Time for a new motto, perhaps?

In the past week and change, Portland has received somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 inches of snow. It didn't all come at once; it would snow for a day, be clear for a few days, snow again. And yet, since the snow first started falling on December 14, most streets here have yet to be cleared. They're calling this the worst storm in 40 years.

Here are a few fun facts about my first winter storm experience in a place that sucks at winter:

-In the past two weeks I have had four days off (out of seven possible working days) due to weather related conditions. During the first three there was maybe a few inches that stuck to the ground.

-No one here owns a shovel. That means no one bothered removing snow from their sidewalks. That means once the temp got above freezing during the day the snow would melt, and then harden into a citywide skating rink by nightfall.

-Salting the roads is illegal here due to environmental concerns. One would think plowing was also illegal, since I saw but a handful of the machines during the whole of Winter Storm 08.

-Tire chains are not only legal, but they were required on all state highways.

-They finally decided to sand and snowplow Interstate 5, which is the state's main north-south thoroughfare, on Tuesday. The machines started rolling out during rush hour. Some poor people were stuck on the highway for upwards of five hours trying to get home for the holidays. Some ran out of gas.

-Mass transit has been a crap shoot. Two of our three train lines stopped running, including the one that goes to the airport. The usually handy Transit Tracker arrival time phone line told me last night that the buses on the line I intended to take "may or may not be running."

-Flights in and out of PDX were canceled for three days, evidently because every airline ran out of de-icing fluid.

Were it not for the kind Portland citizens who helped push the boyf's car out of snowbanks not once, not twice, but thrice (and who joined him in pushing out a car that inexplicably chose to drive down train tracks last night), I might have started to sour on this fair city.

As it is, I think they might want to change their motto to something else besides "The City that Works," at least for three months out of the year.

TP note: Happy Chanukah to my fellow members of the tribe and Merry Christmas to all you goyim.

Pop goes the tire (again).

Man. I guess there's something with me and Mondays and excessive unfortunate circumstances.

As the temperature last night dipped to a nippy 6 degrees, I enjoyed the minty taste of not one, but two glasses of a friendly goldschlagger with my comrade in our old college stomping grounds. When we realized all of the chairs and barstools around us were on tables and the bartender was giving us a not-altogether-subtle "go hither" look, I checked the clock and realized it was time to bundle up our woolens and hit that cold air face first as we trudged to the car.

We skipped out the door, merrily holding hands and singing to whatever Britney Spears song last unfortunately graced our ears. We brushed off the car with our bare hands, seemingly impervious to the pangs of deeply thrusting your hands into ice-cold snow. The car started like a champ, and I turned onto the street that would eventually lead us to the highway that would eventually lead us to our warm beds.

Except...my steering wheel was strangely and relentlessly pulling to the right.

We pulled over, my comrade jumped out, and said three words. "Flat. So. Flat." Whereas my back left tire was flat last week, this was the right front tire. And it was cashed. We're talking it was so out of air that the bottom of the tire was inverted, as if a giant of behemoth strength kicked it straight from underneath with all of the might he could muster.

My buddy painstakingly cranked the car up with a screwdriver (since I apparently don't have a crank tool that fits in the actual crank) and as we were sliding the spare on, the crank tipped backwards and my car crashed down. This forced us to have to close the crank all the way, shimmy it under the car, and start cranking the car upward again from zero - with nothing but that damn screwdriver.

Then we dropped the car off at the auto shop because frankly, I did not want to even look at the thing anymore much less ride in it. As I shoved a bottle of wine into my friend's mittened hands, hardly a fair reward for the unexpected surprise he had to deal with that night, my mind was split into two emotions: 1. bursting with gratitude for my unbelievably kind friend who has now changed two of my tires in one week in the frigid, painful cold and 2. bursting with the understanding that I really am going to have to learn how to change a tire if I keep insisting on driving during these blasted Minnesota winters.

I officially have a couple crush.

It started with Everything is Illuminated. Then it became Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Now, it is firmly imprinted in reading The History of Love.

It's official.

I have a couple crush on Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss. Plus, I mean, they're not too hard on the eyes either...


