What Happened?

What Happened?
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

I laughed for five minutes when I saw this. The azalea has mutated horribly (I guess), and yet someone went nuts trying to manicure it into a giant lawn larva.

Grimm Reality

I like to take walks at lunchtime with one of my co-workers. A week or so ago, we were walking not a block from our office building and suddenly came upon this old-timey shop.



It looked like it had been there forever, and yet, somehow, we'd never noticed it before and we walk up and down that street all the time. Then again, sometimes we're so absorbed in conversation that we are oblivious to our surroundings. Still, this place is like a block from where we work. We peered at it a little closer, noting the liberal use of the word "exotic" to describe the teas, herbs, soaps, and oils the shop sold. Was it kind of a sketchy front for something or just a regular place? That's the thing about the downtown neighborhood we work in. It's a weird mix of schmanciness and sketchiness. Like, one of my co-workers got flashed one evening and another time she was out walking and noticed a human tooth on the sidewalk--eek!

Anyway, the tea shop wasn't open, but we resolved that we would check it out sometime soon.

A few days later, I was out at lunchtime by myself, wandering around trying to decide where to get some lunch when I came upon the Mountain View Diner, more or less next door to the tea shop.



Again, it looked like it had been there since at least 1963 but I'd never seen it before. It looked a teensy bit skeezy, but somehow appealing. I liked that it sold "Hamburgs" and "Cheeseburgs" instead of hamburgers and cheeseburgers. I also liked that the front window advertised their salads in a less than gung-ho way: "Salads--If you like that sort of thing." Hilarious! I've got to check this place out. Also, they have chili con carne. Who calls it that anymore? How come I never noticed this place? It wasn't open for some reason, but I would keep it on my radar. I definitely wanted to try their cheeseburgs. I was looking forward to it.

Then a few days ago while I was eating lunch in the office lunchroom with some co-workers, my former boss came bustling in to tell us that the Grimm people are slapping together right this very minute a fake mailbox shop set, right next to the fake tea shop. Wait a minute. Fake tea shop? Hold on.

Sure enough, both the diner and the tea shop are fake!!!!!! They're sets for that new TV show Grimm that is set in Portland. I am so easily gulled! I felt very sheepish but admitted that I had actually been planning to patronize both places. I found out I wasn't the only one who was hoodwinked. Another one of my co-workers had been eagerly looking forward to an eventual meal at the Mountain View diner. I'm telling you, these Grimm set builders are extremely good at what they do. Both of those places look real and authentically old--the lettering on the windows is partially worn away, and the interiors are dusty and tired looking.






So now I don't know what to think. I'm starting to feel like I work in the Twilight Zone. For example, is this new business, Mom Jeans (M&M Jeans?), real or fake?



It's right next to the Mountain View Diner. I suspect it's real, because the PDC (Portland Development Commission) sign in the window strongly suggests that it is actual, but maybe not. One of those big Hollywood movie trailers was parked right in front of it. And what about the new business right next to Mom Jeans, an antique shop called Tarnish and Varnish--that wasn't open? I really just don't know anymore. It's a bit mind blowing. But fun!

Rip!

Rip!
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

This is Russell Stover's "Caramel Santa Covered in Milk Chocolate." It is not even remotely Santa-like. Where's the beard? Where's the hat? Where's that sack of presents? It doesn't even have distinct arms or legs. Seriously lame. Not that I really care about things like that. I bought it on impulse at the checkout counter because I like caramel. It only cost 78 cents, so maybe I shouldn't be grousing. But come on.

The Bane of My Existence

This is supposed to be a baby hat. I hated knitting this sooo much for so many reasons. Firstly, I foolishly--in a moment of high stress last January--told a pregnant co-worker that I would knit a hat for her forthcoming baby (even though I don't really connect with this co-worker and even though I don't like knitting hats).

This promise dangled over my head and gnawed at my subconscious for months before I finally scheduled a lunchtime yarn excursion to a yarn shop with my co-worker. She had no trouble picking out the yarn--Santa Claus Red and Recycling Wheelie Bin Blue. Let me just say--not my favorite color combo. At. All.

I purchased the yarn and then put off, put off, put off actually getting down to the business of starting the hat. I finally started knitting the hat on a plane en route to Chicago over the July 4th weekend.

Problem number 1: How to knit for the unborn? Sure, I had a pattern, but, I don't know, the hat looked super small. So I ripped out about four inches of knitting and started over with more stitches.

Problem number 2: The stripes looked like crap, and there was this big loose icky area whenever I switched from Santa to Recycling Wheelie Bin.

Problem number 2 and a half: Is the hat too big now? Maybe. Maybe not? Who can know?

Problem number 3: I would really rather be knitting anything else other than this ding-dong hideous baby hat.

I got home from my trip, having not done any knitting during the plane ride. I finally realized how much the stupid hat was torturing me and how much I didn't want to spend any of my precious free time working on this friggin' thing and had a brilliant idea.

Find a baby hat knitter on Etsy and just buy one. Why didn't I think of this earlier? There are many folks on Etsy who knit baby hats and I found a lovely woman who was willing to make one in the exact same retch-worthy colors and customize it to emulate the pattern I was using. It is sitting next to my computer in a ziplock bag as I type this, and it looks so much better than the rubbish I was knitting. (By now, my co-worker has had the baby and is on maternity leave, so I'll just mail it to her. She'll assume I made it, but the ethics of this slight deception are not bothering me.)

I say "rubbish" because that is where the baby hat in progress currently resides--in the rubbish bin under the kitchen sink mingling with rotting arugula and coffee grounds. I couldn't be happier. Normally, I wouldn't throw away failed knitting. I'd unravel it and save the yarn, but in this case? No.

