Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Asay and the Mighty Willamette

The day before a holiday the office is always quieter, and it is easier to get more work done, even when management commands you to stop working and go home early--another perk of working the day before a holiday. And thus began my three-day weekend.

Meg and I visited our neighborhood theater to watch Star Trek Into Darkness (the first of many, many movies we watched), which was fine, and still much better than the other, older flavors of Star Trek. Dinner at Stickers, a walk in the rain, and frozen yogurt at Nectar (again--we need some risk-takers to open a new treat-shoppe in the recently vacated gelato building). At home we watched the back-end of our double feature, People Like Us, which I probably liked more than Star Trek. Maybe. Captain Kirk starred in both movies.

The View from PCG

On Saturday I helped a family in our ward move to a new house that sits just around the corner from us. Even though they plan on sending their four kids to their former school (which works well, as Llewellyn is still super-crowded), it will be nice to have their presence in the neighborhood. I spent the next few hours working in the garden before Meg reminded me that it was time to go out with her again, this time on an epic, historic, never-been-done before adventure. Before you accuse me of euphemism, consider that we rode our bikes downtown--downtown Portland, not Sellwood or Westmoreland or Brooklyn. I'm hopeful the experience will encourage more bicycle riding, as it should have shown her how it's easy and safe and not-really-that-slow riding to nearby destinations.

Hers and His (how stereotypical)

We parked our bikes along the waterfront, just outside Saturday Market (our first and only planned destination for the evening). Within five minutes we ran in Meg's long-time friend, Susan, who was down from Seattle visiting her dude, Chris, so we walked around with them until they departed the market. We recovered our bikes and rode the quiet streets of downtown until Meg suggested we dine at Portland City Grill (highest restaurant in Portland?). It's a little too fancy and pretentious for me, but the lady enjoyed it a lot (not that it was bad, but it was really loud and crowded in the bar).

Meg, fresh from the ride into town

After a light meal, we rode south to the Fox Tower to watch movie #3, Mud. My movie-critic pals has mused that this was perhaps their favorite film of the year, so I quickly agreed with Meg's suggestion. Even though the movie came so highly recommended, I went in with a completely blank slate and low expectations; I left the movie floored with awe. Beautiful cinematography, complex and likeable characters, and a coming-of-age story made for the best film I've seen in a long time--certainly the best of the year, and perhaps better than my favorites of last year (Moonrise Kingdom, Perks of Being a Wallflower). Meg equally enjoyed it, and we talked about it all along the ride home in the dark. At one point we passed a group of 10-or-so hipsters having a party of sorts along the Springwater Corridor; as we exited the corridor, a mile or two later, we ran into a woman who was looking for said party. I was surprised at her willingness to walk, alone, to the party--don't you know how many weirdo's hang out at night down there?

We finished the night getting two slices of cake at Papa Haydn. After seeing the slivers that the attendant bequeathed us, Meg was ready to go back in and complain--trust me, if you just paid $17 for what we got, you'd be mad too. But she did something that surprised and pleased me: she said, "We're never coming back here again." Sweet words, dear, sweat words . . . We ate our cake while watching movie #4 from the DVR, The Fighter. It was interesting but forgettable.

Disappointment at the flooded land bridge

Sunday was like most other Sundays, except I got home from church so late that Meg had already started the dinner party. She had invited our new neighbors over as well as a family that was scouting out our ward--Meg said she felt like she really needed to spin the ward and the neighborhood to try and convince them to move to our part of Portland. After all of our guests departed and we cleaned up the mess, we watched as a family movie #5: The Love Bug. A few weeks prior I had commented how many options my kids have for viewing content, in contrast to my childhood where we could only watch whatever the networks showed us--stuff like The Love Bug. Meg happened upon the DVD of said movie at the library the next week and we finally got around to watching it. I feared the kids would find the old movie boring, but they were laughing throughout and loved it.

Always looking for walking sticks, this one is

Most of us slept in Monday morning, but Aaron, Ian, and I left the house just after 10:00 to go on a hike at Elk Rock Island (it's only an island part of the year, as land bridges usually are exposed and provide a dry route to the island from the mainland). We didn't have much time and it was raining, so we all agreed that our local hiking spot would suffice. You can see the island while driving there, and it looked like Elk Rock had reverted back to being an island. But we drove to the trailhead and confirmed for ourselves that indeed we weren't going to be hiking around Elk Rock Island. We had fun exploring the shoreline until Aaron wasn't having fun any more and demanded we go somewhere else. After walking back to the car and spending a few minutes at the playground, I suggested we go to our other neighborhood volcano, Mt. Tabor. We drove almost to the top of the mountain  before getting out and walking around the summit in the rain. Clouds and mist shrouded most of the views, but the kids still liked exploring virgin territory and seeing how big our city really is.

We returned home to pick up Meg and Edward to see movie #6, From On Poppy Hill, which was playing at the Laurelhurst theater. While were waiting in line to buy tickets, we saw that the cashier was turning away people for a film that had sold-out, but fortunately it wasn't ours--the theater was near capacity, though, and it was difficult finding five seats together. We all enjoyed the film (Ian fell asleep near the end), even though it wasn't as good as other Miyazaki movies. And thus concluded a weekend filled with activities galore.