Maybe they will adopt me and I can be like their cool friend/daughter that sits in front of fire places with them and reads their books. Of course, I wouldn't just live there for free, I would help them with grammar and spelling. If they tire of writing I would tell them jokes. And I would whip up all of the mac and cheese they could possibly want.

It's ok if I sleep in a separate bedroom because, obviously, they want their alone time. That is to be expected. But in general we would do everything together, like go to the park and the zoo to find inspiration for their stories, and we would rotate whose parents' house to go to for holidays. We'd be like a writing/editing/hanging out trio. Inseparable - like the three musketeers!

*I'm not a stalker.

Bath time, Laura Ingalls Wilder style

Back when I was a grubby, bang-faced child of 8, I used to protest bath time with what I thought was a cunning, ingenious defense: Ma and Pa Ingalls only made their brood bathe once a week, according to the "A Little House on the Prairie" series. I begged my own ma and pa to allow me to do the same.

Now I know why the Ingalls' cleanliness was so sporadic. Bathing without the help of modern plumbing is... well... read on, dear readers.

Our pipes first froze on Sunday. The chill initially affected our kitchen, leaving us with mounting piles of petrified pots, pans and plates. We decided to make the best of it, and since the elements had not yet touched our bathroom faucets we lugged everything into the bathtub and washed it there. It was a little gross, but I felt all pioneer about it. "This is what the Boxcar Children would have done," I thought to myself. "Definitely."

The next morning was a snow day, so I took my sweet time getting presentable. When I finally decided to wash the stinkys away I realized with horror that Jack Frost had gotten his icy grip around our precious bathroom plumbing, too. The water in both the sink and tub was barely trickling out, and what managed to emerge was ice cold. Now that I've matured into a woman who feels absolutely disgusting unless she's laundered her tresses on a daily basis, the thought of skipping a day was unbarable.

I gritted my teeth and resigned myself to the inevitable: I was going to have to take a sponge bath. I found my biggest pot and waited for an eternity for the faucet's little trickle to fill it up. Then I sloshed it on the stove and waited an eternity for it to heat to an acceptable temperature. Then I sloshed it onto the floor of my bathtub. I hovered over it in a vertical fetal position and my frigid flesh shuddered as each measuring cupful of water ran down it. It was miserable. And cold. And awkward. And miserable. And I vowed never to submit to a sponge bath again until I was old. And then I did it again the next day.

I'm happy to report that our pipes are once again home to mighty gushes of heated agua. Never again will I wish to emulate my storybook forebearers in habits of hygiene.

What a way to start the week.

Monday morning I rolled out of bed elated with the realization that for the first time in 9 days, I felt ok. I wasn't coughing my lungs up, I wasn't dripping with sickness. I wasn't great...but I could finally go to work. I jumped in the shower, threw on a nice outfit, and gingerly put on my coat, hat, mittens, scarf, and boots. I chuckled to myself as I walked to my car thinking -4 degrees doesn't even feel cold. Take this "winter".

Oops! What's that? I need some gas? No problem. I'm running early! A stop at the gas station is totally doable. I drive 8 blocks to the gas station, hop out of my car, and realize that my little gas door is frozen shut. Oh silly gas door. You're no match for me. I go back to the car and grab my window scraper to pry the door open. Except there's this thickly-accented guy yelling something through the loudspeaker from inside of the station. And he KEEPS SHOUTING "Something, something, lady, something! HEY LADY something something something!" Why is he yelling on this brisk, beautiful Monday?

Turns out, my tire was flat. So unbelievably flat.

I started calling boys. Finally, one answered and said he would come to my rescue, taking his comrade along to assist. While I waited, contemplating what to do and whether to move the car, not one, but two buttons popped off my coat, leaving one measly button the incredibly important task of holding closed my coat on the coldest day of the year. And that "lightly brisk" air that wasn't bothering me before quickly started producing a piercing, burning cold numbing my entire body. The men did their job, and they did it well, but we soon realized the spare they put on my car was very low on air. We went to not one, but two air pumps before we realized they are all frozen. It was too cold...for even a pump...to pump air.

