The PDX Experience

The next time you find yourself and/or your time appropriated by crazy Israeli friends, here are a few handy tips to keep in mind.  Hanging out with Israelis is NOT for the faint of heart.  There is a whole host of things that could go wrong during these types of situations.  You could suddenly find yourself acting like you just left the Israeli Army (and we all know that Israelis fresh out of the army are especially crazy!).  You could find yourself totally ignoring common American customs and niceties, like standing in line to order drinks at the bar.  Imagine the poor barkeep as you and the crazy Israelis you’ve taken up with converge en masse, without any form or courtesy.  Sad.  You may even find yourself spouting Hebrew swear words without any guidance on proper usage!  I urge you, proceed with caution.  Here are a few handy tips that will ensure a (relatively) painless experience.

• Tip #1: Confusion

Sufficiently confused Israelis. Notice the look of wonder and consternation as water is squeezed from outer wear!

If you’ve ever seen the movie Gremlins, you can appreciate the transformational power of water. Much like the cute little Mogwai, when exposed to water, turn into aggressive little meanies, so do crazy Israelis, in reverse fasion, become more complacent and easy to manage when confronted with a classic Portland rainfall.  A little extra waterspray from Multnomah Falls doesn’t hurt either.   It clearly confuses them, how so much water can fall out of the sky.  Mind you, they are primarily desert dwellers, so this confusion is understandable, and clearly to your advantage.

• Tip #2: Mesmerism

Amazingly enough, it took very little effort on my part to create this photo opportunity. Crazy, I know. They might still be there waiting for service if I hadn't talked them down.

 There are all sorts of strange and wonderful things around that will mesmerize Israelis on the prowl.  Thinking as they do that Americans are the crazy ones, they will often see things they find unusual.  Encourage them to investigate.  The photo opportunities afforded to you by their antics will amaze even the most hardened critic.  Remember to always keep your camera handy!  If they realize that you are attempting to document their craziness, they may attack.  Stay calm, and inquire how to say the thing they were mesmerized by in Hebrew.  If you’re lucky, they will stop their advance and pause to discuss amongst themselves how to say such a thing in English.  Which leads me to my third and final tip…

• Tip #3: Diversion

All the Hebrew I know

In extreme cases, a very simple and effective tactic to maintain control in the presense of Israelis is linguistic diversion.  Be sure to indicate that your knowledge of Hebrew is minimal at best from the outset, whether or not that may be the case!   Simply point to some nearby object, and say “Hey, how do you say <object> in Hebrew?”  They should commence to discuss between themselves how to answer.  If you’re quite lucky, you may happen upon a term that doesn’t translate directly, which should occupy them for an extended amount of time.  (One especially confounding term for them is ‘volcano’.)  Use this only as a last resort!   While this approach is very simple, there are some extremely dangerous repurcussions if used incorrectly or too often.  For instance, if your Israeli friends start to think that you’ve developed enough of a vocabulary, they may start to quiz you.  Should this occur, stay very calm, and screw up as best as you can.  This should hopefully throw them off, and they will back down.  However if this does not work, your last option is this:  Throw up your hands, exclaim “yalayala!” or “yala balagan!”.  Be prepared to run away.  Also be prepared for a night of partying.  It could go either way.

I wish you all the luck with your crazy Israeli friends.

Z’hirut, and Peace.

If you know me, you know that my personal muse is Sarah McLachlan.  I regularly abase myself at her feet and quiver with inspiration and yes, lust.  Figuratively speaking, of course.  Oh if only…  Seriously, to my knowledge I have been to her show every time she has graced our beloved P-Town in the past 6-8 years or so.  I never miss a chance. 

So imagine my amazement and excitement, listening to NPR in late October/early November, when I hear that she’s going to be in town at some radio show taping PRACTICALLY ON MY BIRTHDAY.  omgomgomgomgomg!!!! 

After I peeled myself off the ceiling (you have to understand, I haven’t seen her in quite a while, I’ve been overdue!) I looked into the details.  She was going to be one of the guest performers on eTown, a radio show syndicated on NPR (I wake up to NPR these days, although I’m thinking of switching back to 94.7.  Gotta switch it up, right?).  Whatever, I thought.  eTown shmeTown.  It’s Sarah, and I’m goin.

