But even before the great canning fest of 2009, I had more immediate [...]]]> Our tomatoes have finally been ripening. This has occasioned all kinds of anticipation, as well as plans to have my mom come for a visit in a couple weekends and teach me to can (while Dad helps Brooks with the new, meth-head-deterring fence).

But even before the great canning fest of 2009, I had more immediate plans to use two huge heirloom tomatoes that were finally ready for eating. Oh yes. They were to be combined with our own lemon cucumbers, basil, red onions, and oregano into a delicious Greek salad tomorrow night, when my brother passes through Portland on his way to his new Coast Guard assignment in Alaska.

You will note the past tense. Were. For, when I turned the corner on the way home from work today, a meth head was picking one of them. And by the time I got to the driveway, he was eating it. While I applaud his interest in nutrition, this was Our Tomato. Really, the first of the heirlooms. And therefore special.

This occasioned some rolling down of window and yelling on my part, followed by some fleeing on meth head’s part.

Ok, I wish he had fled. But the bastard insolently ambled, and even turned around to shout at me when he overheard me tell my brother on the phone that he had said. “I took your tomato; I’m a moron.”

But wait, there’s more! Meth head later returned, clearly casing the joint out. I tremble for our carrots. But Brooks was in the carport and spied him, and bless him, he gave the meth head a Great Fright. OH god. I wish I had been there to see it. However, others were. I take comfort in that.

I also hope that our taillights aren’t broken out tomorrow.

On to more delightful topics. No one has stolen the flowers from the front yard. Yet.

I have terrible respiratory allergies, and one of the things that has become more and more troubling for me over time is tobacco smoke. It used to be that it occasionally would provoke a [...]]]> I’m still pretty gleeful as I write this. Last night, we had a really, really great experience with a local business owner.

I have terrible respiratory allergies, and one of the things that has become more and more troubling for me over time is tobacco smoke. It used to be that it occasionally would provoke a coughing fit, but now it’s an invariable and awful consequence of being exposed to smoke. This means that we have to scout out the road ahead of us when we are walking and cross streets to avoid smokers, leave outdoor seating at restaurants when a smoker lights up, and that my day can at any instant be reduced to a fit of coughing and choking when some freewheeling tobacco lover exercises their stupid right to smoke what seems like everywhere but inside businesses.

Since Oregon’s anti-smoking laws came into effect, I thought it would be easier. In fact, it’s worse, if anything. Smokers now hang out outside of dive bars and smoke on the sidewalk, which is….hello….a place shared with people who may NOT be smokers, and every outdoor dining area I have been in is still crawling with them.

So, we were at Sam’s martini bar in the Pearl, Olive or Twist. The name is awesome, I know. We were sitting outside, and someone a table away lit up. I was immediately apprehensive, but the wind was blowing his direction, so it was ok for a couple minutes. Then it shifted, and I immediately started coughing. GRRRRR. We collected our drinks and headed inside, but Sam spotted us, noted my obvious gasping for breath, and asked if the smoke was bothering us. We said yes, and he told us not to go inside, that he would take care of it.

And bless his heart forever, Sam went over to the smoker and asked him to leave. Never, ever, ever has a business owner done anything to protect their customers from smokers while I was around, and I am incredibly appreciative. It was nice for once to have the smoker have to leave, not me.

I’m highly aware that I have family members and friends whom I love who smoke, but I just don’t believe it’s right that smokers be able to endanger my health and foul up public spaces.

At this point, he had been “packing” [...]]]> So, it was Thursday morning. Thursday as in the day that’s after the day the neighbor had said he would be out of the meth house across the street. And he was, of course, still there. The criminal factor in the neighborhood was becoming disproportionate, even for St Johns.

At this point, he had been “packing” for some 30-odd hours, aided no doubt by some kind of uppers. And a great help they had been–the truck, while lamentably still across the street, was piled high with what I can only describe as a a precarious and random pile of rubbish. No beds were yet in sight, which made us think that another night of being neighbors with him + criminal consorts was in store.

7:25 am. I leave for work, my mind filled with fantasies of not coming home to more of this view:

But at this rate, expectations were low.

