Busy but loving it
I went to Wild Women III--my friend Amy's yearly jaunt in the woods with women friends. It was a beautiful weekend and I adore Silver Falls State Park for its cool greenness even at the end of this dry summer. I loved the new women friends that I made, but it made me really miss my "hometown girls"--my midwestern friends who know me so well that I don't feel like I ever need to explain myself.
Saturday night confirmed that Nuestra Cocina is my current Favorite Portland Restaurant. The cinnamon ice cream is to die for! It sounds like some shoddy Mexican chain form of ice cream but it tastes like little bits of cinnamon joy.
Enough yammering. Sunday we had a cookout with some of Nate's co-workers up in Battle Ground, Washington. It was a crisp, clear fall day with a good game of bocci. Sunday evening we had home community at our house. By 8:30 Sunday night when everyone finally left we were both ready for some peaceful, together time.
This week is Back-to-School-Night on Tuesday so I'll be at work from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. or so. Wednesday I start the graduate class that I'm taking through Portland State University--"Legal Aspects of Special Education"--doesn't that sound thrilling? :) So it will be another 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. day away from home. And then Thursday we invited friends over for dinner. It will be a tiring week but for all good reasons.
I must remind myself that I have CHOSEN my busyness and I am busy about things that I am passionate about.
Off to bed,
deb
Since you won't get off the computer, I guess I'll just have to fall asleep here at your feet. 
Books, Books, Books
Anyone who knows me even just a little bit, knows that I love books. What they may not know is that I love bookstores almost as much as I love the books themselves. Portland is a fabulous place to be a lover of bookstores. After all, we have Powell's City of Books which really is the end-all of all bookstores. Where else do you have an entire city block taken up by a bookstore that contains everything from the current bestsellers to battered paperbacks to rare first editions?! It's the kind of bookstore that you take out-of-town visitors to just because it is so impressive and such a landmark. However, Powell's overwhelms me. My little synapses simply overload when surrounded by so many books. How do you just pick one or two (or three or four) to take home with you?
My antidote is to go to Annie Bloom's in Multnomah Village. This is a one-room bookstore where they only have room for the "best" books. Nearly every book on the shelves has a small review attached that has been written by one of Annie Bloom's staff. They tend to stick to best-sellers and classic reads, which suits me just fine. And, if you go in there and say, "I just heard about this book on NPR" they know exactly which book you're talking about and probably heard the NPR story too.
Today I only had half an hour to spend at Annie's so I had to make some quick selections. Here's what I walked out the door with:
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian--recommended to me by my smart and fiesty friend, Nathalie
Three Junes by Julia Glass--the nicely-bound hardcover edition was on clearance and the blurb sounded interesting, so why not?
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund--I just read her book Four Spirits which I really enjoyed so I thought I'd give this one a try
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen--I'm on the search for more j-fic books to nab the imaginations of my reluctant readers
oh, and they have a few staff-recommended c.d.s by the cash register so I picked up Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers (no, mom, it's not really porn) because Nate and I really like Neko Case's music and she's plays with this band.
So, I'm a happy girl with a new book and music fix. I was having a hard time getting to sleep at night because I'd run out of good going-to-bed reading material. Tonight I should sleep like a baby :)
d
True Portlanders???
Yesterday was the first beautiful gray rainy day here in a very long time. On our way home from work, I confessed to Nate that, although summer had been sunny and beautiful, I was elated that it was raining again. He grinned and admitted he'd been thinking the same thing.
Presenting Miss Kalvary Rose...
My sister sent me this beautiful picture of my sassy, red-headed niece. I think I see the future in her eyes as a strong-willed, confident, tender-hearted woman.
d
Fall
School has started. I'm not superstitious at all, but I almost hesitate to say how well it is going so far. Somehow it seems like if I say it is going great it will jinx it. I keep asking Stacey, "What am I forgetting?" The 7th graders are still charmingly innocent, and so far they don't appear to be very needy. The 8th graders have come back several inches taller and with 8th grade attitudes, but I had developed relationships with many of them last year and I'm counting on those relationships to survive the travails of adolescence this year.
I actually left school at 4:00 p.m. today. That is my target departure time but last year I was almost always there until 5:00. Those of you who work in the 9-5 world may think that's "just those lucky teachers who have their summers off and get off work early every day." But we teachers know that we're there at 7:30 in the morning; and, although we are supposed to have a 30-minute duty free lunch, we usually end up working through part or all of those 30 minutes. Leaving at 4 made me feel like I added an additional hour to my evening. Yay!
I don't have much more to say. I keep feeling like I should write about my feelings regarding Hurricane Katrina but words fail in the face of such suffering.
Off to pet my dog behind the ears and watch some brain-deadening t.v.
Love,
d
Overheard conversations
Nate: Did you ever think you'd have a dog as stubborn as you are?
Deb: Well, I married you so I must like stubborn creatures.
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Deb: Do you think that really we're just Canadians misplaced in the United States?
Nate: No, we're not polite enough.
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Annoying teenage girl next door wailing very loudly on her cell phone: My life is terrible. My mom is terrible. My summer is terrible. My boyfriend is terrible. I don't really want to go to the pool tonight with him. My life is terrible. If my mom, doesn't let me go to the pool tonight with him, I'm going to be so mad at her!
(Parenting an angst-ridden teenage girl must REALLY be terrible.)
Yay!!!
The wise and bearded one spent many hours unpuzzling our computer problems and now we have internet access again! But school is starting so there is no time to blog.
d
