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November 28, 2006
Weather!
It snowed! There was about a sixteenth of an inch of white powder outside this morning, and I actually had to scrape my car before I could drive to work. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 20s. I sometimes miss cold weather, living in a city that's generally moderate most of the time. But when I say "miss," I think I mean "I'd like to be around the white stuff in a geographically appropriate location." I certainly don't want the cold to come to us here.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:49 PM | Comments (3)
November 26, 2006
Everybody reunites without me
In summer 2005, a bunch of my college friends and acquaintances -- and some folks I don't like, and some folks I don't know -- gathered in Grinnell, Iowa, for my fifth college reunion. Money and a small vacation allowance got in the way, and I couldn't make it.
Last weekend, a bunch of my high school friends and acquaintances -- and some folks I don't like, and some folks I don't know -- gathered in the DC area for my 10th high school reunion. I've got the vacation days now, but money got in the way. I couldn't make it.
* Sigh *
Maybe by 10 years out from college or 20 years out from high school I'll have the resources to finally reunite with some of these folks.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 03:46 PM | Comments (1)
November 25, 2006
weekend update
This is my first four-day Thanksgiving weekend during my career as a newspaper professional. I'm glad I was able to take Friday off.
Our four-person Thanksgiving dinner included squash soup with green onion, a leafy green salad with pomegranite and pear, stuffing, roasted red potatoes in herbs, asparagus, home-made bread, creamy corn and pea risotto, whipped cream with sugary cranberries, chanterelles in butter, and pumpkin pie. There was also turkey for the meat eaters.
It was a bit more food than we needed. I've already set aside leftover sack lunches to get me and Ben through Wednesday, and that's leaving enough other leftovers to get us through the rest of the weekend.
On Friday, we indulged with Sue and John again -- this time, in wine. Oregon's Willamette Valley vinyards have a tradition of welcoming tourists at for a region-wide weekend of dionysian excess every year after Thanksgiving. I lost track of how many tasty wines we tried. There were incredible pinot noirs, which is to be expected. But I was surprised to find good temperanillos and malbecs, too. Sadly, most cost about three or four times more per bottle than we typically pay.
Investing in large stocks of wine is not the wisest thing for a couple trying to save up for a home downpayment to do. We left empty handed and groggy headed. I fell asleep on the way back to town.
Today and tomorrow, we'll be heading to a few open houses. We've got about eight months to go before we're financially and emotionally ready to get serious about home buying -- maybe longer. Until then, we're trying to get a feel for the Portland real estate market, for affordable neighborhoods, for the home-buying process.
Other than that, we'll be watching Blazers games on TV and laying low, yo.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving
I've been struggling to feel thankful.
For the past two years, my emotional reserves have slowly worn away. We moved, and life in Woodland was hard. Jason died. Friends moved away. For a long time, I never seemed to have enough money. Wedding planning taxed my logistical abilities. Then there was the car accident. The job change. The move. Jazzy's sudden death. A decaying house. Landlord problems. Another move.
I haven't quite fallen into depression, but without Ben to help me through it all I don't know how I would have coped.
I felt pretty pathetic yesterday when I sat down to write a list of things that make me thankful, and it was empty for a long, long time. The things I could think of were full of spite -- "I'm thankful I don't have to deal with that asshole landlord anymore." That's not gratitude, that's passive aggressiveness with a hint of relief.
I decided to do a little research on Thanksgiving. Maybe an understanding of what the Pilgrims were thankful for nearly 400 years ago would help me with my list. pilgrimhall.org and plimoth.org have lots of great information.
I learned that the idea of the first American Thanksgiving as an annual national tradition wasn't born until the early 1800s. It was inspired by a feast to celebrate the harvest that we know about through the diaries of early Pilgrims.
At that harvest feast, 50 Christian colonists and 90 Wampanoag men gathered "enough fowl to eat for a week" -- more likely sea birds and duck than turkey. They shot five deer, gathered cod, bass and other fish, and prepared dishes of corn and meal.
That's all we know about what they ate. Other records of eating habits of the era suggest the menu may also have included a Wampanoag stew of squash, grits, dry beans, green beans and seeds; maybe they had stewed pumpkin, and maybe peas with salted meat.
Though this feast was merely a celebration of the harvest, both the Christian colonists and their Wampanoag hosts had long lasting traditions of thanksgiving. Giving thanks was the primary purpose of regular feasts for the Indians, who thanked the animals for the meat they provided, the plants for their fruits, the great spirits of the world for guidance and opportunity. The Pilgrims held religious services for giving thanks to the creator, who they believed gave them everything they had and guided their every act.
Neither of those traditions really survives today. The religious separatist Pilgrims were offended by the consumerism and exploitation of Christmas they had left behind, and came to America to found a more devout community where they would be free from religious persecution. That element of their culture has vanished in an America of consumerism. Most of the millions of different native people in their dozens of North American civilizations were killed, by disease, by warfare and by deliberate genocide of future European settlers.
