News from Tualatin
News from Tualatin
Air Show
Hard to believe, only a short time after arriving here in sweltering weather, we're now sleeping under the covers and wearing our fleece jackets in the evenings.
There's a big airshow here every year at about this time. No, I don't mean the Thunderbirds performing out at Hillsdale Airport this weekend (which maybe we'll go see) ... I mean the Vaux Swifts.
Every year, for a couple of weeks during their fall migration southward, the Vaux Swifts take break in Portland to rejuvenate and have some good coffee. These little birds are no bigger than a small sparrow, and have pointy wings and short, pointy tails. When they flock, they make peeping sounds.
There's a school in Portland that has a big old chimney from the days when they had a coal-fired boiler. The inside of the chimney is "parged" - which means the bricks are smeared all over with a coating of stucco to smooth it out. Although it's smoother than the bricks would be, it turns out to be just about as rough as the bark of the trees swifts like to perch on overnight.
Swifts are odd in that they don't perch standing on a branch, but hanging onto the side of a tree's rough trunk. The swifts don't just get into this chimney one-by-one, watch a little teevee, and go to sleep. Oh, no ... that would be too simple.
They start gathering about an hour before sunset, and fly in huge circles around the chimney - maybe a mile in diameter. As the day grows darker, their circles shrink, and more and more swifts return from their day of hunting bugs or shopping or whatever it is they do all day. By sunset, there are several thousand tiny birds flying around the school's tall old chimney, making peeping sounds.
They form squadrons and begin to spiral down toward the chimney's opening, but then veer away at the last moment to make room for the next bunch. Eventually, the great swarm looks like a birdie tornado spiralling above the school. At some unheard command, they begin to dive into the shaft of the chimney to take up their roosts for the night. It takes a while, and there is consideable crowding at the top of the shaft, so the rest of the flock continues their spirals until, after maybe half an hour, all these thousands of birds are safely housed in this chimney for the night.
We joined several hundred folks who gathered at the school to watch this event, sitting on lawn chairs, drinking wine, eating Popeye's Chicken, and cheering when the flock chased away the little hawk that was hanging around looking to score an easy meal. (No wine and chicken for us though ,... seems a little ghoulish, doesn't it?)
A sign on the school grounds says the local Audobon (sp?) Society paid to convert the school from coal to natural gas because the kids were getting cold at the beginning of school each year, as they waited for the swifts to leave for Mexico or Costa Rica or wherever before firing up the big old boiler. The old brick chimney is now there only for the swifts to use as their Portland stopover.
The Tension Builds!
Morgan's OB/Gyn hinted strongly this week that the baby will be arriving sooner than the officially projected due date of 09/27. She (the doctor) didn't start scrubbing up right then and there, but will soon, I think. All is well. Morgan and bebe are doing well, according to the doc.
I have tried to explain to Aaron and Morgan that, as excited as they are now, this part is like that first part of a roller-coaster ride, where you are chugging up that first long hill, clankety-clank, tension building, up to the sign that says "No Standing - Keep Your Hands in the Car!" Then the fun begins!
It definitely feels fallish here, now. The kids are back in school, so the apartments are real quiet during the day, once the cheering of the moms dies down. The pool doesn't look quite so inviting at 60 degrees as it did at 90.
What a beautiful time to get born.
Love you all - more later!
Mike and Karen
News from Tualatin
News from Tualatin
While we waited for Morgan to complete her OB-Gyn visit, I noticed one of the nice innovations in customer service that have taken place in the patient care sector since Morgan was born.
Every expectant mother that came in for an exam was right away given a little sack lunch to tide her over until the doctor could see her. This included Morgan, even though we were there right after breakfast!
These women seem to be quite shy about eating in front of other people, however, as every one of them took their little lunch into the restroom to eat it. But even though many of them were expecting their first baby, they all had the "mom thing" going, because, instead of leaving a mess of wrappers and banana peels in the toilet rooms for someone else to clean up, every one of them brought their little brown bag, I guess with their trash in it, back to the nurses' station te be disposed of!
Gee, what a nice amenity!
Morgan reports that the doctor says everything is going well with her and Smidgeon. Morgan is surpisingly limber and agile considering the advanced state of her pregnancy. She still likes to sit on the floor or in deep chairs that I, myself find difficult to get out of. Perhaps that says more about my apparent preganancy than hers?
Morgan is in good spirits; her co-workers had a shower for her yesterday. Morgan is off work and on maternity/family leave now, although she is still doing some work on the phone and on the computer. Aaron is a good husband/dad and stays up late making dinner to be cooked the next day.
We visited the Kunzes' house yesterday after Morgan's shower and also got a look at the results of Aaron's weekend furniture-moving and furniture-assembly project. Their bedrooms are starting to look like little nurseries now - good job, Aaron!
Karen and I visited an interesting park yesterday - Powell's Butte. This is a fairly large park (500+ acres) embedded in Portland, that was historically used as grazing and orchard land for a farm. The city bought it for use as a future location of a water reservoir, because the butte part of it is several hundred feet above the surrounding town, and has let most of it "revert" to a more natural plant life.
