Category: Structures

Yesterday’s walk.

Pictures from my entirely unnecessary walk. It was the first day in awhile that I could go out without being 1)totally bundled up 2)able to walk without navigating through the snow and/or ice.

I like how this house looks like it is striving to be the tallest house ever. It reminds me of when you measure the height of children and they stand up very straight, then stick their necks up as high as they can and then stand on their toes.
This house wants to say hello to you. Do you think it was meant to be this anthropomorphic?
Ducks! Someday I want ducks!

Someone helpfully (hah!) provided a couch so you can watch the traffic go by.
If you sat there, you would get this noisy view.
This is my favorite house on Montana street. I love the house itself, the color, things in the yard and all the little details that make it cool.
Nice decorations are everywhere around the house.
And you can see through the chicken wire gate to the chicken-house like extension. Fabulous!

Dear Multnomah County Library,

Hi there. I know you are pretty busy being the most utilized library of cities our size and everything, but I have a small wish that I am hoping you will fulfill. I’m sure you probably think it is helpful to package entire TV series as one multi-disk package for people to check out. After all, it is easier to check out and watch an entire season of, say The Office Season Four over a three week period than it is to try and reserve say, disk one of The Office Season Four, watch it, return it, and reserve disk two.

But here is the deal. When handed all four disks of Season Four at the same time, I tend to want to watch all four disks right away. I have no self control. It’s like in Old Yeller, when the boy who doesn’t like Old Yeller ties the hunk of meat low enough so Old Yeller could eat it, but Old Yeller is Old Yeller and the next morning hasn’t touched the meat thus gaining the boy’s esteem and further winning our hearts? Except I’m not Old Yeller. Were I the dog in that situation, the morning would find the rope hanging slack and me sleeping off the meat food coma. With an entire season of a DVD that I can have for three weeks I will inevitably finish it before the first week is out.

I’ve recently checked out the series Sports Night, which I remember reading was good when it was playing on TV (where they only air one episode per week if you are lucky) but I wasn’t really watching a lot of TV at that time. It turns out that the buzz I heard lo those 10 years ago was right on. Likable characters, snappy dialog, zany-but-real situations, and every episode some character manages to bring up some random obscure topic to become obsessed with. I’m enjoying it tremendously. And therein lies the problem. The Sports Night DVD is not just one season, but the entire series. Six disks! 40-something episodes! I know my lack of self-control isn’t your problem but if only you would just give me one disk at a time I would be so much better off. Netflix operates that way. So do the movie rental stores. But you, oh generous library. You give me everything at once.

So think about it. More packaging, I know, and more checking in and out etc. But if all your various television series were packaged individually, just think of the boost in circulation numbers.

Sincerely,
Patricia Collins.
Proud Multnomah County Library Patron.

Transported

Looking out the window at the snow it is as if I have been transported from the rainy green city of Portland to some snow covered hamlet somewhere in Colorado or Montana. It is snowing again today and we have inches on the ground. Having lived with snow in some for for over a week now, I can say the following generalizations about Portlanders are true.

They never go out in the snow.
They are unable to operate a snow shovel.

The people of Portland disappear when it snows. They stay holed up in their houses and emerge for only the most dire needs. They never, thank the lord, drive. The cars I’ve seen on the roads this week all have chains on them, but cars are few and far between. This is a good thing as Portlanders have little practice driving in the snow and have little to no skills in that area. Unlike any other place I have lived, the equipment to plow the roads is sparse and the roads themselves aren’t really sanded and definitely not salted. The (very small) downside of this is that life grinds to a halt when we get measurable snow. The upside is that the snow remains beautiful and white instead of nasty and gritty and brown, even on the major roads.

I would guess that 60% of Portlanders don’t own snow shovels. It makes sense. Most of the time when it snows we get a day or so of winter beauty and then everything warms up and it rains. Poof. The snow disappears. Why bother to shovel? This is in stark contrast to Massachusetts, where if you don’t clear the snow from your sidewalk it freezes and remains a slippery mess for weeks, if not months.

After shoveling my walk this morning, I took a walk of about three miles to run some errands. After I left my shoveled walk, guess how many shoveled sidewalks I encountered on my round trip? One. I even took a more traveled route in hopes that I would find some clear sidewalks. Not only do residents of the neighborhood not shovel, but businesses don’t either. The only exception was the North Star Coffee house, and they did the lazy “make a path one snow shovel wide” method. No one even throws down those things that make ice melt.

So it is a winter wonderland here, but one that has me wishing I owned snow shoes.

Snow downtown

On the last day of school before winter break, a snow day was called. That was no different for me than the four previous days which were also snow days for west side schools. So I have a three week winter break, instead of the scheduled two week break. I did go into work for a few hours this morning to put together a lunch order for the day we go back to school and then ran some errands downtown. It was snowing Hollywood snow, the kind you always see on TV: big wet flakes floating slowly to the ground, and it looked lovely in Pioneer Square.

You will note that there isn’t really a lot of snow on the ground. This is because a reasonably reliable forecast for any amount of snow here is the equivalent of about 18 inches of actual snow in Massachusetts. Schools are canceled, people stay home from work, many, many people avoid driving for any reason. I have a theory that American workers, starved for more time off from work, take any advantage of the weather to have more days off. Here that means a chance of snow causes many things to grind to a halt. Perhaps if we had more vacation, we would be more willing to go out in the snow.

Parking lots and snow

One thing I always remember about snow in Boise, is how a light snow would fall and cover everything, including the parking lots. People would drive to the mall, or the store, or someplace with a parking lot and take their best guess as to where the spaces were. They would then go in a shop, or perhaps work. Meanwhile the temperature would warm up and the snow would melt, exposing the actual parking spaces, many of which were difficult to park in, because the people who guessed would have guessed wrong, yet their cars were still there, parked outside the lines.

With that memory in mind, I was pleased to see this ingenious solution at a parking lot near my work.

SNOW!

So far it has turned our Holiday Party/Overnight into just a Holiday Party (for this I am thankful.) It has canceled our church service and Sunday school at 11:15. It has kept people from the Nutcracker, ensuring me the best seat I will probably ever have at the ballet. What will it do next?

It doesn’t look like a lot, but for Portlanders, any snow is too much snow. Sometimes even a forecast for snow is too much snow.
The pioneers have even more struggle. They are covered in snow!
City Hall looks picturesque.

Fabulous!

I’ve been watching this work in progress for about six months now and I just have to remark about how very cool it is. First of all, growing things in the front yard is super cool. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Secondly, though I myself have decided that raised beds are not for me, I love how contained this front yard garden is. I think that is the key to success with front yard gardens: make them very aesthetically pleasing. Either that or have a full-on permaculture garden, but avoid that midpoint where things are kind of weedy and unkempt.
Hiding behind that cloche is a lot of kale and collards. I’m a bit jealous.
And look! Soon an espalier fruit tree will grow along the front of the house. I want to espalier fruit trees in my backyard.
And here is that empty lot around the corner from me. It’s still waiting for me to plant a huge garden there. If only the generous owners would realize what a better owner I would be and give me the deed…