Walk There: Colonial Heights and Ladd's Addition

Goose and I have slowly been making our way through Walk There, a great guide to walks in the Portland area, and this week, we chose an area we've visited a few times and have loved. Colonial Heights and Ladd's Addition are two SE Portland neighborhoods with a great mix of huge, gorgeous houses and cute, funky ones, and lots of trees, gardens, and cool shops.

This is a diamond-shaped rose garden surrounded by quiet residential streets. A bit hard to capture in the dimming light, but so lovely.

A few blocks past the church you see is Ladd's Circle, a wonderful rose garden with street spokes extending symmetrically from the perfect circle. We first experienced this area with our friend Sarah a couple of years back and returned this summer when Scott and Hilary visited. They have friends who are fortunate enough to live on one of the spokes, a short walk from the center.

Here's an arial picture of Ladd's Circle that I found on PSU's website. It is so striking on a larger map, where you can see that this area is completely surrounded by a grid of streets.


Right on the circle is a neat little coffee shop called Palio. We stopped for coffee, an impossibly big piece of oreo cake (one of the better cakes we've tried) and a game of Upwards.

By the time we left, it was dark, though that doesn't mean it was late! I can't wait til the days start getting longer again, but I like being out in the dark where there are lots of folks out and the lights in homes and businesses are on. So many of the houses along our route have big, uncovered front windows, so we could see people making dinner and doing other things and we could admire their holiday docorations.


A few times, we were so caught up in talking or taking in our surroundings that we forgot to pay attention to where we were going. With the wrong turns, we extended the walk significantly beyond the 2.3 miles stated in the book, but we also encountered some great things. In one neat shop that we stepped in seconds before they were going to lock the door, we found the perfect gift for a friend. And because we missed one street, we got to experience the Peoples Co-op, this awesome little natural foods store that we'd heard about numerous times by friends who used to live nearby.

What a lovely walk. I love living in a place where we have to wear hats and gloves for winter walks, but where they are still warm enough to be enjoyable! And curling up in a robe on the couch with a warm beverage afterward is that much better!

Hotcakes, Jim-style

During my adolescent years, there were many things that I did not *appreciate* about my parents. Ok, I was a huge brat and appreciated very little. As an adult, it's fun to notice that not only am I thankful for so many of their wonderful and quirky characteristics and habits, but that I have taken on many of them myself.

One of the things that baffled me about my step-dad, Jim, as a young person was his lengthy food prep process. The meal would be ready and on the table and Jim would take about five additional minutes to arrange, add condiments, cut, reheat some portions (e.g. for optimum cheese meltage), and just get all set. By the time his first bite was on his fork, my plate was clean. I'd be so hungry that I could not imagine anything besides instant gratification. Now, I realize that taking the time to prepare things just-so can really enhance the eating experience--and make it last longer!

Jim's method of preparing pancakes on his plate is the best, so I thought I'd do a little tutorial here, so you too can reach your full breakfast potential. This if for you, Jim. Let me know if I've gotten it right!

First, have Eric make you his special free-day blueberry pancakes. Or use whatever pancakes you happen to have around. Make a stack of two or three and apply butter liberally on the top of each pancakes. Add additional toppings if you like. I put a layer of homemade apple butter on the second pancake here. These pictures are really not the highest quality possible because I was salivating hungrily while photographing.

Next, use a pizza cutter to cut your cakes into 4 or 5 strips.

Now, with both hands, turn your entire plate 90 degrees counterclockwise and make about 4 more slices (paying close attention to symmetry) so that your pancakes are in little squares.

Now, this next step is an important one: fluff! Here, Eric is using utensils, but ideal fluffing is done by hand. I did some additional fluffing with both hands when he was done here.

Once you have a nice pile, add syrup generously. You now have the maximum surface area possible, so you get thorough and even distribution and saturation of syrup.

Mmm...just look at that delicious, gooey pile of pancake.

Now you're ready to eat! Eric was already on his second serving of pancakes by the time I started eating, but I thoroughly enjoyed mine! It was worth the wait!

Thanks, Jim, for all that you've taught me, including little things like this that make life just a little more enjoyable!

Giving Thanks

Mike, Tanya, Emerson (who just turned two!) and pup Guthrie came down from Spokane to spend the long weekend with us!

We kicked off Thursday by gorging ourselves on Eric's special blueberry pancakes, then spent the rest of the day cooking and munching on Cougar Gold, the best cheese ever made. It was the first time Eric and I had hosted a full Thanksgiving dinner and I think things went pretty well. Only one key ingredient was left off the list (fried onions for the green bean casserole!), but Tanya and I remedied that by a quick walk to Grande Foods in the rain.

