New Orleans

Carrie and Celeste in front of the artist market we walked to in the 90 degree heat.

Frenchmen street is where to find all the good music. Recommended by several local people, over and over.

When god is smiling down...

On Frenchmen Street.

Smoky Mary was the best draft beer we tried.

French style live music. 

A sign of a good town is a good bike shop.

At the end of Frenchmen Street. All the music was free, for the most part.

Two big white horses.

The man on the right. Look.

Celeste at Mexican food, which was tasty as.

A PDX-style coffee bar.

Beignet. 

At Cafe Du Monde.

The French Market.

Headed to an interview

The last few weeks have been crazy and I've been neglectful. I will report in a few days on the news in my life. I've also been to New Orleans, which was an experience in itself, and made me thankful to be moving home to the midwest for a while.

Alles wird gut.

Nostalgia in the Rose City

Phantom of the Opera from the grand piano, live for the pleasure of the folks streaming through security and waiting to board their planes. Wifi blankets the air. Quiet hush of people bustling but not rushed. It feels like there's sunlight streaming through the walls and ceilings of windows even though the sky is actually grey. 

Leaving Portland is always hard. She smiles on you to the end, so your heart is wrenching as you walk out the door, tears streaming, wondering if you should have stayed longer, or if you should return. Emotion runs deep in the Northwest, where the multi-hued grey clouds hangs low adding depth to the sky, and the sun glows down imbuing color and contrast to the land. Even airport security was pleasant, with extra friendly folks in line, security and gate agents who were the same, plus efficient. 

So here I sit, wondering what is next again, with so many possibilities on the horizon. 

(Kathie & Genie at Portland International Airport)

Me & Oatie on the couch

(Practicing laying down and seltzer water inebriation, Bumbershoot)

No today photo, unless you want to see a drab, dirty girl laying pathetically in her sister's bathrobe. Extended travel has caught up with me and put me in a sling. My designated spot is vertical with PJs. Oatie's kind enough to keep me company. I have the flu.

It's a bit of a damper since I have so few days in Oregon and they are packed tight with visits to friends, possible employers, and more. But one must listen to their body. I am not sickly but when I travel, it tends to come every month or two and especially when I stop. I think this is common.

(At Bumbershoot)

Last weekend, Carrie and I headed north to Seattle for Bumbershoot, a festival which contains music, visual arts, lectures, and film. We've gone in the past and last time it was glorious: full of stages and new artists, books and interesting installations, all outdoors under the Space Needle.

This year, they'd moved a couple stages indoors, cut out the literature, decreased the visual art to one room, and provided very inadequate seating for the film. By shrinking the area and decreasing the content, it felt a lot less grassy and laid back than in the past. I'd say it was a turn for the worse. However, the grand finale, Hall and Oates, brought a bitch twinkle* to our eyes. Nothing like Maneater, Rich Girl, Sara Smile, and more. Songs from 1980, when we were living in Wisconsin, and my dad was still alive. Good stuff.

*Bitch Twinkle: When you're just about to cry and your eyes sparkle from the tears.

On Choices, by CS Lewis

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules, I'll reward you, and if you don't, I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other?