not much to report from oregon theses last couple of weeks. we're adrift in the sea of errands, work, and gatherings that constitute the holiday season. i love the start of the holidays with thanksgiving and its gustatory gusto and i love new years because it's the end of the holiday season. tiffany rightly accuses me of being a humbug. my experience at work tells me that is is preferable to a bumhug, but it is the holidays and bum-hugging is a charitable enterprise.
stella test pilots her new bike seat. finds it tolerable.

for the relatives: don't worry; we do have a tree. stella does have some presents.

yesterday, i went to get the trailer off the farm where it's been since we moved into our new place. after a pleasant 3 or 4 hours of getting the airstream ready to move, under a steady and cool oregon rain, i promptly got the van stuck in the mud. more precisely, i backed up to the trailer and stepped out in time to watch the van slowly sink about 6 inches into the ground. (for the other boy-dorks out there, think of the scene where luke crashes his x-wing into the dagoba swamp) fortunately, Justin, the only person in oregon that i know well enough to ask a big favor is also the only person i know with a big 4-wheel drive and some chains. after a bit of mud-wrestling we got the van and trailer out with a large "splorch" kind of sound. we parked the trailer in a storage lot near the vegetable oil station on the edge of town. seeing it lined up with a bunch of volkswagen vans in a fenced lot made me a bit sad, it seemed like such a small and ordinary trailer to have contained so many experiences; my home and vessel for the biggest adventure of my life so far... a long luxurious shower at home, however, washed away both the mud and nostalgia and i am very happy to be on to the next thing. (picture: wetland preserve trail, next door to where we're livin')

this is most of our new pad, minus the bedroom which just looks like a bedroom. i finished the floor today so the faux hardwood now extends all the way to sasha.
here's the view from the big glass doors in the kitchen: frozen-pond fun after the recent cold snap. the kids took turns being the puck. the tarp in the background covers the beehives and a heater to keep their bees-knees from knockin'. if you haven't yet, it's time to mind your own bees-knees.

this blog post has been granted the stella seal of approval and has been sponsored by http://www.greaseworks.org/

Here I am in an apartment cozier than a cave full of hibernating teddy bears and I’ve been trying to untangle the path that lead here. My fortune cookie: "The sidewalk banana of fate gives you an unexpected glimpse of the sky."
You have to sympathize with the Trickster figures that shows up in most religions. Coyote Brother, Brer Rabbit, Judas; each a Trickster and crafty architect of their Hero's labyrinth. The trickster in my pantheon has always been my intuition; the undeniable urge to act, before reason ever has time to fill out his triplicate forms and get them notorized. (My intuition just suggested that the next time I go through airport security, I say "I have a trickster in my pantheon")

You just can’t find a new place without getting lost. If you subtract risk from freedom, you end up with something akin to lite beer, decaf coffee, and getting a nice haircut; a widely accepted substitute for the act of living.
Back when the sun used to hang out here, Tiff and I were hanging around the trailer brainstorming a solution to the approaching rainy season. We found some tipis online and immediately agreed that this was surely the best way to get some more indoor space for the upcoming winter. No real discussion involved, just a mutually reflected spark in the eyes. We decided to move to Oregon by the same method one bored afternoon and similarly made the decision to live in a 23-foot trailer soon thereafter. Our drive across the country was a successful affair because it was planned only as far ahead as the next moment or two. So it’s not that we’re without successful precedents as far as intuition fueled impulsiveness goes, but I was a bit surprised to find out that I really don't like hanging out in a drafty tipi, just waiting around for summer to come back.

The day we moved into the apartment, Tiffany and I both sighed with pleasure at having hot water for washing dishes and faces. I stood fully upright in the shower and managed to dry off without looking like contortionist losing a wresting match with a towel. We opened the full-size refrigerator and smiled the way the milk jug looked soooo small. We brushed out teeth together for the first time in eight months. There are places in the apartment we can stand where we actually can't see one another. And for these very joys I hereby renew my faith in our combined intuition. We needed a tipi to trickster our priorities into place.

Although the werewolves seem to get most of the media attention, there are all kinds of were-critters out there waiting for the full moon to release their inner varmint. Tiffany and I happen to be were-hippies, and when the moon is full we start to feel our tendencies come out in force. Our thanksgiving celebration in Atlanta drug into our full moon celebration and the combination of family times and full-moon fever has made us restless for a new home. We've been in the airstream for 8 months now and as much as we've learned about ourselves and small-space living, I think we've begun to exhaust the opportunities for self-improvement that this particular experiment can provide. The tipi, unfortunately, has proven to be an inadequate patch for our leaking inner-tube of enthusiasm. What's next isn't fully formed yet, but something new for sure and hopefully just as interesting. But it's definitely time for a new experiment.


Thanksgiving in Atlanta; a wonderful trip for us. Stella was mellow on the plane and we got to see tons of friends and family. Four types of macaroni and cheese, three kinds of sweet potato casserole, and endless leftover-snacking.

Right now we are trying to get the whole crew ready to head to Atlanta for thanksgiving. We decided to board the dogs but I didn't have any luck convincing the folks at the kennel that Stella is a rare breed of Swedish upright chihuahua.


These pictures are both from the west side of Corvallis near the trailer park. I can only complain about the rain so much before I get whopped upside the head with the overall prettiness of the place.

Last week, The Barry arrived and we exercised our typical influence on the weather, guaranteeing that any plans we made would be annihilated by meteorological nastiness. The up side of this has always been that we get to do a lot more sitting around at trailheads in the van, drinking beer, and talking about other times that we almost did something cool. We also re-proved our axiom that the random trip is usually better than the planned when when, in an effort to drive all the way BACK across Oregon, we stopped at Angel Creek and got to hike into some of the prettiest scenery I've seen since I've been here. They were releasing salmon from the fish hatchery and we hiked upstream until even the heartiest floppers and swishers couldn't surmount the increasing waterfalls. We were also privileged to get a tour of Portland from Barry's architect friend Scott. The only thing cooler than seeing a building with the guy that designed it was hanging out on his sail boat and watching Stella try to toddle against the gentle roll of the water.

some adaptations for small-space livin'...

The reusable grocery bags that are hip these days; we keep four or five of them floating around the trailer, tipi, van and car. They help to keep the right stuff in the right place at the right time. Heading to go hiking with a baby followed by a run to the recycling center and post office takes about three bags. Going to the gym can usually be accomplished with one bag only. Weekend camping takes all the bags and a couple of armloads; the main idea being to minimize the amount of muddy trips between the van, tipi, and trailer.


House-cleaning is no longer an episodic activity. Cleaning a 75 sq ft space in the middle of the world's largest mud puddle while 5 mammals come and go with their individual agendas is a bit futile. Stemming the tide and occasionally beating back a hairball or pawprint is the best we can hope for. Cleaning is now a continual process and the trailer exists variably in state between mostly clean and filthier than a leprous hyena at a tractor pull.


Incense and humor are indispensable to the physical and psychic ambiance. Too little of either and there's a stink or a stink-eye in the air.