Maria's ramblings...

Today, I volunteered at the 2008 Pug Crawl.  This is an annual event that the humane society has to raise money.  Just assorted booths, a costume contest, a band.  And of course, since we are in Portland, there's beer.  This year's theme was Pugstock: Pugs, Peace & Love.  But costumes were all over the board.

I was the official photographer at the kissing booth.  Though I managed to take plenty of other pictures too.  Click on the one below to see a few more.

It got to 70 today.  Clearly something had to be done about this.  There are two geocaches on Ross Island, in the Willamette River, in the middle of Portland.  I packed up my kayak, headed for Willamette Park and hit the water.



Not surprisingly, enjoying the river was not an original idea.  There were kayaks, canoes, pontoon boats, crew teams, row boats, fishermen, motor boats, speed boats, water skiers, jet skiers, sail boats, you name it.  The speed boats were rather annoying with the blaring music, load engines and big wakes, but otherwise it was alright.

I did see one bird that I'm pretty sure was a bald eagle, but mostly I saw Canada Geese.  Swimming, sitting on nests, leading around new babies.



Ross Island was once a regular island looking sort of thing, but the middle of it was mined by a gravel company for many years, so now it's kinda horseshoe shaped.  You can paddle into the middle where the mining equipment is all still sitting.  I didn't paddle around the middle much, though, having already done a lot before I got to the area where you can go in, so I'll have to do that on a future trip.

While paddling around the island, I found both of the geocaches.  The second one turned out to be guarded by an awfully defensive goose who had made her nest about 3 feet away from it.  She was not happy with me there and hissed repeatedly to let me know, so I moved quickly.  I also brought my travel watercolor stuff with me and did some of that in a couple of spots.  The little journal of scenes around Portland is starting to get going.

I returned home tired.  It was good to be out in the sun on the water for a while.  But apparently, having not paddled since last summer, my arms are a bit out of shape.  Ah well.

At some point in the middle of the trip, I thought about what I was up to - kayaking, geocaching and painting.  Two thoughts about this.  One - what a great day and a great way to enjoy the weather doing some of my favorite things.  Two - cowpiemares should be here.  She would love this too.

When Noelle & I went to Harper's Ferry a while back, we inevitably found ourselves at some point exploring the cemetery on top of the hill.  Noelle suggested we play a game.  Who could find their last name on a gravestone first?  Not surprisingly, she found Smith pretty quickly and I never found Gullickson.  Apparently that's a favorite game of hers to play in cemeteries, as she always wins.

Yesterday I continued the 14 stage geocache, getting through stages 2-9.  It turns out all the stages are in old cemeteries around Portland.  The first cemetery I went to, the instructions on how to find the grave with the clue were complicated and the cemetery was small.  It seemed easier to just walk around looking at headstones till I found the names mentioned in the clue.  Pretty quickly something caught my eye.  There were about a half dozen graves for Gulliksons.  I don't think I've ever seen a grave with my name on it and didn't know of any Gullicksons/Gulliksons in Oregon.  Sure, spelled slightly different, but still.  I never did see a Smith.  I totally won that game.  Even if I was in the cemetery alone.

Just a reminder that this Tuesday is Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day!

The rains of the week came to a halt today.  Warm and sunny.  I had my sunroof open most of the day.

This morning, I had an appointment to donate blood.  Which is exciting because when I checked the Red Cross website upon moving here, it told me they didn't have blood donations in Portland.  Weird.  But when I took my CPR class (which the website admitted to having), they said they had donations there.  In that very building.  So today I returned and gave them my blood in exchange for 2 Krispy Kremes.  A good trade.

Afterwards, rather than head back home, I decided to get started on this huge geocache I discovered in East Portland.  It's a 14 stage multi-cache, but each of those stages has sub-stages.  Today I did stage 1, which was in a cemetery.  But within the cemetery, there were 5 places to go to gather clues.  Each stage is like this, so it may be a while before I finish it.  One of the places to go was this tree, which has taken to swallowing gravestones.  Almost enough to make me not want to be cremated, in hopes that this might happen to me one day.