When Thanksgiving celebrations grew in popularity in the 1840s, wars between whites and Indians were raging. Early celebrations did not acknowledge the contributions that the Wampanoag made to the health and survival of the New World's new settlers.
It's a very strange history to celebrate.
Reading about it helped me understand what Americans may have been thankful for 400 years ago, however. They were thankful for food, for each other, for life, for opportunity. They gave their thanks to God or to the spirit or to the animals and plants. But they gave thanks; they acknowledged their blessings even during times of great hardship.
The Washington Post has started a discussion called "On Faith, where secular and religious panelists are asked to share their views on many questions. This week, the panel is discussing Thanksgiving.
A lot of panelists had deep thoughts, but it was this comment from a random reader -- he says he's a 74-year-old Jewish man -- that really moved me:
"But for me the greatest glory is in the imperfect but continued struggle of humanity to get it right even though there are many of us who would rather be greedy, evil, powergrubbing, or just generally miserable specimens."
--Robert Tichell
Despite all our struggles, the big evils, the small obstacles, there is good in this world. I'm thankful that Robert Tichell was there to remind me, and to help me get back in touch that.
I guess I do have a little gratitude in me after all.
I am thankful for Ben, for the love we share, the support and insight and silliness he brings into my life.
I am thankful for my health, my body, the food that nourishes me and the exercise that keeps me strong.
I am thankful for the privilege that surround me, my family and everyone I know. We are safe, we are warm, we are fed. We don't deserve it any more than anybody else, but we are blessed.
I am so thankful that my struggles -- though they sometimes feel overwhelming -- are the struggles of the privileged, of attitude, psychology and comfort, and not struggles of survival.
I am thankful for Mister and Mouse, and for having known Jazzy. I am thankful for their simplicity, their furriness, their cuteness, their purrs and headbutts, even their silly, stupid misbehavior.
I am thankful for friends, for our shared lives. I am thankful for the shared support that we provide one another, for fun and love and history as we mature and change and grow together.
I am thankful for my family. I love my parents and my brothers and the values and memories and experiences we share. I also love the new families of kind, welcoming and thoughtful Lincolns, Rileses and Bugases that I joined.
I am thankful for the world we live in, the cities, the mountains, the cornfields, the deserts, the oceans, the universe, the solar system, and the stars. To experience and witness and live through a moment in the history of time is blessing enough.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:36 AM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2006
Floodwaters have receded
A contractor fixed our gutters and patched a few holes in the roof, and in a couple of days he's supposed to come back and fix the part of the ceiling that was damaged by water.
As tenants, we're pretty removed from the decision-making process when it comes to repairs. We report a problem, our property manager gets a repair estimate from a contractor, relays it to the property owner, waits for owner approval, schedules work with the contractor, then finally gets back to us about what's going on.
Our last landlord, Mike Selker, did not always respond to major quality-of-life problems, and lied to us repeatedly when he did do anything. We had the lights go out for a day, water service disappear right before major wedding-related events, leaky ceilings, a ruined bed, and a non-functional shower in that place.
So when we moved somewhere new, and new structural problems emerged, Ben and I were really stressed.
It feels pretty good to have such a completely different experience. Major structural problems appear and then are fixed! Shocking!
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2006
Alcohol and creative Lincolns
Hipsters are, on average, skinnier and taller than jazz fans, in my observation. Beer fans come in all shapes and sizes. Wine drinkers travel in packs of thin, well-coiffed women. But my weekend observations and stereotypes are getting in the way of the recap.
It started when the best beer in America arrived in a duplex on N. Ainsworth, carried by a man I like to call "husband."
One of Ben's colleagues recommended the Hair of the Dog Brewing Co, and it turns out you can buy the stuff at the mall on a Friday afternoon. I had no idea that a $4 bottle of beer could have the same subtle depth as a $40 bottle of wine.
Good timing, that discovery. Hair of the Dog celebrated its 13th birthday party Saturday with an open house and free tastings. We showed up, and walked away with a spendy case of the signature brew.
Across the parking lot from the brewery, we discovered Hip Chicks Do Wine, which was open for free tastings, too. We'd found an alcohol mecca surrounded by welding shops and a train yard. We left with a bottle of Rose.
Just as the buzz was fading, it was time to head out for a night of Lincoln creativity.
Ben broke out his sax and joined the Portland Woodshed Big Band at the group's first show of the season, opening for Bryant Allard -- a big name on the Portland jazz circuit. Ben had two solos, and we stuck around for a couple of sets by Allard's group.
Then it was off to the Homeland Gallery.
