Foood Is Goood!

For the past month, we've been receiving a consistent flow of nutritious and delicious meals from friends.  This sweet tradition of nourishing newborn families removes a layer of stress and time commitment that might otherwise drive parents cRAzY.   The food tree setup by our family friend Tracy is finally winding down this week in serendipitous fashion:   last Monday, Bunny accidentally spilled the last few swigs of precious DragonFly Green Chai Tea supplied by my coworker Valerie (and reserved for yours truly), then  seconds later, my DragonFly-Chai-Brewer buddy Atom (who also had a first son/second child a couple of months ago) shows up on our doorstep with a refill of the exact same jar of tea.  UnCANny! 

Not only are we lucky to have a gracious community of refined 

culinary talents but also a bountiful bioregion to boot.  These days, food is SEXY in Portland with new farmer's markets and locavore-friendly restaurants popping up in every neighborhood.  Beside the exceptional quality of produce and healthy meats,  foodie establishments have become a nexus for community connections.  

With our home options diminishing, we ventured out to a new neighborhood breakfast joint yesterday, the 410 Cafe.  Despite the fizzling economy, this modern greasy spoon was recently opened by Morgan,  a dude that art-partied with us back in 2002 and who was also the former chef of the old (and much missed) clarklewis.   

After filling up on smoked trout and poached eggs, we headed to Peoples' Food Coop to get our fill of ingredients for future home-cooked meals.  I love People's because it's about the peoples as much as the groceries.  We shared community with fellow owners including Miles and Paul who had just seen us eating at the 410 Cafe earlier where another People's owner happened to say hello, too. 

Replenished and ready for the week, we headed to the Columbia Gorge for our first adventure outside of Portlad since River's birth.  

Catherine Creek was just far enough East for a rare dose of Spring-Break-Sunshine and blankets of Grass Widow and Gold Star wildflowers.  Lilly requested a visit to the Columbia River last week, and it was so very sweet to share its grandeur together as a family hiking to the top of an unusual basalt volcanic arch.  The day ended with dinner in Bingen and dessert in Hood River, both at restaurants highlighting locally grown organic foods.  

MMMmmmm

...goood!

Happy (Belated) Equinox!

My infatuation with strange coincidences began nine years ago when I started teaching and researching the interconnectedness of natural systems and their cycles. The vernal and autumnal equinoxes provided semi-annual opportunities to raise awareness of random connections, small and large, within our social systems. Along the way I realized that Portland's experience of the equinox occurs a couple of days before the actual celebrated global equinox. For instance on this 'first' day of Spring, the sun will rise in Portland at 7:13 am and set at 7:22 pm resulting in an unequal 12 hours and 9 minutes of daylight. I know it sounds like I'm a stickler for details (and I am ), but a pattern of chaotic community alignment has surfaced on the experiential equinox, and this year that vernal day occured on Wednesday of this week rather than today.

Wednesday was a classic Spring day start to finish: sunny, still, warm and fragrant with a general buzz around town. My work day began at the neighborhood coffee house, Crema, where my green building appointment was a no-show. Although this cancellation could have been frustrating, while waiting I happened to read about an upcoming Clowns Without Borders performance on noneother than March 20 (the 'first' day of Spring!). Tonight will be our third year enjoying one of our family's favorite performances in Portland, and every year this poorly advertised event catches our attention last-minute.

During the lunch hour, I was out skateboarding errands around the Pearl District and ran into Pablo, a former message therapist, at Tanner Springs Park. We crossed paths a few months ago, and I later regretted that we didn't exchange contact info, so this time our chance encounter was much appreciated (especially for my future health and well-being). I started skating loops around Tanner Springs Park regularly a few months ago as a therapy for an ankle injury. It's a pretty lonely park with nary a visitor which makes it great for escaping into skating.

But, on my second loop around the park, I ran into our family friends, Sonja and Vinny, soaking up the sun. Visits with those two are always robust with energy and inspiration. Five-year-old Vinny tried riding my board and discovered that wiping out can be half the fun of leraning to skate.

Back at Ecotrust in the afternoon, I ran into Shawn, an enlightened Mathematics professor, and his wife Lori enjoying lunch in the sun. Our brief catching-up quickly evolved into a long, hopeful conversation about the potential for alternative socioeconomic systems that benefit humans and their environments collectively. Back in my teaching days with Shawn, I developed a hypothesis related to the cyclical nature of population growth: the rate of mutually beneficial encounters is inversely proportional to the rate of population growth.

So as population stabilizes (which it is) the frequency of strange coincidences increases exponentially, and hopefully we are just at the tipping point of all this synchronicity stuff.

