UPDATE and I was in downtown this morning!

UPDATE: I slept just fine last night and made it to work without difficulty. When I got home today, I cooked some ground turkey, tossed it with an envelope of taco spices, stirred in a can of low-fat refried beans and a little bit of mild salsa. I ate it with some tortilla strips. Every single bite tasted awful, way too salty, wrong tasting mess, period. I believe this is a side effect of the chemo because I've made this several times in the last few months, once even after Chemo Round One, when it tasted exactly the it always had when made with ground beef. Whew. It was awful! So, I'm throwing it away because I don't want to ruin the thought of it for myself. Anyway, I'm not hungry right now because I ate enough of it before I stopped and drank some water, then had some Nilla Wafers. The awful taste is erased, thank goodness.



When I rode the first bus today, a 12, I decided to go across the Burnside Bridge and change to the next bus next to City Hall downtown. I longed to see downtown. It worked out very well. I took this photo of Portlandia in her perch at the Portland Building which is between SW 5th and SW 4th, right across the street to the north of City Hall. I really like this giant statue!



Here's a closeup that I took of Portlandia back in 2009, so that you can get an idea of just how wonderful she is. She's based on a figure in Portland's city seal--a woman, dressed in classical clothes, who welcomes traders into the port of the city. The sculpture is on the third floor landing of the Portland Building.

The sculpture is 36 feet tall but if Portlandia was magically to stand up, she would be over 50 feet tall; she weighs 6.5 tons. Portlandia is the second largest hammered copper statue in America (the largest is the Statue of Liberty). The statue was designed and sculpted by Washington, D.C., artist Raymond Kaskey and installed over the west entrance of the Portland Building in downtown Portland in 1985.

Kaskey retains the copyright on the statue’s image and so has avoided that work’s mass reproduction--no key chains, y'all.

Before being installed at the Portland Building, Portlandia was floated down the river on a barge and then transported through the city on a large truck. People lined up on the streets to see it. When it reached the building, the people crowded around the sculpture for a chance to touch it before it was installed out of reach.



This is me this morning, waiting for the first bus of the to-work commute. The Blue Diamond is in the background--you can see it through the bus shelter's wall. I've had this hat for years; in fact, I believe that I bought it in Jackson, Mississippi, before Mama and I moved here in June, 2006. I added those fabric roses with the plastic dew drops. Love them!

Portlandia, seen on a cool, dry winter evening

Click here for a trip to City Daily Photo, transporting you around the world every day.



This huge statue fascinates me. Oh, how I would like to get the chance to stand a window near her, rather than just on the sidewalk below her or across the street from her. On December 5, after I took the photo of the Benson Bubbler, seen in yesterday's post, I looked up and saw Portlandia in a new light--sorry, but I've not seen her at night, lit this way, with no leaves on the nearby trees--couldn't resist that one, y'all. She is the second-largest copper repoussé statue in the United States, after the Statue of Liberty. She's almost 35 feet tall, and she's not even standing up. If she were, she'd be about 50 feet tall!

Found this on Wikipedia: The statue is above street level, and faces a narrow, tree-lined street with limited automobile access. Occasionally, there are suggestions to move the statue to a more visible location, but these have come to nothing and the sculptor (Raymond Kaskey) states that he designed the statue for its location and would not approve of moving it.

I got off the bus when I saw these two vehicles.

I got off the bus to take these photos. Since "Leverage" and "Grimm" and "Portlandia" are all filmed in Portland, I naturally wondered what might be happening near these vehicles. Well, I couldn't find anything outside, so I gave up and walked to the nearest bus stop so that I could continue my homeward commute.

At work I mentioned doing this to someone who wondered if I had come near to finding the supposed shooting of the latest version of MTV's Real World. I wonder. And I doubt I'll ever know.

Portlandia's pointing at the door of the Portland Building

Inside the door, to the left at the back of the lobby, there's an alcove where a city arts' organization hangs art each December. This year I was lucky enough to have one piece of mine hung there.