There we found: cheese, chips, and art. There was wine and beer, too, but by then I'd had my fill. One of the featured artists was Amy Lincoln (Ben's sister). Hipsters milled about, drinking bad beer and trying to look important.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2006
Basketball
Early in the second quarter, the Trailblazers were down by 27 points against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets. The Blazers were the worst team in the NBA last year. The Hornets were ranked top going in to last night's game. I wasn't sure I could stomach a full four quarters of such pounding punishment.
Then something astounding happened. The Blazers tied the game. They pushed ahead to get the lead. The Hornets fought back, pulled ahead, fell back, tied the game. With a few seconds left in regulation play, Zach Randolph landed a shot at the foul line to pull the Blazers ahead by one. Then -- ** bzz ** -- it was over.
Last night's game was the first time in 40 years that an NBA team came back from such a deficit to triumph. The arena was maybe a third empty -- a lot of Blazer fans have fallen by the wayside given the team's recent record. But those of us who were there were exuberant. Cheering, clapping, yelling, screaming. Raaawrrrr....
It was also great to walk out of the Rose Garden Arena, cross the street, and hop on a light rail that dropped us off only a few blocks from home.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2006
elections
I feel like a patriot every time I vote.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 07:05 AM | Comments (1)
November 06, 2006
Flood pics
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:11 PM | Comments (6)
Endorphins help me cope and so does Ben
I went back to the gym today, after taking almost a month off. It's amazing how great an endorphin rush can feel. I'm going to have to keep it up through this long, dark winter.
The past few days have been abnormally torrential, and we're having problems as a result. The basement is flooded. It's got to be close to an inch deep in some places. We put a large tub against the wall where the water was coming in, and it's collected four or five inches of water. Upstairs, a patch in the ceiling is disintigrating rapidly. Chunks of plaster have been falling on our front room rug, and we're catching them in a pot, a pail and a Tupperware bowl. We've moved our coffee table and couch in order to avoid damage.
The property management company that oversees our home was planning to send someone out today to take care of things, but she was in a car accident and didn't make it. The roads are a mess, flooding everywhere as autumn leaves clog the sewers.
Rain's been coming down in on-again-off-again torrents since Thursday. Non-stop drizzle is normal from October through June in the Northwest. This is not. The 10-day forecast calls for heavy rain tonight, followed by: rain; rain; showers; rain; rain; showers; showers; showers; few showers.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2006
Tour our new place
We've unpacked almost everything and put up a lot of photos, and our new place is looking nice, as this fireplace guru should demonstrate:
This has been an eventful year, and my emotional reserves are low enough that even minor stress has been pretty overwhelming. I'm glad we're guaranteed a little stability through Oct. 6, 2007, when our year-long lease expires. I've been daydreaming about buying a house and staying in one place for about 50 years after this.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2006
stress
Today on my lunch break I locked my keys in my car and had to pay a locksmith to rescue me. That $50 expense came less than an hour after Ben and I concluded an e-mail conversation about our money saving goals. At 1 p.m., I was the locksmith's 76th call of the day. He makes between $50 and $100 per call.
"You must make a good living," I said, because I say things like that. If I decide I'd rather retire young, he'll train me as an automobile locksmith, he said.
It rained all day and it rained all night, and tonight our basement flooded.
A half-inch of water soaked into the rugs Ben had laid in his special saxophone-playing area. Drips dampened the bookshelf that holds his music sheets. The puddle had spread its way toward a bundle of wires connecting to a HEPA filter and my ipod when Ben discovered the mess. I don't know where Ben will practice his saxophone, now. He had a really nice den set up for himself.
October was a pretty awful month. I hurt my foot and couldn't run. We got kicked out of a place we didn't like that much anyways and had to hemmorage cash to make a move. The rental market, we discovered, has gone haywire, and finding an OK apartment was more difficult than we'd expected. Our brand-new dryer wouldn't fit down the stairs at our new place, so we traded it in; for $100, an appliance refurbisher took the new model and delivered a smaller, older dryer, which did fit down the stairs. Ants invaded our kitchen. Ben's new commute features a rare failing on the part of Portland's public transit system.
I was hoping November would be an improvement, but signs don't point in that direction.
Today I also learned that my brother Morgan and his significant other are going through their own difficult challenges.
Here's hoping 2007 brings improvement.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2006
basketball, tummy ache
I have a tummy ache and feel overly sugared. Most of the candy is now gone, though.
Also: the Trailblazers won their first game of the regular NBA season, in a dramatic victory. The win was a nice end to an evening that began with wine and journalism talk with a newly married reporter friend.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Take 5 Bars
We did not have a single trick-or-treater last night. After a while of not hearing anyone at the door, I put a pile of candy on the front porch. Maybe I just didn't hear the knocks, I figured. But the candy is still there this morning. I guess Ben and I will just have to do away with it ourselves.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 06:47 AM | Comments (0)