beautiful, funny, sad & true

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought, ‘Man, I need a new entry for my blog,’ but every time I sit down to start one, nothing comes.

I’ve been busy, so it’s not that.

I had an awesome gig in Salem with Breanna last Friday, then came home to a rockin’ Latin-American-themed house party at my building. Total blast.

Saturday morning, S&W and I went exploring in the hills of Southwest Portland to find as many of the old steps as we could. In the early 1900’s, the same group of people who built the Park Blocks thought it would be nice to have walking trails that linked the Park with the various neighborhoods. Many of them still exist, and they run through the most beautiful old parts of town. We traipsed around for about four or five hours. In fact, we even drove to Powell’s to find a book and look at a map, which we found and looked at, then drove back to a different set of steps. Total blast.

Sunday was house-cleaning day. I did six loads of laundry, washed the dishes, swept the sidewalk and steps outside, and took out the trash and recycling.

I realize this is all very well, but it doesn’t exactly make for an exciting blog entry. Oh well, I guess they all can’t be exciting.

Regardless, I’ve been too busy and too tired lately to be really creative. I’m also still really emotional about the Kelly situation. It’s been tough, especially since Luke is here with Alyssa now. I was very excited to have the four of us hang out once Luke arrived, and now he’s here–which is great, by the way–but at the same time, I feel like there’s a Kelly-shaped hole in the universe. Le Sigh.

I do have a Susie Blue gig tonight, so that will help lift me out of my funk. Nothing like playing great music with great friends to make you feel like yourself again. I’ll be better, and be back on my blogging game, soon enough.

When in doubt, there are always plenty more Yakima stories.

Alyssa and I both had a rough week, and needed to get away from our lives for a while. What better way to do that than spend a day at the beach? More specifically, Oswald State Park on the Oregon coast. It was a perfect, relaxing day with a great friend.

My brother sent this to me the other day, and I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

I did some nosing around to find out that this is a serious ad, brought to you by the Washington Wine Commission. They have the same type of ad running in lots of the wine-producing towns throughout the state (Woodinville, Prosser, etc.). Which is fine. Heck yeah, let’s promote the region as the great up-and-coming wine producer that it is.

But Yakima? The envy of France?

Words fail me.

After I posted my blog entry on Sunday about that cool house (see here), I did a little poking around. I was wondering why they don’t just put it on the National Register of Historic Places, and have a chance at having the building renovated.

What I didn’t realize is that lots of owners of old houses are touchy about this subject. Part of having your building on the NR of HP involves making it open to the general public for a few hours each year. The ‘general public’ of course, means everyone, and that means the place has to be retrofitted with extra earthquake and fire protection, made handicap-accessible, all of the doors have to be a certain width, and a myriad of other modern treatments. Obviously, nothing of the sort existed in the 1880’s and ’90’s, when Portland Heights was being built, so to bring an old house up to today’s specifications can involve major surgery. This can ruin its ‘period charm’.

And in extreme cases, places like this would simply be laughably difficult to make accessible. It’s on the edge of a hill, the main entrance is up a bunch of steep steps, and I’m sure its earthquake and fire resistance are minimal. If the owners were lucky, the entire house would be taken apart and moved to a more stable location. If they were unlucky, it would just be condemned, dismantled and sold for its period fixtures, or its siding, or its trim, or its stained-glass windows.

I’d sure like to see it saved, and it’s so perfect where it is–with the raised corner room that overlooks the entire city–that I can’t imagine moving it. Modernizing it would seem to be impossible. I wonder if there’s a way to save it and improve it, using private funding or something, so they don’t have to carve it up or move it.

Something tells me it will eventually get the same treatment that the Simon Benson House got a few years ago, which would change it and make it look more modern, but at least it wouldn’t have to be completely destroyed.

* * * * * *

This may all be interesting and everything, but the real story is that last night I cried for two hours, until I finally was able to fall asleep.

I slept until 11:30 in the morning yesterday, then BoringFish called to see if I was okay, or wanted to hang out or anything. I said I’d love to, so we went and got sushi and talked for a long time, which I’ve really misssed. We both love going on little random day trips, so we agreed to take one sometime soon.

Then I texted Susan if she wanted to play some classical stuff last night, and she wrote back, “How about dinner and Bach at 7?” Perfect.

So we went to Trader Joe’s and combined stir-fried shrimp and a bunch of veggies, cheese and fresh basil over little tiny pasta (that I can’t remember the name of. Looks like shells. . .?) SO GOOD. I wasn’t going to add pictures, but what the heck. Here’s the work in progress:

So then we played through a bunch of pieces that her wedding group plays. I can’t wait to be a good enough classical cellist to be able to play in an orchestra or better yet, a small ensemble. Times like last night are great; it’s how I learn what’s expected of a cellist in a group like that.

So this morning I slept in until 11:30 again, and then went to explore down in the old part of downtown Portland, in the Goose Hollow/Portland Heights neighborhoods. I love that part of town, with the windy old streets, and the stairways that are built into the hillsides. I tried to find cool old houses to take pictures of. I couldn’t really get to the places I had in mind, so I think I may have to go on foot instead. There’s a whole big network of stairways and sidwalks up there, so when the weather’s a little nicer, I’m heading out.

I did find my favorite house in town:

I stumbled onto it on a bike ride once, and I check in on it from time to time to see how its restoration is coming along. It’s not, apparently. The house has been in the same lived-in/falling-apart condition for ages. I’m sure it’ll cost a fortune to have it fixed up, but it’s really an amazing place, with huge stained-glass windows and all the original Victorian trim.

I continued my journey around the West Hills, and at one point ended up on a dead end, where the hill was so steep, and the houses so frickin’ high that the only way to take a picture was through the sunroof:

No good ‘artsy’ pictures to share, unfortunately. The light was kinda weird, and I couldn’t find the places that I wanted to get to. Southwest Portland is such a maze of curves and dead ends that it’s going to take a day of exploration, and my heart just wasn’t in it today.

And can I just say that the roads in town SUCK. All of downtown is such a patchwork of potholes, closed streets, and shoddy fixes that it’s physically painful to drive down there now. My poor little car was really working hard today, dealing with those steep hills and crappy roads, and I was getting tired of being bumped around, so I gave up pretty quick.

But there’s definitely a story in the hills, waiting to be told, and plenty of good pictures too.