Little Lushes.

It turns out there is one small catch to all the lovely fresh fruit that presents itself at Portland harvest time. The mounds of juicy peaches, crispy apples, taut-skinned plums, and plump pears lining our countertops...well, they have a price.

Fruit fly infestation.

I am not talking about a few little pests. When the wee beasties have followed me into the bathroom for my early-morning prep work, the lady of the apartment draws a line in the sand. When the husby reaches for an after-work snack and is attacked by a territorial droning swarm, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy.

The gauntlet is thrown.

The challenge is on.

We are coming to fisticuffs with a nefarious foe.

Naturally, such a standoff demands a surefire arsenal.

There are fly strips hanging from the kitchen ceiling.

Yuck.

There is a patented fruit fly liquid trap, complete with smelly bait, resting on the bar above the sink.

Double yuck.

But we seem to have found the clincher. A truly efficacious technique in delivering droves of bugs to death's doorstep.

We are currently testing out the tried-and-true witchcraft touted by a woman we've met in our Northwesterly travels:

"Put out a glass of wine. The little buggers will fly in, get drunk, and drown right then and there."

Naturally, I have responded to such sage advice and pulled out the bottle of spirits usually reserved for marinara, gravy and other such cookery. From the el cheapo $4 Trader Joe's bottle, I've poured a tribute to the death of my kitchen plague. And you know what?

Those stinking bugs are quite particular about what kind of wine they like. The chintzy Chardonnay white wine has claimed multiple victims in a widespread countertop slaughter. The even chintzier Bordeaux? Many little red footprints {do bugs even have 'foot' prints?!} lining the rim, but not a single carcass in the juice.

White wine it is.

Who am I to tell our public what they want?

Editorial note: As documented in previous tales, we are a teetotaling bunch around here. That means I am a total ignoramus when it comes to the hard stuff. So THIS TIME, I held fast to my pride when making the wine purchases at the market. More specifically, when I went to top off our arsenal, I did NOT ask the clerk to identify whether the opaque bottle in my basket contained red or white spirits {I don't know my grapes}, nor did I query as to just how the bouquet might appeal to my beastly little sommelier bugs.

But I did have to restrain myself from asking.

Many Happy Returns

Tomorrow is my Mammy-Ann's birthday! Three cheers for this classy lady who is braving the challenge of returning to school for her bachelor's degree. She inspires me to work harder and do better.

Nothing rhymes with "orange"

Some people are so ridiculously creative, I kind of want to steal their gray matter for my own.

I like the fruits' little teeth.

Sadly, this is a sold-out t-shirt design. Found here.

Foot fetish

When I was in nurs!ng school, there was a singular experience known as the Community Health Rotation. This clinical time was marked with a colorful spectrum of people and encounters.

Some nights I carried a pager and the keys to a safe house for domestic violence victims.

Then there was the night where I rode shotgun with my hometown's finest for an evening of police calls.

On a few occasions I drove around town with a preceptor, trying to track down a schizophrenic patient for a medication refill.

Other evenings found me at a warehouse in a dicey part of town, sitting in on a gathering that was one part confessional, one part support group, two parts psychotic episode. {Husby even came with me to one of those...I dare you to tell me you've been on a stranger date than a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.}

I discovered that, to one degree or another, we each harbor our own special blend of imbalances, freakish impulses, and inappropriate behaviors, all tied up with the thread of our coping mechanisms. {Or lack thereof.} Sometimes the only thing separating me from the patently wackadoo circle of patients was the fact that I had a firm grip on my brain/mouth barrier. In short, the slim margin between us was simply the fact that I didn't say aloud every oddball thing that flitted through my consciousness. At least for that evening.

Well, folks, in the light of these experiences, I have to admit that I've slipped a little. There is a sickness that chews its way deep into the fiber of my being. Sometimes it sleeps, dormant. But it never goes away entirely.

Hi, my name is Imelda.

It's been two days since my last shoe purchase.

First I was just going to look.

One look can't hurt, right?

And then that look wasn't enough.

I've been thinking about them nonstop since I saw them. Waiting for just the right time to act. Hitting the refresh button over and over, waiting for the magic word to appear..."sale".

And then before you know it, I'm rationalizing all kinds of craziness. Like how they'll keep my feet dry in the rain because winter in Portland is all about rain, and how I can even use them in the garden. I try to talk around the fact that I don't even have a garden because I now live in an apartment...someday I will walk in the mud again!! My husband calls me a shoe hussy, and I'm afraid he may be right.

I think how good it will feel to caress the shiny surface.

I can almost imagine that new shoe smell.

Yeah. I cracked like an egg. Fell off the bandwagon.

And I'm not too broken up over it; after all, the winters here ARE pretty rainy.

Letter to the editor

Bart hiking above Multnomah Falls, OR ~ August 2009, by Katie

Dear Husby ~

This nocturnal schedule of late is for the birds. I hereby submit a suggestion: you should call in tired and stay home with ME. I'll take you on a picnic, spend all day at your Mac store {not the other true MAC store that I so love}, bake you nice things...how 'bout it, pal? Tell those bosses at school that you won't be in on account of it's just too darn nice to be indoors. And that you're tired. And that the little wifey misses you.

