Tag: Portland

Trains on the bus mall, oh my!

Trimet has decided to add Max trains to the Bus Mall mix. I think this is a dumb idea, but they didn’t ask me specifically, and so they just kept keeping on with the idea. Dumb idea or no, I got excited when I saw one today. They don’t officially move there until August/September, but they are training this month. My line is one that is shifting from the original tracks to the “Transit Mall” as it is referred to now. On the one hand, my walking commute to work will be shorter, but on the other, I will have to walk out of my way to go to the library and church. Also, the beginning of the line won’t be as accessable to me. I don’t like that so much.

Dead Relative Tour 2009

I love cemeteries. They have so many interesting things to see. Here is a smattering of them:

I plan to be cremated, but if I were buried, the last thing I would want is this heavy slab on top of me.

No, not that Jimi Hendrix

“Is that a…?” “I think it might be….It is a coyote in an urban cemetery!”

The whole road through the cemetery is lined with these highly pruned holly trees. I kind of like their super structure.

Christ!

I took this picture just to hear Matt say their name with a German accent.
Which he did without prompting.
I know him well.

Either Mrs. or Miss Fenstermacher was a member of the Wahkeena Chapter of the DAR.

Oftentimes it is fun to say the names on the gravestone. Say it with me: “Slack.” I also like Mrs. Slack’s name: Nettie Elnora.

I was surprised by the very Disney looking Bambi carving on this stone, but this must have been before Disney started cracking down on its copyright. Or maybe they had a whole line of Disney themed gravestones? That wouldn’t surprise me.

Poor Leo. It looks like Mrs. Schlesinger found another place to rest her head. Also, I like the simple flower carvings and the font.

The section of the cemetery we visit has more than a few abandoned husbands. Mr. Van Winkle is not going to wake up from this nap.

These are fake flowers, but I did check to see who had this grave. Most of the graves in the section we go to aren’t very decorated.

It turned out to be a baby’s grave. Those are always sad, but someone hasn’t forgotten this child.

I can never resist taking pictures of the mausoleum where my Great Uncle Tom is. Swinging early 70s meets quasi religious touches meets a TON of artificial flowers.

Marble AND a brass chainmail curtain? I love it!

“We’re not religious, but we will throw some stained glass up for those of you who are.”

Different cemetery: The MAunts (looking more and more like my grandparents every day) decorating Grandma and Grandpa’s grave.

My Grandparents’ view.

The only problem with cremation is you don’t get a gravestone. They always look so nice to me.

Their neighbor

I initially stopped because I liked their last name because it reminded me of the nursery rhyme.

But I liked what they had carved on their gravestone. For Jean: wife, mother, teacher.

For George: Father, Musician, Horseman. (I’m trying not to be annoyed that he hasn’t listed “husband” to go with his partners “wife,” because overall, I like the concept.)

It is back to the bus mall!

This is the last weekend I will catch the bus on Third or Fourth avenues. Very soon, the bus stops will move back where they belong: on the bus mall. There will be a summer of “only” buses, cars, pedestrians, then in August and September the new Max lines will also join the cars and bikes and buses on the “transit mall.” We shall see how that goes. At any rate, I’ll be glad to be back on the mall. The sight lines are much better there.

Leverage filming here. Lucky us.

In walking to school from the Max, I cross a parking lot and the attendant and I have our friendly morning wave. This morning, the parking lot was packed. I was puzzled, until I walked by the next parking lot I encountered and remembered that the TV show Leverage is filming here. These trailers for the production were taking up two parking lots, forcing the usual parkers into the first lot.
I know little about the show, aside from the fact that all the press releases state that it stars “Oscar winner Timothy Hutton.” To me, the fact that they have to advertise that Timothy Hutton is an Oscar winner doesn’t really scream, “I want to spend my time watching it.”

Here, they have commandeered the parking lot nearest to my school.
One of my favorite thing about movie/TV crews is their self importance. More than once, I’ve been walking down the street, headed toward my intended destination and had someone with a walkie talkie and a tool belt tell me in an arrogant tone that I will have to walk a different way “because we are filming.” Once, I had to circumnavigate an entire city block to get into the library because their “filming” was much more important than my returning my books.

This crew was no different. Every morning, from 9:45-10:15, the children at my school go into the North Park Blocks for “Morning Movement” which is a large motor movement P.E. thing that the teachers run. This morning was no different except that not one, but two teachers were approached by crew members asking them to keep the children quiet because there was “filming going on.” Seriously?

Seriously.

Houses and Plans

I first noticed this house when it was being renovated. It is a huge and beautiful house with a huge and beautiful double lot. I had plans to buy it and take in foster children and we would have a huge garden. They would learn self-sufficiency skills, I would get to run a large household–without giving birth to any children, the house would be full of life and all would be right with the world. Alas, it seems they are dividing the lot and putting in more houses. I’m a fan of infill, just not sometimes when it keeps me from double lots where I could have a stupendous garden.

Scenes from a bike ride

I meandered a bit on my way to Garden Fever this morning and caught these pictures.

My favorite kind of North Portland house: set back from the road, colorful paint, huge garden, and artistic touch.
The gate had these great trees sculpted on it. Notice also the cinder blocks keeping the gate from falling open. That would be a sign that the artist lives in residence and made this him/herself.
This is one of my favorite houses on N. Williams St. It looks very farm house-y and has a productive front yard with a great chicken run.
Taking a closer look, you can see that these hens are partisan.

Bands

The location of my work is near several live music venues, with one of them large enough to get moderately famous acts able to have a painted truck and a fancy tour bus. Sometimes when walking to work from the train I see the various tour buses and vans that make up the gypsy train that is modern music touring. Once in awhile, when I am on recess duty in the park across the street from my school, a van with a tow-trailer will pull up and park and out will tumble a pack of grungy musician-looking people. I once saw someone brushing his teeth right there at the edge of the park.

I’m guessing I will always remember that guy brushing his teeth. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, back in the day I wanted to be one of those modern-day minstrels. I knew I wasn’t good enough to actually be a band member, but I had hopes of moving equipment in fifty different states and around the world. In my current life, the roadie lifestyle is my idea of hell. Charles Cross’s Heavier Than Heaven painted a very clear picture of life on the road: selling enough t-shirts to get to the next town, choosing between food and gas, sleeping in horrible motels and no time to yourself. The kind of things that would make brushing your teeth at a city park in the middle of the day an entirely normal act.

Though I will never experience that lifestyle, I love that I wander by it during my daily routine.