The Multnomah Villager

Yeah, OK, I’d be updating more often if I wasn’t so crazy busy at the day job - you know the drill….

There’s a few things I ought to put out there…

1. Multnomah Neighborhood Association meeting next Tuesday night at 7PM at the Multnomah Art Center. There will be special guests. Metro Councillor Robert Liberty, and Multnomah Distrit Police Officer Z Lai.
2. Journeys continues to live up to my expectations. I’m pretty much a fixture on Monday nights at this point ’round about 9PM.
3. First Friday is tomorrow (today?), and if the weather stays like it is right now, it’s going to be a mob scene around here.
4. Apparently we have a new flower shop in the Village. Kelly Reed sens the following note regarding her new shop located in with M Antiques. “I am a new small business opening up here in the Village. It is called “Kelly’s Flowers” and resides within M Antiques. I am waiting for a sunny day to do a Grand Opening but I do have flowers and just set up a nice bouquet for Annie Blooms for a special request”. Good luck Kelly. It’s been awhile since we had a good flower shop. Am I remembering correctly that there was one in the Crooked Red House?
5. Switch Shoes will be celebrating the beginning of their second year in the Village on Thursday April 12th from 6-10PM. DJ, refreshments and sale prices that last through the weekend.
6. To my amusment there are three consecutive entries in the “Police Blotter” section of this month’s Connection that end with some variation of the phrase, “Officers were unable to locate the dog.”
7. Next Saturday, April 14th, Maplewood Elementary is holding a native plant sale at the school from 10-2. Proceeds help to fund the future new playground.

• Have you been to the Multnomah Village Post’s website lately? Neither had I, but it’s been freshened up a bit and is worth a visit. There’s a nice article on there about the history of Maplewood School
• Speaking of Maplewood, we went down for the “art night” last week where the scene was pretty chaotic, but Jr. V had a good time. We ran into Shawn Levy and talked for a bit, Shawn having just returned from the Sundance festival. (Read about his advenutres on his ‘blog, at this link). Many familiar faces in the Maplewood Gym. I was back at the school for a bit a few days ago to take some pictures in Jr. V’s class. It seems we’ve been volunteered for the “yearbook committee”, which reminds me that I have a CD to burn.
• Tomorrow is first friday! Drop in to Sip D’Vine and wish them happy birthday (5), and it looks like the pet supply store is open.
• I’ve noticed lights on in (the future) Journey’s Pub (Which I’ve posted about before) so one would assume that the opening day, or evening as it were, is coming soon. I do hope that this turns out to be a cool place, since it sounds like the sort of place I might like to hang out. And I’m in the mood, I’ve been watching Michael Palin’s “Himalaya” the last couple of nights, and now I’m all in the mood to go to Bhutan. Or maybe just Smith Rock. Still….
• Anybody know what’s going into the large now-empty space next to Switch Shoes?
• How long is it going to take for “said”, whatever that is going to be, to finish moving into the Village Yoga space? Opening a business is not easy, true, but this has been one l-o-n-g prep process, no?
• Oh and while I’m on the subject, I can’t decide whether I think “Little Shop of Drawers” is a name worth a smile, or an eye-roll. Kind of depends on when you ask me. Buy me something, Seymour?
• Anyone see the great full moon tonight?

Well, the weather and my schedule have finally cooperated to give us a nice First Friday in the Village. Jr. V’s at a sleepover (we’ll see how long that lasts) so for the first time in recent memory, I could go to First Friday and NOT go to the toy store (sorry, Thinker Toys, it’s only a matter of time….) In fact I started out at Sip D’Vine, where I picked up what hopefully will be a nice bottle of red as a thank you gift for a co-worker who has spent all day saving my behind. Canadian, eh? well, not so long ago I had never heard of Chilean wine either, and Aussie wines were merely the stuff of Monty Python parody, so we’ll give this Canuck Merlot the benefit of the doubt.

There’s music (and found object art) all over tonight.. There’s flamenco-ish guitar is the wine store, a pedal steel outside Village Beads, the two young violinists (Ok one was probably a viola) outside Acapulco’s and Jazz coming out of O’Connors. I dropped into Annie Bloom’s to pick up a (trade paperback, yay!) copy of 1776 for my Dad’s birthday, which was ages ago… and then walked up to see how the outdoor cinema was looking.

Despite this clumsily patched-together panorama shot, it was looking pretty good! As I suspected, they had the list of upcoming movies there (see below) and if you hurry - you can catch the tail end of “Shrek”. There’s quite a turnout, and perfect weather - considering it was like 40 degrees last night. The website is multnomahoutdoorcinema.org, by the way.

The movie list is as follows:

• Friday July 7th - Shrek
• Friday, July 21st - E.T.
• Friday, August 4th - Raiders of the Lost Ark (Jr. V and I will definitely be at this one
• Saturday, August 19th - TBA (they’re taking votes)

Mrs. V will be happy that I voted for “Babe” - the Citizen Kane of talking pig movies, but it looks like Star Wars is making a strong running - this I’d be Ok with of course.

I ahve to give props to Riversgate Church who has made a generous donation of the use of their A/V setup for the outdoor cinema. Say what you will about these new-style churches, and I ahve, but this is a seriously generous thing. Rental of hard-core A/V projection equipment doesn’t come cheap. I’m a video/interactive producer in “real life” and I’m painfully familiar with these costs. Thanks!

A nice evening for all, it appears.

Well, Friday night found me, Jr. V, Mrs. V and Mrs. V’s mom wandering up the hill to First Friday. Jr. V and grandma went first, headed straight for the toy store and Mrs. V and I walked up 36th and turned down the hill into the Village. Just in time for some illegal parking drama with the plice on the scene. We stopped into Switch Shoes, which is now open and perused their colorful and funky collection of women’s footwear and accessories with several other folks.

