For some unknown reason, the mother and the idiot choose to visit Alcatraz on their final day in San Francisco (nay, America) while the father and I stay behind in disapproval. They say they shall return in time for lunch. And when they don't return in time for lunch, we are not entirely sure what to do with ourselves. We have a beer, three oreos and half a banana each. I fantasise that the idiot has got lost in the prison and that I will have to swim across the bay to rescue her - consistent with the attention-seeking logic of love. They do come back of course, by way of apology bearing a single chocolate cupcake in a pink box. I inform the idiot that I will not be catching the plane back to England with her. The imaginary boyfriend is waiting for me in Los Angeles; I tell her that I will keep on writing the blog from there.
The next morning at the airport she pretends to be all frosty with me, remembering, she says, my bad behaviour of the last few months. I say I will see her in September or something. But she knows, and I know, that I will not be going back to England. I have dutifully completed the blog, and will not be writing any more in the future. It is time to drop this ego trip and drop the idiot. I now dedicate my days to the Los Angeles sunshine.
Thanks to my paucity of readers, thanks to the grandmother for bringing me down a peg or two, and thank you idiot for going to America and having a ball,
Consette x
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Friday, 22 July 2011
Yosemite
The drive from Monterey to Yosemite takes about 5 hours, oscillating in and out of pockets of heat. Sometimes the skies are San Francisco grey, and at others you can get burnt just brushing the bonnet of a car. Neil Young, 'Heart of Gold', comes on the radio, and suddenly we are in a film - neverending roads through cornfields, a dervish of dust like a mini tornado, tumbleweed, and, nearing the end of the journey, a transformation into lush green countryside, reminiscent, would you believe it, of English parkland (except bigger and with more rodeos). The mother and the father have a minor altercation concerning the safest route into the area, but the father triumphs in the end with the navigational support of Gloria the GPS. Our lodge sits on the outskirts of Yosemite with a balcony view of the foothills. On arrival we encounter an Australian perched behind a camera and tripod in anticipation of some evening hummingbirds. Just as in Carmel the evening before, the parental unit could have done without supper if it wasn't for a certain degree of dissent from the idiotic corner. We eat at a local restaurant/sports bar called the 'Hitchin Post', dipping a toe ever so tentatively into hicksville. The idiot's chef salad is the size of a weekly shop. The waitress examines the father in a concerned sort of way when he gives up on half his burger and chips. The first stage of the NBA final is on the widescreen TV above our heads (Miami Heat v. Dallas Mavericks). The idiot feigns excitement, claiming to have 'got into' basketball over the course of the year.
The next morning, after a solid breakfast at the lodge, we leave for Yosemite at 9am. The owners of the lodge ensure there is a vat of coffee on the kitchen table from 6am onwards; our get-up-and-go is humbled at the thought of those earlybirds. Although judging by the number of guests who also take a 'late' breakfast at the same time as us, I think the clouds may have discouraged even the enthusiasts. Yup, we only have one day in Yosemite, and it chooses to be cloudy.
Having paid our entry fee and entered the park we drive straight to Glacier Point, just in case the weather worsens over the course of the day. The father says that some landscapes are pleasing to the eye because they remind us, via some magical atavism, of the world experienced by our early-age relatives. Yosemite is y'know kinda like that. In a similar way to the idiot, I tend to adopt this silly idiom of slang when I see something beautiful and want to talk about it. One day we might grow out of this and learn to be proud of sincerity. But, for now, this is how I am going to describe the view from Glacier Point: god. damn. sexy.
Never before have I been so conscious of the impulse to contain memory; people look at Yosemite Falls through the screen of a digital camera more frequently than they look at Yosemite Falls. I'm not preaching, just sayin. I spend most of my time on Glacier Point thinking about how I am going to write about it later and what words I can use in what order, and how they might justify their existence.
After the 'tunnel view' and a few other stop offs we pause for a brief lunch in the village, during which time the rain starts. The bottom of Yosemite Falls nearly makes the mother burst into tears. We take more pictures of the family in front of the falls, pulling faces because there's nothing worth saying anymore. For some reason the idiot has come to love shitty weather (a circumstantial love after a year in Portland?) and Yosemite in the rain, to her, is the best thing in the world.
We listen to Elvis Radio, live from Graceland, on the hour-long drive out of the park. We drink red wine from Sonoma when we get back to the Lodge. Sandra Bullock romcom on the telly. Blah blah blah, I think I'm going to bugger off now and abandon this sloppy post.
Consette x
The next morning, after a solid breakfast at the lodge, we leave for Yosemite at 9am. The owners of the lodge ensure there is a vat of coffee on the kitchen table from 6am onwards; our get-up-and-go is humbled at the thought of those earlybirds. Although judging by the number of guests who also take a 'late' breakfast at the same time as us, I think the clouds may have discouraged even the enthusiasts. Yup, we only have one day in Yosemite, and it chooses to be cloudy.
Having paid our entry fee and entered the park we drive straight to Glacier Point, just in case the weather worsens over the course of the day. The father says that some landscapes are pleasing to the eye because they remind us, via some magical atavism, of the world experienced by our early-age relatives. Yosemite is y'know kinda like that. In a similar way to the idiot, I tend to adopt this silly idiom of slang when I see something beautiful and want to talk about it. One day we might grow out of this and learn to be proud of sincerity. But, for now, this is how I am going to describe the view from Glacier Point: god. damn. sexy.
Never before have I been so conscious of the impulse to contain memory; people look at Yosemite Falls through the screen of a digital camera more frequently than they look at Yosemite Falls. I'm not preaching, just sayin. I spend most of my time on Glacier Point thinking about how I am going to write about it later and what words I can use in what order, and how they might justify their existence.
After the 'tunnel view' and a few other stop offs we pause for a brief lunch in the village, during which time the rain starts. The bottom of Yosemite Falls nearly makes the mother burst into tears. We take more pictures of the family in front of the falls, pulling faces because there's nothing worth saying anymore. For some reason the idiot has come to love shitty weather (a circumstantial love after a year in Portland?) and Yosemite in the rain, to her, is the best thing in the world.
We listen to Elvis Radio, live from Graceland, on the hour-long drive out of the park. We drink red wine from Sonoma when we get back to the Lodge. Sandra Bullock romcom on the telly. Blah blah blah, I think I'm going to bugger off now and abandon this sloppy post.
Consette x
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Steinbeck
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Isabel who was told by her English teacher to read a book called The Pearl. Then she read Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, The Pastures of Heaven, Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley etc. Eventually, at the age of 17, she read a book called East of Eden. At 19 she chose to study American Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, favouring this degree over its English Lit counterpart on account of the compulsory year abroad in America. At the age of 21 she was allocated Reed College in the Pacific NW as her exchange school. Before leaving, she told her scholarship donor that reading The Pearl all those years ago was the butterfly wing which has since determined the trajectory of her life to date. With respect to this, she also told him that the only place in America she must and shall visit was to be Steinbeck's Salinas Valley, located approximately 100 miles south of San Francisco.
The parental unit, always keen to satisfy the idiot's various whims, therefore arrange an extravagant diversion to Salinas, Carmel and Monterey on their way to Yosemite. We start off in Salinas, which is something of a ghost town. Maybe it's the fault of Memorial Day. Salinas seems more functional than touristy, and indeed The Steinbeck Center in the square is pretty much the main event, an incongruity next to a multiplex cinema and a parade of pseudo-Mexican restaurants. The idiot attends to every exhibit with fevered concentration; the museum is arranged according to novel, as opposed to theme or chronology, and includes as much detailed information about the film adaptations as it does the writing. James Dean, John Malkovich, Gary Sinise - one can't complain. She spends near to three hours in there, emerging at last looking post-coital and flushed. From the museum we drive to the graveyard so the idiot can pay her respects. She sits firmly on the memorial stone and grins with thumbs up.
We are booked to stay in a motel-type inn affair in Carmel Valley. We pass the Corral de Tierra on the left side of the car, and, ignoring the road and the smell of petrol, she convinces herself that she is astride a horse in the opening chapter to The Pastures of Heaven, bearing down on sun slants and farmland and dust.
This is her poetic gaff, not mine.
The father a
nd the mother could quite happily miss out on a meal in the evening, but the idiot and I are having none of it. We end up in the best bar in the world, two minutes up the hill from our inn. It is quite literally the most American thing I have ever seen: actual men in checked shirts and braces sitting drinking (I hope) whiskey, a head shot of John Wayne on the wall, and spurred boots hanging from the ceiling. The idiot is in raptures. We order southern salads of black beans, sweetcorn, guacamole and chilli. The mother raises a sceptical eyebrow at her huevos rancheros.
On Day 2 of our road trip we spend the morning getting lost along the '17 mile drive' past Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove - a Bermuda Triangle of golf courses and vulgar real estate. Well, on one side anyway. I concede that the other side, the coastal side, is rather picturesque. My only complaint is that there are too many birds, meaning that the mother stops the car every few seconds and rushes outside with her binoculars around her neck, shouting "Peter! Peter! Oh you must see this." We complete our Steinbeck tour with a visit to Monterey, for tourist pics beneath Cannery Row. Monterey Bay Aquarium costs near-to $30 per person, but, while we mull it over, an amazing lady bumbles up to us proffering free entry for another party of 3 (completing her voucher for 6). We are inside within a matter of seconds, and the lady bumbles off again into the seahorse section and out of sight, the fairy godmother of overpriced aquarium access. "Yes, idiot, you shall go see the fishies."
Consette x
The parental unit, always keen to satisfy the idiot's various whims, therefore arrange an extravagant diversion to Salinas, Carmel and Monterey on their way to Yosemite. We start off in Salinas, which is something of a ghost town. Maybe it's the fault of Memorial Day. Salinas seems more functional than touristy, and indeed The Steinbeck Center in the square is pretty much the main event, an incongruity next to a multiplex cinema and a parade of pseudo-Mexican restaurants. The idiot attends to every exhibit with fevered concentration; the museum is arranged according to novel, as opposed to theme or chronology, and includes as much detailed information about the film adaptations as it does the writing. James Dean, John Malkovich, Gary Sinise - one can't complain. She spends near to three hours in there, emerging at last looking post-coital and flushed. From the museum we drive to the graveyard so the idiot can pay her respects. She sits firmly on the memorial stone and grins with thumbs up.
We are booked to stay in a motel-type inn affair in Carmel Valley. We pass the Corral de Tierra on the left side of the car, and, ignoring the road and the smell of petrol, she convinces herself that she is astride a horse in the opening chapter to The Pastures of Heaven, bearing down on sun slants and farmland and dust.
This is her poetic gaff, not mine.
The father a
nd the mother could quite happily miss out on a meal in the evening, but the idiot and I are having none of it. We end up in the best bar in the world, two minutes up the hill from our inn. It is quite literally the most American thing I have ever seen: actual men in checked shirts and braces sitting drinking (I hope) whiskey, a head shot of John Wayne on the wall, and spurred boots hanging from the ceiling. The idiot is in raptures. We order southern salads of black beans, sweetcorn, guacamole and chilli. The mother raises a sceptical eyebrow at her huevos rancheros.On Day 2 of our road trip we spend the morning getting lost along the '17 mile drive' past Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove - a Bermuda Triangle of golf courses and vulgar real estate. Well, on one side anyway. I concede that the other side, the coastal side, is rather picturesque. My only complaint is that there are too many birds, meaning that the mother stops the car every few seconds and rushes outside with her binoculars around her neck, shouting "Peter! Peter! Oh you must see this." We complete our Steinbeck tour with a visit to Monterey, for tourist pics beneath Cannery Row. Monterey Bay Aquarium costs near-to $30 per person, but, while we mull it over, an amazing lady bumbles up to us proffering free entry for another party of 3 (completing her voucher for 6). We are inside within a matter of seconds, and the lady bumbles off again into the seahorse section and out of sight, the fairy godmother of overpriced aquarium access. "Yes, idiot, you shall go see the fishies."
Consette x
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
SF
These final postings on the blog shall comprise a sort of epilogue, and, I apologise in advance, will be even more perfunctory than my most throwaway efforts to date. Consette is tired. Granted, my bad back has been less bad the last few days, but still, I am tired. Beyond this, though, it is weird to write about any other city than Portland. Part of me doesn't want to do it; I feel like I am committing a betrayal. Like Travels With Charley, this blog has ended before its ending. Here I offer you the lolloping death throes of my life's work, and maybe something to do with San Francisco along the way.
