Catching Up….

I’m not sure if you will be able to see this video or not…it shows for me. It’s just the view from the house where we stayed last weekend, and the delicious rain outside…not so delightful to those of you not in the midst of a drought. But delightful for me to be sure.

It’s been a busy time around here. Or not around here, actually. Last weekend we flew up to Portland to see my family, and also to scatter my father’s ashes, as was his wish. I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the trip. So do I tell you about it sequentially, or start with the big stuff, or what? I don’t know. Here goes.

Last Friday, after Ted got off of work, we packed up Mulder and drove him out to Ted’s parents’ house, about 15 minutes from here. I had measured out his food, brought his medications (just benedryl for allergies) and some toys. Mulder LOVES their house, and especially their big back yard, and seemed pretty fine with being left there. (Minutiae, you say? It comes into the story later…)

Saturday we flew up to Portland, leaving our house at about 6:30am. We arrived in Portland at almost Noon, and went to my step mom’s (Julie) house to freshen up. Julie is currently cat free, as both of her cats died a few weeks ago, so in theory we might have been able to stay with her, but we played it safe and stayed with a friend of hers who lives a few doors away, as her house is pet free. Ted’s cat allergies are bad enough that it wasn’t worth the risk of cat hair from one of Julie’s recently deceased Maine Coon cats putting him in the hospital. Her neighbor, Marilyn, has a lovely home and room for all of us, and is interesting and generous, so it worked out well.

After lunch, we went to an outdoor dance recital put on by my niece’s dance company. It was outdoor due to COVID, and I thought they handled it so ingeniously…they set up little stages on the center divide of a lovely neighborhood near Reed college, and performed their pieces over and over throughout the day, so groups didn’t have to congregate and be there all at once. My niece was in two performances, a dance from Swan Lake (she is in the middle, above) and a contemporary piece (she’s on the right below) that I really enjoyed about sibling rivalry. Having to do these performances over and over again, with short breaks between, the dancers were understandably EXHAUSTED at the end of the day.

After the recital, we went to my sister Melissa’s house and had take out Thai food for dinner, then went back across town and went to bed.

Sunday I woke early and wanted to take a walk, I knew we were going to be in the car for about 5 hours (2.5 each way) to and from the ocean. I love the neighborhood Julie lives in, and I love the house that she and my father shared. It was a drippy morning, not raining hard, but enough that it was wet out and I LOVED IT. It’s so stupid and dry here in California, and it was a great relief to see so much lush greenery everywhere. Here are a few pictures from my walk.

This is Marilyn’s house, from the street below. We enter through the door on the other side, which is on another street entirely…I guess that makes this the back door? Actually, I know it is, because the door you can access from this side of the house goes into the basement of the house. It’s a very hilly part of town.

I liked this little bungalow, the color and the architecture and the flag, all of it.

Here’s anther bungalow…Portland is a very progressive city, and yet SO WHITE. We saw very few people of color there.I don’t know if this is a single family house or some kind of apartment, but wow, it’s big! I think I could make this work for a family compound and see just the right amount of family, everyone could have space of their own.

I love this house. Again, BIG.I walked down the hill to one of the many entrances to Forest Park, and came across this little rivulet. Again, the GREEN was a balm for me, as it is all dry and brown and dead here right now.

This fountain is always running, and was built in the early 20th century, a fountain for people, horses, and dogs, with appropriate access for all three species. There is a huge city park, Forest Park, which is across the street and all around the area. There’s a story to it, about how that area was going to developed but wasn’t for some reason…I don’t remember, but for some reason I feel like FDR was involved. I love this neighborhood, and I know my dad and Julie did (do) as well. When my dad and my sisters’ mom divorced, they agreed to stay physically pretty close, so it would be easier on my sisters to go back and forth. The most famous person to live in the neighborhood was probably Ursula K. LeGuinn.

The most famous house is probably the Cullen house from Twilight, which we went to see several years ago, but now there is a sign asking people to stay away.

After my walk and a shower and so on, we met up with my step mom, and we drove out to the coast. We met up with my sisters and their families there, and then went out to sea in a chartered boat. The company does whale watching, and also takes people out so they can scatter ashes. It was somber and horrible and lovely and I felt so very sad, and yet there was some peace there as well. I don’t have any pictures, but it was raining pretty hard and we all looked like hell. We didn’t see any whales.

