The Multnomah Villager

For those of you not on Brian’s email list, here’s a link to a PDF version of the document that was generated in the design meeting that took place March 3rd.

Download or view the PDF here

I have my own opinions of the usefulness of these types of recommendations - but the first step is getting them down on paper (or into bits, as it were). We’ll see if this goes anywhere from here. The MNA is pursuing getting a representative on the PDC’s recommendation panel, which will likely be a struggle, but it’s exponentially easier than trying to influence the BRAC, which for a small neighborhood association, is a pipe dream.

Here’s the doc - discuss in comments, if you like. Thanks Brian for making this available electronically!

Last weekend, we made our regular jaunt up the hill to grab breakfast at O’Connor’s, and I have to say, we had the best service we’ve had there in a long time. I’ve blogged before about my particular hatred of sitting around for some interminable time waiting for a check after you’re done eating, and how this is a regular feature of pretty much every O’Connnor’s visit. Not this time! Our waitress was right on time with everything we could ask for, all through the meal and even brought the check before I started looking around for it! Only Mrs.V will understand just what a big deal that is to me. Thanks O’Connor’s! We’d be back either way, but thanks for the service.

Helpful commenter and friend of this blog Cate posts this as a comment, but it deserves a post of its own:

Join Portland Parks & Rec, Friends of Vermont Creek, and SOLV for SOLV-IT Earth Day in Gabriel Park! Come help battle the infamous invasive plant: ENGLISH IVY!! Promises to be a fun day of celebrating the earth….rain or shine! All tools and training will be provided; dress for the weather, wear sturdy shoes, and bring water to drink. Family friendly, all ages welcome (children must be accompanied by an adult). Meet the group at the bulletin boards near the tennis courts at 9am. Event will go until ~1:00pm.

Contact name: Marissa Dorais
Phone: 503-823-7016
Email: marissaaurora@gmail.com

Here’s some more info from SOLV’s site:

Project Activities: This project will remove trash and ivy from a forested section of Gabriel Park (near Vermont Creek) that is in ecologically poor health due to invasives, litter, and other disturbances. The health of this area will be immediately improved and will be prepared for planting native plants in the future. Activities include: Cleanup, Invasive Plant Removal, Litter Pickup.

Safety Issues: Steep Slopes, Water Body on Site, Uneven or Slippery Ground.

Recommended Minimum Age: 6

Volunteers To Bring: Work Gloves

This event is scheduled for this coming Saturday, April 28th.

So Jr. V and I walked up to the playground at the Multnomah Center last night. I was a wonderful warm evening, and SCA fight practice (which I’ve posted about before -> “Knight Court”) was in full swing. So to speak.

We hung out for a while, while Jr. V gleefully entertained a pocket-sized 8-week-old puppy and played with another kid that was there with her bright-pink-haired mom (owner of the dog). It was a pretty full turnout, knightwise, and we ran into another one of Jr. V’s friends on the way back to the sidewalk and home.

Later, at Journeys, Bob was amazed to hear about the knight fight. Here! Photographic proof!

This is likely a “spoiler” for the next issue of the SW Community Connection, but here’s a link to Jessie’s story about the groundbreaking for the new Multnomah Village Park.

New Park Takes Shape in Village.

Information about the newly created park is on Randy’s site, multnomahvillagepark.googlepages.com and there’s a work party this Saturday morning.

I was vacuuming out the car, when I spotted this. Unfortunately, I just had my phone cam - it was a gorgeous double, and ending right across BH highway.

Made my usual trek up to Journeys for a beer Monday night around 8:30. They’ve been open for a month now, congrats Bob & Shannon! Had a very tasty new beer while playing a game of “what’s been added since I was here last week”. This week it’s a large globe by the front door, and…. a couple of desserts.

Yes, up on the chalkboard there it was, a dessert listing, featuring a coconut cake with buttercream frosting (pretty much foolproof Villager-bait) and a chocolate bundt cake. Both from Grand Central, and each for $4 a slice. Bob slipped me a slice of the coconut cake which was delightful - although it gave my already bitter beer a wicked edge. Shaved coconut on the top there, Mrs. V!

Apparently Journeys will be getting a few dessert items from Grand Central, but there’s not a set menu - they’re getting whatever looks good, so it will keep us all on our toes. Had I know about this option, I might have gone for a glass of port and the chocolate cake instead of my beer - oh well, there’s always next week.

Neighbor Kathy, quickly becoming a regular correspondent, passes along a tip this morning about a story on NPR about an Icelandic publishing company (Dagsbrun, at Wikipedia) that is launching free papers in 10 US cities incorporating content from local bloggers. This growing intersection between blogs and “traditional” media has been an ongoing conversation for me for a while. Hillsdale activist Rick Siefert, of the Red Electric and I had a discussion on this subject at Village Coffee several months ago, as he laid out his plans for a more traditional reporting approach to neighborhood blogging, as opposed to my “hey, check out this cool place” school of journalism.

