Elf Sternberg

Omaha, Raen (nee Kouryou-chan) and I all went to Portland last weekend, and we did it without taking the car. Or any amount of luggeage that wouldn't fit on our backs. Everything had to fit in a backpack, and we were bringing our bicycles.

We left early Friday afternoon, scheduled for the 2:10pm train out of Seattle to Portland. Our first trick, after packing, was getting to the train station: a 3.5 mile ride to the Puget Sound Light Rail station by the airport, then a 35 minute ride into downtown. The light rail station and the train station are right next to each other.

I have to say that train rides are the most civilized way to travel. Unfortunately, we shared our train with a passel of twenty-something women who decided to drink and revel loudly in their escapades. They weren't particularly rude, just loud. We had headphones. The only disappointment on the train was the food; it was dull and bland, and Raen complained that the bread on her burger was mealy and kinda gross.

We arrived in Portland around 6:30. The ride to the hotel was only two miles but man, it felt like it was much longer than the 3.5 mile ride we'd done at the start of the trip. That's a classic illusion of travelling through a place you know well versus one you don't know at all.

We weren't roughing it at the DoubleTree Portland, but we hadn't intended to. After unpacking and changing into non-riding clothes, we took a bus to Division Street, a very hipster part of town. Our destination was the Pok Pok Thai restaurant, but when we got there the wait was over two hours. We went to their sister restaurant, a noodle shop named Sen Yai, right up the street. That was delicious! And really spicy, at least the one I had. Like a lot of the more twee Asian restaurants I've been to, a video screen played scenes from Thai media that were otherwise incomprehensible to ordinary Americans.

We had desert at Lauretta Jean's Pies. I had the Whiskey Peach. Couldn't really taste the whiskey, but the pie was tasty.

The ride back to the hotel was more adventuresome; the bus line we'd taken to get to Division Street was no longer running, so we ended up taking a larger circuit through Downtown. We got back around ten.

Saturday, we rode to Powells. Despite being an even longer ride, it felt shorter. I'm not sure what's going on there with the psychology, but I think we'd established that we could ride around Portland safely without getting lost.

Portland feels a lot like Seattle, only without the polish of recent tech universe pressure. I think that's a good thing. I like the feel of the place. It's much more lived in; it feels *proven*, made by human hands, in a way that Seattle often doesn't. On the other hand, nearby forest fires put a light haze and smell of smoke everywhere. It didn't make riding dangerous, just fragant.

Powells was amazing, but it always is. I bought three technical manuals. I just don't buy fiction in hardcover anymore unless I plan to keep it forever, and there aren't many books in that category, not with my shelves so full. Omaha and Raen also bought a ton of books. And I do mean a ton. On Sunday, when we rode back to the train station, we had to find a place to put them all, and the packing was damn challenging.

Lunch was at a place called Kenny & Zukes. A real Jewish deli, with real pastrami & rye. Raen and Omaha gave me their (real, Kosher, crisp!) pickles. Heaven.

On the ride back to the hotel, we passed by an authentic barcade which was all-ages until 5pm. Omaha and I went in and played our hearts out; I played 10 games straight of Robotron (they didn't have a Defender, dammit) and loved every one of them, almost setting the high score. The game was set insanely hard, 65,000 points for a new man! (Traditionally, it's 25,000.) Now I want to build a MAME cabinet!

Back at the hotel, Raen wanted a nap. Omaha and I went walking around for a few hours, then headed back. By the time we headed out, it was past nine. Our first choice for dinner was a little place named Petisco a few blocks away, but it was closing early. We were the first people to show up since 6pm, they said! We ended up at an Italian place named Pastini across the street, then back across the street again at a little place called Eb & Bean for frozen yogurt, which was tolerably less sweet than your usual suspect yogurt.

The hotel was hosting a model railroad association conference. The overwhelming impression of the attendees was that theyr were all white and all retired. There were few youngsters and no people of color at all.

Sunday, we packed and checked out, left our bags with the concierge, and walked to Voodoo Donughts. Raen naturally ordered the Gay Bar, a maple log decorated with a rainbow flag assortment of Froot Loops. After that, Omaha wanted to do something "different."

Portland has a series of "Bike Portland" events, in which the city closes off streets and lets only bicycles take a fairly large circuit through several neighborhoods. We rode to the nearest intersection, and joined in.

It was fun. We passed hundreds of people. Portland is very much a bicycle town, much moreso than Seattle. When we explain to people that we were from Seattle, they said, "But aren't your hills so much worse?" We allowed that they were, but that wasn't a reason not to ride. The entire ride took us past the noodle shop we'd eaten at Friday night, and up and down whole neighborhoods that, had we lived there, I might have been able to make sense of.