So a friend and I got tickets, and showed up at the appointed hour, for a live taping of this eTown show.  Turns out it’s normally taped in Boulder, Colorado, but they occasionally go on the road and do live tapings in other cities.   Their mission statement is as follows: “etown’s mission is to educate, entertain and inspire a diverse audience, through music and conversation, to create a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable world.” Ok, cool. Nifty.  Very Portlandy, in fact.

I had no idea just how Portlandy.  Apparently they give out an award called an e-chievement award during each show.  Listeners from all over the country send in tales of individuals making a difference in their communites, and from these inspirational people they select one each show to win this award.  At this particular taping, they invited all the prior Portland winners of this national award to attend, and stand up as they were named.  I swear, half the audience were winners.  The hosts, Nick and Helen Forster, informed us that there are more e-cheivement award winners in the greater PDX area than ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY.  Yeah.  Portland Rocks.  I knew I loved it here for a reason!  The winner during that particular broadcast was Ed Kerns, who started the Lents Springwater Habitat Restoration Project.  The man is wheelchair bound, and he has single-handedly organized and fostered this fabulous effort, and one which impacts not just my city, but my neighborhood, in a truly meaningful way.  I love the Springwater Corrider Trail, and I bike it often during the summertime.

But back to Sarah and me nearly getting kicked from the Shnitz.  I mean…hello, iPhone right?  You expect me to sit in the presence of my muse, one of the elite few who musically inspire me, and not take pictures?  Me, amateur photog girl?  Shyeah.  Not gonna happen.  I gotta try.  A few fruits of my labor:

Sarah rockin' out!

I've seen her so many times, I am familiar with her expressions. This is my favorite. No I am not a stalker.

The whole cast. Sarah's on the far right, tickling those ivories.

Dogs are fun.  Smart dogs though, can be challenging.  I sometimes wish I had one of those sleep all day, lounge around the house, climb in my lap kind of dogs, but alas, that is not the dog I requested.  I requested a smart dog who loves to fetch, and by golly that is EXACTLY WHAT I GOT.  Except apparently I failed to analyze the implications of such a request, and now have a dog which I must exercise daily, or else…well, suffice to say even my Jewish imperviousness to guilt is no match for the infliction of guilt my dog can bring to bear.

So picture this:  Dog that needs exercise + Snowpocalypse 2008.  BAD.  Oh bad bad bad.   I can only brave the snow and ice of my neighborhood so much, right?

So!  I came home last night, and got the guilty puppy dog eyes, and promised - nay, swore - that I would take her out today. 

So this morning  afternoon I got out of bed, tossed dog and myself into car, and headed to the 1000 Acre Wood. 

And found out that my dog turns into some funky were-dog pelican/chickadee hybrid creature when she encounters puddles, like so:

1. Dog runs at (usually large) puddle

2. Dog hits puddle at full velocity

3. Dog turns into a pelican, opens mouth and skims surface of puddle scooping up a billfull of water

4. Dog stops, ruffles feathers fur, preens and looks quite smug.

I submit the following evidence:

The pelican swoops

Jessie in flight. Notice puddle in the rear...

In case you weren’t aware, the Sandy River Delta, otherwise knows as 1000 Acre Wood, is a fabulous place for off leash dog happiness.  Today, even with the hail:

Oh, Hail!!!

Um, not going *that* way today...

prettiness. And iPhone cameras are pretty cool.

badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger...

Coming up next: eTown PDX, or How I Nearly Got Ejected From the Schnitz.

