The puddle dancers

a wet saturday on my own

I have no kids with me today. Not much Beautiful either. She worked this morning and this evening and was spending some quality time with a friend of ours in much more need of her time then I. It has been a nice but aimless day. Wandering around the near North East side of Portland left me soaked and cold. I went to the bank and then just started walking in what was then a nice cloudy fall day. I listened to some middle school age kids talk to an older kid about their love for writing. In this case the writing was tagging up walls with Industrial Sharpies but their conversation was enlightening. They were all lamenting some recent "writing" on a neighbors fence. "Residential writing is out of bounds man!" I was out in search of a coffee shop for some reading and people watching, and really just out to wander. I found a nice place and enjoyed a strong cup of some ethically harvested small batch locally roasted and overpriced coffee while getting lost in a book. The book is well written though has way too much penis in it. Every chapter has some new highly descriptive phallic allusions and it is getting a bit comical. It was almost as if the author made a bet with a friend that she couldn't work a penis reference into every chapter of the book. So far I am 11 chapters in and the author is definitely winning this bet. Finishing the last cold drink of coffee I looked up to some increasingly heavy rain. I bundled up against the weather and made my way back to the train stop to head home. In hindsight all that wandering was a terrible idea. I was soaked by the time I got to the train and still had to make a bit of a walk from the train to my house. Sometime during the walk I lost my glasses. They were beaded with rain drops so I took them off and put them in the pocket of my coat for safe keeping. My pocket betrayed me though and now I have a choice between some nice wire framed glasses that are bent all to hell or some classic black framed glasses that I have had for ever. Since glasses are not in the budget until some full time job comes down the pike I will go with the black ones. The digital camera also died this week and will have to wait to be replaced as well. Since these bad things seem to happen in threes I was on the look out for the third one when I read that Tyrus Thomas broke his arm lifting weights this morning. This might not seems so bad to many of you but I just picked him up in a trade that hasn't even fully gone through in my Fantasy Basketball league. I'm probably more bummed by Thomas getting hurt then I am about losing my glasses and I really loved those glasses. They were Converse, and brown, and they looked great with my beard. After making it home out of the rain I laid around watching some football before getting outside to chop some wood my dad dropped off the night before. I got out there right before Beautiful got home from the morning job. That was the plan, make it look like I have been hard at work all morning doing manly things around the house like chopping wood and clearing gutters. She was duly impressed but I might have ruined the illusion by telling our friend Robin what I was up to. Beautiful is now working downtown and I am sitting in another coffee shop reading some more about johnsons and following basketball scores on the laptop. I could do this from home and save the 3 dollars on the latte but it feels like doing nothing when I am at home. Here it feels like i'm out, among the studying masses. Like I'm part of this collective effort to become more intelligent over coffee and indie female singer songwriters. Enough of this writing silliness, I have to get back to chapter 15. I just don't no how she is going to work some sausage into this scene, but the previous 14 chapters have proven that our author is a genius with trouser snake.

Finn's weekend

This weekend was a good one for us but a great one for Finn. It started with a couple nights spent with Grandma in Clatskanie. Papa came home early and he got to spend some time playing trucks and eating crackers. Then Tom Tom and Grandma Sue stopped in on their way home from Hawaii. We went to Multnomah Falls and Finn had his rain boots on and all the puddles he could handle to splash around in. He hiked up the short way to the bridge between the falls and then him and I ran down, dodging hikers and finding puddles. We came back and got a fire going while Finn slept for 3 hours. The next day we took the train downtown for breakfast and found some more puddles around the waterfront. Finn went with Kate to take Tom Tom and Grandma Sue to the airport after a too short but great visit and when he got home Papa was soon delivering a truck load of fire wood. Finn helped us unload and got to hold Papa a little before going down for his nap. Two grandpas, a great grandma, a hike, a train ride, and too many puddles to count, it was a good weekend indeed.

Adventures in public transport

Day 1

With my January All-Zones pass secured I started my new public transport work life this week. I got a pump for the tires on Jesse's bike and a lock to bring with me. The 6:40 train will get me to to the stop closest my work at 7:45 leaving me a mile ride to work. It was lightly raining and though I thought to pack an extra pair of pants last night before going to bed, I didn't remember to actually do it in the morning. I made it to the train just fine and it was running a couple minutes late. I got to the stop by work at 7:50 and was 3 minutes late coming into work. I also had a wet muddy strip on the back of my pants and lost my glasses some where along the way. It was an uncomfortable day squinting and trying not to go anywhere so that no one would see brown stain on my bottom. I made it back to the train but missed the 5:15 train that would get me home at 6 and so had to wait for the 5:25 train. It was a good ride back with some vetern bike commuters that set me straight on things like reflectors, lights, and most important: Fenders! I couldn't get on the Yellow line train that would drop me off by the house so I rode from the Rose Quarter back home up a little hill. The bikes gears were not working and the peddles would slip as the gears caught and switched making impossible to peddle hard. I made it home tired and dirty and having learned some good lessons. I need a bike of my own, it needs fenders, I need an extra set of clothes anyway, and I am going to enjoy this.

