October 2012
6th
What a gorgeous first week of October we’ve been having. It’s been sunny with a fall crispness in the air in the mornings, and that smell of autumn around the corner as the sun shines in the afternoon. We rode with the girls to school again on Monday morning. Phoebe started her chess club again on Monday as well. On Wednesday, just Phoebe and I rode to school because Jada wasn’t feeling well. She started teaching both morning and afternoon kindergarten classes this week while they try to find a replacement for the teacher who started out the year there. Let’s just say that with all the cuts, it’s been an interesting year for the teachers and kids. So Jada has been dealing with 61 kindergartners this week. She suggested it as being what’s best for the kids, but it’s pretty hard on her.
I found out I have a likely fracture of my 7th rib on my right side just below my pectorals during my massage on Tuesday. I’d been in a little bit of pain for about a week and a half after a collision with a teammate while playing basketball. I assumed it was muscular, but apparently there are no muscles there. We narrowed it down to exactly where it seemed to be coming from. The next morning, I called my doctor and explained my symptoms and asked for any advice to help it heal. The gist of what she said was, “if it hurts, don’t do it.” She also said she’d pass the info along to my doctor, and if she felt like I needed to come in, she’d call me back. I never did hear back from her. I continued to ride my bike to work all week. As long as I didn’t stand and really hammer out of the saddle, I didn’t experience much pain. I’ve stopped playing basketball, but I’m trying to figure out what I can do at the gym to keep myself in shape. I haven’t found any core exercises I can do comfortably yet, but I should be able to do leg exercises. Ellen has been suffering through a cold, and Phoebe picked it up toward the end of the week. It’s been going around the school, and not just in Oregon either. I put Phoebe to bed early on Friday night since she said she wasn’t feeling well. Jada was able to attend an open hour at our artist friend Gretchen’s where she purchased some Christmas gifts.
Saturday morning after our trip to the market, we met up with tandeming friends to ride out to Forest Grove for brunch on this brisk and sunny fall day. It was another beautiful weekend in what is sure to be one of the last we get this year, but we’ll continue to hold out hope for a few more miles and smiles. We passed the Portland Velo bike club out for their morning ride. It was a large group, well, several large groups. We made our way out to our destination 22 miles away at Maggie’s Buns in Forest Grove right next to Pacific University. The food was good, and we got a nice table outside to enjoy the sun. Before we left there, we swapped Becky to the quad while Ellen rode the tandem with Paul. She can now reach the regular pedal length! Yea! One more piece of weight I can remove from the quad. I had already taken off the un-used chain rings left over from the stoker kit the night before so I could remove one more hazard (the unguarded spikes of the ring). It was fun riding through the countryside with them as it always is. We switched the stokers back at a golf course we pass along the way. The rest of the ride in was difficult with a strong cross-wind. As soon as we got home, we had to run back out to REI which was hosting a bike donation drive at all of their stores. I finally got one of Phoebe’s old bikes donated along with one of Ellen’s friend’s bikes that we took in for them. Phoebe’s excited to give another little girl an opportunity to own a bicycle.
7th
Sunday was a more laid back day. We got up late and had big breakfast. Jada and Phoebe when grocery shopping while Ellen and I stayed home and did our chores. Jada went out to see a movie with one of her friends, and the girls and I rode our bikes down to a nearby grade school so Phoebe and I could shoot some hoops. Ellen met up with one of her friends that lives near the school. They spent most of their time sitting on the swings and sitting on the play structure talking. It took me back to when I used to hang out with my friends at the school up the street from our house. After a while, they asked if Ellen could go back to her house for a while, so I let her do that while Phoebe and I rode back home to head out to the orchard. We picked Ellen up on the way back. When Jada got home from her movie, the girls got to watch a video called Flicka 3. Apparently it’s a 3rd sequel to the original Flicka movie – straight to video, I’m sure.
14th
Ellen’s flexibility and aerials teacher said she is ready to move up, and that she’s a natural at it. Phoebe’s trying to get up to the next level in her gymnastics class. The rain returned to Portland on Friday morning. I was able to ride to work 4 days last week including Friday afternoon in the pouring rain. We picked up the girls from their class, and we watched Ellen in her aerials class. She is quite good. Phoebe was able to try it out too.
Saturday was a day of rest. The 2 kindergarten classes with 31 kids each is really wearing Jada down. I ended up cleaning up in the garage and re-wrapping my handlebars on the quad. The original tape that came on it was really hard, so I used some spongier stuff. It’s the first time I had ever done my own wrap job…it’s about as good as you’d expect one of my wrapping jobs to be(you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever received a gift I’ve wrapped.) We went over to REI in the afternoon and then out to dinner at the Old Spaghetti factory. We had been there in years. The food was good, but none of us finished our whole meal. On Sunday, Jada took Phoebe to the grocery store while Ellen and I stayed home. I made a run out to the orchard in the morning while they were shopping. I chose a big selection of apples. I love October. I went downtown for my massage in the morning, and I got to ride our massage therapist’s new electric bicycle around the block. It was interesting. I don’t think I’m ready for one yet, but he’s giving up his car so it makes pretty good sense as a mode of transportation in the city. Jada had her massage in the afternoon. The girls played in one of their rooms for a while until finally coming out. I found a One Direction (they’re a boy band that’s popular with the tweens) concert on iTunes that was still free to watch, so I let Ellen watch that until Phoebe and I went to a basketball open gym with her friend. It’s the first time she’s played, and we don’t have basketball shoes for her yet. She did amazingly well doing the drills considering it’s her first time, and she was playing with 4th, 5th, and 6th grade girls. She had fun. She didn’t complain, and some of the other girls from her school helped her be where she should be and explain the drills to her a little extra. She’s hoping to play on a team this winter. We’ll see.