Hiro in NYC

One bonus to the last week and a half or so of SNOWPOCALYPSE 2008!!! is that I’ve finally had the time to grind through the entire first, second and nearly third season of Heroes.   Here are a couple thoughts I have on the show:

1. The first season was awesome.  Totally sucked me in.  The sucking noises could be heard halfway down the street, I’m sure.
2. My favorite hero?  Hiro.  Except seriously, he needs to learn to block that nose punch to the face!  How many times has he gotten hit, 5 times? 6? 
3. Season three was starting to lose me, until the main characters really started to polarize as good/bad (or misguided).   It was just starting to feel like the storyline was starting to fracture and lose focus, so the clear polarization really helped. 
4. Quit messing with my head about Sylar!  Bad guy?   Good guy?   Bad guy?   Bad guy with reform potential?   Misled good guy?  Bad guy again?  Or just really really really really confused guy with waaaaay too much power and a hunger he can’t control?  Keeps me guessing, I suppose. 
5. If I Were a Hero - If I had to pick an ability, I’d probably go with Daphne’s speedster abilities.  Straightforward and useful.  I’d never have to be stuck in traffic again, could go anywhere in the world in moments…think of the gas savings alone!  And the moral dilemmas of an ability like that would be minimal and straightforward as well.  Unlike unraveling time and space - too complicated.  And being able to absorb other abilities…how confusing and overwhelming would that get after a while?  Yikes.  The whole not-dying ala Claire thing though, that would be very cool too.
6. One thing I want to ask @greggrunberg:  omg did you really have to wake up with a live scorpion on your head?  Dude!  That would have me in a state of panic unsurmountable. 

I’m hoping my streaming allotment from Netflix is enough to get me through the rest of season 3.  Then it’s off to catch up on the last season of Battlestar Galactica just in time for the final episodes… <insert crazed speculation re: last Cylon here>

Yeah, I know everyone’s doing it.  But far be it from me to not partake in the extreme weather catastrophe spirit!  Therefore, I humbly submit my entries for the SNOWPOCALYPSE 2008 photographic and video archives:

Will my rhodies survive the winter? I have a hunch they will!

This next shot required a bit of laying down on the job.  During which time the denizens of the pictured yard came outside:

Denizen:  “Hey, you ok there?”

Me:  “Oh yeah, just taking some pictures here…no worries!”

Denizen:  “Um.  Ok. “  <strange look as he reenters his domicile>

You gotta take some risks when you’re an amateur photog, you know.  Great pictures require gettin down and dirty.  In the mud.  And snow. 

Brrr. Portland grass yelling WTF?!?!!

And the pièce de résistance:  My latest Jessie video, entitled SnowFace.  Enjoy.

I love this town called Portland a heckuva lot.  So, in honour of the upcoming 18th anniversary of my arrival in this great town, I thought I’d toss out a list of five things I love about Portland.  I know, the usual list number is 10. However, I tend to espouse, at great length, about things I like, so in the interest of keeping this to a nice, blogworthy length, I opted for half the items, but all the love. So here it is…5 things I love about the city formerly known as Stumptown.

#5: Rain.

Rain. Duh.

 What?? What did you say? Rain, are you serious? This, from the girl who lists as one of her most traumatic childhood experiences being caught in a NYC deluge? Yep. It was an epiphany level experience when I realized I actually kinda like the rain now.  Let me clarify: I like Portland rain.  Not torrential downpour, soaked to the bone southeastern US rain, no way.  But the misty, pervasive showers, the gentle sprinkles, they cleanse the air and don’t make me feel like I’m about to drown, which is how I felt during the above mentioned deluge.  Granted, I’m a bit taller now, so my fear of drowning by puddle is somewhat reduced, but still.  Also, the myth (Yes!  Myth!) that Portland gets oodles and buckets of rain keeps people away, because we all know that once they get here, they never wanna leave.  Like me.

Deep in the stacks @Powells

#4: Powell’s.

Ok I know what you’re all saying.  Yawn.  Of course Powell’s is on the list, EVERYBODY puts Powell’s on their list, can’t you be original?  From my perspective though, I keenly feel the humongous slap upside the head that Powell’s is to other major book sellers (::cough:: Barnes & Noble)  Some of my favorite things in New York when I lived there were Blimpie for the subs, catching a Mets game at Shea Stadium (insert heartbreaking sob here), and going to Barnes & Noble.  B&N seemed like a reader’s mecca to my young, book-loving soul.  Plus, it was in New York, so how could anything else possibly measure up?  Now picture me walking into Powell’s the first time.  No lie, I swear I could hear a choir of angels.  And I remember thinking, clear as if it was yesterday:  “Barnes & Noble, you SUCK ASS.”  Thankfully, my appreciation of Blimpie subs faded long before that.  My Mets fandom however…I’m sad to say is still alive and in mourning.

