Jane’s Blog

Not for lack of wanting to post, nor for lack of ideas but it is incredible to me just how much time can be absorbed off blog by emails…answering and sending…plus writing a book, short essays,finding words…..not to mention the fine art of living.

Including husbands, family and friends to love, dogs to walk, people to see,work to do, gardens to tend and grow,groceries to buy,crossword puzzles to complete, doctors to visit, reading of books, newspapers, magazines,online articles,youtube,facebook,phone calls, sleep…how do people actually keep on top of these things AND blog in a regular disciplined manner? I ask you? Is it possible? Obviously not for me.

I wonder too how much of me or my family do I want out there in the cyber ethernet? What topics are appropriate and which are taboo? To sort and sift through the daily events that go on in my life…hmmm?

I had my first published piece which I submitted in July and had published in September in a National magazine…American Whitewater…Yippee

My oldest stepson Chris got married last September Labour day Weekend in Hood River Oregon…A grand affair with to die for sunshine all weekend and a jam packed fun filled family laden extravaganza.
It took almost the whole year to plan between the happy couple in San Francisco, Aviva’s parents in Toronto,the three parents here in Portland and all the various vendors.
A long time to come to fruition but very worth the seeds planted along the way.

I went on a ten day rafting trip on the Grand Canyon at the end of October, early November. I agonized for three weeks whether I ought to go or not….which I suppose I could have shared on this blog but sometimes the journey of my decision making needs to be a private adventure of my very own agony.
Of course I wanted to go from the very first offer but it required a bit of figuring out on my part before I could make the commitment. I missed the full 17 days but I made it for 10 so I can’t complain.

I kayaked through Lava Falls,the biggest rapid, almost successfully…made it through the meatiest stuff but got knocked over at the bottom on an enormous wave….I should have tried rolling up a third time but pulled my spray skirt instead..possibly in camaraderie with one of the other kayaker’s who was sure we were all going to swim..his proclamation unfortunately was spot on… the three of us kayaking did indeed swim.

But hey I went through some big mothers between Phantom Ranch at mile 88 and the take out at mile 225 in a raft, in an inflatable kayak and in a hard shell.
It was a blast…I hope I get another chance to do the Canyon again all the way from the put in, sometime in the future!

I never knew this until I got there but the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon has it’s own class system…so something we would calculate as a 5 on most rivers is a 10 on the GC. Lava Falls and Crystal were my first class 10’s…hoowee.

Let’s see …oh yeah I got my green card in November after arguing with the INS for two years who said they sent me my first card in September 2005. Never mind that I was in Canada with my Dad who was dying, never mind that I never received it….too bad….pay up or shut up….Homeland Security said pay up a second time then they’d be happy to send another card.

Something that should have cost 200 dollars cost me an additional 375 because they had upped the rates in the mean time..mean time is right…AND they don’t bother to send the cards via registered mail…soooo you have no recourse or way to track the card once it leaves their office….what’s with the security in that?

I can’t prove they didn’t send it nor can I prove I didn’t receive it…there is something fundamentally wrong with their system of delivery…especially after all the hassle of ensuring that the correct forms are filled out and accompanied by the correct pieces of ID they require.

I have to say in their favour that despite the new Passport rule backlog of work, they managed to get the card out in a timely manner once all the steps were re-completed.

Home for the Holidays…A white Christmas in Canada..New Years with my good friends in TO..
No Sundance Film Festival this year. First one in 12 years I have missed…first time in Portland during the last two weeks of January..whodathunk a sunny cold snap…go figure. As for SFF there is more to it but I’ll save that for another installment.

