House Guests and Other Noises

We got back from the beach to a mostly clean house. Except. In the kitchen we found a weird mess of dust bunnies and plastic lids. The windows were closed, so it wasn't the wind. The rest of the house was fine, so we just shrugged and cleaned up the mess.

On Monday Chris emailed me.

Subject: Mystery Solved
T'was a rat. :(

He'd seen the rat that morning, as it scurried from under the hoosier, across the dining room and into a gap by the pocket doors. (not that you asked what a hoosier or pocket door is, but I am helpful like that)


That night we heard some scratching in our wall and were mesmerized as we listened to the on again, off again noise.

The next night Chris set traps, and while we watched Mad Men we heard one of the traps slap closed. Ugh. I refused to look, but from Chris's face I am sure it wasn't pleasant. I feel a little conflicted about using a killing trap, but not enough to have taken steps to handle it another way. I was so much more squicked by the reality of a rat in my house than I'd imagined I would be. I felt much better once the rat was gone.

Except that not more than 10 minutes later, we heard the scritch scritch scritch sound again. We probably should have known that there would be more than one. Luckily, we'd gotten more than one trap. We left the traps out and went to bed.

The next morning I got up with the babies. I dutifully went around picking up the traps before the babies discovered them. First the two glue traps, and then the spring loaded trap. Leaning over, I noticed that it had been sprung. Huh, that's weird, it's sprung but there is no rat in it, I thought. That's when I noticed the dead rat a few inches away, under a chair. I was so shocked I did that involuntary full body wiggle of ewww! I didn't quite jump on a chair, but I was too much of a wimp to deal with the dead rat myself. I made Chris come get it so that the babies would not get a chance to go after it.

The next night involved no rat sounds, thankfully. However, at 3am I woke up to Chris walking out of the room. He briefly went downstairs and upon returning said that he'd heard something. He got back into bed, but we both lay, heads cocked, listening to some kind of weird scratching noise. At first I thought it was in our room, but then Chris realized it was coming from outside our window. He peeked out the window and saw a dark shape moving from the neighbor's vertical rain pipe onto their second floor porch. It was a racoon, climbing the drain pipe, he said. Eventually we relaxed and fell back asleep.

The following day I took Ada and Lila on a bike ride to the ice cream store. When I got home, Chris had news: Last night? It wasn't a raccoon. It was our neighbor. Apparently Sam found himself locked out, his cell phone was dead or not with him, and he could not wake his house mates by knocking on the door. He decided that the best way in was through the second floor balcony, so at 3 am he'd scaled the rain pipe to get into the house. And now we know that our neighbor looks and sounds a lot like a really creative raccoon.

Why didn't we do this before?

After several years of chatting with neighbors about having a block party, two of us finally arranged one. We got permits, official city-approved barricades, food and an honest-to-goodness bouncy house.  The bouncy house was borrowed from a neighbor's suburban friends, but now that we've had one I am not sure you can have a block party without a bouncy house.

Or without goats, for that matter. One of our neighbor owns a pair of pygmy goats, and nothing says "Portland Block Party" like goats on leashes. To be fair, the goats are very well behaved, leash trained and only tried to eat my plants a couple of times. Plus, they are cute.

The jazz musicians who live on the cross-street moved their practice session onto the porch so that we all could enjoy their music. Meat was grilled, children got pumped up on sugar and ran around until their tongues lolled out of their heads, and I met neighbors I have never seen before.

No one called the cops, but a local conifer did stop by to urge us to plant trees this winter. So I'd call it a win all around. We'll be doing it again next year. Maybe next time with a parade.

One of my neighbors, making nice with a local conifer. 

Ada and a friend hang out in the living room set up on the street, 

complete with couch, rug and lamp.

Where'd Ben Go?

Just the question made me want to cry.

"Where'd Ben go?"

It is a question she asks all the time. Daily, and more. Ada's interest in our 7 year old neighbor started when he and his mother moved in up the street, and has not waned, even as Ben has turned from a ceaselessly chatty preschooler into a serious and not always toddler-approving boy. Clad in clip-on tie and knee-high boots, Ben is a dreamer, a planner, a gardener and construction foreman to a crew only he sees. Ben was the one who suggested ways to catch my tulip thief. He told me why and how to enroll Ada in the public library's summer reading program. He has waxed eloquent about topics that I thought beyond a first grader's grasp, and showed me the Chinese characters he had been learning in school.

Ada always wants to see Ben, follow Ben, climb up to Ben's porch to find out what he is doing. Sometimes Ben was happy to oblige, talking to and directing her and generally giving her the attention she craved from him. Sometimes Ben did not want to play. To Ada, this was a blow, but she was almost as happy being around his stuff as she was being around him. His porch, filled with flat rocks, baskets of shells, bubble bottles and child-sized furniture, was a holy site; Ada's pilgrimages made as frequently as we let her.

