We spent a lovely weekend in Sunriver with Andrew and Courtney (and Henry), Lisa and Craig (and Albert), and Josh and Sheila. (How strange is that we all have weblogs?) Courtney won this vacation at a company raffle, so we met to celebrate Andrew's thirty-fifth birthday.
Kris and I left Oak Grove thirty-seven minutes behind schedule. I'd spent too much time Friday morning agonizing over my entries for the Clackamas County Fair photography exhibit. I'd also spent too much time at Thriftway, selecting cheeses for the trip. (In the end I chose a four-pepper goat cheese, a spiced fresh mozzarella, and an herbed feta. There were many good choices I had to forego.)
Our trip was marred by two events: a fight and car trouble. For some reason, we often fight at the start of our trips to Bend. I'm pleased to say that we resolved our conflict quickly on this time, which is just as well, because by the time we'd reached Redmond, it became apparent that the car was having second thoughts about the trip.
Our Ford Focus — of which we are none too fond — had begun to sputter. "This is what I imagine the car would do if there were air in the fuel line," I told Kris, though I know little about cars.
"Maybe it's the transmission," she said. She knows even less about cars.
By the time we'd reached Bend, the trouble was severe. "I'm going to try to reach Sunriver anyhow," I said, but even as I was spoke, the car died. We had just enough momentum to coast to the narrow shoulder of the freeway.
We got out and stood well back from the road, watching the traffic zoom by inches from our vehicle. I phoned AAA. "We'll get a tow truck out there in a hurry," the operator said. "I've got one coming from Crescent. It'll be there in an hour-and-a-half." Crescent? An hour-and-a-half? We were scheduled to fix dinner for the group. The lasagna was sitting in the cooler, waiting to be popped into the oven that Courtney had already preheated for us.
We called Andrew and Craig, and they came to take Kris to the house. Andrew grabbed a toolkit and told me to pop the hood. He jiggled some hoses and cables. "Have you tried to start the car?" he asked. I admitted that I had not; it hadn't even occurred to me to try. When I did try, it started right up. "I think it was the flux capacitor," said Andrew. I hung my head in shame.
It was just as well that we had been delayed. Josh and Sheila, who left Portland half an hour behind us, had trouble of their own. Sometime between the time we passed through Warm Springs and the time they reached it, a multiple car accident closed the highway. They were forced to turn around and detour through Kah-Nee-Tah, adding and extra hour to their trip.
(Our car worked fine for the rest of the weekend.)
On Saturday morning, Andrew and Josh played guitar and sang. Henry and Albert were particularly pleased with their performance.
In the afternoon, some people played Tennis. Others went to the pool. Still others rode bikes. Kris and I stayed in, reading and napping.
In the evening, Craig prepared one of his wonderful dinners, including food from Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli. "I've had this book checked out from the Multnomah County Library for the past year," Craig told us. "It's that good."
Cooking by Hand is very much in keeping with my recently entry You Are What You Eat. Chapters include: Cleaning the Fresco, Ripeness, Twelve Ways of Looking at Tomatoes, Aceto Balsamico (how to make your own balsamic vinegar), Pasta Primer (how to make your own pasta), Bottom-Up Cooking, The Whole Hog (in praise of pigs), Cooking Backward: The Place of Dessert in a Menu, Conversation with a Glass of Wine, and Sources and Resources.
I love the twelve ways of looking at tomatoes:
- Color
- Juice
- Essence
- Shape
- Sauce
- Conserve
- Complement
- Braise
- Container
- Condiment
- Side Dish
- Fruit
We ate and drank and laughed. The food was good. The wine was good. The company was splendid. Seven of us had attended Willamette University at the same time. Courtney spent some time at Whitman, which is a similar school. This shared background gave us a commonality from which we drew ready bonds. We discussed professors (many of us had Maurice Stewart, for example: some for physics, some for astronomy). We discussed friends with whom we've lost contact. We reminisced.
During the meal, Kris asked me, "After dinner, can you take the car out for a spin to make sure it's okay?"
I looked at my glass of wine. I felt the pleasant numbness of my lips. "No. Can you?"
Kris looked at her own glass of wine. "No. I guess we'll worry about it in the morning."
After dinner, we played Loaded Questions. One question was "If you could add one room to your house, what would it be?" Both Kris and I said solarium. What are the odds? We've never discussed a solarium before, yet both of us want one.
[Here there is a gap in this weblog entry. Something hilarious happened here (in response to the question: "What's the most embarrassing thing you have in your house?") but it cannot be related to the general public. Use your imagination. And while you're at it, something mortifying happened to me on our recent hiking trip (in relation to a long-suspected allergy to eggs), but it too cannot be related to the general public. Use your imagination. Now wasn't that fun?]
Near the end of the game, when we we were all growing tired, when several of us were a bit tipsy, when we were all weary from laughing, I choose the question "What is your worst feature?" It seemed like an interesting way to gain insight into my friends' characters. Then the answers come in: eyes, voice, temper, height, nose, 'my spare Michelin', and 'whatever I'm obsessed with at the moment'. I had been thinking of personality flaws, not physical flaws.
