Let me introduce myself...

...I'm a man of little enough wealth and taste, well...that's open to interpretation.

Visiting my friend Maia's blog (which is sadly, quieter even than my own, but worth the while to visit for her gorgeous photographs...) I realized that one thing I haven't done is take the time to update my c.v. So if I'm going to start writing here again, I should begin with who and where I am at this time, the People's Republic of Portland in the province of Cascadia, near the end of the year 2019.

I turned 62 this past October, so I've officially entered the "terminal phase" or "descending branch" of the ballistic arc my parents fired me onto back in the autumn of 1957. That's...suboptimal, but at least I lasted longer than my birth-brother Sputnik I, who lived fast and died young.

I'm still who I tell you I am on the cover page here: inquisitive, judgmental, analytical, hard-working. And still husband and father, scientist, retired Army sergeant, and social and political liberal.

I'm no longer a teacher, though. That's unfortunate, because I enjoyed it to some extent. But the time-suck was too huge and the pay too grim. "Adjunct" is community-college-speak for "wage-slave", and I no longer have the patience to do the work it requires for the paycheck it returns.

Physically? I continue to get older and slower. I finally had my left hip replaced this past winter, so that helps, but my "...back's bad and my legs are queer". I'm eaten up with osteoarthritis, and everything, especially on cold mornings, creaks and groans (and makes unpleasant grinding or cracking noises, which is worse). I've got a couple of knee replacements in my future given I live that long.

I'm still a toiler in the vineyard of soils engineering and geology, still where I have been for the past couple of years. It's fine. It's a job, no better than many I've had, but better than some. I work with some good people, some slackers, some yobs. Sometimes my work is fascinating, sometimes drab, sometimes difficult. For every fun landslide there's a day spent with my heels up watching a bunch of chucklefucks pave a parking lot. It's a glamor profession.

Outside of work, I still follow soccer in Portland, both the Timbers on the men's side and the Thorns on the women's. I lost my gig writing for Stumptown Footy, though - and there's a special sort of humiliation getting canned from your non-paying side gig! - and moved over the another blog (called Riveting!, in case you enjoy being bored out of your skull about soccer...) where I do the same thing for the same pay.

What can I say? I like soccer, I like to write about it, I'm often mistaken but never wrong...that's kind of the point of blogging, right?

Outside of that, it's reading; history, science fiction and other fun junk-novels. I get enough heartache from the news, so my taste in literary entertainment is pretty light. I should really put up a post about several authors I've run across lately that are a lot of fun. So between that and beginning to work out again - the hips made that kind of chancy - my idle hours are taken up pretty well.

Family? Well...

Mojo is now in her second year as School Secretary of our kiddos' elementary school. She's the beloved "Miss Mojo" of a wild rumpus of kiddies. This Halloween it was pretty adorable to open the door on a bunch of fun-sized elves and superheroes and Pokemon who immediately started screaming "MISS (Mojo's name)! MISS MOJO!" until she came over and greeted them and gave them their treats. She's still smart and sarcastic and still uninterested in politics and soccer. How we find anything to talk about I have no idea, but I love her like fresh meat loves salt.

The Boy is in his third year of high school, and has entered the Monosyllabic Phase. He's still struggling with his tendency to slack off; he really doesn't like to work - something I recall from my immediately-post-pubescent-period - and until now has done as well as he's done by pure mental throw-weight. He's taking a bunch of AP classes this year, though, and has found that he can't slide on through on pure headspace alone. His response has been somewhat gratifyingly diligent, though, so we'll see. There's a lot of promise there. But at 16? It's still mostly promise.

The Girl...well, I should start by saying that one of her funny things is that she absolutely hates it that I talk about her here. She's got a fanatic obsession that some sort of creepy stalker is going to chase her down through this blog, as if I try and boost my clicks by chasing down creepy stalkers. So I won't say much other than that she's a middle school kid with all that entails. She's gone from sweet little miss to salty little devil over the past year or so. My favorite story from that evolution came the other day, when I was digging through the spice drawer and came across this:

Daughter: "Seriously?"
Father: "What the..? I didn't think we still even had this."
Daughter: "So what is "authentic Asian taste", anyway?"
Father: "Hell if I know. Have you tasted yourself lately?"
Daughter:
Daughter: (licks back of hand) "Salty. With a hint of bitterness."
Father:
Daughter"
Father:
Daughter: "What? You asked!"