SIDEWALKS: The most noticeable difference between SF and PDX is the sidewalk breadth, respectively narrow/smelly vs. wide/clean/largely deserted.
PRIDE: We're here too early to witness the parade, but the rainbow flags adorn the edge of Market St in glorious anticipation. We spend our first afternoon wandering up and down Market - half asleep from the overnight train, but waking up as the mist burns away.
CITY LIGHTS: After a year of living in this country and pretending to know about it, the idiot decides that she has earned the right to be a tourist. City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Ave provides the first opportunity. She takes pictures from every angle, buys a HOWL cap and the slimmest Derrida she can find to honour the occasion. She is wary of buying anything more substantial in deference to the weight limitations on the plane home. As it is, a mere 100 pages of Positions has proven too taxing, and, a month or so later, she is yet to get beyond the first paragraph. After the bookstore we have a super strong coffee in Caffe Trieste just around the corner, served by some of the most truculent baristas we have ever encountered, no doubt pissed off that their neighbourhood secret was included in the 2008 Lonely Planet and has, ever since, suffered an infiltration of idiotic tourists. Too. Much. Business. SIGH.
COIT: Nice view innit.
THE SAN FRANCISCO WALK: Descending the hills from Coit Tower, the father splays his feet like a duck and waddles his way to level ground. The only way to do it without falling tit over arse.
CHINATOWN: Being an all-knowing Consette, I suggest a hidden little treasure off the beaten track where you can get the best dim sum in the city. But, being the idiotic LS contingent, they fall for the inevitable tourist trap. We are ushered off the street into an airy upstairs restaurant, where family after family of European visitors suck on soggy pot stickers and ask for bread to sop up the grease.
NOISE: This city is so noisy, and I bloody love it. Our hotel room is open to the noise of the thoroughfare. The fire engines announce their arrival with a banshee wail in the middle of the night, and all I want to do is base jump from the twenty-first floor and accost a fireman.
CABLE CARS: $5, but worth it.
MRS DOUBTFIRE: Can't stop hearing her voice.
SFMOMA: We p
ass a solid three hours in one exhibition alone. The Steins Collect not only boasts a clever title - is it a verb, a possessive, or an abbreviation of 'collective' (?) - but also the most comprehensive display of modern art that the idiot has ever seen. Gertrude is bit of a hero, but in terms of art dealings her brothers were just as impressive. Elsewhere in the museum, the idiot has an over-excited hernia when she spots Duchamp's toilet bowl. She is no gauge for quality, however, as the Mondrian cake in the cafe provokes just as much hysteria.
FISHERMAN'S WHARF: Delicious tack.
SEA LIONS ON PIER 39: We think at once of this poem by William Carlos Williams. Blouaugh indeed. All piled on top of each other like that, I'd imagine there's quite a lot of accidental rape. This would explain the exponential population growth. They smell of every dead fish in the sea and urine and general shit. The mother is fascinated by them, but the father, the idiot and I keep well back.
LITTLE ITALY: Not wanting to make the same mistake as the aforementioned Chinatown restaurant, we put some effort into finding a decent Italian restaurant along Columbus Ave. We settle on a thing the size of a shoebox, but the red wine at least gets the smack of approval from the father and the prawns earn a grin from the idiot.
HAIGHT AND CASTRO: The idiot makes the excursion all by herself, and returns with pictures of her feet next to the sidewalk name engravings. Haight for hippies, Castro for queers, she's really broadening her horizons at 9am in the morning.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM: We meet Reed friend Kerstin at The Cartoon Art Museum on Mission. It is great to see Reed people outside of Reed; meeting Kerstin proves that such crazy conjectures can become reality with a bit of effort.
LUNCH AT HOUSE OF NANKING: An excellent Chinese restaurant on the lip of Chinatown. In fact, not Chinatown at all, but on the dusty end of Kearny. The father turns a sceptical, hygienic eye to the kitchens, but the food which emerges is delicious. I eat the best chow mein of my life, which provides ample compensation for the Chinese fail of a few days before.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: At heinous expense we spend the final two hours of the day in the California Academy of Sciences, but could quite happily have set up camp in the swamp and whittled away an entire weekend there.
DINER MILKSHAKES: The idiot insists that the parental unit benefit from the diner experience before leaving the States. The father orders a banana milkshake so gargantuan that it requires two glasses. This does nothing to undo preconceptions about American eating habits.
BERKELEY: The idiot and I take a day trip to the Berkeley campus. Before leaving for her year abroad the idiot had promised her Berkeley friends (Olivia and Katie) that she would be visiting SF every other weekend. Of course she didn't visit once, and now feels it would only be right to take a look around in spite of their absence. Or indeed the absence of all students, it being the holidays. Berkeley is very different to Reed, which seems ever so small by comparison. The campus looks like the downsized model of an Italian city, and even has its own campanile; the carillon is played three times a day, and we are fortunate enough to be at the top of the tower for the midday performance.
CAMERA OBSCURA: A creepy little chamber below Cliff House where you can watch the waves in rotating upside-down black and white. There are holograms of faces and body parts all along the walls.
MUIR WOODS AND SONOMA WINE TASTING: Having abandoned pretensions of authenticity a long time ago, we take a tour bus to see the redwoods at Muir. Cue too many photographs of our cricked necks looking far up into the dappled canopy above. This is followed by three visits to pretty Sonoma wineries. Definitely woozy by the end of the day. We drive back over the Golden Gate bridge while the idiot ticks things off her life experience TO DO list. There are certain benefits to group tourism: one of the men has a Godfather Brooklyn accent so delectable I want to wrap it in a bow and take it back to England as a souvenir.
Consette x
SIDEWALKS: The most noticeable difference between SF and PDX is the sidewalk breadth, respectively narrow/smelly vs. wide/clean/largely deserted.
PRIDE: We're here too early to witness the parade, but the rainbow flags adorn the edge of Market St in glorious anticipation. We spend our first afternoon wandering up and down Market - half asleep from the overnight train, but waking up as the mist burns away.
CITY LIGHTS: After a year of living in this country and pretending to know about it, the idiot decides that she has earned the right to be a tourist. City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Ave provides the first opportunity. She takes pictures from every angle, buys a HOWL cap and the slimmest Derrida she can find to honour the occasion. She is wary of buying anything more substantial in deference to the weight limitations on the plane home. As it is, a mere 100 pages of Positions has proven too taxing, and, a month or so later, she is yet to get beyond the first paragraph. After the bookstore we have a super strong coffee in Caffe Trieste just around the corner, served by some of the most truculent baristas we have ever encountered, no doubt pissed off that their neighbourhood secret was included in the 2008 Lonely Planet and has, ever since, suffered an infiltration of idiotic tourists. Too. Much. Business. SIGH.
COIT: Nice view innit.
THE SAN FRANCISCO WALK: Descending the hills from Coit Tower, the father splays his feet like a duck and waddles his way to level ground. The only way to do it without falling tit over arse.
CHINATOWN: Being an all-knowing Consette, I suggest a hidden little treasure off the beaten track where you can get the best dim sum in the city. But, being the idiotic LS contingent, they fall for the inevitable tourist trap. We are ushered off the street into an airy upstairs restaurant, where family after family of European visitors suck on soggy pot stickers and ask for bread to sop up the grease.
NOISE: This city is so noisy, and I bloody love it. Our hotel room is open to the noise of the thoroughfare. The fire engines announce their arrival with a banshee wail in the middle of the night, and all I want to do is base jump from the twenty-first floor and accost a fireman.
CABLE CARS: $5, but worth it.
MRS DOUBTFIRE: Can't stop hearing her voice.
SFMOMA: We p
ass a solid three hours in one exhibition alone. The Steins Collect not only boasts a clever title - is it a verb, a possessive, or an abbreviation of 'collective' (?) - but also the most comprehensive display of modern art that the idiot has ever seen. Gertrude is bit of a hero, but in terms of art dealings her brothers were just as impressive. Elsewhere in the museum, the idiot has an over-excited hernia when she spots Duchamp's toilet bowl. She is no gauge for quality, however, as the Mondrian cake in the cafe provokes just as much hysteria.FISHERMAN'S WHARF: Delicious tack.
SEA LIONS ON PIER 39: We think at once of this poem by William Carlos Williams. Blouaugh indeed. All piled on top of each other like that, I'd imagine there's quite a lot of accidental rape. This would explain the exponential population growth. They smell of every dead fish in the sea and urine and general shit. The mother is fascinated by them, but the father, the idiot and I keep well back.
LITTLE ITALY: Not wanting to make the same mistake as the aforementioned Chinatown restaurant, we put some effort into finding a decent Italian restaurant along Columbus Ave. We settle on a thing the size of a shoebox, but the red wine at least gets the smack of approval from the father and the prawns earn a grin from the idiot.
HAIGHT AND CASTRO: The idiot makes the excursion all by herself, and returns with pictures of her feet next to the sidewalk name engravings. Haight for hippies, Castro for queers, she's really broadening her horizons at 9am in the morning.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM: We meet Reed friend Kerstin at The Cartoon Art Museum on Mission. It is great to see Reed people outside of Reed; meeting Kerstin proves that such crazy conjectures can become reality with a bit of effort.
LUNCH AT HOUSE OF NANKING: An excellent Chinese restaurant on the lip of Chinatown. In fact, not Chinatown at all, but on the dusty end of Kearny. The father turns a sceptical, hygienic eye to the kitchens, but the food which emerges is delicious. I eat the best chow mein of my life, which provides ample compensation for the Chinese fail of a few days before.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: At heinous expense we spend the final two hours of the day in the California Academy of Sciences, but could quite happily have set up camp in the swamp and whittled away an entire weekend there.
DINER MILKSHAKES: The idiot insists that the parental unit benefit from the diner experience before leaving the States. The father orders a banana milkshake so gargantuan that it requires two glasses. This does nothing to undo preconceptions about American eating habits.
BERKELEY: The idiot and I take a day trip to the Berkeley campus. Before leaving for her year abroad the idiot had promised her Berkeley friends (Olivia and Katie) that she would be visiting SF every other weekend. Of course she didn't visit once, and now feels it would only be right to take a look around in spite of their absence. Or indeed the absence of all students, it being the holidays. Berkeley is very different to Reed, which seems ever so small by comparison. The campus looks like the downsized model of an Italian city, and even has its own campanile; the carillon is played three times a day, and we are fortunate enough to be at the top of the tower for the midday performance.
CAMERA OBSCURA: A creepy little chamber below Cliff House where you can watch the waves in rotating upside-down black and white. There are holograms of faces and body parts all along the walls.
MUIR WOODS AND SONOMA WINE TASTING: Having abandoned pretensions of authenticity a long time ago, we take a tour bus to see the redwoods at Muir. Cue too many photographs of our cricked necks looking far up into the dappled canopy above. This is followed by three visits to pretty Sonoma wineries. Definitely woozy by the end of the day. We drive back over the Golden Gate bridge while the idiot ticks things off her life experience TO DO list. There are certain benefits to group tourism: one of the men has a Godfather Brooklyn accent so delectable I want to wrap it in a bow and take it back to England as a souvenir.
Consette x
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Starlight
Leaving Reed on the Tuesday happens far too soon and all at once: wake up, complete the pack, bid farewell to room, return key, stagger to bus stop with luggage, and, for the first time ever, watch a bus arrive at the exact time it said it would arrive. As with most things, the event itself (of departure) is mundane. No tears or nothing, just a quick glance back at Eliot Hall as the bus moves off. The idiot sets a determined jaw. Onwards.
We meet the parental unit at the hotel and taxi multiple suitcases to the Amtrak station, where a 'red cap' porter who looks like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine helps the idiot redistribute the weight in her luggage so that all items measure less than 50 pounds. Unlike me, she has never learnt to travel light. How many times in this blog have I started a sentence with the words, "Being imaginary, I can ...", followed by the various liberties open to a person of imaginary status? Well, whatever, here's another. Being imaginary, I can travel with the proverbial kitchen sink on my back, and no one gives a monkeys.
