Orchard's Bistro and Angel Street

Last night we were having dinner at the Orchards Bistro in McMinnville, Oregon. We'd stopped at the Gallery Theater a few blocks away before dinner to try to buy tickets for the play "Angel Street" but it was closed. Our terrific waitress asked if we wanted dessert. We had an hour to curtain time. So I said, "Well, if you could call the Gallery Theater and ask them if they can hold two tickets for us, we'd love to have a little dessert." She brought me her cell phone with the number punched in. I hit the green button, but nobody answered. "Hi, this is Steve, we're at the Orchard Bistro and would like to have dessert, can you hold two tickets for us for tonight?" Five minutes later the phone rang. "Hi Steve, this is Paula. I've got two tickets for you, enjoy your dessert."
And Paula was in the ticket booth when we came and had our tickets. She's also the director and showed us around. The play was written in 1938 and was the basis for the movie Gaslight in which a husband is trying to drive his wife crazy.
The set was really well done. The husband and wife were both excellent actors and it was done with English accents, including the two servants, one of whom sounded like she had studied old Upstairs Downstairs episodes and one who had a believable Cockney accent I believe. The actor who played the inspector was, if I read the program right, in his first major role and he showed us why the other two were so good. He accent, elocution, mastery of the script were all of a much lower level. But it didn't ruin the experience. For $13 a person, this is live theater for just a little more than a movie.

I took this about 15 minutes before curtain time so this isn't the whole audience. We had a delightful evening.

We're at Portland International airport right now which still has free wifi and, if all goes well, will sleep in our own bed tonight.

LA to Portland

We got to the airport a bit early, so we walked
around enjoying the beautiful weather.

The waterway breaking the beach goes into Marina del Rey.

Half Dome as we fly over Yosemite.

Welcome to Oregon.

Actually, the clouds broke up as we landed in Portland.

Our good friend Marty was there to pick us
up and take us home for the night.

Free Wifi at PDX (Portland)

I'm at PDX waiting for my flight from Portland to Anchorage. I keep posting about airports with free wifi (Anchorage, Reno, Portland, ChiangmaiJuneau, Taipei) because I think it's important for people to have access to wifi in transit and I want to alert travelers to where there is free wifi for all at an airport.







My Portland weekend is over. I had good times with friends, but also want to respect their privacy so haven't blogged about them. Also, kept busy and not blogging for 24 hours or more is a luxury. It was hard to get a good picture from the car, but there was a lot of yellow and orange and red outside of Portland.





There are a lot of pumpkin stands around outside of Portland. And in Portland tonight I saw a lot of people in costume. I'm still opposed to moving holidays to the closest convenient day. Doing that means that the god of efficiency is overtaking the god of tradition. Washington and Lincoln's birthdays - once separate holidays - have been lumped into President's day and put on a Monday so people of have three day weekends. Memorial Day used to be May 31, but it too got moved to a Monday. Fourth of July on the second of July would be weird, but if we just call it Independence Day, they might be able to get away with that sacrilege.


I didn't know that 'free cracking' existed, but today I got it.

A Day in Portland

We had lunch with Masami and Shpresha and Sharon, people I knew when I was a guest faculty member at Portland State University for six months in 2003-4.




After lunch they put me in my old seminar room to work on a few things and catch up with all the hits coming in about Palin. Like other Alaska blogs, apparently, this was my second highest hit day - 563 right now.








Later we walked around downtown before meeting friends for dinner. The sky was very blue, temps in the low 70s, as we passed the Art Museum.































In a little park area between streets the Oregon Ballet Theatre was practicing in a tent.













A costume store.


























One of the great book shops in the United States. Powell's is room after room after room on several floors or used and new books. A favorite place of our when we lived here.








































































We had dinner here with Gary and Roxanne who we knew from Anchorage and from when we lived here. It was great to see them again.







We checked the tram station near Marty's yesterday. It's about a 20 minute walk home from the end of the line. But both ticket machines at the stop were broken. We turned down Gary and Roxanne's offer of a ride home (way out of their way) and decided to board without tickets. The guy with the beard told us to push the emergency button and tell the driver who said we could ride free then. Then the two Obama canvassers got on. As we were pulling into one station we heard screaming at the other end of the train (about four cars away.) The driver came onto the loudspeaker calling for police. Who boarded immediately as we entered into the station. A young black woman and a young white woman slipped quickly off the train. The police - Wackenhut Security guys - stayed on the train to the end of the line where we got off. At the end we heard the driver reporting the incident - a white guy had been yelling racial epithets at a white girl and black girl sitting together.

Martini Glasses Then and Now

Marty has been educating us on a lot of things. I finally caught one important then-and-now history lesson on video.

Alaska Dominates Menu

Went to a Seafood place tonight in Portland.

House Boats

Now these are really HOUSE boats.

To Portland

My wife and son took off in the rental truck at 6:30am headed for Half Moon Bay. I waited at my daughter's house, doing some writing, til she got up for breakfast. Then, for the first time in many years, I walked my daughter to school. On the way we passed the shoe tree. I think people should have fun and not be overly serious all the time, and this tree is unique. But I also couldn't help wondering about how rich some people are, that they can simply throw good shoes up into a tree, while other people in other parts of the world can't afford shoes.






If I got this right, this is Savery Hall being rehabbed. My daughter's department has been moved out while they are working on it inside. The University of Washington campus is full of big old brick buildings and huge trees and a surprising amount of activities given school doesn't start for a while.





Then I drove south, stopping at the Olympia home of old Anchorage friends Don and Joan where I managed to be just in time for lunch. Really, Don, that wasn't planned. Their home is a beautiful spot at the end of Puget Sound and we ate overlooking the water. And the sun was out for lunch! It was nice to see Don and Joan (who came home for lunch) after maybe four years.




Now I'm at Marty's on Hayden Island, just across the bridge from Washington State. Marty is another former Alaskan and we did a lot with Marty and his wife Ellen the six months we lived in Portland five years ago. Ellen had been on dialysis for years and died just over a month ago. She was an very talented, bright, and beautiful woman whose smile lit up the room. Marty was devoted to Ellen throughout her long illness. I'm glad we're able to spend some time with Marty now and maybe distract him a little.
They had finally found a home they both really enjoyed out on Janzten Island. Marty and I had dinner out on one of the many docks.