Rain

Rain

Usually the weekend of the Portland Marathon or alternatively the weekend of the Greek Festival comes the rain.


Rain in Portland is different, in a sense as it never really seems to rain hard, but it seems to be always there either falling from the sky or over the horizon. I welcome the rain but not everybody does. I remember my first winter in the northwest and my then spouse seemed to go into a general malaise and I looked back on that as she was the type that needed sun shine. It’s a common occurance in the Pacific Northwest, a depression that comes with lack of sunshine.





Summers in Portland are just that, one sunny day after another. And after a while it just becomes monotonous. With the fall and winter, comes diversity. Wild dark clouds one day, howling winds the next day and then maybe an after noon of blowing leaves and sun. I welcome that change in life. The diversity from hour to hour and the gentle feel of rain dripping down your nose. Happy.

SeedyBars

     Tonights RunLoading Zone, 4037 N.E. Cully Blvd., 503-284-4667I believe that is 57th....6:15 ish....Welcome to the Loading Zone tavern, which sits on the crest of Cully Boulevard in Northeast Portland. Before it, in all its ragged glory, sprawls a working-class neighborhood that extends almost to the Columbia Slough. Inside, patrons are having a beer and a laugh. "What's real bad is when your uncle goes to prison so he can see his sons," jokes an upbeat, long-haired fellow at the bar. Chuckles all around."I had to get in trouble," adds the bartender, a woman with a nasty scar on her right forearm. "I went to school, I got married, I had kids, I got divorced. What else was there to do?" A slightly disheveled, 50ish guy ambles in through the back door. "They eighty-sixed me from the liquor store," he offers, pained but defiant. It doesn't matter, he says. There are other stores. "I know all their names. I know their hours." You could almost throw a rock from Cully Boulevard to Fremont Street, which bisects some of the city's most prestigious real estate.Nearby Beaumont-Wilshire is a land of coffee culture, jogging strollers and gleaming SUVs. Cully is trailer parks, taquerias and long-haul drivers who park their rigs out in front of the house. Careful on the side streets — some pose an obstacle course of deep craters that could swallow a subcompact.The place, in other words, is not particularly glamorous. But that doesn't mean it isn't welcoming.A normal night at the Loading Zone might be fairly quiet. A couple play video poker. Guys shoot pool in the garish light of neon beer signs. No one bothers to claw a stuffed toy out of the arcade game inside the front door. But there's upbeat energy on a karaoke Saturday. A twentysomething brunette does a serviceable job on a Jewel song, followed by a stocky guy with tattoos that start at his wrists and disappear into the short sleeves of a white T-shirt. He covers Digital Underground's "Humpty Dance" without even looking at the monitor. You've got pool, poker, keno, a jukebox, TV, beer. What else is there?Perhaps another Cully nightspot. There's the Dreams & Memories Public House, a low, cinder block redoubt across the street from the Loading Zone. But you may have missed out. It closes at 10 every night. So head north down the hill, past the Albertson's, past the brain-stretching five-way intersection, past the two topless clubs, one of them shuttered.If it's getting late, no need to bother seeking the isolated, industrial-district charm of the Cracker Box Tavern on Northeast Portland Highway. It closes at midnight. So take a left at Killingsworth Street and travel three blocks to the Red Apple Tavern. Don't be put off by first impressions: the underpowered electric sign or the weathered cedar shake siding.A guy with a baseball cap heads up the concrete stairs toward the front door, carefully stashing a plastic grocery bag alongside the entrance. What would you leave outside a bar that's worth keeping but not valuable enough to steal? An unnaturally animated women many months into a pregnancy strides across the parking lot, a cigarette in her hand.But hey, don't be so quick to judge. Steering a careful course, the Apple makes room for a lively cross section of blue-collar cultures: unreconstructed '70s butt-rockers, guys with their names stitched onto work shirts whose company vans sit outside, Hispanics who mostly congregate around the pool tables in the back of the room. It's a mix that's reflected on the jukebox, which features equal parts Foreigner, Kenny Chesney and Vicente Fernandez at six plays for $1. Like the neighborhood's bars themselves, the machine is designed to welcome all comers, and inexpensively at that.

I had the pleasure last night to hang out with my friends.  And for once it was all guys. We are all around the same ages with a lot of the same things going on. So it was nice to just let the miles just peel away and just talk about stuff.  And one thing we did was to glance at all the houses we went past and talked briefly about the histories of the houses, the people seen coming and going and just taking the time out to watch the angle of the sun at a great time of the day. And to run; that simple little endeavor of putting one foot in front of the other and breathing, watching and listening.


     After the run we had the pleasure of hanging out for an hour and just taking in a slice of America. That slice I am talking about is the seedy bar. The seedy bar is just a sensory over load for some body whom has not been in one for awhile.


The first essential ingredient is smoke. I am not a smoke but some of the charm of a seedy bar is the smoke.  Its like going into battle and emerging out the other side victorious.

I guess the second essential item is cheap beer. I love macro beers, but somehow when sampling seediness it is part of the experience to have a 1.20 big glass of Miller High life.  And dite Pepsi’s over ice taste great in a seedy bar.

Once again I will have to finish this later as I need to earn a paycheck  

This I believe revisited

This I believe re-visited.

Its fall and there are projects I want to do. The kids and I have a Book in the works and I would like to sit down and bang that thing out and get it submitted for publication.  Life is so crazy busy with soccer games and volley ball games, work, kids and exercise.

Anyway, within this context I truly believe we still must live this chaotic life within the contexts and axioms that guide your basic thinking and philosophies.  We saunter around this so called life with expectations thrust upon our self and while these expectations are important probably the most important expectation that exists are self imposed.

We were discussing this yesterday as we as a country see every other person in therapy, going yoga and going to the chiropractor is a common thing, we start the day with a double espresso that some corporate giant decided we needed and then we decided we needed.  When you look at Maslows’ hierarchy of needs I am not sure where these actions do really fit in.  Somehow their hierarchy of needs shifted radically for the survivors of Hurricanes, those entrenched in the battle in Iraq and  those with life altering illnesses.

I have no idea my point here, but I believe we choose what we truly believe guide our lives and these are items we are less likely to compromise on. This is a work in process and for now I am taking a break as I have to get back to my “job” so that I do receive a paycheck and I can go about satisfying some lower level needs for myself and my family.

Autumn

Today or somewhere close by marks the first day of autumn. The demise into winter rains and falling leaves provides, a chance for the earth to soak up the good rain.  The days are getting shorter by about five minutes a day and the angle of the Moon and the angle of the sun is decidedly different.

But its not all bad news. As I went for a difficult run yesterday the crispness of the air and the faint back drop of warm fireplace fires seemed to lighten my pace.  The crisp mornings resulting from a window left open leaves a sense of urgency in the morning and also a sense of urgency to hit that alarm clock one more time simply to snuggle under the warm covers.

In summer I always have an excuse to not do projects around the house, but with the coming of the Fall rains comes a built in back drop for fall projects. Much needed projects like cleaning the basement and yes….sitting by the warm fire with a nice glass of seasonal ale.