Fair warning. Meda and I are counting down to an early Wednesday morning departure for Portland, Oregon, via San Francisco. We are meeting up with an old friend who is flying in from Denver, and also another friend who will be driving up from Albany to spend time with us on Friday. We have tickets for two visits to the Portland Art Museum, for a special exhibit, “Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and the Mexican Modernist Movement.” This exhibition has been on tour, and just opened last month in Portland. We saw a large Rivera exhibition years ago, maybe 20 years ago, but I don’t recall which museum hosted that one. We also plan on wandering through Portland’s Saturday market, which reopened at the beginning of the month, and also visit at least two or three good antique/collectible malls in different parts of the city. We’ll have at least a couple of wanders through Powell’s Books, over on Burnside. We’re hoping the rains hold up, and the temperatures don’t get too cold.

It’s only our second trip out of state since Covid arrived in March 2020, and our first since the Omicron surge started at the end of last year. Along the way, we planned and then had to cancel a handful of other trips to destinations including Portland, Chicago, and Washington DC.

As we move out, our cat sitter will move in to feed the felines and keep them company. Before she moves in, I’m taking the three newbies–Kali, Kinikini, and Bessie–to get their razar sharp claws trimmed back to a less dangerous length. They put up strong resistance when I try to do this job, but seem to be cowed by the authority of our vet’s office.

I’ll try to post a few times over the week, perhaps to comment on the continuing reveal of the feds’ criminal cases here, perhaps to share impressions of current travel conditions, or Portland after its “troubles” of the past couple of years.

Kinikini may have lived in a cat colony, but he’s gotten attached to things like an afternoon nap whenever possible. And with a stranger in the house, he will probably revert to the wary ways that allowed him to survive outside. I expect that means he and Kali will make only fleeting appearances as they run between hiding places. Bessie, on the other hand, will be quick to make friends. And Romeo hasn’t been worried about visitors for quite some time.