30 Days

So, apparently nutmeg dealers from Connecticut (the Nutmeg State) were notorious for spiking their wares with wooden nutmeg nuts. Thanks for the info, Willy!

Last Friday, I flew back from Portland to Atlanta. The cloud cover was almost the exact opposite of my trip to Portland - the western states from Oregon to Missouri were all clear, but once the snow cover melted off the ground somewhere north of St. Louis, everything clouded up again until we landed in Georgia.

Today, I flew back to Portland, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky from Atlanta all the way to landing in Oregon. A sunny day all over America. The ground was also free of snow until we crossed the Colorado-Wyoming state line, where suddenly the entire earth appeared covered with a white blanket until the Cascades of western Oregon. The Craters of The Moon National Monument of Idaho were visible only by the different shades of white from the crater's shadows. On landing, I got good views out my right-side window of Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens and Mount Ranier (Hood was somewhere off on the other side of the plane).

"And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills, well the landslide will knock it down," Fleetwood Mac sang in my mind.

I got back in Portland in time for lunch. I'm here for 30 days, until March 15. The house in Atlanta is locked up nice and tight, with several of those new long-lasting, energy-efficient, screw-in flourescent light bulbs installed stratgically around my home in bug-away yellow to deter burglers, and my car parked in front to make it look like someone's home ( I took a cab to the airport).

30 days. Time to start living a life here in Portland, not just play-acting and fantasizing about what it would be like.