The most surreal event happened when we got back to the starting point. I hopped off my bike for a break, and a woman said, "I'm a friend of Charlie's" and shook my hand.

"That's, um, nice?" I said, utterly confused.

Then I heard someone say "Mr. Mayor!" and shake the hand of the man next to her. It was Charles Hales, the mayor of Portland. On a bicycle. With the tight spandex shorts and everything, doing his part to be part of the community and show his spirit. As we rode away, Omaha giggled and said, "I was good! I didn't ask him to come to the King County Democrats' Fundraiser next month."

We rode back to the hotel and collected our bags from the concierge, then rode to the train station. It was a lot easier this time.

The train was busier going North than it was heading South on Friday. This time, it was a passel of 20-something young *men*, still chatting away at the front of the car, loudly. The WiFi on the train is quite effective, although it did cut out in tunnels once in a while. For a quick trip between one state and the next, it's so much nicer than driving or plane.

The train ride and final bike ride back to the house weren't very dramatic. By then we were exhausted.

I think we'll do that again sometime. It's a nice way to spend a weekend. Pricey in some ways, cheaper than more relaxed in others. I'm sure if we booked a much cheaper hotel, we'd have saved a lot. But it was fun.

Since school is almost here, Omaha and I took Kouryou-chan to Wild Waves for one last summer experience last week.

Unfortunately, the day didn't start out well. After planning for almost two weeks what day I could take off, and busting our butts to make sure we were completely caught up professionally before deciding to run out on our jobs and play hooky for the day, Kouryou-chan announced she didn't want to go. After trying to reason with her, Omaha gave up and went downstairs to the office to get work done after all.

I'm afraid that I went into full-on Dad mode and laid it down for Kouryou-chan. What she had done was rude, because she knew what the plan was, and deciding the day-of that she didn't want to go without her sister or other peers was rude to her family, who had planned this so we could go as a family together. She was going to go down and apologize to her mother, and if she sounded contrite enough, we might go.

We went.

We had a good time. I can't tell if it's that my daughters are approaching their jailbait years, or if I'm already closing in on senescence, but jailbait just doesn't appeal to me all that much. I can't perv out anymore.

We brought lunch and ate out in our cars. Kouryou-chan's first ride was the big roller coaster at the far end of the park, followed by the log flume. We spent a lot of time in the wave pool, but Omaha and I wanted to do the slides, so there was a lot of waiting in line. Yeah, we even went into the giant toilet bowl Riptide, which always reminds me of a certain Dr. Fun cartoon

Sunburned, waterlogged, and tired, we went out to a restaurant for dinner, and fell into bed around 10, pausing only long enough to wash the chlorine out of hair and skin.

I had a blast last night at a Brony party. It was held at a local MakerSpace in Seattle's International District, thrown by a couple of friends of mine who are using the space for all sorts of organizational things.

Brony are adults who like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I'm sort-of an honorary Brony. Lauren Faust, the producer and lead artist for the current series, was also the lead for Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, and her sense of color and scene is unmatched by any other artist currently working in animation. MLP:FiM's backgrounds and gradients are jaw-droppingly good, and yeah, I'll admit that when it comes to the megatons of crap on TV, an MLP:FiM episode is an 18-minute burst of relaxation.  I don't addict to it like some people, but I'll admit to preferring it to another episode of Dexter. I hope someday to be able to draw with Inkscape backgrounds as good as Lauren's, and use them for a long-simmering website idea I've never felt confident enough to try and do.  The vector style has hit a dead end, and I think some of Lauren's art styles would fit in well to push it in a good direction.

Omaha, Storm, Kouryuou-chan and I ate pizza, watched "Dragonshy," "Sonic Rainboom," and "Party of One." The last of which was obviously a Ren & Stimpy homage, and it was hard not to laugh as Pinkie Pie lost all touch with reality. When she started interacting with rocks and bags of flour, the backgrounds changed to those surreal washes Krikfalusi used whenever Ren started losing his mind. Poor Pinkie Pie, I never realized how hard she struggled with her schizophrenia. And Rarity should just forget the lipstick: she does not tart up well.

I ran into FallenPegasus, who lives with Bronies and a little girl who's a serious MLP:FiM fan herself so he got dragged along.  He showed me his new phone, and I experienced a moment of technolust.  Now I have to look into getting my hands on a new Nexus.

It has been an insane couple of days here at the Villa.

