Start of Porch Season

At last, ma cherie, it is time for the languid and curried hours of porch love---oh, how we have missed you, fickle mistress, during your endless stay in your sister Persephone's guest cottage in Hades, finally over until October.

Yet you taunt us in February, a lozenge of warmth from two until five on a Wednesday afternoon, only to flit off again with the giggle of a teenage girl--so cruel, yet so delicious. It helped me remember the winter sun in the tropics, also gold and cool, burnishing the world with an amber glow before suddenly slipping away behind a man-o-war cloud.

In March there were a few false starts, one splendid stretch on a Saturday afternoon that tanned the tops of my feet, and I succumbed to the decadence completely by dozing off for an hour or so. My anxiety was gently treated by these brief embraces and promises of an extended stay soon, perhaps with your next visit. My role as the porch priestess was to keep the watch for the first hint of clear blue skies after one pm, have some urgent reading material ready, some cold and refreshing liquid tribute accessible, and position the solar seating at the correct angle to the position of the sun. I take my duties seriously.

Finally, Enchanted April, as you began to venture away from your winter digs more frequently, dragging out those last damp goodbyes with the Hades', with some hail and sideways freezing rainy days tossed in just because you can, because your games always turn out so beautifully in May, because you know we can't help ourselves that we love you, tolerate the infidelity each fall, and will always make ready the best chambers in our hearts for you. That first day-long picnic with you in May, those endless warm days in June reading poetry from the inside of my eyelids to you while I hover in the still blue air---I live for this, and you know it.

Why do I fight you? So silly of me, but there is work for me to do, tasks of living with my feet on the ground that must be done, reading and cleaning and working for that coin and paper that mean so much down here. But you don't understand, you are the ultimate source of energy, of light, what makes everything else go.

I know it. And left the tropics in spite of it, and there are rare times when I remember that day of my first summer there, in early July, when the humidity was so high, and I had no shadow standing by that giant fuschia bouganvilla. I looked around and the sky was bleached white, there was no blue, yet no clouds at all, the light was coming from right over my head and pressed down like a white-hot anvil, the only shadows were lying deep under a giant banyan grove across the white coral dirt alley. There wasn't even a breath of air or breeze, the palm fronds hung heavy and slack like sweaty hands. Nothing moved, the white heat shimmered and I could feel my bones melting. Complete seduction, I was now forever a servant to the rays of the sun and follower of the changing light.

Serious Deja-vu

These moments keep happening to me, but I have learned to just roll with it, and not try to explain it anymore, the weird looks from people started to get to me.

Again today, standing talking to someone, great conversation, making meaningful connections with new people, and that almost-creepy wave came over me from behind my head and washed out past us to sweep up the entire roomful of people, to splash up along the walls then out the doorway. This has so already happened to me, right here right now, with this person, with that feeble light from the grown-over window, the mid-century furniture, I know what that person is going to say next---bang, there it is, the other person has to go, I say my line, we laugh...

When I get home, I write my best friend that a current of low resistance is happening right now, that a step in this certain direction is the right step for me, there's no fighting against anything, whatever "the Flow" is for an individual, I seem to be in mine. My friend has always been great at surfing that momentum in her own life, willing to work hard, but knowing when to ride a high tide. For many years, I was not knowing how to do that, although she's been a great friend who's always leading by example. And she's humble about it, too. The magnitude of the pure relief I experience when looking at today versus last year or last decade, flabbergasts me. She laughs when I tell her; "That's the pay-off for all that thrashing around back then girlfriend!" she cackles. Like a spooky reflection, I remember hanging out together by her fireplace at her old place in Florida, a few beers gone and more in the fridge, and we wove out our visions for the Good Life in our futures. She was going back West, New Mexico or Colorado, and she wanted horses and two kids, Sam Elliott in the saddle and the mountains on the edge of her acres. She was going to let her hair fly in the dry wind and get all that South Florida humidity out of her system and her books. Plant a million bulbs and some trees, and grow herbs on her front porch, and have about three dogs.

We were all so much more Florida then, though we fought against it. Not in the right element.

