We had another fun and low key day here in Portland. I got soem work done during the day. We also did some cleanup for gabe. We did some minor repairs around the house . The big accomplishment was taking a packed carload of stuff to t Goodwill. Gabes basement has become a packed with stuff tha previous roomates no longer want. GOign through that stuff and finding out a way to give it a second life was fun and rewarding.. The whole house feels lighter for moving that stuff on.
Since we needed the car for Goodwill, I dropped Gabe off at School and picked him up. When I poicked him around dusk we saw the most amazing display of crows.. Diane and I had seen a similar thing in the park yesterday. Gabe says its a new-ish thing.. but the crows have taken over the city. At dusk every spot on every tree by the river has its own crow.. Cool to look at and listen to
Diane made squash curry tonight .. really nice
Nite all, nite sam -me
ps. When I was in a hardware store this morning I spotted this.. Looks like the org Hackclub I belong to has some competition !
It’s so nice being here in Portland with Gabe. Portland is such a.n interesting climate. Its been on and off cold and rainy with occasional sun. Despite the cold they stoll have flowers and vegetables growing. I found this tomato in Gabes garden particularly friendly
One thing we love about coming here is the small jobs we get to do to help him maintain his house. We learn from these.. and build skills we can apply touour house. Today we did a mod to his fridge to clear the blockage that is causing ice build ups when the freezer goes into auto defrost. Its a bit like the problem we have on our fridge at home.. but it looks like Gabes is hopefully easier to fix. We took the freezer apart , foudn the defrost heater and crimped a length of thick coper wire aroudn it, with the other end of the wire going through the drainage hole. The internet says that will work.. we’ll see.
Next job was to clean out the dryer vent.. . glad we did..w e know two freinds who’ve had house fires because of not cleaning their vents. We used a very cool flexible brush you fit into a drill that gabe had.. Pretty fun. I felt like the chimney sweeps in mary poppins
Peacxeful day.. Diane did a ton of cooking.. Her magical Mole Chile (secret ingerdient is penut bitter).. And the basque cheese cake she’s been fperfecting since our trip to San Sebastian.
Around 6 a few Freinds of Gabe and his housemate and old friend Henry came over for yoga and dinner.. We had diane, , gabe. me, henry, Henry’s friend Maeve, , Gabes friends Eric, Brook and later on Shawn.. Dianes chesscake was a masterpiece. Its not like american cheesckae at all.. it has no crust, though it has a dark carmelized outer layer. and its not as sweet as american cheescake.. Its more like a custard.. so delicious !
We spent the day hanging out at Gabe’s .. Super nice being here.. I got soem work done.. thne Mostly we played with Nova while Gabe works on his dissertation.. We all got out for a dog walk in the middle of the day. Got to hear Gabe work on his mandolin playing.. he is sounding so great !
later on we went to Sivali Thai, one of our favorite thai places in walking distance ( there are at least 10 thai places in walkign distance which is part of qwhy we love portland !). .. On the way back we stopped at Movie Madness.. THe self proclaimed largest surviving collection of rentable DVD’s . its also an amazing museum of movie memorabilia .. ..
one funny thing is that they have a copy of the Colony Season 1 and 2 .. I left one of my mad sceintist biusiness cards with a short note in the Season 1 case. I hope soemone finds it !,.. who knows if anyone ever will