Back in late November, Omaha ordered three new bedsets for the children and ourselves, so now Storm will have her own room and no longer share with her sister. Both are big enough, and have enough stuff, that their own bedroom is too crowded. Omaha and I haven't needed room for either of them in our bed on a regular basis, so we're swapping the king for a queen, which will give us room to move our clothes, which we've been keepinf in the space bedroom, into our own, and Storm can move in and make the spare her own.

But this means that the spare room must be cleaned, and Storm must move her stuff into it. We also got rid of their bunk bed already; we gave it to a couple who was freaking out because one of them had just won temporary custody of his kids and needed bedding for them by Monday, so there was a flurry of activity to break the bed down and get it into their SUV.

Kouryou-chan had rehearsal Friday and Saturday, and so did Omaha and I since we're on stage again. Sunday we had our D&D game, and Storm had her own performance for The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, so there was coordination madness as we tried to get everything done.

Monday, there was the dress rehearsal. It did not go as well as planned, but we all looked marvelous and not nearly as dorky as I'd feared. Omaha looks better than I do. I know that Kouryou-chan and her peers have to wear the lipstick and eye shadow so their faces are clearly outlined and visible to the people in the back of the auditorium who forgot their spectacles, but up close on stage, it just looks a little creeptastic.

Somewhere in there I spent time on the roof of Kouryou-chan's school, one of our shovels broke, I had to get under the kitchen sink to replace a leaking feed line. And a full-time work schedule. Can I have a break soon?

Caught up with Omaha's mother and went to breakfast. The girls have now eaten at that all-American greasy spoon, a Waffle House. The waffles were fluffy but uninteresting, the eggs were eggs, the coffee was so-so. I haven't had a decent cup of coffee in Florida that I haven't made myself.

I taught Kouryou-chan what a syllogism is.

Omaha's mother drives like a Floridian. "Rude, Fast, and proud of it."

We spent the day at the beach again. Kouryou-chan took a few steps into the water and then screamed. "My foot, my foot!" She started crying as I hauled her out onto the beach and took a look. She'd been hit by a jellyfish. Fortunately we were only a block from a major first-aid station, and we hauled her there.

A very (very!) hunky life-guard in a tight-fitting teenytiny red speedo (oh, my, I do believe I almost got the vapors) directed us to another, less hunky but oh-my-lords blonde cutie-with-scruff EMT who looked over Kouryou-chan's foot and pronounced she would live. He sprayed her with a product called JellySquish (basically, concentrated lidocane), which you can no longer buy "but any lidocane burn stuff is good enough." He told us that jellyfish venom breaks down very rapidly in the presence of heat and acid, so pouring the warmest water you can stand, and hot vinegar presses, will make the pain go away fastest.

Had dinner at a restaurant called the Lime & Leaf. Sorta snooty Thai place, lots of salt in their food, but definitely delicious Thai by any standard. I am under the impression that my family's tastes are distinctly "exotic" to Omaha's mother, what with Thai and Indian and so forth as staples.

We were pleased to leave the kids with Omaha's mother for the night. She wanted to get to know them better, and that gave Omaha and I an evening to sleep quietly.

After a dance rehearsal and a lovely dinner at home, Omaha, Kouryou-chan, Stormy and I all raced down to the light rail station to head into town to attend the 2010 Seattle Men's Choir Christmas show. One of the nicest things about the light rail is that it runs right under the largest concert hall in the city, so we were able to transition from the train to the event without having to experience the wet chill outdoors.

We got there with just a few minutes to spare, only to find our seats taken! It was then that I noticed our tickets had the wrong date-- and the date on them was impossible. We had a conflicting event. I pointed this out to Omaha, and we stormed down to the front desk.

There had been a lot of problems with TicketMaster, and this was apparently one of them: consistently hearing wrong dates and schedules for over-the-phone orders.

The usher and house manager, bless their souls, found us four seats in an otherwise sold-out theater, and down in the front! We liked our traditional box seats, but these were so close we could see everything.

The show itself was wonderful. We were treated to six crossdressed showgirls with falsies and fabulous leotarded legs while treated to a "Vegas-Style" "Winter Wonderland," then a Hanukkah song, and then the amazing "12 Days of Christmas" mashup which features twelves singers doing a round, that then becomes confused and comedic and wondeful. At one point, there was an amazing full-chorus Christmas filk of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." The guitarist in the tiny orchestra must have waited his whole life just to play that one riff.

Several medieval carols, one modern carol, and then an incredibly silly "Toy Shop" singing skit.

The sing-along was fun, the gospel "competition" amazing. They performed "Silent Night," which always ends with a silent, sign-language always pass through the lyrics. The audience started clapping when the chorus went silent, and I said to Omaha, "Hasn't anyone ever seen this before?"

