the skies, leaving char & paper (and likely heavy metals) in hair, skin, eyes & clothes. i'd rather have been on the bridge, but the fire marshal closed it this year for some reason, but i don't think it could have been as bad as it was on the water.

[toby & gregory celebrate independence day]

* when we painted the house they took the weatherstripping out, so i lettered parts of margie piercy's poem "housekeeping" on the inside of the frame so it will be hidden when we replace the weatherstripping. it was a poem dayna sent when we bought the house.

["It is the burrow of a sandworm..."]

* i had to trim the rosemary bush so the thyme would have some room, so i left free rosemary out in the yard in a glass vase. i wasn't sure it wold go because we don't really have a pedestrain neighborhood and only one other person in the neighborhood ever leaves stuff out for free. but i was delighted when i came back & it was gone! i was less happy when they also littered the free signs on our lawn and took the glass vase (which i had asked them not to do). this certainly isn't a considerate neighborhood. next time i'll have to leave it in a big can or something i was going to recycle, anyway.

* today i biked to the lents farmer's market. they still don't have many vendors, but i came away with sugar snap peas, tamales, rainier cherries, flowers, cilantro & garlic scapes. i also bought a chili cheese dog & a drink at the coffee cart and talked with the people at the shady table! thought the morning seemed like it might rain, by the time i left it was a beautiful bike ride there and back. i love biking with a huge bouquet in one of my baskets!

sicko

2008-06-22T23:48:00.003-07:00

i missed almost everything this week i wanted to do because of this cold. it has kept me up two nights unable to sleep because of coughing, despite taking dayquil before bed, an 8-hour DM sucrets, and a whole bunch of cough drops. i began to eat dairy products in desperation early this morning to coat my throat and produce some phlegm, which makes coughing marginally more comfortable than dry hacking. there's a certain loud bird i recognize that begins to sing at 4 a.m. and its repeated chirp is more agonizing than water torture.

tmi? well, i managed briefly to escape today to hastily attend the rebel rabbit craft fair and show up for the next series of ninja stitching. pedalpalooza is passing me by; i hope i'm better for the big girls ride tomorrow! i've been looking forward to that for months.

i actually have good news, but i can't talk about it! a secret project was completed this week and we're waiting for the right time to unveil it. it was really hard not to twitter while it was happening. for those of you following along, "squirrels" were important to the project. [edit jul11.2008: the secret project is that we painted the house & studio!]

we also watched ratatouille, which was beautiful, but surprisingly bland.

longing

2008-06-20T15:17:00.005-07:00

today is the summer solstice. solstice means "to stand still" and it marks the longest day of the year (or the shortest night, depending on whether your celestial sphere is half empty or half full).

the sky this week has some interesting info about today's solstice: "The solstice occurs during the last minute of the UT day of June 20th for the first time since the year 1896. Since that time the solstice has always occurred on the 21st or 22nd, but due to a variety of reasons involving the Gregorian Leap Year cycle and the gradual slowing of the Earth’s mean daily rotation, we will begin to experience these “early” solstices more frequently. The next one occurs in the year 2012, and we’ll have one every four years until 2044, when they will begin to occur in consecutive pairs of years. By the year 2096 they will occur for the next four consecutive years, then revert to the 21st from the years 2100 until 2132. A similar pattern will return and run through the end of the 22nd Century. "

ordinarily i would celebrate the solstice by taking a walk on powell butte to see how it's changed over the season, but I have come down with a terrible cold and i have cancelled everything due to phlegm. this means i don't get to do the pedalpalooza solstice ride, either, but i wasn't sure i'd make a whole night of bike riding, anyway. it's a little depressing to think that just as the weather is beginning to get better, our days will begin to get shorter.

joyeux june

2008-06-16T14:19:00.008-07:00

the good weather is finally here! this is wonderful during the day AND at night because i can finally see the moon again. a few nights ago i walked out of the hous and said, "oh, hi, scorpio!" the last major constellation i remember seeing was leo -- though to be fair, virgo & libra are not very distinct.

my good deed for the week: last week i was shopping at new seasons when a child entered the deli area screaming. the mother was trying to ignore him and continue shopping and i could feel the air temperature around me drop several chilly degrees as the child continued to cry. people were looking around and rolling their eyes. finally the mother took the child to a different part of the store, but you could still hear the boy screaming. when i made my way back to the toiletries aisle the mother was trying to wrestle her child into the cart but it looked like he was winning. people were snickering and mouthing to each other and an old woman said something mean to me that i couldn't make out but her tone was obvious. at that point i walked over to the mother and asked if i could help. "i don't know what i can do, but i wanted you to know you didn't have to suffer alone." i knelt so i was at the same level as the boy and began talking to him, and soon he calmed down enough to be led back to the deli for something to eat and drink. as he left he kept checking to make sure i was still there, and when i saw him later in the store he was following his mom along contentedly. i felt like a superhero after that, but i was scared because i don't have children and i'm not sure how it feels to have someone approach you like that: is it a relief or is it shameful? it felt like part of what i was doing was calming her down as well as him.

last week i also met w/ my fall 2008 artist's way group in vancouver. they've been meeting regularly since the group ended in december, so i was happy to be invited.

