beautiful, funny, sad & true

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.

Today was the strangest day of what was already a roller coaster week.

Morning started out fine. I was a little spacy at work, but I felt okay. I decided to go home to eat lunch, and I had an errand to run while I was out. When I got in my car, though, it wouldn’t start. GRRR. I had a bill payment that absolutely had to be paid today, so I had to walk a mile home, write a check, walk to the place and pay the bill, and then walk that mile back to work.

I’ve been in such a state this week that I completely freaked out, because I had Gig Number Four tonight. I called Steph to let her know what was happening with my car, and then I started frantically texting and calling everyone I could think of to make a a backup plan for tonight, which meant I would need to either arrange a ride or borrow a car. . .anything. I wasn’t picky.

Everyone was either busy, or not in a position to give me a definite answer, so I put out a mass e-mail at work entitled, “car won’t start.” “Anybody know what I should check? Battery’s fine, it has gas and oil, and the starter’s fine.” I got a bunch of responses, and everyone seemed to be suggesting that it was spark-related (spark plugs? spark plug wires? distributor cap?), so I went out on my break and figured it couldn’t hurt to try and start it. It started perfectly, as if nothing had happened. PHEW. (And GRRR, for making me walk to pay my bill, and for making me think I needed to run around and text and call.) I checked the spark plug wires. Two of the four were loose, so I cinched them down. So far so good.

[Side note on that: when I went back inside, lots of people asked if I’d gotten the car going, and when I said yes and told one lady how, she furrowed her brow and said, “Hunh. I’ve never heard of that happening before.” As if it’s either impossible for spark plug wires to ever come loose, or it’s unfathomable since she’s never had the exact same experience. Cracked me up. Anyway.]

I met up with Saussha after she got off work, and we sat outside Urban Grind and talked for about twenty minutes until I had to walk back to work. That was really nice, cause we haven’t had the chance to do that for weeks.

After work, I went home, sat down for about one second, then loaded my instruments in the car and headed down to Lake Oswego for the gig. When I got to the venue, it turned out to be a little restaurant in a strip mall. Not exactly rock and roll, but I’ve certainly played worse. I made my presence known to Steph, who was busy talking with her family and friends, so I loaded my instruments in and then went back out to my car to listen to NPR for a while, because the group who was playing was too loud to talk over, and just plain boring. (Guy singer who played forgettable, strummy acoustic guitar songs, and he had a djembe player with him. Yawn.) After about ten minutes, CellistSkip arrived in his blue van, so I went over to say hi, and after about ten seconds of talking with him, I realized I had locked my keys in my car.

Sigh. As if I needed anything else stressful to happen this week. Sure, might as well add that to the list.

The restaurant owner very gamely tried to open the driver’s door with a coat hanger, and seemed to be making progress until he dropped his butter knife down inside my door. It’s still in there, by the way, and probably will be for quite a while. Once he realized my instruments were already inside, he figured the problem could wait, so he gave up and went back inside. But I was nervous about that, because Honda Civic hatchbacks are the most commonly stolen type of car–especially when the keys are in the ignition!–so I really wanted to get the situation handled. Skip gave the coat hanger a try, but despite his herculean efforts, he couldn’t quite get the door open either. Luckily, John (who is a fan of Stephanie’s, and who I’ve met a handful of times) had a Triple-A membership, so he was able to step in and save the day by calling them. (THANK YOU AGAIN, JOHN.)

Playing with Stephanie and Skip at the same time is a blast, and we always sound great together. Tonight was no exception. The second set was particularly great. When we were finished, we stayed and talked with Julie (from PDXposed, who filmed Stephanie and me down in Seaside last November) and a whole bunch of other people, drank wine and had ‘Greek’ veggie pizza and ‘Mediterranean’ nachos, which were the best nachos I’ve ever had. All in all, I’d call the day a success, cause it ended on such a good note.

I’m finally home. THIS WEEK HAS FINALLY COME TO AN END.

And now I’m going to spend the next fourteen hours in bed.

First, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s written, called or lent an ear these last few days. I reallyreally appreciate it. It’s been tremendously heartening and touching, especially in such a difficult and crazy week. Actually, I think this week might have been a month cleverly disguised as a week. I’ve been running on adrenaline, wine and coffee (and lots of water too, don’t worry!) and had three incredible shows so far this week.

Yesterday’s Gig Number One was the one with Stephanie Schneiderman. Total blast, and a very unusual show in that it was just me and her. Usually we play as a trio or as a full band, but this time it was just us, so I got the opportunity to pull out all the stops and play acoustic guitar, accordion, piano, and cello. Practically every song was different, and it was really fun. Sometime soon, I’ll have to write about why playing with Steph means so much to me. It’s a pretty good story, actually.

So. . .on with the story at hand. The minute that show ended, I had to pack up my car and race over to Mississippi Studios for Gig Number Two with Susie Blue. It was spitting rain on the drive over, and parking was nightmarish, but it was a great show. The instrumentation was Susie playing guitar and singing, Skip on cello, Jen on harmony vocals, and I played accordion. Very intimate, but it still definitely rocks when we play that way. The other nice and unexpected thing about that show was that I ended up just sitting around talking with the owner of the studio about production, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a phone call before too long.

Then tonight, Gig Number Three was the CD release show (at Mississippi Studios again!) for Breanna Paletta’s new solo album. I think this was quite possibly one of the best shows of my entire life. Here are some pictures:

If you’ve got any pictures from the Stephanie or Susie shows, please let me know. For some reason, they never seem to make their way to me, so if you’re sitting on a goldmine, please. . .help a brother out? Thank you. :)

The moral of the story is that when you’re feeling sad, it’s really nice to have amazing friends to talk with, stellar music to play, and a busy, fun life to fall back on.

But then there are the quiet times. . .

For Easter, Kelly and I met up with her aunt, uncle and mom at her auntnuncle’s house. We all learned how to make crepes (oh my GOD they were good!) and then we dyed Easter eggs. Somehow I managed to hardly take any pictures at all; must’ve been having too much of a good time!