Day: February 10, 2008

January walk.

So lately this blog has been more “In & Inactive” than “Out & About.” This is due mainly two reasons:

  1. Lack of sleep has kept me from morning exercise so fewer pictures from there.
  2. It’s really dark all the time in the winter here.

This morning, though I walked to the Tin Shed Garden Cafe where I ate breakfast with Jan & Kelly. Here are some pictures I took along the way:

Along this stretch were some nice post-war cottages. Then this tiny little house with a huge front yard and no back yard.
This part of North/Northeast Portland is the only area I’ve found in the city with alleys. Most of them seem to be little used, and some are grown over completely with blackberry brambles.
This shared garage reminded me of houses in South Boston. One owner would update the paint job on their half of the house and the other owner wouldn’t. It was pretty common to see two-toned houses. I’ve rarely seen shared garages in this town, though.
Here’s a cute little post-war house that decided to embrace the swinging 60s with geometrical porch supports, a new door and windows. The sign at the corner of the house says “Suits Me Too”
Along one side street two woman were chatting outside a van. One asked me if I would like to buy tamales. I’d never eaten one, so I took the opportunity to ask the silly questions I’d always been too shy to ask in restaurants. Questions like, “Do you eat the wrapper?” “What’s inside them?” They were selling them six for $5.00 and so I bought some chicken ones. They were good too. I’ve got a card to call if I want more and they will deliver to me.
I like clever graffiti, but this just seems like it needs to be a little more clear. What was hot? It was hot and what?
After Jan & Kelly and I ate and solved the problems of the world we went for a stroll. It was a rare February nice day. Blue sky and warm temperatures. Days like this make winter bearable.
Of course there would be a skeleton in Warrior One on top of a ladder on top of store. Don’t you have one in your town?

Requiem for a long sleeved t-shirt

Here’s another item that went to the great trash can….

Matt gave me this t-shirt shortly after we got together. For years, when someone asked me what McGregor was I told them that Matt got it when he did crew in college because the winning team would take the losing team’s shirts. But I just found out this week that I had completely fabricated that story and that his mother sent it to him when she was at Antioch College. Oh, well okay. So I was wrong about its origins.

For some reason, long sleeved shirts are not plentiful in my life which means that this one got worn a lot, September through June. Whenever the weather was slightly colder in the morning when I exercised, I put on this shirt. The advantage of working out outside in the morning is that no one sees your workout wear. So it didn’t matter when the oil stain appeared.
The other day I was putting it on for perhaps the thousandth time and my elbow ripped a big hole in the armpit. I wore it a few times after that, but the damage was done. I said a sad goodbye to my trusty t-shirt.

Requiem for a jacket

I get attached to things, especially clothing. Being attached means that I wear some things until they are falling apart. Then they are in too bad of shape to donate them to Goodwill. So I have to just throw them away, which seems a horrible thing to do after so many years of good service. There should be a ritual. Lacking one, I’ve started taking pictures of the items before I consign them to the great trash can.

This was my grandfather’s jacket. When I found it in my aunt’s closet it was missing the wool lining, but I wanted it anyway. I loved the contrasting lining and the green color. It was also perfect for my winter in the Pacific Northwest: it kept the rain and wind off of me, but was light enough I didn’t get too hot when walking from place to place. I wore it every day for years. I also had a Chalice Lighter pin on the collar for a time, but it disappeared somewhere along the way.
Now it is frayed at the cuffs and faded. So off it goes. Thank you, lovely jacket, for keeping me warm and dry.

The Mermaid Chair. Sue Monk Kidd

Jessie, a forties-ish wife and mother whose only child has gone off to college, is a bit bored and stuck in her life. One Ash Wednesday she is summoned home to Egret Island because her mother has purposely cut off a finger. While on the island she meets Brother Thomas and is drawn to him.

The book follows Jessie’s journey to the next stage in her life. It was one of those “just one more chapter” books for me and I enjoyed reading it. I wasn’t in love with the Secret Life of Bees the way the rest of the country seemed to be, but her plot is believable and interesting enough and the book didn’t end the way I thought it would.

Two things were distracting. At the start of the book, it seemed to be set in the generic “present,” but as the book goes on, it gradually becomes apparent that it is set in the 1980s. I spent a lot of time thinking, “Wait, why does she have a walkman?” “Why is she listening to tapes?” “Why wouldn’t they just use a helicopter?” By the end of the book it was clearly set in the 1980s, but I couldn’t figure out why it needed to be.

Also, and this may have been my fault as I may have skimmed right over some description that solved this mystery for me, I spent most of the book wondering if the character if Hepzibah was African American or not. This shouldn’t matter, but it did. Was she a nice white woman who had taken on the interesting history of freed slaves on Egret Island? Or was she the only black woman on Egret Island and thus it made sense that she would take care of the old slave cemetery? It turned out she was African American.

Overall, good book.