Our train is scheduled for 14.30, so we leave our luggage in the sleeper car lounge and catch another taxi to the West Hills where the Dubays have invited us for lunch. It is rather luxurious spending time with the parental unit when taxis are the standard means of transportation. The idiot grumbles at them for failing at frugality, but at the same time is thankful for not having to rely on the Portland bus (dis)service. I have mentioned the Dubays a few times in this blog, but now must reiterate the extent of their generosity and kindness towards the idiot. Some friends of the parental unit in Somerset handed out the Dubays' address before she left for Portland last August. Since their first dinner invitation in October, they have been nothing but exceptional. This final Tuesday morning is the only available time the parental unit and the Dubays can meet, and in the end it serves as quite a nice segue into the slow return home. And by 'home', I mean England home. The Dubays comprise at least one pre-existing link between Portland, OR, and Somerset, UK - a link to which the idiot can now contribute. Inga also has a strong connection with Reed, as she was a pupil and colleague of the famous calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds (cf. Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford). Joe was a math(s) Professor at Harvard. Taking us on a tour of their house, Inga points out Joe's Phi Beta Kappa certificate displayed on the wall. A fearsomely impressive couple. After lunch they drive us to the station and give the idiot the squeeziest goodbye hug in the world.
I face forwards on the Coast Starlight, in the direction of California, while the idiot faces back to catch every last glimpse of Portland. About an hour or so into the journey she requests a symbolic swap, and I take her seat and she takes mine. We listen to Morricone on the ipod with one earphone each. Neither of us have ever experienced a sleeper train before; the retractable bunk bed instigates a small round of applause. In addition to the sleeper car, the train has an arcade car, a cinema car, and a viewing car (floor length windows to watch Oregon turn into California). We spot Crater Lake from a distance. At 4pm there is cheese and wine tasting in the lounge car, hosted by conductor Gary, and the mother, the idiot and I attend with gusto. Then we have steak and red wine for dinner in the restaurant car. Then we sleep off some of that end-of-semester exhaustion as the train rocks across the border. Then we wake up firmly in CA and eat a 6am breakfast before arrival. Then we lose the faculty to form sentences more than a few words long and begin everything with 'then'.
Although we have not travelled to San Francisco by foot, the 13 hour train journey is somehow more faithful to the space/time continuum than a 2 hour whizz on the plane. I am for the first time compelled to say, "shittinghell, this country is BIG."
Consette x
We meet the parental unit at the hotel and taxi multiple suitcases to the Amtrak station, where a 'red cap' porter who looks like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine helps the idiot redistribute the weight in her luggage so that all items measure less than 50 pounds. Unlike me, she has never learnt to travel light. How many times in this blog have I started a sentence with the words, "Being imaginary, I can ...", followed by the various liberties open to a person of imaginary status? Well, whatever, here's another. Being imaginary, I can travel with the proverbial kitchen sink on my back, and no one gives a monkeys.
Our train is scheduled for 14.30, so we leave our luggage in the sleeper car lounge and catch another taxi to the West Hills where the Dubays have invited us for lunch. It is rather luxurious spending time with the parental unit when taxis are the standard means of transportation. The idiot grumbles at them for failing at frugality, but at the same time is thankful for not having to rely on the Portland bus (dis)service. I have mentioned the Dubays a few times in this blog, but now must reiterate the extent of their generosity and kindness towards the idiot. Some friends of the parental unit in Somerset handed out the Dubays' address before she left for Portland last August. Since their first dinner invitation in October, they have been nothing but exceptional. This final Tuesday morning is the only available time the parental unit and the Dubays can meet, and in the end it serves as quite a nice segue into the slow return home. And by 'home', I mean England home. The Dubays comprise at least one pre-existing link between Portland, OR, and Somerset, UK - a link to which the idiot can now contribute. Inga also has a strong connection with Reed, as she was a pupil and colleague of the famous calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds (cf. Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford). Joe was a math(s) Professor at Harvard. Taking us on a tour of their house, Inga points out Joe's Phi Beta Kappa certificate displayed on the wall. A fearsomely impressive couple. After lunch they drive us to the station and give the idiot the squeeziest goodbye hug in the world.
I face forwards on the Coast Starlight, in the direction of California, while the idiot faces back to catch every last glimpse of Portland. About an hour or so into the journey she requests a symbolic swap, and I take her seat and she takes mine. We listen to Morricone on the ipod with one earphone each. Neither of us have ever experienced a sleeper train before; the retractable bunk bed instigates a small round of applause. In addition to the sleeper car, the train has an arcade car, a cinema car, and a viewing car (floor length windows to watch Oregon turn into California). We spot Crater Lake from a distance. At 4pm there is cheese and wine tasting in the lounge car, hosted by conductor Gary, and the mother, the idiot and I attend with gusto. Then we have steak and red wine for dinner in the restaurant car. Then we sleep off some of that end-of-semester exhaustion as the train rocks across the border. Then we wake up firmly in CA and eat a 6am breakfast before arrival. Then we lose the faculty to form sentences more than a few words long and begin everything with 'then'.
Although we have not travelled to San Francisco by foot, the 13 hour train journey is somehow more faithful to the space/time continuum than a 2 hour whizz on the plane. I am for the first time compelled to say, "shittinghell, this country is BIG."
Consette x
Monday, 18 July 2011
Commencement
Consette has an inappropriate and wholly consuming crush on President Colin. If any further evidence were needed to justify this, his introductory 'woohhooooo!' at the Reed Commencement Ceremony is nothing short of the sexiest thing ever. He follows the 'woohhooooo!' with an extended analogy between himself and the Queen of England, both of them, indeed, at the head of a large unruly family who attract a lot of attention from the press. The official commencement address from a Reed alumna seems rather anodyne and over-earnest by comparison.
The idiot et al decide at the last minute to tart it up for Commencement. I am always immaculately turned out, but seeing the idiot in a dress is a little unnerving. When she was 11 her elder brother so delicately informed her that she had "legs like tree trunks". Oh well, they need an airing sometime. Although you can wear whatever you so desire at Reed events, and although President Colin sets the tone of informal celebration with his opening 'remark', Commencement still projects a certain sense of gravitas. Bagpipes accompany the procession, for goodness sake. The programme alone, containing every single thesis title for every single 2010-11 senior, attests to the formidable body of work these guys have to complete before graduating. For some this is the most important Reed ritual they will take part in, or at least a close second after the bonfire at Thesis Parade. So yeah, put on a dress you goddam slacker exchange student, and show your respect.
The graduating class, on the other hand, conceal a whole load of garish undergarments beneath those robes. One bloke flashes a pair of stars and stripes skin-tight briefs when he receives his diploma. The applause is raucous, and the audience yells and whoops at the seniors as they shake Colin's hand. Some get cheers so loud that you have to feel sorry for the person behind them. It is customary to give the President a gift as he gives you your diploma: there are many feather boas, and one girl boasts a moose head bust.
The champagne reception is held in the Quad. The day is grey and drizzly, but thank goodness there's a marquee. The food on offer is basically just the biggest cheese plate you ever saw. I eat four slices of Brie Pie, and hail the completely astounding human being who thought of spreading jam over cheese and wrapping it in pastry. Once stuffed, we make our excuses and return to the dorm to complete our packing. The room must be left immaculate, otherwise the powers that be knock dollars quite arbitrarily off your deposit. The idiot delegates tasks, and I spend 2 hours trying to remove a pasting of dried ginger ale and glitter from the floor - nostalgic residue from Renn Fayre. Later we meet up with some of the others in the French House and, after much deliberation, decide what to do on the final evening. We want to go the best restaurant and have the best memories and drink at the best bar etc etc, to guarantee the greatest and saddest night possible. But in the end the pressure to have fun is too stressful. We choose at random a very pleasant restaurant called The Grain and Gristle in Northeast Portland, for muffalettas and cider. A muffaletta is a New Orleans sandwich of focaccia, olives, pickled veg, ham, cured meats, and emmental. From there we go to the Doug Fir for the graduation party, and the idiot bids farewell to a series of formative friendships, some of which might have turned into something good with more time to prove. By prove, I mean prove like bread dough - double in size. She drunkenly invites everyone to England to stay in her AmericanEnglish Commune (ie. the house of the parental unit).
The after party at the Spanish House is subdued. Justine brings out tubs of Ben & Jerry's and we eat in almost-silence. On saying goodbye to them all - Aurore, Febee, Justine, Aaron and Lucia - the idiot apologies for not being able to cry in front of people. Walking home, though, I am embarrassed by her sobs and am forced to avert my eyes.
Consette x
The idiot et al decide at the last minute to tart it up for Commencement. I am always immaculately turned out, but seeing the idiot in a dress is a little unnerving. When she was 11 her elder brother so delicately informed her that she had "legs like tree trunks". Oh well, they need an airing sometime. Although you can wear whatever you so desire at Reed events, and although President Colin sets the tone of informal celebration with his opening 'remark', Commencement still projects a certain sense of gravitas. Bagpipes accompany the procession, for goodness sake. The programme alone, containing every single thesis title for every single 2010-11 senior, attests to the formidable body of work these guys have to complete before graduating. For some this is the most important Reed ritual they will take part in, or at least a close second after the bonfire at Thesis Parade. So yeah, put on a dress you goddam slacker exchange student, and show your respect.
The graduating class, on the other hand, conceal a whole load of garish undergarments beneath those robes. One bloke flashes a pair of stars and stripes skin-tight briefs when he receives his diploma. The applause is raucous, and the audience yells and whoops at the seniors as they shake Colin's hand. Some get cheers so loud that you have to feel sorry for the person behind them. It is customary to give the President a gift as he gives you your diploma: there are many feather boas, and one girl boasts a moose head bust.
The champagne reception is held in the Quad. The day is grey and drizzly, but thank goodness there's a marquee. The food on offer is basically just the biggest cheese plate you ever saw. I eat four slices of Brie Pie, and hail the completely astounding human being who thought of spreading jam over cheese and wrapping it in pastry. Once stuffed, we make our excuses and return to the dorm to complete our packing. The room must be left immaculate, otherwise the powers that be knock dollars quite arbitrarily off your deposit. The idiot delegates tasks, and I spend 2 hours trying to remove a pasting of dried ginger ale and glitter from the floor - nostalgic residue from Renn Fayre. Later we meet up with some of the others in the French House and, after much deliberation, decide what to do on the final evening. We want to go the best restaurant and have the best memories and drink at the best bar etc etc, to guarantee the greatest and saddest night possible. But in the end the pressure to have fun is too stressful. We choose at random a very pleasant restaurant called The Grain and Gristle in Northeast Portland, for muffalettas and cider. A muffaletta is a New Orleans sandwich of focaccia, olives, pickled veg, ham, cured meats, and emmental. From there we go to the Doug Fir for the graduation party, and the idiot bids farewell to a series of formative friendships, some of which might have turned into something good with more time to prove. By prove, I mean prove like bread dough - double in size. She drunkenly invites everyone to England to stay in her AmericanEnglish Commune (ie. the house of the parental unit).
The after party at the Spanish House is subdued. Justine brings out tubs of Ben & Jerry's and we eat in almost-silence. On saying goodbye to them all - Aurore, Febee, Justine, Aaron and Lucia - the idiot apologies for not being able to cry in front of people. Walking home, though, I am embarrassed by her sobs and am forced to avert my eyes.
Consette x
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Finals
As you can gather from the previous post, 'Finals' week at Reed was largely spent entertaining the parental unit, but, in her few spare hours - at night and early morn - the idiot put everything into seeing her friends. I say 'Finals' in inverted commas because the idiot had, in fact, handed in her final paper on the Monday, therefore leaving an entire week of freedom to say goodbye.
GIANMARCO: The first friend she made all they way back in August Orientations, and, in concordance with this, also the first to leave. They promise they will see each other again - but England being where it is, and Venezuela being where it is, this is all merely chat and hope.
THE 'JUST REALLY TIRED PARTY': After the parents' first day of sightseeing, an informal party is held in the Spanish House to bid farewell to Liana. The idiot ends up falling asleep in her chair, practically dribbling, with a glass precariously balanced on her knee. Falls victim to Aurore's camera of doom.
FRENCH HOUSE PARTY: Advertised as a second mini Renn Fayre, complete with a set of Stop Making Sense in the basement at 2am. We come across some old UEA students who had done the 06/07 Reed exchange. This is weird for the idiot: one of them now lives in Portland, and the other is marrying a girl he met whilst at Reed. I notice the idiot looking all thoughtful - a dangerous 70% of her desperately wants to stay in America. I remain at the party well into the early hours, but the idiot peels off early too sad and tearful to talk to anyone anymore.