Then we wandered down the bloack to find out where the rest of the family was, it was no surprise to find Jr V and Grandma at Thinker Toys, we checked out the newest Playmobil stuff and then moved on out. Headed across the street to Village Beads and browsed a bit - Mrs. V was intrigues by their class schedule - since Village Beads doesn’t have a website - I’m liable to post this later. For some reason I have a weakness for bead stores, as well as open aire fish markets, but there you are.

We walked back towards the main drag, headed for the candy store but ducked into Pagenwood to poke through all the antiques. Jr V found some colorful headgear….

I was thrilled to discover a full four-bottle carrier from the old Senn’s Drive-In Dairy, which if you’ve been around long enough, you may remember. Man, my grandparents got ALL their milk from Senn’s. I remember going to the one on Powell, but mostly the one out in Milwaukie on the way to Te-Bo’s. They had GREAT ice cream. I may go back and buy those bottles…

Anyway, we popped back out and walked down to Sweets to get a candy or two. The Village seemed quieter than usual on First Friday, suprising really, considering that this is the first DRY First Friday we’ve had in who knows how long. We all selected a few candies and munched ‘em up. Sweets has a great collection of hard-to-find and nostalgic stuff. For you Canadian candy fans, they’ve got Violet Crumbles and Coffee Crisp. For us old-schoolers there’s wax lips, Necco’s, etc. For the REALLY old-schoolers, they’ve even got horehounds, which I will NEVER understand. I think my Dad’s attraction to horehounds was largely due to the fact the me and my brother wouldn’t touch them with a 10 foot pole. I was pleased to discover maple sugar, which I crave leftover from a New England childhood.

Stopped into Topanien, and kept our shopping spree going. Yes, we were buying odds and ends the whole time.

Then Annie Bloom’s where Jr. V had me read him a book that Mrs. V announced was the SAME book he had just wanted read to him the last time they were there, just a day or so before. Conveniently for him, it was on sale, and now it’s upstairs.

And that was enough. Nice evening. Quiet on the streets, but that was nice too.

Next month’s (next week’s) First Friday (December 2nd) kicks off the holiday season in Multnomah Village with many of the retailers and other businesses adding special holiday themed events to the usual slate of First Friday revels. There’s posters about this up around town, and the schedule’s printed in the Connection. I’m going to quote their version and post this info for those of you who may not get this paper or see one of the posters before Friday. Note that I’m not typing everyone’s address since once you’re in the Village you can pretty much find all these people.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2nd
5-9PM unless noted

• Horse-drawn Carriage Rides 6-8PM. Load at Key Bank, 35th and Capitol Hwy. Donations accepted.
• The Savory Chefs offer tasty treats for the holidays, Sip d’Vine
• Watercolors by Ania Kocerek-Williams. Reception at Beyond Borders, continues Saturday.
• Trunk Show of custom jewelry by Sue Huston at Village Frame & Gallery, 2-9 PM, continues Saturday 10AM - 4PM
• Mediterranean Food & Turkish Coffee samples, live music and door prizes 6-9PM at Indigo Traders. Holiday sweets continue Saturday
• Open house with refreshments, door prizes and face painting for children at Fusion Cut and Color Salon, continues Saturday
• Enter a Holiday Raffle to win prizes; proceeds to support Neighborhood House’s Emergency Food Box Program. [NOTE: I've seen these boxes all over, but have not seen any entry forms yet]

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3rd
Enjoy Strolling Carolers and street performers.

• Breakfast with Santa, 8:30-10:30AM, Lucky Lab Public House
• get your face painted while waiting to vidit Santa at O’Connors Annex, noon -2PM
• Crazy Quilt demonstration and sample sale at Fibers in Motion, 1-2PM
• Personalized beaded wire ornaments - Free - at Village Beads noon-3PM
• Learn to make a Yule Log, 1-3PM, Jacqueline’s Found and Fabulous
• Kid’s ornament craft activity, 1-3PM, Thinker Toys

Now that sounds like a full slate of activity to me. Avoid the malls and come over to the Village this Friday to add some local flavor to your Christmas shopping this year.

This is the hippocampus hanging outside of Peggy Sunday’s.

So tonight turned out to be the first “First Friday” that I was actually in town since I started this ‘blog. Jr. V and I went up the hill to walk down the main drag, and stop into a few stores. For those of you who don’t live here, First Friday is the night during which virtually all of the stores in the village stay open until at leat 8PM. It’s quite a draw. We started off at Annie Bloom’s to check out a few books and for me to sneak insome reconnaisance for Jr. V’s upcoming birthday. We headed down the street a bit and dropped in at Thinker Toys (what are the odds) where Jr. V was thrilled to find a few “limited edition” Halloween Playmobil figures that were within his budget. He was even more thrilled when the friendly staff person let him trade in his just-bought Halloween Playmobil for the even cooler one in the window.

We headed across the street and dropped into Village Bead, which I’ve been meaning to visit for a while and will get it’s own post shortly. Then back through the village on the other side of the street. There was a guy sauteeing a huge pan of mushrooms outside Sip D’Vine, and a nice glass of merlot was calling to me - unfortunately so was Jr. V, so we had to pass the inviting wine store by.

Every store, restaurant and bar looked pretty busy tonight. Especially Renner’s which seemed to be hosting a congregation of tough-looking scooter riders (yes, there is such a thing).

Then it was the short walk home after another nice night in the village. You should definitely make plans to stop by First Friday next month, when the pre-holiday-season preparations will certainly be in full swing!