Category: All (-ish)

The History of Love. Nicole Krauss

Most novels I read are stories. That is, they have characters and a plot and plot devices and everything gets wrapped up in the end. They are sort of like real life, but not really. Real life never really wraps up as neatly as novels. You meet the guy, you find each other and pledge love and at the place where the novel of your life would end there comes a whole life of dishes that need to be done and bills to be paid and work to go to. Even on gray rainy days.

I loved this book because it was a slice of life. In real life people may never know what happened to this or that dropped plot line in their life. They may know each other. They may have said goodbye forever only to discover each other, by chance decades later. They may have a chance meeting with a stranger that connects dots for them. Or maybe everything is murky.

I loved this book because Leo Gursky, the character we meet first, is such a force of nature. An old man, retired locksmith in New York City, never married, who carries a note in his wallet explaining he has no family and where to bury him. Seeing the world through his eyes is a reason to read fiction.

Other characters were also wonderful. I can’t say enough about this book. I don’t even resent that someone the same age as me could create such a perfect thing. Read it.

Lint Progress: Here We Go Again

I’m a big fan of Here We Go Again. Despite the slightly awkward name, it is a very good consignment store. When I lived in SW I liked to go to the store on SW Carolina. Since the move to North Portland, I haven’t been, but they recently closed their Barbur Blvd. store and opened one on NE Broadway which is closer to me.

I’m on their mailing list, so I knew that they were having a sale that started on Valentine’s Day at the Carolina location. I got off work at 4:30 and had a class at 6:45, but I figured I could navigate public transportation and still have 40 minutes of shopping.

Alas, it was rush hour and the bus was running a bit late. I had about 30 minutes of shopping. The sales staff was wonderful as always. They are very nice and leave me alone, which is what I prefer, but I get the feeling they would love to help me if I wanted that. Every colored tag (about 80% of their merchandise) was 40% off and white tags were discounted too. Once again I concentrated on pants.

The selection wasn’t as good for me this time as it has been. There were a few size 12 and even fewer size 14 pants. Larger sizes must not be consigning there as much lately. It didn’t take me very long to try them on, but nothing fit. I grabbed a few dresses too, just for fun, but struck out there. I went through the jackets and there was a very nice leather jacket that I really wanted to fit, but alas it was a tiny bit too small.

I ended up with this bag. I’m pretty excited about it, because I’ve been carrying things in a backpack with a duct-taped strap. The backpack is a very roomy bag and when I was going to the gym could hold my food, my newspaper and all my gym stuff. However, since I haven’t been sleeping I haven’t been going to the gym and the duct-tape strap, even though I specifically bought black duct-tape to match the bag, makes me feel a bit shabby.
Backpacks are better for the back, but I think this bag won’t be too hard on my shoulder. It’s big enough to fit my lunch and thermos as well as my camera, wallet, and my letter writing kit. I also like the green lining. With my 40% off, it was $15.00.

Lint Progress: Goodwill on 10th

Goodwill on 10th is what I call the “Fancy Goodwill.” They have better-quality clothes in a smaller setting for more money. I find this to be a good thing due to the Expanding Clothing Size Decreasing Quality Theory. That would be the theory, formulated by yours truly, that if you are size 10 and below, shopping in thrift stores is easy, or at least easier, because those are the clothing sizes that women either gain weight and grow out of, or buy in hopes of someday getting into. Or alternatively, women just are those sizes, and are happy about it so they take care with their wardrobe. Size 12 and up, however, it becomes more difficult to shop in thrift stores because women who are that size mostly spend time wishing they were a different size. So they don’t take as much care with their wardrobes and/or wear their clothing until it wears out. In those sizes, there is a bunch of crap at thrift stores. Any place that will winnow out the crappy clothing is a good place, even if it charges more money.

I stopped after church to see what they had in pants. I tried on 10 pairs and found………a pair of khakis just exactly like the ones I was wearing. But pants that fit are pants that fit and I bought them. $14.99.

After the pants shopping ordeal was over, I looked around for other things. They had a rack of coats on sale for $9.99 and I got this coat, marked down from $39.99. I’m really excited about this coat. Its an Ann Taylor rain jacket and it should serve me well this spring. Sorry about the blurry photo.
On the way home, I bought a full-length mirror, you can see it behind me. We didn’t have one in the house and they come in handy. The Ready to Wear book suggests to buy two and hang them in one corner of a room so you can see more than one side of you. I plan to do that, but the store had just one so I’m starting there.

In looking for a picture of Goodwill on 10th I found a post that explained that the clothing at Goodwill on 10th only comes from two stores. Although another article says that they come from a central processing facility. And yet another article says the best days to shop there are Monday and Tuesday. Given that this store is on my way to and from so many things, I may just stop in weekly.

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.

Lint update. Reseach and planning.

In my world, every great project starts in the library. This one was no different. I wanted two things from the library. One was a book that lists a basic wardrobe. The other was some sort of primer about dressing, how to avoid the five separate outfits, no mix-and-match problem that I’m having.

I started my search by looking for a book I used to own. It’s by Kim France and is called The Lucky shopping manual: building and improving your wardrobe piece by piece. I searched for it because I knew I could use the subject headings to find other books like it. Sure enough, the subject heading called “clothing and dress” brought me to exactly what I need.

For the first time, I used the “add to my list” feature in the catalog. It was pretty handy, I just checked a box on every book that looked interesting and then was able to email the list of books to myself. I could have printed the list, too. Then after work, I ran to the library, found the call number of the book I found the most interesting, and looked at the other books on the same shelf. From entrance to exit only took 15 minutes. I ended up with these five titles:

  • 10 steps to fashion freedom: discover your personal style from the inside out.
  • Business casual made easy: the complete guide to business casual dress for men and women
  • Ready to wear: an experts guide to choosing and using your wardrobe
  • Secrets of style: the complete guide to dressing your best every day
  • The look.

I’m making my way through both Ready to Wear and The Look. I’m a bit nervous because Ready to Wear wants me to go through my clothes and put back only the things I love and am currently wearing. I can envision two things that I love and am wearing. This may have to be amended to “like” and am wearing.

On the shopping front, I received notice that my favorite consignment store, Here We Go Again, is having a sale on Valentine’s day. Matt has class on Valentine’s day, so I made plans to go there after work but before my class on that night. By then I will have read more of the primer books and have a better idea what I need. On Sunday, I will stop at what I call “the fancy Goodwill.” It’s right on my way home from church and it is a Goodwill that only has the better designers. I will look for pants while I am there, as I am in dire need of them.