It ain't easy being Jesus. Mostly because the beard and wig are itchy. I am sure there were other difficulties than that for the actual JC (the whole persecution and nailing to the cross come immediately to mind), but in my Jesus costume it was mostly the itchy thing. Well that and it is hard to drink a beer with a faux beard.
Why did I dress up as Jesus you might wonder (and if you don't wonder, I am left to because that certainly falls out of the bounds of a normal weekend...........that or I just seem like the type who would dress up as a deity for giggles)? For a good friend's party with a theme of gods and monsters. It was really a lot of fun. Tia god her inner goddess on with her Athena themed attire and there were many Pans, a smattering of roman/Greek gods, a wolfman, Buddha, Vishnu, and a variety of others. That and lots of good drinks and food. Really fun.
We also spent our time last weekend wandering around looking at chicken coops on the annual 'Tour de Coop' on the East side. The East side is a many varied thing here in Portland. Full of a huge variety of eccentricities, neighborhood alcoves, and great local eateries that butt up against perpetually 'up and coming' neighborhoods, a surprisingly high recent spate of gang slayings, and general downtroddeness. The suburbs it aint. But, neither is it truly 'urban' in any real sense of the word. It is a place where some people have the most fascinating obsession with chickens though.........while just down the street they build brand spanking new apartments for recovering junkies. Ah Portland..........never shall ye be fully gentrified.
But, back to chickens and how I found myself actually considering the notion of becoming a somewhat urban farmer. We happened upon it when one of Tia's mentees and my coworker both mentioned that they had their own chickens and coops. We even got to sample some of the fresh eggs, which with no exaggeration I can say are very different from even the most organic, cage-free, hormone free eggs you can buy at the store. These things were about half yolk, and as brightly yellow as Kraft macaroni and choose powder. They were also delicious. So, with no real knowledge of chickens, we got ourselves a guide and saw some chickens (the best coop we saw is pictured above). There were 20+ coops on the tour, and we only managed to find our way to about 5 of them, but it was quite eye-opening. Some of the cages were reclamation projects fashioned from bits and parts and another was designed and built by an architect. Most housed a few chickens, but one woman had 23 of them (you are permitted to have 3 without getting a city permit evidently). The more fascinating part were how informed the owners were. I had no idea there were so many sizes and types of chickens............nor that the phrase 'pecking order' was based on the actual behaviors of chickens. It was illuminating and really weirdly interesting. On the other hand, it is a pretty big thing to undertake, and at a fairly steep cost, for some eggs. Delicious as those eggs might be.
The move continues to lurch forward in fits and stops as most packing and moving does. Tonight will be the final push. The time where you stop actually packing and just start throwing random things into boxes without any semblance of theme just to get them into something for the movers to take over. Of course, all of this is happening on the back side of work days, while trying to get things organized in our new house (getting in new flooring, cleaning, painting, etc). Thankfully Tia continues to be a dynamo and Diane continues her unblemished record of being a champion mover and all-purpose house setter upper. So, with fingers crossed, hopefully Saturday evening will find us unpacking all those carefully packed and haphazardly thrown together boxes and embarking on our 9th residence together since 2007. And, with luck, it might even have power, water, cable, and all the other things we have set up......or at least tried to. Maybe we should pray about it..................hmmm, time to put the beard and wig back on I think.
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