Our first visit of friends from out of state... Gail and Eric just came from New York to visit us. Yay : ) !! and brought my favorite 'veggie' gummi bears from the co-op and other treats, like a very nifty green cutting board and their happy smiles... The last time we had seen them was October 1st when they kindly helped us load our moving truck in Brooklyn, including the old claw foot tub we hope to someday make a new home for, and kept us calm. I had to put the city picture of them in downtown Portland by the 'tall' buildings and in the country photo Eric's wearing a cool yellow shirt with 'Gowanus' the name of our old neighborhood and 
an extremely polluted canal, now becoming very fancy (ie. Whole Foods spends years trying to build on a brownfield site and condos eagerly wait in the wings to line the infested shores..), that we used to walk over on the way to the subway... Here's a photo Gail took of our address sign and Lima + Banti.I felt an interesting feeling I can't quite place - having to do with friends from such a specific place and part of our recent lives, who in a certain sense represent that- here now in this very different new place and time of our life. Have you ever experienced that?
It was also our first reason to take a day off... so maybe that tilted my perspective on life.
We went to show them Biggie and to the Rock Creek Pub for lunch. We had a little dinner party with them and Mish and Steve.
Neil cooked delicious burritos and we set up tables down by the fields from our house to watch the beautiful sunset.The next day Neil had to do the route and I took them places our friends Jess and Michael took us to when we were out last summer. To the rose garden, Pittock Mansion and downtown; the industrial area by Hwy 30 which I thought they'd appreciate as crafty artist/builders they are. Gail saw this nifty train car and wanted to cross the tracks to go by the fear caboose and I think in the picture I am fighting her from doing that and she is saying alright little mother hen pipsqueak, i won't cross the tracks, gotcha..
and Eric in the car is saying, any day ladies, rental car is parked illegally... then the Rebuilding Center and Mississippi
neighborhood and then had dinner with their really neat friends Dimitri and Jessica, who had moved from New Jersey and were staying with her parents in the Irvington neighborhood where she grew up. (We deliver to a lot of CSA subscribers there and think of it as the Knott St. neighborhood...)She made these amazing pizzas. Mmm... We talked a lot about life, dreams and work. He seriously explored farming and boat building, but came to the conclusion that it would be too financially challenging to start with two young children (who are very smart and funny by the way). They are headed to Seattle and he's about to start architecture school. We talked a lot about all the neat things we'd each like to do and the difficulty in the end of making the numbers work. That he came to the realization that he was going to have to fit himself into one of the pre-laid down career paths available.
Jessica is an artist and illustrator and showed me and Gail how to make crocheted bags out of plastic shopping bags, by cutting them in to strips, knotting them together and crocheting away. Very cool. We also talked about making and selling things like that, as the three of us like to be crafty, but also how much time it can take to make something you want to sell at an affordable price someone can actually buy. Hours versus income. She also introduced me to The Complete Tightwad's Gazette, gave me the awesome pizza crust recipe, and other Portland tips like Knitten Kitten, potholder looms, "Goodwill As Is" by the pound, Interstate Farmer's Market, 4over4.com and vistaprint.com, also screen printing with cross-stitch and puffy paint. It was hard to see Gail and Eric off, just as easily as they are here, poof, they are gone. Off to his grandparents anniversary party in Spokane. Thank you for making a special trip to visit us!
A day went by and the next monumental visitor appeared. I think my Mom actually just visited on Father's Day. I showed her around our house and we took lunch to eat with Neil, Steve and Mishelle who were working at Abundant Harvest, that was really nice. Then we went up to Biggie and she seemed pretty impressed and it was neat to get her outside opinions and view on it. And she got to meet Robin and the cat, Snaggles, photos were taken... she's going to mail them to me, but I don't have any in the computer to put here. We planted some red coreopsis flowers together in with a pepper row. We'd had an idea to somehow make it to the ocean for a hike as it's only an hour away and I haven't been there since we moved here, but she'd been on a trip up the coast on her way up to Portland and there just was not enough time before she needed to catch her flight. She was here less than a day and then also, poof, gone on a plane. Too fast, but very special to have her here, too. Definitely something unusual about people visiting you from the place you knew each other to the place you are now. I guess people leave these traces of themselves in memories of being at your home with you. And that's really nice.