The sun is rising and Lilly just gleefully shouted, "Mama and Dada, Happy First Day of Spring!", so I better get back to the real world.

The Urper

Buddy Rio's Cheese Factory continued to be in business all week, but at lease we are figuring out how to minimize the messiness.  After seeking parental advice from multiple families, the baby-spit-up factor turns out to be quite common throughout Portland and even has a bonafide medical term:  gastroesophageal reflux.   

On Wednesday, Dr. Judy shared a much more practical term for Buddy's condition:  Urping.  Sort of like burping except the esophageal release of a gassy bubble is accompanied by a milky projectile.   Also on Wednesday, our 'Share the Road' license plate replacements arrived in the mail from the Department of Motor Vehicles.   I asked Lilly to employ her recently-developed phonetic skills to sound out the new license plate ID letters, "Duh-rrr-puh-rrr".  That's right folks - somehow the lovely State of Oregon randomly selected four letters explaining River's newborn medical condition. 

Although Portland's reputation for rain tends to be exaggerated, this last weekend of Winter was windy and water-logged.  Rather than staying holed-up inside the house going stir-crazy with Da Urper, Lilly and I planned an outing to Portland's latest and greatest ode to sustainable recreation:  The East Portland Aquatic Center.  

This new community pool and water park is housed in the City of Portland's first certified LEED Platinum building under a green building policy administered by my office crew.  Ever since opening last month, I've been eagerly awaiting the opportunity  to experience the ample daylighting, solar-powered machinery, super energy-efficient water heating, fresh ventilation, and super slick water slide.  The experience is much like being in Hawaii with a bunch of little kids screaming with pure joy!  We were serendipitously joined by old family friends, Emily and Harry, who shared the same midwives with us six years ago.   They made a surprise visit in the morning to meet Baby River which led to an impromptu swim date in the afternoon.   The return home was complemented by an arcing rainbow reminding us that even the rainiest of days can have a silver lining.  As the Hawaiians say, "No rain, no rainbows." 

Wild Feminine

After two weeks of welcoming Buddy Rio into the world marveling over his mild temperament and sweet disposition, the heavens seemed to be smiling upon us.   This little guy would be easy going we thought, and baby-rearing would be a comparitive piece of sweet cake,  like a calm stretch of River flowing from bend to bend.  Aaaaaahhhh...

However, I returned to work last Monday, and suddenly we hit a  spell of raging rapids.  Sure, he's Mister Mellow, except when violently spitting up Mama's milk.  For two days straight, he was a big ball of fussy cheese as random projectiles resulted in frequent wardrobe changes for everyone involved.

Finally on Wednesday afternoon, there was a slight reprieve as Dr. Judy gave him a tummy adjustment, from rock hard to soft and supple.  Afterwards, while refilling his new found belly in the Doc's office, a book on the shelf caught Bunny's eye, Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit, & Joy in the Root of the Female Body.  

Lori, the receptionist, raved about the wonders within and promptly passed it on.  Then, at Bunny's next appointment, a postpartum check-in, Dr. Mary recommended treatment by a physical therapist located across the street: Tami Kent who also happens to be the author of Wild Feminine!  This string of coincidental events is so tightly wound that it all happened over the course of two hours within 10 blocks of one another all in our neighborhood.   Bunny walked home refreshed and hopeful.

That evening, little Rio returned to his normal meekiness and after dinner I reminded him, "We're working really hard to help you feel better Buddy."  He responded with his first big, wide-eyed grin.  Whew!  But, the next two days were spent back in the projectile cheese factory.  More treatments from Dr. Judy and emphatic burping advice from our postpartum doula were hapless.  At one particularly low point, Bunny hit a wall of exhausted and humiliated auto-repeat, "He covered my crotch.  He covered..."  

By Friday, I came up with a hypothesis and noted an empirical pattern:  Buddy laying on his back = Buddy spitting up; Buddy laying on his belly = happy Buddy boy!  Problem nearly solved except when he needs a diaper change, or we follow a primal urge to cradle him in our arms.  Friday, was also a particularly lovely Spring day (for Winter) as Lilly and I relished a chance to cruise the Springwater Corridor trail returning from a playdate in Sellwood.   We stopped our bikes along the banks of the Willamette River for a short break admiring a pair of bald eagles perched on Ross Island as the warm sun set.  Once again, a sweet stretch of calm has flowed back into our lives as Buddy Rio charts our next course.  

Although sleep-deprived and chore-ridden, we had a lovely family weekend and tonight Jill is planning to attend a Powell's Book reading by none other than the aforementioned Tami Kent!  The auspicious timing of this literary event is a blessing in Bunny's birthing recovery.