really, really gone to the dogs

Update on Rolo, Pariah of Dog Park

Turns out this woman's dog is NOT neutered...which accounts for my dog's feelings of raging inadequacy and jealousy...no wonder Rolo tries to hump this dog; he wants this dog's jewels!

This woman wants to know my dog park schedule so that we will come at different times -- damn, I have to have a Schedule for dog park, now?!?!

Does she realize my dog is going to need intensive Dog Therapy for this Rejection?

I may have to sue...

Gone to the Dogs

First Observation
Dogs aren't allowed on the Bus in Portland. (You can take them on all public transport in Germany and other places.) As far as I can tell, that's about the only place here where dogs are unwelcome.

Second Observation
Portland folks are a little freaky about their canines.

Proof
Not one, but two (or more) dog magazines in which dogs are referred to as people's "Fur Kids."

More Proof
The dog musical "Bark" that was just in town. The unreal numbers of local dog parks and doggie daycares -- one with a "yappy hour." The dog boutiques, dog parks, dog sitters, dog anti-depressants, dog behaviorists, dog custody battles, dog art exhibitions (either art about dogs or art by dogs) and DoubleDog Ranch where you can send your dog for an Adventure Boarding Camp.

The Last Proof You'll Ever Need
The other day at the dog park near my house my dog started humping another dog when its owner flipped out, demanding I "get control" of my dog. (Both dogs neutered, both dogs male.) Her dog was a lot bigger than mine so I figured she must be homophobic or something...or just a little freaky about her dog...as my daughter said, "It's a Dog, Get Over it."

Another Late night at Sesame Donuts

Contrary to popular opinion, there is life after dark in SW Portland...and it's all happening at Sesame Donuts in Raleigh Hills.

First, of course, there's Jake - my donut dealer. (That's him in the photo...) Then there's his Fan Club - folks who know him and come by to hang out. Bunch of guys getting off work. Red-eyed high school students with the munchies. Even a high school kid doing his film class project -- called "where to not go on a first date." (Aw, what do they know in high school?)

The place was packed. The donuts were fresh. The donut holes were still $1 for 15.

Jake's favorites: maple bars, pumpkin spice and blueberry.
My favorite: crumb, coconut, old-fashioned and pumpkin spice.

"I love to make donuts," Jake says. He says it's all in the timing--put them in the fryer at just the right consistency, take them out at just the right time...This is the 3rd donut shop/bakery he's worked in and he's only 20. Biology major at PSU. Really likes his job. Doesn't like the drunks rolling in from the bars at 2 a.m. though.

Following a Fashionista

I've seen her before waiting at the bus stop downtown. In a sea of black clothing, she stands out -- pinkish hair, an orange and pink swirly '70s polyester dress that's been ripped at the neck, sleeves and hem, shrill, cowboy boots, lots of makeup, very pale skin. Lots of leg and cleavage.

Summur in Portland
I was really curious about her story...so when I saw her again at the bus stop, I decided to ride her way on the #44. Her name is Summur (her mom liked the way the letters looked), from Ashland where her mom cleans houses; she moved up here to live with her dad in SE and go to PCC. She's 18, thinks Portland folks aren't so friendly, loves vintage clothing, not sure if she wants to stay here.

We talked all the way to PCC, way past my stop, and I told her to come over and look through my box of '60s clothes I was going to sell to a vintage store. (Actually, I went into the Red Light on Hawthorne and the guy's too-cool-for-this-planet 'tude convinced me I'd rather feed my clothes to my dog than sell them there...)

Bush, Fur and SUVs
Any city is hard at first - especially from a cocoon like Ashland. Portland is pretty loose, but it suffers from allowing folks to be hip only in certain ways, and being incredibly dogmatic about universal truths: George Bush is Satan--check. SUVs are evil--check. Wearing Fur is the same as having sex with Hitler--check. I didn't vote for Bush, I don't have an SUV nor do I wear fur -- but I'm always curious about those people who do things that are different from what I do...

My kids wore cloth diapers. I breastfed until they started algebra. I homebirthed and homeschooled. I've drummed, visited my midwife in prison, grown organic veggies, voted green, driven old Volvos, taken in homeless teens, wear cotton, rarely go to MDs, don't own a microwave or a TV, send money to needy friends and strangers, listen to Radio Tarifa and Rammstein and Hank Williams...

...and I still want to talk to people who are born-again Christians, voted for Bush, drive Ford 250s, own a gun, are on welfare, hunt and fish, are afraid of gay people, are afraid of black people, are afraid of white people, watch 8 hours of TV every day, take anti-depressants, send their sons to Iraq, hang out in malls, wear tons of make-up, eat Jello, drive low-riders--all those things I'm not and don't do. Because some of those "different" folks have also been kind, suffered terribly, given to others, tried their hardest. And they're human, too, bumping along on this planet just like the rest of us...

Damn, there I went on and on again...

Let's Talk Race--on and off the Bus

I found this blog -- blackamerican.blogspot.com -- written by a black woman with kids living in Portland. She deals mostly with race, being black in (very) white Portland, etc.

Reading it got me thinking about race.

One of the annoying things about Portland--and I'm mostly positive about my new city--is how gratingly p.c. people can be. So many of us are afraid. Afraid to approach a black person because we are white. Afraid to say the wrong thing. Afraid to ask a question that must might be construed as racist. So we either make assumptions that are never challenged -- or we all jump on the "we need more diversity" bandwagon without just having one honest, open conversation with a person of a different color.

I'm guilty of this, too -- yesterday on the bus, I sat next to Clarence, a young-ish guy listening to music on his iPod. I figured -he's black! he must be listening to black music! -- so I asked him. Turns out it was Mastadon. Blew all my preconceptions off the bus! And, no, he didn't bristle at my starting a conversation with him--this older, white woman--he even got off at my bus stop to talk some more...turns out he's a computer science major (which accounts for Mastadon, I guess, another stereotype geek=heavy metal), and he gets on the #56 bus to ride downtown to catch the still-empty #44 back out to PCC Sylvania -- he hates crowded buses that much.

We Get Given What We Believe Most
Sometimes I think we see what we believe. I take a class at PSU and I'm old enough to be the mother of most of the students. Some days I just feel old and those are the days the pert, blond girls brush by me as if I were invisible. These are the days I think the younger people in my class resent me for being there.

Is it true or am I just projecting my belief that I am old?

I have black friends who say their lives have been shaped by racism. I have black friends who say it has been irrelevant. I've heard white people blame Mexicans for their economic problems.I grew up in Germany when Turkish workers were the underdogs. (And a lot of Germans treated their dogs better.) I think sometimes people find race to be an easy hat on which to hang their disillusionment with life (and themselves). It's SO simple to blame it all on "you know, black people who want it easy," or "those lazy Mexicans who just want free health care" or even, "white people who don't care about race."

Get Me My Grits, Heifer!!
Last year my daughter and I spent several months in New Orleans on our own helping two families gut/de-mold their houses in the 9th Ward - we went from sleeping in our car to living in a FEMA trailer with an extended family. (The whole family actually consisted of 2 parents, 11 kids and 36 grandchildren--all living within a few miles of each other before Katrina.) Anyway, as we ripped out walls and sprayed de-molding bleach and struggled in and out of sweaty Tyvek bodysuits, we talked -- relationships, bodies, family, money, tv shows, sex, poverty, NOLA, the neighbors (who weren't there, so it was more fun to gossip about them)...and, of course, race.

The closer we got - and you get close standing in someone's moldy house hearing about their lives pre- and post-Katrina -- the more doors opened on stuff blacks and whites don't usually share with each other. How does it feel to watch TV when everyone is white? Do you think the movement of (mostly) blacks out of NOLA after the flood was a plot by white America? Why do so many black women down south look so gorgeous but eat like shit--and the reverse is true for so many white women up north? (We loved our generalizations!) We argued about religion. We talked about how families--esp. up north--end up scattered all over and only see each other occasionally. We went out to eat at all-black neighborhood places and went to church where my daughter and I were the only white people. (I had the sensation of my white skin being exposed and shiny and I wanted to cover it up...)

A white Housekeeper
We also laughed about me doing all the family laundry--finally, a white housekeeper! We laughed about Roosevelt (the dad) yelling at Martha (his wife) and me to "Fix my grits, heifer!" Later when I told a white women in Biloxi--where we volunteered in a Vietnamese neighorhood--that Roosevelt had called me a "heifer," she was outraged that I had "allowed it." (Oh, I'm sorry, you're right, let's only discuss things that don't offend anyone ever...)

To me, it was all part of the be-yourself-black-and-white friendship we still have today with Roosevelt and Martha and their family. Isn't that what we want after all? Not blindness to color, but enrichment by color...?

Some Last Thoughts about Race
I've got black neighbors down here in SW - I've stopped to say hi to all my neighbors, introduce myself, invite people in, etc. My grumpy white neighbors complain about druggies stealing their flower pots (?? but they didn't take their flower pot made from an old toilet--those druggies are so discriminating!) One neighbor - black - came by one night, drunk, to borrow money.

Did I think, "Oh, he's black and drunk, so typical??" Or "they're white and crabby, so typical of old white folks"??

No. I thought, "Everyone has a story. Some are lonely. Some are hiding who they really are. Some drink. Some yell at their kids. Some stay home with all their curtains closed because they see junkies everywhere..." Another neighbor - also black - came over in the worst rain and snow to tell me I'd left my car door open. Sweet. I've had some truly trashy neighbors - one guy (white) would pee against my house when he got drunk. (I can laugh about it now, but it pissed me off then.)

Enough, Already!!
Anyway, Smartass Teen Blogger in House just told me the best blogs are short - some days I just can't stop writing...other days I hate the computer...

For Just $100,000 More You Get Doors that Stay Closed

Today, as the bus was turning off Naito Pkwy towards PSU, the back door suddenly flew open. The bus driver turned off the engine and stomped to the back, shouting, "You'd think for a quarter of a million dollars you'd get a bus with doors that stay shut!!"

Next to me, Clarence whispered, "He's always yelling at the bus, every time I ride this route..."

I met Clarence as part of my ongoing research to find out what people listen to while riding the bus. (Fully half this bus was plugged in.) The guy in front of me was reading Ursula LeGuin and rocking his head back and forth. The 18-year-old in front of me, a cross between clean-cut kid and wanna-be gangsta, was listening to the soundtrack from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

I asked Clarence--a black guy in his late 20's with a soft, round face--what he was listening to. Seems he's a heavy metal fan and his morning music of choice was Mastodon. (He also likes Celtic Frost and Slayer and others whose names I couldn't hear over the driver's shouting at the door.)

Something else about Clarence -- he rides the 54/56 bus all the way north downtown to catch the #44 bus, which he then rides back south to his web design class at PCC Sylvania. Why don't you just hop off in Hillsdale and switch buses and save yourself about 45 minutes, I ask. Well, the bus is too crowded then.

Just another Bus Fan, riding the bus....

P.S. Don't miss more results of my "What are You Listening to Today on the Bus" research...coming soon!

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (Snow, too...)

Portlanders have an strange relationship with rain: they either exaggerate it wildly or they downplay it ludicrously.

Conversation in November during my first month of non-stop rain:
Me: Does it always rain like this?
Guy at bus stop: Yes, and it won't stop until April, so you'd better get used to it.

Conversation in December after doing laps in my basement:
Me: Does it ever stop raining here?
Girl at bus stop: Rain? It's a great day today! I can see some light up there coming through, even some sky...You know, Portland gets a lot less rain than other cities.
Me: Oh? Like which cities?
Girl (without any shame): You know, like in California, like San Francisco or even San Diego.
Me: (Stunned silence).