VOZ Pizza Party

The VOZ party is the first time that I've seen both Sarah and Stephen together for quite awhile (it seems like I've run into Stephen more often, which always seemed kind of ironic since when I lived with them, he was always gone doing SEIU stuff). They were having a fundraising party at their house for VOZ. The only people I recognized was Susannah and Romeo, but it was nice to meet some new folks (after all, I don't get out much these days).

I've never seen the earth oven in action (which I affectionately call the big brown egg), but the pizza sure was good. The crust of a pizza from a wood-fired oven is a thing of beauty, and Stephen was creative with his toppings (I never would have thought of feta, cilantro, and corn, but they were very good on a pizza). The food was awesome, and the weather was great, so I had a pretty good time just sitting there enjoying the lush backdrop of the garden (I wish my garden looked this good). There were some crazy renegade chickens from the house next door that flew over the fence, one after another, and walked around quite brazenly, pecking under your feet looking for stray bits of corn (someone brought a big pot of corn on the cob--yum!) and food. I ate a ton of watermelon and pizza (everyone kept plying me with food!) and listened to various conversations in Spanish (my Spanish sure is getting rusty from lack of use!), Fransisco's guitar, and the clucking of the chickens. It was a nice peaceful afternoon, and the perfect day for a garden party.

I brought home a bag full of heirloom tomatoes, which I will be quite happy to eat. By far the best Sunday I've had in a long time...

heat addled brains

So it's day 3 of the 100+ degree heat wave. Not a fun time for yours truly.

I was crazy enough to consent to going to a job interview for a position at Jefferson. It wasn't as early as I would have liked either...so the sun was in full-effect and it was 90 degrees by 9 AM. I had the perfect beat-the-heat outfit, but ended up spilling something on it at the last minute and had to come up with something else. I wasn't as professionally dressed as I would normally like, so I felt a bit self-conscious to begin with. When I rolled into the office and saw people sitting around in suits, I felt like a bit of a chump. Then I felt a bit indignant. Who could possibly wear a suit in this weather? These people must have air conditioning at home. If I dressed like that in this weather, I'd pass out before I made it out of my front door. Besides I had enough experience with Jefferson to know there wasn't going to be speck of air-conditioning in that building, so why suffer for half an hour or more? Besides they've all seen me a thousand times in that building in my normal attire, so why worry about it? The trouble though, is I felt like the heat made me go a bit brain dead, and I felt like I was babbling a bit at times. I felt my brain go a bit fuzzy, as I sat there fanning myself, so I definitely was NOT on top of my game. Oh well. I already basically have a job for fall, but I definitely wouldn't turn down at chance to work at Jeff...I have a bit of a "thing" for Jefferson. I don't know what it is, but that school gets into your skin...it's hard to explain.

After that I went and hung out with Margo for awhile, since I was already basically there. Then I forced myself to go to New Seasons, but man it was hot, and the march across the parking lot was quite uncomfortable. I had visions of trudging through the desert as I picked my way to the front door. I definitely could not resist some gelato on such a brutal day. The drive home was painful, even with the AC on. There was just no escaping the heat...it wasn't taking no for an answer.

After climbing in my kiddie pool fully clothed, I spent most of the evening laying in bed reading with the fan blowing on me. There's not much you need or want to do when it's so hot out.

whiskey vomit

Reading the short story by Jimmy Santiago Bacca in class this week reminds me of something that happens on the way home from class...the wonders of riding in unairconditioned city buses on 90 degree days.

Those of you in the know can probably relate to what I'm about to say:

Generally, riding the bus ain't so bad, really. Trimet's pretty decent as far as things go...lord knows I've seen worse. And I love having the time to meditate on the meaning of life, read books of my choice, and work on poems. But there are the downsides of course, as with any public accomodation. One of them is that combining the masses with heat makes for a most unpleasant sensory experience: bus funk.

On the unairconditioned bus, even with all the windows open, you end up sweating profusely. All your clothes stick mercilessly--to your skin and to the seat. You dread brushing up against everyone else. Eventually a critical mass of competing body odors coalesces (combined stale smells of long term cigarette smoking, effects of various perfumes and alcohol consumption exudes from hopelessly dilated pores), overwhelms the defenses of the senses, and induces grinding clamor of nausea. Airconditioned buses fare little better, as the theoretical benefits of airconditioning are vastly overwhelmed by the force of combined body heat of writhing middle school kids and a veritable legion of carbon dioxide-spewing cell phone users. It seems, in fact, that any movement whatsoever induces a chain reaction of accelerating heat.