I wanted to have a funky artsy place in an old farmhouse or bungalow with a big porch, some cats, room for all my books yet walls for the artwork, ground to get some tomatoes, herbs and flowers going, windchimes and suncatchers, music and light, writing and school, no suburban ambitions or homeowners' associations, cool neighbors and be either in Provence or Northern California probably, somewhere with ocean, mountains, woods, and decent coffeehouses and art film theaters.

Our enchantments must have flown up that chimney and started the winds of change to blow. Other than the Sam Elliott part, she's pretty much right where she saw herself back then, including her nephew being her other kid in the house. Slick maneuvering, there. And it didn't even take her ten years to do it all. Or me, either, and I can still afford Portland.

So the Deja-vu thing is not too scary to me. It's usually always a good re-run. Foreshadowing or looking back, it's the same loop, I get it now.

Ay, Carumba!

...I can't put in the Spanish inverted exclamation point, but it's implied, okay?

Semana Numero Dos is now history, and I have a legal holiday long weekend to spend like a student. 'Cause that's what I am! I had some beer, and watched the last episode of my telenovela "Amar sin Limites" last night, with every woman of child-bearing age either about to pop or holding a newborn, the single women having weddings, and the people over 50 holding their grandchildren and smiling. And the evil characters living a life of shame or dead, the bad always get punished, and forgiven before they die. Now I'm down to only one show, 9pm on Univision, the costume epic of colonial Mexico, with amazing estates, horses and carriages, gowns and pirate attire, aging conquistadores and their willful children...Pasion. Pretty much sums it up, really.

School so far is amazing, I'm keeping up on the reading, and I had a chance to meet with one of my professors who is the head of the archaeology dept. for 30 minutes of course advising, she was very helpful. She was trying to encourage me to take the two statistics classes, but honestly, it's not likely, not when there's two alternatives in the Linguistics dept. that have a lot more interest to me. Math? NOW? I shudder to think. Aren't there Excel programs to crunch those numbers by now? We were seeing slides of her and her team in the 80s excavating a site in eastern Washington, and they still had to use survey equipment and plumb lines from 500 ft away. She even had to concede that GPS is the greatest tool ever, technological updates from other fields are being grabbed up in archaeology and anthropology as fast as they come along. More support for my position, I say. Excel all the way.

After class yesterday, I gave myself a thorough tour of the library, got into the PSU student access websites, found the extra material my art history prof posted for us to access, and then found the Chinese and Japanese literature in translation sections and checked out two titles from 18th century dynastic eras. Ever since I read "Memoirs of a Geisha" in 1997, I love to read these type of stories of long-lost cultural eras in Japan and China, I just get lost in the beautiful imagery and genteel mannerisms. Like I don't have enough reading to do right now?

Last Saturday I had a chance to catch up with my pal from the B-store days, Linsey, and she had a new laptop, bitemarks from a Doberman puppy/piranha, and had enjoyed her first non-retail Christmas in forever. We met at a very busy Zell's, kept a table occupied way too long chatting, and left smelling of really good homefries. Smoked wild salmon omelette cannot be recommended highly enough, so so good. She's all in Career Chick mode, which is great, she's got a great gig right now, but I wish she'd get back to writing her blog. Now that she has the new laptop that doesn't overheat and crash, the world is waiting...

Betty finally got herself another dog, my brother and I heaved a huge familial sigh. Since she quit working her part time job after Christmas, she's been cooped up in her condo and going sour fast, she didn't have anything to take her out of her deeply grooved rut. Of course, any step forward is good in this prolonged grieving process for her old dog, and I know he'll be his own little personality and eventually she'll bond with him as much as the other one. Already she sounds better on the phone, she's getting some exercise again, spending more time outdoors walking him a few times a day, seeing her neighbors going around the block, all of the fringe benefits of dog ownership. The puppy sounds like a mix of some boxer, shepherd, shorthair, tawny and about 50 lbs full grown. I told her to get some new running shoes and check the non-slip strips on the tiled stairs to the condo, he'll be a handful for a few years, pulling her around on a leash. My brother and I are so relieved.