I can’t get a clean stream of this story, so I don’t know if Portland is included in Dagsbrun’s plans - I’ll update as soon as I can listen to this. Thanks, Kathy!

EDIT: Here’s a link to this story on WBUR (Boston) that includes a transcript. It’s their story, NPR picked it up for the national newscast.

Here’s the link to the story on NPR.org, although be warned - their streaming servers are performing very poorly this morning, likely due to the horrible events at VA Tech yesterday. I graduated from high school in Virginia, and a lot of my friends went to Tech, I’m pretty sure that at least one member of my high school circle teaches there. I’ve been to the dorm they’re talking about - I just can’t imagine…

This is going to start out like one of those “Penthouse” letters… “I never thought this would happen to me, but…”

In case, I’m referring to the act of writing this particular post.

But I gotta say it - Maplewood’s “Run for the Playground” messaging is seriously rubbing me the wrong way. Run for the Playground is the latest is a long string of fundraising activities to raise money for the new playground, a cause we fully support, and one we contributed to this past Saturday at the Native Plant Sale. It’s not the event that annoys me - it’s the language that’s coming home on the handouts with Jr. V. Particularly the line (in bold type, and a box, in case you miss it - capitalization is theirs) “Each family is asked to set a minimum FUNDRAISING GOAL of $100.”

Oh, and the top fundraiser in each class will get a prize! I remember stuff like that when I was in school. I was NOT the top fundraiser, to say the least, and my Mom was working like 3 jobs thanks, and needless to say I never much cared for the awards portion of these fundraising activities. But that was in high school. In case you missed it, Jr. V is six. As are many of his classmates, who all are getting this information again, since we all got informed about the minimum goal in another handout that came home about a week ago.

I’ll be honest - we decided that we’d give $50, and no thanks we would NOT be sending Jr. V out to raise funds from all our Maplewood district neighbors. So Jr. V has been giving me a hard time about not giving the full $100. Uh-huh - don’t get me started kid. I’m not some anti-commerce hippie by any means, but I guess I was innocently hoping that I’d have another year at least before Jr. V was being encouraged to develop his sales skills.

I’ve heard lots of variations on this complaint at various times in my life, and like I said, I never thought that I would be the one getting all annoyed about this sort of thing, but still - you should soften up this messaging a little Maplewood. $100 is a couple hours pay for me now, but I clearly remember being the kid whose family didn’t have the money for things like this, and I guess I’ve got some residual “issues” around that, eh? What about Jr. V’s friends who are in single parent households, or who just paid a massive tax bill - I don’t want my kid embarrassing any of them by aksing where their $100 is.

I get it OK, you don’t have enough money to stay open with all the bells and whistles. You know what, I don’t have enough money to keep putting Jr. V in daycare everytime school is closed for inservice days or whatever. It’s a balancing act that we’re ALL doing, particularly those who are not as well-off as my family,  so step off a bit.

Woof - I need a beer - oh it’s Monday night…. Let’s go to Journeys!

So we stopped by the Native Plant sale at Maplewood School Saturday morning. It was cold and misty, but crowded due to a baseball game and a nearby estate sale, which both contributed to a good turnout, according to our sources. We bought a native plant, an “Evergreen Huckleberry“, which is now spending some transitional time in a large pot on our front porch while we decide where it’s going to live for good.

On the way home from the sale, Jr. V asked me what a “native plant” is. I gave him a sort of half-assed explanation, because to be honest, I don’t know jack about plants or gardening. So for anyone out there who’s in the same boat as me, here’s a little information about native plants. This information is specific to Oregon, if you’re reading this post from somewhere out of state, you might want to check with your state’s Environmental Bureau or the equivalent.

The phrase “native plants”  often comes up in meetings of the neighborhood association, as one of the elements of “sustainable development”. The theory is this: plants that are native to a particular area can grow with a lot less human intervention, take less water and require no artificial fertilizers or chemical treatments to maintain. This helps maintain water quality since there’s less runoff and leaching of chemicals into streams and rivers.  The other half of this equation is the need to reduce or eliminate non-native species. Especially invasive species such as English Ivy, Himalayan blackberry and other things. Good thing we don’t have any kudzu out here - all you need to do is take a drive through the south for a while to see what can happen when a non-native plant gets out of control. As you may know, there are also very active groups in and around Portland working on these problems, and none more so than the No-Ivy League.

A huge amount of information can be found at the City of Portland’s Naturescaping For Clean Rivers section of Portland Online. This includes links to PDFs of a native plant poster, a guide to removing invasive species, a native plant selection guide and links to enroll in Naturescaping for Clean Rivers workshops.

So our purchase of this single plant is certainly not going to turn us into some sort of dirt-stained gardening family. My ambitions are pretty much limited to keeping the grass cut and trying a pumpkin patch this year, but we’ll see what happens to this little huckleberry bush and where it takes us.