They led me to the nearest mechanic, and as I was shakily driving my car there the windows started to fill with a heavy, thick fog. This never happens to me because obviously I have the heat/defrost going every time I drive in the cold. But of course...for the first time in my life...the heat wasn't working. Nothing. Not even a mere puff of air. Phenomenal!

This meant the guys at the shop wanted to keep the car for the day, in order to fix the first tire and the spare, put the old tire back on, check out the heat, and perform a maintenance test. I was expecting to be able to drive to work on the spare, so as I left the shop dumbfounded with my luck and intimidated by the 9 block walk I had to even get back to my house, the waterworks started flowing. Facing -4 degree weather, no car, and feet so numb I was convinced I had no feet, I cried.

In an ultimate display of altruism, my friends brought me back to their house and gave me coffee and company while I mashed my body up against their kitchen heater, practically seizuring from the cold. And then my friend drove me to work. The mechanics later called to tell me the tires were fixed and the heater was working fine - it was just too cold that morning to work. They also caught a taillight that was out and fixed that too, not even charging me that much for it, even though they could have (because what do I know about stupid cars?). And finally, all was well.

I would like to dedicate this tale to anyone who knows how to change a tire. You are the true heroes, my friends. You...are...just...so...........yes!

The typical Portlander will sneer at you if:

• You buy your groceries anywhere but at your local coop or the hippy favorite, New Seasons. At the very least you should go to Whole Foods. If you shop at local chain Fred Meyer's or Safeway you clearly want the bioterrorists to win. Go ahead. Buy that un-organic tomato. But I'd rather die a fiery death than eat it in the caprese salad you just made me.
  
• You shop at any chain. What's that? You're getting your beloved episodes of Six Feet Under at Blockbuster because your aunt sent you a gift card? Way to support your local video store, jerk.
• You use a car as your primary mode of transit. Ever heard of mass transit, dude? And this is only the most bike-able city EVER in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE. I get 32 miles per burrito. What do you get?
• You watch TV, especially crap TV like Gossip Girl or The Hills. The cool kids don't own TVs. We read episode recaps on Gawker and feel/act morally superior.
• You buy new clothes. Pants: old drapes I sewed together. Shirt: a vintage, ironic Mickey Mouse shirt purchased for $2.00 from a homeless woman who threw in a paper clip necklace. Jewelry: paper clip necklace. Shoes: Kenneth Cole boots my mom sent me that I covered in duct tape to stave off embarrassment of wearing leather. Hat and scarf: knitted from the yarn of an unraveled thrift store sweater.
• You attend less than three beer festivals in any given year. There's one practically every weekend so you have no excuse not to go and exclaim at the awesomeness of the latest jalapeno-strawberry-chocolate-coffee brew.
• You throw anything away. That chicken carcass can be used (and reused, and reused) to make broth. That broken hanger could become a piece of art about the fragility of human experience. That notebook with one piece of paper left, that old shoelace, those stickers for the 99 cent roast beef special could all be donated to Scrap. Never, ever throw away or recycle coupons. People dumpster dive for them. Be grateful they're yours.
• You don't devote a small part of your day to Keeping Portland Weird. Today I saw a man at the train station wearing a skull mask under his hoody and skeleton gloves. He was doing his part. It's time to do yours.
  

Let's pretend this is a picture blog

I was perusing our new handy blog roll (conveniently located to the right of the page, under the archives) and got reacquainted with Everyday, a lovely and whimsical photo blog from our lovely and whimsical friend Sarumph. Because I want to be like her in all things, I'm going to pretend for one teensy tiny post that I can be a stunning artiste as well.

Or maybe I just took a bunch of pretentious pictures that I wanted to post somewhere but didn't think belonged on Facebook. You'll never know.


We went to Pix Patisserie, a glorious place for a francophile. Here you will see the St. Honore (a confection of cream puffs and caramel), cream about to be poured into coffee, one of my fleur du sel caramel macarons and my boyfriend's crotch. Try to ignore the latter.


This is my eyeball. The sun was shining directly into it, revealing its splotches of blue and yellow that forge to make that olive-y color. I wanted to see what it looked like so I made the boyf take eleventy dozen photos of it whilst I struggled to keep the peeper open. This blurry mess is the best we got. Deal.