MORELAND-SELLWOOD RUN: The gym has arsey opening hours during Finals Week, so we (yes - WE - Consette inclusive) take to running a roundabout route to 17th Avenue and back, opening up views of the city blocks in sunlight we had not seen before. 7 in the morning is a concept that should be explored with more regularity.
TRULY REVOLTING FRED MEYER DINNER: The parental unit seem to be shocked at the amount of meals the idiot can eat in a day (TWO), of course blaming America for this supposed change in stomach capacity. They frequently opt to miss out on supper while the idiot and I are left to fend for ourselves, thus prompting a peruse through the buffet salad bar at Fred Meyer on a Sunday night. The olives taste of metal, but even FM gives me reason to feel sad. So many memories.
KERSTIN'S BIO NOTES: In freshman year, Kerstin Espinosa Rosero took the most beautiful notes for biology class, which, four years later, she accidentally brings into Film Theory. The idiot sees them and falls in love: intricate diagrams of photosynthesis and zygotes and what-have-you. Kerstin, being the fabulous human being that she is, offers us these notes as a leaving present.
RIBS: Amazing freshman Lizzie makes ribs in the Sequoia kitchen on our penultimate evening. Kansas City Sauce. Mess. Goodbyes to the dorm, a lovely lot.
PACKING: All Sunday night. I refuse to help her on account of the backache. In the end the room looks so incredibly depressing we cannot stand to sleep in it.
Consette x
GIANMARCO: The first friend she made all they way back in August Orientations, and, in concordance with this, also the first to leave. They promise they will see each other again - but England being where it is, and Venezuela being where it is, this is all merely chat and hope.
THE 'JUST REALLY TIRED PARTY': After the parents' first day of sightseeing, an informal party is held in the Spanish House to bid farewell to Liana. The idiot ends up falling asleep in her chair, practically dribbling, with a glass precariously balanced on her knee. Falls victim to Aurore's camera of doom.
FRENCH HOUSE PARTY: Advertised as a second mini Renn Fayre, complete with a set of Stop Making Sense in the basement at 2am. We come across some old UEA students who had done the 06/07 Reed exchange. This is weird for the idiot: one of them now lives in Portland, and the other is marrying a girl he met whilst at Reed. I notice the idiot looking all thoughtful - a dangerous 70% of her desperately wants to stay in America. I remain at the party well into the early hours, but the idiot peels off early too sad and tearful to talk to anyone anymore.
MORELAND-SELLWOOD RUN: The gym has arsey opening hours during Finals Week, so we (yes - WE - Consette inclusive) take to running a roundabout route to 17th Avenue and back, opening up views of the city blocks in sunlight we had not seen before. 7 in the morning is a concept that should be explored with more regularity.
TRULY REVOLTING FRED MEYER DINNER: The parental unit seem to be shocked at the amount of meals the idiot can eat in a day (TWO), of course blaming America for this supposed change in stomach capacity. They frequently opt to miss out on supper while the idiot and I are left to fend for ourselves, thus prompting a peruse through the buffet salad bar at Fred Meyer on a Sunday night. The olives taste of metal, but even FM gives me reason to feel sad. So many memories.
KERSTIN'S BIO NOTES: In freshman year, Kerstin Espinosa Rosero took the most beautiful notes for biology class, which, four years later, she accidentally brings into Film Theory. The idiot sees them and falls in love: intricate diagrams of photosynthesis and zygotes and what-have-you. Kerstin, being the fabulous human being that she is, offers us these notes as a leaving present.
RIBS: Amazing freshman Lizzie makes ribs in the Sequoia kitchen on our penultimate evening. Kansas City Sauce. Mess. Goodbyes to the dorm, a lovely lot.
PACKING: All Sunday night. I refuse to help her on account of the backache. In the end the room looks so incredibly depressing we cannot stand to sleep in it.
Consette x
Sunday, 10 July 2011
MumandDad
TUESDAY 17TH MAY: Having handed in her Morrison/Ozick paper very much at the last minute, the idiot catches the Red MAX line to the airport and sleepily awaits the arrival of the parental unit, whose connecting flight from San Francisco has been delayed by 4 hours. She has prepared a stupid little sign which reads, 'WELCOME MR AND MRS LS', with a shaky felt-pen drawing of the British flag in the corner. I don't mind the 4 hour wait; airports give me an enormous amount of sentimental joy. I like to lurk around the arrivals area in a creepy sort of way and watch families reunite. Eventually the parental unit arrives, looking just as you'd expect - the father's jumper tied a few inches below his armpits, and the mother fraught and somewhat weepy from the delay. The idiot is super happy to be in charge, deriving pleasure from her superior (she thinks) knowledge of PDX airport, immediately mobilising the sarcastic sigh and the long-suffering 'why are my parents so slow' roll of the eyes. I often wonder how and why the parental unit tolerate this sort of treatment. I think they cannily perceive that the idiot's behaviour is merely a manifestation of love, and evidence that she has missed them. I am afraid the idiot is rather toddlerish in this respect. We pick up the hire car ten minutes from the terminal, prompting the first of many declarations: "god, everything in this country is so big". The lady on the GPS has an indecipherable accent, and the car is too large in every dimension, and no one is accustomed to driving on the right. We snail our way to the parental hotel in SW Portland. I'm not going to lie, I fear for my imaginary life. And the idiot is further persuaded that driving is both unnatural and dangerous, and that she will never ever pass her test (out of choice, not failure).
While the father passes out on the hotel bed, the mother, the idiot and I walk to Ringlers Annex on Burnside for a midnight supper and cider. This bar is one of the idiot's favourite places in Portland - a triangular squidge between two forking roads, somehow reminiscent of a railway waiting room. Their Edwardian pie is sublime.
WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY: The mother and father visit Reed, wide-eyed and ingenuous. The weather is so unlike what it was a week ago at Renn Fayre, and so unlike what we have come to expect from Portland, that we fear the parental unit are not sufficiently amazed with the sun. They arrive on campus at 11am, by which time the idiot has practically eaten her cheek with anticipation anxiety. "Days like this do NOT happen," she tells them. "Jet lag is a myth. For goodness sake get a grip and hurry up." We conduct a comprehensive tour of all the essentials: the scrounge table, the stim table, President Colin, any bathroom with offensive graffiti ... LOOK MUM AND DAD, LOOK HOW LIBERAL ARTSY THIS IS. EVERYONE HERE IS SO LIKE PROGRESSIVE. BE SHOCKED! BE SHOCKED! The mother wafts around and says, repeatedly, "Darling, this is lovely. What a pretty campus." Hrmph. The father strays into Paradox without anyone's bidding and, before the idiot can retrieve him, orders a cappuccino. Some hipster visibly raises his eyebrows. I guess middle-aged British parents wearing corduroys and ordering cappuccinos are kind of funny, but still. Hipsters. Gah. And none of them can make a decent cappuccino anyway.
After the Reed visitation we head to the Belmont food carts for fishy chips and an amazing creme brulee, followed by a chaser of Bagdad fries and FroYo on Hawthorne. The idiot begins a list of all the things her parents have never heard of: fortune cookies, oreos, and The Cat in the Hat. She is once again an abusive brat, and they are once again kind and forgiving. I suppose I am not technically part of this family, and so, that evening, decide to go home early and give them some time to catch up over sushi. I think the idiot is better behaved when I'm not around anyway.
THUR
SDAY 19TH MAY: A day on the West Hills - Washington Park, the Japanese Garden and Pittock Mansion. Woah to the view at Pittock Mansion, all virgin land dinosaur dreams (if you imagine away Portland smack bang in the middle). The guide at the Japanese Gardens says that today is one of the only times this year he has been able to see Mount Hood with such clarity. We lunch at the Mississippi food carts on the other side of the city, and everyone averts their eyes when we drive past the idiot's tattoo parlour. Burgatroyd burgers are the cutest things you ever saw. The idiot abstains from lunch, however, in the knowledge that Ruby Jewel's ice cream scoop shop is further down the road. No one wants dinner in the end, and the father requests that we go to Powell's and get lost and buy too many books to carry home under the airline weight restrictions. Before catching a bus back to Reed, the idiot forces everyone to cram into the photobooth at Ace Hotel, but they get the perspective all wrong and we end up with close ups of the idiot's sunburnt nose in black and white.
FRIDAY 20T
H MAY: The father is a more confident driver by now, and takes the four of us to Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park, where we see an osprey swoop up just a few feet above our heads. The weather is still astonishing, and the idiot thinks how lucky she is to have only visited Cannon Beach on sunny days, the last time being all the way back in Fall Break. After a chowder lunch, the idiot and the mother indulge in a warm-sand sleep on the beach. Activating her manipulative faculties to full effect, the idiot persuades the father take a diversion to 'movie town' Astoria on the way home for Free Willy nostalgia and The Goonies house. In the evening, the mother and the idiot have dinner at Old Town Pizza, followed by Ground Kontrol arcades for Tetris, while I once again make my apologies and go back to Reed for a nap.
SATURDAY 21ST MAY: On Wednesday, before sushi, we had enjoyed a brief touch of Moreland Farmer's Market in Sellwood. But on Saturday the idiot was keen to show off the posher city centre market which occupies a block in the leafy environs of PSU from 8am to 2pm, boasting some of the best food you will try in the whole of Oregon. In spite of this, all three of them have ice cream sandwiches for lunch. I, on the other hand, have a DIY sampler picnic of brie, salami, olives and artisan bread. In the afternoon we walk along the waterfront to the more trinkety Saturday Market, and the father marvels at the bridges along the Willamette as they open one by one for a container ship. Boys toys.
The idiot decides to take her parents to dinner at Montage. By 'take' I mean that she shows them where it is, and they cover the bill. She forces everyone to order an oyster shooter, compelling them in dominating tones to stop being so pathetic. I experience biscuits and gravy for the first time (a grey, double cream, porky, fried chicken stodgy swamp), which brings on the meat and dairy sweats.
SUNDAY 22ND MAY: A consummate oyster failure: the father is quarantined for the day, having spent the night being violently sick. This is a shame, and the idiot's host family are sad not to meet him. Host dad Kevin is also ill, so the intended trip to Maryhill in the East is refigured as a girly outing - me, her, real mum Trish, host mom Karen, and host sister Amelia. We stop off at Multnomah Falls and Hood River en route, the latter of which is, bizarrely, a prime windsurfing destination. The climate shift from West Oregon into East is nothing if not abrupt: after Hood River it is suddenly hot and dry, and the hills turn an arid brown. Maryhill museum is a crazy isolated house on the other side of the Columbia River (thus, Washington), built by businessman and womaniser Sam Hill in the early 1900s. Inside, there's Rodin in the basement, a substantial Native American collection, and an exhibition of luxury chess sets. Random, but not to be scoffed at. Peacocks outside too. A little way down the driveway, there is a replica Stonehenge which Sam Hill built in order to placate his homesick wife. This amuses the mother and the idiot, who live about 45 minutes away from the real Stonehenge back in England.
I don't think the idiot really realises at the end of the day that this is the last time she will see the host family, who have been so wonderful to her for the duration of her stay at Reed. I slip off early, not being keen on goodbyes, and the idiot comes home later that night all silent and morose.
Consette x
While the father passes out on the hotel bed, the mother, the idiot and I walk to Ringlers Annex on Burnside for a midnight supper and cider. This bar is one of the idiot's favourite places in Portland - a triangular squidge between two forking roads, somehow reminiscent of a railway waiting room. Their Edwardian pie is sublime.
WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY: The mother and father visit Reed, wide-eyed and ingenuous. The weather is so unlike what it was a week ago at Renn Fayre, and so unlike what we have come to expect from Portland, that we fear the parental unit are not sufficiently amazed with the sun. They arrive on campus at 11am, by which time the idiot has practically eaten her cheek with anticipation anxiety. "Days like this do NOT happen," she tells them. "Jet lag is a myth. For goodness sake get a grip and hurry up." We conduct a comprehensive tour of all the essentials: the scrounge table, the stim table, President Colin, any bathroom with offensive graffiti ... LOOK MUM AND DAD, LOOK HOW LIBERAL ARTSY THIS IS. EVERYONE HERE IS SO LIKE PROGRESSIVE. BE SHOCKED! BE SHOCKED! The mother wafts around and says, repeatedly, "Darling, this is lovely. What a pretty campus." Hrmph. The father strays into Paradox without anyone's bidding and, before the idiot can retrieve him, orders a cappuccino. Some hipster visibly raises his eyebrows. I guess middle-aged British parents wearing corduroys and ordering cappuccinos are kind of funny, but still. Hipsters. Gah. And none of them can make a decent cappuccino anyway.
