Portland, September 2010: Day Four

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Wedding camaraderie continued to roll along its merry way that evening at the rehearsal dinner picnic!

But once again, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at day's break...

...or actually, well into the morn. (Our actual morning prior to this photo consisted of an early rise and shine, followed by a leisurely stroll a dozen blocks down to a Starbucks on Hawthorne, and a nice meander back.)

But now it was later that same morning, Ayize and I hopped into Jo Jo's car and he drove us back to Liz's house, this time for a jolly Evanstonians-in-town-for-the-wedding brunchly gathering, courtesy of maid-of-honor and Hostess Extraordinaire, Lizzy. Good times!

En route, I snapped this photo of my henna tattoo. It looked really light but I was told that it would darken nicely just in time for the wedding. I wanted a photo for comparison's sake.

Arrival. I love Lizzy's front door!

Harp students, have a seat (all others must remain standing).

Lizzy, cooking up a storm, in her lovely sunlit kitchen, and the bride-to-be soaking up the delicious scents nearby. Man, between Liz and Stephanie (and whoever else assisted, hopefully I'm not leaving anyone out), a veritable feast for a houseful of people was produced. Plates and plates of pancakes dripping with thick, juicy berries of all kinds; coffee, cream and sugar; frittatas loaded with delicious eggs, cheese and veggies; and a bunch of other stuff I know I'm forgetting now, because I was kind of busy running around after Mister Destructo to pay too much attention to the well-laden table. Extra berries were put out for the flapjacks, but he hijacked them while I wasn't watching and ended up eating a goodly portion at one point (delayed apologies, Lizzy - consider this my covert confessional).

Anyway, once again, I'm running ahead of the photographic timeline. So let me regress...

Upon our arrival, as I was busily meeting and greeting all present, Ayize set to work "un-cleaning" all of the markers that he and Jo Jo had put away the night before. Then he made me a lovely drawing (see background), which terrified me, as he did it upon something that looked serious and wedding-ish. Noting my terror, he quickly "re-cleaned."

I looked closer at his picture. There were a bunch of numbers written in various scripts on the piece of paper he'd just used as his easel, and I made a mental note to corner Karen at some point to apologize, and also to inquire what amends I might make in reparation for his errant graffiti.

Amidst all my angst, he grinned proudly with great satisfaction at his picture of a - what is that again, honey?

"Choo-choo, mama."

"I thought so, sweetie, it looks just like a choo-choo!"

Florence and Marty's sweet baby girl was playing happily on her blanket. Ayize approached and shared his bathtub squirter trains with her. A-ha...baby crush resoundingly confirmed. It's not every little girl who gets the honor of playing with beloved Thomas and Percy!

I felt exceedingly useless. Lizzy was just starting up the griddles, and I have a kind of a brown thumb when it comes to cooking, so I thought it best that I stay far far far away from anything remotely resembling food prep. But I wanted to help! What to do, what to do...

Liz, kind lady that she is, came to my rescue by claiming that cream for coffee was needed. (More likely, she just felt badly for me and my incompetent attempts at assisting, no matter how ineffectual, so she gave me an unassailably easy task to handle.) Hurrah! Ayize and I were off To Be Of Help. We were feeling quite important as we made our way to the local corner store, a few blocks away. However, before we'd got even a half a block away, we came across this very unusual item which required close inspection.

A spectacular, gaping hole in the sidewalk, directly in our path!

First, Thomas entered The Cavern of Mystery but emerged unscathed (phew), then it was Percy's turn to investigate. He, too, came out unhurt. Ayize got down on hands and knees and peered deep into the darksome depths. Finally, after a bit of discussion involving all four of us explorers, he came to the conclusion that it was safe for Mama to proceed over this yawning crevasse. I proceeded, pantomiming great caution, and trying to refrain from rolling my eyes.

Whatever would I do without my little superhero around?

(Probably complete simple tasks a lot faster, for one thing.)

I made a mental note to self: return from store on the other side of the street.

We made it to the store successfully, found the cream, checked the date, paid for it, and left the store. I was feeling uber-helpful.