on saturday i did my first pedalpalooza event, a "cycle the well fields" tour organized by the portland water bureau. we did a 16-mile loop (my longest ride yet!) between the parkrose transit center and blue lake, stopping at different features and monitoring stations of the columbia slough watershed. i like learning unusal things about portland: not only do i know how much water portland uses in a day (80-100 million gallons in the winter and 200-280 million gallons in the summer), i also got to go inside a secret water bunker buried in the side of the hill and know of a secret canoe launch site. yay!

after the ride i scrambled home to change into a dress, pick up the broccoli polenta and go to jalex's bridal shower, where i was embarassed to have answered the most questions correctly on the "how well do you know our beloved jackie?" quiz. i think most of it is osmosis from sven, really, so i shared the prize with him when i got home (five dark chocolate caramels). as far as bridal showers go, this one was pretty pleasant.

blessed be

2008-06-08T21:53:00.004-07:00

the first week of my summer vacation and the cool cloudy weather almost killed me! i am so ready for sunshine and bikeable weather. apparently the consensus is that it stops raining after the last parade of the rose festival, which was yesterday, so i hope that it's true!

i visited jennifer at her yard sale today. it was nice to see her, evan and nina again. i lost her a customer, though: a guy with a cigarette came up to the house and when jennifer went inside to take care of evan, he threw his cigarette into her lawn. "hey, don't throw your cigarette on our grass!" i said. he glared at me. "no problem," he said, as he picked up his cigarette, threw it into the street, then got into his car and drove away before jennifer came back. oops.

later i attended the "blessing of the bikes" at st. mary's. as i told the two cameramen who wanted to interview me later, i'm not at all religious, but i like a good ritual. (earlier in the morning i also anointed rose w/ rose oil & a personal blessing.) they passed out programs and stickers featuring Our Lady of Ghisallo, who is apparently the patron saint of bicyclists. it was a smaller crowd than i expected, but they rang the bells for us and the ceremony was oddly moving, especially when they called out the names of the bicyclists who died this year and punctuated each name with a bell toll. they also found a strange passage from ezekiel to read to us (ezekial 10:9-17). since pedalpalooza begins later this week, it really feels like the beginning of the biking season is upon us!

afterwards i stopped at saint cupcake (now that should be the body of christ! ;). i also took the opportunity to ride around nwpdx, something i've not done yet, so i stopped by to see michaelmas, who was making characters w/ philip, dave & reza.

and fortunately the weather was fantastic today: it must have been divine intervention. ;)

june moon croon spoon

2008-06-02T22:20:00.005-07:00

it's finally june! i've been looking forward to this, the start of my "summer vacation." may wasn't such a great month for me and it was hella busy, so i'm hoping for peaceful epiphanies this month.

also worth mentioning:

* i'm so glad sam adams is mayor! none of the other city councilors i voted for won, but i don't have any complaints about the ones who did. sam was the one i -really- wanted to win; i would have been crushed if sho had gotten a majority, so it's super we've avoided a runoff. certainly i was the only one in our neighborhood with a sam sign, so i wasn't sure what would happen.

* i broke up with my acting coach. it's been hard since february but i'm stubborn and the process was giving me something i wanted (slowly, wrenchingly and despite her instead of because of her). but she finally wanted to "talk" and for me to commit to her methods, which are completely contrary to what i want from a support person. so. meh.

* michaelmas, sven, michael hall & i saw indiana jones: it was better than i thought it would be. :) i also saw shortbus, of which i had no preconceptions and it was, um, surprising. and then sven finally saw the golden compass, so i could finally talk about it with him. seeing it the second time was more disappointing than the first time, unfortunately.

* went to ground kontrol for my annual memorial day arcade pilgrimage. there's nothing that a good game of tempest or joust can't temporarily cure. (flap flap flap flap)

* i biked all the way to the new collage on woodstock, which means it's the longest bike ride i've ever been on (about 13 miles). it was great! i even found a little niche by johnson creek to stop and read. alas, today i took rose back to bike gallery because she had gear-slipping-and-skipping issues (since taking her to the "bicycle maintenance workshop," ironically enough). but i'd also really like her to stop ticking, which she only does while pedalling, and which she didn't do three weeks ago.

* jen has begun her aids lifecycle ride! sandy is in australia! leeann wants to come visit! zoe just graduated! cecilia's moving back to portland! jennifer's looking for a new HR job!

recent activities

2008-05-22T01:12:00.010-07:00

* sven & i watched cloverfield: dumb monster, but overall not a bad movie. i'm glad i saw it on the small screen, though. about halfway through we had to stop and rest so the room would stop spinning, and then we had to munch on candied ginger to keep from being nauseous from the handheld camerawork.

* biking has been going pretty well when it's not randomly cold. i certainly missed rose while she was at the bike shop! i'm set to pass 100 miles on rose -- assuming my odometer can be trusted. i think its count may be quite high and i'll have to reset it. i've been practicing going up & down hills and getting the bike on/off a bus and i finally figured out my bike rack again, so i feel i can take her almost anywhere at this point.