After the Reed visitation we head to the Belmont food carts for fishy chips and an amazing creme brulee, followed by a chaser of Bagdad fries and FroYo on Hawthorne. The idiot begins a list of all the things her parents have never heard of: fortune cookies, oreos, and The Cat in the Hat. She is once again an abusive brat, and they are once again kind and forgiving. I suppose I am not technically part of this family, and so, that evening, decide to go home early and give them some time to catch up over sushi. I think the idiot is better behaved when I'm not around anyway.
THUR
SDAY 19TH MAY: A day on the West Hills - Washington Park, the Japanese Garden and Pittock Mansion. Woah to the view at Pittock Mansion, all virgin land dinosaur dreams (if you imagine away Portland smack bang in the middle). The guide at the Japanese Gardens says that today is one of the only times this year he has been able to see Mount Hood with such clarity. We lunch at the Mississippi food carts on the other side of the city, and everyone averts their eyes when we drive past the idiot's tattoo parlour. Burgatroyd burgers are the cutest things you ever saw. The idiot abstains from lunch, however, in the knowledge that Ruby Jewel's ice cream scoop shop is further down the road. No one wants dinner in the end, and the father requests that we go to Powell's and get lost and buy too many books to carry home under the airline weight restrictions. Before catching a bus back to Reed, the idiot forces everyone to cram into the photobooth at Ace Hotel, but they get the perspective all wrong and we end up with close ups of the idiot's sunburnt nose in black and white.FRIDAY 20T
H MAY: The father is a more confident driver by now, and takes the four of us to Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park, where we see an osprey swoop up just a few feet above our heads. The weather is still astonishing, and the idiot thinks how lucky she is to have only visited Cannon Beach on sunny days, the last time being all the way back in Fall Break. After a chowder lunch, the idiot and the mother indulge in a warm-sand sleep on the beach. Activating her manipulative faculties to full effect, the idiot persuades the father take a diversion to 'movie town' Astoria on the way home for Free Willy nostalgia and The Goonies house. In the evening, the mother and the idiot have dinner at Old Town Pizza, followed by Ground Kontrol arcades for Tetris, while I once again make my apologies and go back to Reed for a nap.SATURDAY 21ST MAY: On Wednesday, before sushi, we had enjoyed a brief touch of Moreland Farmer's Market in Sellwood. But on Saturday the idiot was keen to show off the posher city centre market which occupies a block in the leafy environs of PSU from 8am to 2pm, boasting some of the best food you will try in the whole of Oregon. In spite of this, all three of them have ice cream sandwiches for lunch. I, on the other hand, have a DIY sampler picnic of brie, salami, olives and artisan bread. In the afternoon we walk along the waterfront to the more trinkety Saturday Market, and the father marvels at the bridges along the Willamette as they open one by one for a container ship. Boys toys.
The idiot decides to take her parents to dinner at Montage. By 'take' I mean that she shows them where it is, and they cover the bill. She forces everyone to order an oyster shooter, compelling them in dominating tones to stop being so pathetic. I experience biscuits and gravy for the first time (a grey, double cream, porky, fried chicken stodgy swamp), which brings on the meat and dairy sweats.
SUNDAY 22ND MAY: A consummate oyster failure: the father is quarantined for the day, having spent the night being violently sick. This is a shame, and the idiot's host family are sad not to meet him. Host dad Kevin is also ill, so the intended trip to Maryhill in the East is refigured as a girly outing - me, her, real mum Trish, host mom Karen, and host sister Amelia. We stop off at Multnomah Falls and Hood River en route, the latter of which is, bizarrely, a prime windsurfing destination. The climate shift from West Oregon into East is nothing if not abrupt: after Hood River it is suddenly hot and dry, and the hills turn an arid brown. Maryhill museum is a crazy isolated house on the other side of the Columbia River (thus, Washington), built by businessman and womaniser Sam Hill in the early 1900s. Inside, there's Rodin in the basement, a substantial Native American collection, and an exhibition of luxury chess sets. Random, but not to be scoffed at. Peacocks outside too. A little way down the driveway, there is a replica Stonehenge which Sam Hill built in order to placate his homesick wife. This amuses the mother and the idiot, who live about 45 minutes away from the real Stonehenge back in England.
I don't think the idiot really realises at the end of the day that this is the last time she will see the host family, who have been so wonderful to her for the duration of her stay at Reed. I slip off early, not being keen on goodbyes, and the idiot comes home later that night all silent and morose.
Consette x
Fayre
Renn Fayre is Reed's three day party in the middle of May. It ostensibly begins at 3 in the afternoon on Friday, but, as Professor Gail observes, the first event on the official schedule is the Hum110 lecture at 9am. Our final JOFM class is at 2pm, and Gail compels us to set an example to the freshmen by turning up with clear heads, and no gin. With the exception of Stevie, who had handed in his thesis only an hour or so before the class, everyone obliges, and we eat a civilised round of donuts. Renn Fayre broods around campus in nostalgic waves of hay bale and cut wood. The idiot and I separate after the class. Our fractured relations are in the formative stages of repair at this time (see June 11th post), and I suggest we spend the weekend apart. She declares, somewhat happily I think, that Renn Fayre demarcates the beginning of the end for her imaginary boyfriend transgression (I concur), and she undertakes a number of strategies to eliminate him from her system. This includes banishing all imaginary persons from her sight and reconnecting with reality, for three days at least.
I watch Thesis Parade from the peripheries. Occasionally I catch glimpses of the idiot between bodies and confetti; she is wearing a pink and white jumpsuit like a peppermint boiled sweet, and a necklace of Ferrero Rocher in deference to the theme of 'Gold Rush'. I think for a second that she has reinstated that hideous lip piercing again for the first time in a year, but then perhaps I am over-egging the idiocy. Anyway, this is less of a 'parade', and more of a pit. There is a lot of kissing, a lot of steam from the rain and the heat, and paganlike drums and sparkling-white-wine-in-the-guise-of-champagne. Those with the gold laurels on their heads are the seniors. They push to the bonfire and burn print-outs of their theses. A gold taurus hangs from the front of the library and, above on the balcony, some professors observe proceedings from a sensible distance. A man with a bazooka shoots confetti to the ground. It is all rather disgusting. After a while, the mass shifts to the old entrance of the library, and the seniors file out and down the steps to run through a human tunnel, and the mass shifts again to Eliot Hall. I find President Colin for a chat; he is jolly, but still, as you would expect, dapper and wise owlish. "Kids," he says. I knew Colin would have the requisite imagination to see me, I just knew it.
The crowd eventually dissipates and I return to our dorm for a nap and, in imitation of the idiot's tastes, a top up of ginger ale and vodka. It is a lonely Renn Fayre for me, but I respect the idiot's request and keep a good distance between us at all times. She has real friends, which I suppose is nice. I could of course resort to the company of the imaginary boyfriend, but we both considered it prudent to keep him out of sight while the idiot is in the process of forgetting, and while the memory of the infamous Newport elopement is still fresh in her mind (again, cf. June 11th).
On the Friday night I decide to explore the Lodges. Black Lodge purports to play dirty electro, Green Lodge = drum and bass, Red Lodge = bands, and White Lodge, as far as I can gather = pillows and overwhelming tequila and lots of people stroking skin and hypnotically repeating "you're so beautiful" over and over. I prefer it outside where the Narnia streetlamps have been block-coloured with rainbow cellophane. The blue bridge is partially covered with a bin bag tent and looks like a grotto. Karma Patrol amble about with bagels, water and hugs. I retire to the balloon room and the planetarium in the GCC; the former is suffocating, but the latter provides the necessary calm of a revolving ball with refracted light, and the company of high-as-a-kite Walter for my sleep.
Saturday morning at Renn Fayre means the beginning of the softball tournament. I am embarrassed on behalf of the idiot, who I see, from afar, is still donning the jumpsuit, not realising that people actually take RF softball kind of seriously. Well, seriously enough for sportswear. She has never played softball before, only British rounders, and she clearly has no idea what is going on. I hide in a tepee hammock and chart the mutations of the giant anagrams on the front lawn: PROUST, POT, POETS, POOP. Cars drive past on Woodstock with somewhat bemused faces looking out, but this is about as exciting as the anticipated RF border infiltration gets. To hear those damn Reedies talk about it in advance, I was half expecting Glastonbury Festival fence in the 80s. They even have a sinister sounding border patrol, which I think is wholly unnecessary and high-falutin. The Renn Fayre weekend is in fact consistent with my overall opinion of Reed: the outside would rather stay out, and the inside would rather stay in, and everyone's happy. For example, no one needs to see 50 or so painted blue, naked students before lunch on a Saturday, liberally embracing those who are neither blue nor naked. No one needs to see that. I would have appreciated some sort of warning.
Being imaginary, I manage to skip the 2 hour line for The Feast at 12pm, and tuck into an eclectic and ethnically confused plate of guacamole, houmous, biryani, mac and cheese, goats cheese and cranberry salad, roasted greens, smoked salmon, smoked lamb, brisket, chicken, ribs, and carrot cake. I shall concede - completely delicious, cooked by students, paid for by student donations, and far superior to anything I've had in Commons this year. The generosity and the schizophrenic menu make this the closest thing to a Harry Potter feast I have ever experienced. I spend the afternoon at the bug eating competition in the amphitheater, and a further sleep in the planetarium, before a night of fireworks, a glow stick rendering of Fantasia, and fire dancing. How much money does this college have? A silly amount of money, I'd say. But the 'surprise' in the S.U is just plain bemusing. Who on earth is Spank Rock? I bet the idiot pretends to know. I spot her shadow in the depths of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Station at 4am, and she emerges with a paper plate of gooey condiments, tottering back to her dorm. At 5 in the morning they play Stop Making Sense again in the S.U; I watch the sun come up with an impressive number of survivors.
Sunday is the best day; everything slumps to its close just as I begin to think that I quite like Renn Fayre, actually, and would like it to continue into Reading Week. I have chocolate fountain fondue for breakfast, supplemented by a cigarette dangling from the Sallyport arch on a string. There's Human Chess and a glut of free ice cream, a Mariachi Band, Super Duper Marimba Bros, and a final sweaty dance. Sunlight, too. An array of pimped up bicycles glitter all over campus - the penny farthing, the tandem with the trolley on one end and a full BBQ on the other, and the bike in a cage. In the end I decide it's time to reconnect with the idiot. I follow her to the Spanish House and, in typical voyeurism, earwig on her conversation with friends through the window. They are eating popcorn and nearly-sleeping. At 7 she decides to go home. The light outside is indigo. I practically have to carry her back - the International Plaza to Eliot Circle, to the lower route by the canyon, over the bouncy bridge, and, eventually, dorm and bed. She tells me she is floating, which I pooh-pooh and inform her that she is floating because I am supporting at least 60% of her bodyweight. We watch Doctor Who. She writes a To Do list for Monday with bloodshot eyes.
Consette x
I watch Thesis Parade from the peripheries. Occasionally I catch glimpses of the idiot between bodies and confetti; she is wearing a pink and white jumpsuit like a peppermint boiled sweet, and a necklace of Ferrero Rocher in deference to the theme of 'Gold Rush'. I think for a second that she has reinstated that hideous lip piercing again for the first time in a year, but then perhaps I am over-egging the idiocy. Anyway, this is less of a 'parade', and more of a pit. There is a lot of kissing, a lot of steam from the rain and the heat, and paganlike drums and sparkling-white-wine-in-the-guise-of-champagne. Those with the gold laurels on their heads are the seniors. They push to the bonfire and burn print-outs of their theses. A gold taurus hangs from the front of the library and, above on the balcony, some professors observe proceedings from a sensible distance. A man with a bazooka shoots confetti to the ground. It is all rather disgusting. After a while, the mass shifts to the old entrance of the library, and the seniors file out and down the steps to run through a human tunnel, and the mass shifts again to Eliot Hall. I find President Colin for a chat; he is jolly, but still, as you would expect, dapper and wise owlish. "Kids," he says. I knew Colin would have the requisite imagination to see me, I just knew it.
