The local meme seems to be the word mashup "Juneuary". That's how we seem to be referring to the winter-like, Pineapple Express-style, incessant, crazy-making, depressing, endless pipeload of South Pacific moisture in the jet stream, aimed squarely at the Portland metro area for almost TWO WEEKS NOW!
Looking at the weather, we have ANOTHER WEEK TO GO!
<sigh>
On Saturday, we got a break in the constant downpours and found ourselves under mostly sunny skies. After two weeks of temperatures that barely cracked 60 degrees, the thermometer instantly bounded up to a shirtsleeve mid-70s. Oh. My. Gosh. It was like coming out of a bomb shelter and into the world again. I told our exchange student, Jin, that this is how our Junes are supposed to be, that the weather systems full of Fiji Water that won't go away are the culprit. That, as soon as they stop, our weather will be just like Saturday. I could tell… he wanted to believe.
Well, we had the chance to make the best of the sunny Saturday.
The Typhoon was invited to help as the ground crew for a local balloon pilot. We took them up on the offer, arriving at the launch location at 5am, dressed warmly, interested, and completely untrained. The untrained part didn't take long. With the quiet help of the two experienced ground crew folk, we all helped set up the basket, unfurl the balloon envelope, hook everything up, inflate the balloon with cold air, and hang on while the pilot heated the air to create lift. Then, we all piled in the chase vehicle and rode to the landing point, where we got to help land the balloon, take the balloon down, pack up the envelope and put everything in the trailer. From start to finish? 90 minutes. We were back at the launch point, standing at our car, just before 8am.
The kids and Catherine had a lot of fun. They thought it was great fun to have jobs like scurrying under the envelope while it inflated, thereby helping the balloon fill faster. They also liked how cool it was to catch the balloon when it landed, and to bundle it up.
With an adventure like ground crew out of the way, we got on with our day in the sunshine! For the girls, that included sewing a pioneer style dress for M's upcoming 'museum day' at school. Her class is putting on a Museum for Oregon Trail pioneers. M will be a docent, representing a young girl on the trail with her family. She wanted a pioneer dress. C and M used the weekend to make one.
For my part, I worked to get things ready to go in the yard. Mowed grass? Check. Installed the new pipe trellis for the wisteria? Check. Build the bench for the front yard? Check. Do all the other kitchen-related tasks while C and M made a dress? Check.
Now, if this all weren't enough, C has also been engaged in buying and selling furniture. I think Juneuary finally got to her. She embarked on a Craigslist binge, buying a round dining table, a hand-painted, funky-fun table for the kitchen nook, and brightly colored used living room furniture. Now, she's either sold or posted all the replaced furniture on craigslist. Gone (or soon to be gone) are the pub table (bummer), the 20 year old leather couch, and the kitchen table we bought back in the Fall. Take the money C can get for the furniture we have, and subtract what she paid for the 'new' stuff, and she's turned over the furnishings for most of the main floor of the house for about $150 out of pocket.
So Saturday had room preparation included – clear the rooms of the old furniture and – in the case of the dining room – receive the furniture.
By dinner time on Saturday, the Balloon pilot had emailed us official forms to fill out, thereby making us official ground crew helpers in the future. It would seem that we did an okay job!
Jin helped us move things as needed. Then, he spent Saturday afternoon and evening with a PIA group event at the Rose Festival, along with many of his international student colleagues. Late in the evening, we received a phone call that two of Jin's friends had missed the last bus to their respective neighborhoods and could we put them up downstairs for the night. C agreed, and made out the hide-a-bed. The friends then left at about 8am on Sunday morning. I never saw them, but C did. Their departure was my gentle wakeup to Sunday morning and the new day's activities.
Sunday, we rented a U-Haul and picked up the living room furniture from NE Portland.
Sunday. Ah yes, Sunday. The wonder sunny Saturday weather didn't hold. So Sunday, we picked up the living room furniture in a torrential downpour. I rented the truck, then stopped by the house to gather up Jin. As I pulled in to our driveway, I noticed something weird across the street. See, directly across the street from us is a short embankment with trees on it. The embankment goes up about 20 feet, then stops at another road above. What struck me was that lots of very muddy water was streaming out from a spot in the embankment where water had never streamed out before. The sudden emergence of muddy water from a hillside like that is an early warning sign of a landslide. Local authorities have been warning us that the ground is SO saturated now, that water has virtually nowhere to go. That creates the opportunity for chunks of hillside to actually start floating and sliding. Nothing has come of that spot so far, but we're watching it carefully. It's in a location where, if it slides, no homes should be directly impacted. Still, there are trees and power lines all in that tight space. A slide could be ugly in the short-term.
Jin and I drove in the downpour to NE Portland, where we picked up the furniture – a blue couch, a red love seat, and a yellow easy chair. We got the furniture home just in time to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa, who borrowed the kids for a family reunion picnic at Champoeg Park. Yes, in the rain. That, of course, left room for C and I to see the matinee performance of Oregon Ballet Theater's Bolero downtown. Lovely, that.
I liked Bolero very much (Bolero promotional image from www.obt.org) I didn't care so much for Hush, though. I don't know why. Originally debuted by OBT in 2009 , the choreography for Hush was complicated and unexpected, which should have been interesting to me. The performance showed clear mastery of the work. But I had difficulty 'feeling' the piece. Then again, maybe I didn't have any difficulty at all – detachment, loneliness and disappointment seemed to be themes to the piece. Perhaps I felt it just like I was supposed to feel it. It provoked internal thought, that much is certain (link to Hush review in The Oregonian)
Back home from the picnic and the ballet respectively, the girls struggled to finish the prairie dress by the end of the day Sunday. They were both burned out; neither wanted to finish. M was resisting learning how to sew to help. C was losing her patience and getting irritated; which only pushed M away more. They ultimately worked it out, but we had to frame the work for M – by age 9, a pioneer girl would already be expected to perform basic sewing tasks within the family. That helped her connect a bit better, I think.
Finally, with the dress done enough, C turned her attention to the kitchen table. At some point, the top of the kitchen table had been painted in a Memphis-meets-Picasso style. It's fun, casual. Except, that the leaf hadn't been painted at all. So, C put the leaf into the table, and penciled in a design that connected the two sides. In the center she plans to include a Dr Seuss quote that reads:
"Be you… those who matter don't mind, and those who mind, don't matter."
By late Sunday, she'd put down a base coat and had started on the background fields. I think she's rather excited about doing this to the table. And you know… based on the style and colors of the new living room furnishings, as well as the crazy style of the table, there's a sophisticated bit of Seuss-meets-Cubism in the whole room now. It's really kind of fun. And different. And it cost us effectively nothing to live with it for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment