Found Objects

Back to School wit' Youse!

2009-09-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is not against the rules. It is considered an indigenous form of alternative transportation.

We love our school, Metropolitan Learning Center. It's a small, alternative K x 12 school of about 500 students within the Portland Public School System. It's been around for 30+ years in a old brick building up against a small city park. It's a gentrified urban neighborhood of old apartments-turned-condos, beautiful foursquares with no yard to speak of, victorian multiplexes, and a couple of commercial streets which mix corporate whoremongering with old school funkyness in a charming war of mercantile philosophy.

MLC uses the Experiential Learning model, which means that the kids are constantly out in the
thick of it, learning on their feet. Parents and friends teach elective classes to 1st x 8th graders in areas like lego robotics, knitting, capoeira, songwriting, theater, every kind of art imaginable, film, and classes with names like "VOLCANO!"

Each month features an All School Gathering led by one of the grades, in which they explore via songs, skits or readings one of the school's character traits (which sort of stand in for rules- like, there is no rule against fist fighting per se, but as it does not display Courage, Compassion, Discipline, Integrity or Respect, you shouldn't do it. Duh.) Community building traditions are also strongly held, such as all-school picnics in the fall and spring in which the whole school walks a mile uphill to spend the day together in one of Portland's largest city parks; Solstice celebration, a secular, suncentric spazz-fest written and performed by students and involving much teenage interpretive dance; Renaissance Faire, Egg Drop, No Ivy Day, etc.

Kay began attending in the 8th grade, and for 3 years she, Irene and Calipso all went to the same school. I still refer to it as "the kids' school" and then feel silly since there's only one kid there now.

From kindergarten on, students keep a portfolio of their best work in each area of study, as well as reflections on their process for each assignment or experience.

Instead of finals, high schoolers must present their portfolios to a panel of community members whose minds end up like so much egg salad after intensely reading, hearing and thinking about 5 (potentially wildly different) kids, their unique learning strategies, accomplishments, failures (yes, enthusiastically documented) and general state of meta-cognition (their words). (I coped via exhaustive use of post-it notes.)

The younger kids present portfolios to their parents at an open-house style gathering with cookies and sparkling water. Much easier on the brain (mine, anyway).

They also paint murals. No wall is safe.

Last spring MLC turned up in a district newsletter as the high school with the best graduation rate, 96.8%. (Students at every level also excel in all the no-child and state testing nonsense.) See there, skeptics! It works to know all your teachers by first name. For the student population to be so small that the VP knows you by not only name but personal hobbies. To have no letter grades, but 30 hours of community service required per year. Not even a real liability to be known as the Gay/Punk Rock/Aspergers High School.

There are down sides to a small school- no IB or AP classes, and the lack of grades may have been the difference between Kay getting waitlisted instead of accepted at Reed last year. But for kids who prioritize community (either because they aren't headed for academia or because they aren't sweating the fact that they will succeed in getting there) MLC is... well not a U-topia, because this is a public school and they are teenagers after all, but a topia at least, a place where all your freaky quirks are tolerated and in many cases embraced. (Gay, punk rock, and Aspergers-identified are almost passe. Transgender, synaesthesiac, and can't-remember-my-textbook-reading-unless-I-listen-to-the-same-music-as-when-I-read-it are well represented. There are even a few jocks.)

I often forget that not all schools are like MLC, or diminish in my mind the differences. Then I will talk to a friend who has recently toured the place, and hear them compliment the well behaved unattended 3rd grade book groups in the hallway, or the art (I mentioned the walls?), or the fact that the high school lockers are purposely located in the kindergarten hallway, and I remember how great the place really is.

Again, not perfect. I do not relish the 20 minute commute, and am biding the time until Irene can manage the bike ride there so that I can assuage some serious driving guilt. I grudgingly accept that PTSA meetings bizarrely take place on Thursday nights, so that working parents can attend while not interfering with the Jewish Sabbath. The parking is ridiculous, using the playground blacktop and hence no parking stripes, leading to a barely contolled state of anarchy which occasionally leaves someone blocked in indefinitely. And yet, the natural parking tradoff, a school garden, is also absent (on the top of my rabblerousing list for this year, however.)

This year Irene is in 4th grade, officially a BIG YEAR. They take class upstairs. They have proper
homework. They take a couple of week-long trips to far-flung, exotic learning locations (but still in Oregon...) It is going to be something.

Happy first day of school everyone!