5:30 pm. I turn onto our street on my way home from work, and broken down on the corner, hood up, a mere block from where it was in the morning, is the now ex-neighbor’s truck. Fail! After all that, the ex neighbor is still within line of site and ear shot of our living room.

6:30 pm. More puzzled efforts and discussion among (ex) neighbor’s peer group. With the boon of enforced residence a block away, they apparently decide it may be worth it, after all, to take the mattresses. Two young ruffians escape from the pack and carry the beds out of his old house, down the street to his new sidewalk.

As the evening concludes, (ex) neighbor and all of his earthly goods that meth could possibly help him load onto the truck are a block away. To say we had an abundance of schadenfreude would be an understatement.

4:05 am. Friends of neighbor begin to arrive.

6:00 am. The increasing volume of evictee’s efforts are an effective alarm clock.

6:00:07 am. Standing [...]]]> We left off the tale of the adventures of our anti-hero as Tuesday night fell. It still felt like Tuesday night when his friends began to arrive Wednesday morning, probably because it was…still night.

4:05 am. Friends of neighbor begin to arrive.

6:00 am. The increasing volume of evictee’s efforts are an effective alarm clock.

6:00:07 am. Standing in living room window, spying on watching the “progress.” So far, they have succeeded in loading the defunct Harley in the FRONT of the trailer. This took no small effort, as merely days before, neighbor had lost a key part to the bike in his lawn. It happened to be essential to starting that lovely piece of…work.

We did not offer to help him find it.

6:45 am. Two bicycles have now joined the Harley in the front of the trailer. I spy a cardboard box on the premises. This is promising. How long can it possibly take to pack a crack pipe and several empty Jack Daniels bottles? And once the 4-year-old’s stuff is packed, dad’s stuff can surely fit into an additional few boxes.

7:25 am. I leave for work. Trailer contents remain unchanged. Evictee + friends huddle on front porch in a scene more than slightly reminiscent of the beginning of 2001: Space Odyssey. You know, the part where the early humans stare uncomprehendingly at each other and long wordlessly for, I don’t know, fire. Ability to walk upright. More freely available raw meat.

3:30 pm. Home from work (I have a late call with some people on the other side of the blue planet, and thus have taken off early to drive home. Plus, I was all agog to find out what the hells was going on). Truck is still there. Harley has now been moved to back of trailer, but contents have not otherwise been much altered. A few boxes are packed.

3:35 pm. Men trying to hitch trailer to truck. This is hard work. Much consternation is obvious on their part, as the weight of the 3,000-pound Harley in the back of the trailer is causing the front to lift up beyond a height where they could conceivably hitch it to the truck. I laugh maniacally.

6:20 pm. Much progress has occurred! There are now possibly ten boxes loaded, the Harley is lovingly swaddled in a sleeping bag, and the boys are contemplating the various options for loading the couch in on top of the load.

6:35 pm. It appears that putting the couch on upside down, on top of the Harley, is the winning choice. We watch from the living room; a small, dilapidated crowd has gathered. Skankiness abounds. Two cross over to our yard and (really, I am not making this up) steal a handful of bark mulch.

6:40-7:20pm. We go for a walk to the St Johns Bridge and back. Brooks bets me a beer that truck will still be there. Ever optimistic, I accept.

7:21 pm. The truck is in fact still there. Numerous meth-y looking people loiter promiscuously about. Motorcycles are of course being ridden up and down the side walk. We note that there are no beds on the trailer.

This is a bad sign. I open a beer for Brooks.

9:00 pm-ish. It is now dark enough to take up our customary seats in the living room and settle in for some more eviction watching. Michelle cannot resist the draw, and abandons her studies to join us. We attempt to decipher the cell phone calls, listen shamelessly to conversations with some of the more mentally ill neighbors, and note that child is running wild, in and outside of the house.

Fortunately, neighbor’s hooker friends are around to keep an eye on him.

11:30 ish. We grow tired, mainly of not being able to make out every word, and head to bed. Pillow talk revolves around the possibility of the truck being gone in the morning.

That’s enough for now. I’d love to say that things are as exciting Thursday morning as they were Wednesday morning, but…you’ll have to wait to hear about the climactic third-act duel.

Read part one of the great eviction

Background: ex-felon who rents the house across the street is a nuisance. He hits on the women in the neighborhood, married and single, and [...]]]> In retrospect, I should have lived blogged this. For that huge FAIL, I will always be sorry. We were, however, very caught up in the memorable moments of the past few days.

Background: ex-felon who rents the house across the street is a nuisance. He hits on the women in the neighborhood, married and single, and doesn’t get the standard social cues of “leave me alone, you freak. I’m not interested.” He rides his Harley on the street (and on the sidewalk, because why wouldn’t you?), at incredible speeds and with incredible amounts of noise, any time of the day or night. He neglects his child. He shouts. He accuses. He has a parade of skanky people in and out of his house, day and night. Some leave so high they can hardly walk and also try to engage in conversation with cars.

He is, in other words, a bad-ass MoFo who is pathetic (and even sympathetic) in his own ways.

But he’s, at last, no longer a neighbor. Here’s how it went down; times are somewhat approximate.

Tuesday evening, 8 pm. We note suspiciously normal older couple at house across the street. They haven’t arrived on loud Harleys, they haven’t driven motorcycles down the sidewalk at 50 mph, and they do not appear interested in either buying or selling meth. They are clean, and it’s even possible that they shower regularly.

Tuesday evening, 8:01 pm. I find Brooks downstairs and ask if he’d recognize neighbor’s landlords, since I think they may be across the street.

8:01:14 pm. Brooks is now in the front yard, innocently watering. Watching from the window, I realize I was right–those were the landlords.

8:02 pm. Brooks waves at landlords, who cross street and engage in conversation.

8:09 pm. Animated conversation continues.

8:15 pm. Brooks comes inside, confirms that they are the landlords, and gives me the GLORIOUS news that the problematic tenant is being evicted for non-payment of rent.

8:15:10 pm. Celebration ensues.

8:20 pm. More details. Neighbor has promised landlord he will be out by the following morning. We prepare for an even longer, louder night than usual.

10 pm. Sitting in the dark in living room, watching neighbor. No packing is happening.

10:30 pm. Still surveilling. Still no packing. Some cell phone conversations. I wonder about installing microphones in the maple tree.

11:15 pm (or so). We go to bed.

More to come, folks…but for now, here’s a preview of what you can look forward to in my history of Wednesday:

4:05 am. Friends of neighbor begin to arrive.

(Click image for larger version)

This is from several weeks ago. We were driving over the bridge, and the sky seemed typical of Portland’s sunshine mixed with storm clouds of this time of year.

Hearing that the new incarnation was going to [...]]]> Mia’s is tucked away on SW 35th Ave off of Multnomah Boulevard in the Village. Despite a recent change in ownership, the shop continues to offer the kind of apparel I had come to expect after a few months of shopping there: classy, funky separates and well-chosen accessories.

Hearing that the new incarnation was going to include some home goods, I felt a little concerned, as Multnomah Village already has some very strong contenders in that area that an upstart could not hope to compete with (Indigo Traders, for example.) Based on our recent First Friday visit, Mia’s home goods seem restricted to just one little shelf of soaps and frames, and the clothes are still the bulk of the business. Fine by me! Plus, their oatmeal soap really is quite nice.

I was experimenting with my new camera and avoiding use of the flash, so many of these photos are less than perfect, and as is usual with my pictures, focus on the details. Or maybe sort-of-focus on the details. Sigh. Flash is not always bad!

Try the oatmeal soap. I did, and I love it.

The prevalence of black and “neutral” colors remind me of the old Mia’s. Personally, I think it’s great.

The dresses at Mia’s have been and continue to be charming. I look forward to seeing what they have to offer for the summer, whenever summer finally happens here in Portland. Plus, the staff there are friendly and awesome–awesome enough that I even let one of them try on my new shoes from Switch on First Friday.

Info:
7824 SW 35th Ave
Portland, OR 97219
(503) 244-7727