The crowd eventually dissipates and I return to our dorm for a nap and, in imitation of the idiot's tastes, a top up of ginger ale and vodka. It is a lonely Renn Fayre for me, but I respect the idiot's request and keep a good distance between us at all times. She has real friends, which I suppose is nice. I could of course resort to the company of the imaginary boyfriend, but we both considered it prudent to keep him out of sight while the idiot is in the process of forgetting, and while the memory of the infamous Newport elopement is still fresh in her mind (again, cf. June 11th).
On the Friday night I decide to explore the Lodges. Black Lodge purports to play dirty electro, Green Lodge = drum and bass, Red Lodge = bands, and White Lodge, as far as I can gather = pillows and overwhelming tequila and lots of people stroking skin and hypnotically repeating "you're so beautiful" over and over. I prefer it outside where the Narnia streetlamps have been block-coloured with rainbow cellophane. The blue bridge is partially covered with a bin bag tent and looks like a grotto. Karma Patrol amble about with bagels, water and hugs. I retire to the balloon room and the planetarium in the GCC; the former is suffocating, but the latter provides the necessary calm of a revolving ball with refracted light, and the company of high-as-a-kite Walter for my sleep.
Saturday morning at Renn Fayre means the beginning of the softball tournament. I am embarrassed on behalf of the idiot, who I see, from afar, is still donning the jumpsuit, not realising that people actually take RF softball kind of seriously. Well, seriously enough for sportswear. She has never played softball before, only British rounders, and she clearly has no idea what is going on. I hide in a tepee hammock and chart the mutations of the giant anagrams on the front lawn: PROUST, POT, POETS, POOP. Cars drive past on Woodstock with somewhat bemused faces looking out, but this is about as exciting as the anticipated RF border infiltration gets. To hear those damn Reedies talk about it in advance, I was half expecting Glastonbury Festival fence in the 80s. They even have a sinister sounding border patrol, which I think is wholly unnecessary and high-falutin. The Renn Fayre weekend is in fact consistent with my overall opinion of Reed: the outside would rather stay out, and the inside would rather stay in, and everyone's happy. For example, no one needs to see 50 or so painted blue, naked students before lunch on a Saturday, liberally embracing those who are neither blue nor naked. No one needs to see that. I would have appreciated some sort of warning.
Being imaginary, I manage to skip the 2 hour line for The Feast at 12pm, and tuck into an eclectic and ethnically confused plate of guacamole, houmous, biryani, mac and cheese, goats cheese and cranberry salad, roasted greens, smoked salmon, smoked lamb, brisket, chicken, ribs, and carrot cake. I shall concede - completely delicious, cooked by students, paid for by student donations, and far superior to anything I've had in Commons this year. The generosity and the schizophrenic menu make this the closest thing to a Harry Potter feast I have ever experienced. I spend the afternoon at the bug eating competition in the amphitheater, and a further sleep in the planetarium, before a night of fireworks, a glow stick rendering of Fantasia, and fire dancing. How much money does this college have? A silly amount of money, I'd say. But the 'surprise' in the S.U is just plain bemusing. Who on earth is Spank Rock? I bet the idiot pretends to know. I spot her shadow in the depths of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Station at 4am, and she emerges with a paper plate of gooey condiments, tottering back to her dorm. At 5 in the morning they play Stop Making Sense again in the S.U; I watch the sun come up with an impressive number of survivors.
Sunday is the best day; everything slumps to its close just as I begin to think that I quite like Renn Fayre, actually, and would like it to continue into Reading Week. I have chocolate fountain fondue for breakfast, supplemented by a cigarette dangling from the Sallyport arch on a string. There's Human Chess and a glut of free ice cream, a Mariachi Band, Super Duper Marimba Bros, and a final sweaty dance. Sunlight, too. An array of pimped up bicycles glitter all over campus - the penny farthing, the tandem with the trolley on one end and a full BBQ on the other, and the bike in a cage. In the end I decide it's time to reconnect with the idiot. I follow her to the Spanish House and, in typical voyeurism, earwig on her conversation with friends through the window. They are eating popcorn and nearly-sleeping. At 7 she decides to go home. The light outside is indigo. I practically have to carry her back - the International Plaza to Eliot Circle, to the lower route by the canyon, over the bouncy bridge, and, eventually, dorm and bed. She tells me she is floating, which I pooh-pooh and inform her that she is floating because I am supporting at least 60% of her bodyweight. We watch Doctor Who. She writes a To Do list for Monday with bloodshot eyes.
Consette x
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Last-times
She sent me another email today. In spite of back pain, she said, I expect you - Consette - to fulfil your duties as blogger. Bog off, I said. But here I am, ensconced in a bed of hot water bottles and wheat bags, battling onwards, for her sake. I asked if she could perhaps help out and write some of the posts, but she says she's too busy being idiotic in Somerset, UK, and that I really have nothing to complain about, and that the L.A heat must be doing my joints some good. Well, it's not, and she's a twat.
This post is entitled 'Last-times' on account of the idiot's neurotic tendency to keep track of the 'last time' she will ever do such and such, in such and such a place. In the weeks leading up to the end of Reed, I would often find her in tears mumbling something like, "this is the last time I will ever eat a Commons chicken quesadilla with extortionate amounts of ketchup on the side", or "this is the last time I will sit in this film class and wonder how the hell the conversation got here and what on earth they're talking about."
LAST PRESENTATION: It may have been a baptism of fire, but on the whole Reed has done the idiot an awful lot of good over the past year. She, who has a chronic fear of speaking in public, was forced on a weekly basis to present things in class. For the most part a 'presentation' comprised quite a small-scale blurb on a poem or an essay. This fearsomely capitalised LAST PRESENTATION, however, was a bit more formal and knee-quaking. Film Theory's final project was to write a collaborative essay (shudder) in a group of three, post it on the class moodle, and then give a 15 minute presentation to the rest of the class, with accompanying visual analysis and question-fielding. The idiot joined up with Kerstin and Stephanie for an inquiry into Clouzot's Les Diaboliques and the horror genre. She really fumbled her part of the presentation - bringing out the words climax and sutural pleasure far too many times, getting temporarily lost amidst the hieroglyphic notes on her lap, and going way over the the time limit. This had a domino effect on Kerstin and Stephanie's presentations, and Becky (the professor) had to cut the whole thing short in the end. The idiot was also responsible for the manifest technology fail (no DVD player, no computer, no wire for projector and, when all of that had been resolved, finally, no sound). By way of apology - for putting her pupils through this degree of stress - in the last ever Film Theory class, Becky herself gave a presentation of the creepy consanguinity between Jim Henson's muppets and French theorists/philosophers. Also, Scooby Doo before Reagan.
(First and ...) LAST NITROGEN DAY ICE CREAM: Nitrogen ice cream is kind of grainy, but still impressive.
LAST (ever chance to see ...) HUM PLAY: Again, I reiterate, 'hum' is pronounced 'hume', as if you were going to say 'humanities'. Every year on the Friday before Renn Fayre Friday, students put on a play 'dramatising' the HUM110 syllabus from the last year. Although, some clever sod scheduled the Creative Thesis Reading to happen at the same time and, after a hasty coin toss, it was decided that we attend the reading and miss out on Hum Play. Of course the reading was very excellent all round, but I don't appreciate being exposed to further blubbering from the idiot. She said that Maya's memoir was one of the best, and most moving, pieces of writing she'd heard all year.
LAST CLASS: Two hours before Renn Fayre begins, super Gail Sherman brings donuts to 'James and Ozick/Faulkner and Morrison', and the idiot experiences instantaneous nostalgia. Not just for the donuts, but also for JOFM and Reed classes in general. But it's okay - barely a week later Gail invites us to her house on the other side of Portland for brunch and further intellectual stimulation (ie. a revelatory game of 2 truths, 1 lie). And when I say 'brunch', I actually mean FEAST. Bagels and lox and frittata and coffee and juice and blueberry crisp and whipped cream and wedges of artisan chocolate.
LAST EVER DATE WITH ANGEL DAVID RIVERA: As head of the International Society, David has the exchange students over for a lunch date to say goodbye, and to get feedback on their year abroad. He's a wonderful man, David, and it's just a shame that he won't allow us to call him Angel.
(First and ... ) LAST C.A.V.E: Carnivorous Alternatives to Vegetarian Eating, outside the library during Reading Week. Procedure: 1) arm oneself with wooden skewer 2) wait in crowd while BBQ-ers cook the meat 3) chant MEAT MEAT MEAT 4) pounce.
LAST READING WEEK AND LAST PAPER: Reading Week and Finals Week both bizarrely come after Renn Fayre, which, in customary achronological style, I will write about in my next post. The idiot got 2 out of 3 finals done and dusted before Renn Fayre, which left her the entirety of Reading Week to get on with Gail's paper. Mainly to escape from the Stim Table stench in the library foyer, she did most of the paper off campus, one afternoon even setting up shop at the grand county library in the city centre. Of course she left much of its 15 pages to the last minute and crippled herself with the computer hunchback, but, when finished, felt this strange elation and/or sadness, definite disembodiment and loss of what to do now.
LAST TIME SHE EVER TRIES TO SELL HER CLOTHES ON HIPSTER BOULEVARD: Idiots don't handle rejection too well.
Consette x
This post is entitled 'Last-times' on account of the idiot's neurotic tendency to keep track of the 'last time' she will ever do such and such, in such and such a place. In the weeks leading up to the end of Reed, I would often find her in tears mumbling something like, "this is the last time I will ever eat a Commons chicken quesadilla with extortionate amounts of ketchup on the side", or "this is the last time I will sit in this film class and wonder how the hell the conversation got here and what on earth they're talking about."
LAST PRESENTATION: It may have been a baptism of fire, but on the whole Reed has done the idiot an awful lot of good over the past year. She, who has a chronic fear of speaking in public, was forced on a weekly basis to present things in class. For the most part a 'presentation' comprised quite a small-scale blurb on a poem or an essay. This fearsomely capitalised LAST PRESENTATION, however, was a bit more formal and knee-quaking. Film Theory's final project was to write a collaborative essay (shudder) in a group of three, post it on the class moodle, and then give a 15 minute presentation to the rest of the class, with accompanying visual analysis and question-fielding. The idiot joined up with Kerstin and Stephanie for an inquiry into Clouzot's Les Diaboliques and the horror genre. She really fumbled her part of the presentation - bringing out the words climax and sutural pleasure far too many times, getting temporarily lost amidst the hieroglyphic notes on her lap, and going way over the the time limit. This had a domino effect on Kerstin and Stephanie's presentations, and Becky (the professor) had to cut the whole thing short in the end. The idiot was also responsible for the manifest technology fail (no DVD player, no computer, no wire for projector and, when all of that had been resolved, finally, no sound). By way of apology - for putting her pupils through this degree of stress - in the last ever Film Theory class, Becky herself gave a presentation of the creepy consanguinity between Jim Henson's muppets and French theorists/philosophers. Also, Scooby Doo before Reagan.
(First and ...) LAST NITROGEN DAY ICE CREAM: Nitrogen ice cream is kind of grainy, but still impressive.
LAST (ever chance to see ...) HUM PLAY: Again, I reiterate, 'hum' is pronounced 'hume', as if you were going to say 'humanities'. Every year on the Friday before Renn Fayre Friday, students put on a play 'dramatising' the HUM110 syllabus from the last year. Although, some clever sod scheduled the Creative Thesis Reading to happen at the same time and, after a hasty coin toss, it was decided that we attend the reading and miss out on Hum Play. Of course the reading was very excellent all round, but I don't appreciate being exposed to further blubbering from the idiot. She said that Maya's memoir was one of the best, and most moving, pieces of writing she'd heard all year.
LAST CLASS: Two hours before Renn Fayre begins, super Gail Sherman brings donuts to 'James and Ozick/Faulkner and Morrison', and the idiot experiences instantaneous nostalgia. Not just for the donuts, but also for JOFM and Reed classes in general. But it's okay - barely a week later Gail invites us to her house on the other side of Portland for brunch and further intellectual stimulation (ie. a revelatory game of 2 truths, 1 lie). And when I say 'brunch', I actually mean FEAST. Bagels and lox and frittata and coffee and juice and blueberry crisp and whipped cream and wedges of artisan chocolate.
LAST EVER DATE WITH ANGEL DAVID RIVERA: As head of the International Society, David has the exchange students over for a lunch date to say goodbye, and to get feedback on their year abroad. He's a wonderful man, David, and it's just a shame that he won't allow us to call him Angel.
