I woke up coughing and tired. I rose close to 8 and began my day, dragging myself to the kitchen for reheated coffee and then more cold meds. With the coffee and my breathing clear, but coughing starting when I talk, I spent most of the morning writing my blog and finding my way again. The usual processes and habits of checking my email (mostly deleting and unsubscribing from political emails, both left and right). I watched the squirrels rush around, cut little branches, and take some to their home in the tree. I noticed the large bugs are mostly gone, likely lunch or gone after finishing their life cycles. The hornets and wasps seem desperate now to find that last bit of food to get their queens launched for their cycle. Spiders, all small so far, have invaded the house, and I have ended everyone I find. Winter is coming, and I see the squirrels bank their nuts in the backyard. The smaller apples, windfalls, are gone. They are easy to transport.
The roses are producing smaller blooms as the season darkens. The dawn redwood, Susie’s tree, is a foot tall and looks happy. Still in a cage to protect it from the lawn people who can be careless. Someday I will have to cut the cage away, but that time is a few years from now. It will (and this shows I am positive about living here for the next decade) be a lovely tree in ten years.
The morning, as I said, was invested in writing the blog and watching the locals prepare for winter. I check, and markets are tired of falling, and the markets find a slight improvement in oil prices as a reason to rise. Yields are not relenting. There is too much debt out there to buy, and more cash is demanded to take on the debt. The Treasury’s plan to buy back some debt is more of a carousel than a plan. Spin buy. Spin sell. The only way is to stop spending at this rate, but Trump has never believed in not borrowing.
Aside: Dear readers, I do not blame the president for his addiction to spending. Obama and Biden both spent their way out of recessions. He won the election, and with a passive Congress, he gets to call the shots. I will say his simplistic approach towards the economy isn’t working, and sadly, it is time for massive cuts and tax hikes to bring the US back to order. The endless cash has caused a slow creep of inflation, according to the press, of over 40% since the pandemic (wages not matching that rate, of course). Going deeper, voters knew Trump and his predilection for deficit spending, both now and in the past. This is how hotellers think, debit gets you a hotel, and then you run it. Take the money. Bondholders get paid (unless it goes broke). Build another one. Repeat. And change the tax code to cover more expenses. Also, as we can see from pictures of the USS Abraham Lincoln, war is expensive — not just in lives; it breaks equipment, and the costs always seem to outweigh the gains. No action (more deficit spending) means inflation, higher interest rates, and a crashing stock market. Ye ‘ave been warned! We will see what the midterms bring, but I am not very optimistic about a blue wave. I am curious about turnouts.
Returning to the narrative, I decided to pick up my comic books at the Cosmic Monkey Comics in Portland. I took Germantown Road instead of the usual highways. I do not remember using it before, and I enjoyed all the curves and greenery. It takes me west of Portland, and then I return, passing the St. John Bridge; I was tempted to cross it and take the inside road trip to Sandy Boulevard. It looks like the bridge to Oz (though Seattle is known by the sobriquet of the Emerald City). Instead, I enjoy a passage on I-5 South, which will close later for five weeks. Portland traffic is expected to reach chaos for the next month. My trip to the airport (and back) will be by the MAX train to avoid this mess.
I arrive, park on a street, and soon find my comic. I also see they have a special local cover of Godzilla vs. Portland. I have to have that. Local artists did the art, and I cannot wait to read it. I leave and head across Portland to the other side, to Hawthorne.
More aside: McMenamins has a passport program where you get stamps for visiting various pubs and facilities and performing experiences. If you complete it, you join the Cosmic Tripper group and get access to special events. It is fun, and I have been trying to fill the same passport for more than a decade. Someday!
I park a few blocks away, as all the other parking spots on Hawthorne are an hour or less. I have not been here, I think, in ten years. Since Susie’s illness got worse, I find the memories too painful at first. Now those memories have faded into pleasant smiles, with nothing to fear. I think Deborah and Emma would love it here now and would be delighted to rediscover and see that some shops and restaurants are still here. Like an old friend, I feel Hawthorne Street hug me and welcome me back.
I find the cafe at the Bagdad Theater, get a table, and have, remembering that McMenamins is always expensive and not always good food, a mac and cheese that I regret for the price and flavor. The beer was good, and I enjoyed reading all the comic books. I get my McMenamins passport stamped and realize how long it has been since I have been there (I have had that passport a long time). Still, it is good to be back, and I will be back again (maybe after I-5 is back).
Doomquest #4 is good, and I read it quickly. I find comic books too short for my liking and would prefer a book, but still I liked it. No spoilers. But I laughed through Godzilla vs. Portland. It is extra thick and contains multiple unrelated stories. It hit on the hipster Portland and weirdness and, of course, Sasquatch.
From the comic’s final words on Portland:
Some people think of Portland as soft, naive, and overly tolerant of weirdos….But you’d be a fool to interpret that as weakness. Because the fact of the matter is that you never know what sort of extinction event waits just around the corner or whose talents will help you survive it[!]
Texas is next. Next April, the book of all of the vs. US Cities will be published.
There is a Powell’s across the street, which was once a Deli and Powell’s special cookbook store, but now it is a coffee shop with a usual mix of used and new books, leaning more toward new. I find a new Lonely Planet Brazil book and snatch it up. I show the cashier the comic Godzilla Vs. Portland, and they looked up where to get one and will likely get one.
(A little blury and that describes me at that point).
I need a theater stamp, and Practical Magic 2 is playing, so I buy a ticket and cough through it, but I am away from people, and maybe popcorn was a poor choice. I cannot remember the original, and I did like the movie, but I found it very predictable and more of a fan work than a new movie. If you liked the first one, then hit this one. I cried a lot and even nodded off. But that was the beer.
I connect with Deborah here and there. She is busy, and we manage to start and end our day together.
I also booked a 7PM show on two Sundays at Snug Harbor Jazz in New Orleans (NOLA). I booked brunch that same day at Arnaud’s. I booked the house band on Monday @ 5 at Preservation Hall to make sure some days are booked for Linda, Jesse, and me when they join me in NOLA. I added, just for me, a cooking demo on Tuesday morning at the usual cooking school, New Orleans School of Cooking.
With my passport stamps, I returned home. I made a chef’s salad with ham and hard-boiled egg, finished the laundry (though it is not folded yet), did the dishes, and discovered that the recycling was missed (the cardboard will stay). Conan the Destroyer is my evening, and I then read and soon fall asleep sometime before 11. I dream and sleep and maybe walk through Hawthorne. Maybe I saw you there, dear reader. I wake, still coughing, but feeling better about the world. “Tolerance is not weakness”; that goes well with beer or liberal coffee. I smile and start Saturday.
Thanks for reading. Sorry for the many asides. These blogs are about what I experience, can share, and think. Sorry if it sometimes preaches. But sometimes a good sermon is needed, or even a messy one.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 