stories

Wanted to invite anyone in the PDX area (or anyone willing to brave the airlines and come out for a visit) to stop off and see the Oregon Glass Guild's exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. I helped organize the show, and it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. The guild is also doing demos for the next five Saturday afternoons, including one on pate de verre by yours truly. Here's the schedule:

Have a small mushy moment on me...and go clean out your email. It may do wonders for your soul. I'm not kidding--that's what I did this morning, feeling just a tad sorry for myself. I noticed that my email was a mess, thousands and thousands of messages just sitting there in my various inboxes, slowing everything down and making stuff very hard to find. Zipped up to organization mode, starting putting everything into subfolders, deleting the unnecessary...and discovered I have a helluva lot to be thankful for...

The northwest rains have begun in earnest--last night the rain hit my bedroom skylight so hard that for a moment I thought I was back east--and we're starting the glorious slide from autumn golds and reds to winter's cool grey mists. One of the nicest parts is when the rain stops and the sun spears out, hard, brilliant and golden, completely changing the landscape. It happened early this morning and I just couldn't resist going out back and snapping a few shots. (I think my neighbors have resigned themselves to living next to a crazy woman who grunnies through the mud in her bathrobe and slippers at all hours, taking pictures.)

I smelled my grandfather tonight. Since he's been dead for more than 20 years, it kinda caught me off-guard. Grandpa Morgan was an extremely intelligent, sometimes intimidating man who didn't say much to grandkids (although he obviously got a kick out of us). He took his dog outside for walks a lot because Mom and Dad wouldn't let him smoke his pipe inside. When he'd come back, sweet autumnal smoke trailed him throughout the house.

Remember that bit about all the blind men trying to describe an elephant by touch? Sometimes I think the media is like that. Anyone who thinks that news reporting is always objective might want to glance through the headlines describing the recent exchange between SecState Clinton and the Palestinians: CNN: Palestinians blast Clinton for Israel praise Jerusalem (CNN) -- Palestinian [...]

There are undoubtedly ugly parts of Portland but they're hard to find; this has to be one of the prettiest cities in the US, especially in fall. I keep taking the long way 'round to see my favorite mist-shrouded trees, trembling on the verge of fall color. It's not very efficient of me--the freeway would be faster--but who cares? The sugar maples are glimmering with that incredible, near-neon vermillion, the house-dotted hillsides look like a folk art painting..and I'm so absorbed in driving the city that I miss three phone calls.