With love,

Me

Northwest Wanderings: Fresh Princess

Last year, when we discovered that we would be moving to Oregon, everyone had a comment or two to commemorate the occasion.

Some people warned about the rain.

Lots of cloudy days there...get a sunlamp. Or go tanning.

My inward response was less than enthusiastic.

Thanks. I'll just go ask for a prophylactic antidepressant right now.

Others spoke of the climate.

Your skin will looove the air there; the climate is so nice and damp.

My pragmatic {okay, fatalist} thought:

Excellent. Cue the return of vicious, soul-ravaging acne.

Still others talked about all the great recreational opportunities.

Ooooh, there are all kinds of water sports to be done there. Surfing! Sailing! Kayaking!

Cheery as ever, I mentally bemoaned the relocation.

I will NEVER get to ski again.

A friend and former Portland-ite made the noteworthy, yet esoteric observation:

The food there is so...FRESH.

After a local restaurant experience on our exploratory apartment hunt, I fought back simultaneous dread and disdain.

These people are going to kill me with their free-range tofu and uncaged artisanal soybeans.

Well, we made the move.

I'm settling in.

Doing my darnedest to keep the inner grouch tamed down.

And we have made a few discoveries that have softened the transition.

I am beginning to discover just what people mean when they talk about Portland and the Pacific Northwest culture. This place has a gestalt all its own. A distinct, unique flavor. Somehow, I can't quite give it words, but the vibe is there, pulsating outside my door.

In Table For Two tradition, our efforts to immerse our senses in this culture are usually ruled by the sense of taste. {We all have to eat...it might as well be fun.} A recent taste of the Portland Farmer's Market gave us a little cross-section of our new stomping grounds. Good people watching, live street performer soundtrack, funky atmosphere, and above all...FOOD.

I may have found a way to salve the sting of change.

Case in point: blackberries.

There may have been a perfunctory a periodic run-in with the precious gems, but I might as well have never tasted blackberries until I savored the ambrosia of the local berry farms.

Part of the novelty in this field trip is seeing the sheer abundance that summer has coaxed from tiny seeds.

The other part is getting to meet the farmers and growers of all these wares.

{Beets don't get enough positive press. We love them at our house. Besides, anything that makes one urinate pink can't be all bad.}

I thought I had attended a farmer's market before, but the sheer scope of this operation makes me wonder about the authenticity of the previous experiences.

I love this baker-girl's shirt. {Little known fact: I used to work in a bread bakery. Yup...a full-fledged dough girl.}

There was unparalleled people-watching. I stood in line behind this girl and thought she was just beautiful. Quintessential Portland style.

With the exception of some serious rhubarb concoctions, I had never eaten Swiss chard before, but I cheerfully took home a huge variegated bundle for dinner. As evidenced by my affinity for beets, anything that grows neon-pink gets bonus points in my book. {And it tasted mighty fine.}

There is something really neat about meeting the person who grew my dinner. It makes me have a deeper respect for my food; for the effort that went into cultivating, nourishing, and transporting it. Besides, tiger-striped tomatoes are a noteworthy encounter on their own.

A local nursery was hawking their wares. I've got my heart set on a little Meyer lemon tree.

Another fun thing about farmers'-market produce: it's not all the same uniform piles of produce one encounters at the grocery store. Things here may have a ding or two, or they may show up just a little more unprocessed that we are accustomed to seeing. Though they're not fit for human consumption, it was still fun to see for the first time just how Brussels sprouts look on the stalk before they get foisted off on an unfortunate soul's plate.

One of my favorite parts was the deep, saturated color of every booth and display case.

I'll be perfectly honest.

The rain is probably going to get to me.

It will be a great excuse to buy some pink wellington boots.

I've started to break out like a teen at midterms.

If it comes right down to it, I'll reach for another round of Accutane.

The snow, when it comes, won't be like the fluff at home.

I'll swallow my snow snobbery and ski like a lunatic at Mt. Hood.

And somehow, I will find a way to understand the essence of eating in this place...which is that the food IS fresh.

Whatever that means.

Notoriously laborious

The Husby and I have a Labor Day tradition. Historically, we somehow wrangle a ridiculous home project on said "day off".

There was our first Labor Day in our house, when we put in a bit of backbreaking hardscaping.

Then there was Labor Day weekend the following year, when we had the good sense to run away to a bed and breakfast for a couple of nights, only to come back the next afternoon and put in a retaining wall.

This year, apartment dwelling notwithstanding, I stuck with tradition and found me a domicile-improvement project.

Thanks to two trips to Husby's not-so-favorite store {because really, no project worth its salt is complete without at least two such excursions}, I stocked up on supplies and remedied the putrid color of our apartment. Now, instead of "Baby-Poo-Meets-Butternut-Squash", the hallway and kitchen are clad in a soothing coat of Glidden's "Icy Waterfall". Much mo' bettah.

All this while my poor boy is making the transition to nocturnal employee for the remainder of the month, because I'm just that kind of wife. {Poor guy.} I hope your day was labor-free!