* also, i was in the alberta art hop parade! since i had a bike and a pretty dress, i joined in the "pretty dress" ride. then the people in pretty dresses biked along the alameda ridge and down to wilshire park for a picnic. yay! it was my first organized ride. the experience made me realize that if i lived 100 blocks west of here, i could bike almost anywhere in inner portland.

[gl. & rose: posing & packed]

* afterwards, i managed to see the current show at 23sandy: if you've never seen an orotone (a photograph printed in 24-karat gold), this is your chance!

* sven, kristen, todd & i attended the last scratchpdx of the season. i wasn't sure i was going to go, but i knew one of the performers: 10-year-old frankie is the daughter of one of my artist's way clients.

* i attended "create the world" and made an 8ft banner for them:

* i was hired for the first go game of the season! once the suns comes out, the go game pays people to interact with players in a game zone centered around pioneer courthouse square. this time i was a "karma chameleon" who gives teams bonus points if they let me borrow a cell phone. it was fun, as usual, but there was always someone on each team who knew i was part of the go game and so spoiled the fun for the others. at one point while i was waiting for a team i got approached by an NPR reporter, who want to interview me about the primary election! i was very disappointed that i couldn't do it. :(

* i got called to serve on my first jury duty in oregon. during the introductory speech in the morning the judge asked, "what do we require of citizens?" "loyalty," the two men behind me said. i shivered. but i did see someone i knew there. however, i didn't get called to a panel till after lunch; toby & i took the opportunity to try to kenny & zuke's on 11th & stark (tasty!). i thought the jury selection process was really interesting. we were picked for a criminal case, one with multiple charges (attempted murder, burglary, invasion of privacy). the defense lawyer asked me specifically if i'd weigh the word of a police officer more than a civilian. i said "yes," but what i meant was "yes, INITIALLY." and so i didn't get to talk about the complexity of all that, how i'm pretty sensitive to hierarchy and training, but that i'm also skeptical of spin and need to hear all sides of something before i feel i can make a decision about it. argh. unsurprisingly, they didn't pick me for that jury. (or toby, for that matter.) afterwards, i signed my fee back over to the fund that pays for comfy chairs, microwaves & TVs.

[toby wears his juror's badge at lunch break]

also, i keep meaning to include this cute green star, which michaelmas & i saw in a tree while we were walking around nepdx one day:

[twinkle, twinkle]

the zen of bicycle maintenance

2008-05-14T23:14:00.003-07:00

today i went to a bike maintenance workshop at my local bike gallery (on division). i even biked there! ;) i deliberately picked a bike with an internal hub because it required less maintenance, but when i read about bike maintenance it assumes you have a derailleur. i really wanted to know what did & didn't apply to me. so here are the things i need to worry about:

* air your tires: they're porous and leak over time. each pump is about 1 psi.

* inspect tires for cuts & wear before every ride. fortunately i have kevlar puncture resistant tires w/ slime seal, thanks to mph's suggestion.

* keep your chain lubed & clean, as well as your brake pivots. moreso during rainy season.

* check brakes for wear: they have groove indicators (if the brake is worn to the groove, it's time to replace them) and wheels should have a black indicator mark (if the area past it is concave, it's time to replace the rim). he recommends cool stop brake pads rather than shimano. (i only have a front brake to worry about; the back is a coaster brake.)

* don't wash your bike; clean the frame with pledge & the rims w/ 409.

* check if wheels, pedals & handlebars are secure.

* inspect rims, frame & forks for cracks & damage every six months

* most shifting problems can be solved by turning the cable "adjusting barrel" counter clockwise half a turn at a time. my internal hub has two red lines that should align in 4th gear.

this helped validate that i bought the right bike for me; i only have about 1/3 of the maintenance of a typical bike. since i have such an unusual bike, afterwards the tech came outside to point to the spots on my bike that need attention. i also found a new way to lock my bike; my bike baskets get in the way of locking the rear wheel to most things (especially since i've switched to a U lock rather than a combination cable lock, though i loved that cable lock), so he says i can just lock the front fork since it doesn't connect to the quick release section.

attending the workshop were 7 girls & 1 boy. my job, as usual, was to ask questions to allow other people to ask questions.

so here's the punchline: after the workshop i found the #17 holgate bus waiting for a while at the last stop, so i asked if i could practice putting my bike on the bike rack. if i need to use the bus at some point, i don't want to freak out too much when there's traffic and people waiting for me. and actually, i did this last night, too, with a different driver and with another bicyclist to help me. so this time i tried to get rose on the row closest to the bus -- but i think i banged her weirdly, because when i biked away, it was much harder to pedal & shift her than normal, and she ticks while pedaling now, which she's never done before. argh!

so now that i've taken the bike to the bike maintenance workshop, i have to take it back to the bike gallery to be fixed. ha! hopefully it's an easy fix and it can get done by saturday, when i'm scheduled to ride in the "pretty dress ride" at the alberta art hop parade.

walking in spring

2008-05-11T19:56:00.008-07:00

two completely unrelated things:

when the weather was so warm and lovely (one day oh, so long ago), sven & i were walking down the hill when we heard an odd sound, like popcorn. it was the pine tree in our neighbor's yard! only one of the pines was popping, but it was very strange and completely fascinating.

also, i've found the world's most comfy shoes:
and they are so cute, too! i don't usually get gooey about shoes, but these are the shoes i have waited for all my life! shiny AND swirls!

