Worker working, seen on my morning walk, Monday, June 20, downtown Portland

On my morning walk between the two buses that I take to get to work, I noticed for the first time a City of Portland employee watering plants along the sidewalk. Yea!

More sun, shade, sidewalk. I do look up when I'm out and about, promise, but these shadows lately have been fascinating.

Some mornings as I head for the bus shelter, I walk out the front door of my building--variety is the spice of life, so said my 8th and 9th grade social studies teacher, Melvin Kellogg Bruss. I'm happy that I did the other morning because I got to see another great sun, shade, sidewalk combo.

UPDATE, with a video - Some soothing photos that I decided to share with you.

UPDATE: Here you have it, my latest hat to cover my easily chilled, stubble-covered head. Plus my newest cup to use when I enjoy Twinings English Breakfast Tea. I lucked into it on Saturday at the Albertina Kerr thrift shop, known as Albertina's Closet.



Click on the video and you'll go to my Flickr account, then click on it again to watch. Enjoy!

Slept plenty last night, woke up right before 4 a.m. and stayed up because I didn't feel sleepy any longer. Tomorrow by this time I will have had blood drawn for the pre-chemo Round Two tests. Then on Wednesday morning, I have an 8 a.m. appointment with my chemo doctor which is scheduled prior to Round Two Chemotherapy.



Ginkgo tree leaves and April sunshine, taken at Lownsdale Park, downtown Portland.



Blossoms in the spring sunshine. I don't remember for sure where I took this photo because I see so many beautiful blooming trees in Portland. It's a lovely place in the spring.



My favorite shadows, these undulating along the sidewalk. I lucked into this photo in August, 2007, as I walked to the bus stop. We used to live in the Alphabet District in Northwest Portland, so my early morning work commute took me eastward.

Seen in the neighborhood on a recovery walk.

I took my DSLR, a Nikon D5100, with me on a recent walk. Thank goodness! I got this photo of the front yard of a house on a nearby block. Look at all of this color from these large rose bushes!



Here's a wider view that shows the flowering trees in the parking strip. I believe that they are Kousa dogwoods.



Dogwood blossom--reminds me of an origami crane.



One more beautiful Kousa dogwood blossom.



The roses, splendid in their colors and shapes.



There are buds hiding in these blossoms. This bush is just beyond the sidewalk that goes up to the porch, easily seen in the top photo of this post. I took this photo from this perspective, intrigued by the spent blossom mixed with the still lush ones, as well as the buds peeking out here and there.



I can't get enough of these two colors side-by-side.

Around 6:25 a.m. this morning, the view from the building's front door.

I wanted to put some mail in the outgoing basket downstairs, around the corner from the laundry room where the building's mailboxes are attached to the wall. Since the sun had already come up, I decided to walk out the front door and around the corner on the sidewalk so that I could go inside that door and put the mail in the basket. I need to enjoy the outdoors several times today because it's supposed to be rainy tomorrow.

According to KGW Channel 8, the local NBC affiliate, it will be 70 today--maybe an evening shower--then 60 tomorrow with heavy showers. Pretty much the same forecast for Wednesday, too. I'll be taking advantage of the wide hallways and the stairs inside my building until Thursday, when the weather's predicted to be better.

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.

Sights I'll miss until I am about out and about again, No. 3 - plus an update

Graffiti, Portland style. I took this photo April 26, 2008. Looks like it was a nice sunny day for leaving a trail.

RECOVERY UPDATE: Slept pretty good, in the recliner which meant less stress on my body. Thank goodness I had the laproscopic procedure, not the full abdominal one; that should make my recovery less stressful. Lamont sacked out on my twin bed. I ate a piece of toast around 6 a.m., took a Oxycodone and a 600 Ibuprofen at 6:20 a.m. By 7:20 a.m., outrageous nausea set it. Lamont and I both thought we'd heard two names of over-the-counter nausea meds, so he got in his car and drove to Freddie's where he found nothing, not even a helpful employee; then he drove to Walgreens where a worker explained to him that both were prescription drugs. Lamont called me to report this. While he was on the way back here, I was able to call the discharged-from-the-hospital-within-five-days advice nurse and get some advice: Eat some protein, like a scrambled egg, and some dry toast, slowly, over a period of time. Within two hours of having done that, if I still felt totally terrible, call back. She said it could have been either pill that caused the nausea.

