The Beginning of the Rainy Days

I think Fall is officially kicking in. It was a cold rainy Sunday here in PDX. Slept in too late with a black dog sandwiched between Vin and I, while the one was snoring away in her dog bed. I love mornings like that. It was so cozy and warm under the covers and we've not really turned the heat on yet so it was nice and comfortable. Got up, fed dogs and went and grabbed some brekkie at this place up in St Johns. The waitress forgot to place our order, but I didn't care because I drank about 5 cups of coffee while Vin and I pondered life. I ordered the blackberry walnut pancake and Vin got an omelettte; The pancake was about the size of a frisbee- who in the hell can eat a whole pancake that size?? We couldn't. The leftovers are sitting in the fridge as we speak. It was good enough to bring home- and for those of you that know me well- i HATE leftovers. So scootch on up to the John Street Café next time you have a hankering for a good breakfast. We did the usual lazy drive back- meaning perusing the streets and checking out houses that are for sale and then finally made it back to Boston Ave. Vin took off for work and I took the dogs out to Delta Park. Good dog park day. Only 2 other people showed up and they weren't dog dorks so Sirius was happy as a clam and Suki caught balls until my arm got sore from throwing the ChuckIt. I decided on the way home that since the weather was crappy , I could officially waste an afternoon away at the bookstore. I've been holding out spending too much time at Powells. Powell's Books is the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world. (thank you google) and it's the size of a city block. It has en endless maze of rooms that are all color coded, and then book sujects are all coded under one of those colors.

When I was growing up, I was very lucky to be in a family that like and encouraged reading. I'm not talking reading books that you HAVE to read in school. I'm talking about down and out reading. I always got books for Christmas or birthdays and have always loved to read- still do. I went through four books while I was in Fiji- 2 non fiction and 2 fiction. Always have to balance out the fluff with susbstantial, make-you-think-about-shit books.

Here are some of my favorites:

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed " by Jared Diamond
I haven't finished reading this yet but it's great. If you are interested in anthropology and why there are people living in grass huts in the 21st century, you'll like it too.

"An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks
This is probably one of my favorite books I've ever read. Good enough that I'll include part of a review on it because I won't explain it good enough:

"Neurological patients, Oliver Sacks has written, are travellers to unimaginable lands. An Anthropologist on Mars offers portraits of seven such travellers-- including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's Syndrome except when he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who has great difficulty deciphering the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior.

These are paradoxical tales, for neurological disease can conduct one to other modes of being that--however abnormal they may be to our way of thinking--may develop virtues and beauties of their own. The exploration of these individual lives is not one that can be made in a consulting room or office, and Dr. Sacks has taken off his white coat and deserted the hospital, by and large, to join his subjects in their own environments. He feels, he says, in part like a neuroanthropologist, but most of all like a physician, called here and there to make house calls, house calls at the far borders of experience.

Along the way, he gives us a new perspective on the way our brains construct our individual worlds."

My favorite parts- the surgeon with Tourettes and the artist who becomes color blind after an accident and the blind guy who regains his sight after surgery.

Buy it. Read it.


Some favorite dog books:

"Marley and Me" by John Grogan
I read this twice while in Fiji. I laughed all the way up to the last chapter. Then I cried. If you love dogs you will love this book.

"Cesar's Way" by Cesar Millan
It works. Well. It works on one of our dogs. The other one.. well. We're working on in it still.


Today I've picked up a few more- landscaping and gardening books in the Pacific Northwest and the Journals of Lewis & Clark. I was feeling very pacific northwest-ey apparently. Book report to follow.