OK. I did try to see if I could repurpose the hat by turning it into a cat cowl. But I strongly suspected the cat wouldn't go for it. And I was correct. Like me, he finds the style and colors absolutely disgusting.

In Praise of Electrified Cat's Tail, Pimpled Kidney, and Others of Their Ilk

At this time of year (nearly) all of Portland has, at the very least, a patina of moss--if not a shaggy suit of moss armor. It's glorious, and I love everything there is to love about these tough, tiny, tenacious spore-bearing plants. I've been taking a closer look at them lately. Worth it!



I've been doing some superficial research, too. That is, I've been skimming my copy of Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast to see if I might be able to identify some of the many different types of moss I've been scrutinizing. The common names I've run across are wonderfully vivid and imaginative. "Electrified cat's tail moss," "hairy lantern moss," "goblin's gold," and "lanky moss" are a few of my faves.



Once a person gets down on her hands and knees to inspect moss, she can't help but notice that this town is also lousy with lichen (but in a good way!).

Lichens are odd and fascinating organisms. There is some debate about how to classify them, but my book hails them as the "banners of the fungal kingdom," although I'm not sure why. They are fungi, I guess, but they "farm" algae inside their own structures. The algae carries out photosynthesis on behalf of a lichen and supplies it with nutrients. Wacky!

But not nearly as wacky as the common names that have been given to various species of lichen. As great as a name like "electrified cat's tail moss" is, how can it possibly compete with lichen names like "punctured rocktripe," "lettuce lung," "freckle pelt," "pimpled kidney," "questionable rock-frog," "ragbag," "devil's matchstick," "false pixie cup," or "blood-spattered beard"?

And lest you think that I've just cherry-picked the weirdest names I could find and that these bizarro lichens are known only to a select group of mycologists, let me assure you that any Portlander willing to inspect a retaining wall in his or her neighborhood or take a short stroll in any of our urban forests will see some of these crazy-ass lichens.

Right here, taken a few blocks from my house, is some false pixie cup, growing on a mossy rock in someone's front garden. It's very common. And cute.



And here's a two-fer: A hemlock cone nestled among blood-spattered beard and ragbag. Nice. Taken in Forest Park. Not hard to find at all.

My Amygdala Has Been Working Overtime

I have been under a tremendous (for me) amount of stress at work lately. While at New Seasons last week, I bought a copy of Whole Living. I was attracted to the colorful line-up of smoothies on the cover, but it turns out there was something much better than a smoothie in that magazine--a one-page article called "Your Brain on Fear." Here's an excerpt that spelled out exactly what has been happening to me for the last several weeks. I cannot wait to read the book on which the article was based (even thought the book has a cringingly self-helpy sounding title). I need to get a better understanding of what is happening on the cerebral level.

Here's the excerpt from the article that really resonated with me (italics are mine). Can anyone else relate?

"When we're anxious, shock waves from the amygdala* start blasting through the brain's frontal cortex, the area responsible for planning and assessing a decision in terms of risk and reward. When the prefrontal cortex is affected, we have a shorter attention span and we're more easily distracted. A lot of people think they have ADD, when in fact they don't: It's not a problem of attention but of the anxiety center. If the amygdala continues to fire, it may cut off impulses to the thinking part of the brain, making it difficult to focus on simple tasks. Fear captures attention and makes us look for potential threats. We tend to see things more negatively, because that's what the fearful brain was designed to do. Fear and stress turn the conscious brain off, and what we have left to help us figure out solutions is the unconscious brain, which works quickly but not always accurately. When we're under stress, we tell ourselves not to do things, and then we'll wind up doing exactly the things we told ourselves not to do." **

*a small mass of nerve cells in the "primitive" part of the brain that activates whenever danger looms; it is wired to process fear first at the expense of other cognitive processes

**from "Your Brain on Fear" by Srinivasan S. Pillay, M.D. in Whole Living, January/February 2011

Fall Color

The Most Beautiful Red Maples in All of Portland (Up Close)
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

Maybe I'll write an actual blog entry one of these days. For the nonce, please enjoy this photo of the Most Beautiful Red Maples in All of Portland™.

High Energy

Possibly the best spontaneous dancing video to date. Only one person dancing while wearing a backpack, but that is balanced by the fact that there is a guy doing a pirouette (of sorts). The grand finale features maniacal cackling.

The Pepsi Guy

More videos of Portlanders dancing. Can you believe it? The dancing in these videos doesn't really count as spontaneous dancing cuz it happened at a concert in a park, where dancing is to be expected. Still. There is some pretty awesome stuff going on, I must admit. The guy closest to the stage in the dark green shorts is the person you should be focusing on and is deserving of some kind of major award. He has some unique moves and he never stopped dancing (OK maybe he wasn't dancing during intermission, but other than that). Nonstop dancing for, like, 1.5 hours. And...he never put down that Big Gulp Pepsi either. Talented.



This next video is much shorter. The cinematography at the very beginning is not great (sorry!), but keep your eyes on the right side of the frame and you will be rewarded. (You'll also be able to see that the Pepsi Guy is still there right in front of the stage dancing tirelessly--I was not lying about him!)

He's Got a Spinna for a Face!?!

B and I love it when we happen to run into Spinnaface. He's a DJ (I guess that's what you call him) who has a sort of hubcab apparatus attached to his face. He keeps it spinning while he does what he does. He's got a fabulous theme song, too, that contains the helpfully descriptive lyrics, "He's got a spinna for a face. His face is a spinna!" (or something pretty close to that anyway). And he inspires people with backpacks and totebags to start dancing spontaneously, so naturally I am a HUGE fan. Check out the video. Note: Mr. Montana may look bag-free, but that bag on the curb? You guessed it. It's his. If you watch closely, you can see him unexpectedly snatch it up (at about 1:14) and continue on his way.