Wild weekend, right? Maybe a trip to Best Buy to play with the computers, maybe check out the new Apple "Air", see a movie. Save the homework for Monday...such a slacker.

Beer With Bookseller Chick

Finally, a chance to get caught up with the most famous Portland blogger and also my pal and former assistant manager Linsey. Her celebrity status making even brief tete-a-tetes difficult to manage, and getting through her entourage with a message being almost impossible, it was a delight to be IM'd by L.J. Schmidt herself yesterday morning. You may also know her from her brilliant contribution to the 2007 Writers' Handbook, chumming with Erica Jong, Neil Gaiman, et al. Being so genuinely happy for her keeps me from wanting to pull her hair and teeth out with jealousy. (Jealous writers, a lethal gang indeed!)

Bringing some humble home-grown tomatoes as a feeble tribute, I spied her tall and willowy self on her way to the Bagdad and we grabbed a table on the sidewalk and proceeded to drink beer. This now being late afternoon, I should add. No bodyguards, no entourage, just we two and keepin' it real talk about life, the universe, and employment status, books, and how life is better after 25. I let her go on at length about that, agreeing with her but not wanting to be a wet blanket about the crowding 50 part of this new wisdom she's gained. There's wisdom in Hefeweisen, too, and you can get wiser and still drive home in a couple hours.

We picked the Bagdad because we are both doggie-watchers, and there's so many cute dogs walking down Hawthorne on nice sunny days, and we are both dog-less. *sigh* When she isn't doing a Houdini to get out of her bra while stuck in traffic, or shooting blue comicbook covers with friends from Darkhorse, my friend is looking for some post-retail gainful employment in the publishing industry, preferably here on the West Coast. We both had to laugh about how picky we've become after having some time off, "No nights, no weekends, no holidays, no cold-calling, no commute," and realized this will probably mean inventing some kind of work situation and maybe a limited part-time thing for moms with kids in school.

"Another round, please" as our illustrated waiter-man swept by, a DEVO shirt and faux-hawk de rigeur. He was nice and patient with our three hour squat. The woman behind us with bright cherry hair was flirting with him, and two amazingly clean and ruggedly-handsome men in their 30s sat down together, but my gay-dar wasn't working. They looked and smelled good, so I guess it didn't matter, really. We were there for the parade.

Again, Linsey and I decided we should start a business together, but with no capital and lots of ideas, it's a tad early to draw up a business plan. She doesn't want to return to modeling, and I don't want to be a boss lady anymore. I am not a Border Collie type now. We both hope that the writing thing will come through somehow, as Julia and Natalie say, "Keep writing, no matter what, keep writing!" so we both do. That thing about the money...it may be temping in our futures, a nice office-y thing for a few months at a time that we leave behind at 5:30 so we can go home and hermit ourselves with everything else we need to do that actually feeds our souls.

For me, for now, that's okay, I did a stint with The Corporate Thing already, but Linsey is early on her ascent arc and the heavens are before her. The COOL and BIG job is ahead of her, so I'm going to dust off the reference letters template I drafted earlier this spring for her, and find that logo stationery I stashed somewhere in February.

Good thing I left my entourage at home, so that none of them could see my softer side and use it against me later; projecting all this ruthless talent is hard work.

Belly Full of Beans

Another rapturous morning moment spent in the local Garden of Eden, surveying how the midnight rain refreshed K & H's plantings. So I can be forgiven for grazing on some tender green beans while singing to cats and other Deva garden spirits? I'm keeping your Mojo going while y'all are away. There's plenty of time and many sunny days ahead to replenish your stock by the time you get back. Then I returned home to water the porch planters that were teased by the rain but got no love, and then polished off a few handfuls of gold and red cherry toms. I like this hunter-gatherer stuff. This was truly a Breakfast of Champions.

The tide has turned on this summer, it is really noticeable in the evenings now. Not being one of those folks who hungers for autumn anymore, I am hanging on to this cooler and gentler summer for dear life, the green that lasted throughout, the earth unscorched for a change. Maybe we in the Willamette Valley can slide slowly slowly into a two month Indian summer, some spicy notes, some golden hints in the trees, lots of southern sloping sunshine and crisp blue skies, liquid honey sunsets. No rains, no frosts, no permaclouds, no gray windows, not until November anyway. The tomatoes can last that long without frosts, the ones that were on their way to ripening before the sun fell away. I wish.

