Fam-zine

My parents, my big sister, and my nephew came to town the weekend before last. And it was just my luck that for several days straight, water poured forth from the sky. Here's the deal. Portland is sooo awesome when the sun shines, but when it doesn't, especially at this time of year, you get kinda embarrassed in the face of visitors. Like, it's okay to lurk out in your sweatpants all day watching David Attenborough documentaries when you're by yourself, but as a method of entertaining? Nah.

So we wandered around dismally wet streets and ate. Ate a lot.

But I don't want to get down on the Northwest in general and Portland specifically, because even when it's foul out, you're confronted with so much beauty on a minute-to-minute basis that how can you complain? And yet ..... I do.

I dragged them all on a soggy hike in the gorge and cursed the skies as they marveled at yet another giant snail/slug thingy on the trail.

Hittin the rosé with my sis.

Annual trip to the rose garden. Love this place. A natural wonder.

My nephew just turned 8 and is a total BA (bad ass) and at the same time a total nerd. I love him for this.

On Holiday

My stocking this year consisted of this: wool socks (I used to be “whatever” about socks until I started wearing the fine wicking Merino ones and now I’m a hardliner about them), goat’s milk soap and a wee tin of lip balm, deodorant (you laugh—but this was actually on my list!), broad-spectrum sunscreen, and (obviously) chocolate. This is a very grown-ass woman set of gifts, and I’m not even ashamed about that. And I love my mom for knowing this about me.

Despite the natural seismic tremors of tensions that every family feels (I think?) when compressed together into one house and timeframe, I get to know my parents better every time I go home on holiday. My very favorite thing is when they tell some previously un-recounted anecdote from their pre-“me” life. Like, who ARE these people who gave birth to me?

I got up before sunrise one morning and caught a ride into town with mom and dad on their way to work. I was alone, sitting on a swiftly moving chairlift by 8:30 a.m. The sun was still behind the mountain and all was blue, ’cept for a little pink puff of cold-fog effervescing in the minus-3 degree air. It was a deeply cold, deeply pure moment that I immediately stuck in my cap of fine, pure moments from this year.

I don’t know what’s up with this guy’s jacket but I’d gladly take these chubby Bernese pups off his hands, immediately.

Nephew Patrick—whom I played with extensively—making his bed like a good boy. Now can he come do mine?

Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning.  

My parents’ dog Fergus. He wears diapers to bed at night—I shit you not!