Well, it worked! Actually, by the time I ate it, an hour and a half had passed since I took the pills, so a bit of relief seemed to be already on its way. But, eating that dry scrambled egg and that dry toast, slowly, over an hour, made a huge change. Since then, I've walked in the hall of the apartment building, as well as around in the apartment between kitchen, bathroom and living room. I've had a bit of baked chicken and some plain rice, plus a few strawberries from the box of cut fruit that Leland got yesterday when he went to the grocery store for me. Today he got a few more items that I wanted but didn't think of yesterday. I'm heading for the recliner in a few to take a nap.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and concern. We really appreciate it.

Truth in the message.

Seen on August 30, 2008. Painted on a sidewalk. I believe it was on the Hawthorne Bridge. I remember thinking when I saw it as I walked closer, I need to photograph this! I mean, who wouldn't like to read this now and then when going through one's photos? Now, I'm sharing it with y'all so that you can enjoy the message!

Sidewalk, sunshine, shadows and shoes

A photo like this is so much fun to get the chance to take! I'm enjoying the photo and the fact that those shoes are not on my particular feet!

Busy Sidewalk, No. 3

Count the helmets in the bucket--one pink and white, one purple, one blue, one black. I also see a cloth cap that is white with a gray lining and a something turquoise that is knitted or crocheted. On the box there is a sticker that reads, "She flies with her own wings," one for Session Lager, one for I Heart Oregon, another of the flies with her own wings, a tiny smiley face, a tiny red apple, a couple of butterflies, two of white dogs in silhouette--maybe a Rottweiler and a Lab, one black and white one of a fox drinking from a steaming cup, another one with the same fox seated at a table with a chicken maybe having coffee together, and several that I cannot make out. Inside the box, the word Bakfiets is engraved at the end closest to the handlebars, and along the outer lower corner near the front wheel I read clevercycles.com. A quick Google tells me this is a WorkCycle--I guess so, peddling along with your children in the box would be work, for sure. There's a bell on the left handlebar and a large chain locking the bike to the bike rack bar. It is parked outside The Children's Gym, a busy place it seems to me because I often see parents and children there after work when I go walking by across the street and on Saturdays like this, too, when I'm heading for the nearby Circuit NE Bouldering Gym to say hello to my two sons who may be there doing their thing. According to the gym's Web site, gymnastics is their main thing, but they also have dance and music classes, plus after-school care and the occasional Parents Night Out. I took this photo on Saturday, March 15, at 12:24 p.m. I suppose the peddling parent went inside to watch his/her children's gym session.



Here's a wide shot of the sidewalk so that you can get an idea of it and the gym and the cars parked along the sidewalk, plus one pedestrian ahead of me.

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!

Busy Sidewalk, No. 1

A family of four, out for a stroll on a Friday evening. Sunny, cold in the shadows, thus the jackets, those thick boots on the older daughter, and Dad's hands in his pockets. I imagine that the shopping bag with the red design on it came from the City Target, not too many blocks west and south of the intersection where they crossed West Burnside. You can see a portion of a sign there above the top of the red umbrella. Berbati's, where Lamont first worked when he moved to Portland in September, 2000. I'm not sure if it was this corner or another one; back then the establishment took up more square footage than it does today.

I took this photo on March 21 at 6:45 p.m., then I caught the bus on home. I had lasted as long as I could at Tom McCall Waterfront Park among the blooming cherry trees and folks out enjoying them. Nature called, don't you know.

While cold and blustery weather lingers, I'm dreaming and knowing this too will come, No. 8

Although this is in my old neighborhood, the Alphabet District in NW Portland, I have every hope that I shall find such pink-blossom-covered sidewalks, streets, and parked vehicles somewhere here in NE Portland, where I now live. I took this photo April 7, 2007, at 11:20 a.m. Notice the person approaching on the sidewalk, umbrella in hand? April showers sometimes bring April flowers! Mama and I lived in the beige brick building you can see through the flower-draped branches, there on the left side of the photo.