Yes, riding the bus to PSU and home hasn't been the most delightful experience. I'll be grateful for the relief of the Pacific Northwest rains that should be coming to obliterate the last of these sun-shiny days.

Timothy Lake Labor Day Trip

Today and tomorrow, we are going on a short little overnight trip to Timothy Lake, which is a part of the Mt. Hood National Forest. I really wanted to go camping somewhere for the labor day weekend, but we didn't have anything planned or reserved, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to go here, out by Mt. Hood, something I've been wanting to do ever since I've moved up to this end of the state, but haven't gotten around to yet.

That's the thing about Oregon...there's so many places to go and see that you could live here your whole life and never see 'em all. What's amazing is that there's so many places to go camping that are relatively close by. I love it.

Timothy Lake lies at about 3000 ft and is approximately 1500 acres, so it should be nice and cool up there. It is a popular fishing lake and various people have told me that allegedly no motorized craft is allowed, so it should be relatively quiet. I'm all about quiet. Along the north shore of the lake, there are lots of inlets to explore, and might be full of crawdads, which are always fun to watch. A major inlet, Copper Creek, and an unnamed creek flow into the lake. There is a footbridge that crosses the creek 1.5 to 2 miles from the start of the inlet. From the lake, there is a great view of Mount Hood. Mt Hood's been pretty hard to see from Portland so I'm looking forward to some close and personal Mt. Hood time...I'm supposed to be doing the "Mountain Meditation". This should help.

This is the last hurrah of summer. After this it's all about back to school, in all of its school-like glory.

the waning days of summer

"Any day that I get to eat corn on the cob is a good day", I said as I sat out on the porch looking at nothing in particular across the street. Not too many chances to do this left in the year. Soon enough it will be cold and rainy.

I'm saying goodbye to the summer. August is officially gone now. The blackberries are withering and drying up. The air has that feel it gets just before fall. I'm painfully aware that this fantastic lull of vacation is about to come to an abrupt end. Soon enough these lazy days of riding my bike and scoring apples will be over, and instead I'll be grading papers, writing papers, and reading books that aren't necessarily of the fun variety.

Ah, it never lasts long enough...

Teeny the Mouse [道のねずみ]

Teeny the Mouse (aka Way of the Mouse)

Normally, most days are pretty uneventful, and today didn’t seem likely to break the mold. I was in downtown Portland, standing under the shade of some trees on the busy corner of Market and 4th , resigning myself to a long wait for the bus. To kill the time, I had been conversing with an oddly talkative and opinionated elderly woman, when suddenly I saw a subtle movement over by the landscaping near the parking garage.

At first I thought I was imagining things, but then I saw it again--a tiny little gray mouse skittered from one clump of ornamental grasses to another. How curious. Living in a clump of ornamental bamboo right by the bus stop was a tiny little grey mouse. Teeny, the mouse was no bigger than the blade of a bamboo leaf and could easily be mistaken for a small grey stone. Only the subtlest twitch of his nose gave him away as he was stealthily creeping around in the leaves, just out of sight of the people walking by.

I told the woman that I had just seen a mouse and she became rather curious and began looking around for it. At first I thought she was afraid, as people often are, but she was not fearful, but eager. Delighted by my discovery of the mouse, she begged me to show her where it was. Having decided that she wasn’t likely to harm it, I pointed out where it was hiding, and she quickly began hunting in her handbag, and with triumph, whipped out a package of sunflower seeds and tossed a few towards the bamboo where the mouse was hiding just out of sight.


To her absolute delight and my amusement, Teeny came out and picked up the sunflower seeds, bringing them back to the safety of the knee-high bamboo forest. I could see him in the shadows, peering out of the protective embrace of the bamboo leaves. When the coast was clear, he would scurry out and pick up another one, running back each time another pedestrian passed by. We stood there for several minutes captivated by Teeny’s antics. As my companion left to get on another bus, it struck me how much she had in common with the mouse.

I stood and watched the mouse for several more minutes until finally my bus came. With a sense of regret, I pulled myself back into the world of human concerns, and got onboard. While watching Teeny the mouse scurrying around in his tiny microcosm, always within sight of the tiny clump of bamboo no higher than my knee, I realized that I had been watching a living example of Kichom’s “edges”.