#3: Dogs.

Jessie @ the Sandy River

Portland is not the number one dog-friendly city in the country.  I find this extremely hard to fathom, as does my dog.  She has a tendency to get quite squeaky in the car when we pass by locations of particular canine interest that she likes.  Therefore, she tends to maintain a fairly constant level of squeekiness as I drive around Portland.  Between our usual hangout at the dog park at Mt Tabor, the constant dog cookies the mailman brings, the occasional splashdown in the uber dog-friendly section of the Sandy River, the thrice-yearly baths at Lucky Lab Dog Washes (Dogtoberfest, Multnomah Dog Days, Tails & Ales)…the list goes on and on. 

 (Err, correction, Jessie says that the Lucky Lab dog baths are NOT on her list of faves.  But they have beer! I insisted. And live music!  And free doggy samples!  She just glares at me.) 

There is nearly always some dog-related event going on around town.  Not to mention all the dog parks scattered throughout the metro area (Mt. Tabor is our fave!)  So what if they’re not exactly welcome on public transportation, like they are in Chicago or whatever.  Or Austin Texas.  Really??  Austin Texas??  Portland dogs are loved, and everyone knows it.  Screw the rest of the ‘we love dogs’ cities…if I were a dog, I’d want to live in Portland.

#2 Nature vs City.

Nature in the city, how I love thee…let me count the ways!  I love how Portland has so seemlessly blended the need for expansion with a very green sense of the need for parks, and greenspaces, and community gardens, and, well, nature within the city limits.  I mean, just consider some of the bigger natural spaces within the city:

Cherry tree near Lloyd Center

• Chinese Garden
• Washington Park
• Hoyt Arboretum
• Japanese Garden
• Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge
• Forest Park
• Powell Butte
• Mt Tabor

That’s the short list.  It doesn’t include the hundreds of city parks and recreation spaces scattered all over.  I’ve never lived anywhere in this city where I wasn’t within a few blocks of a park, and all super nice (at least during the day…).  Having such a plethora of natural spaces, I think, creates oases of calm for a city’s residents; a place to recharge, to introspect, to run and play and love and think.  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Portland is so progressive, sustainable-conscious and green:  There is evidence of nature’s power everywhere you look.  Nature is perpetuating itself in Portland.

#1: Community

Some of my friends

I’ve lived in a lot of places, but I’ve lived here in Portland longer than anywhere else.  I remember coming to a realization once, long ago, while living in Syracuse NY (aka the armpit of NY state.  Trust me).  I realized that no matter where you go, where you lay your hat down at night, that the place you live really makes very little difference in your life, when you boil it down.  The place is not you, and you are not the place you live in.  It can have its effects, true, but they tend to be minor; the thoughts you have and the life you live and the problems you face are universal.  I was convinced that that was a statement of truth.  Not anymore.  There is something about Portland, something about the particular combination of sun and sky and rain and mountain and ocean and desert that make up Portland and the Pacific NW that surrounds it, that make it truly a unique place.  And it attracts truly unique people.  Never in my life have I encountered so consistently such caring, thoughtful…good people.  I have had good friends while living outside of Portland.  But never so many, who are so dear to me, and who I would honestly entrust with my life and those things I treasure the most.  I love this place, and all the people in it, whether I know you or not, because you make Portland what it is.  I will be happy to die here, someday.  Um.  Someday not too soon, that is.  Dammit where is that salt…anyone have any wood I can knock?!?

Well there it is.  5 things I love about Portland.  Love Portland too?  Then get involved, and get out there and enjoy it!