Because it was a meadow before, there is still a lot of open space, unlike most of Portland ... not a lot of trees. What trees there are are the vestiges of old orchards, and still are heavy with fruit. There are many blackberry and raspberry bushes along the paths, too, and we saw people arrive with baskets to gather berries and other fruit.
Because the park is surrounded by houses, it has become home to several feral runaway cats; when people take their dogs walking there, it can be pretty entertaining, I'll bet.
This park forms a hill because it is the remains of a little old volcano. From its summit, one can look around and see half a dozen other parks in Portland that also jut up above the tree-tops, and which also were at one time spewing towers of flaming death. Not that I'm worried.
You can also see, in the (not distant enough) distance several major volcanoes - Mt. Hood (40 miles away), Mt. Adams (60 mi.), and Mt. St. Helens (60 mi.) - more volcanoes than I, personally, like to keep track of. These peakes still have snow on their summits, and the weather reporters explain that the first snows of fall are expected this weekend at that elevation.
Although Mt. Hood is not as high as Pikes Peak (it's 11,500' or so, whereas PP is 14,100'), it looks much more dramatic, because (1) it is rising from only a few hunded feet above sea level at its base, (2) it's a nearly perfect cone, and (3) it really stands alone from any surrounding mountain range, as does Mt. St. Helens. I guess MSH also was a perfect cone until the big, earth-shaking, atomic-bomb-like explosion a couple of decades ago. Not that I'm worried.
With these thoughts in mind, we descended quickly from the summit of Powell's Butte. We spent the afternoon keeping Morgan company, playing with Sudoku puzzles, and watching Smidgeon jump around.
More later ... love you guys!
Mike and Karen
News from Tualatin
News from Tualatin
Make way for Baby
Aaron has been moving furniture this weekend ... not from house to house, or even from room to room, but within rooms, so as to make room for the baby's accomodations. Fraught with symbolism of making room for another little person in your life. He has also been assembling some of the furniture they have bought and getting it set up in the designated locations.
Morgan's doing good ... still resting restively. We joined them for dinner last night ... we brought a little pork roast and some Basmati rice, they provided the salad, cranberries, and fancy desserts. It was delightful. Todd and Julia, their newly-wed pals, stopped by and visited. It was a nice evening.
There's Life in Lake Oswego
This morning, Karen and I went and visited the Lake Oswego Pioneer Cemetery, a quaint little one we drive by every time we go to visit the Kunzes. I always like to visit cemeteries; they're kind of peaceful and full of hisory, lives, and family webworks. Oswego's is pretty amazing, and reminds me of the Cripple Creek Cemetery ... lots of old, old markers with fading endearments, many from before the turn of the last century, some from Civil War days and a few even earlier. Lots of very young people there ... it makes you realize how far we've come with health care.
It's kind of funny - there's a golf course right next door, and every once in a while, we'd find a golf ball perched on top of a gravestone. Sort of looked like either the deceased was a devotee, or that the game will, in fact, kill you.
The grounds were separated into the "pioneer family" area and the still-active plots. In keeping with the theme of chatty people, the maintenance guy arrived while we there, and filled us in on all the history of the site, some of the families, his life, etc. Quite a slice of life.
After that, we went on a random wander through Lake Oswego's residential areas. For those of you familiar with the Colorado Springs area, Lake Oswego would be what you'd get if you took the houses, cars and snooty attitudes of the Broadmoor and draped them around the topography of Manitou Springs. Oh, yes, with a fairly extensive little lake in the middle of it all.
Lots of little, very narrow, windy, steep roads wandering about on the heavily wooded hillsides, with occasional glimpses of the beautiful lake front below. Gigantic, hotel-sized houses with servant's quarters, rock entry-ways with electronic gates, lots of BMWs, Lexi, and Volvi. The roads seemed to cringe as we drove by in our 97 Dodge pickup with the shell on the back.
Many of the roads around this part of greater Portland are in effect tunnels through forests, completely covered over with dense foliage, the trunks of the trees so closely spaced, you cannot see any evidence of the homes and neighborhoods you're driving through. Then, suddenly, you'll burst free of the forest and the narrow road will blossom out into a little townlet for a few blocks, then you dive back into the dark green of the old county road or state highway.
Streets in Lake Oswego, as elsewhere around Portland, can be (and are) much steeper than would be practical in Colorado where ice and snow is a factor. On our drive today, between the narrowness, the twistiness, and the steepness of the little lanes we were wandering, there were many times when, if we had met traffic going the other way, we could have had a serious accident. So I drove real fast to get out of there as quick as possible, and be safe.
... and speaking of Labor Day ...
Again tomorrow is Morgan's weekly visit to her Ob / Gyn first thing in the morning. So, as last week, Aaron's gonna drop her off there on his way to work, and we'll go pick her up and take her home through all the twisty little tree tunnels. The idea is to keep Morgan from having to drive herself around (although she could), but picture in your mind Morgan getting up into our 4x4 truck on these occassions. I wish we could have used the ruck to move our stuff here, but magically changed it into a sedan once we'd arrived.
We'll keep you all posted.
Love to everyone -
Mike and Karen
What happens if you can't read.
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees..."
National Geographic Oct. 2004:
