There’s a little white house that lives up the street. It’s a small house on a small lot, but otherwise I think it’s kind of cute. I’m not sure that anyone lives there right now — the yard certainly isn’t maintained.

For the past couple of weeks, there’s been a manual reel mower sitting in the front yard. It was sitting upright, as if somebody had stopped in mid-mow, but eventually it fell to the ground. The grass has been growing up around it: the hunter has become the hunted!

Yesterday, however, I noticed that the mower had been moved. It was ditched at the top of the hill in somebody else’s yard. Someone — probably a kid — had wheeled it a few hundred feet and then discarded it. “I ought to put it back where it belongs,” I thought. But I didn’t do it.

That’s okay, though. This afternoon as I was walking home, I noticed that the mower had been returned to the exact position from which it had been taken. That, my friends, is neighborliness!

As I mentioned at Get Rich Slowly the other day, I’ve discovered the bus.

I can recall riding the bus when I was just a boy (so before the age of two — right, Mom?), and I rode it once in high school to visit Paul Carlile when he was in foster care, but I’ve never ridden it as an adult. I’ve been on buses in other cities — just not in Portland.

What took me so long?

I was sort of in a panic Wednesday when I learned that the routine service on my new (used) Mini would keep the car in the shop overnight. How would I get home? Eventually I realized I could take the bus.

And I rode the bus back into the city on Thursday. A fifteen minute walk to the bus stop at Oak Grove and McLoughlin, a twenty minute ride, and bam! There I was at 4th and Washington.

I love it.

I had a sense of exhilarating freedom as I sat in O’Bryant Square just killing time. I know this probably sounds lame, but it’s liberating to not have a car downtown. I didn’t have to worry about parking. I could wlak where I wanted and take as long as I wanted. I could watch the skateboarders, and the mounted police (and the bicycle police), and the businessmen eating Chinese takeout on the park benches. I could sit there and write.

Sure, I could do all of those things if I’d driven downtown, too. But I wouldn’t. I’d be in a completely different mindset. It’s as if when I stepped on that bus I entered a different world — a parallel universe.

Later in the day, I met my friend Ramit for lunch at Kenny and Zuke’s. He was in town from San Francisco to promote his new book. I lingered a long time, chatting with our readers (especially Davy and Kinley), and then walked up to the Mini dealer to get my car.

The whole time, I felt like I was in a strange and wonderful alternate universe. All because of public transportation.

(I’ll admit, though, that it felt good to drive home!)

On the way to book group last month, Kris and I stopped to pick up pastries at Marsee Bakery in Westmoreland. I found the following scene amusing:

Five old men, all seated at the back of the store, each with a newspaper. (And you can see Kris reflected in the mirror…)

Are you tired of the winter photos yet? We Oregonians aren’t. Well, we’re tired of being house-bound, perhaps, but not tired of the snow. (According to today’s Oregonian, this is the most snow we’ve had in a winter since 1968-1969, which was just before I was born.)

First up, a comparison of a photo from Saturday night with a photo from Monday afternoon. The first photo was taken at about 7pm, in the dark. We had just a few inches of snow on the ground. The second photo was taken about 42 hours later, at 1pm in the afternoon. We had about fourteen inches of snow on the ground (with one-half inch of ice in the middle).

 

Winter doesn’t just bring snow — it brings icicles, too. Because our house exudes heat, the snow melts and icicles form on the gutters. (Unfortunately, our gutters have actually been damaged in spots.) Click through to see a larger version of this photo at Flickr, where you can see the giant icicle hanging over the dryer vent.

Winter also, apparently, brings Oliver, who still is not my cat.

Actually, Maxwell likes to be outside in the the cold. He’s our snow bunny. He whines to be let outside the moment we get up, and then won’t come when called all day long. He only returns just before bed. And where does he go? He just sleeps in the bushes. Stupid cat.

Finally, here’s Kris’ first venture out into the white stuff. Mainly, she’s stayed inside, reading, drinking tea, and snuggling under blankets. But yesterday she ventured outside to experience winter:

Depending on which forecast you trust, we could see another 3-5 inches of snow tomorrow, as well as some freezing rain. Who knows? All I know is that Christmas has been delayed in the Roth family!

Here’s our Walnut, one of our squirrels. He’s hungry, cold, and none too happy that I continue to bother him with the camera.

Our current snowfall totals: six inches on the ground, half an inch of ice, and then another eight inches. The snow continues to fall. The forecasters expect it to stop soon, though, but I don’t know if I believe them. When I went to bed last night, they said nothing about snow of any kind today.

I like Chicken Wings. I like Things That Are Hot. Doing a little addition, you might correctly conclude that I like Chicken Wings That Are Hot. Today, however, I discovered I don’t like all Chicken Wings That Are Hot.

For years, I’ve been proud of my ability to tolerate hot (spicy) foods. It’s not just that I’m Tough, but that others are Wimps. When I hear my friends complain about how spicy a certain salsa might be for example, I silently heap Scorn upon them. “Spicy? Hah!” I think. “I don’t detect even a bit of heat.” Yes, many of my friends are Wimps. They are not Tough like me. (Note: Jeremy is Tough. Jeff has some Toughness in him.)

So, it has become my habit to order my meals Hot (or Extra Hot, if the option is available) when I go to restaurants. My Thai curry? Hot! My Indian curry? Hot! Anything else that I could possibly get spicy? Hot! Please, very Hot!

Twice in the past, I’ve come close to defeat. Once while dining at the Bombay Cricket Club with Nick and Kris, I had a a dish that was really very Hot. But it was Tasty, and I was Tough. I emerged victorious. On another occasion, Andrew and I had Thai food at a little place north of Lloyd Center. My Mussman curry was almost too Hot. Almost. My gut burned inside for days, but I won. I won.

Today I went thrift-shopping with Kris and Tiffany. We started at the big Goodwill on 99E, just north of Powell. I picked up three books:

• Watership Down, to loan to Rhonda and Mike
• How Green Was My Valley, for book group
• The Modern Library edition of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, which I’d never heard of before today

While the Gates women shopped, I sat on a couch and read about Bunnies. I was there a long time.

Interlude: I sat in a fuzzy easy chair in the Goodwill furniture department. Across from me was a set of almost Nice, almost Antique furniture: an ornate chair with a wooden frame (for lack of a better word), a matching settee, and a coffee table. The set was unusual in that the sittable items were labeled with signs that read: DO NOT SIT. Perhaps as a result of this (or perhaps because the items were almost Antique), nearly every adult (except the Gates women) and many children stopped to look at the price. It was an interesting social Experiment. My hypothesis was that if one were to remove the signs, nobody would have paid attention to the Ugly things, but because they were labeled DO NOT SIT, everyone stopped to look at the price. Or maybe everyone else just has Bad Taste.

“Would you like to go to lunch?” Kris asked as we paid for our purchases. She spent $41. Tiffany spent $41. I spent $6.

“Yes,” I said. I was hungry.

“Let’s go to Sully’s,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I’ll pay for lunch, but I’m picking.”

“Where are we going?” Kris said, but I did not answer. I was Mysterious.

“Where are we going to lunch?” asked Tiffany.

“I don’t know,” Kris said. “J.D. is being Mysterious.” And then she said, out of some Wifely Instinct, “I’ll bet we’re going to Fire on the Mountain.”

Ah, indeed we were. A restaurant devoted to Chicken Wings — could anything be more Lovely? Tiffany ordered Wings. I ordered Wings. Kris ordered Fish and Chips. For her sauce, Tiffany chose Sweet BBQ. For half of my Wings, I chose a delicious Lemon Pepper sauce. But for the other half, I chose El Jefe, a “Crazy Hot” sauce. I wasn’t worried. I sampled the latter before I ordered. I could handle it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!

From the first bite, I knew that El Jefe was going to kick my Ass. My lips were on fire. The inside of my mouth burned like a Televangelist in the Afterlife. My eyes began to water. I gasped for air. Tiffany laughed.

“Do you want some ranch dressing?” she asked.

“No,” I gasped.

“He hates ranch dressing,” Kris said.

“I know,” said Tiffany, “but he looks like he’s going to cry.”

I felt like I was going to cry.

I ate one Crazy Hot Wing. I ate two. I ate three. On the fourth, I cut corners. I avoided much of the skin. My heart wasn’t in it. I picked up a fifth — and then I put it down.

“I lose,” I said. “El Jefe wins.”

It was a sad moment for me. All my life, I have been the victor. I have been Tough. I have not been a Wimp. But today? Today El Jefe kicked my Ass.

p.s. I paid for lunch. It cost $35. So, my total for the day was also $41.

Every evening it’s a struggle to keep from heading north to Pok Pok. I love Ike’s Vietnamese fish-sauce wings with a tamarind whiskey sour. Yum.

Amy Jo forwarded this short video of Pok Pok’s owner Andy Ricker describing his inspiration for the restaurant:

Now The Oregonian reports that Ricker plans to open Ping, a Chinese restaurant in Portland’s Chinatown. You can bet I’ll be looking forward to sampling the menu!

Kris’ parents were in town last week. While they were here, we took them to some of our favorite restaurants. (We didn’t get to Pok Pok — maybe next time.) On Sunday night, we dined at South Park for the first time in two or three years.

South Park has altered its menu a little since the last time we were there. There are fewer choices, but each one seems more interesting than before. They still have the paella, though, and so I ordered it. First, though, I had a plate of fruit and cheese. I asked the waitress to bring me a wine that would match.

She chose a 2007 Alain Brumont gros manseng/sauvignon blanc blend. No, I’d never heard of gros manseng, either, but I love sauvignon blanc. (It’s my favorite white.)

Well.

I took one sip of the wine and was floored. I’m not a wine snob, so I can’t tell you what about its nose and notes. All I know is that it was crisp and refreshing — perfect for a summer cheese plate. (The cheese plate was good, too.)

When the paella came, I was a little startled to see that it was nothing at all like South Park’s old paella. Formerly, it had been almost soupy. Now it’s dry — seafood and rice. Don’t get me wrong: it’s good, if a bit too laden with shrimp. (I only tolerate shrimp — I’d rather have more mussels in my paella.)

“Can you bring me a wine to go with this?” I asked the waitress. She seemed puzzled, so Kris said, “Just bring him another glass of that.” And she did. Yum.

On Monday, I did a very non-J.D. thing. I bought a case of the 2007 Alain Brumont gros manseng/sauvignon blanc from Liner & Elsen. The only case of wine I’ve ever bought before was three-buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s. I’ve never found a wine I liked so much before, though.

“I feel decadent buying a case of wine,” I told Kris.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You like it. You’ll have fun sharing it with other people. I think it’s good to buy a case because it saves you a little money.”

She’s right of course, so while I was at it, I also ordered a case of the Domaine St. Michelle blanc de noir sparkling wine, which Marcela and Pierre introduced us to last spring. That stuff is yummy, too.

Ah, friends, so many things to tell you in order to relate a simple story. I should write at this blog more often. I’ll do my best to be succinct.

In March, I wrote a post at my fitness blog asking which whole wheat bread is best? I picked up one of every loaf from Safeway, compared ingredients and price, and then asked six people to taste test each loaf. I concluded that Milton’s Whole Grain Plus offered the best bang for the buck.

After some advice from readers, I tried a couple loaves from Trader Joe’s, and ultimately decided that I liked Rainier Organic Sasquatch Grain & Seed Bread. Eating a slice of that stuff is like eating a field of wheat.

But during that discussion, Brad suggested I should try making my own bread. “That’s crazy,” I thought. “Making your own bread is too much work.” But Brad pointed me to a Mark Bittman recipe for No-Knead Bread. Soon after, Kris and I discovered some refinements from Cook’s Illustrated. Over the past few months, she and I have been regularly baking an easy and cheap home-made bread that is far better than any store-bought stuff.

