Wednesday, March 6
I’m not sure which of the above is the right description for what we’re doing. We’ve rented a condominium in a little town south of Portland, Oregon, in an endeavor to see whether we can survive in a land of green and rain after so many years in a sere land with little rain and abiding winds.
We arrived in McMinnville on a showery afternoon Tuesday, having spent Monday night with our friends in Chico. The pickup-load of stuff we brought survived quite handily. There was, actually, very little rain the bed of the truck. We had bagged and binned most of our stuff, with help of son Adam.
We arrived at ground zero at 4:45. We were happy to get all unloaded and make a quick run to Harvest Fresh, the organic grocery in our little town, to lay in supplies for dinner.
Like kids in a candy shop, we found lots of things to like. We bought two lamb sausages, made by the Harvest Fresh butcher; a crab cake with sauce; a side salad with dressing; a vegetable tamale; a huge baking potato; a fat bunch of appetizing spinach; hormone-free milk; a couple of bananas.
We made dinner of the salad and the vegetable tamale. Drained by two days of 8-hour-driving, we were early to bed. Except that I stayed up late, thanking our unknown neighbor who has an unprotected router, ordering stuff … the necessities of life like end tables, lamps, and sheets … late into the night.
The ordering continued into the morning … and, frankly, most of the day.
We spent the morning putting together the freestanding towel racks (a necessity in the northeast), the quilt rack; cleaning the butcher block in the kitchen, including the legs and wheels; running the new anchor hocking and pyrex glass bowls/dishes through the dish washer; discovering a spewing valve in the toilet in the half bath/laundry room and informing the rental company of same; doing a basic shop at the local Roth’s (a lovely store) for staples and such luxuries as Nagiri shushi.
This afternoon our affable Wild Haven repair crew arrived. They inspected the toilet, enjoyed our tale of the spewing innards, and departed to find a replacement part. Shortly thereafter, they returned with replacement parts, and fixed the problem.
We enjoyed talking to them, a father and son (father is a volunteer, “helping“ his son). Father grew up here, having moved here from southern California at 14, and, early on, being a cattle rancher. The discussion ranged from cows to sheep to venison. The venison from the Bend area, where the deer feast on sage, is much superior, he says.
The lamb sausage, baked in the oven with the giant russet potato, was excellent. We have a whole sausage left over. If it doesn’t disappear soon, I will use it as part of the stuffing for the giant green peppers (59 cents each) that we bought today at Roth’s. The potato, which the clerk at Harvest Fresh highly recommended to us, lived up to expectations.
Tomorrow the sofa and love seat that we ordered in January will be delivered. It will be lovely to have somewhere to sit other than the dining room table. There is more cleaning to be done -- mirrors, bathrooms, linoleum floor.
But tomorrow will also bring the beginning of the UPS flood -- all the amazon.com orders that will make our lives easier. And next week will come the overstock.com orders, as well as more amazon.com orders.
We’re hoping to take some time off on the weekend to enjoy Sip, the McMinnville Wine & Food Classic, held at the Evergreen Museum (where the Spruce Goose lives). This is the 20th year of the festival. Going all weekend, Friday-Saturday-Sunday, it promises to be a good time.
And the local Gallery Players are presenting a production called “Quilters”, an intriguing subject, although I doubt we will attend.
It rained, albeit gently, most of the day. The sun was not to be seen.