Day 2

Knowing that I need to get my own bike and not yet able to do that I left the bike at home and took the train/bus option today. I needed to get the 6:29 train in the morning to make it to work on time and I missed it by 2 minutes. That meant waiting another 15 minutes for the next one and missing the bus connection by work that would get me to work on time. Knowing I was going to be late I sat back and read with the other commuters. At the Sunset Transfer Center there was a fare check, the first one I have experienced in the few times I have taken the train. A couple of people got pulled off for not having fare but it was a pretty quick check. I got a ride from work to the station and made the 5:15 train with no problem. I made it home to Ribs, beans and Salad and far dryer and cleaner then the day before. I learned that 15 mintues is not enough time to get up, have coffee, and make it to the train so an earlier alarm was in order.

Day 3

Alarm went off at 5:45 this time and I awoke with a terrible headache. I called into work and went back to bed. No train today, we will see how Thursday goes.

Moving day has passed

Yesterday was moving day and it was probably the single hardest day of work in my life. I have worked long hours off shore, worked in the heat at summer camps, did some time as a roofer, and even worked a day in the heat at a station set up to get rid of household hazardous waste in 100* weather and even that was easier then yesterday. The day started at 6:30 AM, before the sun came up but long after the rain had started. We finished up after 7 PM with the rain still going strong and the sun long since down. There were washing machines to come out of basements and headboards made of lead to come down stairs and go back up at the new house. It was exhausting and wet and hard but it is over. We have boxes piled in room but they no longer have to come out of trucks through the rain. After lowering the last Dryer down the basement stairs of the new house I went into my new room and felt defeated. I thought I would take a hot shower and then grab a blanket and just sleep on the mattress. I could make the bed tomorrow before Kate got home. I went in and had a bath in the great claw foot tub and when I came back out My friend Carly had made my bed up. I'll be honest with you I cried a little when I saw that. I was so tired and sore and that beautiful gesture was more then I could hold in. Right now we are on the same page with this house and we are really preferring each other and I hope that it will last a long time. There are going to be tough times that come up and communication will break down but I hope we can continually come back to times like this.

Wet and thankful

Storm Watch 07 is back up and running in the Northwest. I’m sure you have either seen the news reports or experienced first hand that last couple of days but in case you are wondering we are just fine. In Beaverton we didn’t have much of the destructive wind of the coast or the saturating rain with the mud slides ad flooding that goes along with it. My parents town was hit hard and I have some family with flooded basements and muddy driveways and this blog’s top commenter, Aunt Jamie, can’t get back to her school in Centralia because !-5 is closed in Central Washington. It has been a good indoctrination into the Winter weather of this area and while it hasn’t been fun we have managed. We signed up for a covered parking spot and there was one right in front of our door. I parked there once and woke up to a note on my car threatening towing. Turns out the spot was promised to someone else and it hadn’t been marked in the ledger. We were given another spot farther away and when I saw the guys whose spot I had stolen I apologized. He understood the confusion and we chatted for a bit that night and the next day when I returned from an emergency diaper run. Later that evening we got a call from the Leasing office letting us know that we can have the good spot. The guy thought we could use it more then he could, even though he had been waiting for that spot to open up for a while. We will have him and his roommate over for dinner to thank him soon but my appreciation for his sacrifice won’t be satiated anytime soon. I am more thankful then I think is necessary and I don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable every time I see him. But the thing is it rains a lot, and getting Finn in and out of the car, plus any other things that need to get out is tough, and what he did made that much easier. I want to hug him and look into his eyes while holding both shoulder and say thank you as my eyes well up. But that’s creepy and unnecessary.

A Sunday at Sears

The rain is here and with it comes a little misfortune. Yesterday started nice enough with both Kate and sleeping in to unheard of times with a little one in the house. I got up first and got right into a football game, gotta love the West coast and the 10 AM start times, and Kate got up an hour later. We had some breakfast and after Finn woke up from his morning nap we headed out to Longview to get a birthday present for Finn's cousin Ethan.