[may16: ann sent me handknit socks to celebrate my new shoes! how sweet!]

don't panic

2008-05-06T11:45:00.006-07:00

after 7 years of various adventuring, kristen & todd got married on friday. kristen's motto was DON'T PANIC! a small group of family gathered at hoyt arboretum; sven, maggie & i were the only people from portland (unless you count toby & gregory). they didn't have a bridal party, but sven & i got to be the official witnesses. :) after a very short ceremony that included a native american flute and "ode to a nightingale," we adjourned to the kennedy school for a modest but tasty reception. sven and i forgot the wedding gift so after the reception we had to run home and bring it to their house after everyone had gone home.

[newlyweds]

bursting my bubble

2008-04-26T00:48:00.004-07:00

washington mutual is being much more aggressive in its upselling techniques: every time i talk to a wamu teller they ask if i'd like more information about whatever service they're being asked to upsell that day; whenever i log in i now have a stupid interstitial screen that asks if i'd like more information about a service i don't have before i am allowed into my account.

but nothing compares to today. i was in freddy's looking at mozzarella for the pizza i was making tonight when two people dressed in washington mutual outfits approached me.

"excuse me, ma'am? are you a washington mutual customer?"

i turn, afraid this is some sort of official business: "um.... yes....."

the woman's eyes & voice brighten. "you -are-? have you heard of our credit card--?"

as soon as she said "you -are-?" i think "oh, no!" and my suspicion is verified when she starts to ask about credit cards. so i cut her off, begging: "please don't bother me. i'm shopping." which certainly isn't the strongest thing or everything i could say, but i'm very constrained by my naturally ingrained politeness and social awkwardness.

"oh." she says, and stiffens. they walk away. i feel relieved, angry and guilty at the same time, but i spend the rest of my time in the store afraid i'll run into them again. i get my cheese and use the self-checkout kiosk to get out of there as quickly as possible.

i really hate petitioners and the tactics they use to get your attention and how they try to make you feel guilty for not stopping. i hate how their demands erode the general goodwill of everyone walking down the street. and now i'm not even safe inside a grocery store! argh! i wish there was a "do not call" list or "unsubscribe" option for human interaction. i'm writing wamu & freddy's a letter in protest.

countdown

2008-04-16T13:33:00.003-07:00

i've now seen three "during the fall of eastern european communism" movies in a month. i've always been attracted to dystopian movies, which now seems to include post-communist movies. they've all been pretty good, but one was especially exquisite and another was so emotionally wrenching i'm still recovering from it.

i already wrote about how much i enjoyed the lives of others; last week i also saw "goodbye, lenin," which was its polar opposite: a slightly charming comedy about the way germany should have re-united, but didn't. then yesterday i saw "4 days, 3 weeks and 2 days," which is one of the most powerful movies i've ever seen. though the central plot of the movie is about an abortion, it is in actuality an absolutely gripping movie about the day-to-day choices of living in a totalitarian state. the tension and hopelessness and sacrifice are palpable.

i saw "4 days, 3 weeks and 2 days" at the living room theatre, which is a fantastic place to see almost any movie, especially if you can go in the daytime. one other person came in just as it was starting but sat on the aisle, so it was like i had the whole theatre to myself (which is a good thing, because i've never cried so much at a movie before). combined with their theatre menu service, it's amazing (if a little weird juxtaposed against such a severe movie).

jailbreak

2008-04-11T17:14:00.002-07:00

such a beautiful day today! sven came bursting into the house, panting: "if you come for a walk with me right now, you'll see goats!" so we raced to the top of the hill (oh, how i hate that hill!) and was rewarded by the sight of three goats eating everything in sight. fortunately, they loved clover the most, and our neighborhood has a lot of that on the medians and lawns. we decide to go to the farm to tell them some of their goats had gotten out, but were faced with a major language barrier; the woman who answered the door primarily spoke russian, and i haven't spoken that in over 10 years. somehow we managed to convey "goats out in the street" and she called her husband to come deal with it.

attend the tale of sweeney todd

2008-04-10T15:38:00.003-07:00

sven & i went to see sweeney todd last night. i tried to find a place that had meat pies for dinner, but i settled for a sausage calzone at oasis. i'd never seen it before but my dad was sweeney todd in college so i'd always been interested. sven's interested in seeing the angela lansbury version now. and of course johnny depp has a version, too, but i'm a little more cautious now that he's done a terrible remake of willy wonka.

fools rush in...

2008-04-01T23:54:00.001-07:00

april is poetry month, national grilled cheese sandwich month, and buy local month. only two of those three are true.

pop up

2008-03-26T15:20:00.001-07:00

love is abc3d.

learning something new every day

2008-03-26T11:27:00.002-07:00

alderaan isn't just a star wars reference: it's an asterism!