15th
Jada got to go see an author speak at Powell’s tonight. Phoebe has chess club on Monday’s, and they both have their math enhancement class.
18th
I stayed home today so Jada could do her conferences. We attended Phoebe’s at 7:30 and Ellen’s was at noon. Jada just made it in time. Apparently Ellen does a little bit of talking in class, so we’ll watch out for that, but otherwise, they’re both doing great. We went over to the Nike employee store after that so we could get Phoebe a pair of basketball shoes. They had the Air Jordan 7’s which were originally called the Hare Jordans because they were endorsed by Bugs Bunny when he did commercials with them before Space Jam came out. Unfortunately, they were only boys sizes so they didn’t fit her quite right. There was another pair of Jordans (those were the only girls bball shoes they had) that fit her, though. Hopefully they’ll be comfortable for running up and down the court. She likes them, and they’re a decent high top, so they should support her ankles pretty well.
22nd
The rain returned with a vengeance Friday afternoon. Saturday morning we went to the market and grocery store and other errands. Jada and I went out to see a movie by ourselves. We went to see the (not so) Rom-Com movie, Looper. It was pretty interesting. Sunday morning we went out to breakfast at the South Store Café. We drove this time. It was another day of just sitting around the house trying to get Phoebe to learn the piece she is supposed to already have memorized for piano. Then we went to the open gym so she could do some more basketball drills. She stayed with it through the double ball dribbling drills and single ball drills where she was always last. There were only 11 girls, but 3 others were from Phoebe’s school and will be playing on her team in January. Unfortunately, she won’t be able to participate in any other open gyms this week.
25th Happy Birthday, dear Allen…
I spent the day at home while we got a few trees removed and the rest trimmed up and away from the sides of the house. It looks a lot cleaner. The only problem is that they didn’t take the wood. They cut the branches and trunks into small firewood pieces, so I’m going to put them out front with a “free firewood” sign this weekend. Some of the smaller ones can go into the yard waste bin. They made some good progress in a single day. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I need to save up again. The roof is next. I said that this summer, but I mean it for next summer for reals…unless we have to take care of it this winter, but I’ll hope we don’t. With the trees out of the way it will make it easier to work on the roof anyway.
27th
Friday night, we attended the official kick-off for the ski season: Warren Miller’s Flow State movie at the Arlene Schnitzer auditorium in Portland. We picked up Ellen and Phoebe from their gymnastics class and went straight downtown. There was almost no traffic heading inbound, and we even found a parking spot on the street just a block away from Rock Bottom where we like to eat for our pre-Warren Miller meal. We were able to get our meals and finished eating in plenty of time to park in the deck near the theater. We were meeting up with friends, so we waited for them just inside the door. The one thing I don’t like about walking around downtown is the ever present stink of cigarette smoke that hangs in the air. Otherwise, Portland would be a very nice city to walk around. The movie started at 7:30pm, so the girls were up late, late, late. The movie was fun as always with loads of great scenery. We were home by around 10pm.
Ellen actually slept in all the way to 8am this morning. Phoebe was up around 6:30am, so she slept in a little. After grocery shopping, Phoebe and I piled the wood from Thursday’s tree cutting under one of the sequoias in the front yard and put a sign up our “free wood” sign. Hopefully someone will come and take it. It was raining pretty good the whole time, but it was Oregon rain, so it was gentle. I’m still hoping for a nice weekend sometime soon to cover up the grill and table on the deck. I need to turn off my outside spigots too. Jada and I went to see Cloud Atlas Saturday night for another date night. The movie was actually interesting, but the way they had the same actors playing different characters throughout the time span was a little distracting especially when they try to make them look Korean.
November 1
Sunday the 28th we went out to breakfast in the morning with one of our friends. We spent 2 hours there chatting before heading over to the Columbia Employee store to return some socks I had bought there last time that had a run in them. The rest of the day was pretty normal day around the house except the girls were able to watch a movie. It was a Japanese anime movie based on a book they had read called Howl’s Moving Castle. It had Christian Bale and Billy Crystal lending voice parts to the American version.
On Halloween night, we went over to one of Ellen’s friend’s houses to walk their neighborhood and have dinner. I stayed back with the dad to dispense candy. The rain actually held off while they were trick-or-treating. Ellen was a dancer, and Phoebe was Hermione Granger. There were a couple other wizards in the troupe that went trolling for candy as well. Phoebe ended up pulling one of her teeth out, and she didn’t even bite into any candy. She had been playing with it all night. We got home really late for a school night.
Journal entry: November 1, 2012