Object #1

2009-08-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

An actual Found Object. Beautiful 3' x 6' quilt with both Moorish and Celtic motifs. Sadly I had to leave it where it lives and just take this photo.

Revolution Nine

2009-08-02T20:52:00.001-07:00

When you turn nine at our house you receive:

Ear piercing
One dozen books
Weaponry

Free Will Rhubarb

2009-07-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

This rhubarb cutting has been living in a scrunched up plastic bag on the back my kitchen counter for more than two weeks. Amazingly, instead of turning to sludge or, alternately, a dry husk, it has simultaneously composted itself and sprouted new leaves. In honour (British spell-check, remember) of its will to live I will now go plant it in some actual soil.

'K, bye.

It's a Family Affair

2009-07-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we drove south to La Pine, Oregon for a reunion of my mom's side o' the family.

The best incentive to make the trek was to get to know my brother's new family, a 3-for-1 pack of beautiful blondes who we immediately loved. You just can't see well enough how cute Lisa is in this photo with Darrel (nice knees though); that one of Julia is pretty darn clear, however.

See that tent behind my mom? If they had known about the 5am near-fistfight amongst my 20-something cousins, they would've backed it into the woods further. Ha!

Jessica (blonde #3) is 15 and a good
conversationalist, but kept
hiding from the camera (fortunately the hood didn't work...)

New favorite
cousin, Sabrina.
Why?
Because she
repeated all of
Edward's
statements in
an annoying
voice. Then
started calling
him Mr. Shirleypants.
I think she might be
trouble but
I like her anyway.

Most of the activity seemed to consist of making, eating, and cleaning up after food, which seemed perfectly natural. Later there was also a Jagermeister component which Edward wisely sidestepped. May have contributed to aforementioned 5 am shouting match. Perhaps.

(I don't think those are Shirley Pants,
but the concept is still unclear to me. Not Edward wearing them, either-
my cousin Brett who had never eaten
hummus before [he liked it.])

There were MANY aunts, uncles and cousins (1st, 2nd, and variously removed from each other) present whom I had not seen in some time, plus more who had married in, or been relatively recently born, or had aged enough to be interesting to talk to.

Unfortunately my cousin Austin, who was recently hit by lightning, came by Friday, so we missed him. (This online paper makes some woefully unsubstantiated claims that he now has super-powers, which I was curious to investigate.)

Old Favorite Cousin, her mom, and siblings were also sadly absent. I was not planning to re-enact the disco choreography (+ cartwheels!) that we forced the families to watch when we were... 8? 10? 12? ...but I was disappointed anyway. Well, you snooze, you lose Tina! Got me a New Fave Cuz now!

Hats off to Carol and Gordon, who hosted/tolerated the shindig in their house (no shoes! unless you're 2!) and cool land abutting a state park (birds of prey in the back yard! fawns in the road!) Many thanks!

Pie Day

2009-07-16T16:30:00.001-07:00

Not Pi Day (that's in March, silly)

We have this many marionberries

You know it's Pie Day when you can't eat them fast
enough to prevent this tragedy

No, this is not enough

Secret Ingredient: if you know what this is, put it in your pie

Mmm, sugar drifts

Too pretty to wash

Gluten free crust is an ugly medium. Eat it quickly.

Retrospective

2009-07-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

From maybe three years ago, when we were all making art cards
together. In sharpie marker and mixed media.

mine:

rockwell kent woodcut inspired

irene as lucy in the sky?

text says "This is JOSEPHINE the average American female - and JOE jr a typical 6 year old"

fairbanks in my mind

teeming humanity w/ symbols of abundance? ???

from the kids:

think was by calipso... a self portrait with apocalyptic back porch

one of my all times faves by irene

ddr + glbt = k

woodcut inspired rainbow? wtf? (must be irene)

cat ear in grass- calipso? kay?

Postscript: First the Musick, Then the Geisha

2009-06-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

There was a bit of a funny story regarding our drive up to the Musick Guard Station, but I haven't quite figured out how to make a real tale of it. Suffice to say that we had the written directions in our car, and they had the pamphlet with the map on it in their car. So we came at the last winding maze of forest service and private access roads from two very different states of understanding. After several stops in the middle of the road to palaver, and more than one doubling back (and tripling forward, if there is in fact such a thing), we did arrive at the intended location, but not until after a mile or so detouring up a secondary road which we later discovered was labeled not only "unmaintained road" but also "not fit for passenger vehicles". Needless to say, on the way out Edward insisted on driving a ways back up this road to see what we could see.