After that, I met up with folks from class to paint in Mount Tabor Park.  There ended up being 5 of us.  Other folks in class sound interested and may join us on future outings.  We decided that we should go out the 4th Saturday of every month.  We thought a spot down by the river would be fun for next month.  After three hours there, I filled up my paper.  But I don't think it's quite done.  So you don't get to see it now, but perhaps after I've done some more work on it.



By the time I got home, I wasn't feeling great.  Tired and headachy.  So I decided to take a bath.  Still feeling bad, I decided to lay in bed and watch a movie.  By the end of that I was feeling better (still tired, but less headachy), so did some chores around the house and such.

So that was my fun Saturday.  Yay good weather!

P.S. Happy Birthday, highaltitude!

I think the night we have a model is the class session that I look forward to least. If I'm lucky I can do something that looks human. But something that looks like the particular human in front of me? Not so much.

Last night, though, I did it. The composition of the painting isn't great, but this actually looks like the model we had. How exciting.

Well, I did it.  It wasn't easy to figure out from all the paperwork, and the error-ful website, but it turns out that my insurance does cover chiropractors.  So I called yesterday to make an appointment and was there an hour and a half later.  First appointment went well.  He said he thought I should see him 5 or 6 times to fix my immediate troubles and learn more about preventing future troubles.  So we shall see.

Tomorrow night in class we are having a model.  I suppose it's good to to, but I can never get a good likeness and never feel great about portraits.  Ah well.

At home I'm working on a fun crafts project.  Susan was trying to figure out how to display pictures of the many pets in her life.  When I said I had an idea, she agreed to turn over all the pictures to me.  It involves paint and lots of popsicle sticks.  I'll try to remember to take a picture of the result before bringing it back to her.

Also talking with folks from class about meeting up sometimes on Saturdays in various city parks and such to paint outside.  We'll probably start this Saturday if the weather is cooperating.  I'm looking forward to that and glad that others seem equally excited about it.

This week in class we talked about travel journals.  I had failed to check the syllabus beforehand, so didn't have my travel stuff with me, but it was alright.  Carol talked about different styles and materials and showed lots of examples.  Then we set up to take a fake trip, the idea being to just do quick sketchy things.  I looked through some photos I happened to have in my bag and decided to take a fake trip to the zoo.  All these from pictures I took when we went to the zoo in January.

The weekend in Seattle was much fun.  I managed to run into an awful lot of friends.  I even saw Klingensmith.  And got to meet the new dog Ryan & Tara & Gracie just got, Trapper.  And eat some of Rosario's delicious homemade food and Tara's baking.  And watch Andre climb around on the roof.  And go to the park with Fats twice.  And make kabobs.  And all kinds of stuff.

Tonight I had a massage.  Scott is fully licensed in this state now, so I paid this time, but his price was very reasonable.  Made another appointment in three weeks.  He is also recommending a chiropractor.  Not sure about that.  Hmm.

My back has been bugging me lately.  Wednesday night, I was up literally about half the night, hurting too much to sleep.

I almost skipped class Thursday, a little because high school chairs aren't great back support, but mainly because I was so exhausted.  But decided to go, and managed to make it through the whole class.  This week's class was about composition.  She talked for a lot longer than she usually does at the start of class, which was good because I was rather interested in learning about composition.

This morning I headed up to Seattle, not to see the Dalai Lama or for the Seattle Green Festival, though I know folks from Portland going to each of those.  I'm just here to visit friends.

On the way up, I stopped at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.  It was crowded, but beautiful.  Click on the picture below to see more.

Today we went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival.  The part before it started raining was delightful.  A few pictures in case anyone is interested.  (Click on the picture below to see more.)

Somehow I didn't realize that pirates (of the seafaring variety, not the music/video/software variety) still existed. Apparently they do, and they are doing well - "global pirate attacks rose 10 percent in 2007". I hope they still have wooden peg legs and say "yar".

