Here's our new pad, an inviting old farmhouse on a hundred acre farm that backs up to the Mary's river and faces west. From the upstairs you can see the sun set over the coastal range at night. The fact that lawn service is included in the rental makes me think I'll wake up back in the trailer park and find out that it's just a dream. We are all enjoying the extra space, at least after a couple of days of trying to figure out exactly where Stella could be. I'd never realized how much easier child care was in a two room apartment.
I'm fresh back from Burning Man, which is never what I expect and always seems to pull the rug out from under me a little bit. The picture above is a steel sculpture called "Bliss Dance" and was my unquestioned favorite piece of art this year. This year, John and I spent most of our time rolling around on a pedal taxi and using a megaphone to create a radio station without a dial.
When I was a kid, I loved putting on costumes and playing the part. Burning man offers a similar chance to escape some day-to-day habits and ways of being. Or at least that's how I justify wearing fishnets and swinging around a cage at a dance club. If you are troubled by this sort of behavior, be comforted by the fact that I was sharing the cage with a psychiatrist and we've worked out how we feel about all of this. Trust us, we're doctors...
Tiff has finished 4 out of 7 weeks of radiation and continues to be casually courageous about it. We snuck in a whirlwind camping trip in the mountains this weekend between treatments and were rewarded with some phenomenal views of the Cascade range from atop Black Crater. The mixture of lava, snow and wildflowers was amazing and typical of the bizarre and beautiful landscapes in Oregon, a state seemingly designed by a drunk geologist.