i love him times a million billion and seventy three forty seven.

i want to reach through the screen and wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek. which he doesn’t love, but will occasionally tolerate. lucky for me, i can just turn around and do it. shhhhhh. don’t tell him i’m coming!

“We do well to find out, each day, gradually, what we love; to put in brackets all the prejudices, pressures, opinions, authorities; to let the experience of beauty come to us; and to receive it in all its intensity and truth, without anyone having to tell us what we must like or not; to have the courage to say what touches us – if not to others, at least to ourselves.”

– Piero Ferrucci, in Beauty and the Soul

dogs make such good adventure buddies. they don’t mind tromping through snow-covered bushes and brambles so you can take pictures of some weeds you spotted in a field. in fact, they are probably leading the way. plus, they look awfully cute with snow on their nose.

a perfect october afternoon: a hike with a friend in forest park followed by lunch at st. honore.

a perfect october morning: urban iphoneography followed by coffee (or, in my case, a vanilla steamer) with a friend at barista.

have i mentioned how much i love portland?

’tis the season for our hikes at the sandy river delta to begin!

atlas and i headed there for a hike (for me) and a run (for him) last tuesday and then again on sunday.

on tuesday, we met that little black dog. he (or possibly she, i can’t remember) was hilarious. he kept dropping that slobbery ball on the ground, lying down in front of it, and then staring at it. but if his person tried to get the ball to throw it, he would grab it and run away.

on sunday, we met another weimaraner. you can see him (or her) chasing atlas in one of the photos.

it’s such a great place for dogs. i have a feeling we will be heading there again tomorrow. plus, a tired dog is a happy dog. or is it a tired dog is a happy owner. probably both.

on this chilly afternoon, i am thinking about coffee and tea.

the first three photos were taken at a bakery in northwest portland called two tarts. they have the cutest little cookies. each one is a mouthful. or two.

the last two photos were taken at townshend’s tea company on alberta street. on this visit, i tried a roasted coconut mate latte. it was good. (to which i say, whew. i don’t love tea so am still trying to find just the right drink there.)

thinking about coffee and tea makes me think of a) the strangeness of memory and b) the power of a tune. during a visit to the wisconsin state fair one summer, i heard the ink spots sing a song that included the following lines: “i like coffee. i like tea. i like the java java. it loves me. coffee and tea for the java in me. a cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa coffee.” what feels like a million years later, i still remember it, never mind that it seems like that space in my memory could be used for much more important things, like the exact day of my sister helen’s birthday.

speaking of the power of a tune, i used to use tunes to memorize words for spelling bees. if you ever ask me how to spell a word like rapprochement, for example – not that i imagine you ever would – if i don’t sing the spelling to you, then you should know that i am singing it in my head and then translating it to regular speak so you don’t laugh at me.

atlas and i have an almost-annual tradition of visiting a corn maze. last week, we went to bella organic’s corn maze on sauvie island with a friend and her pups.

it is a fun tradition for me, though i was wondering what atlas thinks about it. it occurred to me while we were walking that, from a dog’s perspective, it might seem like wandering around in a corn field with a person who doesn’t seem to know where she’s going and often winds up in the exact same place is not really the best idea.

(you would think that dogs would be good at leading you through mazes. as it turns out, not so much.)

just for fun, here are the stories from two previous visits:

• lost in the corn
• the story of a girl, a dog, and a corn field

today feels like a good day for a (rather silly) story.

has anyone ever told you the story of the invention of parkour? i don’t know if you’ve ever heard of parkour, but if you’re younger than i am, you are probably an expert at it already.

years and years ago, there was a group of children that spent every afternoon playing in a park near their houses, running and sliding and jumping.

the park was like their second home. they spent so much time there that they knew the very best ways to get around it.

for instance, the fastest and most efficient way to get from the fountain to the big hill was to jump over the fence, run up and down the see-saw, and swing through the branches of the big oak tree to the left.

the fastest and most efficient way to get from the entrance to the fountain was to vault the railing, jump from swing to swing, and then run across the bricks to the fountain.

these might not sound like the quickest paths to you, but trust me, they had timed them. one of the children had received a stopwatch one birthday; timing things became his new favorite hobby. he timed everything. and i do mean everything.

whenever someone new would visit the park, the children would take him or her under their wing. they would show the new person all of their routes, and they would also encourage that person to create their own routes and to share them with everyone.

the actual name of the park was the marsha and bob grady provincial park. the children thought that was a long and boring and unsatisfying name, so they renamed the park, as children generally do.

their name for the park was our park.

eventually, they decided that their routes and ways of getting around the park needed a name. after much discussion and more than a few votes, they decided to name them after their beloved park and call them parkour.

the end.

one of my favorite things to do is sit in a cafe with my journal and a book. if a friend is with me, it’s even better. there is nothing quite like reading and writing in companionable silence interspersed with good conversation.

at the moment, i am loving coffeehouse northwest on burnside.

while i was walking back to my car from the cafe yesterday, i looked down and noticed the leaves on the sidewalk. there was something so simple and perfect about them that i had to stop and capture the beauty.

come to think of it, if you happen to live in portland and also like reading and writing in cafes, we should really meet for coffee!

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? .. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

– from On Death, by Khalil Gibran