Home, Work & More

[June 21st, 2006]

^Backyard Bling

Rebuild Arcadia in your back yard before it's too late.

By Shoshanna Cohen

Summer temps are rising every year—we've only got a few years left before Oregon summers resemble high noon in the Sahara. So ditch the plastic milk crates on your patio and deck out that concrete pronto. You'll want to catch some rays in comfort before we spend our Augusts withering in the smog-choked gaze of our blood-red sun.

Twinkly Lights $14.95, Sorel's, 3713 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 232-8482

A step up from standard Christmas lights and more tasteful than chili peppers (sooo '90s), strands of colorful flower lights from Sorel's instantly add a magical je ne sais quoi to an otherwise nondescript patio.

Machete $12.97, Home Depot, 10120 SE Washington St., and other locations, 261-8543.

They're not from here, and they're not polite, but they've made Portland their home, and we have to live with them. Blackberries. You have three options: Trade your entire yard for occasional fresh fruit, buy a screaming, gas-guzzling weed wacker, or go Indiana Jones-style with a machete from Home Depot. In addition to decapitating aggressive weeds, your machete is also ideal for chopping small firewood and intimidating your neighbors.

Acrylic Drinkware $2.99-$19.99, Cost Plus, 2315 NW Westover Road, 916-1606.

It's all fun and games until someone's collectible midcentury glassware gets dropped on the concrete. Avoid shattered glass and hearts with good-looking fakes, available just about anywhere, but Cost Plus has a nice, wide selection.

Baby Trees $12.50-$25.30, Buffalo Gardens, 3033 NE Alberta St., 288-0220.

Even if you don't have a green thumb, the healthy, fragrant starters at Buffalo Gardens will inspire you to try your hand at gardening. The Alberta shop specializes in edible and medicinal starters, most from small, local nurseries and many organic. The fruit-tree department is surprisingly varied, from kiwis to loquats. What the heck is a loquat, anyway?

Sprinkler $4.99, Harbor Freight, 1335 N Mason St., 493-2863.

Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best ones. Take care of your lawn and cool off at the same time with an impulse sprinkler from Harbor Freight, your neighborhood discount hardware store and mullet showroom. Put on your bathing suit and run around like you're 5 years old. Otter Pops optional.

Camping Chairs $6.99, Fred Meyer, 3030 NE Weidler St., and other locations, 280-1300.

They don't look like much (OK, they're butt-ugly), but these little scraps of nylon are among the most comfortable furniture you will ever own. Don't believe it? Truck over to Fred Meyer and find out for yourself.

Compost Bin $35, MetroPaint, 4825 N Basin Ave., 234-3000.

Feed your new loquat tree with fertilizer from your Earth Machine compost bin from MetroPaint on Swan Island. It keeps the rats out and saves your kitchen from smelling like stinky garbage when the temperature goes up.

^It Takes Time

How to save the world, one volunteer project at a time.

By Sarah Dougher

Time on your hands? How about putting it to good use by volunteering at one of the several organizations that could really use a little summertime help? Sure, volunteering isn't exactly a day at the beach, but these three worthy groups will at least allow you to get a little creative and work on that tan at the same time.

How Does Our Garden Grow? www.growing-gardens.org. Call 546-5921 or email rodney@growing-gardens.org.

In a city of gardeners, here is your chance to give back by volunteering at Growing Gardens. The organization focuses on installing home gardens for low-income households in Portland, as well as building gardens in partnership with other groups. Growing Gardens also offers workshops on basic gardening, composting, cooking and food preservation. On the first Wednesday of each month from 5 to 8 pm the organization hosts volunteers at its office, performing a variety of administrative duties.

Ivy Be Gone! www.trlc.org, Call Megan at 699-9825 or e-mail info@trlc.org.

Three Rivers Land Conservancy and Friends of Marquam Nature Park work to remove the pesky and deadly (to trees) English ivy in the large, forested corridor between Tryon Creek State Park and Marquam Nature Park. The noxious weed covers some 65 percent of the West Willamette Corridor, making it impossible for native plants and wildlife to flourish. Come get some aggression out by ripping the stuff out of the ground and off the trees.

Frame It www.pearmentor.org. Email Joy Cartier at joy@pearmentor.org

Here's your chance to get all arty for a good cause. P:ear is an organization in downtown Portland that provides support through art, education and recreation to more than 40 homeless young people each day. Every first Thursday, they have a show in the gallery (located at 809 SW Alder St.), and for this they need help framing art work. You can learn the skills it takes to mat and frame a variety of 2-D art and help mount the show. Volunteers are generally needed in the last week of each month.

