Holyday Ball-Ball Express

Nearly all my life, I earned the title 'night owl' followed by 'sleepy head' the next morning. This blog itself was born in the wee hours of the night following Superbowl XLIII while anxiously anticipating the late arrival of baby River into the world. But my biological clock shifted gears when I turned 40 over the summer. Suddenly, I can hardly keep my eyes open past midnight and awaken promptly at the crack of dawn.

Even after hosting a late-night holiday party last weekend, I rose early with the sun - a tad hungover and wishing to fall back into the abyss of sleep. Then River woke up, too. Lately all he talks about is 'ball-ball' (football) and 'choo-choo' (trains). This morning was no different. Looking outside, a warm tropical front had blown in a brief respite from weeks of rain & cold. A perfect opportunity for a long ride. So, I packed River on the back of the bike and headed out on a ball-ball & choo-choo adventure.

With our Hawaiian vacation right around the corner, we rode a tailwind out to the airport to watch planes take off. Then caught light rail trains across town to the Springwater Corridor bike path.

Along our return, we happened upon the Holiday Express steam train gearing up at Oaks Park.

News to me, the Oregon Rail Historic Foundation operates annual holiday rides on this relic from a century past. All aboard!

Children of every age entered the passenger cars as River & I were blown away by full-blast horns and high-pressure steam spraying from the mammoth engine. The train chugged away slowly down the tracks and then raced us along the Willamette River.

Our big bike adventure ended at the Hedge House to watch the Steelers eeek out another tight win. River's 1-year-old passion for football is adored by the Pittsburgh fans who congregate here religiously every Sunday during the season.

At the crack of dawn on this last day of Autumn, I woke to a choir of tropical birds. Soon joined by River with his usual request for ball-ball, then Lilly, then Bunny. The family relived the whole Super Bowl XLIII experience on DVD (a special Christmas gift request for Bubby :~) remembering River's last days in utero.

Happy Holydays!

Criss Cross Crusade

On the eve of Halloween, Lilly was invited to a costume party where I ran into Tom, an old friend that I hadn't seen in years. Dressed as the Silver Surfer, Tom's costume time warped me back to Portland circa 1997 when we competed in our first and last triathlon: The Aluminum Man. Yep. Aluminum. Not as strong as iron, but more heat tolerant than plastic!

Absent from the party, Tom's 10-year old son was continuing the family studliness down in Astoria attending his new-found passion: Team Bear on Cross Crusade. Around here, this local cyclocross circuit sits somewhere between Burning Man and Tour de France (check out the link to this Halloween race video).

A month earlier, I was leaving Citybikes shop with the finishing touches on an old MB-2 restoration when I ran into Spencer, Cross Crusade Cat A racer. Returning from an Alpenrose race, he looked at the mountain bike and only had one thing to say,

"You gotta race that bike in cyclocross."

A reluctant reply, "Nope, these old bones are too brittle and this classic is going on Craig's List tonight."

And on Craig's List, it sat there...and sat there...and sat there for a month. A couple of bikey fanatics responded, but no sale.

That brings me to Halloween. Bunny's new flower fairy friend invited us to a costume party where Cross Crusade emerged into the conversation AGAIN. Her husband, Vaughn, also races on Team Beer and offered a 30-minute mount-remount-hurdle-carry training session. I took him up on it a week later, and the next morning Lilly wakes up singing the Halloween classic:

Criss cross applesauce

Spider crawling up your back

Cool breeze, tight squeeze

Now you've got the shiveries!

Ok, all signs are GO! So, I corral the kids and bikes into the van headed for the last day of the Cross Crusade season.

Here's Lilly with her kiddie-race game face just before receiving a season-ending wasp sting.

And River is thrilled to find everyone else wants to play in the mud, too!

With all these criss-cross connections, I can see a season of Cross Crusade in our future. I'll hold onto the old MB-2 for good measure.

10.10.10

In alignment with 2010, tens have been recurring all year long... and October 10 was a thematic pinnacle as Bunny finished her last big wedding design project of the season. One wedding in tens of thousands chosen on this Sunday across the world.

I can't seem to recall 9.9.9. But on the morning of 10.10.10, we watched Tim Burton's latest film, 9, as the rain poured with seemingly no end in sight. Our pumpkin picking plans with Nanners had all but washed away until the clouds finally parted in the afternoon and Bunny finished her wedding flower delivery. We all headed out for a fun-in-the-sun-filled adventure at the quirky country bumpkin Plumper Pumpkin Patch.

A perfect 10!

Equinoxing Under the Autumn Moon

On the first day of Spring '09, I posted a blog about strange coincidences on the equinox ...not the global equinox, but the actual day when Portland experiences equal parts light and dark. For the arrival of Autumn '10, that day fell on September 25th - a bright, warm & sunny Saturday capping off a solid two weeks of off-and-on rain.

The morning started with the kids on a bikequest to retrieve Lilly's hoodie - left behind the night before at Chapman Elementary School where we witnessed the annual migration of Vaux swifts tornado through Portland. Lilly has blossomed into a superstar bicyclist and rode 10 miles of bike boulevards across town with only one request: a chocolate eclair from St. Honore French Bakery. Compared to the typical American donuclair, their version is 4x smaller, 4x more expensive and 10x tastier. She savored every bite.

I note this start to our journey only because Lilly's eclair-adventure perfectly timed our arrival to the morning's destination: Under the Autumn Moon Festival at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden. As we pulled up on bikes, Lilly's sweet, half-Chinese friend Aria strolled up beside us for an impromptu playdate.