It turned out to be a lovely area surrounding the Geisha Girl mine (the Umpqua is riddled with claims by apparent hobbyist miners, who are shockingly! politically incorrect in their appellations).

We just sorta poked around looking at pretty streams and photographing alien looking fungi while the dogs frolicked in what was a canine heaven (except for the one large truck which trundled slowly by, yet petrified Mabel to the point of inaction. Like, deer-in-the-headlight inaction. Or, my dumb dog stopped in the middle of the road until I physically drag her out of the way of the kindly hobby miner inaction.)

It was quite fun, and presented no obvious harm to our humble passenger vehicle. Win-win!

Officially Summer

2009-06-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, the solstice has come and gone (Irene is pleased because it will be getting darker earlier, and hence less torturous for her to go to sleep at a decent hour). School has let out. The college student is retrieved from the dorms. But mostly, we went on a camping trip, here:

We got a late start looking into Forest Service cabin rentals (apparently the informed traveler starts in January, even before booking summer camps for the kids, which I have previously regarded as the most inappropriate late winter ritual), but luck shined upon us and we happened on what had to be a cancellation for this past weekend at the quaintly named Musick Guard Station, a few hours southeast of Portland in the Umpqua National Forest. Amazingly, it sleeps 10, the precise number of the combined Martin-Wickwire-Sackinger-Joughin-Andrews menagerie. And welcomes dogs.

Both Kay and Corinna have already blogged about the trip, so I am in the curious position of having to consider whether my memory has been coloured* by their recollections. I shall endeavour* to keep myself honest and only steal ideas that I would have had on my own anyway.

*For some reason my spellcheck is British, and I am helpless to resist it!

Camping, even in a cabin, always leaves me feeling more than a little untethered. Perhaps it is the cramped sleep, the over-abundance of fresh air, the wild pendulum of too-hot and too-cold temperatures both indoors and out. This feeling was magnified by the constant fog and drizzle which for a brief time on our last morning even turned to snow, and by the great hairy sheaths of Old Man's Beard on the tall trees surrounding us. The Dickensian piles of kids and dogs left sprawled about between forays into the woods (unaccompanied except by other kids or other dogs and possibly a walkie talkie if they remembered to turn it on and had the opposable thumbs to do so) completed the experience. When we were unceremoniously deposited from the Hollywood freeway exit onto Halsey Street on Sunday afternoon (it is always alarming to drive I-5 for hours only to exit essentially in the midst of our neighborhood, with only the 65 to 35 mph slowing of the offramp to ease the transition), it was hard to believe we hadn't been on another planet entirely.

The highlight of the weekend was following the kids out as a group to survey the wonders of their prior unchaperoned adventures (Open Mine Shaft! Wrecked Car!) We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had indeed discovered an old mine, and that the dangerousness of its disposition had been greatly exaggerated. It was closed, but the tailings were full of interesting mineral detritus. The hike immediately became a rock hounding pursuit, with folks looking constantly at the ground, comparing finds, and making lots of impressed "ooh"s and "oh yeah"s at each other. The kids quickly zeroed in on what to look for and found many good drusy quartz caves within the large, rusty rocks strewn about. Breaking them open by dropping an even bigger rock on top of them was obviously a big hit.

Of course there was much reading, card playing (and comparisons of which card games were played whilst camping in our youth), a round of bb gun shooting, roasting marshmallows in the wood stove (not recommended), drinking of Barenjager* with various mixers (recommended), and continuous eating, preparing food, stoking the fire to make food, heating water for tea/food/barenjager mixers, fending children off of food, dispensing appropriate snacks, fending dogs off of food, and of course negotiating over flavors of instant oatmeal and their relative availabilities. You know, camping stuff.

*Barenjager is a honey liqueur that seems made for drinking in the out-of-doors. However, the logo is not representative of our camping activities.

While I was charmed by the Musick Guard Station in the fog, I would love to return in July when there is a chance of sunbreaks as well. (I suspect it is never perfectly hot and clear up there at 5000 ft.) The site can accommodate a few tents, and there is a great old barn that Edward nearly slept in one night (always hard to keep him from sleeping outside with a dog or two.) With any luck we can arrange for an extended stay next summer and invite a few more folks to share the space, as it is defintely a more=merrier kind of spot, I think. I will mark my calendar in January...

