wknd in thumbnail, independence day edition

indeed indeed, i was granted a 4 day wknd from my job, got friday off but i feel compelled to back the narrative up to thursday when my recently-exposed cans of film arrived in seattle and we met sipes and R at dot's cafe in clinton, both of whom are from back-in-the-day collegiate memory-pools as well as present-day. R was here for just a night, en route to seattle for a wk long vacation. we talked baby, movie, zombies etc and parted ways. M and i rented bored to death from clinton video and went home and promptly watched 3 of them.



friday we slept in and walked LB up to the mt tabor dog park. along the way we fell into more memory-pool business, artifacts and long-forgot moments suddenly pulled up from the sludge of time, suddenly alive with value heretofore either un-accrued or unacknowledged. part of this is due to the life-changing undertaking headed our way in a matter of weeks, part of it is getting older but we came to realize that, it being july 1, it was 15 yrs ago or so that we hooked up, which engendered a semi-exhaustive inventory of all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us to have arrived at that point in space-time and all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us afterward to continue to be together. kind of a head-twirler. we noted all the things that had happened in 15 years, the trips, the places, the events. all in an eyeblink. later was breakfast at genies. we made a list of all the crap we had to accomplish over the 4 days, all connected directly or otherwise to baby. afterward we drove to hospital, had ultrasound, checkup etc. all on course. large baby headed our way. we noted that he was in the 94th percentile and then we noted how we promised we'd never talk about boring crap like what percentile the kid was in. conundrum.

we went home, attempted to nap. went to academy theater to see Meeks Cutoff which was amazing for several reasons, one the images, one the rhythms, one the screening itself, mere 4 dollars with delicious pizza and beer, sold out on a beautiful summer night and on top of that i saw one of the mechanics I work w/ in my day job sitting in a nearby row - frickin a, so glad to live in portland, oregon. not like other places. also, fantastic movie (lest that get lost in my chittering).




Saturday we woke up. walked back up to Mt. Tabor and the dog park, drove to my parents to borrow the CRV, then drove to Ikea which was supremely un-fun and crowded, a testament to commerce and large-ness, giant carts filled with giant boxes every which way you'd turn inside a maze, not necessarily dissimilar from the one in 'the shining', on an unbelievably beautiful summer day. we wanted to turn and leave but we had some items that we had to get - so we got them. getting them in the vehicle was one undertaking. getting them out of the vehicle and into the house was another. came home and let LB into the yard. He promptly rolled in feces (whether it was his or not was not established). after a quick nap attempt we walked him up the street to dog-washing establishment which he resisted but what choice did he have in the matter? Some time later we returned the CRV to my folks and stayed for dinner which was salad w/ all varietal of bit and tidbit to add and augment. my mother has a propensity for documenting things that may or may not need to be documented which i've certainly inherited (see: this blog entry or see: this blog) and on this summer night she took pix of each salad and then forwarded to all the dinner guests. I think this is my salad. which was delicious (note: i manipulated the colors, camera is functional)

sunday morning we were both exhausted and sore, partly from lifting the ikea crap (me), partly from being 8 mos pg (mm). the skies were overcast so we planned to block off a couple hours and she would do some thank you cards (for last wknd's baby shower) while i assembled the ikea items. everything went smoothly enough, except for the budgeted time part, b/c when i had finally put everything together and we'd moved it to where it needed to live, even if temporarily, it was 4 pm, and, aside from a brief timeout for breakfast, all time was spent assembling and card-writing. This is more stress-inducing than it may sound. At 4 pm our back-up doulla arrived for an interview. she was great. all went swimmingly. M walked up hawthorne to get more thank you cards while i took LB to throw the tennis ball. we reconvened back at the house. we watched a nova special - recommended to us by a compatriot in our birthing class - called the miracle of life (i think) which focused on genes and chromosomes and cell replication and the wonder of it all. this was the perfect thing to see as a sort of appetizer for T. Malick's The Tree of Life, which we saw a couple hours later at the fox tower. I'm still processing the entire film which is long and winding and lovely but suffice it to say that it's Malick - one of my top 3 - and E. Lubezki shooting a film that encompasses the birth of galaxies, planets, and life itself and all attendant developments therein, from conciousness through love and death and all stations in between - and i think my final assessment will be at the highest range of esteem. tbd. at a minimum i think it has to be seen twice. and i'm only at once. but you should see it. [bonus: mm, very pg, got out of her chair mid-movie and upended a 'small' mr. pibb - i use quotes b/c their small is more like a bucket - which ended up soaking the purse and contents of our friend J sitting right next to us. bonus 2: man directly in front of me who had weird/distracting affect of constantly and perpetually moving his head in little circles, like one might do if one had a sore neck but say for 30 seconds or so, not for 2 hrs and 18 min.]



 Monday, independence day, we wake up, one more time w/ LB up to Mt. Tabor dog park. He's come a long way in just a few days, multiple dog-exposures helping to ease his anti-social leash fear thing.  We watch the end of Bored to Death (which is fantastic) and head out to friends' house for bbq. They were kind enough to allow LB to hang in their back yard and aside from one tiny incident wherein he crawled thru a hole in the fence and feverishly devoured all the contents of a metal bowl in the neighbor's garage everything was fine. we ate like kings and talked for awhile and then headed home. intending to somehow take the reins over chaos we inventoried all the gifts, blankets, clothes, and other items that have found their way to our house. It sounds benign enough but in fact it was a strange and stress-y undertaking, each item underscoring the move from abstraction to actuality in t-minus 4 weeks. I mean, it's not all stress, it's mostly lovely but uncertainty is a demon that breeds many hell-hounds as the old song goes (note: that's not actually an old song, i just made it up). We took deep breaths, walked to new seasons (where we heard tu fawning over the pa!), bought a sandwich, walked home in the twilight, as all around us were explosions near and far, cracking and booming, shaking and reverberating, seemingly endless waves rolling in, rolling in, rolling in.

this morning the sky was cerulean. the sun was shining. i rode my bike in to work and could not stop smiling. and i'm not a smiler.