FIRE!FIRE!FIRE!

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The weekend was quite full. Friday, as previously reported was an evening at the Blues Festival. Saturday involved some cleaning, some slacking, and some cooking with Kim. We were going to go hook up with Eric to see fireworks, but got mixed up with times. (Both Eric and I could have sworn there were fireworks on Saturday, too, but a last-minute consultation of the program showed this was incorrect.) No worries, there. We had a great time eating, snacking, watching Dracula (which I do not think I had watched in years), and hanging out. It was kind of cool and interesting to listen to her point out all the costuming flaws.

Yesterday was more Blues Festival. The gospel stuff they started with was all right, but not quite my cup of tea. Later in the afternoon, there were bands and styles that I liked a bit better. The last band I watched that day was a Mississippi blues group, having one member with a bandoleer of about ten harmonicas. Their music was great, there stage presence was great, the whole experience was fun, except for the whole standing-in-the-hot-sun thing. They also did this thing where the leader of the band would start with a story, which led to a song that went on for a couple of minutes, then the band suddenly stops and goes quiet as he continues more of the story, which leads into more of the song, etc. It sort of reminded me of George Thorogood's “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”

Later in the day, I hooked up with Kim and we went to her friend David's house. After an initial charcoal snafu (we were too busy talking and preparing to notice the wood charcoal had completely burned away), we “grilled” (in the oven) portobello mushrooms (basted in a really tasty sauce) and buffalo burgers. Both Kim and David seem to be semi-pro chefs, so part of the evening seemed to be like living in an episode of The Splendid Table. That part was a bit overwhelming. I had always though myself to be okay-to-good when it came to cooking, but listening to them think up mixtures on the fly and talk about what makes a good baklava showed me that I have a bit more to learn.

Later still, we all went on over to Eric's, then to the waterfront (the east side, opposite the festival) to watch fireworks. Yeay for fireworks! The hippy in me got to reflect on how we stole them from the Chinese and used the entertaining (religious?) technology to make guns and bombs (and space travel). Kim ran into some friends drumming for people fire dancing (there was even a little kid in the fire dancing group!) A girl from “the other vet” (the one I went to for boarding the cats over Christmas while away because the vet I take them to was full) somehow recognized me and remembered Pants and The Precious–even though I had not been there in 6 months. Fortunately, it was a brief enough “hi” that I did not have to bring up the ultimate retirement of Pants.

Still later in the evening, we returned to Eric's porch (I love porches!!) to talk, relax, and partake in some wine. One of the neighbors was lighting off some crazy-insane-loco fireworks: mortars with rockets, bricks of Roman-candle-like devices, M80's, etc. We were watching and cheering. One of the neighbors, attempting to be a neighborhood do-“good”er, came out and had a stern talking to the people lighting off the (admittedly illegal and loud, yet fun, cool, and appropriate for the evening) fireworks, so they ended up leaving and we ended up boo'ing.

Return home, sleep, have an odd dream that is now difficult to recall, awake in the morning to discover that a cat had grabbed some of the bell pepper innards that had not quite gotten flushed down the garbage disposal, pulled it onto the floor, eaten some of it, then proceeded to hork all over the floor. Today, assuming I actually get cleaned up and leave the house, is the last day of the Blues Festival.

Posted in: Dear Diary Music Portland

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