"Alderaan is an unused name for the two pairs of stars α and β Canis Minoris (Procyon and Gomeisa) and α and β Geminorum (Castor and Pollux). The name was taken from Arabic al-dhirā`ain الذراعين (= "the two forearms" or "the two front paws" or "the two cubit measuring rods"). The term originally referred to the "measuring rods" meaning, but an astronomer whose native language was not Arabic supposed that it meant "two forepaws" literally and invented an enlarged rampant Lion asterism centered on Leo and stretching over a quarter of the sky."

thanks, wikipedia! i can totally see how this asterism was created: the heads of gemini and the stars of canis minor form a significant section of the winter hexagon.

knowing your target market

2008-03-25T16:44:00.005-07:00

back from tucson with a bad cold. i had a pretty good time at the wedding, but i was very glad to be back in portland, land of coffee people milkshakes & church signs like this:

incidentally, this is the church parking lot we taught carl to drive in. also, it's a site for one of the weekly farmer's markets.

something borrowed, something blue

2008-03-18T21:53:00.003-07:00

happy equinox! sven, toby, gregory & i are off to tucson for a week to celebrate shield's wedding to aiyana. see you soon!

do onto others

2008-03-16T22:56:00.004-07:00

having complained about torchwood, i actually have a movie to recommend: "the lives of others." the acting & story are superb. i love its layering and how the characters chose different levels of secrecy & self-editing. like amelie, the writer/director quite obviously loved what he was doing. based on his interviews, sven & i call him the "german joss whedon." :)

torch song

2008-03-15T23:55:00.003-07:00

neil's right: The People in Torchwood Season One Are All Too Stupid To Live . we're only on the sixth episode but so far i am incredibly unimpressed with the amount of standing around that goes on when people should be running or shooting or dodging. torchwood sucked all the charm out of jack's character, and i cannot tell you how much i hate owen's character. i don't think they make a scale that measures that intense level of white-hot fury.

very cherry

2008-03-11T14:37:00.004-07:00

it must be spring!

everything's coming up roses

2008-03-07T13:16:00.002-08:00

we pulled rose out of the garage the other day. i haven't gone for a ride yet, but it's almost time! in other spring project news, i'm pretty behind on the garden...

can you hear me now?

2008-03-03T03:01:00.004-08:00

sven & i were walking home under the clear blue sky of an early spring afternoon. we passed a guy walking on the other side of the street.

"hey, bitch!" he yelled.

i whipped around in horror to see him on his cell phone. he finished the rest of his sentence: "pick up. i know you're there." when he noticed sven & i had turned around to look at him, he smiled and waved us off: "oh, no! i wasn't talking about you!"

strangely, that didn't make me feel much better.

3 photos

2008-02-24T01:32:00.005-08:00

i took michaelmas to compusa to look for cheap hard drives. since compusa is going out of business, i found this sales plaque funny on a number of levels, not least because it was actually being sold AND for such a low price. i was *very* tempted to take it home...

the next day i saw this license plate on the way to a meeting and i scrambled for the camera before the car could turn left. isn't this the best license plate in oregon? :D

after that meeting, i passed the first flowers i've seen poking out of the ground this season. i have some tulip & bluebell shoots out in my yard, but no actual flowers yet. are these snowdrops?

edit: ann says they're crocus.

goreyography

2008-02-22T15:39:00.001-08:00

it's gorey's birthday! read the gashlycrumb tinies or the doubtful guest. you'll be glad you did!

weather underground

2008-02-21T18:14:00.001-08:00

well, that just goes to show you the weather people don't know anything! despite numerous rain forecasts for wednesday, last night was a perfect night to watch an eclipse. that actually caught me off guard a little, so i was late getting us started up the hill to powell butte. because the moon was rising at the time of the eclipse, we couldn't see it on this side of the hill, but by the time we got up there it was already in totality.

still, we got to see saturn & regulus patiently flank the eclipsed moon in leo, and we got to see the moon slip away from its veil and shine fully again. i love that moment when the curved edge of the moon begins to gleam after an hour in the darkness. as it grew brighter, it was neat to see the sky change as stars that had been visible during the eclipse disappeared, and others grew smaller or dimmer.

it seemed like a beautiful summer night: the frogs & crickets were in chorus, and we heard owls call to each other from the trees. it was really cold, though, and i was grateful sven brought a thermos of french onion soup with him (whereas i brought a chocolate bar embedded with pop rocks).

the next full eclipse visible to us won't be until december 20, 2010! i'm so very glad the weather decided to cooperate; an amazing event for a normally unrequited astronomer. thank you portland!

edgy

2008-02-19T16:39:00.003-08:00

i stayed at the edgefield a couple of weeks ago for an unbirthday retreat (thanks, michaelmas & sven!). the first night, a thursday, was woooooooonderful: the todo list i carry around in my head lightened considerably as i read a book, ate good food, wandered the hotel, took a bath, looked out my window. the next day i had a fabulous lunch and wandered the golf course grounds. i settled into my room to finish my book & take a nap: that's when the weekenders began to arrive, and i wouldn't know peace for the rest of the night.

there was a shrieking party three doors down; people knocked on my door and ran away, laughing; i got chased out of a comfy chair in a public area by people who were mad i was in the same room they were; i got chased out of a conference room by a security guard; the restaurant stopped serving just before i got there. lesson learned: only go to the edgefield during the week, not on the weekend.

dark side of the moon

2008-02-17T00:36:00.006-08:00

wondering when the lunar eclipse is next week? mark your calendar for wednesday, feb20 and wonder no more!