She's a gifted artist and something of a dramat - though she's all about the tech side and has no ambition to shine on the stage rather than behind it. Weirdly, her love for musical theater has revived my old affection for the genre, and we've enjoyed several shows including Wicked (which I enjoyed far more than I thought I would given my indifference to the source) and In The Heights.

The Damn Cat is being a damn cat. I don't want to pen him up indoors, but I wish to hell he'd stop killing little birds. Knock it off, you furry bastard.

Oh...and, oddly, the other thing I've taken up lately is...archery.

We have a very odd little, very Portland, sort of place here called "Trackers", and one of the things they do is run bow-making and archery classes for kids. And they also run an indoor range, and a friend and I have taken to turning up there every week and killing targets. It's a hell of a lot of fun for five bucks.

Being me, of course, I can't settle for just plunking away at a paper printed with concentric circles. The fun part is the challenge of hitting some small noisy thing, like a plastic bottle or a cardboard cup. The other day all I could find was a plastic seltzer bottle, so I shoved that in the hay bales and proceeded to twang away at it. Thing is, I didn't want to try and hit it standing up, like you'd shoot can's with a rifle. I wanted to hit it end-on and, more particularly, opening-end on, so I'd have to put an arrow through the 1-inch wide pour hole.

Took me probably a dozen flights to finally hit it.

But when I did?

GodDAMN that was satisfying.

So that's me writ small; I still can't do things the simple, easy, or sensible way.

But I'll keep firing away until I hit the fucking thing.

And there I am.

See you again in a bit.

The Painters Arrive

One of the irking things about home-ownership is entropy.

The damn house just keeps wanting to fall apart. Gutters sag, shingles drop, cabinets bind, and most irritatingly the exterior paint keeps getting more and more brittle, cracked, and flaking.

I was thinking about this as I wrote the preceding post about Detroit; one of the things they don't teach you in school is that when you come to own a house how much of your own free time and labor is going to be spent just keeping the sonofabitch from collapsing into a quivering heap of plaster and wood shavings.

Carpenter ants, mold, rain damage, sun damage, leaky pipes, root damage...every damn force of Nature and mankind seems to have it in for your house, and you will end up spending a bloody fortune and multiple hours trying to beat back these various agencies and forces. The labor feels Sisyphean and the results seldom rewarding; you know you'll be back at it again next week or this winter or next year. Entropy is a constant, implacable enemy.

This week Mojo and I finally accepted that the Little House has got to be repainted. The exterior paint was in horrible condition and since we have the old wooden clapboard siding a good, tight paint cover is essential. So we called several of our local painters and contracted with one to strip and repaint the place.

Of course no household work is ever simple, so when the painters tested the exterior coating they found lead paint at the bottom. The removal and cleaning would therefore have to be done to EPA lead-handling standards, which means this:

And, of course, this also meant that the week leading UP to the painters was dominated by removing exterior decorations and any and all items piled, stacked, leaning, or adjacent to the exterior walls; you can see in the right front the stack of garbage and recycling bins, my exercise bike, etc. that had to be dragged away from the walls to allow the painters access;

Today the guys should finish up the cleaning and stripping and be able to start on the white primer. Who the hell knows how long that will take.

Then it's the white overcoat, and the goldenrod and green trim.

Don't make me think about the cost; as with keeping a mistress, the pleasure of painting is transient, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

At least it got me and the kiddos out of the house Sunday for a bit of a kickabout.

Oh, and remember I mentioned that I'd been working a bit this summer. Well, my beloved old steel-toe work boots had enough; last week on a paving job up in Ridgefield they finally blew out and died.

I'll miss them; they were good, sturdy boots and alas, where come another? From the Red Wing store, I imagine. Another damn thing to buy.

Honestly. You ought to get a new pair of work boots every time you repaint your house.

Tillers of the soil (with cat)

After all that ranting (see below..) I wanted to post a nice little domestic scene, so here it is; our new raised raspberry beds.

