Family, friends, and a long drive

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points, or it would be impossible to endure them. George Bernard Shaw.

Just kidding.
Did you know that when I was in my teens I used to read GBS's plays. Just for fun. Oh, how my brain has deteriorated!

On Thursday morning, not as early as we would have liked (because we never do) we left for San Diego. In Charlie's little Chevy S10 pickup truck. Which used to be Jeff's truck.
Let me explain about Charlie's truck. He loves his truck. When he bought it from us, he spent about a week pimping it up. New gear knob, stereo, visor covers, fake bullet holes on the body. I, however, Do Not Like It. It is uncomfortable. The prospect of traveling for 1,200 miles in one day did not thrill me. So I offered to drive my car down and let him use it until he was ready to come home the next week.
He was offended at the very idea.
So we drove his truck. Eighteen hours. We listened to George Orwell's 1984. For eleven-and-a-half hours. I confess that I may have dozed for a couple of those hours. By the time we got to Murrietta, we were feeling quite depressed. For some reason.
We spent a couple of days with Charlie. Well, kind of. He was running around working on his "to do" list. Apparently, one of the things on his list was talking me into buying him a dresser for his bedroom at the Rodriguez's house, his home away from home.
Here he is, with Shelly and Adam. I call them his saving grace.

We flew home on Saturday night, on my favourite airline.
Pop Quiz.
What Is My Favourite Airline?

First one to answer correctly might get something yummy on their doorstep or in their mailbox.

On Sunday night, we went to pick Mum up at PDX. I decided to do it up large for a change. We created quite a ruckus at the security area. Luckily, the airport was almost empty.

Mission accomplished.

Annie arrived late last night, blissfully pregnant.
Charlie is driving up on Sunday.
All together again.
Time for family photos.

Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.

Sunday bookay

My friend Julie is a flower girl. She does the flowers for most of the weddings in our crowd. She did Bethany's and Jon's wedding flowers, but not Annie's because she was busy that day. She also does a unique and astounding flower display every Sunday for church. It's a rare Sunday when our podium is unastounding. When I remember, I am going to document these arrangements and show them to you. I might even do an interview with Julie, just so that you can see how amazing she is.
By the time this bevy of tulips got to the third hour of church, the tulips had opened up a little too far, but I still love the colours.

Swingin' spring

The tree blossoms and bulb flowers have disintegrated early this spring, with all the early warmth and then the cold and rain. This flowering cherry tree is always the last gasp of spring in my garden. We got it a couple of years ago when I fell in love with the trunk, of all things! I think the branches were grafted onto some sort of a beech trunk and you can see the gorgeous coppery burnish that it holds all year long. It grows slowly, but the blossoms are also quite spectacular this year.

My asparagus is sending forth shoots, the roses are covered in aphids, grape vines are bursting into leaf, and Harvey and the Toadstools seem pretty content in their new spot. Spring is in full swing at the O house.

Tomorrow we are off to drive Charlie's truck to Southern California. I am dreading the drive. Seventeen hours on a bench seat. Maybe we will have some hopefully not-too-exciting adventures that will be blog fodder.
Sometimes I wonder if I had as much fun before I blogged. I certainly don't remember it. Now, I find myself going over old posts and reliving every detail.
I think it will be a good remedy for the memory loss of old age.

How about this?

A little Picasa to go with that yellow head.

Now what?

The shoo-fly quilt top is finished.
My stitching creativity seems to be depleted.

Failing to see...

...the beauty in a dandy-lion.

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. A.A.Milne.

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. Author unknown.

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste. William Shakespeare.

If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn. Andrew V. Mason.

The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world. Author unknown.

PDX

I love Portland, even though it embraces the whacky side of liberal. It has a gay mayor who admitted (finally) to seducing a minor youth and no one has bothered to kick him out. It proudly hosts an annual naked midnight bike ride. Its large homeless population seems to have more political pull than your average conservative. The bumper stickers that say "Keep Portland Weird" aren't kidding.
But it has an active art and music scene and seems to attract innovative do-gooders of all kinds. And that I like.
After our painfully expensive dinner, we arrived plenty early for the Mark Knopfler concert, so we took another stroll.
Me, I had my trusty camera at the ready.
I am trying to look at objects with a more innovative eye.
What do you think?

Our very own Portlandia, who sits atop the Portland Building, of course!

I liked the tile work and light fixtures in the entryway of this building.

Jeff is always treading close to the line of civil disobedience.

And finally, the concert for which we had been waiting for two years. Because you know, we forgot to go to the last concert, even though we had tickets.
Mark Knopfler.
Named 27th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone.
Driving force behind the group Dire Straits.
Score writer for The Princess Bride.
Owner of about 70 guitars.
Father to twin sons with his second wife and twin daughters with his third.
Plays his guitar right-handed even though he is left-handed.
Fingerpicks his electric guitar.

He and his band of seven gave a rocking, most awesome concert.
Here is one of my favourite Dire Straits songs.


Mark doesn't seem to enunciate as well as he did when he was younger. Jeff and I often looked at each other last night and asked, Do you know what he's singing about?
Nope.
It might have been the sound system, because I can understand him well enough on the videos.
But the performance was stupendous anyway. He has such a tremendous energy and is definitely the Leader of the Band. His band members all play multiple instruments, including percussion, flute, banjo, piano accordian, violin, double bass, keyboards, synthesizer, mandolin, various guitars, ukelele, and probably some others that I missed. They played a lot of instrumental back-and-forth, which was fun to watch and to listen to.
Watch this closely and be awed by his guitar playing. He makes it look easy, but trust me, it's not!

He didn't make much of an effort to connect with the audience, although I'm not sure I would want to connect with women who were shouting "I want to have your baby" either. I'd rather have more music, less talking anyway. It was a tight show, no down time at all, and they played for two hours. Special effects were minimal.
It was all about the music, baby!

I talked a friend into listening to Leonard Cohen a couple of weeks ago. This friend said to me, you always did like those husky-voiced, studly guys.
Guess I do!

Crikey, look at the time. If I told you how many hours I spent on these two posts you would think I had an inflated view of my importance to the blogging world.

I almost forgot. The opening act, which started 15 minutes early and only went for 35 minutes (more time for Mark) was Pieta Brown, with Bo Ramsey on guitar. Now, here's a guy who can make his guitar sing! and Pieta's rather easy on the ears too. Give it a try...it's short! Like me.