This year we are thinking about enclosing the porch with the kind of panels that come down in the spring, so the front porch is another room for all but the coldest winter days. Keeping the cold winds out, and letting the warming sunshine through, almost like a public house biergarten.
What else would we be doing out there in the cold? There are three home brews on the schedule---Rubus Maximus, a ruby IPA for our girl Rhubarb romping in the Elysium Fields;
Zephyr Golden Ale, beautifully clear and bright, but packs a wallop; and Bruno Bitter IPA, a dark and robust strong flavored brew with a handsome head. This Autumn will see us swimming in hoppy heaven, so if you are on your way over and hear Jimmy Buffett's live CD and people singing along to "Cheeseburger in Paradise"---you're at the wrong house. But park any where you find a space.

From my window this heavy gray bank of clouds looks like snow, as we used to say in Michigan. Coming from the coast, they look like waves and waves rolling in on the black sand. Two blocks over I can see the top of a maple tree already beginning to go gold the top three feet. This is a huge Japanese maple with small leaves that look like baby dragon feet, and it turns earlier than any other tree in the neighborhood. More accurate than a calendar, with black bark like wrought iron fingers, the tree hovers for a few days as a glowing lantern, before they all fall at once. Sure enough, it's usually the third week of September, and the other trees seem to take the cue.

Not such great weather for the Hawthorne Street Faire this weekend, however. Cool is okay, chilly and rainy is not. Dang. Lots of pedestrians the past few days, and the street renovation is officially done (fanfare) with new crosswalks that drivers still zoom through, and two more lights to snarl up 5pm traffic. I love it that the #14 is a straight shot downtown, but it takes 45 minutes during rush hour to get between downtown and 39th St or vice-versa. So let's add a few more lights...But I digress. Since the turnout at House of Vintage might not be what we all planned on, I hope once the sun returns this coming week, the newly arriving college kids needing STUFF will come here and stock up on funky with mom & dad's SUV to take it back to the pad. Forget about that Scandinavian Nightmare by the airport, don't go! Don't conform!

Keep the Local Love Happening, my brothers and sisters. Peace.

Day Two on Planet Demon Solar Inferno!

Day Two on Planet, 100-Degrees, Full Solar Array

Do all required missions and exploration of nearby alien villages before the demon solar inferno rises above a 45 degree angle to the horizon. While it is unadvisable to ingest the native fermented barley liquid while operating the valuable TerraLander equipment, it seems to be the preferred refreshing beverage among the aliens here in the most severe heat of the Terra Day. Must make notes for further investigation and possible experiments with this golden grain "water", that flows here like water does on our Home Planet. Instead of layering on more protective clothing to shield them from the demon solar inferno, the aliens reveal almost every fragment of their fragile skins, making almost a pretense of being clothed, whereupon they begin to burn, turn red and perspire what must surely be 100% "beer", the aliens' word for their fermented barley liquid. They appear to ingest little else during this demon solar season, and the shelves of their mercantile hubs are cleared of even the most inferior version of this "beer". As the demon solar inferno lowers below a 45 degree angle to the horizon, the aliens then proceed with another very curious custom, again specific to this heat season, of making flaming sacrifices to their gods, involving elaborate fire devices, slabs of sacred animals, fowl and even sea creatures, again accompanied by copious drinking of their ritual "beer". When their young are present, these sacrifices usually remain on the tame level, but when involving only sexually mature adults, utter mayhem predictably ensues, debauchery, staggering movements, unconscious jerking motions known to them as "dancing", and loud calls to nearby adult groups to "dragyerassover", whatever that may mean in the native dialect.
This planet does not appear to be technologically advanced to the level of inventing air conditioning, and seems content to suffer the demon solar inferno yearly, perhaps providing the aliens with a socially approved season of mass consumption of the chilled golden barley liquid in some sort of as yet not understood harvest festival ritual. Much further study is required here by the TerraTeamScientists to better understand this planet and its inhabitants, as well as some probable hands-on experiments with their curious substances they use ritually---for example:

bar-bee-cue sauce----blood-colored liquid poured onto the animal sacrifices-what does it mean?? More tribute to their demon solar fire gods?
mar-gar-ree-tah--pond water like liquid with crunchy salt crystals--why? which of their heathen gods does this worship?
poe-tay-toe-sal-id---easily prone to spoilage, this paste of ground-fruit chunks and various other vegetables in small pieces with a yellow and/or white gel of some kind is extremely popular, with local variations depending on regional preferences and how close the aliens are to discovering ice and other cold technologies. Usually containing eggs, must be some sort of fertility ritual food.

I will file the remainder of my daily report after spending more time amongst these aliens during this Demon Solar Inferno Day. One of the TerraTeam has to launch a ruthlessly thorough experiment with this golden barley liquid, and we are meeting in the lab to decide which of us will direct it. "Going Undercover in Full Disguise" will be required. As the demon solar inferno is climbing even higher on the horizon, I must sign off and begin my experiments for today. One is to construct a shade cloth to protect the fragile plantlings from the direct rays of the D.S.I. in our PlantLab, also to foray to the other TerraTeam outpost to feed and monitor the cats and plantlings at that PlantLab, and also to run a distance mission to the alien refugee mercantile hub where we have established a stealth location to monitor local alien buying habits and to acquire some of their currency. As always, the TerraTeam hopes the D.S.I. will not harm our equipment or sap all of our precious and endangered Terra Braincells and Neurosynapses. Perhaps the chilled "beer" provides some protection to the aliens in this regard.

Ramblings of a Hop Head

It had to happen.

Two intelligent women. The perfect porch. Summer returns. Long warm sunny evenings. Beer.

Home Brewed World Domination.

Funny that it took me until this revered vint-age to realize what being "hopped-up" really meant. I always felt it ranked down there with smoking pencil shavings or cornsilk behind the utility shed at the back of the school yard, or apple cider left out a wee too long after Thanksgiving. Ye Olde pre-1960s Country Time Highs.

Brewing is an ancient and revered sacrament going way back. I truly suspect that brewing is in fact the "Oldest Profession". Legend has it that in 16th century England and the Colonies, even the Puritans insisted that "Goodwife Prudence" should be an adept brew mistress before being considered as marriageable. That's a lot for a 14 year old girl to add to her already burdened homemaking resume. Even children drank beer, because the dangerous water micro-organisms had been boiled and fermented out of it. 'Small beer', it was called.

Well, we aren't making kid-stuff here. This is "Knock You On Your Ass & Fall Off the Porch" IPA. Suggested menu items would be slabs of roast beef, trenchers of mashed potatoes with gravy, horseradish sauce and slices of thick brown bread, grilled mushrooms and onions, some great tart chutney, and parsnips or something Pilgrimmy like that. For the more shamanic among us, to trip between the worlds as it were, salad rolls and cold Vietnamese noodle dishes would be nice and light. To speed your journey. To the Sky Realms.

The Egyptians paid their work crews in big jugs of soggy slushy chewy barley beer. Look at their little pointy thingys in the desert. Not so bad. And at higher elevations, with no grain crop, they even ferment yak or mare's milk. I think brewing predates prostitution by a long shot.

Personally, I've known dozens of people who may as well have had "WILL WORK FOR BEER" tattooed on their foreheads, they were so unconcerned about any other reason for collecting a paycheck. And in the busy kitchen, it paid to be real friendly with the back-bartender.

So this afternoon, Peg & I are venturing to a Brewer's Emporium to collect some raw materials and soak in the Brew Wisdom floating in the air. I feel a peculiar awe to be a tiny grain in the Great Mash of Venerable Brew Tradition, that as well as needle arts, growing things, cave painting, storytelling, and animal tending, I can participate in another truly ancient and mystical, alchemical art. Making and getting plowed on hoppy barley beer. Better than that pesky Stone Temple Puta thing.