If you haven’t heard her speak yet about Stubborn Twig, the first-ever Oregon Reads selection, you MUST listen to OPB tomorrow. Here’s the event listing.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Lauren Kessler on OPB tomorrow
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009Selected Writing update
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009I have just created a selected writing page with links to some of my recent stories. I will update the page as I write more about my home in the Pacific Northwest.
Shangri-La in our new used couch
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
On our way back from Word of Mouth Bistro, and after lounging under the Cherry trees near the Capitol, we stopped at a garage sale and bought an old school brown leather couch for $45.
We’ve been to a few estates sales in NE Salem and have been pretty grossed out by how some people live. But this house had the motherload — even though the sale was just about over.
This one little yard reconfirmed our hopes that Salem might have garage sales worth scouring.
In the folds of our new used couch we found:
Tonka truck man
Storm Trooper helmet (it fits him!)
Miniature skateboard (too big)
Crucifix pendant with fake emeralds
$1.27 in change
Polished agate
Laser pointer
Harmonica
Battle Royale Gameboy game
2 paper clips
Small plastic coconut
“Put your paws on a good book” bear bookmark
Eternal Sleep Spell playing card
Christmas light refill bulb
Butterfly hair clip
Blue scrunchie
Raffle ticket
Mini bean bag
One child’s handwritten list of “Nursry Rymes” including Little Bo Peep
Toothpick
“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”
Desperate Tweeter
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009My good friend Nick Bergus, writer, cook, new media maven and author of the great blog Death of a Pig has convinced me to join Twitter. You can find my by my handle on the site, emilygrosvenor.
I’ve promised him eight substantive tweets a day. Twime will twell if they are really all that twantastic.
Parking online chat
Friday, March 27th, 2009For a chat directly with the source about Salem’s parking issues, join Salem Administrative Services Director Tony Mounts today at 12 p.m.
That is, if you’re not moving your car…
Emily Angry! Salem's T-shirts suck.
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
This has to be one of the lamest Cafe Press T-shirts I have ever seen.
It says: “Happiness is being in Northeast Salem, OR.
Love the message, hate the medium.
Does anyone know someone in town who would be intersted in working with me to develop a better Salem t-shirt than the lame-o Salem T’s that can be found on CafePress.com?
Salem mulling new parking restrictions
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
The Internet has facilitated a major change in storytelling, one where the comment boards are sometimes more interesting than the story itself.
That doesn’t surprise me. People offer much meatier quotes when they don’t put their face and their name behind it. And although I think that amounts to cowardice, I can’t help but read comments sections when issues really get peoples’ blood boiling.
The latest over at the Statesman-Journal, Salem’s Gannett Corp.-owned daily, is that the city is mulling a change to current parking restrictions to keep state workers from engaging in the “two-hour shuffle.” Apparently there are people who, for lack of a real, paid parking spot, move their car every two hours to avoid getting a ticket.
They park in one of the city’s cutest historical neighborhoods on Chemeketa Street NE and Court Street NE. New rules would require two hour shufflers to move their cars every 90 minutes to a different neighborhood.
Angry commuters! Makes me glad I’m part of Tina Brown’s “Gig Economy” and work at home.
The pic is of the Court-Chemekta historical district, in happier times (the weekend). Photo courtesy of the Salem Heritage Network.
Breitenbush Hot Springs – a hippie trip
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Problem: I’m a soakaholic and our house has no bathtub.
Solution: A weekend trip to Breitenbush Hot Springs.
Breitenbush, a hot springs area about 12 miles from Detroit in the central Cascades, has served as a ritual retreat for unknowable centuries. Indians gathered there to fish and soak in the centuries before the area was homesteaded.
It became a private retreat about 50 years ago and maintains this hippie vibe that we often go for while traveling but don’t always practice at home.
It’s basically summer camp for grownups.
Since I met my husband as a camp counselor in my early 20s, I can’t think of anything more fun.
Trip Breakdown:
L. and J. joined us in Salem for strawberry and banana pancakes on Saturday morning. We hit the road for Breitenbush about 10:30 and made it by 12:00 p.m.
We checked in.
We ate crunchy hippie food of steamed brown rice, roasted squash, salad, and cheese and broccoli soup.
We spent about half an hour in a Turkish bath (steam sauna) built directly over a hot spring.
No pictures of that, you cheeky monkeys, this isn’t that kind of blog.
We dipped for about an hour in a 102 degree hot spring pool.
Three of us continued on to a hotter hot spring, and then finally to the hottest, while I, having already found my just right, dried off and headed to the lodge, where I read The Watchmen and sipped yogi tea for an hour and a half.
We gazed into the Jackson Pollock of stream beds.
I joined about 23 other people in a cramped but gorgeous room called the Sanctuary for a yoga session far beyond the difficulty offered at my local YMCA. In our last hometown of Iowa City, the Sanctuary was a bar…
We stayed overnight at a Batesian Motel called the Four Seasons.
We breakfasted at a pretty amazing local joint called the Cedars, where the walls were adorned with saw art. As in, art painted on canvases formerly known as saws.
We played a game called “Going Camping.” L. won after J. fell on the “got sticky fingers, go back five spaces” spot.
We drove west into snow for about 30 minutes before discovering that the trail we had hoped to traverse was covered with it.
We got out of the car and walked onto the uncovered bed of Detroit Lake, which appeared to me like the landscape I had pictured while reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
We headed for the afternoon to Willamette Mission State Park, just north of Salem, where we viewed the ghostly outline of where the mission once stood and stopped to chat with the world’s oldest black cottonwood tree.
Upon our return, we read the Sunday Oregonian, which I enjoyed far less from having been out in the world all weekend.
Desperately Seeking Answers — the FAQ's
Monday, March 16th, 2009So there’s some people writing to me with questions. Don’t stop that, I love them. But I figure I’d create an FAQ for the page in case anyone’s interested and will add to the list as the questions become frequently asked.
Go ahead. Shoot!
My date with City Councilor Bob Cannon
Monday, March 16th, 2009
Bob Cannon likes to talk about the weather. A lot.
I met with the volunteer city councilor Friday afternoon to get some background on Salem’s urban chicken issue for a story I’m writing for Salem Monthly, but I couldn’t help taking the opportunity to glean some understanding of Salem from a native Oregonian who has been here since 1969.
First, let me say that I think it’s great that you can just call Bob up and meet him at the Blue Pepper for a few hours. I may be doing this under the guise of journalism, but Bob meets with people about three times a week — just normal folks. Anyone who cares about Salem and isn’t taking the time to get to know her city councilors is making a big mistake.
He says truisms like:
“Salem is a hidden gem–people haven’t found out about us yet.”
“Salem is a wonderful community.”
“Salem’s got a great climate — it’s not too cold, not too warm.”
All in all, Bob’s a great date. He’s a warm person, seems genuinely interested in advocating on behalf of Salemites (he’s currently at work needling the garbage collectors to return a massive surplus to Salem residents), and being a former lawyer, he looks at social issues with the eyes of a trained professional.
Still, there are topics Bob doesn’t really want to get into. One is how to attract younger professionals to Salem and keep them here, and how to offer options to teenagers who call Salem “So-lame.”
“Teenagers have very little to do,” Cannon said. “There’s no main drag, drive-ins are gone, and you can’t go out for a soft drink unless you’re going to McDonald’s.”
(crickets chirping on my side).
“You can go to Portland, you can go to Portland, and if you’re really brave, you can go to Portland,” Cannon said.
My point exactly.
Or, you could look at it this way. Brave could be finding a way to have an awesome life in Salem.