(First and ... ) LAST C.A.V.E: Carnivorous Alternatives to Vegetarian Eating, outside the library during Reading Week. Procedure: 1) arm oneself with wooden skewer 2) wait in crowd while BBQ-ers cook the meat 3) chant MEAT MEAT MEAT 4) pounce.
LAST READING WEEK AND LAST PAPER: Reading Week and Finals Week both bizarrely come after Renn Fayre, which, in customary achronological style, I will write about in my next post. The idiot got 2 out of 3 finals done and dusted before Renn Fayre, which left her the entirety of Reading Week to get on with Gail's paper. Mainly to escape from the Stim Table stench in the library foyer, she did most of the paper off campus, one afternoon even setting up shop at the grand county library in the city centre. Of course she left much of its 15 pages to the last minute and crippled herself with the computer hunchback, but, when finished, felt this strange elation and/or sadness, definite disembodiment and loss of what to do now.
LAST TIME SHE EVER TRIES TO SELL HER CLOTHES ON HIPSTER BOULEVARD: Idiots don't handle rejection too well.
Consette x
Friday, 1 July 2011
Mountain
Well, I must say, Los Angeles is splendid at this time of year. The imaginary boyfriend and I are turning a nice nut brown, and the infinity pool remains in our possession throughout July - we overheard the housekeeper muttering curses under her breath, complaining about her employers' penchant for extended holidays. They had called on her at short notice to check up on the parakeets in the aviary. We hid under the sun loungers, unsure whether the housekeeper had the imaginative faculties to see us, not taking any chances. But we're not doing any harm by being here, merely borrowing and, in fact, keeping an eye on the property.
It is 10 in the morning Pacific Coast Time. I am streaming the Wimbledon semi-finals in one tab, and writing this in the other. Every few minutes I receive very expensive text messages from the idiot in England, containing an array of colourful obscenities directed at Murray when he's being shit (ie. at the moment, having just lost the second set).
I should at least contrive a segue from this random introduction (LA and tennis) to the subject I intend to cover in the blog (a visitation to Mount Hood at the beginning of May) but the disparity, I'm afraid, is too great to bridge, and I simply cannot be arsed to fake it any more, ha ha. I could perhaps comment on the weather difference, but that would be ever so transparent and blah-de-blah. Nadal is stamping all over Murray now, British morale is down, and Murray's lacklustre form is in danger of infecting my writing.
TEXT FROM THE IDIOT: "well, he can shove that backhand up his ass."
Okay, so, I'm pulling myself together, and shall say some quick words about the ski cabin.
It was the weekend of Osama's death, but we were all so incredulous when we heard the news via a series of abhorrent, posturing facebook statuses. The Reed ski cabin is halfway up Mt. Hood, about 1.5 hours drive from Portland. It is not isolated as such, but our one night there felt so snowed-in and removed, reality bites from the outside world, such as the death of America's most wanted man, seemed loaded with unreality. The party = me, her, Justine, Lucia, Aurore and Febee. Eric and Aaron had been meaning to come too, but were feeling delicate after Stop Making Sense the night before. Girly mini-break it was, then. We arrived with quite an unnecessary quantity of food from Trader Joe's, and piled the kitchen table with a very happy Sunday lunch. The cabin underwent renovations earlier in the year - it is super posh now, with a sauna and everything, and table tennis in the basement. In the late afternoon we paid a visit to Timberline Lodge further up the mountain, famous for being the hotel exterior in The Shining.
*BUGGER: MATCH POINT TO NADAL*
(saved)
None of us were wearing the correct shoes for the snow at Timberline, but we braved a 'hike' regardless. The views were spectacular. But I needn't really have said that - it's kind of a given isn't it? We drank a signature hot chocolate in the hotel cafe/restaurant, and the girls discussed the politics of Renn Fayre 'kissing' in raised voices, and I pretended not to know them. I retreated to the cool wood-lacquer games room downstairs, while the idiot embarrassed herself with fantastical RF designs on certain friends and enemies. Back at the cabin, we drank cider and tried desperately to make some sort of impression on the food. Leonard Cohen sleepy at night. The idiot read Paradise by Toni Morrison at stressed-out hyper speed and, by 12pm the next morning we were back at Reed, with that JOFM Monday class in an hour.
*MATCH LOST. MURRAY OUT. AGAIN. CONSETTE HAS NEVER SAID FUCK IN THIS BLOG BEFORE, BUT SHE THINKS THAT TODAY SHE SHALL SAY FUCK.*
*FUCK*
This is officially the most badly organised, gramatically-challenged, suspectly adverbed post I have ever written, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Consette x
It is 10 in the morning Pacific Coast Time. I am streaming the Wimbledon semi-finals in one tab, and writing this in the other. Every few minutes I receive very expensive text messages from the idiot in England, containing an array of colourful obscenities directed at Murray when he's being shit (ie. at the moment, having just lost the second set).
I should at least contrive a segue from this random introduction (LA and tennis) to the subject I intend to cover in the blog (a visitation to Mount Hood at the beginning of May) but the disparity, I'm afraid, is too great to bridge, and I simply cannot be arsed to fake it any more, ha ha. I could perhaps comment on the weather difference, but that would be ever so transparent and blah-de-blah. Nadal is stamping all over Murray now, British morale is down, and Murray's lacklustre form is in danger of infecting my writing.
TEXT FROM THE IDIOT: "well, he can shove that backhand up his ass."
Okay, so, I'm pulling myself together, and shall say some quick words about the ski cabin.
It was the weekend of Osama's death, but we were all so incredulous when we heard the news via a series of abhorrent, posturing facebook statuses. The Reed ski cabin is halfway up Mt. Hood, about 1.5 hours drive from Portland. It is not isolated as such, but our one night there felt so snowed-in and removed, reality bites from the outside world, such as the death of America's most wanted man, seemed loaded with unreality. The party = me, her, Justine, Lucia, Aurore and Febee. Eric and Aaron had been meaning to come too, but were feeling delicate after Stop Making Sense the night before. Girly mini-break it was, then. We arrived with quite an unnecessary quantity of food from Trader Joe's, and piled the kitchen table with a very happy Sunday lunch. The cabin underwent renovations earlier in the year - it is super posh now, with a sauna and everything, and table tennis in the basement. In the late afternoon we paid a visit to Timberline Lodge further up the mountain, famous for being the hotel exterior in The Shining.
*BUGGER: MATCH POINT TO NADAL*
(saved)
None of us were wearing the correct shoes for the snow at Timberline, but we braved a 'hike' regardless. The views were spectacular. But I needn't really have said that - it's kind of a given isn't it? We drank a signature hot chocolate in the hotel cafe/restaurant, and the girls discussed the politics of Renn Fayre 'kissing' in raised voices, and I pretended not to know them. I retreated to the cool wood-lacquer games room downstairs, while the idiot embarrassed herself with fantastical RF designs on certain friends and enemies. Back at the cabin, we drank cider and tried desperately to make some sort of impression on the food. Leonard Cohen sleepy at night. The idiot read Paradise by Toni Morrison at stressed-out hyper speed and, by 12pm the next morning we were back at Reed, with that JOFM Monday class in an hour.
*MATCH LOST. MURRAY OUT. AGAIN. CONSETTE HAS NEVER SAID FUCK IN THIS BLOG BEFORE, BUT SHE THINKS THAT TODAY SHE SHALL SAY FUCK.*
*FUCK*
This is officially the most badly organised, gramatically-challenged, suspectly adverbed post I have ever written, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Consette x
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Partyhard
The big party at Reed is Renn Fayre in the middle of May. I will write about this in due course, once the flashbacks cohere into something more decorous and family-friendly. In the meantime, here are some of the pre-RF2K11 parties I crashed.
Oh, ok, nothing was as rock and roll as I'm trying to make it sound. I use the word 'party' fairly generously. One of these 'parties', for example, involves the construction of an eight-tier cake. Probably the most rock and roll thing the idiot has ever experienced, but certainly not on my scale. There has been a bit of a role reversal since I started this blog: I used to be the conservative one in the relationship, but now I reckon she assumes the scolding position more often than I do. Verily, America has changed me.
YE-YE!: The French House event not long after Spring Break. Reed ostensibly has no alcohol on campus, so in order to hold one of the official parties you need to work in partnership with the alcohol society, who are the only group who can legally provide drinks for those over 21. 'Beer Nation', however, decide they can't be arsed with Yé-Yé, and so Yé-Yé are prohibited from giving us any of the customary social lubricants we have come to rely on. Instead, they set up a luscious table of virgin cocktails and, in a cunning move, list the mixer ingredients along with (in brackets) the liquor they would usually accommodate. BYOB, in other words. But hush hush BYOB.
Next to the virgin cocktails, there is an array of French cheese, grapes, cured meat, aaaaand waffles (?). The idiot is shortlisted in the New Wave caption contest and wins a $5 voucher at the waffle window (I hazard that someone in the French House has a particular predilection for the waffle). After a slow start, everyone ends up throwing sweaty moves to drum and bass. Not in keeping with the theme, but it does the job.
COCKTAIL PARTY: The idiot is fortunate to be friends with those in the French House who, after the sobriety of Yé-Yé, possess a superfluity of grenadine, orange juice, cranberry juice ... but no liquor. We establish a liquor fund for the following weekend. For $5 each, a staggering and quite horrid amount of alcohol is purchased from the store on Woodstock. They begin the evening in a civilised manner - supporting musical friend Charlie who plays the famous violin theme in a Reed production of The Glass Menagerie. The party which follows, however, has absolutely nothing to do with me. I leave by 11pm in general disgust at the idiot's behaviour, not to mention the dancing. She returns to the room at 4 in the morning. I think I hear her mutter, "Shit, Consette, I've lost a sock."
THE EASTER
PROJECT: Easter Sunday, and Aurore has visions of cake. It takes until midnight to complete, but the final outcome is something rather special.
ROYAL WEDDING: The four English girls (idiot, Holly, Vicky and Rachel), plus some anti-monarchists, plus some anglophiles, and live CNN coverage of Wills and Kate tying the knot (11am GMT/3am PST). The idiot is fairly moved and senses the first tiny smidgen of homesickness, but would never admit it. Goes to bed before the kiss, claiming exhaustion and an early class in the morning. Pah. Something in your eye?
STOP MAKING SENSE: On the Saturday before Renn Fayre weekend, the SU is transformed into a den of iniquity - and Talking Heads, on repeat. For 4 hours.
Consette x
Oh, ok, nothing was as rock and roll as I'm trying to make it sound. I use the word 'party' fairly generously. One of these 'parties', for example, involves the construction of an eight-tier cake. Probably the most rock and roll thing the idiot has ever experienced, but certainly not on my scale. There has been a bit of a role reversal since I started this blog: I used to be the conservative one in the relationship, but now I reckon she assumes the scolding position more often than I do. Verily, America has changed me.
YE-YE!: The French House event not long after Spring Break. Reed ostensibly has no alcohol on campus, so in order to hold one of the official parties you need to work in partnership with the alcohol society, who are the only group who can legally provide drinks for those over 21. 'Beer Nation', however, decide they can't be arsed with Yé-Yé, and so Yé-Yé are prohibited from giving us any of the customary social lubricants we have come to rely on. Instead, they set up a luscious table of virgin cocktails and, in a cunning move, list the mixer ingredients along with (in brackets) the liquor they would usually accommodate. BYOB, in other words. But hush hush BYOB.
Next to the virgin cocktails, there is an array of French cheese, grapes, cured meat, aaaaand waffles (?). The idiot is shortlisted in the New Wave caption contest and wins a $5 voucher at the waffle window (I hazard that someone in the French House has a particular predilection for the waffle). After a slow start, everyone ends up throwing sweaty moves to drum and bass. Not in keeping with the theme, but it does the job.
COCKTAIL PARTY: The idiot is fortunate to be friends with those in the French House who, after the sobriety of Yé-Yé, possess a superfluity of grenadine, orange juice, cranberry juice ... but no liquor. We establish a liquor fund for the following weekend. For $5 each, a staggering and quite horrid amount of alcohol is purchased from the store on Woodstock. They begin the evening in a civilised manner - supporting musical friend Charlie who plays the famous violin theme in a Reed production of The Glass Menagerie. The party which follows, however, has absolutely nothing to do with me. I leave by 11pm in general disgust at the idiot's behaviour, not to mention the dancing. She returns to the room at 4 in the morning. I think I hear her mutter, "Shit, Consette, I've lost a sock."