The world of Teeny the mouse was a world of edges: There was the protective edge of the bamboo, where he hid from the moving legs of the giants who went by on the sidewalk. The function of this edge is obviously protection and safety [安全 Anzen]. Then there were other the edges (around and between some rocks, and other ornamental grass clumps) which were paths [道 Do], as Teeny came out of his bamboo home, he hugged the edges of the landscape features, as he rustled around in and around fallen leaves, looking for food. These edges functioned as roads/pathways (which loosely translates into Japanese as [道Do], and can have all of the following meanings: one’s way, street/road/path, vocation/calling, direction, focus, manner of, habit, orientation, etc.

In the end, I realized I had been watching, not just Teeny the mouse, but ultimately had observed “The Way of the Mouse.” 道のねずみ


P.S.

I was intrigued to discovered that the word edge, translates into Japanese as 縁 which has a host of meanings including: Fuchi 縁 【ふち】 (surrounding) edge, Heri 縁 【へり】 edge, tip, margin; Yukari 縁 【ゆかり】 related to a place; an affinity or connection; Yosuga 縁 【よすが】 means, e.g., of living, Ateji 縁; 江に(ateji) 【えん(縁); えにし(縁); えに(縁; 江に); え(縁)】 (1) fate; destiny (a mysterious force that binds two people together); (2) relationship (e.g., between two people); bond; link; connection; (3) family ties; affinity; (4) (えん only) opportunity; chance (to meet someone and start a relationship)

tour de fat

Well once again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, it's that magical time again, time for the Tour de Fat and the annual ultrafundressupsilly bike parade.

Sadly, other than wearing my loudest pair of pants, I didn't really dress up this year--couldn't get inspired by fasion, but that in no way detracts from my enjoyment of a good bike parade. We had a great time. Word on the street was there were 800 people in the parade. No idea if that was true, but it was more people than I ever recall seeing during previous years, so it felt true.

All the usual merriment ensued afterward.

bag fulla hazelnuts

I had no intention of picking hazelnuts (Corylus avellana) this morning as I did not remember that there were any along the route to the site where I picked the black currants, but lo and behold, there were a few growing there.

Hazelnuts are one of the blessings of living in this part of Oregon. Aside from walnuts, they are the most successful nut tree you can hope to grow here (although lately I've been seeing a resurgence of interest in growing chestnuts and chinkapins nuts). Typically, you see hazelnuts, (tons of them!) growing on farms down by Salem and around the Willamette Valley, but there's nothing to stop you from growing them in other places. They are an attractive small deciduous tree, (most are the size of large shrubs) and often can be found growing together in small thickets. When they aren't full of nuts, they can be identified by their ovate leaves, which remind me a bit of Witch Hazel (Hamamelis) (which also produces edible seeds). Like many other well-adapted plants, they do well in the poor, dry soils that make up many parts of this state, can take full sun or part shade, do well in places that can't be irrigated (dry sites), can be used as a barrier plant, and can be used as landscaping features in naturalistic areas like trails and parks.

I began to notice that it was that time of year again. The blue jays were absolutely mobbing the hazelnut trees out by Powell Butte, so I decided if I was going to pick some I better get about it. If the jays don't get them first, the squirrels surely will later.

Like most nuts, when still on the tree, they look absolutely nothing like those nuts they're hustling in the store. On the tree, they're usually hiding under the leaves, near the ends of branches, covered by a rather distinctive looking husk, that only become noticeable towards the end of summer when they begin falling out of the tree onto the ground. Be cautious when picking them, the outer husk and leaves have little irritating hairs (especially the husk). You can usually pry them off the branches bare-handed but I do not recommend removing them from their husks without gloves...I've learned this the hard way.

A tree has grow for a good bit before it will start producing any quantity of nuts, but if you find one or two good-sized mature trees (10 ft and over), you can usually easily find enough nuts to gather for the winter, while respectfully leaving some for the wildlife to enjoy as well.

stalking Ribes nigrum

After speeding past them on my bike the other day, I decided to go back and fill up on some black currants.

In Portland, at least, currants are easy to find. Currants are frequently used as landscaping plants in Oregon as they are a mid-size slow growing shrub that is highly tolerant of less-than-perfect situations and are perfectly fine with no additional watering in the summer. It is my opinion that in this bioregion, they would make a good home/garden plant to use as a shrub bordering a sidewalk or street as they are not a needy plant. Other worthy features besides their berries are their attractive lobed palmate leaves, the racemes of pinkish flowers in the spring, and don't tend to be messy. Trimet has a good stand of them planted at 158th & Merlo by the park and ride, and you'll often see them growing on the edge of the woods here.