Acknowledgement to the Universe for a few Good Hands Dealt

2009-06-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

A few things could have gone much worse today. Nothing major, or anything that makes for a story, just some stuff that could have turned minor setbacks into the snarly, tightly knotted twine of exasperation. Which I don't need today because I am TIRED.

So thanks Universe.

ps- i've been made aware that the jellybean universe image is a little cryptic, and that the fact that it's a link is not perfectly evident... now you know...

Zero. Punctuation.

2009-06-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

Don't care for video games? Me neither! And yet, I love this video game review. I'm not even going to say why. It's a trust thing. Watch it.

(Okay, a hint. It's called zero-punctuation reviews. And my mom doesn't have to trust me and watch it, unless she wants to.)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

No Puppies Were Harmed in the Making of This Post

2009-05-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

We came upon this scene a couple of houses down from Irene's piano lesson. This sled dog team in the making remained conked out for the duration of the half hour lesson, during which time the hippie dude who owns them cheerfully recounted his tale to at least a dozen surprised/enchanted/perplexed passersby. No, they were not the victims of a tragic roadside accident, nor were they for sale. They were just tuckered out from walking in the afternoon heat. Apparently the mother, a mix of many breeds including akita, dingo and pitbull, ran off during the "snow days" (everyone in Portland knows exactly what that means, as there were only the ten of them this year) and was impregnated by what his friend reported as a malemute-husky type. As she was "a good towing dog" and pop was a fortuitous breed, Hippie Dude took it as a sign that he should train them as a dog team (regardless of the fact that he lives in a Volkswagen bus). The plan is to train them to walk in formation, and then as they grow to pull a skateboarder in pairs. At some point he will undoubtedly hook up with the frankenbikers around town to create a dog chariot. So look for that on Hawthorne in the next year. Aside from the generally preposterous display, the funniest thing was that they were petted, scratched and belly-rubbed intermittently for 30 or 40 minutes without ever waking up.

Yo Mama ('s Day)

2009-05-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

I ran across this photo of myself looking surprisingly like Irene and my mom looking like a cool 70's frontier mom. Check out the pant legs! And the cool geometric top. And the lacquered burled posts on that cabin storefront. Kay (who accidentally visited me on mother's day) points out the anachronism that it totally looks like I am texting a friend- in 1975.

Happy Mother's Day cool frontier Mom!

Like Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch with Strawberry Ice Cream

2009-05-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

So pop it may give you cavities. Forewarned!

Anxious - The Housemartins

On Wednesdays I work at Dan's house, and before he skulks off to work on mysterious Mining Engineer Stuff in his basement lair we inevitably chat for a while, and it inevitably involves some musical commentary. Like classic middle-agers we've had some fun "soundtrack of high school" conversations (I realized that there might just be a single baseline that signifies my high school experience), and general geekery involving what shows we saw when, or how it was in the good old days pre-net when you found new music accidentally and usually when some dude your friend's brother knew went to Seattle or Portland and brought some records back (we're both small-town kids).

Even so I was surprised when I noticed a copy of The Housemartins on his shelf one day. I have had only one friend who actually enjoyed this band, though many were subjected to it while bumming rides in my car in 1986 (the price you pay... my car, my tapes!) He kindly did not object when I announced that I was taking his Housemartins on my way out the door, and I've been having much fun listening to them on the way to school or work (guess they are just car music?) since last week.

I generally spurn nostalgia (no, really!), but The Housemartins are just irresistible. Plus, how cool is it that I met the third person in the world who likes them?

Yo! Gurt.

2009-05-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have yogurt guilt. No, not because of the factory oppressed cows or the agricultural impact of higher-foodchain consumption or even the rural streams choked with commercial dairy run-off (e.g. cowplop). Well, maybe a little now that I spell it all out... But no, the bulk of my yogurt guilt is all about The Plastic.

My breakfast of choice, which after years of Camelot/Indiana Jones level questing is really the only food combo that I'll reliably eat that will not cause a cascade failure of chemical betrayal (sugar, protein, endorphins- it's quite a morass)... is a piece of buttered gluten-free toast and a half cup of greek yogurt with honey. Because I'm thrifty, I eat the Trader Joe's house brand of greek yogurt which is sold only in pint tubs. So, I end up using almost two plastic pint tubs per week. Because I live in Portland, these can be recycled at the curb in a practically effortless process, but still. Recycling plastic is better than chucking it straight into the bin, but unlike paper and metals (don't get me started on glass) there is a limit to how many times it can be reworked. Eventually it becomes unrecyclable and off it goes to live its silent, brooding half-life in some landfill. Hence the guilt.