You'll note that the vegetation down on the end is different; Mojo planted a couple of heirloom tomato plants down there...

...and her beloved basil, as well.

All together, it really was a lovely summery day today.

The Boy and I played LEGOs and drove around the town (I asked him if he wanted to see the Navy and the other diversions of the Rose Festival and he shrugged. Good lad! He's a chip off the old Portland bloc!) and the Girl and her two next-door friends played outside and exchanged coos over "Precious", the little black-and-white tabby from down the street they have adopted as their communal pet.

So the raspberries are finally in, the lawn is mowed, the borders weeded...ahhh...I feel a heady rush of sweetly urban domestic bliss.

Commo Check

How's everybody doing? Already looking towards the coming autumn, back to school (for those in school, or those whose kids are in school, or those who TEACH school...), trying to cram in the last little bit of summer? Off doing the "late summer vacation" thing, away from the Internets (my family did that for years, took my father's two weeks in late August to travel up to a place called the Watervale Inn in upper western Michigan*)?

Just wondering because it seems a trifle quiet around here. Not sure if all the noise and activity is over at Milpub, or Facebookling, or whether I'm just not posting anything that's drawing comment. But I hope everyone is enjoying a fruitful and pleasant August.

Our August has been a little TOO fruitful in one respect. The plum tree in the back yard goes through cycles of bearing, some years just enough, others a bumper crop that threatens to overwhelm our compost bins. This year was the latter.

We generally try and keep ahead of the falling plums, but got lazy in the first week of August and by the time we caught back up we were overwhelmed. And, worse, somewhere nearby we have a hive of honeybees, who discovered the plums about the same time we stopped policing them up. The bees descended on the fallen fruit and began gorging, and before you could say "little yellow bastards" the back yard was a minefield of aggro honeybees drunk on fermented plum liquor. Poor Peep got stung on the foot as he tried to move the hammock, and I was chased off several times trying to clean up the tempting fruit. But late summer sun and wind appears to have dried up the temptation, and I may be able to gather in the rest.

But other than that, we're thrashing along. My work is still dangerously slow, while poor Mojo's is utterly mad - her attorney boss' mother is dying, the boss is taking time off and the project schedule is exploding. The big Peeper Man is getting ready for First Grade, while his little sister is just her usual adorable self.

With that, I have to tell you a Missy Story.

I'm leaving for work early (as usual) with a silent house behind me when I hear the "thumpa-tump" of little running feet. It's Missy; in the past year she's realized that she can jump out of her Big Girl Bed (unlike the cosleeper-cum-crib she was penned in for her first year with us) and roam about the house when she wakes up. She's my baby girl, rising early and perkily like I do (unlike those in our family who shun the morning like vampires; Mojo and the Peep would sleep until noon if they could) and she often runs out to sit with me when I don't have an early morning job.

But this morning I had to leave, so when she said "Daddy, I want sleep with you in your bed!" I picked her up and held her little body close to my heart, inhaling the warm, sleepy little-girl-morning smell of her, kissed her and told her I had to go to work. I asked her if she could go snuggle with mommy in our bed, and she agreed. So I went back into our bedroom and cuddled her down next to a very sleepy Mojo. I smiled down at the little bright eyes peeping up from behind the falls of black hair and the terrycloth wubbie, kissed her again and said bye-bye.

I went out into the kitchen to pick up my cell and again heard the sound of small feet on the floor, turned, and picked her up.

"Daddy," she whispered in my ear, "I want to give you hug and kiss; can I give you hug and kiss?"

As I carried her back to the bed I felt the whisper-light brush of her lips on my cheek and the "smack!" noise her kiss makes. Two small, fierce little arms went around my neck as I laid her back down amid the wavelets of sheet and blanket.

The morning outside was cool and misting, but it felt as warm as my heart.

(*I should really talk about this place, it's WAY cool. Maybe later this week)

Weekend at the Waldorf

It wasn't just Miss Lily that was busy this weekend. Mojo and Missy went over to Astor School to help with the back-to-school cleanup....And big boy Peeper and I took a load of debris to the dump, where much fun was had throwing stuff and finding out how much the truck weighed......and enjoying the loaders and big garbage trucks.The transfer station is big Boy Fun, let me tell you.

