I Love Portland In the Summer.

Mt. Tabor in the summer

I haven't been so complimentary about Portland lately. And it might seem a bit late in the season for a "things to do this summer list" but in my defense, we're still holding our breath for any sign of it here. It's been cold and obscenely, unrelentingly rainy. But the weatherman promises that's all changing this weekend, when we'll hit 80 for the first time this year, mid-June. So, here it is; My summer wish list, to make sure I appreciate every non-work gorgeous summer minute I'm offered, if the season does manage to present itself.

PLACES TO GO:
Portland, Maine / Newport, OR / Chicago, IL / Vancouver, BC / Seattle, WA

FOODS TO MAKE:
basil, lavender, rosemary gelatos / weekend brunches / whole trout / artichokes

HAPPY HOURS TO HIT:
Nobel Rot / Bakery Bar / Pok Pok / Navarre

THINGS TO WRITE:
a short story with a thunderstorm / a dream / a food cart interview / a little creative nonfiction

THINGS TO SHOOT:
my ladies in maine / the ocean / summer meals / walla walla vineyards / bike trips

PLACES TO HIKE:
Laurelhurst Park or Mt. Tabor (every day) / Pacific Crest Trail (at Skamania) / Vancouver Island, BC / Cape Perpetua Scenic Area (Newport) / Mt. Hood

BOOKS TO READ:
Too Much Happiness (Alice Munro) / Little Children (Tom Perrotta) / We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live: Collected Nonfiction (Joan Didion) / The Last Summer (of You and Me) (Ann Brashares) / A Gate At the Stairs (Lorrie Moore)

April Showers Bring May Monsoons?

In the last few days, Portlanders have turned against the rain. Normally rainy weather's biggest champion (Portlanders gush about it and wax nostalgic about evenings forced to stay inside the way others recall perfect summer days of sunshine and heat) we've reached the limit. My boss stands at the office window and makes sarcastic comments about the beautiful day. Another friend -- generally agreeable and laid back -- threatened to fly back to his home town in Illinois and rip the arms off the next person who commented on how much rain they've been having. What do you know of rain!? he cried. I personally think of it as a semiofficial agreement between us and the sky. After all, we bear eight months of chill, dampness, and gray for four perfect months of Portland summer and fall. The deadline has come and gone, sky. The charm of falling asleep to the sound of rain on the rooftop has long past. Sun: reveal yourself!

Take what you can get and leave the rest.

Today I might be staring down yet another grant application inside and a wild wall of weather outside, but I'm secretly drawing on the inspiration of film makers and food writers. Bright spots in an otherwise gray little day.

Yes, indeed. Itty-Bitty.

When I get stressed I nest.

I cook and clean and search for pretty things. And I adore decor blogs - they're my happy place. The queens of this category are, in my mind, Sfgirlbybay and Design*Sponge. I'm changed quite a lot from my college days, of believing that focusing on domestic things and your home kept you politically cut-off and neutered. These days -- especially in Portland but undoubtedly elsewhere -- I see how locally, domestically-focused social and environmental movements are what's making a true difference in our community. People with their urban farms and gardens, buying local art directly from the artist, celebrating the bounty of locally-produced meats, vegetables and cheeses. Freecycle. It makes me feel thrilled at the possibility of something big starting, and that it starts in my home. That's very empowering.
That said, while my studio apartment is big in ambition, it's itty-bitty in size. I'm constantly holding item X in my hand and asking myself, "Is it worth pushing this around the apartment twenty times a year if I'll only maybe use it one or twice?" Almost always, the answer is no. Having a shoebox-sized apartment is serious exfoliation for the materialist. Today I entered my apartment in the Apartment Therapy blog's Small, Cool contest (teeny-tiny category). I probably won't make the cut, but it was fun taking pictures of my living space (my apartment, in carefully edited picture form, not its regular pile-of-laundry-and-unwashed-dishes form, makes me feel a bit glamourous.) So, using the freedom of self-publishing and self-indulgence, here are a few of my apartment shots. Find more on my flickr page.

Truth in Advertising

“The old cathedrals are good,
but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.”
-- Thomas Carlyle

Sweet Surrender.

My television (the most incredible sort: a framed in fake-wood hand-me-down from my parents from early-early childhood) has started to give up the ghost lately. The good-looking characters on Grey's Anatomy reruns have started to get darker and harder to see. They're melting into Zombie-doctors of late, and their suddenly glinty eyes (to see anything "contrast" has to be fully dialed up) are scary enough to make me keep the lights in the living room on. But I digress.

Without television, I've had to turn my attentions elsewhere. A better person would pick up a book, go for a run, or regularly clean out the cat litter box. While noble, my requirements are less so. After a long day, I need something that can pass the time and use as few braincells as possible (this explains the glass of wine that accompanies my new-found activity, just in case it isn't enough.) And I've found it. And thy name is Doodle Jump.

Doodle Jump is the brain child of some evil genius in Germany (actually, no idea, and does it matter? The dude's getting rich off of this perfect and ridiculous little game. It's the most downloaded iphone game app on, like, the entire planet.) You jump your little Doodle man from platform to platform, waving your iphone to do so. Sometimes he bounces on a spring. Sometimes he's swiftly propelled upward via a magical beanie hat. Seriously.

As someone who's always been loathed to give up control and fling my controls around like I really care with Nintendo games and more recently, Wii, I was alarmed at how quickly and dramatically I gave everything to propelling my little Doodle upward. And, have you ever felt yourself do something totally against everything you thought made you you? Maybe in your case it was knocking off a bank or lying to Grandma Mimi, but for me it was when I cried out the first time my little Doodle missed a platform and whistled toward the ground (luckily, they never show the bloody result). My cry was sincere and generally one reserved for seeing someone kick a puppy with a steel-toed boot. And it chilled me to the bone.

Curious, I played again. And again. And again - all with the same humiliating and overly dramatic result. As soon as the Doodle started his swift decent, I sobbed and cursed my cruel carelessness. And then immediately laughed at my own idiot self (sort of like when I watch Grey's Anatomy reruns, I suppose). I realized Doodle Jump offered exactly what I needed, exactly what my television used to offer: a sense of accomplishment and zero-obligation drama. Oh, and I will never, ever, play Doodle Jump in public.

Just Because.