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.

THURSDAY 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 20TH 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