Longview is where you go to get things like that and when you go to purchase it they ask you if your from Oregon or Washington because in Oregon there isn't a sales tax. Unfortunately our Indiana ID means we are paying the tax. Anyway as we are pulling into the parking lot of Target there is a great whistling noise under our hood then no more whistling and all the idiot lights come on in the dashboard. I looked under the hood and saw that one of the belts was loose, it was really broken but I didn't know that yet. We called my dad to find a place to take in the car at 1 PM on Sunday and Sears was our answer. It was on the other side of the mall we were already at so after getting the birthday present we drove the car over to the shop.

Trevor the 18 year old mechanic on duty took a look and saw that the belt was broken and said it would be an easy enough fix. He went to pick up a new belt from the auto parts store, stopped off a Mcy D's for a late lunch and came back to set about putting the new belt on. We sat in the Sears waiting room, Finn pushing his new car around the floor and telling everyone that came by that he in fact had a "Caaaahhhhhwwwww" in a voice much deeper and louder then you would expect from a arian baby of his size. Kate looked around at the sales and I read a month old NewsWeek magazine keeping an eye on Finn. Trevor, the 17 year old mechanic, came in to say that a bolt head broke off while he was trying to loosen it so he would need to bore the bolt out and it will take a little longer.

Kate was back from her shopping boasting of 90% off sale price finds that might not fit now but will be great after the baby and I asked her if she was hungry. At that Finn looks up from his caaahhhwww and starts pointing at his mouth. For emphasis he removes his plug and adds a grunting noise to the mix. Off we went to the food court for some over priced mall treats thinking that we would get a call any minute telling us the car was done. After an hour long lunch break we went back to Sears to hear that the bolt was out, the belt was on, and there was just some tightening to do.

Trevor, our 16 year old mechanic told us the car was ready and the news came none too soon. Finn was exploring the space with is high pitched scream and both Kate and I were tired of carrying him around. As a side note there should be a stroller in the trunk of the car always, always, always. We loaded up into the car and started it up to a screaching sound as smoke poured out from under the hood. Now my one semester of Auto in high school tells me that the smoke is clearly supposed to stay under the hood and if it comes out something is wrong. We popped the hood and sat and waited as Trevor, our 15 year old mechanic, tinkered away.

After about 30 minutes he told us we needed a new bolt because the one he used to replace the broken one was not holding. He was off to Home Depot to get a new bolt and we finally called Bing to come get Kate and Finn. It has now been 5 hours at the mall and Finn is getting delirious. I sat back down with my old Newsweek and did some more waiting while Trevor worked away. he got the new bolt, tightened everything up but found that the Power Steering belt was loose and would need to be replaced. That's fine I will do that myself on Monday just let me go home. I got back int he car, started it up to the terrible screeching and massive smoke coming out and then shut it down again. When we opened the hood the new belt had shredded and the Alternator had seized. The car was not going anywhere tonight and Trevor, our 14 year old mechanic, was near tears.

We pushed the car into the garage and they shut everything up now two hours after their regular closing time. I called my dad to come and get me as I waited out in the cold wet night shivering with my light sweater. A $20 belt has balloned into $200 alternator and the labor has gone way up. We should have just stayed home and given Ethan my iPod for the money that we will end up paying. The truth is the alternator was the problem from the get go but it just wasn't checked. My dad says a more seasoned mechanic would have looked at that right away and saved us the time of sitting around Sears all Sunday afternoon but Trevor was only 12 so he didn't know enough to check it.

It was a frustrating day but also really funny and great at the same time. Kate and I had a great time with eachother and Finn is fantastic in situations like that. He screeched some times but for not getting a nap, being hungry, not being home, and having to stay close to us all the time he was a champ. Shit happens as Forest Gump has taught us and it doesn't just happen when we're ready. Even with a broken laptop, a broken car, no job, no house of our own, and cold gray rain of the Northwest we are happy and hopeful.

Rainy Day

Finny is just up from a nap and noisily slurping down a bottle on the pillow next to me. It is raining and cold outside and we are laying in bed, him in his pajamas and me in my pink polo and jeans. We don't have anything to do today and the bone chilling rain beyond the front and back doors does not invite adventure. Finn will dictate the days events as he is doing now with his chatter between slugs of formula. I will change his diaper and his clothes, we will read a book or two with Finn making up a much more interesting story then the one I am reading off the pages. I won't understand his version but he will make me laugh and then look back at me and smile. We will play peek-a-boo on the floor as Finn tries to taste the delicacies found stuck in the carpet. There will be another nap and more food and all sorts of other adventures that Finn will not let me write about. He has discarded the bottle and is now climbing over me to type his own message out: it reads "Down with e the computer daddy, it's time to play!"