Ripening in late July through August and even into September, they can often be found in rather accessible public spaces and are very easy to identify which makes them relatively safe to pick for beginning foragers.

Aside from making possibly the best wine ever, they are very high in vitamin C. On a rather intriguing note: "In addition to the high levels of vitamin C, studies have also shown concentrated blackcurrant to be an effective Monoamine oxidase inhibitor" (Bormann, et al. 1991.) For more medicinal info on Ribes nigrum, go here.

So I was quite pleased to have a cool cloudy morning free to ride my bike over to a good spot where I could pick them to my heart's content. A process that requires much in the way of patience, I filled up a quart container with plump black berries before going to hang out in the park.

In the next part of my tale, I'll be talking about hazelnuts...

small bites

time capsule 8/15/07

Current mood :: giddy, enthusiastic, grateful. I feel like I'm about 5 years old. It's a good feeling after being stressed out for months.
Current music :: i'm humming my own song today. it sounds like a cross between the humming of powerlines and the heart beat of drums made out of plastic buckets.
Current taste :: navratan korma and a rocket pop.
Current clothes :: the "california" shirt with some pants from the 70's and some flip flops. Definitely not career wear. Way too hot for this ensemble, actually.
Current annoyance :: that summer's almost over, and that I totally missed Japanese Plum Season.
Current smells :: the particular scent of the 3rd floor in the Ed Building, diesel exhaust, windfall apples laying in the road fermenting, lavender.
Current thing I ought to be doing :: just about anything else really.
Current windows open :: a million...I'm at school.
Current books :: Samurai's Garden, the current Harry Potter, and Return of Yin
Current hate :: construction. It's loud, dusty, and makes navigation really confusing. On the plus side there's always something interesting going on.
Last thing you Bought :: a rocket pop.
...Ate :: a rocket pop dripping on my chin, making my lips turn blue with every lick. you can't help but feel like you're 5 years old when you eat popsicles on hot summer days.
...Drank :: green tea with redwood
...Read :: Return of Yin
The most embarrassing CD in your collection? :: almost everything i listen to could be described as "embarrasing" and I'm okay with that.
You ate for breakfast? :: an apple fritter from the Christian Bakery on 72nd St.

Yet another use for Himalayan blackberries

Aside from making a really lovely wine, I have a new favorite use for Himalayan Blackberries: iced tea. (They really take iced tea to the next level because it's got all that berry flavor and is sweet-sweet enough that unless you're southern, you won't need any additional sugar.) They way I figure, if people can hustle it in bottles in the store for a few dollars, I'd be a fool not to make it myself and save a fortune.

Here's the basic recipe:

4 tea bags, black tea (your choice).
2 qts water, boiled
Handful of blackberries, lightly crushed (to release the juices)
optional a small ammount of sugar or honey (if you need it)
a 4 qt pot
(a strainer, to strain the pulp out)

pour 2 qts of boiling water over the tea bags and lightly crushed berries.
Let this sit for at least 15 minutes (but even longer is better).
Then add additional water (up to two qts) of cold water, mix.
Let stand for awhile to cool down a bit.
Then strain and pour into a pitcher or other container.
Refrigerate and enjoy.

The West Coast Convergence for Climate Action

Friday to Sunday-ish, I'm gonna be out on the road. I'm going with a small group of teacherly types to the The West Coast Convergence for Climate Action which luckily isn't terribly far from Shade Central--ahem--Portland. I'll let you know how it goes...

there and then, here and now

A story of JB's reminds me of one of my favorite pasttimes...

The Federal Plaza Fountain in Memphis:

Back when I lived in Memphis, I would ride my bike down Vance Ave. in the summer to go downtown. After loafing around writing poems, or sitting by the river until the mosquitoes drove me away, I would continue on. I would go riding up the mall towards North Main until I reached the Federal Plaza foutain. I would either cruise through the jets of water on my bike, or hop off and stand there until I was soaked, washing all the sweat of August off, while watching the homeless wash their clothes and dry them on park benches. I would dry off on the way back home working my way back up the hill on my bike to Midtown.