The girls were entranced by dancing dragons while I chased a rambunctious River through random passages. The design of this enchanting garden was inspired by seven ancient gardens in Portland's sister city, Suzchou, Jiangsu Province.

In the world of urban sustainable development, Jiangsu is much like Portland: a national and global leader for pioneering climate protection and green building policies while simultaneously raising quality of life. Last Thursday, I presented Portland's Climate Action Plan to 25 Chinese Mayors, including one from Jiangsu. The American press loves to paint China as this mega-polluter of the 21st century, but in many ways, they are ahead of us on the sustainability curve, plus they can tap their 10,000-yr+ heritage of living in balance with the Earth.

Thoroughly inspired by all things Chinese, I handed the kids off to Bunny in the afternoon and rode out to work our annual BIG! (Build-It-Green!) tour of homes. Many connections with community were crossed over the course of touring 40 miles and 8 homes in 4 hours. I was most impressed by five houses seeking near-zero energy use. If successful, these residents will meet their electricity needs with photovaltaics and heat their homes with waste heat from appliances and their own bodies!

My tour ended at the liquor store to pick up a fifth of single-malt Scotch for my buddy Craig's birthday party later that night. Strangely, through the rows of bottles, I ran into Ruth, who was also celebrating her birthday, and then Jordan, who was also on the BIG! tour. Jordan works for the State Department of Environment Quality researching the environmental impacts of the stuff we buy and recently completed a study on the lifecycle carbon emissions from various home sizes. I hardly know him, but we recently connected to arrange a couple presentations of his research to folks at my bureau.

The coincidences continued as we randomly ran into Jordan and his family at Director's Park yesterday and played in the fountain. As it turns out his wife knows Bunny through admiration of the flower shop. To bring it all full circle, I took the kids out to dinner at Habibi: besides being my favorite Lebanese restaurant in Portland, Habibi is also the title of Craig's five-years-in-the-creating graphic novel. Under the Autumn Moon, we celebrated his 35 years and crowning achievement.

Y2K Time Machine

With our 10-year anniversary approaching, Bunny and I realized that romantic dates have been few and far between as babysitters were lost to attrition. So, instead of one big anniversary date, we savored three consecutive nights out-on-the-town visiting new restaurants in the midst of an early summer heat wave.

The first night happened on a whim when Bunny randomly noticed Hot Tub Time Machine on the Laurelhurst Theater marquis at 7:30 pm. Desperately in need of comic relief and cooling off, we rushed out the door to catch this comedy, but as it turns out, it already started at 7:10 pm.

Hmmm...now what should we do??? Date Night starts at 7:30 pm? Never heard of it BUT Tina Fey...Steve Carrell...timely title...c'mon WHY NOT!?!

We unexpectedly stepped into this bucket of laughs targeted for an audience of outdated parents. Just what the Love Rx ordered for ol' Ma 'n' Pa! We followed with a late dinner and blazing sunset over the city from the Noble Rot deck.

Our second night was even hotter with a dinner date to Beaker and Flask, 2009 Restaurant of the Year and easily our hands-down favorite new culinary experience in Portland even if the air-conditioning couldn't keep up with their modern bank of windows.

And on the third night, we really heated things up by celebrating 10 years of sweet marriage at Olympic Provisions, voted Portland's Sexiest Restaurant 2010. We had our fill and headed up to another blazing sunset from Council Crest where we had our first kiss 13 years ago. Sharing gifts, recalling old times, and reveling in the heat of the moment...until mosquitoes and a security guard drove us away. Down to the Riverplace to toast 10 years with a Tawny Port. We were engaged here on the banks Willamette waterfront in 1997.

Continuing the celebration, we planned 10 days of camping and cleansing along the Lewis River - our Y2K wedding site. As usual, our plans changed, and we left a day late in the opposite direction - toward Bagby Hot Springs as the heat wave abruptly ended.

20 minutes down the highway toward our summer vacation destination, we found ourselves exhausted from too many dates, a big wedding delivery and cranky kids. At our wick's end, we turned the minivan around - homebound. Lil' was so confounded by her parents fickle decision-making, she vowed to not join us for camping at all. But, our stars aligned as we passed a body double for Grandpa Roger and happened upon some magic at a second-run neighborhood cinema featuring Babies, a family-friendly flick that Bunny had been looking forward to seeing since it's premiere.

Refreshed and ready for adventure, we headed out the next morning for three days of exploring the ancient fairy forest, dipping in chilly swimming holes, and healing in the Hot Springs.

Delirious from 4 days of low-calorie kidney/liver cleansing, we found our figurative Hot Tub Time Machine with a final soak in this transcendent hot tub.

We returned briefly to Portland for provisions, Bunny's Nia class and evening sunset at the historic Pittock Mansion.

Then back to camping and cleansing along Mt. St. Helens and the Lewis River where we found a tent site within audible distance of the Lower Falls.

These pure waters and surrounding enchanted forest have been sacred to humans for thousands of years. Despite the lack of calories, we were filled with joy to celebrate our Earth, marriage and children.

Mostly we moved in slow motion around the campground, but also ventured out: hiking into the crater of Mt. St. Helens' Spirit Lake for a day of divine inspiration, mountain biking along the 27-mile legendary Lewis River single-track fueled by adrenaline, and visiting with Nana and her buddy Jack who joined us for a weekend waterfall walk. Nana nicknamed River "Skeeter" in honor of his camping collection of forehead bites.

After five days fully immersed in the woods, we returned home with a deeper reverence and gratitude for this miracle of life.