Neighborhood walk reveals the disappearance of a large tree.

Now. About 40 minutes ago the sight of this tree stopped me in its tracks. No, it's not the angle at which it extends over the sidewalk. The absence of its nearest neighbor surprised me.



Then. You can see what I mean in this photo that I took on Feb. 27, 2011, while out on a walk. The loss of a tree in the city brings a sadness to my soul.

Memories, seen from a new perspective, thanks to the AHC's tour of 705 Davis Condominiums

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

I took these photos from different windows in other condos--looking at the views was just as much fun for me as looking at the condos themselves.
 

On the sidewalks of NW Everett, between NW 22nd and NW 23rd--I'd have a hard time counting how many times I walked these sidewalks, in all kinds of weather, before and after work, on weekends, to and from the Fred Meyer, by myself, with Mama and our little dachshund Duncan, with my two sons, with my brother when he visited, my our friends-so-great-that-they-are-family visited from Mississippi and California, with a sweetheart of a friend from Mississippi who also became a Portlander, and with a friend I met at the bus stop who had a pet skunk. Walked with those folks in all sorts of combinations over the years. Back when we had a car, the '96 Buick, I parallel parked on either side of this one-way street numerous times--on NW 22nd also--sometimes with the ease of a hot knife in butter, sometimes not.
 

I could almost type the exact same text beneath this view, too, except that it's looking at the dead-end intersection of NW King with NW Davis. I parked the car here a lot, too. Boy, am I happy not to own a car any more!
 

Here's more of NW Davis, just east of the intersection in the photo right above this one. Mama walked the sidewalk on the right back when she was healthy enough to go to the beauty shop which was on the corner hidden by all of the leaf-laden trees. I have to tell you that when I looked out the window and took this photo, I got choked up for a little while, remembering the day she asked me to find her a beauty shop that she could walk to from our apartment. I used Google Maps Search Nearby and found us a beauty shop. I'm getting choked up right now just typing this because over the years we knew what we'd really found was a sweetheart of a woman, our friend Rosa. This woman came to our apartment in later years and gave Mama her trims and perms there because Mama's mobility lessened as congestive heart failure took its toll. The last photo of us together Rosa took with her camera after she'd done our hair in our kitchen, on the Sunday before Mama died in her sleep on Friday afternoon, January 7, 2011. I count myself blessed to still have Rosa in my life.
 

Back in the day, when Mama was mobile, we walked together to Fred Meyer a few times. We never carried our groceries home in a bag (back then the stores in Portland were allowed to use plastic bags, but not now as you can see from this paper bag in the hands of that man). We used a rolling black bag. Another thing, back in the day, we could walk right into our Fred Meyer with our little dachshund Duncan on his leash. It was hard to tell you was more popular with other shoppers, Mama or Duncan.
 

One last memory. See the mustard-colored, multi-storied building, top left? It stands diagonally across the street from our building. We lived on the top floor of our four-story building, and I seem to remember that the building we're looking at had six stories. Our living room was on the corner of our building closest to the intersection, therefore not far at all from the building we're looking at. Our TV was in the corner, with two good-sized windows in each of the two walls that made up the corner. I could sit in my chair, placed diagonally in front of the TV, and easily see most of the top floors of the building, not the two walls you can see in the photo, but the wall just out of sight to the left. Mama could not see what I could see from her recliner. Anyway, one night I'm sitting there in my chair, watching TV with Mama. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed motion in one of the windows, a repetitive, rhythmic motion. Taking my attention from the TV, I focused on that window and realized that I was seeing a man and a woman having sex in what I figured must be the living room, without any curtains shut. Her legs were straight up in the air and he was very busy between them. "My gosh," I said, "there is someone having sex in an apartment over there!" Mama said, "What? Where?" Then we decided we'd turn out the light so that she might could catch a glimpse without us being noticeably voyeuristic, but by the time we did that, it was all over over there. Truth.