May 8, 2022: Some Good SIgns -

The people who lived down the alley in Casa Irresponsible moved away, and a nice young family bought the place and began fixing it up.  

Last week, there was a Bouncy Castle on the front lawn, the antithesis of what the Irresponsibles used to strew about, so things are on the upswing. Maybe it's going to be Casa Bouncy now. 

My favorite café and place-where-I’ve-hung-my-paintings-twice, Bread & Ink, has reopened for dinner four nights a week, so I took myself up there and ordered a feast and a drink, and talked to the waiter for ages. Same waiters! Great drink, great dinner! The tables still wobble! 

Some changes, though: the walls used to be burnt orange, and now they are a genteel grey. The floor was fifty years old, and now it’s new. The owners sold the place, but to their son, hooray, hence the same waiters and relatively unchanged menu.

There were exquisite photos on the wall, and I had the nerve to ask if they were making a list of folks who wanted to hang art there. Not now, no. Because that new owner? The son of the old owners? The one who kept the wonderful waiters? Well, he’s a photographer, and those are his photos. Ah, well.

My pal Kathryn has been listening to me mope about in search of a café or coffee shop that will let me hang paintings for a month, and she finally suggested I write to the people who have Insomnia Coffee, four locations out in Hillsboro and Beaverton, and one in Cannon Beach. I wrote and sent thumbnails, and they put me on the list, and asked which location I preferred. I said Hang On One Minute, and went to four coffee shops in an afternoon. (Not Cannon Beach. But some day.)

I thought it would be rude not to order anything. So I was effervescent by Coffee Shop #4!

Anyway, I put in my top choices, and am waiting to hear back. It will be a great thrill to take some paintings on a field trip – after a long pandemic, the studio is stuffed.

My last show of paintings (at B&I) was inspired by the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, an event that undid me, despite the fact that I, too, like beer. I longed to be surrounded by supportive females. I have no skill at portraying people, so I painted sixteen portraits of dogs, and hung them on every wall.

They were all female, (I painted them, and I say so), and I called the result my Resting Bitch Face series. 

God alone knows what I may paint now. And that’s all I’m saying about the Supreme Court today.

Today is Mother’s Day! I had a chat with my daughter, daughter-in-law, and mother-in-law, and also texts and chats with a bunch of family and friends. Some are new moms, some have no mom any more, or have no mom nearby, or have an old and ailing mom. One friend, just this year, was found by a half-sister (surprise!) and then got to meet her biological mom, who was, alas, too demented to remember bearing my friend, but awfully chipper to have had a visit.

In other words, I know a lot of people with complicated feelings about Mother’s Day. I decided to celebrate at the pho place, and do some people-watching.  I can report that many a mom and many a grandma chose to go for pho. And it was delicious.