All week long, I wake up to an icy world - literally there is some form of ice outside.  By the time I leave work (around 5:30) it's 60 and clear and sunny and I'm wondering why I have a jacket with me.  This works out alright because it's after work that I have time to appreciate the weather.  I've hit three geocaches after work this week, and found flowers in bloom all around while doing so.

Postal rates go up on May 12.  I have more postcard stamps than I am going to use by then probably.  So here's my proposal:  You, each of you, send me a postcard, and I'll write you each back right away.  Go ahead now.

7023 SE Knight St.
Portland, OR 97206

I've heard from a lot of people in the last week, saying they are thinking of me, there if I need to talk, etc.  I know I haven't responded to most of you.  I just wanted to say that I really do appreciate it (especially the donation in Jax's name to the ASPCA!).  I guess I feel like I've been talking about this for a while, since well before it finally ended, and I don't feel the need to talk about it much more.  While I definitely miss him, I am doing okay.  Just wanted to say thanks to each of you, even though I haven't been good at saying it personally.

Ju and Vidya are visiting this weekend.  Yay!  Yesterday we tried a great new place for lunch and a great old place for dinner.  In between we played cards and found a geocache at yet another great wildlife habitat in the city.  Portland is full of great parks and wildlife refuges and such.  This morning has been lazy so far, but we are going to try to go roller skating soon.  Finally gonna make use of the roller rink a block from the house.

Well I had quite a morning yesterday. After dropping Noelle off at the airport (she is on vacation in PA for a week and a half), I took Jax to the emergency room. I'll spare you all the details (and spare myself going through them yet again), but based on everything the doctors said, I decided it was time to say goodbye.

After work, I decided to walk home. For those keeping track, it apparently takes about 2 hours. I was surprised how much there is to do - bedding to wash, blood stains to scrub up, toys to pack, furniture to rearrange, vet records to get rid of, etc., etc. Began that last night, and expect it to keep me busy for the week.

It's such a hard decision. You don't want to do it too early, when he's still got good life yet. You don't want to do it too late, leaving him suffering for a while at the end. I think the timing was about right. I guess. Susan pointed out that Jax died on the same date as Nebraska (a chocolate lab and a good buddy of Jax's) died a few years ago. Interesting.

Tonight was the last night of class for the quarter, which means we don't paint.  We have a "gentle critique" and potluck.  I decided to make blueberry muffins for the potluck - from scratch with fresh blueberries, which is a first for me.  I put in extra blueberries.  I think they turned out rather well.  (There's a couple left if anyone wants to stop by for one tonight.)

The "gentle critique" is heavy on the gentle.  We take turns putting up all our paintings from the quarter.  You talk about what you liked and didn't like, then everyone else pretty much just talks about what they like, and doesn't mention what they didn't like.  I got especially nice comments on the two I had chosen to frame (the Maryland House and the butterfly on the flower).  One guy commented that the Maryland House looked like the sort of building that was an old Civil War hospital.  Clearly I captured something well because, in fact, that building was an old Civil War hospital.

It's only one week off before the next quarter starts, and I've got one slow art project of my own in progress that I'll hopefully enjoy having time for, and another that I'd like to find time to start, so I can handle a week off.

Jax and I have a doctors appointment tomorrow to talk about the thing in his mouth that keeps growing and sometimes bleeds, and about the blood in his eye which has now spread just a little bit to his other eye.  Though it sounds like there isn't a whole lot they'll likely be able to do.  The mouth has got us to switch him to all soft foods (canned food, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, regular food soaked in milk till it's soggy), which he doesn't mind at all.  The eye has him stumbling around not seeing very well, but I'm getting used to helping him and he's getting used to letting me.  At least he is still getting comments on how nice and shiny his coat is.

Then it'll be time for the weekend.  Yay weekend.  Not that the job is so bad, but freedom is always nice.