beautiful, funny, sad & true

Like I wrote about the other day, there’s this new thing called geocaching. Okay, maybe it’s not that new, but it was new to me, at least. Todd was telling us on the way that people who don’t know about geocaching are called ‘muggles’, which I think is lame. Why can’t this game have its own separate lexicon of terms instead of borrowing from Harry Potter? I mean, I like HP and everything, but it seems kinda cheesy to trivialize this game by associating it with something that it has no need to associate with. But that’s neither here nor there.

The short description of the game is that it’s a scavenger hunt. You use the GPS to find the pre-arranged destinations that are posted on the web site. It’s easy to get kinda geeked out on the technology, but the best sites will take you to interesting and amazing places where you normally would never go, and you never know what they’re going to be like. All you know is the set of coordinates, and maybe a few hints from the web site, but that’s about it.

So on Sunday, Todd, Ben (another actor/theater director from the play-reading group) and I headed out. We met Hunt (yet another actor/theater director) and he joined us for a search too. He had his daughter with him, so he could only join us for one, and this was the one.

This is Ben, by the way. The panda thingy was hidden inside the rock wall you can see in the background. It’s actually a little box with a notebook inside, where you log your visit and then take a trinket from inside the box (leaving something in return, of course).

So we went from there to a couple others down in Lake Oswego. Really beautiful place, and there were several different ‘caches’ in the park. The first one was up the hill a bit, buried in some shrubbery. The newly-fallen leaves and pouring rain made this one particularly challenging.

After that, we followed the trail down into the main part of the park. I love this picture.

Todd said it reminds him of the end of the movie Being There, which I remember hearing about, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

From there, the game took us to a bridge (but the hint said ‘don’t cross the bridge’). So we found that one, and then headed over to the best and most challenging one of the day, by far.

This park apparently is the site of the oldest iron smelter in Oregon, and it’s now the oldest surviving one in the western United States. This particular ‘hunt’ required us to read the informational signs in order to work out the next clue. Todd’s classic comment of the day was, “Oh shit. . .we have to do math.” So we worked it all out, and it took us to this amazing place.

Left to right, is me, Todd, and Ben. I love our ‘vini vedi vici’ pose in this picture. We were thrilled to have succeeded after all that scrounging, and we were exhausted, freezing, and soaking wet, but with a bunch of great memories, excited to head out again very soon.

I know I’ll be going back to that particular park again sometime, just for fun, because it’s so beautiful and interesting.

I woke up to find some very nasty–and anonymous–comments on a couple of my blog entries. Not my favorite way to start the day, but it’s dealt with now, and I’m over it.

The good news is that I just got back from having breakfast with my friend Jack, who I haven’t seen in fifteen years. He lives in Spokane now, and I obviously live here, but we both used to live in Yakima. He’s in town for the week, visiting a friend, so he called this morning to see if I wanted to meet for breakfast. I was just waking up, but I jumped at the chance to see him. We went to Milo’s, which is one of my favorite restaurants in town, and also happens to be right down the street from my place.
(Incidentally, today they had a special eggs benedict at Milo’s, with shrimp instead of ham–or smoked salmon, which is my favorite breakfast–and with Thai curry mixed into the hollendaise sauce. Jack and I both ordered it, and it was mind-blowingly good.)

Oh, right. . .Jack.

Here he was, back then:

and here he is now:

It was fun reminiscing about some of those old times. Former bands we were in, and what everybody’s doing now, all that kind of stuff. Seems that a lot of the musicians we knew have had difficult or tragic lives since then. One in particular has had quite a hard go of it. Many are still in Yakima. One of them–who I’ve actually been talking to also–is now in Seattle, making a decent living as a Professional Musician With A Day Job, like me. (Hi, Brandon!)

After we finished at Milo’s we walked back here and talked for another hour or so. We played each other some music we’ve worked on, and I gave him a Crystin Byrd CD. Jack’s a very intelligent, hilarious and genuinely good person, and I’m really glad he was able to make some free time and get together. It certainly won’t be another fifteen years, I’m sure of that.

Tonight is another gig. I’ll be playing cello, I think. I say ‘I think’ because one of the tuning pegs on my cello is slipping again, when it’s in a warm room. It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to be really annoying. I’ll take it into the shop this week. Luckily it’s a really cheap and easy fix.

Anyway, yeah. Should be a really good day and night.

Who’s THIS guy?

Oh wait. . .that’s me, in Yakima, when I was either 21 or 22.

YIKES. Those glasses are huge, and Mullet Number One is clearly visible as well.

Yes, I was screwing around for the camera; that goofy smile is a dead giveaway. I hated having my picture taken at the time.

First of all, let me say Happy Halloween.

Second of all, I’ll spare you the details, but Joan and I are in the process of working things out. Some of our old ‘stuff’ came up recently, and that brought both of our defenses up a little bit. But we’ll work it out.

Third of all, there was a photographer at the event who took a bunch of amazing pictures at the most recent Breanna show. I’m going to get some digital copies, but they’re expensive enough that I can only afford two or three. Please take a look and help me choose? Thank you!
There are a bunch of stellar ones of each of us, but I think my personal favorites are 7 and 24.

This week is about to get crazy. Tonight’s Halloween–no, I didn’t dress up–and Joan and I are getting together for a while. I might meet up with Todd Sabel later on. Tomorrow is rehearsal with Stephanie’s band for the big Voices For Silent Disasters show on Friday night, and Saturday is a full-band Breanna Paletta show. Sunday we’re having a Breanna recording session in the studio. And speaking of V4SD, the artist appreciation party was on Monday, and it was a who’s-who of the Portland music scene. I’m looking for pictures from that night, and I’ll post some if I get ’em.

I’d say my wish from earlier in the week–you know, for the week to get better quickly–came true.

This video just totally brought tears to my eyes and put a smile on my face.

Here’s the story.

Don’t forget to watch Part 2 also!

Hope it moves you as much as it did me. Thank you, Crystin, for sharing this.