And then, without warning, fire and brimstone broke loose about a half a block away from the store. Ayize looked down at his right hand, holding Thomas, and his steps slowed. I tugged on his other hand to hurry him up. A mental vision came to me in my desperation as I realized that he was about to put on the brakes: I saw everyone sitting around in silence, imminently requiring caffeine, conversation stalled, universal bated breath, as all awaited this blessed cream.

The brakes was then putted on. And his eyes traveled slowly up his left arm to his left hand, to where it was held firmly in my hand, and suddenly, the realization simultaneously dawned on us both that...

PERCY WAS MISSING!

Aaaaaaaaaaaack!!!

Call out FEMA, the troops, the freaking Guardian Angels. People, we have officially entered Red Level Alert.

Back we went to the store. Meltdown 2010 was going in full effect. Did I mention that until somewhere around mid-August, I was the lucky parent of the world's officially most-chill-kid. Unflappable. Able to keep his calm amidst even the most chaotic of circumstances.

Yeah...

Anyone know what happened to that kid? Has anyone seen him??

This tear-dripping tornado of toddler angst was still a pretty new thing to me, and this massive meltdown was waaaay out of my league. I made some half-hearted attempts at soothing, whilst carting him about my shoulders and head in something vaguely resembling a firemen's carry (in an attempt to avoid furiously-thrashing limbs and their deadly accuracy) as I headed back into the store, feeling like an idiot.

The Korean storekeeper at the counter looked at us with nothing short of horror as we entered in a total turbulent cloud of sturm und drang. I'm sure he wanted to kick us out, and I was unable to explain what I was doing over the noise emanating from my Ayize-Doppelganger, so I simply set to the task at hand: searching over, under, around, and every-other-which-way remotely possible for the stupid train. He had unfortunately wandered over to play by a storage area near the "Employees Only" door as I paid for the cream earlier, and he'd been holding both trains when he started towards it, so I searched there. You have to understand, though, that that whole area was crowded and cluttered with every type of box, crate, pushcart, discarded plastic wrap, carton, and old packing material you can imagine. Stuff was stacked like 4 and 6 feet high, I kid you not. Percy could have been anywhere. I began to look and hunt and squat down and peer all over this mess. The dude at the counter looked frozen, as if I was an undercover OSHA inspector about to cite him for the filthiest and most-cluttered, publicly-accessible storage area of all Oregon.

I gave up after five minutes, frustrated, humiliated by the looks of the other irritated patrons of the store. Was this day almost over? Could it really only be 9 o'clock in the morning??

We headed outside and Ayize, realizing with sudden clarity that Percy was not on the No-Train-Left-Behind list, switched gears instantly - from tantrumming toddler to heartbroken kid. He went all silent and his eyes pooled over and tears began to overflow from both bottom lids like overfilled bathtubs. Worse, he did this kind of noiseless crying - just a pathetic shaking of the shoulders - then went all boneless on the sidewalk in front of the store.

I tried to scoop him up but it was like gathering a pile of jelly beans.

Oh. My. God.

A dude - by this, I mean a rather large adult male! - wheeled up on what was clearly a kid's BMX-type bike and shouted, in the understatement of the decade, "That kid is having ooooone baaaaaaad day!" The guys hanging around the outside of the storefront laughed. I started to laugh a little hysterically, too - I couldn't help myself. It was all just so ridiculously dramatic. Parenting is like, 99.99% awesome, but sometimes it's also .01% Your Worst Fucking Nightmare.

Back in we went, me with the boneless-silent-shaker-waterworks slung under my arm like a sack of potatoes. The hunt re-commenced, and after what seemed like ages, the storekeeper came up next to me and gestured to an area of old Pepsi crates, stacked chest-high on me. "He playing there before."

I leaned over as much as the height of the crates would allow and peered down. The lighting was bad, but in the shadows on the dusty floor, I suddenly made out Percy's stupidly-grinning mug leering up at me.

An emotionally-battered, very-chastened, I-learned-my-lesson, I-got-my-beloved-Percy-back-but-I'm-still-not-ready-to-crack-a-smile toddler stalked back to Liz's house a few feet behind me. We were unable to hold hands, as he refused to let go of Percy for even just one moment, not even to be released into Mommy's very-reliable grasp.

