Nothing's hipper than a Portland hipster

Fashion + Food Carts. Welcome to Portland.

I think our little laid-back democracy here, come-as-you-are (creatively!) vibe Portland gives off is personified best out on the streets. I'm so excited that this lady has started a Portland street fashion blog, celebrating our collective fashionable street sense (how many ways can umbrellas and goulashes turn trendy? Watch and learn).

School's out (for the summer)

Congrats to my little sister, who finished her first year of teaching America-style today (the long, thankless hours, the photocopies, the dizzying bureaucracy, the looming budget cuts). The insanely impressive part is this: she taught 23 wiggly little 5 and 6 year-olds to speak fluently (as fluent as a five-year-old can be) in Spanish.

The best part of this story, I think, was her honest surprise (and panic) when she realized she'll be doing it all again, with a new crop of kids, next year.

Buena suerte, mi hermana.

Book Review: The Song Is You

The Song Is You: A Novel by Arthur Phillips

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nietzsche once said, "Without music, life would be a mistake." The Song Is You is a beautiful tribute to this. A man lost in a failed marriage and the death of his young son tries to make sense of his life through his guarded relationship with an up-and-coming singer. The prose throughout the book is electric, exactly how life feels sometimes but can so rarely be properly expressed in words (that's where the music helps). The author is talented enough to emote the joy of both words and music, and I found the book inspiring, (not at all one-note - ha).


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A Moment for Mouse House

Sunday Mornings on Mouse House Porch

Can I tear up a little? Tonight is the last night I'll spend in the little house on Belmont that I've lived in for the last four years, which has come to be known as Mouse House (the temporary mouse problem was solved, but the name stuck). When I first saw Mouse House in March 4 years ago, I had moved from Washington, D.C. and was living with my parents temporarily. My sister had graduated from college, and the next day we took a road trip from Spokane, WA to Portland, OR. Knowing nothing of Portland, or Oregon, I found the address, the cross streets, and the house without too much difficulty. Kristy was sitting on a stool on the porch without her shoes on (no porch-couch at this point) reading a thick book, and I thought, this will do for a few months.

Four years later, I'm leaving. I've endured some great roommates, some miserable roommates, and some roommates who I thought I didn't know at all, but when they left their absence was felt like a missing favorite picture on the wall. I grew a garden, which grows thick in the backyard under the tallest pine in the neighborhood. I know which stair is randomly short, so I fall down it less. I know how to be quiet like a ghost in the morning, and how to slam the door so the house feels like it's about to fold in on itself.

I'll miss Movie Madness across the street, Belmont Station with its 1,000 beer choices, being within walking distance of Powell's on Hawthorne, Zupan's for its overpriced but magnificent produce, walking up to Mt. Tabor and its reservoirs (the only metro volcano in the country), Laurelhurst Park, despite the creepy woman whose death in the pond last summer was never explained...Red Square cafe where I got my coffee each morning before catching the bus. The #15 bus line. The way the kitchen is warm and sunny in the morning, even when it's rain and clouds. I'll miss you all.

I'm happily moving on. It's time. But if college equals my formative educational years, 4 years of Mouse House equals my formative, practical grown-up years. Here, I learned to cook with passion. I wrote with passion. I learned to not make excuses for doing what I loved. I learned to ditch the D.C. mentality of anxious, narrow-minded ambition. I came a few painful inches closer to my authentic self. In a falling apart old house sharing my life with a rotating group of semi-strangers. I honed me. And for that, Mouse House, a tear.

Time to Fly

...like the earth he carries his atmosphere with him...

Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, 1956

Book Review: Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Eat This Not That.

So, my ode to National Poetry Month has been a dismal failure. Last year I was so into it, but this year I can't even bring myself to read the poem-a-day emails sent by Knopf, which gives you a poem, poet's bio, biblio and poem analysis in 250 words or less. Nope.

Rather, I've been...living. I've been out walking, hiking or at least reading on the porch-couch until it's too dark to see. We even started a garden! Anyway, being outside has definitely made me feel more alive, so to hell with being behind on the blog posts. I'm sure Mary Oliver would approve, too.

When I saw these exotic looking fiddleferns for sale at the farmer's market, I thought "eee!"

My practical side said beware. The little coiled beasts reminded me quite a lot of my potted fern house plant, the one Belvedere chews on for fiber. A popular phrase "eat this not that" came to mind, so I went for it. I ate this (ferns from the market) not that (ferns from the bookshelf).

I improvised a crunchy stir fry of fiddleheads, shitakke mushrooms and a minced scallion, which reminded me a bit of eating the floor of an old-growth forest, but classier looking (and still surprisingly bawdy.) Summer fare? Bring it.