busy times since my last post. my mom just left this morning after a visit of a week and a half, and we spent some time romping around oregon and some time just hanging out in my apartment, which was nice. my unexpected unemployment was a boon for the visit, as it felt pretty much like a bonus vacation in my own town.

during one particularly memorable trip around the city we ended up down on the banks of the willamette, talking to a guy who had constructed a hurdle course for himself out of driftwood, and watching the boats go by. i walked down to see what the hurdle guy was up to and he chatted with us between circuits until we eventually had a whole conversation going about life, literature, and the similarities between the south and italy, which i found very amusing. i poked around on the bank as my mom and he chatted their own topics, and i ended up taking on a small cleanup project because i was overwhelmed by the amount of plastic that was washing up on the shore. but that’s a whole nother post. i think i’m making an art project out of it.

for this post, i will just say that i ended up wading in the river up to my waist and failing to keep my skirt dry, which also meant that i failed to keep my cell phone dry, though i didn’t realize this until we started walking back to the MAX and i was feeling around in my pockets to assess the damage. my phone ended up fritzing out a bit as a result, and for three days went into “car kit” mode, which the internet tells me is a secret LG code for “damn fool got this phone Wet – not covered by warranty!” it also meant that i could only talk on it with a headset, which was pretty damn annoying because i don’t have one. so i spent a few days in text only mode.

eventually it dried out and started working again, but the battery now runs down very quickly and it still seems a little flaky, so it seems the time has come to explore new candidates for cellular companionship. it’s kind of funny seeing as i had been considering hopping on the iphone train as a celebration of my new employment, but then decided against it as a recognition of my new unemployment and the fact that my phone worked just fine, so now i don’t know how to interpret the signs. when i told all this to erik, he said “visual voicemail!!” but i am resisting such temptations, at least for the moment…

anyway, that was a bit more detail than necessary, but moral of the story is: good week! sorry if you couldn’t call me!

on sunday i turned 28 years old, and my mom and i took a lovely daytrip through nearby outdoor oregon. we drove up the gorge and hiked the little 2 mile loop at waclella falls, which was bustling yet agreeably less overcrowded than multnomah falls, and quite enjoyable – an easy yet engaging meander through the gorge that leads to a booming faucet of a waterfall. waclella pours forth from the cliffs into a deep, luminescent pool: large enough to feel somewhat imposing yet with enough of a rocky rim to allow you to get in close, breathe in the spray, and lose some time in the thundering stillness. thanks to mikey mike for the tip, received on saturday as we helped to celebrate sue’s promotion to the role of stay-at-home mom. yay sue and verl and full summer weekends!

after the falls, we kept driving east to hood river and watched the windsurfers for a bit, then came back via mt. hood, stopping for some roadside cherries and driving up to the timberline lodge above govt. camp for the views. the day was obligingly clear, unlike last time i drove through the forest, and hood showed itself off quite nicely. my camera battery was dead but my mom took some pictures. i’m trying to talk her into putting them on flickr, and i’ll let you know if i succeed.

in other birthday news, i would like to officially welcome brandon bartee to the world, and say that being born on a sunday, july 1 at roughly 11 at night is a pretty good deal, or at least it’s worked out well for me so far, and i’m honored to share such statistics with the first child of one of my dearest friends. it’s a crazy but beautiful place you got yourself into, kid, and i hope i get the chance to help you figure some of it out. :)

first off, it’s kind of fun to have your birthday smack dab in the midst of a season of barbecues, fireworks, and strawberries, so live it up!! this year, you should probably just focus on not letting the fireworks freak you out, since you’ll get them on your half birthday as well (don’t worry, i don’t expect you to do the math yet, i’ll just tell you – your half birthday is new year’s day!) so i advise learning to embrace them. it’ll suck for a while to have your birthday in the middle of the summer because a lot of your friends will be on vacation, but trust me, it’ll all even out. your parents have a full six months to recover from christmas and you get solid summer and winter gift seasons, so it’s a pretty good deal.

i told your mom i would look up the story of canada day, which actually occurs on our birthday, and for some reason i had this idea that it had only happened since the 80’s, even though canada is older than that. turns out it has only been called canada day since 1982, before which it was known as dominion day, and not that widely celebrated. apparently the alliterative appeal did not outweigh the awkwardness of cheering on the idea of dominion, so better to have the holiday only one letter away from a popular brand of ginger ale. this is actually a rather telling illustration of the difference between our nation and our neighbors to the north. i imagine that americans would get a kick out of a holiday called dominion day.

instead, however, we have plain ol’ independence day, and that will always overshadow your birthday in good ways and bad. people will already be committed to parties on the nearby weekends, but there will also often be a long weekend, and sometimes you can get bigger parties out of combining the two, which is a score.

on the whole i think it’s good to be prompted to contemplate our country’s growth so close on the heels of contemplating our own, but i also think it’s good to not cram too many topics into one blog post, so this morning i will end my birthday missive and leave us each to our own pursuits. you take milk; i’ll get strawberries.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 7:18 am and is filed under family, things i do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.