That's okay; I got it. I was two once, too. Learning the harder lessons of life ain't no walk in the park.

Anyway, to his credit, he's never been a careless kid with his toys, so let us hope that this was the first - and last! - episode of its kind. I don't know if my psyche could handle a redux.

Back at the house, Ayize cooled off with snacks and juice while I watched the baby reaching for Karen's plate. She was frustrated at her inability to grab the food, but easily distracted by her baby toy.

Sigh.

I would be lying if I said that, in that moment, I didn't feel a bit of great grief for those long-ago days!

Snack and juice down the hatch, and my happy toddler was once again present and accounted for. In his favor, I must say that the kid does bounce back damn quick!

He eyed his wee crush from across the room, and I saw him quickly stash Thomas and Percy in my diaper bag. It was the funniest moment - you could see that he was dead serious about not taking any chances on losing either one of them ever again.

Then he rummaged about some more and came up with a couple Matchbox cars. Those, I suppose, were deemed much more expendable, because he cheerfully proffered one to the baby to play with a moment later.

"C'mon, baby. Take it, for you!"

She politely accepted. Later, she told me all about how flavorful this particular truck was LOL!

Meanwhile, Lizzy served up the first few plates (I told you I'd got ahead of myself earlier) in the background, while Ayize waylaid her with a long story about the balloons in the "HOT" fireplace, and instructed her to be careful. I had to translate, which was no easy task.

Food was up. Everyone gathered for the delicious grub. (Thanks again, Lizzy and Stephanie!)

Bob and Jo Jo stood off to the side, playing with their iPhones and doing funny video walkie-talkies.

Soon afterwards, Karen prepared to head out to run some wedding-related errands. First, though, I caught her attention to apologize for Ayize's earlier artistic incident. She informed me that those papers were simply trial runs (phew!), as she and Liz were working on number placards for the tables at the wedding reception. They were running out of time and creative energy and could use some help, as a matter of fact.

COOLIO BROWN! Finally, I had found an - albeit small - niche to offer some real assistance towards the wedding. I was thrilled to be of some help, and Liz and Karen seemed truly relieved at the offer.

Karen offered just a few very basic parameters (actual words: "Anything is fine!") and she was off. Oh, dear. I began to pray that I could create something that would suitably rise to the occasion.

I perused her available art supplies - a gold Sharpie, a few pieces of cardstock - searching for some inspiration. Meanwhile, Ayize stood beside me, doing...wait, what was he doing all this time? He was so ----- quiet. With rising dread, I turned my head to look at him, and saw he was wolfing down an entire huge slice of chocolate cake that was sitting on the table dangerously close to all the precious table-placard supplies, a leftover delicacy from last night's revelries. EGADS! I snatched up all the stuff and quickly moved it to one of the windowsills, out of harm's way, then watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as he piled huge forkfuls of hardened, decadent cake into his mouth - using a leftover fork as well - in his haste to mash it all in before his mother told him to stop or removed the booty.

Then, with cheeks as full as a chipmunk's in autumn, he dashed behind Liz's curtain and hid. For the next few minutes, all I heard was the sound of his methodical chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing. He must have been working on that thing mouthful by steady mouthful, all whilst storing the bulk of the piece in the rest of his cheek pouches.

Well, no one ever accused my kid of not being resourceful!

Note the betraying crumb by his ankles, proof positive of the guilty party.

I stayed as silent as I possibly could and after a looooooooong moment, he emerged from the curtain, believing himself to have safely hidden his cakely crime. Imagine his surprise as his head popped into view and I was standing right there in his face, camera at the ready.

"Surprise, son!"

He erupted into mad giggles and dashed away.

I gathered the placard material and bagged it to take back to Jo Jo's house for later. When I next found Ayize, he was flirting madly with the baby again. Marty was snapping photos.

Here, you can see her eagerly reaching for him...

...and he happily ran to her and started smooching her adorable little socklets!

