Being tourists in Oregon

   

Nick and Les fly the Spruce Goose

Betsy and Marie

A good photo?

    Les shook his head.  "Isn't it something," he said, "how we don't go to these places  until we have visitors." Marie and Nick were here from Virginia for three days. They stayed in an apartment in Betsy and Les' s downtown building.  In the evenings, we ate dinner looking out at sparkling views of downtown Portland.  During the day, we wanted to hit some Oregon highlights. Les drove us in his van.  He and Nick sat in front, solving the problems of the world. Betsy, Marie and I sat in back and built on forty years of friendship.
     At Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, Marie had the same reaction I had the first time I visited a mountain in the Northwest.    There's snow on the ground, in late June!  And people are wearing shorts!
   
    At the coast, we ate pastries
at a bakery that Betsy and Les had discovered,  and walked through tall grasses to the beach.  It was my first time in Gearhart.  At Ecola State Park (  Ebola?  Ecoli?  we kept stumbling on the name) Nick took photos which will grace his walls back in Virginia.

Marie and Nick at Gearhart

   On the third day, we attempted to get past the notorious traffic light at Dundee.  Even in mid -day in mid -week, there was a four mile backup.  We took a long short cut through the wine country of Yamhill. We ended up at the Evergreen air museum, home of Howard Hughes' enormous airplane, the Spruce Goose.  Nick and Les explored the cockpit while the rest of us ate minestrone soup and ice cream  in a cafe overlooking lots of shiny old airplanes

Girls dancing to Judy's music

and cars.
   Everyone came to dinner at our house  that evening.   Marie and Nick left early the next morning.  Marie said the visit was like perfume--just a little bit, but strong, and it has to last a long time.

Judy at Vista House

    Judy had stayed home while we were sightseeing,  saving her energy for her performance on Saturday with  the Upriver Dulcimer Group.  The group plays old- time music on autoharps, dulcimers, guitars, and washboards.  They have a regular gig at Vista House, a domed marble  observatory overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.  As the musicians played, tourists wandered through, smiling with delight.  Some sang along: a woman from Thailand and another from Pakistan danced, their hands moving  in graceful expressions.  A group of five girls stood at the edge of the crowd, joking and urging each other forward.  They looked to be just at the age when girls can become crippled with self-consciousness.  But these girls danced with great energy and enthusiasm, laughing and changing steps until the music ended.

Church lady squared

Atkinson Memorial Church

     My beloved church community, Atkinson Memorial Unitarian Universalist in Oregon City, is searching for a new minister.  The search is a long, 18-month process, during which the membership reflects on its identity, mission, and hopes for the future. Meanwhile, a carefully elected and selected committee goes through the long process of selecting the new minister. I agreed to be  on the search committee.
    It's big job.  Our nine- member committee has a good distribution

Scott Silver's photo: Long may she wave

of strengths  and we are willing and able for the work. Even though there are about three times as many Unitarian ministers seeking congregations as there are congregations seeking ministers, we are anxious about getting the best person for our pulpit.  As the old joke goes, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Search committee

      We will fashion surveys, hold small group meetings and book studies to help discern the needs and hopes of the church.  We will file descriptive and statistical documents with the denominational office (including membership and financial information dating from 1975--do you think that's easy to find?) We will create a great online packet for ministerial candidates to peruse. I will be doing a lot of the writing. In February and March, we will invite three or four pre-candidates to interview and preach. Finally,  we hope to select a great candidate whom the congregation will then vote to call.   After next April, I hope my time as a church lady on steroids will be done.

Mutt Leigh meets Eddy

Eddy found this cartoon

     Last weekend Judy and I hosted Eddy Carroll from Denver, who conducted a workshop called Beyond Categorical Thinking for the congregation.  The weekend was great success.  Our church has 165 members: 53 people showed up for the three -hour session on Saturday.  Eddy also preached on Sunday morning.  One member told him his sermon was the best he had heard in 47 years of attending Atkinson.
     At our house, Eddy and Mutt Leigh had a good old time.  Eddy and I sat at the kitchen  table and traded stories of growing up in a large Irish Catholic family.  Even though we had not met before, I felt like I was talking to  someone I'd gone  to grade school with.