After Ada made a particularly disruptive visit to his porch, Ben politely requested that she not visit when he was not there to supervise. Chris and I agreed, trying to limit Ada's visits so as to not further test the patience of this sweet boy.

So although Ada's question was not unusual, the answer was different today.

"Ben's at his new house. He moved to a new house, Ada."

I hoped that having just seen some close friends move from their "old" house to a new one, Ada might understand the move a bit, even if she didn't like the answer.

"Where'd Ben go?"

"He went to his new house. He and his mom moved into their new house. Do you want to look in the window?"

Hand in hand we climbed the porch steps. She looked hopeful that I'd made a joke, that she'd look inside and see Ben sprawled on the couch. We looked into the window at the empty living and dining rooms, and talked some more about Ben's move.

"Where is the couch?"

"Ben and his mom moved it. They moved it to their new house, with the table. Ben's bed is at the new house. His tent is at the new house."

"I want to see upstairs."

But we couldn't go upstairs, and Ada seemed to understand that there was nothing to see there anyway. We walked back down the steps, and moved down the block. Watching her move slowly down the sidewalk, I wiped away tears. But then she was looking back at me, calling "chase me!"

I always forget how strong she is. I imagine that every change or slight will wound her. I should know, after watching her respond to a scratch or skinned knee, that she is both resilient and brave. She took this in stride too. She will miss Ben for a while, but when she asks for him we can go into the backyard and play in the sandbox he gave her. And go up on his old porch to visit whoever moves in next.

Don't worry mama, I still have this guy to chase around

Tulip Thief Strikes Again!

Some readers may remember that last year someone stole a bunch of tulips from my yard. I wrote a letter to the perp, and posted it to the blog. This year I breathed a small sigh of relief when my tulips opened unmolested. My around-the-corner neighbor was not so lucky. This year, all of the tulips along her front garden were snipped and stolen. She was as angry as I had been, but apparently she does not have a blog. (Seems unlikely, I know, but I guess one or two people are still holding out.) Instead, my neighbor put up no fewer than four signs in her yard itself, plus a total of eight additional signs at the light poles on either end of the block. Here's one of them:


To add insult to injury, around the same time as the tulip theft three small trees planted on the side of her house were dug out and taken away. My neighbor thinks this theft (a vastly more aggressive plant abduction than the tulip taker could likely manage) was perpetrated by the people hired to install plants at the newly constructed condos a block away. Several gardener trucks were parked on the block, and it was during their few day stay on the block that the trees went missing. And really, who else is likely walking by with a big shovel with which to uproot the trees? Or a vehicle in which to cart them away? Definitely not a random crime.

My neighbor is so angry and upset about these thefts that she's already thinking about leaving this house they purchased less than a year ago. The loss of my tulips last year did not make me want to find a new home, but it did have me harrumphing and complaining for days to anyone who would listen. It sucks that people think it is ok to steal plants, as if they are not the resident's property the way that a porch swing is. It is worse in some ways, because the resident has put energy into the plant and is likely more invested in its well-being and beauty than she would be in the health of an Adirondack chair.

The one redeeming thing about this is that it reminds me how much I love Portlanders' willingness to vocally (or visibly) declare themselves to their neighbors and the world. It may not be much solace for my neighbor, but maybe the knowledge that our local serial tulip thief changes target each year could be.


(Thanks to Sarah and her call for cell phone photos. She reminded me that this was still in memory. Also, thanks to Chris for checking my links.)

Blog Epitaph

On a recent walk in the neighborhood I saw that I am not alone in being pushed to the open letter format to air grievances:



It is so my neighborhood to start a haiku blog to memorialize a dead hammock.


Oh, and as long as we are talking neighborhood signs, anyone seen Andy?

Just another super day at the park

Things get pretty rough out here on the edge of the known world. Even playgrounds aren't exempt from trouble any more. Which is why I, for one, am grateful that Spiderman has decided to make our local park safe from evil-doers.

Take a look:

Ah, just the spot for assessing the scene!

Look out, Spiderman! He's on to you!

Notice how our web-slinging hero prepares to subdue the fleeing villian.

And behold as the subdued villian comes crawling to our victorious hero!

The best part was that all the other kids referred to the web-slinging kid as Spiderman. Not one kid broke scene to call out to Phillip or Leo.

Pointer Sister...

...is what Ada would be if she had a sibling.







Groan-inducing pun aside, Ada is really into pointing these days. It seems to be some combination of "ooh, look at that!" and "I want that" that motivates her jab-fest. We took a walk to our local grocery, etc. store (for garden annuals, 20 gauge wire, organic zuchini and pineapple) and she was Pointy Patty all the way.