THE EASTER
PROJECT: Easter Sunday, and Aurore has visions of cake. It takes until midnight to complete, but the final outcome is something rather special.ROYAL WEDDING: The four English girls (idiot, Holly, Vicky and Rachel), plus some anti-monarchists, plus some anglophiles, and live CNN coverage of Wills and Kate tying the knot (11am GMT/3am PST). The idiot is fairly moved and senses the first tiny smidgen of homesickness, but would never admit it. Goes to bed before the kiss, claiming exhaustion and an early class in the morning. Pah. Something in your eye?
STOP MAKING SENSE: On the Saturday before Renn Fayre weekend, the SU is transformed into a den of iniquity - and Talking Heads, on repeat. For 4 hours.
Consette x
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Eateries
The idiot spends most of her time either eating or exercising, fatrolling on an interminable cycle of greed to guilt to greed to guilt ... to (always provisionally end with) greed. I obligingly trailed her on this silly circuit whilst we were in Oregon, and spent most of my time complaining. But, to be honest, we went to some great places, some of which should certainly be shared. Portland's foodcart thing is no secret, and I wish we had been there long enough to try out more of them. Restaurants, too, proliferate. Everyone there is super foodie, and I think this accounts for the idiot's marked affection for the city.
NICHOLAS (Lebanese): The website says the restaurant has just celebrated its first 20 years of business. Not to be scoffed at; 20 years is ancient history for west coast America, haw haw. Getting a table can take a while, it being both tiny and very popular. We go with about ten of the idiot's friends, in order to attenuate the Sunday Fear at the end of an unproductive weekend. The waiters greet you with a ceremony of flying saucer pita breads, and the portions which follow are ridiculous: individual hummus dollops the size of your face, five or so falafel, beef kebabs, tabbouleh, pies etc. We lick our plates clean, before retiring to the Spanish House for whiskey and gossip.
ST. JACK: The idiot perseveres with the weekly Gray Fund lotteries, and we win a spot on the trip to St. Jack restaurant, which opened less than a year ago (NB: Don't go on the website for this one - its flashplayer just made my computer freeze up.) Half of the property is a patisserie and the other half is a posh French restaurant. They close off the restaurant to accommodate the Reed Gray Funders for a three-course brunch. We have croissants, pain au chocs, frangipane and cherry brioche for starter, then toasty things and cheese for main, and a chocolate mousse with boozy cherries for dessert. The pastry chef makes the mousse in front of our very eyes. It is magic.
POTATO CHAMPION: Americans call them fries, we call them chips. Whatever, this is the best and most almighty matchstick-potato-crisped-in-oil you will ever eat, served in a paper cone and located in the foodcart pod on 12th and Hawthorne.
NECTAR FROZEN YOGHURT: SE Bybee and Milwaukie intersection. The idiot, Stephanie and Kerstin use it as their base for film project 'briefing'. I tag along, and suck the peanut butter yoghurt straight from the dispenser. Am forcibly removed. They don't do frozen yoghurt like this in England, though, with about 6 changeable flavours and a pantheon of toppings. Graham cracker dust, for instance. Everything is self-service and priced according to weight.
LUCKY STRIKE: Chinese restaurant on Hawthorne. We deprive ourselves of lunch and starve through the Friday JOFM class (James and Ozick/Faulkner and Morrison) in order to build up an appetite for Lucky Strike's Happy Hour (3-6pm). Dan Dan noodles, hot as you like. Modest servings, but very very delicious.
WOLF AND BEAR'S: A somewhat isolated foodcart on SE Morrison, which we at last locate after an hour's circumambulation. Walk down Belmont because Belmont is lovely, and then cut up to Morrison on 20th (I think it's 20th). Under normal circumstances, I would eschew the idea of eating at an entirely vegetarian foodcart - god they might even be vegan - but Wolf and Bear's is something surprising and beautiful. Order a humongous falafel pita. Beware of crying in public.
THE ORIGIN
AL HOTCAKE HOUSE ON POWELL: A hotcake, it transpires, is just a big scotch pancake. But in spite of this, the Hotcake House retains its legendary reputation, perpetuated by students who use its '7 days a week / 24 hours a day' guaranteed opening to full effect. It was established in 1955, and the interior décor is accordingly diner-ised. Why the idiot waits until her final month in Portland to discover the joys of the Hotcake House, I have no idea. And even then all she orders is a strawberry milkshake. Granted, the milkshake is about 30cm tall, contains more than 5 scoops of ice cream, half a pint of whole milk, and 4 inches of whip on the top, but it does not come close to registering on the scale of my meal: philly steak omelet, 2 blueberry hotcakes, hashbrowns and fries on the side, and a bit o' gravy. Washed down, be assured, with a DIET coke.
WHIFFIES: Do as we do: miss the number 14 bus down Hawthorne, walk instead, preferably on a sunny evening, drop into Excalibur comics and feel very out of place, then turn into the foodcart pod on 12th. Choose Whiffies Fried Pies, always. Does what it says on the tin.
PORTLAND FARMER'S MARKET: There are many farmer's markets in Portland, but the really posh one happens every Saturday on the PSU campus. Like all the best farmer's markets, you can eat a three course lunch and pay absolutely nothing. All you require is an aggressive cocktail stick and sharp elbows.
FLAVOUR SPOT WAFFLES: It is quite unusual to find a foodcart with more than one location, but Flavour Spot has three different carts dotted around the city. The waffles here are referred to as 'dutch sandwiches', which basically means a waffle bent in half to make a sandwich. The idiot orders the THB (smoked turkey, havarti cheese and bacon) with maple butter. I order the Nut Fluffer (peanut butter and mallow fluff). Respective meat and sugar sweats ensue.
SWEET PEA BRULEE: Foodcart on Belmont, selling the crackliest creme brulee you ever ate.
OLD TOWN PIZZA: We began or 'underground' tour of Portland at Old Town Pizza, but never got the chance to eat anything. The building itself is apparently steeped in history and ghosts and what-have-you, and there's a nice candlelit vibe in the seating area. The idiot and I take the mother there when she comes to visit Portland. En route, walking through Chinatown, a man with a rickshaw - no kidding, not stereotyping - tries to persuade us away from Old Town's soggy crust and into Pizza Schmizza. We ignore him and have an incredible meal.
RUBY JEWEL SCOOP SHOP ON MISSISSIPPI: Ruby Jewel (s?) sells their famous ice cream sandwiches across the city, but the scoop shop on Mississippi is where to spend a gluttonous afternoon. The idiot ploughs valiantly through a 'double scoop' portion of pistachio and cookies and cream, with peanut brittle spilling off the top. FYI, 'double scoop' in Americanese can in fact translate to mean FOUR scoops in standard English. The idiot likes to reprimand me when I spread 'false' rumours about eating habits and portion sizes over here. But, when faced with the double scoop, she concedes a defeat.
Consette x
NICHOLAS (Lebanese): The website says the restaurant has just celebrated its first 20 years of business. Not to be scoffed at; 20 years is ancient history for west coast America, haw haw. Getting a table can take a while, it being both tiny and very popular. We go with about ten of the idiot's friends, in order to attenuate the Sunday Fear at the end of an unproductive weekend. The waiters greet you with a ceremony of flying saucer pita breads, and the portions which follow are ridiculous: individual hummus dollops the size of your face, five or so falafel, beef kebabs, tabbouleh, pies etc. We lick our plates clean, before retiring to the Spanish House for whiskey and gossip.
ST. JACK: The idiot perseveres with the weekly Gray Fund lotteries, and we win a spot on the trip to St. Jack restaurant, which opened less than a year ago (NB: Don't go on the website for this one - its flashplayer just made my computer freeze up.) Half of the property is a patisserie and the other half is a posh French restaurant. They close off the restaurant to accommodate the Reed Gray Funders for a three-course brunch. We have croissants, pain au chocs, frangipane and cherry brioche for starter, then toasty things and cheese for main, and a chocolate mousse with boozy cherries for dessert. The pastry chef makes the mousse in front of our very eyes. It is magic.
POTATO CHAMPION: Americans call them fries, we call them chips. Whatever, this is the best and most almighty matchstick-potato-crisped-in-oil you will ever eat, served in a paper cone and located in the foodcart pod on 12th and Hawthorne.
NECTAR FROZEN YOGHURT: SE Bybee and Milwaukie intersection. The idiot, Stephanie and Kerstin use it as their base for film project 'briefing'. I tag along, and suck the peanut butter yoghurt straight from the dispenser. Am forcibly removed. They don't do frozen yoghurt like this in England, though, with about 6 changeable flavours and a pantheon of toppings. Graham cracker dust, for instance. Everything is self-service and priced according to weight.
LUCKY STRIKE: Chinese restaurant on Hawthorne. We deprive ourselves of lunch and starve through the Friday JOFM class (James and Ozick/Faulkner and Morrison) in order to build up an appetite for Lucky Strike's Happy Hour (3-6pm). Dan Dan noodles, hot as you like. Modest servings, but very very delicious.
WOLF AND BEAR'S: A somewhat isolated foodcart on SE Morrison, which we at last locate after an hour's circumambulation. Walk down Belmont because Belmont is lovely, and then cut up to Morrison on 20th (I think it's 20th). Under normal circumstances, I would eschew the idea of eating at an entirely vegetarian foodcart - god they might even be vegan - but Wolf and Bear's is something surprising and beautiful. Order a humongous falafel pita. Beware of crying in public.
THE ORIGIN
AL HOTCAKE HOUSE ON POWELL: A hotcake, it transpires, is just a big scotch pancake. But in spite of this, the Hotcake House retains its legendary reputation, perpetuated by students who use its '7 days a week / 24 hours a day' guaranteed opening to full effect. It was established in 1955, and the interior décor is accordingly diner-ised. Why the idiot waits until her final month in Portland to discover the joys of the Hotcake House, I have no idea. And even then all she orders is a strawberry milkshake. Granted, the milkshake is about 30cm tall, contains more than 5 scoops of ice cream, half a pint of whole milk, and 4 inches of whip on the top, but it does not come close to registering on the scale of my meal: philly steak omelet, 2 blueberry hotcakes, hashbrowns and fries on the side, and a bit o' gravy. Washed down, be assured, with a DIET coke.WHIFFIES: Do as we do: miss the number 14 bus down Hawthorne, walk instead, preferably on a sunny evening, drop into Excalibur comics and feel very out of place, then turn into the foodcart pod on 12th. Choose Whiffies Fried Pies, always. Does what it says on the tin.
PORTLAND FARMER'S MARKET: There are many farmer's markets in Portland, but the really posh one happens every Saturday on the PSU campus. Like all the best farmer's markets, you can eat a three course lunch and pay absolutely nothing. All you require is an aggressive cocktail stick and sharp elbows.
FLAVOUR SPOT WAFFLES: It is quite unusual to find a foodcart with more than one location, but Flavour Spot has three different carts dotted around the city. The waffles here are referred to as 'dutch sandwiches', which basically means a waffle bent in half to make a sandwich. The idiot orders the THB (smoked turkey, havarti cheese and bacon) with maple butter. I order the Nut Fluffer (peanut butter and mallow fluff). Respective meat and sugar sweats ensue.
SWEET PEA BRULEE: Foodcart on Belmont, selling the crackliest creme brulee you ever ate.
OLD TOWN PIZZA: We began or 'underground' tour of Portland at Old Town Pizza, but never got the chance to eat anything. The building itself is apparently steeped in history and ghosts and what-have-you, and there's a nice candlelit vibe in the seating area. The idiot and I take the mother there when she comes to visit Portland. En route, walking through Chinatown, a man with a rickshaw - no kidding, not stereotyping - tries to persuade us away from Old Town's soggy crust and into Pizza Schmizza. We ignore him and have an incredible meal.
RUBY JEWEL SCOOP SHOP ON MISSISSIPPI: Ruby Jewel (s?) sells their famous ice cream sandwiches across the city, but the scoop shop on Mississippi is where to spend a gluttonous afternoon. The idiot ploughs valiantly through a 'double scoop' portion of pistachio and cookies and cream, with peanut brittle spilling off the top. FYI, 'double scoop' in Americanese can in fact translate to mean FOUR scoops in standard English. The idiot likes to reprimand me when I spread 'false' rumours about eating habits and portion sizes over here. But, when faced with the double scoop, she concedes a defeat.
Consette x
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)