As the moon rises from the east, the eclipse gets underway at 5:43 p.m. PST when the umbral shadow takes a small, dark bite out of the left edge of the Moon. For 73 minutes of the partial phase, the darkness engulfs more of the Moon's disk as it slides into the shadow. The partial eclipse ends and totality begins at 7:01 p.m. PST, when the Moon slides completely within the umbra. The total phase lasts 50 minutes, with mid-eclipse (when the Moon looks darkest) occurring at 7:26 p.m. PST with the moon at 18 degrees above the eastern horizon. What makes it so much fun is that no one can predict what color the Moon will turn during totality. Will it be bright orange, or blood red? Only the shadow knows. Moreover, this eclipse comes with a rare bonus. The planet Saturn will be shining three degrees from the Moon. The total eclipse will end at 7:51 p.m. as the moon exits the umbra. Then at 9:09 p.m., the moon will exit the earth's umbral shadow.

powell butte will block the rising moon if we stay on this side of it, so we may need to hike up to the top.

monster mash

2008-02-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

snow today! i wish some of it had stuck.

on thursday night we hosted a monster month book release party. it was fun. we made "grimberry juice" and sven actually made a cake and frosted it with the creature on the cover of the book (mmmm, giant lightning sloth cake!). we had a bunch of different people from different parts of our lives collide, but it think it turned out okay. thanks for coming, everyone! it really meant a lot for us that you came to support this. we'll have to do it again sometime! ;)

a month of sundaes

2008-01-27T17:56:00.002-08:00

last night we celebrated kristen's 28th birthday by attempting to eat 28 desserts. alas, we only managed to east 12 between the four of us, so now we have a week's worth of desserts stretched out before us. later that night sven took us to scratchpdx, which kristen & todd quite liked.

edited to add picture: 28 desserts is a lot!

ducks in a roe

2008-01-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

it's the 35th anniversary of roe vs wade. i'll be donating $35 to planned parenthood to help them protect, promote & provide access to sexual & reproductive health care.

last week i volunteered at the planned parenthood annual luncheon so i could hear cecile richards speak. she says portland is the city that shows the rest of the country what's possible: we're building new clinics in more rural areas of oregon, we've defeated a parental notification bill (twice!), we offer birth control & emergency contraception online, we just passed a bill that requires insurers to cover birth control if they cover other prescriptions, and we offer free hpv vaccinations for people under 18. that's really good, especially compared to some states (i'm looking at you, colorado, with your spousal consent law!).

of course, all is not well. we still don't have a law requiring pharmacists to dispense legal medication like birth control or emergency contraception, we have protesters at the mlk site, and there were protesters at this event, too. last year we didn't have any, and this year we had 3 with signs and the giant van circling the block with pictures of bloody fetuses pasted on it. nationally, sex education is still largely abstinence-based and this year the supreme court denied a medical procedure ostensibly to protect women from something they might potentially regret. globally, federal aid is still contingent on the "gag rule": not mentioning contraception or abortion options to people who very much need it.

and then there's this: men who claim they've had abortions. to be clear, men cannot have abortions because men cannot be pregnant. "post-abortion traumatic syndrome" is completely fabricated: yes, some people do feel regret, but that's true for plastic surgery, buying a home and getting a puppy, and nobody's banning those things. this general "abortion hurts women (and menz!)" movement drives me mad because the supposed solution is to ban abortions rather than changing the circumstances and climate surrounding abortion. these are the same people who are making abortion "traumatic" in the first place! If you don't want the trauma, STOP MAKING IT TRAUMATIC!

should auld acquaintance be forgot?

2008-01-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

today is nina's last day at casa de powell butte. jennifer's found a house and so i'm taking her back "home." we've had nina here since may so it'll be weird to return her, but at least we aren't losing another cat via death. :) toby will really miss her, though.

first star i see tonight

2008-01-12T22:15:00.000-08:00

i want to start an astronomy blog, but i'm afraid i won't be able to keep it up. part of it's the portland weather: how many times can you write, "i really wanted to go outside tonight but it's raining"? even in good weather my shallow knowledge of the sky would make my entries similar: "hey, i saw orion again tonight."

i really love the night sky but i am surprised by really dumb stuff: hey, look, cassiopeia is in the nw instead of the ne tonight! i can recognize a lot of constellations now, but there's a big section past sagittarius that's a complete mystery to me. i ran into that issue tonight: i was looking for comet tuttle which is in cetus, but i can't recognize cetus, nor pices which is its closest zodiac neighbor. i had to fire up stellarium and determine it was on the same plane as sirius but in the sw instead of the se. and even then i couldn't find it. nor could i spot comet holmes, which i know is dimmer now than when we last saw it in november, but i thought we'd still be able to see its fluffy spot by algol.

plus, i only have a pair of binoculars rather than a serious rig w/ a camera (admittedly, a rather nice set as a present from sven some years back), so what images could i share? would anyone read a text-only blog by a very amateur astronomer?