As always it feels good to be back on the blog block

As I walked with Jera along Terwilliger Blvd tonight I realized that Prom season may be upon us.
My first stretch Hummer sighting occurred about 6:50 PM tonight heading towards downtown. It was one of those white ones with the very menacing dark windows and barely discernible yellow interior lights that run along behind the driver’s head.
Atleast I think that’s were they were.Maybe they were on the outside above the door and I just imagined them inside. It zoomed by quickly and truthfully I was distracted by the other dogs coming in the opposite direction on the sidewalk.
I remember a few years ago when my stepson Silas went to his Senior prom. The Hummer was booked that night so he and his group of friends settled on a stretch limo. I think it was a Cadillac but who knows,it was big and long and held about twenty or more kids pumped for their big night out. I took some photos from the front end of it,in the driver’s seat..now that I think of it I wish I had used the panorama to take in the colorful outfits and all their youthful energy!
Wonder what those driver’s hear and see on any given night? Might be kind of fun tootling around with a bunch of energetic teenagers..then again it might get kind of old too.
Stretch limos have a way of altering folks..some get more sophisticated, some more sophomoric.

I don’t remember having a stretch limo option when I was in High school. At least certainly not the ones that look like they have been taking steroids willy nilly.
Not for any of the various proms,or as we called them back then Formals that I attended….is that a Canadian term? What are they calling them these days North of the lower 48?

For my Senior year(that would be Grade Thirteen in old Ontario parlance) we rented a boat and went around Lake Geneva off the city of Lausanne.
As might happen in the late seventies,the night was a bit of blur, although I do recall two of my older siblings,Susie and Stephen, were both there. My parents were in town but not on the boat…bad idea considering the stimulants we were ingesting that night. I mean bad idea if they had been on the boat, good idea they stayed at the Hotel!
I’ll have to dig out some of the old photos to see if my memory matches the recorded events. Vague sensations of standing on the back deck of the boat, an olde style steam ship a la Switzerland, but powered with a regular motor. Laughing with my boyfriend Struan and other school pals,Adam,Liz,Susanne,…
Hmmnn funny how memories can be so distinct in some cases and very fuzzy in others. Not sure why this one feels very distant..but it does..okay it is almost thirty years ago(next year) but that shouldn’t matter should it? Neither should the ingestibles considering there are other incidents through my life that were couched by intoxicants..and I remember them..mostly.

I was on the water this past Sunday as well. First time kayaking in several months…several months…nearly a year I think….ACK
It felt great to be back on the water again. Three other ladies and myself on the Sandy river from Dodge to Oxbow. The section is class II with one II+/IIIish at the beginning.
The water was running at 2850 cfs which I understand is about the middle for it, although we did the 5 mile run in about two hours which felt fast. I had no idea we were finished when two of the gals started to pull over. I thought they were stopping for a pee break and that we had atleast another mile or so to go. Weather was all over the map,sprinkling light rain,sunshine,cloudy and dark grey, blue sky. It was as if it couldn’t make it’s mind up, so tried on all sorts of flavours till it found the one that fit. Monday.

Last week nine of us set off for our annual pilgrimage to the river. My Canadian friends Bob and Janet came down from Toronto via another friend’s wedding in Edmonton. Our son in law Chris with his step brother Curtis and Curtis’s friend Sid drove up from California. Silas and his roommate Jake from University,Joe,myself and two dogs,Jera and Major filled in the local contingent.

Janet and Bob arrived Monday afternoon and we managed to idle the rest of the day away by finishing off some Wordstock left over stuff I needed to do,explore a bit of the Pearl district,experience the Rose garden in all it’s colorful,blooming,scent filled glory,and shop at Uwajimaya for dinner supplies for one of the meals on the river trip….thanks to Bob and Janet’s suggestion of making a traditional Japanese version of curry(tasty and simple to boot) after I mentioned I wanted to make a curry for the river but was worried about the shrimp suffering if frozen. We used beef instead and it was delicious I might add..but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Tuesday lists were made,checked and rechecked, Silas and Joe joined us for a big shop at Costco,then B & J and I went onto Safeway,the liquor store, and New Season’s to get the rest of the stuff. Chris,Curtis and Sid arrived Tuesday afternoon in Curtis’s pick up truck which was a god send when it came to packing the vehicles with all our gear. Last minute checks of the gear where cleaning was done as needed. A last minute drop off and pick up at Wordstock for me allowed me to come home to find B & J had taken on making salads for dinner to go with our BBQ’d brats. Bless them!

