Lemon, rest in peace now. You were a great girl — we loved you. I still crack up about “the special rolling technique” all the time. You brought light and laughter — that still remains.

wm (& hg)

willamette week story

(ps — Gordon Smith, thank you for your help.)

Eh, it’s like my old roommate told me, after seeing the Mona Lisa on free day at the Louvre: “Talk about your unwashed masses, babe.” Yeah, that’s pretty much Oaks Amusement Park in Southeast Portland on one of the last days of summer before school starts. (Would you like e-mails from Chipper, the park’s mascot? Sign up here!)

I have never particularly liked Oaks. The rides, the cotton candy, the dirty boys who work there, the roller skating. Not my trip. We are ice skaters here, you know that, right? The organ music is enough to give me a screeching migraine. The only good part about Oaks is that we usually go for Salvadorian food after at El Palenque. (If you get the enchiladas or taco salad there, you will be happy. Especially if you get a strawberry margarita, Negra Modelo or horchata, too. But you will be missing out on the fried plantains, black beans and sweet cream, and the loroco pupusas with fresh slaw and salsa. Dear God, I miss living by El Palenque.)

I liked the Willamette River below Oaks Park plenty when I was a teenager. Because, as you probably have already guessed, I was a teenage girl. (more…)

Did you know it’s our anniversary next week? Nine years of happily married life!

My sister babysat for the kids last night — we went to clarklewis for dinner, it was a little fancy, but we sat at the bar to compensate. More on that later… The big news of the night was we made it to the theater — the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, right in the neighborhood. We saw Kwik Jones’s new play, “The Code.” It was fantastic. (He’s a Jefferson high graduate — say yes to local artists.)

For those of you in Portland, the final show is 3 p.m. today (Sunday, Aug. 26th). If you can, go; if you can’t, try to catch this show when it plays again, or get on the mailing list to find out about the company’s other shows. It was tremendous, moving, and extremely well-acted.

Here’s a synopsis of the show. You can read a Trib story about IFCC and Studio 20 here. And you better have IFCC’s address, so you can get on their mailing list.

Mr. Jones was there last night, and on our way out I wanted to stop and say something, but what is protocol, people? I always feel a little starstruck around playwrights and actors. Do you stop and say, “Great show, I loved it”? or what? If you don’t say something, will they think you didn’t like it? Live theater can be an emotional experience — sometimes it takes me a bit to come back to reality after seeing a really good show, like this one. The actors, directors and playwrights know this, right?

Please advise.

An interview with our neighbor’s friend’s kid, E, who recently moved from New York to Seattle.

WM: When did you move to Seattle?

E: I moved to Seattle in June 2nd of 2007. This year. Before that, I lived in New York, in Astoria, Queens.

WM: So, did you ever meet the guys from “Entourage”?

E: Answer: No. (more…)

Reviewed today:

(I have a new post up at Grasshopper New Media — it’s about family reunions. Check it out. wm)

So, so, so.

I try to think about Elvis
Memphis
Oprah in the afternoon
I try to think about palm trees
Fig leaves
The creature from the black lagoon
I try to think about high heels
And good deals
Anything to get me through
I just can’t concentrate
You’re all I think about these days

— “I Try to Think About Elvis”
Patty Loveless

I have a stack of books here as high as my left hipbone for review, and I just have not had the time to write any reviews. (Although I have been finding time to read.) Also, my concentration is shot. What with end of summer. Worrying about my granny. Getting back up to speed after a lazy, relaxing vacation. The season finale of “America’s Got Talent.” Excuses, excuses.

Generally, if I don’t like a book I don’t review it. (Stash under “Things My Dad Told Me”: If you can’t say something nice/don’t say anything at all.) But I’ll make two exceptions here.

Robert Wilder’s new book, “Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge,” (Delacorte Press, $23, 307 pages) lost me at “Here, I’ll start out by making fun of the special ed kids. Har! Har!” Rob, it’s not funny. Also, I only sort of liked his other book “Daddy Needs a Drink,” although I gave it a decent review here.

Second, “Husbandry: Sex, Love & Dirty Laundry,” by Stephen Fried (Bantam Books, $18, 177 pages) lost me at the first sentence:

“Let’s start with my socks.”

No, let’s not. And let’s not get into the politics of housework, how women are “genetically programmed” to be quicker-picker-uppers and how “the things that you stress about are not the things I stress about” and how if you’re rude to your wife you won’t get laid, etc.

Oh, and the whole “I would have gotten around to picking up my dirty clothes eventually, it’s just more important to you than it is to me.” As long as men keep leaving the shitwork for women, we will continue to be subjugated and our real work won’t matter (or get done) because we’re kept so busy with the shitwork. Excuse me — your shitwork.

So fucking pick up your socks and shut up.

Now — a book I loved. When I first glanced at Whitney Gaskell’s new book, “Mommy Tracked,” (Bantam Books, $12, 349 pages) I cringed a little. More about Jimmy Choos, right? Manolo Blahnik’s, and the new nanny, and the mojitos and yadda yadda. I cannot relate to those books, I really can’t. (Except for the mojitos.)

It’s not that book. Meet Chloe, Anna, Grace and Juliet, and their crazy, mundane, complicated lives under pressure in Orange Cove, Florida. I read the first chapter, then put it down to call the Pink-Haired Housewife, who I’d given my other review copy to.

“It’s like reading a really juicy grown-up Judy Blume book! Go read it!” Then I hung up and finished the book. The characters were believable, and engaging. One shoplifts compulsively, one is struggling to lose weight, one (a single mom) is scared of dating, one wants to have an affair on her husband, then doesn’t want to, then does want to… will she? It’s a soap opera, but, like any good soap, it’s trickier than just the drama.

You’ve got to have believable characters. We have to be able to relate to them. They don’t have to be perfect, but you have to care about them. Check, check and check. They moved me, these women. They were rich. They made me feel like I’m not alone out here.

And great news! Gaskell has written four other novels: “Pushing 30,” “True Love (and Other Lies),” “She, Myself & I” and “Testing Kate.” Yay!

(More from the travel files — wm)

“Please God, make this a stress-free day!”
My former roommate, praying loudly at the breakfast table, circa 1992

Today is actually… I have no idea. I believe it’s Tuesday, Aug. 14th, 2007, but I could be wrong. The altitude has me a little discombobulated. I do know we’re still in Colorado. (more…)

I write about my Granny sometimes, how crazy, funny and smart she is and how much everyone is nuts about her. Or because of her. And I run her recipes sometimes, too.

Today it’s not funny, or crazy, just sad. (more…)

Thirteeners and Usual Suspects,

Did you miss me half as much as I missed you? I don’t know if that is possible, cuz I missed you a lot! We were on vacation, through Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. It was fun. It was fantastic. It was so much fantastic fun that I am having trouble settling back in to “real” life and instead, am dreaming of this 13… (more…)

(I wish we were still on the road. WM)

We’re not skiing, duh, it’s August 6th. But we did drive through Utah today. Their rest areas are impeccably clean. The cliffs and rocks really do look like something out of a road runner cartoon. We saw a police road block.

me: What, did someone drink a Coke?
Hockey God: heh heh heh. (more…)

Inside
by Rumi

Inside a lover’s heart
there is another world,
and yet another.