The Multnomah Villager

So I just got this email from someone who is looking for an online forum in which to discuss some issues she’s having in her part of the neighborhood. Issues with shady characters and potential crime. So this has led me to admit that I’ve been remiss in mentioning that there is a Yahoo! Group for the Village online at well, Yahoo! groups.

I am not involved in this group, although I have joined now, even though this was mentioned like 4 months ago at the neighborhood association meeting. I am just not really into the whole Yahoo! group thing. Not sure if this will help the sender of this email - I suspect that posting the contact information for our nieghborhood’s police officer would be more useful. That will have to come later, I’m at the office and left his card at home.

So if you’re into the Yahoo! groups thing and you want to talk about the Village, go join up.

Yesterday, after taking a conference call meeting on the back deck at home, doing some work via my wireless net (which is a good way to start the day), I decided to go in to my actual office a little late and head up the street with Mrs. V and Jr. V and grab some breakfast at O’Connor’s. It was a quiet morning in the Village, we had O’Connor’s pretty much to ourselves. Why is it that it takes so long to get a check in that place? Nevermind - the food was great as usual and Mrs. V had enough to take home for today.

We’re coming out onto they sidewalk and noticed Nadine (I’m pretty sure it was Nadine, it’s been a while and I was down the block) putting some merchandise out in front of Topanien. I realized that I’ve never written about this little store the whole time I’ve been keeping this ‘blog, despite their being one of the linchpins of the village (since 1989).

I’m not one to frequent the “incense and Buddha” stores, typically, but I must say that Topanien has a very high-quality selection of goods from a wdie range of cultures that appeal to both me and Mrs. V. We were last in there buying a small charm for a friend of Mrs. V that is going through cancer treatment. Topanien is certainly the most colorful store in the Village, it practically GLOWS yellow at you.

I am pleased to report that Topanien has a very complete website, from which you can actually view and order products! It’s at Topanien.com. There’s also lots of information about their commitment to fair-trade goods and Amnesty International, among other social causes.

So anyway, I though it was about time I wrote about them.

So I’m not going to go into huge detail just yet, I’ll post again on the topic of this year’s Multnomah Days, but I wanted to get a few thoughts and teh picture gallery up.

A few impressions of this year’s Multnomah Day festivities in convenient bullet-list form:

• The parade seemed at least twice as long this year
• How many churches and day care centers do we have in this neighborhood anyway? (answer = a lot)
• Sam Adams, once again, plays well to a crowd. No wonder he continues to be the favorite politico of pretty much anywhere in Portland. I mean, unless you’re talking about the tram…
• We do NOT approve of the carny vendor types selling cheap plastic swords, trumpets and other carnival junk along the parade route. And it’s not just us, this sentiment was shared by several others around us. There’s a very definite line between our neighborhood festival and the ROSE festival, and we’d like to keep it that way, thanks.
• Free snow cones! Score!!
• We’re a little nervous about the hippie circus guys, but we’re learing to live with it.
• Oh, and we skipped the movie to attend a friend’s birthday, How’d it go?

Of course there are photos. I got shots of most of the parade. There are 67 shots in the gallery, so if you were in the parade - you may well be in one of these pictures. You can use the graphic button at the top of the screen to go directly to the photo gallery from this year. If you’re reading this post on an RSS feed, use this link:

Multnomah Days 2006 Photo Gallery

I’d be happy to supply my full-resolution images, if you’re in one of the pictures, or you just see a shot you like. The full res JPEGs expand to around 11MB, which will give you enough resolution for a 31″x23″ image at screen resolution, or a 5×7 at full offset press resolution (300ppi). It’s more than sufficient for a 8×10 image from an inkjet or photo printer. More Details are on the gallery page.

Here’s a link to Last Year’s Gallery….

Hope you had fun - we saw so many people we knew. Lots of nice suprise meetings along the street, and even my former co-workers Mark and Shari bringing up the rear of the parade in Mark’s vintage Datsun. Same time next year?

Don’t worry, it’s only “kind of” advertising. Anyway, I got this email this morning (more than once actually) from the ladies at Fusion, and it’s the least I can do to post it, especially since Tamara has been one of my most regular readers and commenters. Not to mention someone with whom I need to make an appointment, like RIGHT AWAY. Happy 3 year anniversary!

FUSION SALON wants to thank all of our customers for making our first 3 yrs. in business a great success and a fun time. Help us celebrate our 3 yr. anniversary during the month of September with great specials and give-always.