Little dog's new world

Standoff with a squirrel

Mutt Leigh meets Roxy

     Mutt Leigh is  adjusting to her new world.  At first, she barked at every car passing by, even the ones three blocks away.  Our neighborhood German Shepherds  howl in symphonic mode along with every siren within their hearing distance.  At first, Mutt Leigh would try to howl along with them.  Now she disdains announcing  cars unless they are pulling into our driveway, and ignores the local doggy hootenanny.
      She has met many of our friends, and has made her peace with Handsome Dave, who will be staying with us next week.
     There wasn't much wildlife where Mutt Leigh lived before, so every bird and insect who visited our back yard was challenged by our new gatekeeper.  The resident squirrels initiated her by teasing her  from their perches on tree trunks just above her head.  Arnold, the big dog  next door, bided his time quietly while Mutt Leigh barked challenges to him through the gate.  These days, Mutt Leigh gives a ritual half-bark when she goes out back, and then settles into a chair on the deck.  Now that she has her world under her voice command, she can relax.

 Dave will co-exist with Mutt Leigh

Mutt Leigh meets Kelli

    Mutt Leigh has had a rough three weeks.  Although, according to the vet, she is healthy and sturdy, her teeth have been neglected.  She had two teeth pulled three weeks ago.  At the follow-up appointment, we noticed that the sore on her left cheek was more tender to the touch than it had been.  Two days later, the sore opened and began to bleed and drain.  X-rays revealed that a molar, one whose roots extend almost to the dog's cheekbone, was infected, along with the tooth before and behind it.  She had to have three more teeth pulled.  (All right, my Sullivan readers, that is the end of dental descriptions.)
     We are coddling her, of course, and hovering.  She is getting better.  It's a good thing, because she is so much a part of us already that Judy and I have not once shaken our heads and wondered what on earth we have gotten into.
 

Our new dog

Mutt Leigh Mae

        Judy has been scouring the animal adoption and Craigslist web sites for months, looking for the right dog for us.  Last week, we brought home a small honey blonde dog named  Mutt Leigh Mae.  She is  part Shih Tzu, part Lhasa Apso, and
 probably a little bit terrier.  She's 8 years old, calm and amenable.
     Her previous owner took good care of her but had no money to spend on grooming or dental work.  Mutt Leigh's hair is choppy, and falls into her eyes and mouth.  Judy is slowly working to clean up her face.  The dog is afraid of the clicking sound of scissors,  so Judy clips only  a little bit at a time.The vet declared Miss M healthy and well-formed, but in need of dentistry.  Dr. Bruno cleaned her teeth  and removed two  infected teeth.

Judy and Mutt Leigh 

     Mutt Leigh seems to be settling in with us more and more every day.  Her previous owner gave us a large wicker dog bed, with two big cushions, and said that all she would have to do was point to the bed and the little dog would go to it.  When we got home, it was obvious that Mutt Leigh had never seen the bed before.  She took her rightful place on the foot of our bed.  It's also obvious that she has been fed scraps from the table, but we do not do that.  We try to ignore her eager face when we are eating.
   Lance, the guy who delivers oxygen, is a dog lover.  Mutt Leigh charmed him.

Lance meeting Mutt Leigh

   Lisa was here today working in the garden, going in and out the open gate to her truck.  Mutt Leigh was on the deck, basking in the sun.  In her first days here, we were careful to keep doors and gates closed, afraid that she would run.  No she stays close by us.  As Lisa says, "She knows which side her bread is buttered on.  She has it good here.  Why would she leave?"

Mutt Leigh and her toy enjoying the  music