This kid loves babies more than any other toddler I've ever met. Did I mention that he keeps asking if so-and-so is "his" baby, and that he "want baby"? I can only imagine the shock of the reality if his dream was ever to come true...LOL!

A flirting session with the sweet girl's feet ends up with him doubled up on the floor, showing off his own tootsies to his admiring audience.

The baby was clearly impressed.

Later, we rambled off for a walk to the playground by Liz's house at MLK Elementary. As we approached the school, we passed the dumpsters out back, and from one of the recycling bins, about a zillion small plastic stacking pieces had spilled out and come to rest all over the sidewalk.

Do you remember those dreams you had as a kid where you were out walking and came across quarters, nickels and dimes all over the street, littering the curbs, laying across front lawns? No? You mean, only I had dreams like that? LOL

Anyway, I did indeed have that dream many times, and I was always trying in vain to grab as much of the green as I could, but I never seemed to have hands enough, or pockets enough, to hold more than a buck or two in change.

I was reminded of those dreams when I watched Ayize's face. He started grabbing as much as he could, as fast as he could, but the more he grabbed, the more cascaded out from between his fingers.

In the end, this was all he managed to get:

...but, in deference to his great lack of greed, he seemed happy enough to have just a handful of measly pieces after all that effort. Perhaps in a show of sympathy (though I've only been there in my dreams), or perhaps to reward his non-materialistic spirit, I opened up our diaper bag and crammed a ton of the plastic pieces in while he wasn't looking. I justified my actions by telling myself that they would surely come in handy during the festivities to come - but in reality, I'm afraid I just couldn't resist giving in to my one opportunity to right that confounded old dream!

To the playground we go.

Still clutching his scant take, he happily clambered up on the old-school teeter-totters, of which we are both big fans. I caught this photo of him as I was all-down and he was all-up.

My beloved son!

May you always rise to the greatest of heights!!

Jo Jo arrived and Ayize proudly showed off a recent skill set - navigating these elevated, swinging step stones.

He managed to stack all his pieces into one tower - much easier to manage, I suppose - and happily grinned at this accomplishment. Then he took his "tower of power" sliding down the speedy, twisty slide with him.

Jo Jo on the hand-and-foot pedals. Experimental photography on my part - I often wonder what life looks like from a toddler's eyes so I've been shooting a lot of these photos recently.

Just as I expected, Jo Jo looks the same from Ayize's angle as he does at my ownheight: calm, kind, funny, smart, and a great guy to call a brother and uncle.

Cheers!

Another photo of life looking up. With perfect timing, Ayize made his goofy choo-choo noise that was the sound staple of our trip to Portland. His lips flared out in this cute purse just as I shot.

Jo Jo teaching Ayize how to pump his legs to swing. He appeared to be listening very studiously to instructions.

Shortly after, we said quick farewells to everyone at Liz's house and headed home. Little Dude crashed hard in the car just a few blocks out.

On the way, we stopped at Rovente Pizza to grab food-to-go, and I draped my jacket over the window to shield a sleeping Ayize from the strong sun.

YUMMMMMM. Rovente is the best!

Jo Jo had just spoken to Bahar, and friend Elin was arriving shortly from out of town, with her lovely daughter as well. They were going to spend the night and head out the next day for a camping trip on the Oregon Coast. More food was in order. I watched Ayize next while Jo Jo ran in to grab some impromptu lunch for everyone.

While we waited, I shot this photo of the COIT van imbedded in the wall across the street. This thing had been there since the early 90's when I first started coming to Portland with high school friends. Being that we were in high school at the time, the van also inspired countless immature jokes about coitus interruptus.

Hardy har har.

Anyway...good memories!

We got home and I somehow - amazingly - successfully transferred Ayize to bed. I say "amazingly" because he had already been napping for ages (the pizza took forever) and then I bonked him a bit as I clumsily fumbled through Jo Jo's front door, thereby waking him up. Somehow, by some miracle, I managed to soothe him back down to sleep.

Then I enjoyed every delicious bite of my pizza.