This is the vessel for the sugar that accompanied his coffee. It made us have a funny reflection, which my camera struggled but failed to capture properly. I hope you don't think that cherry next to it is real. It's been decoupaged onto the table. Don't try to eat it.


We have been having glorious sunsets lately.

There was one other thing I wanted to take a picture of but didn't: there's a tree in front of my apartment building that has lost all its leaves but inexplicably has flowers blooming on it. I might take a snap later and add it to this post, but don't get your hopes up. I'm fickle on Sundays.

PS: Happy birthday Sarrumph! Bisous!

Is my niece or nephew going to love me?

I just found out my sister has caught the preggers disease. And by disease I mean...the best thing that's ever happened to me! I happen to think I was born to be an aunt, and I'm under the impression that the thing is going to love me because, let's face it, I'm everything it could ever hope for in a future aunt.

Think about it. I'm young, relatively hip (and by relatively I mean hipper than the little blob of goo is right now), energetic, I have a gaggle of knock knock jokes just waiting to be shared, I always have a fresh supply of candy, I know CPR, I will give it toys, and I like crawling around on the floor. I mean c'mon!

I was bragging about the little tyke (who is currently cooking in the oven, where he/she will remain for the next 6+ months) to my coworker, and he advised me to explore caution in my anticipation and to try to keep my hopes for my relationship with the thing at a limit (because frankly those hopes are soaring right now -- SOARING).

He said:

Careful. I was really excited about the arrival of my first nephew. Let's be real, I was born to be an Uncle. I'm mischievous, cool and I already had twenty some years experience battling his mother so advocating on his behalf would be a cinch. The problem? For like 8 years we totally didn't like each other. Frankly, he was a bit of a prick and that didn't sit well with me. Also, he's a bit of a braggart. I'm not sure what happened though, last summer we were both in Croatia and we kind of got along.

Is my future niece or nephew going to be a bragging prick for the next 8.5 years? Possibly. Perhaps even likely. I hadn't thought of this. Plus, what if it voms on me? What if it sits on my glasses? What if it slaps the dog? What if it steals my sister away for forever and I'm not her favorite* anymore?! Oh god.

*self-proclaimed

Selling my soul

Dude. I've been looking for a second part-time job to supplement my piddly income since, like, ever. I'm on Craigslist every freaking day praying to find something like this:

Hip, truthy magazine seeks peppy young writer/editor semi-fresh from college, but with a year of journalism odd jobs under her belt. We need you 20 hours a week, and heck yes we'll work around your other job. Along with an outrageous hourly wage for the work required and a sublimely generous benefits package, we'll feed you and send you home with leftovers. We also have an office dog who likes to curl up in your lap and be cute whilst you work. Oh, and sometimes we like talking in Cockney accents. That's all. Pip pip!

Instead, I inevitably find listing after listing that says something to the effect of this:

Boring office in lame suburb seeks peon to do menial office work while we stare our beady eyes down your neck. The work required is tedious, but we want you to have been doing similar tedious work for at least a decade before we will even consider you. We only want you 20 hours a week (and never a minute more!), but we will schedule it in such a way that it is impossible for you to have another job. We will pay you a pittance. Benefits? You wish! We will hate you and you will never have anything more enjoyable than a "semi-OK, I guess" day here, so don't get your hopes up. Oh, and our toilet overflows a lot. You're going to have to clean it up.

Or this:

We need a sales-driven, computer-savvy registered nurse who has a car.

The job market here hasn't been stellar since I started paying attention to it--too many do-gooding recent graduates just like me are flocking here--and this Recession doohickey isn't doing a heckuva lot to help anything. So it got me to thinking: Recession or no, people are hella anxious to procreate, right? And the people who are unable to will go to quite the lengths to get a bouncing bundle of joy on their knee.

Basically what I'm trying to say is people would pay top dollar for my reproductive facilities, as evidenced by this article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. And according to what I've been seeing on Craigslist, they'll pay double for my goods since I'm Jewish. We're talking $20,000 here for the teensy trade-off of physical discomfort, social stigma and chance that in the future someone with my genes will be walking around somewhere in the great wide world.

Just throwing it out there.