cathleen's place: Portland

Kim and I and Jeff spent an hour on Sunday looking at possible houses, even though we've made up our minds that Blueberry Hill is the absolute best. I haven't written about this house, but as soon as it's ours, I'll show you why we held out for it.

After wasting some gas driving all over Portland, we needed some good physical exercise. Haris had told me that a visit to the Audubon Society was a must, so that's where we headed. It's at 5151 NW Cornell Rd., right on the edge of Forest Park. I wanted to see some rescued birds and hike in the lush Oregon primeval forest -- and I wasn't disappointed.

I love trees. Even that awful tree in our front yard in Clearwater -- we spent hours pulling up the sprouted seeds from that tree -- was truly a beautiful tree.

That's our favorite bird, the turkey vulture. This poor guy was enjoying some road kill when a motorist tried to make him into someone else's dinner. He won't be released -- he was too badly injured. But he's extremely well cared for here.

I'm a big fan of helping folks who are doing good works. The Audubon Society has been around forever and I've never really paid much attention to all the good they do and the myriad ways they improve our world. So I dropped a few thousand dollars in the gift store to help them out.

...is the name of a documentary film being made here in Portland. Matt Davis is the writer and Brian Lindstrom is the director. (The picture to the right is James Chasse in 2004.)

From the Alien Boy site:

In September 2006 James Chasse was tackled by three law officers on a downtown street corner before a dozen eyewitnesses. James was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime.

The officers beat him, kicked him, broke 17 ribs and his shoulder. They used a Taser on him repeatedly. He screamed for mercy. The officers thought James was a drug dealer, a homeless person, a non-person, a ghost. They were wrong. James was a poet, a musician, he had a family which loved him, friends, neighbors, dreams and hopes. He was an artist; a small, shy, gentle person. And he was a person with schizophrenia.

James was sent by paramedics to jail. Jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him.

A grand jury refused to indict those officers. The City and County refused to terminate or discipline them.

Alien Boy is a feature length documentary film about the life and death of James Chasse.

I'd like to encourage everyone who reads this to support the efforts of the filmmakers to get this project done. That, of course, means $$. Help them out. It's important. And read up on what happened to James Chasse. Whew.

Ladd's Addition is one of the oldest residential districts in Portland. It's known for its peculiar diagonal street pattern relative to the rest of the area. It is roughly eight blocks (east-west) by ten blocks (north-south) in size (by reference to the external grid) and is bordered by SE Hawthorne, Division, 12th, and 20th. Locally, Ladd's Addition is known as the neighborhood to get "lost" in, since unsuspecting drivers who enter the development commonly find themselves disoriented as they drive around in circles trying to get out. (You can embiggen -- thanks to BloomingWriter for that wonderful word -- any image by clicking on it. Try it, you'll see.)

Last Saturday, Jeff and Kim and I were out rambling around, looking at houses, wandering down NW 23rd Ave. (very fun, kind of trendy) and we decided to "get lost" in Ladd's Addition. This is the central round-about and there's a lovely hidden space inside all these humongous bushes where you can have a little cocktail party or wedding reception.

We drove around trying to get lost, but Kim is actually a GPS device so we always knew where we were. It's a fantastic neighborhood, very well kept and unusual in that it has alleys. (I haven't seen that anywhere else in Portland -- that doesn't mean there aren't alleys anyplace else, I just haven't seen them.) I love alleys. You get to see parts of people's yards that ordinarily would be hidden. And sometimes you get to warp back to San Diego accidentally (when you stumble upon a killer whale, wtf?).

What else could we do?

When we moved to Florida, we had spent a whirlwind weekend buying a house a month before we sent all our stuff and hopped in our car and drove across the country. We arrived two days before escrow closed and the moving truck showed up 15 minutes after signing the last piece of paper at the title company. Whew, it was close all the way -- and way too fast.

It's small but somehow there's enough room for our two computers. Kim can continue working, while I wander around Portland trying to figure out what to do next.

At least I still have a great view.

First things first: find an apartment. Ok, I did that. Actually, I really did and we move in on Saturday. I'm praying for lots of help, hint hint.

And 3200 miles later:

I have 100s of photos to edit and sort and clean up and write about, so it will be a little while before the story gets filled in. We had a safe and wonderful journey to our new ~~home~~ state.

I've always been crazy about lizards, I love to watch them run all over the place. They're really fascinating to me. San Diego, California had lots of them. Clearwater, Florida has lots of them. I have it on good authority that Portland, Oregon has none of them. Oh, my heart is breaking.

