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sarah and i laid over in portland to participate
in the Village Building Convergence--an experiment in changing the direction
of cities towards human scale design and development. this included laying
down paint with City
Repair at a couple of intersections (33rd & Yamhill and 19th &
Washington). The first was a repaint of a sprawling sunflower, the second
a fresh labyrinth where a young girl barked "Watch out!" even though I wasn't
close to stepping on the still-wet
"bricks". She also bossed her brother
around. Then their mother came by and bossed both of them around, saying
"Watch how you bend so you don't hurt your back!" I got away quickly. Sarah
pointed out a cat on a leash at a corner house. Poor thing. It tried to jump
the fence, its only dream a dream of escape. Then its owner came around.
Guess who--the same bossy mom. She said the grey cat's name was Smoky. We
would have visited the other three intersection improvements but we had to
bug out on our borrowed bikes to catch the southbound train to Palm Springs
to hook up with Greg & Iris & Tamra & Arne. Amtrak is great.
I plug in on the observation car, Alice buys me a drink and gives me half
a sandwich. Sarah comes along and we go downstairs, meet Ed who feeds us
Schnapps under the table and talks 'bout shrimp farms in brazil, slips us
a kind sample. Night falls as we go over the pass, mountain peaks above cloud
banks, all is grey
smoky. |
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