Then we drove back to Portland, got cleaned up, and went to my other sister’s (Maya, mother of the dancer) house for dinner, which was pizza for most of us, though Ted made himself some chicken and veggies, as he is low carb and most dairy does not agree with him. While we were at Marilyn’s cooking and getting cleaned up, Ted’s mom called and told us that we had not packed enough food for Mulder, they needed more. Of course he is on a special food and the only place we know to get it closes early on Sundays, so his step-dad had to get in the car and drive to our house to get more food for him. I felt horrible, because I was so sure I had packed enough food, but I think what I did was measure out the correct amount for 1 meal a day, and he gets two.

This is where the story gets worse…after our pizza dinner, we went back to Marilyn’s house, and I called Ted’s parents to make sure they had found our hide a key and gotten Mulder’s food. Ted’s mom was frantic, it had been several hours and his step dad wasn’t back yet. Ted called around and didn’t find anything out, then he called back a bit later, and she had heard from his dad…he had gotten to the parking lot of our townhome complex, and had a stroke in his car! Thankfully he was able to call 911, and they got there almost immediately and gave him care, and then took him to the hospital. It was terrifying! But he was talking and seemed to be feeling better already.

We looked into flights to come home on Monday instead of Tuesday, but the only available flights were very expensive and would get us in very late on Monday night, so it didn’t make sense to change flights, especially as his dad was feeling better. (Cutting to the chase here, his step dad was released from the hospital on Tuesday, and is feeling much better. Getting some medications changed and so on, but he and Ted went to lunch yesterday and then book shopping for Father’s Day, so obviously no bad ending there!)

We didn’t want Ted’s mom to have to deal with Mulder in case she would be spending a lot of time at the hospital, and besides she didn’t have any food, so his brother drove out and picked up the dog, and dropped him off at our house. A very nice neighbor came over the next morning and fed him and walked him and so on, but he couldn’t stay with her, as she had workers coming in and out to repair the damage caused to her walls from the shaking caused by the huge construction project next door. So he was alone all day, but with her after the workers left. Apparently, he cried a lot and did some howling, he missed us a lot and was very confused. She had her with him overnight on Monday, and he did great then.

Monday Julie (my step mom) and I went for a walk, and then Ted, Maya, Julie and I went downtown…we wanted to have lunch and go to Powells books. We were looking for a restaurant for lunch, and came across a place close to the bookstore, with a sign outside saying ‘Cook Needed – $1,000 bonus’. That should have been a warning for us, but it wasn’t. My salad came at a reasonable time, but I was finished with it for about 30 or 40 minutes before everyone else’s lunch arrived. It took us about an hour and a half to have lunch, which is unfortunate because we were on a schedule and thus did not have time to leisurely browse the bookstore. But we all got some books, and then we ended up at my sister’s house for another delicious family dinner.

Readers who have been here awhile know that my sister Melissa fought cancer a couple of years ago. I last saw her in 2017 after our father died. She wasn’t able to come down for Maya’s college graduation in 2018, and then in 2019, she was diagnosed with cancer. I wanted to go to her, to cook and clean for her, to be there for her. But that was not what she needed. She had family there in town, and needed to be able to just rest and not be overwhelmed by people coming. So I didn’t go. Then COVID, so no 2020 visit. So it was really amazing to see her healthy and strong, and give her many big hugs. It was AMAZING.

And now, the surprise fun at the end of the trip. Waiting for our flight, we noticed that our gate had balloons and a lot of fuss, and it turned out that it was chosen for Alaska Airlines promotion, where every month (I think?) they choose a flight and a cause, and they make a big deal out of it, and ours was that flight. In our case, it was a Pride flight, so they played music and had colored lights on the flight, and everyone got a bag with ‘swag’ in it, including a fan, T-Shirt, insulated water bottle, that kind of thing. Then, they gave everyone on the flight a free ticket to anywhere that Alaska flies (nonstop), as long as flight is booked by June 21, and the flight is taken between August and November of this year. Amazing.

So, we thought this trip to Portland would be our vacation this year…but it looks like we are going to Maui this fall! Yay! Thank you Alaska Airlines!