I can sit in my office (which I will have for four and a half more days) and look out the window and see lizards climbing, jumping, fucking, eating and running. They never bore me. Never. I've been watching them closely the three years we've been here. I can now estimate the age and I can tell the gender. I forgot one of the other fun things to watch: battles! Whew, those guys really go at it. I saw one strapping, little contender lose his tail, wise up and quickly leave.

I love lizards so much, I've started putting them in my house. You know that old lady with the collection of goose-themed decorations, i.e., salt & pepper shakers, napkin holder, cookie jar, etc.? Well, I'm turning into a slightly (only very slightly) hipper version of her.

Maybe I could find a lizard-themed bedroom suite.

I am incredibly blessed to have married into such a phenomenal family. The Hawkins' are a lovely, rowdy, smart, funny, and oh so talented bunch. I've mentioned so many times already how creative Kim is and it turns out his big brother Jeff is too. It's really hard to know where to start, Jeff's talents are very diverse. He is the go-to person if you have a product that you want people to know about and desire. He is the absolute bomb photographer. And most recently, he's taken up 3D modeling software -- completely self taught.

Jeff is one of the reasons we want to live in Portland. He's been there about a year and is loving it. We visited last August and were sold immediately. Kim has two sons living there as well. And we're hoping Slayde will move there when she's finished law school. (My not so secret wish is that Allison and Carl will want to move to Portland some day.) I'll be telling you more about sons Abe and Shue in another post. Also, more about Slayde and her lovely grandmother Evelyn, later.

This is one of my most favorites of Jeff's photographs. Yes, it was PhotoShopped. And what a great job of it! The woman and the outfit are real, Jeff took out all the people around her and put her in the sky.

On Jeff's main blog, he posts a lot about his travels around Portland, over to the Oregon coast, San Fransisco and Texas. His photography is simply awesome. Here's the underneath part of St. John's Bridge, one of the most beautiful bridges in this country, IMHO.

Here is Jeff's take on what's happening to $cientology. It's a project he's doing to teach himself the 3D modeling software. I love it.

Would you like to feel your heart expand about 10 sizes? Would you like to fill up with high-test love and happiness? I know I love that feeling, when I feel peace and love and hope, when I cry tears of joy, when my heart just feels like it's going to burst out of my chest. Well, I've just spent the morning digging those feelings brought to me courtesy of Haris Blackwood, a very old friend of mine. I met Haris in Tempe, Arizona (where I've met the best people in my whole life). She's a song-writer, singer, musician and humanitarian. She teaches love, compassion, understanding and joy.

I've just listened to her first CD, Gentle Ride, which she recorded in 2002. The album is a lovely mix of Haris' original songs and her favorites from other song-writers. I had tears streaming down my face listening to Don't Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin. There's a whole program around this song to teach youngsters about caring and empathy for others. And it's just the sort of thing Haris embraces. Her rendering of From a Distance likewise had me bawling (in a good way). You'll also find Willie Nelson, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon represented on this album. The three Haris original songs are Gentle Ride, Restless and Ace of Hearts -- all captivating songs. But Haris told me recently she particularly likes Gentle Ride (so do I).

You grab the dogs and I'll make sure there's gas in the car;
We'll drive until sunset and sleep wherever we are.

Here's Gentle Ride, have a listen:

This is the CD -- I love this photograph. Now, for those of you fortunate enough to live in Portland (Oregon, of course), you can hear and see her in person. See, this is one of the reasons we've got to get to Portland right away. She's actually playing January 26th at the Plantation House (St. Helen's) and at the Bethany Village Grill on the 30th. Get out there and see her Portland. Bring your friends and make an evening of it!

I can't believe I quit smoking. I didn't want to quit. I wanted to want to quit. I wished I wanted to quit. One day I just couldn't keep doing it any more. It's the weirdest thing: I can't bring myself to smoke even though I really really want to. Sometimes I get this strong urge to have a cigarette. STRONG. Know what I mean? Ever been addicted? That book (Easy Way to Stop Smoking) is spooky. I didn't even finish it. I knew there was something strange because I was only about a third of the way through it and I wasn't wanting to smoke very much. We took a trip to Portland and stayed in a hotel that didn't have any smoking rooms left and we had a non-smoking rental car. When I made the arrangements I was pissed -- I couldn't figure out how I was going to enjoy the trip. Once we got there (and I had read more of the book), it was no problem. It's just too weird. I don't understand it. I want to know what happened, how it works. How could I be a smoker one day, with no intention of quitting, and then wake up the next day and say "I'm not smoking ever again?" What is that?