J.D.: "Wait a minute. This is a no-win situation for me."
Andrew: "Ha ha ha. Have some more port."
Craig: "It's like a trainwreck."
J.D.: "Uh, okay, Sheila said 'height'."
Sheila: "Are you kidding? My height is an advantage."
It was all downhill from there. Sheila laughed loud and long. "I laughed at J.D. so hard I farted," she said.
"I do that all the time," Kris said.
Before bed, I tried on my CPAP mask for all to see.
At Sunday breakfast, we obsessed over the bacon: thick, crispy, and tasty. Lisa said, "I don't know how Joel does it." We all murmured agreement.
"If I could eat only one animal," said Craig, "it would be the pig." We all murmured in agreement. General praise of pigs followed: the qualities of bacon, the lack of qualities in faux bacon, the glory of fresh of ham, best when slathered in mustard, the ability to substitute pork products for beef products.
After breakfast, Henry demonstrated classic cuteness:
In the late morning, Kris and I took a walk to the river, sharing the path with bicyclists and joggers. We sat on a bench and watched people paddling by in canoes. A couple clomped by on horseback. "This is nice," she said.
"Yeah," I said. "I love coming out here with the MNF group, but this is nice in a different way."
We enumerated the differences between the groups. On this weekend:
- The television was never turned on once. (Last April, the MNF group had it on almost constantly.)
- The men and the women did things together instead of separately.
- While there was more alcohol consumption, it seemed less gratuitous.
- The discussion was deeper and more varied. Kris and I seem to act as a limiter on discussions in the MNF group, causing them to mostly stay at a surface level. We suspect it's because we don't share the same religious beliefs.
- Nobody drove to Bend.
- We used the facilities that Sunriver has to offer. I can't remember anyone in the MNF group ever swimming or playing tennis. Kris and I vowed that next April we'll canoe and take a horse ride.
During the weekend, Andrew, Josh, and I played Age of Mythology.
"Remember when we played this after Joel and Aimee's garage sale?" I asked.
"Oh yeah," said Andrew. "Pam attacked Aimee on the first turn, basically removing her from the game."
"She was steamed," I said. We laughed.
Andrew made a dumb move on his first turn, basically depriving himself of the resources necessary to continue playing. "Maybe we could give you a loan from the bank," I suggested, trying to be helpful.
But no — instead, Andrew attacked me with his elephants, plundering some of my resources. Then he attacked me again. And again. He attacked me with his elephants four times, thwarting my development.
I was steamed.
I no longer cared about winning. I cared only about vengeance. Andrew's elephants had to die. Josh must be made to win. From then on, whenever I harvested resources, I made sure that I harvested in such a way that Josh gained resources, too, but Andrew did not. Whenever I placed victory points, I placed them on goals that Josh seemed sure to achieve.
Meanwhile, I slowly built an army comprising units specifically designed to defeat Andrew's elephants. When I was ready, I launched an attack on his city. After an initial stumble, my troops marched to victory, leaving Andrew with a smaller army and a weakened city.
We never did finish the game, but I felt as if I'd achieved some sort of moral victory regardless of the outcome.
Albert has entered the monkey phase of childhood. He spent the weekend climbing on things, pulling on things, and opening things. One of his favorite tricks was to climb up to the bathroom sink to pour himself some water.
Unfortunately, the monkey phase of childhood comes is not without risk. While monkeying around in his high chair Sunday afternoon, Albert toppled backward onto the cold, hard floor. He was more shocked than hurt, and wailed to get it out of his system. Lisa and Craig distracted him by letting him monkey with the window latches.
In true J.D. fashion, I timed our trip. In my mind, it only takes three hours to reach Sunriver. That's wrong, though. It takes about three hours to reach Bend (or used to, anyhow, when we lived in Canby). In reality, once we subtracted for stops (and car breakdowns), it took us three hours and forty minutes to drive from Oak Grove to Sunriver via Highway 26 over Mt. Hood. It took us three hours and forty-five minutes to drive from Sunriver to Oak Grove via Highway 20 through Sisters to Stayton, and then north through Silverton and Molalla. Both routes take about the same length of time for us.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2003 — The Night I Heard Caruso Sing In which I think of having children but I go and change my mind — in which I long for everything but the girl — in which I love a song.
2002 — Happy Place II: Mamma Mia For the past ninety minutes I've been listening to a single ABBA song over and over again...
I loved this entry. I'm always interested in how people spend their vacations. I dont know how you get people to play games. I always want to play but nobody else does.
You know many times our trips begin with arguing. It's usually because Greg is upset at all the unexpected delays associated with having kids! But like you said, we too get over it soon and the vacation ends up being lots of fun.
I love that pic of the little boy on the counter. So typical of boys that age! And what a cutie!