I've been meaning to get around to redeeming myself on this point for a while now, and after some halting attempts and a failure or two, I have finally succeeded in Making My Own Yogurt. Not only is it cheaper (roughly half the cost), organic, and all fresh and superior tasting, but most importantly I can buy milk in paper cartons and dispense with Yogurt Plastic Guilt forever! Ta Da!

I was a bit trepidatious about the process, as my last attempt resulted in an overly sour, slippery, ropey concoction which both puzzled and repelled me. Also, I was throwing it together in the midst of an already busy and scattered day, and I didn't have a working thermometer of any kind. Turns out this is exactly the sort of situation that works to my advantage.

First I microwaved 3 1/2 cups of organic milk, hoping to bring it to a boil. When I couldn't tell if it was boiling and became afeared of the rumored "superboiling" effect, I gave up and washed the pot I was trying to avoid washing so that I could finish up on the stovetop like a respectable human being.

Next I let it cool to 115 degrees, except that as previously remarked I did not have an actual thermometer, so naturally rampant googling ensued under the assumption that there were other methods to approximate water temperatures. This site was particularly unhelpful. And need I say that I am always surprised at what I find when googling?

The best I could get out of the so-called "world wide" web was that the appropriate temperature for bathwater is between 99 and 104 degrees. Since I am keen on bath temperatures beyond the tolerance of most other humans I know, I figured that 115 must be somewhere past "Ow, ow, ok I guess it needs some more cold water" but still tolerable to a bare hand. After pouring hot milk over my knuckles a few times, I felt okay moving on to the INCUBATION STAGE!

Which is pretty much pouring your slightly-cooled milk over a couple starter tablespoons of store-bought yogurt and then putting it in a cooler with a quart jar of boiling water to hold the ambient temp at 110 degrees or so (also known as Perfect Bath Water!)

At this point I recommend spending the next 8 hours wrapping a present, preparing a nice salad, and heading off to the 18th birthday dinner of one of your favorite people to pass the time while your yogurt makes its miraculous transformation.

When you return, you'll want to perfect the final product by straining it through a coffee filter (keep the whey, it's good for you) in order to create a thick Greek-style yogurt.

I am really unreasonably happy to have succeeded in this project. It is so easy that I've almost made myself more ashamed of all those plastic tubs that I could've avoided. But mostly happy!

Reed College is Ever So Clever

2009-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

From: Paul Marthers Dean of Admission
Date: Fri, May 1, 2009 at 3:44 PM
Subject: Your Reed College Application
To: Sackinger <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Dear Kay,

About your application to Reed College - we liked it. In fact, it
inspired us to give you a quick glimpse of what's ahead.

http://www.reed.edu/apply/accepted/

Enjoy.

For Kay, plus a little object (and maybe abject) philosophizing

2009-04-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

This is the photo I wanted to post for Kay's birthday, but I couldn't find it. She has included it in every school photo montage I can remember. Now she has access for ever and ever without having to ask me to search for it, which as I have indicated is seriously hit or miss. (You would think that I would know where all the prized photos are, but it is exactly the opposite. They migrate on the random winds of our desire to look at them, and so could be anywhere at any given time.)

Pondering the periodic quest to find this picture led me to consider the idea of whether photographs qualify as objects- not in the strict grammatical sense, but in our relationship to them. It's a very grey area. I think that generally, no, photos are representational, of either objects or moments in time (yikes, is a point in time an Object? Freakin' myself out here...) and serve to remind us rather than possessing Objectness in and of themselves*. You know, one thinks of the photo album as the thing to save from a burning building. And yet. There are those examples of snapshots like this one which take on a life of their own, outside of the Thing or Moment or Memory they contain. Kay doesn't remember. This image has become iconic, yet at the same time has stopped representing anything other than itself. The physical piece of paper has been moved and handled and sought after so often that it has certainly attained Object status in my mind.

Curiously, this begs the meta-question: is a digital image of your favorite picture the same as the picture? Ha! That's what she's got now, in any case. Maybe like the Velveteen Rabbit, it just takes time...

*When photos are presented as art, an argument for their Object status is being made, and I guess I'll give you that, although I think that unspoken argument may be at the subconscious heart of the age-old and tiresome conversation of Art vs Craft, journalism photography vs fine art photography, etc etc, boring boring. The idea of Objets D'Art is of no interest to me.