Today was nothing like that of course. I think it might've hit 70 degrees at some point in the afternoon, but all day it was relentlessly cloudy in that Pacific coast sort of way; cool, with a fine mist. I hopped on my bike and rode down the Spring Water Trail heading east towards Powell Butte and hiked up the dirt trails into the stillness of the dark forest of confers. Eventually I came out on Ramona Street and gingerly walked down the steep hill, my arm stinging with nettles that I brushed against, and stopped to graze on some huge plump blackberries before heading back to the barn.

#55

"It is neccessary to develop a strategy that utilizes all the physical conditions and elements that are directly at hand. The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses." 55, 植芝 盛平 Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

Windy, breezy, cold and cloudy,
Is this Portland, or San Fransisco-I can hardly tell-
Tell these days if it's August, and if I am here,
Or not,

Pavement wet with runoff from irrigation,
Puddles on sidewalks,
In spite of the longing absence of rain,
Homeless people play musical benches,
With rude sprinklers in front of the library,

Windfall apples lying in the gutter,
Wandering away in my pockets,
Smelling of spice and honeyed sweetness,
I graze rudely in the raspberries growing by the Catholic Church,
Nibble the sour grapes growing along the fence,
Spreading the seeds like a trail,
Passing along the sidewalk,
Past clusters of green homeless conversations,

Everywhere trees burst out of their troubled pavement longings,
A Wanderer in the land of the dead,
"No I don't have any weed,"
Evading metallic voices and automatic expressions,
The underside of bridges aching with sullen teenagers,
The limp grey river,
The rumbles of construction,
Tourist feet in place of spinning wheels,
The din of the passing train,

Government offices and uniformed guards,
"no i don't have an ID,"
Eyes instead of computer screens,
Shelves of books constantly in motion,
Spreading their secrets shamelessly around town,
"No i don't have my library card,"

Sneaking past gangs of charitable solicitors,
Snaking up the Park Blocks past Abraham Lincoln,
Smokers and beds of roses towards the University,
"How are you doing?",
I ask familiar benches, familiar classmates, the familiar laboratory,
And the secretary who holds all the keys to all the locks,
"I am the person you sent this letter to",
I boldly declare in the Dean's Office,
Before sliding out to catch the ferries,
Who will take me back across the river,

Back to Russian kids on bikes,
Dogs and strollers,
Construction workers singing melodramatic songs in Spanish,
Back to fading flowers and laundry lines,
And dead grass where I practice tai chi until dark

Finding Edges

Kichom conducted an exercise today in which he asked class members to partner and walk out into time-space to find edges, to see how many edges they found, to talk about what those edges do, and to report back.

People tilted their heads to one side, unsure of what kind of edges he meant, and what on earth an edge does. But out they went, in pairs.


Me and my partner never made it outside. We walked over to a bulletin board just around the corner and found some great edges. The harder part was determining what the edges do...what function they peform.

They returned, full of insights on the edges of sidewalks, frayed edges of burlap, and the edges of clouds. He then sent them out on a time/space walk—what do spaces achieve and how do they change over time? We were all enlarged by the way he sees the world.

I've been doing this excercize over and over since then, thinking about edges. It's a good daily meditation and really gets you thinking about how to reframe your world and really look more deeply at things.

Cool Guy Mic Crenshaw

Cool Guy of the Week: Mic Crenshaw of Hungry Mob/Global Family Network.
I met this guy when I went to one of the evening programs at SIIC: The Hiphop workshop. Those of you who are familiar with Dead Prez, or like your Hiphop with a side dish of social consciousness might want to check him out. The Hungry Mob bandpage can be found on Myspace, along with his personal profile. It was very cool to meet him at SIIC--on the surface we're two profoundly different people but have some surprising overlaps in our life experiences: we grew up listening to similar stuff and were involved in the hardcore scene back in the day and now we're both educators of a sort.

F is for Fucchi

F is for Fucchi

(Reposted in part from Patti Digh's website 37 Days. (http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2007/08/f-is-for-fucchi.html) I strongly recommend reading the full version on her site, I just have story reproduced here.

This is a story Kichom told us at the Storytelling seminar at SIIC. I'm glad Patti put it up on her website, but I had to repost it here since it was such an amazing story, and I couldn't bear not being able to find it again.

Patti: “Kichom?” (I asked, turning to him) “Would you mind telling the story of Fucchi?”

Kichom: “Now?” (he asked, his eyebrows raising, seeking clarification) “Shall I tell it now?”
...Kichom moved to the front of the class and stood silent for a moment. Then he began his story.

