Portland plans
Oct. 7th, 2001 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI realized today that since our honeymoon, Misha and I have only travelled on weekend trips to conventions or to visit our families. This is our first vacation in more than two years. No wonder I'm so excited!
We have our flight reservations. We'll be leaving at godawful-early-o'clock in the morning of Friday, October 26th, and getting in to Portland around 11am. We'll be leaving at 2pm on Wednesday, October 31st, and getting back to Baltimore at godawful-late-o'clock at night. We'll be staying in a hotel, at least most of the time, because the friends who offered to put us up had to construct a baroque plan involving hauling their sleeping child around at midnight in order to be able to say that they had room for us. We'll probably be staying at least one night with our friend Jez in Salem, her not having a sleeping child who'd need moving.[1]
I haven't seen some of my Portland friends in four years. Barely spoken to them, either, I'm ashamed to admit. Things with my Portland ex ended so horribly, and some of our friends took sides, and... all things considered, it was probably easier to just avoid reminders. And then there was the whole mess last fall and winter, when everything was so hard for us and I dropped out of contact with practically everybody. My friend Wynona called me then, I remember, and I said I'd call her back the next day and never did. And then of course I felt diffident about contacting people, given what an uncommunicative jerk I'd been. Fortunately, they all seem disposed to forgive me with great enthusiasm.
So now begins the making of plans, and I'm incredibly excited. Sushi, lots of sushi - this much is a foregone conclusion. On my previous trips to Portland I'd often have sushi four days out of five, and I never grew tired of it. Hot tubbing at Inner City Hot Springs, a beautiful quiet bath-house and sauna where the tubs are open to the sky. (They offer free hot tubbing on your birthday - which, coincidentally, will be the day we arrive.) Powell's City of Books, the largest used bookstore west of the Mississippi, covering two floors and an entire city block. The Reed campus - apparently they've built enough new buildings that I won't even recognize the place. The Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens (if it's not too cold), the site of the majority of my experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. The little cafes and shops along Hawthorne Boulevard. Pioneer Square. The long winding drive along the Columbia River gorge. The seafood and champagne brunch at Skamania Lodge, and then relaxing the afternoon away in rocking chairs by the fire. Northwest microbrews. And my friends: Jez, Sam, Shandra, Diana, Wynona, Jeff. Their kids, Alex, Rory (the whitehaired baby I lived with during her first year of life, who is now in the second grade), baby Max (whom I've never met).
Oh, I'm happy.
[1] If you don't count her shockingly young boyfriend, who probably doesn't sleep in the guest room anyway.
We have our flight reservations. We'll be leaving at godawful-early-o'clock in the morning of Friday, October 26th, and getting in to Portland around 11am. We'll be leaving at 2pm on Wednesday, October 31st, and getting back to Baltimore at godawful-late-o'clock at night. We'll be staying in a hotel, at least most of the time, because the friends who offered to put us up had to construct a baroque plan involving hauling their sleeping child around at midnight in order to be able to say that they had room for us. We'll probably be staying at least one night with our friend Jez in Salem, her not having a sleeping child who'd need moving.[1]
I haven't seen some of my Portland friends in four years. Barely spoken to them, either, I'm ashamed to admit. Things with my Portland ex ended so horribly, and some of our friends took sides, and... all things considered, it was probably easier to just avoid reminders. And then there was the whole mess last fall and winter, when everything was so hard for us and I dropped out of contact with practically everybody. My friend Wynona called me then, I remember, and I said I'd call her back the next day and never did. And then of course I felt diffident about contacting people, given what an uncommunicative jerk I'd been. Fortunately, they all seem disposed to forgive me with great enthusiasm.
So now begins the making of plans, and I'm incredibly excited. Sushi, lots of sushi - this much is a foregone conclusion. On my previous trips to Portland I'd often have sushi four days out of five, and I never grew tired of it. Hot tubbing at Inner City Hot Springs, a beautiful quiet bath-house and sauna where the tubs are open to the sky. (They offer free hot tubbing on your birthday - which, coincidentally, will be the day we arrive.) Powell's City of Books, the largest used bookstore west of the Mississippi, covering two floors and an entire city block. The Reed campus - apparently they've built enough new buildings that I won't even recognize the place. The Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens (if it's not too cold), the site of the majority of my experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. The little cafes and shops along Hawthorne Boulevard. Pioneer Square. The long winding drive along the Columbia River gorge. The seafood and champagne brunch at Skamania Lodge, and then relaxing the afternoon away in rocking chairs by the fire. Northwest microbrews. And my friends: Jez, Sam, Shandra, Diana, Wynona, Jeff. Their kids, Alex, Rory (the whitehaired baby I lived with during her first year of life, who is now in the second grade), baby Max (whom I've never met).
Oh, I'm happy.
[1] If you don't count her shockingly young boyfriend, who probably doesn't sleep in the guest room anyway.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Looks wonderful
Date: 2001-10-07 08:03 pm (UTC)We're going to Portland, too!
Date: 2001-10-10 08:34 pm (UTC)There will be no Rory the Whitehaired Baby there, but there will be Deb the college professor high school friend unit and her family of choice, family of origin, and family of uterus. Oh, and the dogs, too.
Also, my co-worker is going to Portland, Ore., shortly. I wonder when.