Salvage Heart

Wrote this up during my recent hospital stay at Providence in Portland. Four days and three nights. Not the best time I ever had.

There's a striking resemblance between how H.D. looks and I feel.

AWARDS: Hospitalized Edition

I'm Finished Waiting in the Waiting Room Award: Me, for puking in the waiting room garbage can after waiting for 45 minutes. Twice. Maybe three times. I was promptly ushered into an office!

Bedside Manner Award: Doctor #3, for his classic one-liner, "I have bad news." The punchline? He really DID have bad news.

Best Prep for Bad News Award: Nurse #7, for upselling me on a dose of Benadryl to go with two Vicodin. Whooooozyyyy! What's this about bad news? What do you mean the pharmacy sent the wrong stuff? Does my head look like it's falling off my neck?

Hasty Exit Award: The priest working the cardiac unit who popped into my room. Uh...see you later?

Best Color of Scrubs: Brown

Best Secret Menu Item Award: Milkshakes! Your choice of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. Wonder what else "isn't" on the menu....

Good Neighbor Award: The 99 yr old woman next door, who demanded that the nurse "get your hands off me you son of a bitch! HELP! HELP! Get those bitches out of here!"

The Remember It Could ALWAYS Be Worse Award: Me again, for very nearly having to share a semi-private room with one very angry 99 year old woman.

Most Unlikely Compliment Award: To nurse #5 who told me, "You have really nice arm hair." Maybe that's why she was so intent on taping it up.

The Very Special Bell Rings for Little Angel Wings Award: To the little chimes that go off every time a baby is born. So sweet. Even at 3 a.m.

And finally, a programming note: There's still nothing worth watching when you need to watch TV.

Labels: health care, Oregon, Portland

As we close out 2008, we take a moment to remember Mr. Susan.

Of indiscriminate breeding, missing teeth, bad breath, and a lot of love.

No cat ever worked harder to climb onto a lap, arthritis and all. And that low center of gravity made him nearly impossible to remove once he got situated.

A neighbor called to say she'd seen our flier (LOST CAT), and that she'd seen a mutilated animal left in a front yard of some people nearby. Some renters. Perhaps a victim of just the sort of coyote attack plaguing the neighborhood. But the time frame was off by three weeks, and she was calling weeks later. It didn't sound like the kind of closure I was looking for. I didn't run down the lead.

So weeks go by, and months, and we last saw him in the triple-digit sweat of summer. Today snow mixes with ice. We've had other, bigger deals since then.

But at night, when I hear the tick-tick of little claws, the pause, then the leap, I can tell it's Mabel, the other cat. Mr. Susan climbed onto the bed by getting his claws hung in the covers, and then dragging himself onto the sheets. Then purring, he'd curl up to sleep on my back.

Male Domestic Shorthair. That's one way of looking at it.

Gone. That's another.

We miss you, Big Sue.

Labels: cat, Oregon, Portland

We don't write, we don't call. We just...fly.

Labels: Oregon

A piece on the Irvington Squire condo project ran in this week's inPortland section of The Oregonian. Good example of a project that meets code, but not (necessarily) the design hopes and dreams of (some) neighbors. Particularly next-door neighbors.

A discussion on the proposal drew over 130 people to the Irvington school cafeteria last Saturday to talk zoning.

The issue is in part a legacy of the 1993 Albina Community Plan, which called for increased density (by 10%), as the flight to the suburbs continued from north and northeast Portland.

Different times. A Bureau of Planning rep told the crowd that this tension (density...or destiny) is happening all over the city. When it comes time to re-work the comprehensive Portland Plan (and it's time is nigh), the city will likely revise the way it looks at density to accommodate a 3-D perspective (beyond just height and mass).

Meanwhile, Irvington may follow the Alphabet District's lead in NW Portland and strike out for historic status. Being a Conservation District, it turns out, doesn't carry quite as much weight as some Irvingtonists would like it to.

Labels: historic, Irvington, journalism, Oregon, Oregonian, planning, Portland, real estate

A piece on Marco Shaw that I've had simmering for awhile (on my assignment list and then in the editor's queue) finally ran today, in the inPortland section of The Oregonian.

Shaw is the owner and chef at Fife, co-owner of a relatively new take-out place called Full Plate, and has plans to open Hard Shell in the Vanport Square Development down on MLK sometime this spring...hopefully.

I'm hardly the first to write about him (Nancy Rommelmann did a really nice interview that ran on Portland Food and Drink, back in Feb '06), but I've watched that restaurant since its build-out in 2002, and have spoken with Shaw (and interviewed) a number of times. In this era of celebrity and hysteria, his solid, straightforward style paradoxically stands out.

Labels: Fife, food, Full Plate, Hard Shell, journalism, Marco Shaw, Oregon, Portland, restaurant

First blueberry of the season, at least on this homestead. Much riper than the low-hanging (and green) fruit that a certain two-year-old later ate.

Reminds me of two separate pitches to two certain publications, about the blueberry boom. Both wrinkled their noses, passed, and then later ran articles on the blueberry boom. Ah, the bitter taste of sour, er, green berries.

Seriously though, this was the FIRST ONE of the season. (The hushed whisper of wow echoes around the world.)

Labels: blueberries, farm, food, Oregon

The sweet taste of Bings. Dusted with the essence of a gravel lot. Under the watchful eye of Oney.

Photo taken in beautiful Elsie, Oregon.

Labels: cherries, farm, food, Oregon