i want to write an astronomy blog that's poetic w/ beautiful pictures, knowledgeable despite my ignorance, and frequently updated despite the rain. perhaps i would call it "the frustrated astronomer" or "the optomistic astronomer" or sven's choice, "the unrequited astronomer." but then, i need another blog to write like i need a hole in my hand.

potayto, potahto

2008-01-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

as long as we're on the subject of making tasty treats, i also made these sweet potato cupcakes for toby's birthday: wow! best use of sweet potatoes ever! i got some in my veggie delivery and was wondering what i was going to do with them. it was a huge batch, though.

no fuss, no muss

2008-01-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

happy new year! it's nice to start off with a new foodstuff. :)

i finally tried making the no-knead bread and i gotta say, it's as good as the hype. i'm a lazy, imprecise baker, so i'm thrilled this bread is drop-dead simple & very forgiving: you combine flour, water, salt & yeast (i just used a packet that had been sitting in our refrigerator for god know how long), let it sit on the counter for at least 12 hours (that's all i could stand), fold it in on itself, wait another 2 hours, and pop it into a very hot oven in a pre-warmed container. it took me a while to get to this because we don't have an enameled casserole, cast iron pot or dutch oven, much less a 5-quart one, which is what the recipe recommends. but then i saw you could do it in a pyrex bowl, and we have plenty of those!

i did this while i was waiting for dawn this morning, which is my new year's tradition. i started the process in the afternoon which meant it was ready to be attended to around 3:30 this morning. but if you start one in the evening, it'll be almost ready by the time you get up in the morning!

i halved the recipe because ordinarily we're not big bread eaters and i was afraid our 1.5 quart pyrex bowl would be too small for a full-sized loaf (which it probably was, but i'm pleased it was just the right size for this loaf). it smelled heavenly and it slipped out of the bowl easily. the hardest part was waiting for it to cool, so i went for my new year's walk at dawn and had two slices when i got back. delicious!

is this thing on?

2007-12-31T02:35:00.000-08:00

since i'm not actually posting much, let me show you what dang got for christmas. it makes me even more grateful for my own gifts, even the bavarian-girl-holding-a-giant-pretzel ringbox. also, note his spanky new wordpress blog!

also, i picked up a wireless mouse to use with the laptop: i hate adding clutter like that, especially since i don't really have desk to use it on. but the trackpad has done damage to the nerve endings in my index finger, making it burn even when i'm not using the trackpad. i switched fingers at that point, but once i noticed the same symptoms developing in my middle finger, i bought a mouse. i hope it helps, but at this point i'd be happy if it didn't hurt.

moral compass

2007-12-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

(sven, don't read this yet! nor should anyone who doesn't want to see spoilers for the golden compass.)

i was compelled to see the golden compass after reading the "his dark materials" series, but i sort of wasn't looking forward to it. i LOVE the book and was too afraid they'd mess up the movie in a hundred different ways: a dull and lifeless lyra, dumb special effects, insipid daemons, appalling additions, inappropriate humour, horrible gender dynamics, terrible transitioning/adaptation, a soulless story, mitochlorians, etc. the film transition of narnia didn't leave me much to hope for.

so i was very relieved when the credits began at the end: i felt like i had been holding my breath waiting for it all to go wrong, and it hadn't. oh, sure, the very end deserves an eye roll with its metaphorical sunrise and "just try to let them stop us" music swelling, and right at the beginning there was a nagging continuity issue (why doesn't anyone notice the shattered glass & wine on the floor?), but my issues are pretty minor and generally i thought it was well done.

i was most grateful that i had some genuine emotional reactions in the film: feeling fear, sorrow, pain as the characters did. and though i have reason to suspect they may have been primarily layered with how i felt at those moments in the book, the movie didn't ruin them for me like a lesser film would have. iorick byrnison's story was heartfelt. the witches aren't well explained, but i liked them anyway: mysterious & fierce. the daemons look good and interact with each other and the world. while the characters don't seem to be as morally complex as they are in the books, i'm pleased that they are still allowed some room to wiggle past "good" or "evil."

there were only two thing that really stood out as ways the movie adaptation wasn't as successful as i would have wanted:

1. i was mad when i realized that if a character was speaking a different language, he would be killed. foreigners were perfectly fine to use as the faceless bad guys: siberian or nomadic tribes who have been hired by the magisterium to guard the experimental station or capture lord asriel. killing them so casually is especially egregious because the proper white british people who are actually doing the horrible experiments simply get to run around the station as things explode around them, but you never see them harmed, much less killed.