Free herb

or, reason 532 why I love Portland

Portland is a "leave stuff on the sidewalk with a 'free' sign and hope that people take it away" kind of city. Now, it is no New York or San Francisco, but it is pretty high in the "free stuff on the street" hierarchy. (I bet you didn't know there even was such a hierarchy, but I'm here to tell you there is.) Chicago always had the right set-up to be a good free-stuff city (apartments and houses jammed up against one another, lots of alleys, rich and poor living in close proximity) but it never really came through for me. Rhode Islanders are too obsessed with yard sales to be giving their stuff away.

Over the years, I've gotten some good things from Portland streets: small appliances; clothes, the odd accidental piece of junk-art. Last week I picked up a hardback copy of Sarah Conley from a box of books marked "Free: Please Take." One of my favorite work shirts was a free find. I've given things away too. Books mostly, but recently I pulled up some oregano plants from my herb garden. (That stuff grows like crazy around here. Almost as well as rosemary, which is currently threatening to take over my entire garden.) I stuck five plants in pots, watered them and lined them out on the sidewalk with a sign "Free Oregano, Yum". People picked them up over the next day or two.

Walking with Ada today, we stopped in front of a house around the corner to wave at a cat. I noticed one of my oreganos on the porch. It made me feel oddly elated, knowing who took one of the plants. I love being part of a community, particularly one in which people offer up free things to one another. My trash, your prize, and vice versa. I love you Portland. Now, about that free IPod...

Blog sitting

I'm over at Motherhood Uncensored's place today, making a mess. (This isn't meant to be self-deprecating, mess is what the post is about.) Anyone interested in why I am messier than you can click over to Kristin's site and check it out. And please, I told her I'd replace whatever I ate, so let me know if you make a dent in that chocolate cake she left on the counter.

While we are there, Ada and I thought we should check out the neighborhood. We are off for a walk around the neighborhood.

The people that you meet, when you're walking down the street

Scene: a street in SE Portland
Time: Sunday afternoon

Ada and I were on our way to our local overpriced but super conviently located grocery store, when someone called out to me. It was the ever charming and self-depricatingly sarcastic Bridgermama, along with her adorable child and lovely husband (the latter won't be mad that I called him lovely, will he?) They were out for a stroll in Ada's local park, with a side trip to a cute kid's clothing shop in the neighborhood. Well, that's what they said, anyway. Bridgermama has already copped to stalking my house. Not because she likes ME so much, but apparently she's planning where she'll put her sofa once she convinces my family to move out. (I planted some dahlia bulbs this weekend, I hope that works with your overall plans.)

While we were all stopped for a little chat and baby-ogling, a woman walked by and admired the kids.

Woman: Oh, what cute babies! How old are they?

Bridgermama and me, stumbling over one another to say: Nine months and ten.

Woman: Are you, like, best friends?

(awkward pause in which we try to understand why a stranger would ask us that, and consider how to say no without insulting the other person)

Bridgermama: No, we are just friends.

The woman walked on, and so did we, laughing. After I said goodby to Bridger, et al, I went into the grocery store feeling very glad I am friends with this family. Bridger is adorable, but I know lots of cute kids who have parents that are not intreesting to me at all. Both of Bridger's parents are funny and sarcastic. They are so entertaining that I am not sure how they can be from the northern plains. Call me a coastal snob, but aren't those people supposed to be earnest and unironic? Maybe they are just putting on a good act for me, and at home it is all hotdish, lutefisk and hard backed chairs. Whether their sense of humor is an act or not, I am enjoying getting to know this sweet family.

Plus, our kids have similar taste in toys.

Walking with Ada

Now that Ada is getting bigger (at our trip to the doctor today she weighed in at 19.5 lbs!), wearing her on my front is getting less practical. I take lots of walks with her in the ergo carrier. I carry her on my back, which is very comfortable. The down side is that with her on my back, it is hard to see her, or for her to really see me. That's where the camera comes in. Friday afternoon was sunny, so Nonlinear Papa and I took Ada on a walk on Mt. Tabor. (Oh how I love that Portland has a volcano within its city limits!)



On Sunday I was carrying a small mirror, which let me see her, and kept her entertained between dog sightings. The past week or two, Ada has fallen in love with dogs. It started with Henry's dog, but now all dogs make her shake with excitement and exclaim "ooh, ooh!" I try to make all walks pass either the big park near us or the local elementary school yard, both of which are chock-full of dogs.



In all of these pictures Ada is all bundled up against what passes for cold around here. Not today. The first day of spring did not disappoint - warm and sunny, a great day for walking with the girl. It was so nice I forgot to take pictures.

Sunday Drive