When I wrote about our breadmaking experience at Get Rich Slowly, several readers told us we could make the process even cheaper by purchasing our ingredients at Costco. On Friday, we headed over to pick up two pounds of yeast and fifty pounds of bread flour. (We also met Rhonda for lunch, where we talked about clothes and clubs, but that’s a story for later.)

While Kris was looking for breadmaking stuff, I nosed through the books. I found a title called Back to Basics: A Guide to Traditional Skills, which I fell in love with immediately. It’s an illustrated how-to manual for people interested in homesteading and self-sufficiency. It features lots of advice on growing your own food, both vegetable and animal.

This afternoon, Kris went across the street to chat with our neighbor, Patrice. I eventually went over to join the chat. Patrice was offering to let us pick more from her cherry tree, an enormous old thing that may never have been pruned. While we chatted, we started talking about the property she rents from John.

“This used to be a farm,” she told us. “In fact, John still calls it The Farm. The barn was actually a chicken coop. That’s where the vegetable garden used to be. And he had cows and horses. He was pretty self-sufficient.”

This is unsurprising. In addition to the old cherry tree, he has several large apples, rows of raspberries, and the best grapes in the neighborhood (which grow wild along the fence and up into the trees). When we moved in, John was the one who gave me wood and advice to set up our own grape and berry arbors. He’s happy to see us growing our own food.

This evening, Kris and I went back over to pick cherries. We’ve already picked all the low-hanging fruit (which led me to understand finally what that phrase actually means), so we carried a ladder over. Kris climbed into the tree first, but she chickened out. “You’re a girl,” I said. “I’m a boy. Let me at it. This is boy’s work.”

I loved climbing trees when I was a boy, monkeying around from branch to branch. I did something similar this afternoon — in a 39-year-old man sort of way — snagging all the gorgeous cherries. (While I was in the tree, I thought I was doing a very Joel-like thing. “My new motto should be WWJD — what would Joel do?” I thought.

As we were finishing, the new neighbors came down to pick cherries, too. While Kris went inside to make some cherry preserves, I stayed outside to meet them. I let them use my ladder to climb into the tree to pick fruit of their own. We chatted a little to get to know each other.

“This is a strange neighborhood,” said one of the new neighbors. “It feels so old-fashioned. We’re so close to Portland, but it feels like we’re in the country. I mean, here we are all getting together to pick cherries.”

Exactly. That’s why we love it here. In a way, it feels like getting back to basics.

Ah, the Fourth of July. Such a pleasant time in our neighborhood: lots of loud explosions. The early evening is filled with pops and cracks. It sounds like small arms fire, like we’re in some sort of war zone. Of course this is especially pronounced on the Independence Day itself (when the snap, crackle, pop lasts well into the early morning), but it’s also noisy in the days leading up to the event.

Last night was especially bad. It wasn’t just the sound of “gunfire” at 10pm. No, last night we had the boom of “cannons” at three in the morning.

Okay, to be fair, that cacophony wasn’t actually from neighbors with firecrackers. It was from thunder.

The Portland area doesn’t have frequent thunderstorms, but we do get them from time-to-time. All my life, I’ve liked the sound of thunder rolling in the distance. It never occurred to me to think about what it must sound like to have the thunder overhead. Last night, I got to experience it first-hand.

Between 2:30 and 3:30, the thunder and lighting raged all around Rosings Park. It was as if we were in the midst of the Battle of Trafalgar. The lighting sometimes seemed to be a strobe light. And the thunder rolled thick and heavy.

“Crap,” I said when the rain began to fall. “I left the windows down in my car.”

The lightning flashed.

“Well, you’re not going to roll them up now,” Kris said. “But why don’t you go see if you can let Nemo in.” Nemo had been the only cat who refused to come in before bed.

I went downstairs to call for him. All of the other cats were tense. Every time the thunder cracked, Toto froze in fear. Max, his ears back, followed me around, begging to be let outside. But Nemo was nowhere to be found. He wouldn’t come when I called.

If I had been thinking, I would have grabbed my digital camera to record the scene. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience another thunderstorm like that again. But it was 3am and I wasn’t thinking straight.

Now the firecrackers over the next couple nights won’t seem like that a very big deal…