Spring Break

Our nine days were relatively uneventful, which is more or less the way we like it.

Kay returned from Eugene and set about her usual rounds of meeting friends, catching up on web comics while making small talk at breakfast, and providing comic interludes that would likely be viewed as inscrutable scientific rambling in any other household. She mixed things up a bit by going on late evening jogs from time to time, her first radical evolutionary step since being in college (the new lip piercing does not qualify).

We had a great time having the J-A's for dinner on Sunday, along with my mom and a new friend/client of mine (thanks Aria!) who scandalously was given dispensation to cook steak for the carnivores. Kay and Peggy did some driving practice (these Portland kids have no urgency around getting licensed), Peggy and Irene went ice skating, Edward and I went to work as usual (my spring break is in not having to walk Irene through her morning routine and make lunch by 8 am every day, yee haw!)

Then at the last possible moment, we took A Drive. This time Edward masterminded the general plan- to drive towards The Dalles (thus escaping wet western Oregon weather), then turn south toward completely heretofore unexplored geography.

We stopped to check in on the Rowena Plateau on our way through the Gorge, a place we'd loved hiking last summer. Turns out dogs are not allowed on the trail on account of it's a bone fide Wildflower Preservation site, so we just trotted the beasts around the roadside viewpoint for a while. They took out a few unprotected flowers whilst attempting to roust inhabitants of the mysterious holes peppering the surprisingly tundra-like terrain.

We decided to head south towards Maupin, and Edward handed me the road atlas to peruse as we drove. The only clearly labeled location for outdoor activity not related to skiing or rafting was the White River State Park. I figured there would at least be a hiking trail, so after much page flipping without another lead I proclaimed that to be our destination. Luck was clearly on our side as the Only Clearly Labeled Location for Outdoor Activity Not Related to Skiing or Rafting turned out to be a heaping plate of Natural Wonder with a gob-smackingly unexpected side of Steampunk-style Industrial Ruin.




First the lovely falls.












Then... a mysterious concrete outbuilding with giant rusty pipes.















That you can chase children through!
















Check out those great rivets.




And built-in
spectacular composition: square-circle-rectangle-triangles-square-circle!

Towards the bottom of the falls is the old Pump Station, a beautiful stone building with numerous signs proclaiming how extraordinarily hazardous it is. Naturally we immediately started scoping out possible entrances. I even manged to get the dogs inside.























The interior was filled with all manner of enormous mechanical equipment, all of it featuring the most gorgeous turn of the century industrial design. What looks like small cogs in a giant gear are actually hundreds of paper-thin metal sheets. Wow!




We didn't have the time, camera batteries, or freedom from dogs to do the place justice.






Downstream of this crumbling delight is an easy hike along the river through an almost cinematic basalt corridor. Sadly, afore-mentioned battery issues prevent a visual documentation of the cliffs, the cool promontory overlooking the rushing river, or my stern conversation (argument) with Irene about staying AWAY from the edge of said promontory (too bad cuz stern is a good look for me).

The protected area of river just outside the station is also rumored to be good swimming in the summer. This is definitely way up there on my list of places to drag anyone and everyone I know, maybe on a Wednesday so we don't have to share...








For the record, all this excitement combined with the compulsion to watch an entire season of Dexter in one week means I caught up on no sleep during Spring Break. Dang!

We Get Out of the House

We have been meaning to do some road tripping with my mom before she returns to Alaska for the summer, but disorganization was keeping us at home week after week. Finally we made Concrete Plans to Go Somewhere. Then it turned out to be rainy throughout the entire Pacific Northwest last weekend. Hence the logic- if it's raining everywhere, why not go to a place where that is not particularly a drawback... Astoria!

After flipping through a number of Oregon sightseeing books at Powell's (there's a whole section devoted to it right at the front of the Hawthorne store, like they knew we were coming) I became enamored of the idea of driving tiny, twisty (and it turns out snowy in March) Highway 47 through some cool little towns with names like Buxton, Vernonia, Mist and Clatskanie. I was nervous at proposing this completely unprecedented drive, as I didn't want to take responsibility if it wound up being dumb and boring, and I had not actually purchased the book with all the maps and lists of scenic attractions. It was in fact a brilliant idea for which I now take full credit.