2. i was disappointed with how they handled finding billy: they didn't give the characters enough time to discover or process the fact that he no longer had a daemon and how horrifying that was for him, for everyone. the whole beginning of the movie is a big blur but since this is the central conceit, they really needed to take 30 more seconds here and let the realization sink in. i really want to rewrite that scene: it had the potential to be so much more powerful than it was.

still, i'm happier with this movie than i was w/ stardust, lord of the rings or new star wars trilogy. yay! alas, the movie wasn't very full at all. perhaps the catholic boycott is working? i see a lot of similarities between the way the magisterium is being portrayed and harry potter's ministry of magic, and yet there's far more outcry about the golden compass. michaelmas said he enjoyed it but won't go see it again, so i may have to take sven to it and give it some more money.

it's the most horrible time of the year! :D

2007-12-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

two snows before christmas is really something! time to break out an even scarier solstice. in addition to an advent chocolate every other day, i am receiving carefully crafted & mysteriously personal fortune cookie slips...

a december to remember

2007-12-02T00:55:00.000-08:00

first off: snow! whatever plans i had for the day were immediately canceled. i think this is the earliest i've ever seen snow in portland, but it has been trying to sleet all week. to celebrate the first day of december, we broke out the "scary solstice" cds and i got a rosewater caramel in my advent calendar from alma. we also picked up a box of candy canes tonight. it's going to be a good holiday. :)

kthxgivingbai

2007-11-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

i had one of the best thanksgivings i've ever had yesterday. it was a long, lazy, lovely day with friends & good food. carl, kristen & todd shared in a delicious feast and congenial companions.

[centerpiece]

[small thanksgiving bouquet]

[todd's place card]

[making mashed potatoes]

[sven brings in the veggie roasts]

["carving" the roasts]

[thanksgiving buffet]

[mmmmmm!]

we started with bowls of valdosta pecans, an olive assortment & pumpkin seeds from our pie pumpkin for appetizers. todd was kind enough to go back out for carl once we realized he was stuck in north portland, so kristen helped cut potatoes and debeak green beans while sven & i finished preparing the meal.

this was my first all-vegetarian meal: instead of turkey we had quorn roast & celebration field roast. i thought my inner carnivore might balk at this, but i hardly missed it what with the mashed potatoes, stuffing, lemon pepper green beans almondine, salad, sven's fabulous homemade cranberry sauce, my delicious savoury biscuit experiment, chicken-flavored gravy, mushroom gravy, sparkling apple cider, reisling wine & zinfandel.

afterwards we were serenaded with an improv accordian concert featuring "ring of fire" & "particle man." nina *hated* the accordian and ran upstairs, where we wouldn't see her for the rest of the night. after we rested for a bit we headed out for a little walk through the neighborhood, dipping into powell butte for a bit and then coming home on the springwater corridor trail. it was beautiful but cold! so to warm up we had large mugs of hot chocolate with homemade whipped cream (i had "spicy mayan") and chatted pleasantly for a time.

the only disappointment was when we tried to locate comet holmes. because it was such a clear night, i thought it would be easy to find it, but it turns out that it's been losing brightness even as it has expanded to become the largest object in our solar system, so it's hardly visible with the naked eye anymore. plus, the moon was so large & bright it washed out almost everything, even with binoculars. *and* its path places it in conjunction with perseus' brightest star, mirfak, which additionally obscures it. too bad, because comet holmes was so impressive when sven & i saw it last that we wanted to share it, but it was too cold to stay out long.

so we came back inside to dig into the pie, a homemade pumpkin pie sven made with one of the pumpkins i grew this summer, and a pecan bourbon pie kristen & todd brought from grand central bakery. then we set up the red floor chairs from the studio on the floor and played a game of "apples to apples" -- which toby almost won!

we waved from the sidewalk as everyone drove away, then came inside to watch a dr. who episode. at this point, we've even cleaned up the dishes. :) hope your holiday was wonderful!

[thanksgiving cleanup]

retreat from the sun

2007-11-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

when i read this about comet holmes last night, i doubted my interpretation of it, which is why i wrote about fomalhaut & capella instead:

"The dust cloud created by whatever cataclysmic event caused its million-fold brightening on October 23rd now has an apparent diameter that is about as large as that of the Moon. In real terms this translates to a physical size that’s larger than the Sun! For now Comet Holmes is the largest structure in the solar system, and it shows no signs of rapidly fading for the near-term future."

REALLY? comet holmes is as big as the sun? it seemed too fantastic: i figured i must not be reading it right.

fortunately, carl confirmed the awesomeness of this astronomical event this morning: "The Sun is no longer the largest object in the Solar System. Okay? Not the largest object in ITS OWN SYSTEM."

he linked to the intitute for astronomy at the university of hawaii, which pretty much disambiguates it: Comet Holmes Bigger Than The Sun.

so poetically, the largest objects in our solar system are diameterically opposed: one hot star and one cool comet. it's the niftiest form of a binary system i've ever seen.

thanking my lucky stars

2007-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

i never knew there was thanksgiving folklore associated with the stars! for instance, if it wasn't raining, we could look directly below the moon tonight for fomalhaut, which sky & telescope calls "the Autumn Star, shining at its highest in the south."

but the naval observatory's "the sky this week" has this gem: "As we take time to gather with friends and family to celebrate Thanksgiving, it is interesting to note that there is a star associated with the season. If you go outside at around midnight, a bright golden beacon is located almost directly overhead. Capella is the sixth brightest star in the sky, and it represents a nanny-goat held by Auriga, the Charioteer. The goat owes her special place in the sky to the infant Jove, who broke one of her horns while nursing on her milk. The horn became the fabled Cornucopia, or “Horn of Plenty”, which is still used today as a symbol of our annual national feasting day."

tangentially related: tonight i made soup from one of the pumpkins we grew. yum! we'll make pie with the other one for thanksgiving.