2009-04-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

This is just kind of fun.

Which is the God of Uploading?

2009-04-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

I need to know where to direct the sacrifices. Hephaestus, because it's technology? Hermes for the communication factor? Apparently St. Isadore of Seville is the patron saint of the internet. (FYI it is all kinds of diversionary fun to google "patron saint". Go ahead, do it...)

Due to our usual technique of organizing ourselves in the most obtuse and process-heavy manner possible at any given moment, plus our usual fine stew of Strange Luck and Near Poverty, I have the choice of either: computing device A which does not connect online, or computing device B which does not recognize any outside drives. So, I can only import information/images which I don't care to share, or I can use what was already inside the Sharing Box as of last week.

Lots of pretty stuff has been seen and recorded since then but you are not allowed access to it. There was a peacock attack. Kids in a lake. A flowering-for-the-first-time-ever tree. But I am soooooooo postmodern that if I don't have the photo I can't even imagine trying to actually write a descriptive text that would convey it. I will just sit and pout instead.

Meanwhile, here is a random cool photo of trees from last September. I think Edward must have taken it because it is all about light (that's so like him) and he is one to walk out into the woods. So that's what I've got for you, Hephaestus, Hermes, St Isadore or whoever. Cool moody trees. You guys like that sort of thing, right?

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

2009-04-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

The secret government Easter Bunny Project has gone horribly awry. Or... don't leave chocolate bunnies
atop your fridge for two years.

We did, in fact, eat them, despite their tortured mutations and evaporation of cocoa butter. They tasted tortured, mutinous and stale but nobody got a tummy ache or third arm, so it was worth the risk, as we had no other chocolate or other cute-baby-animal-shaped candy in the house.

Nineteen

2009-04-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Kay.

Happy Birthday to Edward

2009-04-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Spring Break

2009-03-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T07:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-08T12:02:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-03-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Gandhi acknowledges the Power of Objects

2009-02-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

Not THE Gandhi, who had a real thing against the material world (no sex! no food! no clothes!), but a subsequent generation. The few belongings left from the iconic Indian leader are up for auction, including his wire-rimmed glasses, pocket watch, and sandals.

"These objects are very close identities of someone we call the 'Father of the Nation'," said Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. "We have to bring them back."

When asked whether it was missing the whole Gandhi Point to worry over the disposition of mere objects, he replies:

"We as people, we love to identify with objects. We love to associate ourselves by looking at those objects with great detail."

I agree. Human beings are terrific magpies of symbology and superstition. We are wired to not only see, hear and pick up all kinds of stuff, but to then think hard about it and make connections (real or imagined). From saint's relics to vintage cars to kung-fu belts to baby teeth, we imbue objects with metaphysical properties that radiate and make us feel special for being around them. How else to explain that classic Antiques Roadshow moment when one learns that the family highboy would have been worth $100,000 more if it still had the original gunky oxidized lead paint on it? That paint has 200 years of freakin' MOJO!

Even the most mundane objects can attain this status. Children are universally mad for collecting rocks, which serve no practical function but can never be disposed of. The must-have holiday toy/clothes/notebook/gadget is another example of our strange propensity to project our own needs onto poor, unsuspecting, insentient matter. The fact that the magic dissipates so quickly in these cases doesn't diminish the importance, it just demonstrates an artifact of our current culture. At the moment, we humans have a crush on the ephemeral.

Anywho, the Indian government is now stepping in to attempt to halt the sale of Gandhi's possessions (although as of now the items are still listed at the March 4 & 5 auction). I am rooting for them. There are times when irony is not good, clever, or funny, and this would be one of them.

Let me explain...

2009-02-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

I feel the need for before pictures because I often find myself so entrenched in the present moment that I feel as if it is the only state of being I've ever inhabited. I don't plan much or well for the future, and I resist sentimentality for the past. But I'm a sucker for imagery, icons, visual archetypes, so that really good photos (yes, even the too-dark cell phone pic of a dismembered kitchen sometimes qualifies) can serve to remind me that I was there before I became here, so it must be possible to get to somewhere else as well.

Starting a blog right now (a point wherein I possess a splendidly functional kitchen sink) would seem like starting in the middle of the story, and that would just be silly.

BEFORE

2009-02-21T18:11:00.001-08:00

In the time honored tradition, a before picture.
It is all downhill from here.