Here are Mike and Tanya (and Guth) preparing the sweet potato-cranberry-apple-raisiny goodness:

Many of our recipes came out of The Grit cookbook, a gift from Scott and Hilary that shares the secrets of the delicious food served at a vegetarian restaurant in Athens, GA with the same name. We haven't been there, but if the food is this good when we make it, I can only imagine how tasty the originals are! Eric made a Grit tofuloaf, which turned out amazing, and we topped it with sage-onion gravy (with not even one lump). There were also garlic mashed potatoes, incredible stuffing with green apples and raisins, beer bread, and a pumpkin cheesecake pie with whipped cream (topping thanks to Mike)! And Tanya brought a nice selection from the Weitkamp wine cellar. Good and strong.

Eliser joined us for dinner and got to experience his first "traditional" (so most people don't do tofuloaf, I guess) Thanksgiving feast. And he got seconds. I think he liked it.


I am getting hungry again just looking at this picture. Thank goodness we've still got lots of leftovers, even two days later.

Eliser and Emmy were fast friends:

For his first time playing Phase Ten, Eliser was pretty amazing. He led the whole game, but Tanya pulled ahead in the last hand. I was dead last and it was not close. We had a great time!

On Friday, we all piled in the car and headed to Newport to visit the aquarium. Mike and Miss Em on the way to lunch:

Checking out the swimming things below--this underwater tunnel was amazing!


Touching star fish:

Tia Mia and Em being swallowed by a shark:

Checking out the sea lions lounging and barking away below:

After a full day, we got back and slept like rocks!

This morning, Mike and Tanya went to Trader Joe's and Tia Mia and Unkage got to hang out with Emmy for a bit. There was lots of chasing and dancing and bouncing and reading and, of course, hanging upside down. We had fun.


It's so fun to see how much Emmy has learned since last time we saw her. She sounds so cute saying little phrases: "1, 8, 9, Go!" "Good job, Unkage!" "Out, cheese" (cheese = please).

It was great to talk with my mom, with family in Michigan, and Eric's parents, with family in Georgia, during the weekend. I wish we could all be physically together, but at least no one is alone. Now our house in clean and quiet and kind-of empty and my heart is full with gratitude.

The connection

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Phoenix with two friends and colleagues to attend a United Methodist Training about immigration advocacy put on by the National Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry. The program itself was excellent and Ron and Cathy and I are working on plans to lead a variation of the training in several locations in Oregon and Idaho, but my favorite part was getting to know other people doing ministry in Latino communities all over the Western Jurisdiction. Participants were lay and clergy serving in California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Arizona and were originally from all over: Peru, Puerto Rico, Mexico, El Salvador, Cuba, Venezuela, the U.S... What a gift to be engaging in Bible Study and conversation around immigration in a group with such diverse experiences of immigrating and being in communities of immigrants.

The first night there, which happened to be the night of the final game of the world series, we went to a sports bar with some folks from the Los Angeles area. Ron insisted that we were celebrating my birthday (which had been the week before) and everyone sang to me--Happy Birthday, then Las Mananitas (a song I've always wanted to have sung to me), then Feliz Feliz Compleanos, then about 3 more birthday songs in Spanish that I didn't know. I could not stop smiling and everyone in the restaurant cheered when they were done. Thankfully, the baseball game was over by that point.

Here we are--Cathy, Ron, Vilma, Jackeline, Ana, and Tona.

Jackeline, who is from Puerto Rico, was my roommate and we stayed up late at night, talking in the dark about church and parenting and silly stuff, switching back and forth from English to Spanish to English. She is a hilarious and wonderful woman.

Most of our sessions were about a mile from the hotel and a handful of folks walked there and back each time. My most faithful walking companions were Cathy, Tona and Ron, though the person I always gravitated toward was Tona.



Tona is an amazing woman who served alongside Archbishop Romero in El Salvador before his death and left her home country because her life was in danger because of the ministry she was involved in. Holy smokes does this woman have some incredible stories. And the work she is doing now in the Methodist Church in L.A. is so inspiring. I hope that one day I am able to speak truth half as powerfully and fearlessly as Tona does.

Ron and Cathy and I get along so well and laughed a lot at how many times throughout the trip we were asked if I was their daughter :)

On our last night, our faithful and patient hotel van driver took us to a tasty sushi place and we talked and laughed and ate and ate. Such wonderful folks. Here are most of the same people, plus Shalom and Sofia, who are both at churches in the Seattle area.

These kinds of experiences make me so thankful for the United Methodist connection. We are reminded that we share similar difficulties and blessings as we do ministry in different places and that we are all part of the same body. At the same time, hearing about the unique experiences of other UMs challenges me in aspects of my ministry and theology that I thought were so solid and I am reminded that I don't have it all figured out. Now we know each other and have this shared experience and can count on each other for encouragement and friendship and ideas. And if I travel to Los Angeles or Seattle or Denver, I know that I have a place to stay and a church to visit--and friends! What a gift.