“One autumn day a tiny insect visited my study out of the blue. That morning, I went to my study desk and found this insect walking. I couldn't tell how he got into my room because the windows and sliding doors were all closed. He was only about one centimeter long from head to tail” Kichom said, moving his thumb and index finger about half an inch apart to show how tiny the insect was. “He looked dark brown in color. On close examination,” Kichom said, moving his fingers very close to his wide eyes, “I found that he was what we call a walking stick insect with two antennas from his head and 6 rather long legs for his size.”

Kichom paused. “He was walking really slowly moving one leg at a time. Constantly scanning the timespace he was in with his head up and moving his antennas slowly from right to left and back to right, he lifted his first right leg up as he moved his body only a tiny bit.” As he spoke, Kichom lifted his right arm, bent at the elbow, and his right leg, bent at the knee, making his eyes wide behind his glasses, raising his eyebrows, and peering very slowly to one side and then the other. He moved very slowly, then continued: “It was 20 seconds or more before his first right leg was placed back down to the surface of my desk. Before this leg was down, however, his second right leg began to go up, and then his third leg followed the motion. Before the third right leg reached the surface of the desk, his first left leg began to move upward. This was all entirely rhythmical, but immensely slow and continuous.”

“Completely fascinated,” Kichom continued, our whole class entranced by his voice and slow movements, “I gazed at the insect without breathing. He was about in the middle of the square desk surface. After several minutes of examination, I left the study to do a few domestic chores for a few minutes. I went back to my room, expecting that the stick insect would be still more or less in the middle of the surface. I was surprised to find, however, that he was already standing at one of the edges of the desk. He was extremely slow and at the same time extremely fast. His legs then were not moving, but his body was swaying right and left slowly but continuously, keeping his head as high and forward as possible.”

“After a few minutes of continuous scanning, he began to move slowly along the edge. He moved close to the edge. His right legs were always on the edge of the cliff. When he reached one of the four corners of the square surface, he stood there for a long time with his body, head and antennas constantly swaying and moving. Then he began to walk along another edge.

“I had to leave the room for a longer period this time. When I returned I found him standing at a different corner. I began to read a book sitting about a meter away from him, while I looked at him from time to time. Suddenly I did not find him at the corner—nor anywhere else on the desk. I looked at the floor, and there he was, right below the corner where he stood a moment ago. He did not seem to be hurt at all after his great leap and was up again on his legs, moving his body and head right and left, observing and scanning his new environment. I let him walk the way he chose, and watched him. Before I went to bed, I put him back on the desk and hoped that I would find him there the next morning. I named him Fucchi.”

We sat, quiet and still.

“No, I did not find him there the next morning. I found him near the window, and was so very happy that I found him. I found that I loved him. In the following days, sometimes it was not easy to find him though the room was not big.

“Also I had to be very careful not to step on him. He was so small and it would be easy to flatten him to death by my careless motion. I wanted to feed him, and I gave him lettuce and then carrot. He did not eat any vegetables. When I was a boy, people called me insect boy because I loved bugs and kept beetles, which I fed honey. So I gave Fucchi a tiny bit of honey, thinking that he, too, would like it. He did seem to like it. But after a week of staying with me, I found him sluggish even by his standards.

“The next morning, I found him dead. Maybe honey was not good for him. I felt just terrible.” Kichom stood silent for a moment in front of us. “By then,” he continued, “I was convinced that he was sent to me to help me learn something important.”

Perhaps it was a learning about attentiveness, or that giant leap that Fucchi took, the jump.

We sat, quiet and still; Kichom’s voice was small and his sadness palpable.

“I gently held the body of little Fucchi for a long time. And now I keep him in a tiny glass jar on my study desk where he has become my infinite friend.”

Day two: Sauvie Island Odyssey

"When you're on a holiday..." you can set your heart free and go anywhere you want.

"Ride Tri Met #17 bus to Sauvie Island, or drive to the island and park your car at the parking lot located at the foot of the bridge. The most popular ride is the 12-mile loop around the lower end of the island comprised of Sauvie Island Road, Reeder Road, and Gillihan Road." -http://www.sauvieisland.org

"You can't find the words to say, All the things that come to you..." It's funny how you can't really put feelings into words, if you're having a really wonderful intense experience, you can't really take pictures of it, or capture it in words. Well, that never stops anyone from trying though. Such is life. I too, will try to chase the elusive muse and try to capture some of the flavor of a day on Sauvie Island with no car.