^Pimp My Cube

Getting cabin fever at work? Transform your cubicle into a cool-bicle.

By Ben Waterhouse

Sure, it's great that the sun's out, but most of us over the age of 21 are still stuck inside eight hours a day, wasting away in front of our computers. Never fear, though; if the boss won't let you out for recess, just let the summer in with a cube makeover. Here are a few ideas.

Go chic

Kelley L. Moore set out to obliterate gray walls with Cube Chic (Quirk Books, 96 pages, $15.95), a full-color guide to classing up your modular work space. Her 22 redecorating proposals range from the tacky "Ice Cube" (complete with a Christmas tree and a penguin, but no gangstaz in sight) to the elegant, burgundy-walled "CEO Cube." For the truly rebellious, the "Nap Cube" includes a mattress and pillow for snoozing on the job.

Go big

If stylish redecorating isn't really your scene, check out Pimp My Cubicle (Running Press, 63 pages, $14.95), a book of tips from Reverend Smoothello G. Debaclous to help make your workspace a little more X-TREME! The kit comes complete with readymade bling, including a disco ball and leopard-print, self-adhesive wall trim. Rev. Debaclous is more adventerous than Ms. Moore, introducing readers to the profitable "Coffee Shop Cubicle," the symbolic protest of the barbed-wire-lined "Jailhouse Cubicle," and the potentially dangerous "Dominatrix Dungeon Cubicle." Yowza.

Go camping

Yearning for the sweet innocence of preadolescent summer? But can't leave the office tether? Jonathan Kauffman's The Camp Kit (Chronicle Books, 128 pages, $15.95) will help you relive those days of frolicking at Camp Kunawunga without ever leaving your pod. Use the included star chart to pick out the constellations with your bestest camp friend! Record the hijinks that ensue in the Camp Journal! Lie to your parents about those hijinks in letters home on the camp-themed postcards! Dreamy troop leader not included.

Go green

For those who would rather forget summer camp but still yearn for greenery, there's the Little Herb Gardens Deck (Chronicle Books, 50 pages, $13.95) by Georgeanne Brennan and Mimi Luebbermann. This box of handy tips will have you growing a desktop garden in no time (especially if you have a window seat). The fresh seasonings will make you popular at company picnics, and there's nothing to stop you from slipping some more popular plants in among the sage and verbena.

^Take Me Out to the Ballgame...Please!

Why you should get your ass off the couch (and into a seat at PGE Park).

By HENRY STERN

Forget George Will's or Thomas Boswell's pretentious paeans to the wonderful symmetry of the baseball diamond and the gritty glories of the men who play the game.

That's all so much BS if you want to understand why there's no better way to spend a summer night in Portland than watching minor-league baseball at PGE Park.

The answer why is simple.

Baseball is the sport that's wonderfully, marvelously and gloriously boring. And I mean that in the best sense—when you want a break from the demands of work and family. Basketball, hockey and football are all great. I love going to Autzen Stadium for the Ducks or the Rose Garden for the Blazers or the Winter Hawks. But those are events to attend with friends to scream with, or hug when UO kicks UW's or OSU's ass.

But they're all fast-paced and intense, not exactly what I need when the wife and kids are out of town, and the work day has ended.

Thus, the setting that pulls me in like a magnet is being alone in a small crowd watching a ballgame and letting my mind wander.

Living in a lousy spectator-sports town like Portland does have its upside in that regard, because a Beavers game almost always offers the perfect place to stretch out with nobody around you on a warm night to drink a cup or three (unless it's Thursday when the beer is cheap and the concessions get overwhelmed).

As a spectator, the sport provides a sense of timelessness that leaves you with the luxury of tuning in and out, catching up on reading during dead spots between innings, between pitching changes, or even between pitches.

I discovered this love of going to baseball games solo long before I got married. I was visiting my brother in San Francisco in the mid-1980s and wanted to go see my beloved Giants.

He didn't.

So I said, screw it, I'll go by myself. I don't remember much about the game itself, a match-up at the time between a lousy Giants team and an even crappier Pirates squad.

But I do remember my epiphany at age 21 of feeling like I had attained some stage of adulthood when I realized that I didn't need a bunch of other people to have a good time.

It's a feeling I still get every time I pass through the turnstiles, buy a beer and a pretzel and sit down to watch nine innings in wonderful, glorious solitude.

For a complete schedule of Portland Beavers games, check out www.pgepark.com/beavers.