The Rock Pile

A year or two ago, Barb ordered up four yards of gravel for our "driveway" and the area in front of our fence. As it turned out, we probably needed two yards. So we ended up with a gravel pile that I have been constantly plotting to get rid of at no cost to myself.

Unfortunately, our neighbor kids -- and, consequently, Elizabeth -- have come to view the "rock pile" as a special place. And our neighbor mom, Jaral, has confessed that she and her brothers had both a lumber pile (?) and a dirt pile when they were growing up, and both were awesome.

So we may be stuck with the rock pile for a little while, yet.

Grandma Sherry?

Look at this lovely picture of my mom, Sharon. Oh, wait! It's actually Elizabeth Rose at Sherry's apartment, wearing Sherry's curlers!

Grandma and Elizabeth

Elizabeth Rose resembles no one so much as Grandma Sherry. I've always been struck by the similarities, but as Elizabeth has grown out of babyhood, the resemblance has become even more striking. She won't have Sherry's blonde hair (Elizabeth will definitely be a brunette), but in so many other ways she's Sherry II.

Look at these two! They're peas in a pod!

The New Bike

Well, we did it. We bought a bigbike.

A couple of Saturdays ago we spent the whole day shopping for a bike that would accommodate both girls and some cargo. We tested three bikes at three different shops: the Kona Ute at Bike Gallery, the Yuba Mundo at Joe Bike, and the Xtracycle Radish at Clever Cycles. (I'm not going to link to the stores because if you live in Portland you can find them easily enough, and if you don't, you don't care.)

The Kona was the nicest bike, and they were all about the same price -- i.e., eleven to twelve hundred dollars. The Kona is a single-piece extended frame, has front- and rear-derailers, and disc brakes. It rode like a dream. The Mundo was a nightmare: stupendously heavy, handled not so great, awkward ride position, just felt weird. Plus regular V-brakes. The Radish was startlingly light, is a two-piece frame, has only one derailer (thus only 8-speeds), and V-brakes.

We bought the Radish primarily because the salesman did not balk at the idea of putting a Bobike front seat (for baby Suzanne) on the thing. The salesgirl at Bike Gallery was at first unsure, then basically told us the Ute wouldn't take a Bobike and we should just put Suzanne on the back in a Peapod. Wrong answer.

The guy at Joe Bike told us the Mundo would take a Bobike, but he "could not endorse it" -- apparently for liability reasons. Wrong answer.

At Clever Cycles the mechanic (we somehow bypassed the salespeople) said, "Sure, we can put a Bobike on the Radish -- it just takes an adapter, which costs thirty-five bucks. I can have the bike ready to roll in twenty minutes." Sold!

The Radish is a bike inferior in every way to the Ute. But it's more than good enough. What sold it to us wasn't the bike, but the shop.

Good on you, Clever Cycles.


Here we are after the Sunday Parkways last weekend -- we spent the day out of the house, on the bikes. By the time we got home, Elizabeth and Suzanne were both asleep in their bike seats (Elizabeth was by that time in my bike seat, not on the back of Barb's Radish, which would not allow her to fall asleep.). In this picture, Barb is the only one playacting.

The Heads of Brooklyn Park

We had a sort of Easter Island experience today as we explored a new park slightly outside the neighborhood.

Along with a tidy little playground and baseball diamond, Brooklyn Park has these mysterious stone heads. Urban art, or ancient remnant of a forgotten people?

Edit: I fixed the picture, which initially uploaded from the phone at some ridiculously tiny size.

Firefighter

On our evening walk tonight, we saw a huge fire department ladder truck. The driver stopped and a fireman gave Elizabeth two junior firefighter stickers (one, presumably, for Suzanne, who has no interest in stickers besides gumming them to pulp). It was perfect, because late last week I found the pictured helmet in a free box on a curb.

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