Yes, I am a Higher Functioning Mammal.  To prove it, I demonstrate the use of Tools.  For example, consider the following item:

You may recognize this as an every day cap to a medicine bottle, which is entirely correct.  However, I, as the higher functioning mammal that I am, have put it to a new use: Laptop Airspace Gap Creator.  Because apparently, the approximately 1.5k I spent on this HP Pavilion wasn’t enough to get a laptop with enough cooling power to keep my NVIDIA graphic card cool enough, which creates some very interestingly - timed Computer Freeze-O-Rama.  At which point I lean on my power button.  Oy.

Seriously, are you kidding me?  I bought the bestest fastest uberest l33test laptop I could get for less than 1.5K, specced it out myself, and I can’t simultaneously run iTunes, do some video editing, and keep Tweetdeck running in the background?  Seriously?  LAME!  I mean, I can understand the crashing during WoW.  I mean…bad timing and all, that’s for sure.  “ZOMG NOO!  I was just about to kill that massively uber elite lvl 80 beeelion mob with teh dragon portrait that would drop my Bracers of Ultimate Mageyness!!!!  DON’T CRASH!!!”  /wailing sob of agony!!  Yeah no worries, I got over it.  I’m kinda over WoW as a whole, for the time being, but that’s another post.

What’s my point?  Um.  Any recommendations for a laptop cooler solution?  My medicine cap is getting a little melty around the edges.

Kind of like cleansing the palate.  Clearing the air.  Cleaning up the…erm, yeah, nevermind.  I haven’t actually written a blog post since… 

(pause to check date on last post.  March 21st, 2007??!  Yeesh.) 

…March 21st, 2007.  Yeah, that is a long time.  You know, there was… stuff.  And things.  And general unblogginess happening.

But I’ve lately been sorta surrounding myself with bloggy people.  Not intentionally, it just kinda happened:

Neato person: “Hey you’re pretty cool. ”

Me: “Yeah you too.”

Neato person: “What kinda stuff do you like to do?”

Me: “Mostly, play with my dog, work around my house, traipse about town with friends and neighbors…you?”

Neato person: “Mmm, I dunno, blogging is fun.”

Me: “No way, really??  I used to have a blog…”

And THEN, I went to this event called beerandblog.  I mean really, what more convincing do you need?

So, much like the spacer gifs you use to create a bit of space between elements on a page, (whoa!  Narrowly averted a geek moment there.  Sorry, non techie readers!), this post is intended to create a bit of space between the OLD and the NEW.  However, unlike a spacer gif, this post is pretty visible.  Example:

Spacer gif: [                                              ]

See?  Spacer gif, not so visible.  This post…visible.

Why do I not just start over, start from scratch, toss the old posts into Ye Rounde Fyle?  Well, I need my legacy, even if I’m the only one who’s gonna be looking at it.  Those old posts, they are all about me still, and my PDX Experience.  Oh, I’ve cleaned out the private and lame ones, and left just the cream of the crop, so it would be in keeping with the NEW, but…in other words, cuz I wanted to.

So.  Unlike my spacer gif example, I certainly hope that my future posts will be equally as visible as this one.  Here’s hoping.  Staytooooned…

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One thing I’ve learned about myself as time goes by…I write WAY more when I’m down and feeling crappy and bleh and stuff.  When things are going right, I don’t ..well..write.  I guess only one right/write can I handle at any moment.  But I feel kinda remiss about not writing about the rightness, or increase of rightness at least, that’s going on for me.  Especially when I’ve unloaded so much wrongness in this space!

Um…so I’m feelin good.  I smile when I look in the mirror more and more.   I’ve met some really cool people and been strangely emotionally intimate with these relative strangers, and that’s been …ok.  Good even.  I’m starting a business!  oh em gee!!  I’ll probably do a nice little plug on here for it soon, as soon as my website is closer to being done.  So yeah.  Life is good, I’m envisioning my beautiful backyard every day, and soon you will all be invited to feast on my new patio and enjoy the tranquility of it all.  Just wait until you see it, it’s awesome.  I can’t wait

With the spring comes hope for rebirth.

With the sun comes an end to the darkness.

With the wind comes dreams dreamed.

An end to the rain.