I was on the phone with Ken one day, thanking him for the umpteenth time for helping me select my Nikon Coolpix camera and discussing his blog vs my blog. Curious, I asked how did he get his photos to have text in between them? He explained that he uses Wordpress instead of Google. He then pointed out that viewers could click on my photos and enlarge them which you cannot do with Wordpress. I didn't know that about the photos, but I like it. So, in order to put yourself at the beach, in our apartment, on the streets of Portland, or where-ev-er, click on the photos.
Leland and I, mostly Leland, moved a great many boxes yesterday (that my sweet little Mama had packed while I was at work every day).
First, I filled up our car, for the trip to sign the papers, get the keys and have Duncan's photo taken. Round Hill Pacific (our owner and property management company) keeps a photo of renters' pets on file with all of the paperwork. He posed splendidly at the end of his leash. Leland met us there and held the leash while I talked sweet to Duncan, getting him to look up at the me. What I couldn't believe is that he stopped when I told him to, like a trained model. I held my hand up, palm facing him. I felt like Rudd Weatherwax with Lassie! Now that I think of it, though, Duncan is good about stopping when I say, "Wait, Duncan," when we're out walking, like wait at the corner with us while we watch for traffic or wait while we put your deposit into this little blue bag.
We drove over to the apartment from the leasing office, emptied the car and left Mama and Duncan in No. 414. Then Leland and I drove back over the river, on the Steel Bridge, a new one for me; there are 11 bridges over the Willamette River and two over the Columbia River, right here in Portland.
We filled up both of our cars. That was the easy part, comparatively speaking. We staggered our arrival times at the new apartment so that he could pull into the No Parking Zone right in front of the entrance, unload all of his car into the foyer, then move his car to a proper parking place, and find another parking place for me. He called and told me where he was standing in the parking place and I arrived and parallel parked, something I've been doing so much here that I'm getting better at it, not perfect, just better.
Anyway, then he would unload my car, putting all of the boxes in the foyer. My job was to load the elevator, propping the heavy metal door open with a box, catching the folding metal door with a small chain attached to it, and stacking away until Leland got finished unloading the car. He then quickly finished loading the elevator (ah, the joys of youth and strength) so that we could ride to our apartment on the top floor. Mama's been coyly telling people that we're in the penthouse! She's a hoot.
Leland then proceeded to unload the elevator into the hallway so that we could release it for other tenants. I carried as many boxes as he would allow me to carry into the apartment.
We did all of that twice. Whew.
Mama was emptying kitchen boxes as she felt like it, then resting at the card table, looking out the windows or into the apartment, visualizing how it will eventually look. By the time we left yesterday, just as it was getting dark, we had the path clear for furniture on Monday, so we felt pretty good about our efforts.
Speaking of Monday, the weather forecast is for showers. I certainly hope those bigger drops decide to fall somewhere else instead of on our furniture. I get OregonLive.com's Your Weather & Travel Forecast every morning (doncha just love the Internet?), complete with tiny illustrations of the sun, clouds and rain. Today it's raining (I can hear it now and then actually, so I know it's more than wet air), and the illustration for Light Rain shows a puffy cloud with five elongated rain drops, with empty space between them. Later on today, when the temperature should get to 56, the illustration for Rain shows that same innocent looking cloud with eight of those elongated drops, jammed right up against one another. Monday's illustration is back to the five drops, so maybe we'll luck out and make it in between the drops; it's supposed to be 58 then, which won't be too bad.
Lamont moved in September to Lindsay's house, which I forgot to tell you in the other entry. One of her other roomies left, so it's just the three of them, Lindsay, Lamont and Brody. They all used to work together at the River Place Hotel. Lindsay's still bartending there, although she's added another restaurant three days a week and hopes to someday work her way out of the hotel. While Lamont and Brody were there, they discovered, just by accident during a conversation, that they had the same birthday, a couple of years apart. While that happens now and then, this doesn't. They were both born in Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas! And ended up working together in Portland, Oregon. Wild coincidence.
Howard and Vanessa visited Lamont and Leland August of 2005, while Lamont was still at the hotel. They had toured extensively in their rental car once her convention was finished (it was up in Seattle). One of the places they loved was the Oregon coast. In fact, they drove right where we had driven and stopped in Depoe Bay, too. Vanessa said there was so much fog they couldn't see anything, so she was happy we'd had good visibility and could see the whales. She got a warm jacket in the whale watching center, one with a whale on it naturally, because it was so cold. You could see from Mama in her shawl that it was cold this September, too.
The last of our neighbors in this building is moving out today. You should hear the sounds of furniture going down the stairs and the empty two-wheeler going back up. Makes me appreciate even more our elevator at the new place!
Gotta go get busy. More later, plus photos of other neat stuff (at least I think it's neat).
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