AND after that we got to go to L'Arc D'Or for some mighty fine french fries, chicken McNuggets (which the hell part of the chicken is the "nugget", anyway?) and chocolate milk.

Which, for hard-workin Garbagemen like me and the Peeper, is damn fine grubbin'.

That sounds like the worst of horrible miscegenations between McDonald's and Ford Truck commercials, doesn't it? Eeegah...

Anyway, we had fun, and then I had to take the work truck back to the office. I took my bike and rode back up to Mt. Scott Park to meet Mojo and the kids.Hey, just like the "Tour deFrance guys".

Ummmm...only older. And fatter.

Oh, and slower.

Mmphm.Here's our friend M's nighborhood project, the little triangle at SE 70th and Woodstock. Cool, neh? We loved visiting her when she was helping with the cob walls

And here she is, popping up in her community project like the devil in pantomime! Yay, M! You rock!

M is a terrific gal, and she invited us to, of all things, an Oregon Symphony in the Park concert in her local Mt. Scott Park (also home to the coolest indoor pool in Portland). Mind you, it's been years since I classicaled, and Mojo doesn't know J.S. Bach from Burt Bacherach, but it was free, and it was a nice evening, and so we went.

It turned out to be Big Fun, with all sorts of tasty Peeper and Missy-tempting treats, lots of places to play, music by Portland Taiko (who totally kick ass like a ninja monkey) as well as the OS, who had the good sense to pick fun, uptempo stuff like the "William Tell Overture" (dada-dump, dada-dump, dada-dum-dum-dump!) and skipped the lugubrious Mahler. Here's some snapshots:The next morning Mojo went to her Fit Sisters to work out so the kids and I went out for breakfast, then a looooonng playtime in the park behind the St. John's Community Center, then Home Depot...

Note that the park was jammed: I was amazed, since we're usually alone here. This complicated matters when Peep had to do his usual post-breakfast "emergency pee". Thank god for thick hedges.

One Amazing Physics Fact: small children become electrically charged after repeatedly sliding down a plastic slide. True fact.Still more fun.And still more fun.So we had pretty good fun this weekend. Mind you, I'm still not talking about the part where the Peeper and Missy had their fun stuffing ten of Missy's diapers in the toilet while Mojo and I sat watching the Closing Ceremony. I knew that giggling meant something bad, I was just too damn lazy to get up and see.

Thank GOD they didn't flush it! Did you know that a disposable diaper can hold up to 16 times its own weight in moisture? True fact. Diapers are really amazing. Really. Amazing.

You kids...!

Anyhow, I hope you and yours had fun, too.

Time to go to work!

Quiet Weekend

We had an utterly domestic weekend home.

Nobody went anywhere, other than the Fred Meyer's, Fit Sisters (Mommy on Saturday morning while the kids and I did a WinCo run) and Columbia pool (Peeper and I late today). There were no babysitters. No adult enertainment. And yet......nobody went insane. Nobody prayed for death to spare them from the two-zillionth viewing of "Garbage Monsters" or "Air Bud Plays Beer Pong". Much yard work was done, Missy's bedroom got a little attention (almost all the drywall support framing is in place. We still need to get the damn windows in, though...) and the place got cleaned and the laundry done.I guess I never realized until I think about how MUCH housework we do how much it takes to keep the place running smoothly. The amount of cooking, cleaning, washing and picking up that four humans, two both below the age of personal responsibility, require to live in a fashion other than australopithecene is fucking prodigious. I wonder how we've managed to live all these years without servants, I really do.

And we even managed to stop and have some fun. Paddled in the pool and drank from the hose. Baked cookies. Played a few games.Jumped on the bed. Mojo and Peep rode their scooters. Missy and I climbed the porch railing.So I can say honestly that we had an unrelievedly domestic weekend and here it is, Sunday evening, and I'm pleasantly tired with good fun and home-work, having enjoyed my children and our life together.

The only small complaint - since I'm an old soldier and we always have something to complain about - was that I didn't get to see my lovely bride enough. We need to work on that.