"On an island in the sun, We'll be playing and having fun, And it makes me feel so fine, I can't control my brain" (or my hands, really, they were stuck up in every blackberry bush and cherry tree I could reach). I got lucky, the weather was nice, and I got up and did the bus odyssey from my neck of the woods all the way out to Sauvie Island, which can be done, but it takes about 2 hours. Sad but true. Still beats driving in the sense that I didn't have to worry about where to leave the car. It sure is time consuming though, glad I brought a book. Still, I feel like I miss so much when I'm out there in a car. There's nowhere to pull over when you get a notion to gander at something, and there's a lot of things I've always wanted to stop and look at. Well, now I finally get my chance.

When we finally drifted over the bridge and landed, I got my bike off the bus rack and discovered to my horror that the brakes had wiggled loose and locked up making the front wheel immobile. Silly me, a million miles from home with no tools to speak of. But lo and behold, I did happen to be in the one place on earth where I could fix that problem...I was at the foot of a major construction site crawling with construction workers. All I had to do is suck up my pride, march over there to the office and see if I could find someone with a wrench. Luckily, instead of teasing me too much, they took pity on me and an awesome woman loaned me her toolset which luckily contained a small wrench. I pried the brakepads away from their deathgrip on my rims and was back in play in no time. Thanking everyone profusely, I took off down the road.

The first thing I discovered was that there were native wild blackberries (not the Himalayans that are the scourge of the PacNW) in the hedgerows along the road that were quite ripe. Yummmmmm. Nice to see them out bright and early...the other kinds won't be ripe for quite awhile yet. I stopped about every ten feet and picked them until they ran out.

"When you're on a golden sea, You don't need no memory" Maybe not, but the scent of hay in the afternoon sun drifting out of the fields on the breeze brought back intense memories of the countryside around Ashland. The air scented by hay drying in the sun...oh that's a fine scent. If you listen closely, you can hear the seedheads popping in the sun like rice krispies, it's such a funny thing.

"As we drift into the zone" after the initial burst of blackberries, the scenery leveled out and one flat farm field after another stretched out towards the horizon of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood, both of which can be seen quite well from Sauvie on a clear day. This side of the island seems desolate compared to the other end of the loop where more people live. This side, nearer to the river, is dominated by large nursery fields and plowed and planted with pumpkins and such. About the only people around were a few scattered groups of laborers hoeing weeds and doing other farm chores. I saw an egret nest on a telephone pole, and a redtail hawk sitting on the telephone pole next to some robins. My first stop was at Columbia Farms which had ripe blueberries already. I picked a few and snacked on some of the serviceberries growing by the picnic area and ate some of my PBJ. Then it was back on the road.

Once I got past Columbia Farms the steady traffic of trucks thinned considerably and riding became less terrifying...you'd think that Sauvie Island on a weekday would be pretty low-traffic but it's not. Between farm workers, summer tourists, construction workers, farm transport, deliveries and who knows what all else, the roads get a steady stream of traffic and there ain't much of a shoulder to speak of so it's a bit intimidating for a lone cyclist.

Once you hit the intersection, it's like the island undergoes a dramatic change. On the other side, it's more houses hidden back behind walls of trees, smaller farms, and woods. I think more of this island is part of the wildlife refuge.

On the other side, I found more cherry trees, and stopped and picked those in addition to the blackberries. There was a pull off with an entrance to the marshes so I pulled off and ate the rest of my sandwich and hit the trail mix a bit. Then I pedalled on past the farmsteads I usually see on the weekends when I drive through this stretch on the way to the refuge. I stopped to see if my favorite blueberry spot was open, but it wasn't quite yet. Before I knew it, the Bailey's rose field was in front of me and the familiar junction.

All in all the ride only took about an hour and a half and that's stopping about every 5 to 10 minutes to look at something...I wasn't there for a serious racing workout. Other people probably could do it in 45 mins to an hour. And luckily I only had to wait 6 minutes for the 17 to come and pick me up. What a piece of luck.

"On an island in the sun,
We'll be playing and having fun,
And it makes me feel so fine,
I can't control my brain,
We'll run away together,
We'll spend some time forever,
We'll never feel that anymore"

(Note, I went with Weezer, "Island in the Sun" but I really think it reminds me more of Hatteras than Sauvie, but it's the best I could find on this theme.)