Sight I saw while out and about yesterday, enjoying a few moments of sunshine, plus an UPDATE

With Lamont here to help, we took a load of clothes down the 10 steps to the basement laundry room. After we returned there to put the clothes in the dryer, I decided to walk out the building's side door and around to the front door to get back to my apartment which is near the front door. While taking a photo of the sunshine in these banana tree leaves, I caught the guy who had just rattled by on the sidewalk. See him just to the right of the leaves.



He's got a plastic tub stuffed to the gills with something, topped by a black drum, all balanced on top of a skateboard.

Skillfully he pushed his cargo from the sidewalk, through the intersection, and continued south on the street.

Ah, the joys of being out and about in Portland.

UPDATE:  I have  low grade uterine cancer. Friday morning at 8 a.m., I have an appointment with a surgeon who deals with what the scheduler called "cancer from the belly button down," in other words, her specialty is cancer in a woman's reproductive tract. We will discuss the pathology report thoroughly as well as a plan for what's next, which the scheduler labeled a plan for care/cure. I will leave the appointment with a complete understanding of the pathology and the plan.

THANK YOU for your continued prayers, love and concern.

Busy Sidewalk, No. 2

I took this photo on Saturday, March 15, at 12:14 p.m. The daddy and the stroller captured my attention. Bye the time I got the camera up to take a photo from at least a block away, he'd turned to look over his shoulder. The photo looks north on NE 16th towards the intersection with NE Sandy Blvd. The cream-colored building behind the daddy with the double-stroller holding two sleeping babies is on the southeast corner of the intersection. I cannot tell what he has turned to look at or for. None of the people in the distance are paying him any mind. Everyone's happy to be out in the sunshine in mid-March!

While cold and blustery weather lingers, I'm dreaming and knowing this too will come, No. 6

I took this photo on June 26, 2009, at 5:07 p.m. Look at the wedding party, carefully crossing the sunny street on their way no doubt to a wedding photo site. The woman in the brown pants has a camera and a bag full of stuff. The woman behind her in the black pants also has a camera. As best as I can tell from the first photo in the series, the woman in the short-sleeved red top and the blue jeans just happened to be on the corner waiting for the light to change when the wedding party joined her. Likewise the woman in the black skirt and the flip-flops. It cracks me up how indifferent the two of them see, there in the midst of that colorful, youthful group. I have to wonder whether or not the two of them gave their chance encounter enough thought to have related it to someone when they reached their destinations. From the look of them, I doubt it. And, to me, that's a doggone shame. What is your opinion? Would you strike up a conversation in a situation like this? Would you tell all about it later on?

All together now, we go, too.

The vanity license plate on the convertible caught my eye--I GO TO. I picked up the camera from beside me on the bus seat and snapped away Friday afternoon on my way home from work.

Later that night when I downloaded the photo I realized straight away that I had captured something that I've grown to dearly love about Portland. Look out the windshield of the bus with me. You see a MAX light rail train turning from left to right, heading towards the eastbound PGE Park MAX Station on SW Yamhill, Stop ID 9758. You see the Mercedes convertible. You see a bicyclist. I'm on the #18 bus. It's 5:25 p.m., and the car, bike and bus waited calmly as the MAX glided through the corner. With the MAX out of sight, the traffic signal changed to green. We three continued our progress.

Within a quarter of a block, four types of transportation side by side. I love this coexistence, the sort of application of the multi-use concept that I believe to be one of the aspects that makes Portland a healthy city.

Below I included a Google map of the area for your enjoyment. If you zoom in and move the map around, you can get close enough to see the MAX tracks as they make the curve. The red A is pointed at PGE Park. The intersection is immediately to the right of it, SW 18th at SW Yamhill.




View Larger Map

An Intersection (and Mama and Duncan)

The Portland streetcar turns left off NW 23rd at Lovejoy, in front of the US Bank branch that is closest to our apartment. The green leaves on the trees tell you that I took this photo earlier in the year, May in fact.

I like this intersection. Besides the streetcar, there's the #15 bus that travels NW 23rd. Then you've got loads and loads of vehicles--cars, pickup trucks, delivery trucks, SUVs, trash trucks. And let's not leave out pedestrians. NW 23rd is one of Portland's busiest street for shopping, eating, strolling, no matter the day of the week or the time of day. I left pedestrians out of this particular shot because I wanted to focus on the intersection itself.

Mama made a pretzel today during therapy, in addition to exercising. She didn't eat it after it was baked in the oven, though, because she's not a pretzel gal. When I saw her this evening, she looked pretty good but somewhat fragile--understandable, given what she's been through. Leland visited, too, completing some of his math homework while Mama ate a bit of the deli food I brought from Zupan's. We put the rest of it into the frig in the dining room, with her name on it, for tomorrow.

Duncan is still at the vet's. I'm hoping that he'll be able to come home after work tomorrow. On Saturday I'd like to take him and our Scrabble game to Mt. Tabor for some together time with Mama.

I slept about five hours in a row last night, then went back to sleep for another hour or so. Hooray!