Our first meal together including Sid’s girlfriend Nicole who happened to be from Portland…lucky Sid!

Post meal the boys headed to Powell’s to pick up some much needed reading material to complete their afternoon’s on the river. It was a late night slumber party with Si and Chris sharing a bed that Blake and Ethan normally share while Sid and Curtis took over the living room floor.

Morning came all too blearily…but we managed to get the cars packed and on the road a little after 7 AM. A couple of pit stops later..gas and the traditional Starbucks run in Gresham found us at the Deschutes River Crossing restaurant, in the Warm Springs tribal lands, for breakfast around 9:30 quarter to ten. Managed to make our rendezvous with D.R.A. at the put-in at 11:00 as planned and began the process of unloading the cars,filling our dry bags and coolers with gear and food, then loading and tieing them down on the boats.

Sometime after noon we actually got onto the water and within 300 yards, Janet, not quite used to the ways of a bulky sac of seemingly dead weight floating at will in the water, managed to put the raft into the trees. They got out but it was certainly an auspicious beginning 🙂 Right Janeta?

Thankfully there weren’t any other major Oh Shit moments although Bob did manage to pop Janet out of boat going through Oak Springs on the last day….Janet though is quick on her feet and a strong swimmer having the presence of mind to move herself upriver of the boat and pull herself back into the boat.

We finished the trip with a picnic lunch above White River and then rowed on down to  Sandy Beach for the final landing. A quick unpacking of gear and resorting ourselves got the vehicles loaded up, garbage dumped,dogs in and we were off to see Shears Fall to show Janet and Bob just why we don’t go past Sandy beach! The boys had to hit the road to try to make California by the next morning,Silas and Jake wanted to get back to Portland, so it was up to the four of us to continue the milkshake tradition post river trip. Not that we minded really!

After sugaring up we went back via White River Falls where we stopped to explore the Power plant below. Inside what was left of the turbines were slowly rotting away. We happened to disturb the romantic canoodling of a young couple(by accident of course)so carried on down river to see what we could find. Not Much. Turned around and headed back towards the Power plant to find our canoodlers had conveniently left and we were able to explore more intently the old building which is in a major state of disrepair.
After some exploring and ohhing and awing over the power of the water we checked our clocks and realized it was time to get back on the road back to Portland. Although we had a brief respite on the grassy lawn until another big dog came along and sniffing turned to growling.Let’s go!

Sadly Bob and Janet had to head back to Toronto while Joe and I had to clean ourselves up for another adventure.My cousin’s wedding in Halifax Nova Scotia over the Canada Day Weekend!

Coming off the rhythms of the river always takes a few days to process. You get into a mode of slow and easy despite the intensity of the rushing rapids. Most of our days we spent enjoying the weather and fantastic scenary, counting clouds,reading books,having water fights or watching the boys get soaked,tossing a football between rafts. Curtis did an awesome job at acclimatizing to the kayak even though he had never been in one. Don’t you hate it when those athletes can roll on their first try…sheesh:) Sid put forth a valiant effort but had some trouble with the roll. Everyone else enjoyed the rafts.
We got some great shots of people hurling themselves off the cliff just below Buckskin Mary’s. It had to have been 50 or 60 feet off the wate, of course I could be exaggerating but they all looked great. There is a particularly funny one of Joe going off that looks like he is riding his Hog off the cliff. Harley that is, not porcine!
The novices got their first look at the Bat Cave. Some of them..Janet perhaps..looked like she was ready to hold up a stage coach with her scarf wrapped around her face. Much needed protection against inhaling the nasty bat droppings that fill the bottom of the cave.
We had a great climb up to the top of the basalt cliffs that overlook the river at our first camp site. An incredible bird’s eye view that is a little unnerving when you can see air and sky through some of the crevices at your feet. IE don’t stand too close to the edge…Or don’t look down!
Saw one sunning snake that Jake gave a very wide berth to even though it was as interested in him as he was of it.

So many memories of yet another fine trip on the Deschutes.