To Occupy my Time – Page 244

Cityscape

It is interesting the difference between what the eye sees and what the camera captures. When I looked at the sky, it was a very intense purple, but when the camera took the picture, the intensity was much less than my eye had seen.

GPS devices have me stuck on Existential

I think that navigating through the landscape is a skill that can (and should) be developed. I have a particular talent for it, if I do say so myself. So when the nice-lady-voice keeps telling me I have made an error, I don’t really like to hear it. The car, that vestige of freedom in the modern landscape, is the last place I want an inanimate object telling me what to do. Except for the few people with absolutely no sense of direction, I think GPS units are one of those things Americans needlessly spend money on. When you don’t have to figure out where you are and where you are going, you lose that skill. Is that something you want?

But this comic made me laugh.

Letters written in November

I kept up with my solemn vow this month, but still missed two days. I also caught up all of the Sara letters, leaving her with a huge packet of my letters to reply to on her end. After that, I turned to LEX and wrote several people who had submitted listings in the Winter issue. Though I am enjoying writing, my enthusiasm for this project is flagging.

1 November. Sara
2 November. Sara
3 November. Sara
**Letter back Sara
**3 postcards, Sara
4 November. Postcard to Sara
5 November. Postcard to Matt
6 November. Postcard to Susan
**LB re: LEX listing I posted “Do we still need women’s colleges?”
7 November. LEX Letter re: hobbies
8 November. LEX Letter re: Tuesday evening
9 November. LEX Letter re: steady correspondent
10 November. LEX Letter re: poem song etc.
11 November. Beres family
12 November. Thank you to Linda
** 2 Letters back Sara
13 November. LEX Letter “almost frugal grandmother”
14 November. LEX Letter “changed mind”
15 November. LEX Letter “horse across US?”
16 November. BroMAunts
17 November. Postcard to Sara
18 November. Jan
19 November. LEX Michael
20 November. Sara
21 November. No one
22 November. No one
23 November. Sara
24 November. LEX Gerry
**Letter back LEX Diane (food)
25 November. LEX Diane (movies)
26 November. Sara
27 November. LEX Letter “women and books”
28 November. LEX Letter “green”
29 November. LEX Letter “pen pals”
30 November. LEX Letter “last five books”

Thanksgiving Feast!

After the Turkey Trot, I spent the morning at Mom’s, reading about cats on the Oregon Humane Society’s web site while Chris and Mom cooked. My job was to bring rolls and I had finished them on Wednesday. After that cooking was finished, we traveled to Aunt Pat’s for the famous Thanksgiving dinner.

Chris carves.
Aunt Carol made a scrumptious Brussels Sprout dish.

My plate: Brussels sprouts, the Parker House rolls I made, steamed broccoli and carrots, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, the traditional rice dressing.
It was so delicious I ate it all.
After that came a very long game of Trivial Pursuit and eventually dessert.

It was a lovely Thanksgiving.

Turkey Trot

For the past few months I’ve been training for the Turkey Trot, the annual four-mile run at the Zoo. Turkey Trot day arrived clear and cold. I took the Yellow Line Max to Pioneer Square where I transferred to the Blue Line Max that would take me to Washington Park. It was about 6:30 in the morning and workers were lighting the holiday tree. But, strangely, other workers found it important to cut back wisteria too. I have no idea why.
Sunrise over parking lot full of people waiting for the start of the race and people waiting in line for the port-a-potties.

Self-portrait before the race starts.
The race started late (grrrr) so I had ample opportunity to contemplate these banners at the World Forestry Center. The middle one I get, it’s the logo. The right one I get, it’s a picture of a big tree. The one on the left I don’t get at all. What does a family white water rafting have to do with a forest? I guess they could be rafting through the forest, but it still seems an odd choice. If they wanted to show recreation in the forest why not some cross country skiers, or snow shoeing?
For those of you who have never had the pleasure of running the Turkey Trot, it’s a pretty “ugh” course. Two miles downhill, turn around and groan your way through the same two miles you just ran, but now they are two uphill miles. Once I started I thought to myself, “I do not, in any way, shape or form, feel like doing this right now.” But what could I do? Turn around and finish with the slick actual runners in their running shorts and with their 5 minute miles? Not really an option. I persevered, and eventually finished. Dispute the very uphill portion, I ran this faster than my usual Saturday long runs which happen on flat land. The Turkey Trot is a fun run, so I don’t have an official time, but the time I kept was 50:52 for four miles. I’m not a fast runner, though I do have designs.

The “I finished” self-portrait:
Then it was a quick walk to the parking lot where Mom whisked me away to the Thanksgiving celebrations. Though there was a bit of parking lot waiting before we could really “whisk.”

