Random Photo of the Day

Part of the charm of the new apartment, at least to date, is that there are a lot of trees on the grounds, mostly conifers. Since the building dates back to the 1970s, I'm guessing many of the trees do as well, and the height of some of them certainly lends itself to that idea.

We finally have a break (probably brief) from the constant gray skies of a Portland autumn, and this fellow appeared to be enjoying the warmth of the sun as much as I am. I shot this through one of my bedroom windows (a bedroom, I might add, easily three times the size of my old one) after I spotted him dozing on a limb. Even the sound of the blinds going up and the window sliding open wasn't enough to rouse him. I'm mellowing toward squirrels now that I no longer have to worry about an attic under constant attack by the rodents.

I'm not crazy about unpacking, either

I just put all this stuff in the box and now I have to take it out? Arggggh.

The layout of this apartment is completely different from the old one, with strengths and weaknesses that are quite different. Trying to figure out where to put things in the new configuration is bad enough, but now I've got a big stack of essentially "new" U-Haul boxes that I can't imagine recycling and great wads of crumpled newspaper that need to be schlepped down a flight of stairs and well across a parking lot to be recycled. And I've discovered it's inadvisable to do this in the dark because some moron built a "trip the tenant" obstruction in the pavement right in the middle of the pitch-black enclosure. I'm lucky I didn't end up in the dumpster myself.

Yesterday was dedicated to cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping and mopping the old apartment to assure my deposit is returned in full--and the managers explained during the walk-through that the whole place would be painted, and then cleaners would come in after the painters, but I still had to return the apartment to pristine condition after living in it for 2.5 years.

And I can't find anything!

I still hate packing

I'm getting down to the last gasps, running out of boxes and long since run out of patience. What is all this crap!??!

Goodwill has gotten significant benefit from this move, believe me. Tons of clothes I'll never wear, glassware, furniture . . . and I found a beautiful dress shirt in the closet that I didn't know I owned. Score one for the closet.

What is freaking me out now, as I write this, is the knowledge that 48 hours from now I'll be ass deep in crumpled newspaper and broken-down cardboard boxes while I unpack everything I've so laboriously wrapped and stuffed and taped and heaved. I don't think I'll be wondering too much about "why the hell did I keep this?" because I've been fairly brutal in winnowing out the unwanted and unneeded. And there should be a lot more room for putting things away--more cupboards, more closet space, and simply more room. I'll be able to walk around my bed and tuck in the sheets on the far side!

It will be worth all the trouble, I know. But from right here and right now it seems like a long way off.

I'll be god damned

I don't have anything else to say. I am stunned and happier than I have been in many years. I've shied away from any political content to this blog, but this transcends politics. I have hope about the future of the country for the first time since the frothy childish faith I held in the 60s.

Congratulations, America.

I hate packing!

(The rewards of hard work; see Update 2)

I'm going to be moving in one month, so I've already started boxing things up, sorting things out, throwing junk away and setting aside a lot of donations for Goodwill. I have just spent a good chunk of the day packing the living room books (which are most of the books that will be moving with me), knocking down the bookcases and setting aside books I no longer really want.

The 500 lb. gorilla is downstairs in the storage unit: decades of accumulated books that have rarely seen the light of day since . . . well, maybe never. I've been schlepping them around from basement to basement, adding to them when shelf space got low or a new book obsession displaced the old one and whenever it was time to move I've looked at them with dread. The new apartment is considerably larger than this one but the storage unit is small and those books are just not going with me. The good news is that I've combed through them over the last 2.5 years and have a pretty clear idea not only of what is down there, but how little attachment I have to most of them.

Still, this is going to require work. I've got to dig the book boxes out from under everything else down there (what do I need with an electric chainsaw?) and make a final pass through the books, perhaps ambitiously sorting them by topic, all the better to impress the buyer at Powell's. Fortunately, the basement can be accessed by a ramp around the side of the building, which means I can roll a cart down there, pile on the doomed boxes and them roll them out to the car (and roll them, one hopes, into the Powell's warehouse). I will be doing well if I get out of this with only one box that can't be gotten rid of. Well, two, because I know there is a box of paperback science fiction that I can't lose. And there are picture books from when the kids were little (that was my excuse).

And when everything in the apartment is sorted, packed, boxed (what about the booze bottles?) and the new apartment is ready, I won't have to lift a finger or carry any of the boxes up that flight of stairs to the new place--the wonderful people at Thunder Movers, who moved me into this place in June 2006, will knock down the bed, strap up the tv and the liquor cabinet and woosh! in no time at all I'll be standing in an apartment surrounded by unopened boxes, desperately trying to find the booze and the cocktail glasses.

UPDATE: It appears that my old friend, Mike Horvat, will be taking a lot of these books off my hands, driving up from Stayton, OR after I get through sorting them out. It probably won't completely free me from the book buyer, but one never knows.

UPDATE 2: Maybe it was something about the time change, but I had an ungodly amount of energy this morning and was feeling restless. As a result, I tackled the gorilla, got all of the boxes out of the storage space and sorted through everything. Gack. After a couple of hours, though, I had boxes sorted by category and ran across some treasures I'd forgotten all about. At the top of the page is one of them: the August 9, 1974 6 am final of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Outside of the usual yellowing of newsprint, it's pristine. I should get it framed.

What the . . . ?

Don't even ask how I stumbled on this, but the story is even funnier than the photo.

A mouse got sweet revenge when a cat who was chasing it got its head stuck in the jam jar the mouse was hiding in.

Confused cat Mindy was seen wandering down a road in Peterborough with the jar on her head - the tiny mouse just millimetres away from her jaws.

A worried motorist took her to a police station where officers unsuccessfully tried to ease the jar off Mindy's neck.

Eventually, the tabby smashed the jar on the floor of the station, releasing herself and the mouse unharmed.

The cat had a microchip and was returned to its family; the mouse amscrayed and is reportedly still somewhere in the police station.

Dog in the house

Since I'm moving out of this apartment anyway, I figured we could break the rules. NO PETS! NO PET VISITORS! Ralphie is spending the weekend.

He has a nice cedar-filled bed that he loves. Why, then, has he shunned it in favor of my favorite Afghani rug? I may need a stronger vacuum cleaner.