Highway 47 was very picturesque, and more fun than the so-called Scenic Highway 101. We did have to stop in the midst of one set of snowy switchbacks so that Irene (normally a hardcore in-car reader) would stop whining about her upset stomach. She persevered.

We also stopped to walk up a stretch of the Banks-Vernonia trail, a hiking/bicycle trail constructed along an abandoned rail line (minus the actual rails). After a steep curve up from the trailhead it leveled right out for easy strolling, with lovely patches of snow tucked into the shade. We lucked into a sunbreak, and everything sparkled like a Disney forest. The dogs, who we brought along experimentally (and to duck the guilt of cooping them up at home all day) were overjoyed to be out in such a different smelling locale. Mabel tolerated the giant puddles and Jack plunged directly through them, as is their way (see future post entitled Lab/Rottweiller Mixes?: I Think Not). We will obviously be returning in the summer to bike the trail.

Astoria itself is ridiculously charming, full of little ramshackle Victorian houses perched on a steep hill overlooking a water-colorist's paradise of working class water, piers, and old industrial buildings. It was windy as hell, and sporadically quite wet, and just great to be somewhere so fundamentally different than where we had been hours earlier.

We drove over the jaw-dropping Astoria bridge, which spans the mouth of the Columbia connecting Oregon to Washington; checked out a county park across the border with an impressive Oyster Graveyard (and apparently more good smells, if you're a dog); and bought Irene the best portobella mushroom sandwich EVER at the Cannery Cafe (right over the water, on the rail line, with great wasabi mayo).

Took 101 home for the sake of expediency, reinforcing in our minds the total superiority of our new secret favorite highway, 47. Arrived home exhausted. Had to admit that Edward is right when he pries me out of the house to go to strange new places just an hour or two away.

I Heart Geeks

Edward refers to Maggie Wang as my girlfriend, and this is just the sort of thing that I love about her:

"Oh, and for extra kicks, I am going to bring some of my crochet gear with me the next time I have some steady-state recumbent bike time scheduled. With a Discworld audiobook in my iPod and a custom doll project in my hands, I could probably pedal for 2 hours without feeling the time go by."

That and her DEE-vine excel spreadsheets. She is so cool!

Never Let Me Go

This book was deeply strange, all the more so because it was very quiet and understated. The previously cited review was arguably not wrong, but it did not describe my experience of the story. I think I can say that I loved this book, in exactly the way the book would have wanted to be loved: unconditionally, but with an awareness of the fragility of love in the face of practical matters. It did remind me, in a certain way, of The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, more to do with the tone than the style, plot or characters. It reminded me even more of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, another book that came to us by the good graces of the incomparable Corinna.

I don't know whether I would recommend it to anyone, and if I did, to whom. I wouldn't have bet on Corinna liking it (remember when we went to see The Hours, tee hee?) So, that's all I've got. You takes your chances with this one.

Spring Forward, My Arse

Forget the financial crisis, the Iraq war, abridgment of civil liberties, the ban on stem cell research. The Bush policy with the most immediately deleterious effect on my life is the lengthening of Daylight Savings Time, so that it began this past weekend rather than a month from now. I am gravely disappointed that Barack has not made its reversal an urgent priority. Gravely!


There is a sense of rightness to the experience of waking up slowly with the sun, the various chemical signals lining up just so in the deep, old parts of our animal brains. Now I am plunged back into dark mornings, feeling like some reptilian creature on a cold rock who can't move or think to save its life, much less successfully wake a potentially grouchy child , pack lunch, locate clean socks, and verify various hygienic practices have been performed before operating a motorized vehicle. It was such a torment to wake up to a sunny room Monday morning, feel that sense of rightness for a split second, and then have it torn away as the brittle, superficial overlay of my intellect told me "No, sunlight is BAD! Sunlight means the alarm didn't go off, you are late, you are in a hurry, you have to squeeze an hour of activity into (denial of how many minutes it might turn out to be), and you have to make an 8 year old girl do it, too. BAD!"