Afterwards, Jo Jo and I set to work on the table-placard project. Poor Jo Jo! Let me intercede here to remind you that it was supposed to be my project, and that I had volunteered only myself, never expecting to ask Jo Jo to do some (okay, most) of the work. This I swear! But given the time constraints, and my inability to magically wring precious ink of that fast-failing gold Sharpie, a skill that my brother possessed in spades, it fell to him to help me.

I actually started the project with great gusto. Ayize had fallen back to sleep, the pizza was comfortably settled into my satiated tummy, and I traced the numbers, using stencils we modified to make them fit, onto all the placards. Then I began carefully filling in each number. But several issues began to occur: the aforementioned ink shortage, which led Jo Jo - ever the practical one of our duo - to point out that sometimes "less is more", especially when one is overobsessing about being neat in the face of a severe ink shortage. Also, I realized the placards needed some extra decor, a finishing touch as it were, and my bright idea of adding henna-inspired accents, based on the patterns the artist had given us all, would only consume a ton more ink. Bahar came to the rescue, valiantly offering up these extremely-awesome, delicately-outlined gold stickers in patterns that were all perfectly appropriate for wedding decor. I was super-duper grateful to both Jo Jo, the ink wrangler, and Bahar for her sticker save! And to really seal the deal, just as we were putting the finishing touches on the last table placards, Ayize woke up, with perfect timing. Hurrah!

Meanwhile, somewhere in this artistic mayhem, Elin and her daughter arrived. Jo Jo's leftover navratan korma curry was enjoyed by all and Ayize was thrilled for pint-sized company.

Here, the kids sat in front of yet another 1930's Mickey Mouse cartoon short, all smiles. They were so cute together! I couldn't resist this picture.

They played Wii and Matchbox cars together, and watched Sonny With a Chance of Rain (or whatever that goofy tween Nick show is called), as I readied for the evening's festivities - a wedding rehearsal picnic dinner at gorgeous Willamette Park. Friends Andy Conroe and his wife Karen, staying with pals in the area, had kindly offered to pick Ayize and I up and transport us over. Soooo sweet of them!

This is us, waiting outside. Ayize was hysterical. He absolutely loves when car seats take to the streets. He can sit there for hours on a sidewalk, people-watching from the cozy comfort of his version of a La-Z-Boy. He looked so naughty as he peered at me, wondering if I would take this pleasure away anytime soon.

We had to lug extra jackets and clothes with us because although it was in the high 70s at the moment, it would surely be in the low 50s by the time we left the picnic. Portland's fall weather can be mighty fickle!

"Mama, my house!"

Every day, as we set out for our early-morning constitutional, Ayize scrambled along Jo Jo's front steps looking for this little Monopoly hotel which has lived there for so many years, so that he could show it to me and declare it to be his house. You can see how earnest he was about the sentiment. Home sweet home!

Willamette Park is in a pretty confusing part of town but somehow, Andy and Karen were able to successfully navigate our way there, despite Ayize's shouting, "chugga-chugga-CHOO-CHOO" repeatedly, at a volume that was loud enough to drown out the voice of the rental car's generic GPS announcer.

Upon our arrival, we all headed towards the picnic area, but Ayize immediately diverted to the nearby playground - here, you can see him running up the slide - and pretty much stayed there for the next hour. Second playground in one day. He was in heaven!

The picnic was taking place in this covered area. I snapped this photo of it as we arrived.

As I said my hellos to everyone, I looked over at the playground where Ayize was continuing to play with some newfound pals. They were all swinging round and round on these poles. I was dizzy just watching them!

Everyone was arriving at once!

We hadn't seen Nina or her kiddos since a playdate at Lovelace half a year ago!

I watched from a distance as Ayize attempted to run on the rolling barrel. Yikes!

I headed over to run interference but fortunately, he'd already realized that disaster was imminent if he continued to try to barrel-roll. He turned his attention instead towards the art of suffocating oneself on seemingly-harmless playground equipment.

I needed a beer! I fetched one, popped the top, and enjoyed my first sip with the best of company - old friend Amanda, and her brother, Andrew.

The bride-to-be arriveth!!!

