Run For The Roses

Less than a year after having a baby, Biff went and ran herself a marathon this weekend. She’s a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with. She’s a super lady.

Said marathon was in Portland, which is a three hour drive through less populated areas of Washington and into a whole other world altogether. Portland, and all of Oregon for that matter, has always had a very David Lynch feel to it for me. There’s this feeling that something horribly disturbing and funny can happen around any bend. I’ve only been to Portland a couple of times now, but there’s always this feeling like people are avoiding the sidewalks and hulking down for a storm coming any time. I always expect to hear the lonely whistle from a saw mill.

There was the added little bit surrealism with staying in Jen Jen and Michael’s place while they were not there. It was very kind of them to offer it up while they were in Spain, and it was comfortable, but I always somehow felt like a thief about to be caught where I shouldn’t be, their books and decorating choices staring down on me like judges. What doesn’t help these admittedly paranoid feelings is the person who has been tapped with the task of keeping the cats alive bursting into the apartment like some sort of vice cop on a bust. I jumped up, the baby (who had just finally passed out after a difficult night) awoke, and this woman – who was probably just as surprised as I – said she thought we would be gone by Saturday. She then said she needed to use the bathroom and jogged back towards it to do so.

Getting around a city to pay witness to a loved one running a marathon is not the easiest thing to do. Yeah, I realize that running 26.2 miles is also not all that easy either, back off. But there is a problem with maneuvering around marathon routes where they have closed off a large number of streets for the obvious safety of the runners; and in the case of Portland, this involved closing apparently very bridge that crosses the river to downtown where the start and finish lines are. Biff, feeling finally too aggravated and panicked to care, added an additional .8 to an already long run by bolting from the car and charging over the bridge on foot.

This left me and Kickers to slowly peruse the still sleeping streets of Portland in search of a grocery store. I was singing lightly to myself, feeling comfortable in the charming city. Kickers was babbling quietly in the back, apparently also taking in the sites along the Hollywood section of town. I realized that this was the sort of moment I had imagined before he was born, the two of us cruising a city in early darkness on some errand for mom. At one point I looked back at him and he returned an even glance, taking me in for a moment before smiling one of those smiles that erases any aggravation from the sleepless night before.

A couple of hours later, we found a way to other side of the river and took on the pursuit of meeting up with a marathon finisher. All those things that I mentioned above about the slight difficulties – add to that driving around a city you don’t know and a fussy baby. By the time I found a place to park the mighty Honda – illegally it turned out – Riley had fussed himself into a daze. I hoisted him up and hurried down the crowded street with him in my arms, this it turned out was a good time for him to sleep. He awoke while we waited at the reunion spot, that “what the fuck?” look on his face when he realized that the last time he had been conscious there was no one around him where now there were several hundred- most of them wrapped in foil, combined with the sweater print on his face from sleeping against my chest made me laugh out loud. Even the guy dressed as the Nestle Quick bunny wasn’t enough to shake his utter confusion. It did make me wonder though why there was a Nestle Quick bunny roaming the streets of Portland.

Biff came off her finish as though she had done nothing more strenuous than carrying a load of laundry up the stairs. Again, she’s a super lady and I’m crazy proud of her.


Rocktober song of the day: “Cracked Actor” by David Bowie.