From my Alaskan friend...

In a local Alaskan newspaper:

"Engagements: McCarthy-Terry.

Julia McCarthy and Jamez Terry will be married on Aug. 7 in Fairbanks. They will be joined by friends and family from Alaska and beyond.

Julia has most recently been employed at Abused Women's Aid in Crisis in Anchorage. She was formerly a ballerina and has done lots of other things in between. She is fond of pie.

Jamez has been a dog handler, a physical education teacher, and a zine librarian. He hopes to become an itinerant minister.

Following the wedding the couple will roadtrip to Maine, where they will make babies, do crossword puzzles, and throw stones in the ocean."

Ah, L'Amour....

I'm a farmer...

....and here is my produce from my garden so far this year!

(Don't miss the japanese eggplant underneath the corn)....

Work...

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."--Drew Carey

I don't hate my job, but parts of it are irritating. I work, generally, at OHSU, but I am not a clinician (obviously) and I am reminded nearly daily that I'm not a researcher, either. Well, not an evidence-based researcher, anyway. I have an MPH degree, but at best I am a policy analyst.

But what's good about my job? I get to watch the smartest medical educators in the country create unbiased curriculum to teach doctors how to prescribe medications WITHOUT influence from the pharmaceutical companies. It's so cool to watch these smart people take on the challenge, and overcome obstacles (and there's a lot of them), with such grace.

What do I do? Make sure they're paid on time. Encourage them to keep going. Keep them up-to-date with the latest information from the pharmaceutical world, the FDA, and any other group working on the same stuff. Like the Canadians or Europeans or WHO who are very interested in what this program is doing.

Movies, Living Room Theaters, Hip & Groovy Portland

David and I have discovered the Living Room Theaters on Stark Street in downtown (about a block away from Powell's). We've seen two movies there so far, "Unconscious" (ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP) and "Broken English" (we're agnostic on this one, to put it politely). The deal with this theater is that you sit in posh chairs and they bring you food and drink, if you like. The theaters are small, the movies are mostly subtitled and obscure, but that's just the kind of thing we need now and then to get out of our own heads.

But this is what I wanted to mention: sometimes when I go downtown in Portland I forget what city I'm in. Really. I don't recognize NW Portland (Pearl District) at all and easily get lost in all the pearl, pink, mauve glitzerati, poodle-walking, loft-living urban center that Portland has become. Who are these people? Who am I? Do I even belong here? More and more David and I have commented to each other that we are an anachronism in our own town.

More pool party pictures....

So here's more pictures of that pool party day back in June where Carolyn, her Mom Marianne, Alberto and the kids came for a swim and dinner.

Carolyn's Going Home to Italia....

I drove Carolyn to SeaTac airport this morning to catch her flight back to Europe. She stayed an extra 10 days to take care of Marianne while she recuperated from her emergency surgery. Carolyn's brother Chris arrived yesterday from Texas to take over caretaker duties from Carolyn, and so we sped off in the wee hours this morning so she could catch her flight.

It was great to have Carolyn visit this summer, and for an unexpected longer time than at first anticipated. It gave us some extra time to catch up. I found these pictures of her kids on David's computer from the year 2000 (on the left), swimming in our pool. I'd forgotten how little Antonio and Camilla were when they first came to visit us.

Now, the little buggers are quite a bit bigger. They came for a pool party in June (right), soon after arriving here for their summer vacation this year. Even though it was cloudy that day and looked like it could rain any moment, they still dove right on in and had a wonderful time.

Updates on all activities...

No pictures this morning - just a quick update on my activities: bookcases. Well, we're still measuring carefully on that project. I've been practicing using a level and a square. I am also becoming acquainted with bandages. Just a few knicks here and there, nothing to worry about.

Carolyn's Mom (Marianne): She is out of the hospital and doing great. She doesn't want to eat much, but she's doing really wonderful. I had dinner last night with Carolyn, Marianne and Peter Newell (from down the street) at a Cuban restaurant called Pambiche (a bastardization of the name Palm Beach) which was really wonderful.

Peter hangs wallpaper and paints. He's a fair carpenter, as well. We talked shop and I got some good tips from Peter on these bookcases. He's promised to come over and give me a hand if I get stuck.

The problem with the bookcase project is that I don't have the time to do them for any extended period of time; and I don't have a shop area, so I have to work on them outside. It's very dependent on time of day (light) for this project. More later. I've learned a lot about mathematics and precision.

Carolyn is going to Sutherlin this weekend to help her Dad pack things and move to Corvallis, where he is going to be living next door to Carolyn's brother Steve and Steve's family. It will be good for him to have family close by. I'm taking Carolyn back to SeaTac on August 7 (Tuesday) so she can catch her flight home. Alberto and the kids went home last week, so I'm sure Carolyn misses them.

OK - off to work; more later, especially pictures!