The Ink-Pot and the Palette

...it is only a test. If this were the actual end of the world, I would be worried about other things than getting a bag of sugar home without it dissolving in the rain.

It feels a bit world-endy, though. I committed to a car-free way of life on the grounds that Portland's famous bad weather is really just mild, damp and gray--not All-Summer-In-A-Day-levels of unbroken heavy rainfall for weeks on end.

Still, that's what we've got. Monsoons of rain. Typhoons of rain. Buffoons, spittoons, doubloons and poltroons of rain. Looney Toons of rain. It is, in a word, wet. In two words: very wet.

( Wet wet wet wet wet wet wet )

Ah well. The stock pot is simmering, Hungarian mushroom soup is in the works, and hey, so far, the power's still on, so there's that.

I spent my lunch hour today with my sister and Mary Stewart, an architect at Alta Planning + Design. Alta is the firm responsible for the bike-share systems in Washington, New York, Minneapolis, a bunch of other US cities, and soon, Portland (yay!).

Through a comment conversation on BikePortland, I was invited to view Alta's array of amazing bike-parking racks, one of which can accommodate my big Dutch bike.

( Bikey day )

Portland has 222 non-sunny days per year. So far in 2011, I think we've already had a hundred of 'em. And not just non-sunny: rainy. And cold. I don't suffer particularly from seasonal affective disorder, but I'm having trouble keeping my spirits up as spring refuses to come.

( Come again some other day. I want to go out and play. )

I tried that this morning. It wasn't successful. I was about a quarter-mile into my ride to work, already quite late, and just...turned around and came home. No lung power. So tired--even after almost twelve hours of sleep--that I just couldn't go the remaining 3.75 miles.

(And no, St Patrick's Day was not involved. St Paddy's is also my mother's birthday, and we are a family of recovering alcoholics and addicts, so there is never any booze about, or even junk food for that matter, and, in short, it was a pleasant and abstemious little evening.)

It's probably the walkin' noooo-monia, to which I am more susceptible than to most things. A bit lungish, that's me.

So, doff helmet and raincoat, change out of somewhat constraining work attire (though Assets by Sara Blakely are awesome as misogynistic torture garments of the "you are not good enough as you are" kind go), don comfy cardigan and fuzzy slippers, and make a massive pot of tea.

And here I am. I think today would be a good day to start that new novel.

The Holy Grail garment into which I intend to fit again one day is an espresso-brown, classic leather bomber jacket. It's a men's model and therefore extremely well made (complete with inside breast pocket), and it used to fit me when I was around a size 10-12.

(To quantify, I will have to be ten inches smaller about the "high hip" before it hangs properly on me again.)

I bought it in 1993 for approximately half a month's wages, wore it on every possible occasion until I could no longer shut it around the aforementioned "high hip," and finally, tired of its constant reproach but unable to jettison it, two or three years ago I laid it to rest in my basement.

My mistake.

The experts at Oregon Leather Company assure that there is no way to get the musty smell of mold out of a lined leather jacket. The internet, however, begs to differ.

I swabbed it (the jacket, not the internet) all over with an alcohol-water mix, then hung it to dry for a week over my ozone-generating air purifier.

Better. But still musty.

So today I basically soaked it in alcohol. Then I hung it to dry outdoors in the wind.


Wet leather jacket weighs a ton.

I don't dare hang it near a heater because it reeks of isopropyl alcohol and would probably catch fire, but maybe by tomorrow I can move it indoors.

I've got heavy-duty conditioner standing by--supposing that the leather survives its radical demustification.

Grilled sharp cheddar cheese, avocado and apricot fruit paste on Udi's gluten-free bread.

Yum.

I'm winding up my last day of vacation by saying nanny-nanny-boo-boo to my coworkers in my mind relaxing at home, doing prep work on my Podbang 2010 entry (which is either going to be epic or a complete bust because far be it from me to do something simple), banging away (as it were, yuk-yuk) on Chapter 39, and looking out at the rain--which will probably be here for a while (like, till July 2011).

It's been a wholly memorable, productive, fun, wonderful vacation--restorative and uplifting and completely divorced from the job. I haven't done that in years.

Now I just need to crank my internal clock back around to office hours before Monday morning.

Pictures can't cover it.



Rainmageddon. Now playing in a downspout near me.

This is the story of riding in the rain.

( It's an illustrated story. )

...but I could do with a little sunshine.

Well, I tweeted too soon. Of course.

Me, yesterday: Amazing how often it doesn't actually rain in Portland. I've cycled every day & been drenched only once. The weather is great from a bike! 12:59 PM Dec 14th from TwitterGadget

Ah-ha-ha-ha.

Make that drenched twice now. And just keep counting, twice more for every workday between now and Xmas, because it's pissing it down out there in that endless Pacific Northwest way that caused the Journals of Lewis and Clark to begin many a day in 1805 with "Cloudy windey morning wind from the East" and end it with "began to rain hard at Sun Set and Continued".

Merino wool is my new best friend! I found Minus33, a source of washable merino wool sport garments IN MY SIZE. I wore my new thin wool leggings and socks today, and though I was pretty soaked, I was warm and comfy. I wrote a fan letter to Minus33 to thank them for acknowledging that yes, big women do go outdoors in the wintertime.

Seriously, how much of the vaunted inactivity of large people is owing to their ghettoization by the American bullshit notion that activity=competitive sports and fitness=Olympic training? You don't need special gear to go outside and move around, but you DO need climate-appropriate clothes. The acrylic and polyester that fills up the plus-size shops is not adequate...but the sporting-specific shops look at you with a kind of pity when you wander over to their clothing racks.

So, thank you Minus33! If you had anything other than black, I'd buy one of every color!