Of course, that is the salt in the wound. Even when the alarm operates properly, there is that sense of betrayal that I should have my deepest interior expectations toyed with so. I made my sacrifices to the Gods back in December (what, you don't sacrifice a few beets to the Oak King just in case?) and now stupid bureaucratic voodoo policies swoop in and steal a month of morning sun, totally messing with me, my neurochemicals, my sense of well being.

I should note that Edward, on that particular morning, managed a feat not unlike lifting a car off of a trapped child. He, famously Not A Morning Person, jumped directly out of bed, woke the girl, made a respectable lunch, gave me sympathetic looks, and got us out the door on time. (These occasional acts of domestic heroism are very, very endearing.)

Thanks a lot, Corinna.

This book was sitting on the table next to me when I sat down to eat my breakfast this morning, one of several brought over by our dear friend. After reading a dozen pages and becoming quite... entranced... by it, I turned it over to look at the cover, just to see what kind of person was writing this kind of odd and oddly compelling book. That's when I noticed this review on the cover:

"A page turner and a heartbreaker, a tour de force of knotted tension and buried anguish." -Time

For the record, Edward made a sympathetic face when I showed him my bad, bad luck. Apparently he had read the cover and purposefully set the book aside without warning me. So no thanks to you, too, bad husband!

Obviously I am going to continue reading. I have been hurt by books before (I'm talking to you The History of Love) and no doubt I will be again, like, this week. I'm a sucker.

Long Lost Cousin

One of the last sightings of Irene's long lost cousin, Calipso. We (yes, at least two but maybe even three people) had just administered this fetching short haircut after literally years of maternal negotiations.

It was not long after this photo that Calipso was whisked away by her grandmother and aunt to to tour Europe and visit her dad in Alaska for the summer. Little did we know that we would apparently never see (and rarely hear from) her again. She remained in Fairbanks whilst her mother Kate packed up their house in August and moved them to AK for good* (or as long as she can stay in one place).

Recently many of us have been particularly missing Calipso. Is it the weather? Edward's compiling of family photos? The purging of too-small clothes, many of which were hand-me-downs from C? Irene's Poekoelan test yesterday definitely made me wish Calipso were here. It was just not the same without her. (Hey Calipso- Mas Kari says hello!)

If anyone sees Calipso, tell her we miss her and that she should write us an email or send a photo. Everyone at MLC and One With Heart wants to know how she is doing!

*it's a long story

She's a very good cousin.
Just don't approach her in a
creepy lava cave.

So Blue

In a good way. Here is Irene rocking Set One at her Poekoelan blue sash test:



The blackbelt running in to rescue Irene's falling-off sash towards the end is the ever-awesome Bantoe Sydney. Thanks, Bantoe! No sash-related broken nose/ankle/wrist at this test!

This post made me think that I ought to re-read George Alec Effinger's Islamic cyberpunk trilogy When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss. The review is well written and captures the essence of the series:

"Tough-as-nails corrupt cops and transgender hookers conduct their business with all the formalized flourishes of Arabic ettiqute. Like Turkish coffee, it fills the atmosphere with a rich complexity and leaves you more than a little wired."

The post is actually reviewing the short story collection Budayeen Nights, which includes a piece I bought in tiny chap-book form almost 20 years ago, long before reading the series (which I took another decade to connect to the story...duh). Schroedinger's Kitten is an inordinately effecting tale that managed to stir dormant interests in not only physics, but feminism, philosophy and metaphysics. Whereas the trilogy is good dirty fun, SK is food for thought and worth reading even if you are not generally a sci-fi fan.

As I actually own all four of these books (props to Corinna for gifting me Budayeen Nights so I could rediscover SK) and hence do not have to avail myself of the ever-fickle public library system to read them (unlike the book I just finished, The Lightning Thief... WHY DO I ONLY HAVE BOOK ONE OF THIS SERIES???) I am taking it as a sign and shall desist reading books off the third grader's shelf for a while. Thank goodness for random internet Signs.