Sailbourne

I’m assuming that most of you who read my journal are outside the Portland area, but just in case, I wanted to share this:

Humane Society Needs You (to adopt a cat)

Short version: the shelter’s full, they don’t kill cats for lack of space, but they can’t take in any more until they adopt some out. The goal is 100 cats by Thanksgiving. You can even adopt one adult cat and adopt a second for no fee.

We have no more room ourselves (five cats in a 1050 square foot apartment is really pushing it), but I wanted to spread the word in some way.

And a bit of fun to go with — my first attempt at a lolcat. This picture is of a feral kitten rounded up at JFK Airport in New York City. Those cats are not as lucky as the ones at the Oregon Humane Society — most of them face being euthanized.

I suspect the Portland Art Museum will be a bit more crowded for a while, beginning mid November, as people come to see something really special:

A Van Gogh Arrives in Portland(from the OregonLive website)

This will be the first Van Gogh in any museum in the Northwest. Luckily, I don’t think I have to worry about rushing if I want to see it. The conditions of its gifting included that it be on display to the public, and that it never be sold.

Y’know, I don’t think I ever actually did have to write one of those essays when I was in school. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever did, or if it was something that just got made up for sitcoms and cartoon strips.

In any case, I thought it might be fun to recount some of what happened to me over the ten week extended vacation I had this summer. I had wanted to blog about it as it happened, but it never quite seemed to work out. Ah well!

My first day away from work — Saturday, June 23, 2007 — I attended the Japanese Bobtail Breeders’ Society annual awards banquet. It is held in a different location each year, generally alternating between the East Coast, West Coast, and Midwest. This year’s meeting was held at the Multnomah Falls Lodge, about thirty miles west of Portland.

While Multnomah Falls can be seen from the highway (Interstate 84), I’d never had a chance to look at it for myself. This picture was taken from the parking lot, using the brand new digital camera I’d borrowed from Joe for the evening. (Clicking on it will take you to the LJ gallery, and from there you can navigate to a larger version of the same picture.)

The falls were the best part of the evening; the banquet itself started off a bit rough — I’d had to try and manage a setup which the lodge management had changed on us at the last minute, and I had no idea how to rejuggle table seating. Who could be seated with who, and who had better darn well not be seated anywhere near whoever else, all that sort of thing.

But it all worked out okay in the end, and I got to head out into the sunset of one of the longest days of the year. The real vacation beckoned.