If you have your cut/color done during the same visit you will receive $5.00 off .
Retail Sale: buy 2 products and get one free (same or equal value).
All new clients receive $5.00 off any color services.
Men haircuts always include a shampoo/condition/massage for only $20.

Look for us online at http://www.fusioncutandcolor.com
for all the latest in news, specials and happenings at the salon.

Hope to see you during the infamous Mult Days this Sat Aug 19th.

We are inspired by you.
Tamara and Adrienne

So there’s a nice little writeup about the Multnomah Outdoor Cinema in that little pull-out “inPortland” section of today’s paper. I’d link to the article, but after spending way too much time clicking through the despised Oregonlive.com, which eventually crashed my browser - you’re just giong to have to pick up the paper to read this one. When you do, you’ll have to excuse the fact that the Oregonian’s reporter thinks that Riversgate Church is called Riverside Church. They also state waht a wonderful “new idea” this outdoor cinema thing is. Now while it’s new for the Village, I would point out that outdoor cinemas are all the rage this summer with at least three other ones going on around town including the “dive-ins” up at Wilson and how long have they been doing that? But what are you gonna do? This ain’t the New York Times, people. Our loss.

No, I’m serious - there’s Pioneer Square, the roof of the rewly refurbished Hotel Mallory’s parking garage, the Wilson dive-ins, and probably more that I don’t know about. Don’t these people read the A&E section?

Still, on to more positive things! The bottom line is that there’s a movie this week (the Goonies), but it’s on Saturday night instead of Friday, to coincide with Multnomah Days. Plan for quite a crowd, and since it’s supposed to be 90 degrees on Saturday bring some extra quarters for that extra snow cone you’ve been talking about.

Here’s a photo for you of a small corner of the luxurious landscaping outside Jacqueline’s Found & Fabulous. This photo was taken last night, as Jr. V and I were walking up to the playground for a bit. It has been treated with the “Dooce Effect”

As part of the media frenzy leading up to Multnomah Days (this weekend, folks), the Portland Tribune has published this short article pointing out what an Incredible Dog Wonderland the Village will be, come Saturday morning.

Longtime readers may remember this post [The Multnomah Villager: Police action]… Well, here’s how the whole series of events has played out. No, I don’t know what became of any of the residents, but the house has moved on to bigger and better things.

Some time ago now, the renters left and the house began an extensive renovation. New roof - new pretty much everything. Landscaping, new turf, new windows, carport was freshened up and a very short time ago a for sale sign went up on the former den of iniquity. We eagerly awaited the information flyers to find out how much it was going to be. rumors were rampant of a hefty price. Several nieghbors strolled across the street to grab a flyer when they went up.

$499,000!

This was like 3 weeks ago. At the end of last week, I noticed a “sale pending” sticker up on the sign. This neighborhood’s getting expensive. At this rate, the 2-and-a-half story place back there off of 36th is going to be 800 grand.

So a couple of days ago, a link to this ‘blog was added to the Multnomah Village entry on Wikipedia. Since then, I’ve gotten several hits from this link. That doesn’t suprise me. What surprises me is that there are apparently so many people looking up Multnomah Village in the Wikipedia! Go figure.

That’s enough navel-gazing for today. Thanks for the hits, Wikipedia!

I know, big deal, but in our house this will be the first day of school, as Jr. V packs off to Kindergarten at Maplewood on Sept. 11th. If any of you have kids that are starting there this year as well, there’s a “New Parent Orientation” on the morning of the 11th to show us all the ropes. Here’s the deets.

We remember what it was like to come here for the first time and not know how things work or what to expect during the year, so we have put together this informational gathering.

Monday, September 11th, 2006
8:15 - 9:00 AM
Maplewood School Library

Come have a cup of coffee and find out about things like:

School Logistics including: AM arrival, buses, cafeteria and lunch questions, volunteering, school calendar, sick child, after school pick up, snow days, going home with a friend, celebrating birthdays

Timeline for School Sales such as: Book Fair, school photos, Maplewood t-shirts, Used Book Sale

Special Events like: Carnival, Fall Picnic and Open House, Grandparents Day, Halloween Parade, Bookbaggers, Math Night, Spring Sing

Fundraising Calendar including: Maplewood Campaign, wrapping paper sale, cookie dough and coffee sale, Read-aloud-a-thon, Run for the Arts, SCRIP, supermarket and bank donation programs

The transition to a new school can be filled with questions and unknowns. We hope to shed some light and make you feel as welcome and comfortable as possible. This will also be a great chance to meet other new parents and get to know some of the PTA parents too. And bring your questions - chances are if you are wondering, other parents are too. We hope you can come!