There was a modern, almost evangelical "Joy to the World," followed finally by a filk-y "Bad Romance" mashup about gay marriage and Christmas and goddess knows what else. It was a strong, final political statement, the same one the choir did last year.

The train-ride home was late, and we were tired. But the show was wonderful for all that.

I was disappointed by the injection of GLEE into this year's theme. Yes, I know, it's probably one of the best things that's happened to gays and lesbians in recent years, and it fits with the Seattle Men's Chorus vision of themselves, but it felt like it served a corporate master's needs more than it did the gay community's. It felt like pandering.

But the chorus looked like they were having a good time. Benaroya Hall found Omaha and I a Christmas miracle, and I'm glad we had a chance to see it.

Someone should totally come up with a line of beer called "Fepic Ale."

Last night as an experiment I decided to make Chinese hot-pot, creating a large spread of briefly seared but otherwise raw steak and chicken sliced very thinly, along with another of zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower heads, and a couple of sesame-based sauces, one sweet, one salty. For Kouryou-chan's sake, I also threw in a traditional honey mustard-- although not as good as usual; I didn't decrystallize the honey beforehand, and I used mayonnaise instead of sour cream. She didn't seem to mind. The broth I used was a quart of my home-made chicken stock, lightly salted with Thai fish sauce.

It took forever to eat, and everyone got to dip their spears into the hot pot. We were at the table for an hour, with plenty of time to talk about school, or work, or whatever. Which makes for a very nice family ritual. I may try for something more esoteric next time, and a better selection of sauces. I'm big on making sauces and dressings myself these days, especially since I have mastered the fine art of emulsification.

Just like every year, the local ballet dance studio put on its big performance at the local performing arts center. Ms. Moss is a believer in getting kids on stage, making the rehearse and perform for an audience, and getting them used to the idea that hundreds of people are staring at them as they do both solo and group work.

Kouryou-chan is in the pre-pointe ballet, and will be for at least another two years, but she's made huge strides in her dancing abilities and is now working on her consistency.

I forgot my glasses for the performance, so it took me almost a minute to even recognize my kid when her group came out for their part in the ballet. I couldn't recognize her because she was so pitch-perfect on stage, she looked like she'd grown an entire foot taller in the time since I'd dropped her off to get ready for the performance. Kouryou-chan has always had trouble with her arms and keeping still, but during her dance she was gracile and perfect, absolutely in sync when she needed to be.

During the finale, she was much more herself: sloppy arm work, fidgety and looking around. I guess they didn't rehearse that nearly as hard as they had the main routine. But she did fine even there; many of her peers were just as ready to be done as she was.

The ballet included a lot of solos by the graduating class-- five young woman now going on to other things. At least one of them ought to go pro; Mariko is so graceful and delicate, and so well-rehearsed, she'll do well anywhere as a dancer.

The performance is a hodge-podge of music pieces from the longer ballet, assembled to meet the needs of everyone from adult classes down to the toddlers. There was one scene where a girl in the littlest class, barely two years old, freaked out, started crying, and then gathered herself up and kept performing anyway. Yet the teacher still rescued her off the stage.

We gathered Kouryou-chan up after she was out and took her to The Cheesecake Factory for a mega sugar overload. Note to self: the "strawberry shortcake" there isn't your routine home-made thing; it's a megacalorie monstrosity with ice cream added.

Christopher of the Wolves had an ideal spot for his own busking, right in dead center of the main drag, across from the CD store and between the food tents and the Fischer Green stage. He was good enough that I almost broke my embargo on New Age music, or on impulse buying at Folklife. He performed on five instruments at once: two foot gongs, two hand-pounded steel drums, and a didgeridoo. And the music was quite impressive. Kouryou-chan put a dollar into his open hat.

This was a small circle of folk singers set aside in a room. They sang songs about how war is bad and peace is good. It was just like filk music, except without the irony, so painfully earnest, and so painfully amateurish, that I could only take a little bit before I had to retreat.

Despite the almost constant drizzle all day long, these guys were enthusiastic and happy, and did a fine job of continually entertaining the crowd. They earned a busking dollar from me.

The Conjugal Visitors. The music was pretty good, but the name was fabulous.

I don't know who these guys were, but they were playing Axel F pretty well.

Fallen Pegasus and I went over to hear the chiptek. We were there only long enough to hear Fighter X, which Fallen Pegasus assured me wasn't chiptek but burner, complete with the "saw your head in half when you're high" distortion in the bass.

Recess Monkey is a band for children. Their songs were things like "Build a Fort" and "Moonboots" and other stuff that kids would enjoy. Most of the kids were a lot younger than Kouryou-chan, but she still enjoyed it and still got the point of it all.