Les Aucoin Plaza

I picked up my race packet for the Turkey Trot today at the World Forestry Center and came across Les Aucoin Plaza. You can find it yourself by taking the Blue or Red line to the Washington Park stop and taking the elevator to the top. I wondered as I walked by, if Les Aucoin was a person, or a french name of something. It could go either way, so I took a picture to remind myself to check.
Ah. I see he was the first Democrat congressman to represent Oregon’s first congressional district since statehood. He also spells his name AuCoin. If the plaza sign wasn’t in all capital letters, that would be more obvious. He gets a plaza named after him because he and Mark Hatfield worked their congressional magic on the east and west side light rail lines. How lovely.

And now I know.

I finally turned the heat on.

I play this game every autumn. It’s the one where I wait as long as I possibly can before I turn the heat on in the evenings. I can make it fairly late in the calendar year because I tend to run a little warmer than other people and also I bundle up. Plus, my evenings are full of cooking dinner, cleaning up, etc. There is much movement until I settle down to read. At that point I can retreat under blankets until it is time to go to bed.

The heat has been on, mind you. That other person I live with isn’t quite as active when he is home, nor is he so much into the stoicism involved in playing the game. The difference between us is that I’m convinced, in some small way, that some day I will make it thorough the winter without turning on the heat. I think of the pioneers, or even people at the turn of the century, who really had to work to get their heat. Surely they wouldn’t stoop to turning on the heat on such a comparatively warm night? Whereas Matt would rather be comfortable. So weekends, when we are both home, have been pretty warm. Comparatively. Our heat is usually set to 60 degrees. But weeknights it is just me and I regret to report that tonight was the night that I couldn’t stand the cold any longer.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Writer’s Almanac tells me that today is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s birthday. There was an essay about her life at the beginning of the Annotated Secret Garden and I learned what an incredibly interesting woman she was. Aside from being a Scorpio (like myself) she also published her first story at 18 and thereafter never had a rejection slip. She was incredibly popular and though we know her most for The Secret Garden–although my favorite is The Little Princess–she primarily wrote novels for adults.

She suffered tragedy in her life but she just kept going. Many of the discussions about “Magic” in Secret Garden reflect her life attitude which I would summarize as one part “power of positive thinking,” one part hard work, and one part mysticism.

17 ways to live happily…parting words.

Be happy with what you earn, but always look out for ways to earn more.

Remember Suze Ormand’s clients, who would be happy with only $500.00 more per month? All of these suggestions are meant to get you thinking about how you could live happily with what you have. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t leave yourself open to one day earning more. And when you do earn more, you can apply what you are learning now, so your money can stretch even further. Then you can live enthusiastically on what you have.

Embracing bike safety and your inner dork.

Sara posted this comment regarding the riding of bikes:

But the helmet messes up my hair! I want to ride my bike more and then I am stuck…should wear a helmet…but don’t want to look uncool. And then again I don’t want the contents of my skull spread out all over the road some day. See my conundrum?

It is a conundrum and I would by lying if I said that I haven’t struggled with it myself. The fact is that as cool as bicycling is, to be a safe biker you have to take the deep breath and choose to be the dork. It probably varies from city to city, but in Portland the coolest biker is some hipster chick (or guy) who wears skinny black pants and a dark sweatshirt, both of which gap to show their nifty back tattoo, and rides a fixie (fixed gear, one speed bike) with the wind ruffling though their hip haircut and insects bouncing off their cool black-framed glasses. If they are carrying anything at all, it is just a small messenger bag. If they are riding at night they have no lights.

But with the wind ruffling though their hair they are wearing no helmet and with all those dark clothes, no one can see them and with their back tattoo exposed they are getting cold and with only one gear it is harder to get up hills and if they have such a small messenger bag it can’t possibly hold all that is needed for a day at work and if it is dark outside, people can’t see them.

Me. Not cool. But my motto is that if someone hits me, it is darned sure going to be their fault. When I bike, I wear an ugly, but incredibly visible, jacket I bought off a road construction site, clear glasses and a helmet with lights mounted on it. My bike has 21 gears, more lights, a rack, fenders and a basket. Actually, the hipsters have fenders too. The only people who don’t have fenders in Portland are hard-core racing bicyclists concerned about weight. During fall, winter and spring they always have that wet stripe up their back.

The helmet will always mess up your hair, there is no getting around that. And I believe that you shouldn’t be without a helmet, though some would argue otherwise. I propose two solutions: one is to just live with the helmet hair (my choice). The other came to me from Urban Biker’s Tricks and Tips, a book I recommend any bicyclist read. Go on a bike ride wearing your helmet and get really sweaty. Then go to the hairdresser, take off your helmet and ask the hair dresser to cut it in a style that works with the helmet.

Bicycling, like so many other things, is just like high school. At some point you realize that the cool kids values don’t match yours and your forge your own path that follows you values. And just like high school, people who share your values will find you cool, and 95% of the time you won’t care what the cool kids think. That five percent of the time? You’ll feel like a dork. There just isn’t any way around it.