30 used to sound old...

We got to make it a whole birthweek that started with a visit from Ann and Brody. Ann and I share a birthday (makes it easier for Eric to remember) and it's always fun to celebrate it together. They enjoyed hearing Eric preach (twice!) and even joined us for a 3-hour district dinner and meeting Sunday afternoon at which I shared about the work the Cornelius church is doing with the Latino community. Good thing they love being at church!

Here they are with Annie's birthday flowers from the farmer's market:


We thoroughly enjoyed our free day Monday, with pancakes for breakfast, chocolate all day and pizza for dinner--plus a delicious Burgerville shake to end the evening.

Here we are at Pizzacato, a really great Portland pizza place that I can't believe we hadn't tried before now!




Brody with the giant chocolate bar we nibbled on as we headed to the theater (to see Amelia--pretty good movie).

On my actual birthday, I had an early-morning message on my phone from Eliser, who sang Las Mananitas (the birthday song in Mexico) and enjoyed lots of nice calls and little notes throughout the day. The pastors and school administrators at the Ministerial/School District breakfast sang happy birthday, my new "little" (with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program) gave me a deliciously rich coffee-chocolate mousse thing, and a couple of my ESL students surprised me with gifts, including a gorgeous bouquet of red roses!

After meetings Friday morning, Eric and I went into Portland to go thrift-store shopping (my birthday wish) and then had dinner at an amazing vegan cafe. Perhaps ironically, we stopped at Burgerville on a way home for a decidedly not-vegan strawberry shake!! It wasn't a free day, but it was my birthday!!!


It was a wonderful week and I feel so loved and thankful for all the good people in my life. Wonder what my 31st year will bring...

Damen Corridor Community Meal: Special West Coast Unit

A week ago Sunday after church, we headed down to Seal Rock to spend a mini-sabbatical on the coast with Jon and Megan, good friends from Chicago who are on a real (3-month-long) sabbatical. It was wonderful to relax and step into the rhythms of their sabbath and just be together for a day and a half. We fit in many of the elements of a normal week for them:

Hiking. We made our way up to the Cape Perpetua outlook, just a few miles south of Seal Rock and one of the highest points in the area. It was a gorgeous day and the views were incredible!

Hanging out by the water. We sat next to Devil's Churn and enjoyed our lunch (including Newman-Os for dessert). Devil's Churn is a narrow inlet where the water gets pretty rowdy when the tide is high. Watching the waves build up, then crash in against the rocks then back against themselves was pretty awesome and kept us captive for a long time.


Walking on the beach. We wandered by the tide pools with the sun setting and the tide low and saw lots of anemones, star fish and a beautiful bird that we think was a heron.

Cooking and eating good food. Megan and Jon had gotten some amazing veggies at the nearby farmers market and made some amazing African groundnut stew.

It was perfect timing. We got to know Megan and Jon through a long-standing Community Meal group in Chicago that meets at someone different's house every Monday. Folks live in several different neighborhoods in the city, but we realized last year that all the active participants lived within a couple of blocks from Damen (a north-south street running all the way through the city) even though the far-north and far-south folks were 15 miles apart. Anyway, it was fun that we just happened to be with these lovely CM friends, eating this amazing home-cooking meal on a Monday evening. If it hadn't been so late in Chicago, we would have called our Chicago CMers gathering that same evening!

And the next day, after we returned home, another Community Meal friend came to visit! Mark was out from Chicago for a conference in Seattle and drove down with his mom (who lives there) to stay a night with us. It was fun to show them around and, of course, enjoy delicious food together.

How great to have Community Meal here in Oregon! We miss you all!

Walk There: 4T

We recently got a pocket-sized book called Walk There (with a Powell's gift certificate from our friend, Carrie), which has lots of great walks in and around Portland, and we've decided pick a route each Monday (our day off). We started with the 4T loop, which starts at the zoo and includes hiking on a trail and taking a tram, trolley and train! It was a cool but gorgeous afternoon--the last day without rain and/or ridiculous wind that we may see for a while--and the trees are turning incredible colors right now.

Near the beginning of the Marquam Trail:

It's so amazing that this is within the Portland city limits!



The trail took us to Council Crest Park, the highest point in Portland. This is view to the west, where we live. Somewhere out there.

Pretty nice view of Mt. Hood to the east:

And Mt. St. Helens to the north:

We continued on through some amazing neighborhoods until we reached the OHSU hospital complex. More amazing views!

From there, we took the tram (for free) down down down down and got on a street car which took us downtown Portland, where we ate some tasty Mexican food.

Can you believe that some people commute on this thing every day? One guy was texting while we descended, like it was no big deal to be floating through the sky. I was amazed.

From there, we took the Max train back to the zoo. It was neat to be able to see Council Crest Park, where those towers are, from where our car was parked.

Can't wait to try the next walk!