But other than that? Sweet. Hope you had as good a Glorious First of June.

Mother's Day Weekend

I'm looking at my Mother's Day post and realizing that it comes off a little...cynical? Grouchy, in a "You-damn-kids-get-the-hell-off-my-lawn" kind of way? Maybe even nasty.

Mmph. Well, that morning was hell with the lid off. One thing I'm learning about this parenting business is that it's like bipolar disorder that no amount of lithium can treat. Kids, to paraphrase Churchill, are either hugging you or choking you...there's little middle ground. Snday morning they were at our throats. But the weekend as a whole...that was different.

Acually, the weekend started early for the Peeper and I. We headed out for my work with a stop at Beaterville for breakfast.Then there was much fun watching the pavers do their thing (the Peep was VERY excited about the breakdown roller) before stops at the Icky Clown House (a.k.a. McDonald's, or L'Arc d'Or) and Home Depot before going for a long hike in Forest Park.Spring is at its acme in the wooded hills above Portland, with the trillium purpled by pollenation and the maples and alders leafing out in a soundless explosion of green.Peep raced and climbed hills and chattered happily,

...while I puffed along up the steep trails above Leif Erikson Drive, pointing out the land snails, wood violets and old-mans-beard. Peep's enthusiasm for the woods is a treat for me, too; no "nature-deficit disorder" for this little guy.

Good little enviromentalist that he is, the Peep took to heart the plan of ripping up English ivy (nasty invasive thing that it is) and acumulated quite a pile of dead behind him.

So it was good outdoors fun: jumping in puddles and looking under stones, listening to the lazy afternoon putt-putt-putt of the Wilson's Warblers(I love these little black-capped yellow guys. Their lawnmower stuttering fills the spring woodlands in the mornings and they're often the last bird calling late in the day).

We raced back to Wendy the Truck and then had a treat at the St. John's Burgerville on the way home. A special boys' day for Peeper and I.The evening was lovely, warm and calm. We had dinner and sat out on the deck with Missy while Peep played with his trains. I tried to get Little Miss to see the tiny Bushtits she was hearing - it was funny to listen to her imitate their "pop-pop" calls scolding the cats. They have been constant visitors this spring gathering flower petals from the cherry I suspect they're nesting nearby. Not TOO nearby, I hope, if they want to avoid the Cat-claws of DeathSomewhat off-topic: here's two Portland Lumberjax fans celebrating the Jax winning the NLL West on the way to the title game next weekend. Peeper loved my plaid jersey so one of his birthday presents was a little jersey of his own - matching outfits? Dude! Anyway, Pp and I both shout:Go, Jax!The next morning was just a typical Saturday morning at the Fire Direction Center: Missy looks for a treat while Miss Lily prays to Bast the Goddess of Cat Food......as Mommy and the Peeper sleep in, and......Daddy cooks the breakfast. Bacon! Yum...And I should add that after the rugged Sunday morning we had a lovely day. Peep and Mojo went looking for a scooter for her (yes, you heard right. She loves Peeper's new scooter).

While Little Miss and I went out to find some dandelions - "puff flowers" - as Peeper calls the gone-to-seed version. I never fail to get a kick out of watching Missy pull these and try to blow off the seeds. She hasn't quite figured out the blowing part, and usually spits all over the seedhead. Eventually she either waves the dandelion around, blowing off the seeds, or, better yet, finds something to rub the seeds on.

Enter Nitty Kitty (meowing).

She luuurves to rub dandelion seeds on The Nitty, which is just dandy with The World's Dirtiest Cat who loves to roll in the dust and get her fur full of debris. Nitty always cleans herself fairly well, mind you (she's a cat, not a dog...) but that's just so she can get dirty again. Note Missy's hip-hop style, saggin' and baggin' trousers. Thank heaven for high-rise diapers: nothing like two-year-old plumber's buttSo I'd like to leave you with a happier image of a sunnier day, with a sweet litle girl and her flower just like a greeting card. May I add a genuine wish for all mothers, fathers and their children to enjoy each other, and the love that holds them together. "And, though each spring do add to love's new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring's increase."

John Donne