Here it is. "Highway 61 Bottle Blues," 1996, acrylic and found objects. If you open the little box, you read, "Get the juice. Get the blues." One of these days my plan is to have a space to spread out and create again. I've got a stash of paints, papers, frames, and egg cartons patiently waiting.

Tour Guide Perk: Downtown Walking Tour with Peter Chausse, Part 3

I'm so excited! I've found out the real name and sculptor of the onion ring! Here's the photo again.

Here's what I found out at Emporis Dot Com: One of Portland's most admired sculptures, Hilda Morris's bronze Ring of Time, graces the entryway on the west side of the building.

What building, you're wondering? The Standard Insurance Plaza, directly across the street from the Portland Building, where Portlandia kneels, occupies the block bordered on the north by SW Main St., the south by SW Madison St., the east by SW 5th Ave., and on the west by SW 6th Ave. From SW 6th, we walked over a wide, elevated sort of sidewalk, stretching from the regular sidewalk along the street to the building entrance--the Ring of Time stands against the building's wall at the end of the walkway. Whatever it's officially called--that walkway--I'm pretty sure that I remember correctly that Peter told us it was the first one of its kind in Portland. The building itself was finished in 1963. Below the sidewalk there's a sort of landscaped plaza and this fountain on the south side of the walkway--there's a matching fountain on the north side of it.

Peter said it's always coolly comfortable there, below street level. I imagine it will be busy later this week when we get into the 80s around here--folks can walk right into it from the sidewalk because there's an opening in a short wall that parallels the sidewalk, on the corner of SW 6th and Main--I can see it on Google Maps. I can't tell if there's another sidewalk level--can't move that little Google Man just right--makes me want to holler sometimes!

We entered the building and stopped just inside the door to look at what you see in this next photo, taken with available light. It's a weather indicator, as you can plainly read.

You can also read beneath the green circle-shaped light, "Green, no change." "White, colder." "Red, warmer." "Flashing, precipitation." "Steady, no precipitation." It's connected to what you see in this next photo, atop the 16-story, 222 foot building.

From Emporis: The building features a 50-foot weather beacon on top of the roof; white indicates falling temperatures, red indicates warming temperatures, green indicates steady temperatures, and blinking means it is raining or it is going to rain. The weather beacon is updated 3 times each day.

I only had time for the one photo, so I missed the light. Yep, it was blinking. The six-sided columnar-shaped beacon was blinking green, the light coming out of the nine-by-four grid of holes on each side. About the light's meaning rain, it wasn't raining then, and I don't think it rained on us during the walk. Since my brain has become a sieve as I've grown older, I cannot remember, doggone it!

Here's the rest about the Standard Plaza, from Emporis:
City's first building to place its parking garage below street level.
The original plans did not include sidewalks on Main and Madison.
Each level is column-free, as the building floors are held up by the elevator core and an outer frame.

Tour Guide Perk--Downtown Walking Tour with Peter Chausse

I totally appreciate the idea espoused by the Portland Center for the Performing Arts that learning more about Portland makes better tour guides for the PCPA. So when the chance to go on a walking tour of downtown Portland at 5 p.m. on a Thursday came up, I took an hour of vacation and signed right up! Y'all can just imagine how much I looked forward to the two-hour walk, right? My camera around my neck, I joined about 20 PCPA tour guides as we met our Walking Tours of Portland guide Peter Chausse on June 11 in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall rotunda.

Over the next few days, I'll share photos that I took and bits of information about the that Peter shared with us--it was right up my alley!

Remember the Pioneer Courthouse Square Mile Sign Post? One of the destination it points toward is Portlandia. (Click on the link to find out all about her.)

I took this photo from the second floor of a building across the street from the Portland Building.


I took this photo from the sidewalk right beneath Portlandia.


I took this photo looking back at Portlandia.


Here's one more photo that I took from the sidewalk beneath Portlandia. Peter had told us that he'd been taking 3rd graders on tours lately--he always tells them that Portlandia's dropped an onion ring out of her hand.


Here's the onion ring, a sculpture at a building one block west of Portlandia's home. I wish I could remember the name of the building and the sculpture, but I can't. One of these days I will go there and see if there's a plaque that I can photograph.