Ayize finally abandoned the playground for greener pastures, in light of dinner now being served. He made his way over to Nina's younger son's stroller to tell him something very involved. The wee one appeared to be taking it all in.

Then he trotted happily back to the table where I was sitting. I got up to crack jokes with Nina - we thought the whole toddler trading-secrets thing was hilarious - and when I looked back, this is what I saw. He had a sippy cup filled with water AND a juice box, but I guess my amber bottle beckoned with a little more allure.

Disappointed that I'd cut him off, he went back to entertaining the baby, a job he clearly took very seriously...

...as this video attests.

Whole lotta Evanstonians goin' on!

Chowing down on pita bread. Thankfully, he was back to acceptable beverages.

(For the moment.)

Cute couple alert: Lizzy's parents, Norm and Marlene, were looking so adorable that I couldn't resist this shot.

Kid, kid, kid. Enough with the sauce, already!

Rachel spots Amanda. Reunion!

Huzzah!

I gave Andrew a break and got in this one. Ayize was decidedly against cooperating, however...

"Child o' mine, for goodness sake, you lick that beer bottle lip ONE MORE TIME and I swear..."

He went off and picked up a big rock and scratched his butt and gave me a dirty look (not pictured) after I forcibly removed his lips off my beer. The look seemed to say: "I was appreciating a fine stout and you had to come along and ruin all my fun. Muah."

Cute couple alert again: John helping wife Stephanie to a spoonful of sorbet. And yes, Dan, you look very cute too! LOL

More cute couples: Andy and Karen. Thanks again for the ride, you guys, it was a lifesaver!

Flo and Marty's baby girl stretches the ol' spinal cord.

"See how flexible I am?"

Lizzy and the wee bairn.

The ice cream beats out the beer in the tasty department, I guess.

Or so I thought. Here he is, bartering with Rachel for her beer.

"A spoonful for a sip?"

Rachel, her pal, and one adorable hunk o' baby boy!

Marty = Papacito Supremo!

Everyone got busy sorting out the after-party details, including Ayize, as you can see here. Interestingly enough, there would be no after party for us, as he was headed soonishly to bed, and I was lacking a babysitter. Still...I was glad he felt comfortable enough to contribute his two cents' worth to the general consensus!

I made my way to the banks of the Willamette for a quick sunset shot.

Across the water, the sights and sounds of Oaks Amusement Park brought me great joy.

Eventually, everyone slowly began to disperse and disband. Our crew was headed out for a night of debauchery, but Jo Jo was still at dinner with Bahar and Elin. What to do, what to do...? Just when I thought I'd have to scramble for the number to a cab company, Dan came to the rescue. He was headed home also, having a new baby at home, so he was kind enough to offer us a lift home.

Yay! Thanks, Dan!

We readied the carseat in the back of Dan's convertible while Ayize watched us with great interest from the sidelines. Literally. There was a tennis court adjacent to where Dan's car was parked, and he had climbed inside, and stood on the sideline bench as a vantage point.

Ayize's first convertible ride. Yee haw!

We had only gone about two minutes before he wrapped himself up in his Thomas hoodie like a mummy and declared that he was "cold".

Dan pressed the button to put the top up, and he sank back in his chair in surprise at the startling sound effect.

Dan at the helm!

The top finishing its coverage; Ayize was interested - but also a little apprehensive - at this strange apparatus unfolding behind and above him.

The top was fully on now, and Ayize finally let his "blankie" fall a bit...but not his guard. He was definitely on high alert mode, in case anything else shady should happen. (No pun intended.)

We were stopped at the bridge for ages because a huge tourist sightseeing ship was passing through. Ayize enjoyed the commotion, and I took the opportunity to dash out onto the bridge for a quick snapshot of the lifted bridge (it didn't turn out so well, sorry). It also gave me and Dan a great chance to chat and catch up.

Best of all, when the bridge finally did lift, a pair of drunk bikers were so thrilled that their long wait was finally over, that they flew past us as we drove along the bridge, giving out massive war whoops at top volume, much to me and Dan's amusement.

It had been another great day, and I was sorry to see it go.