Anne Pressley

A woman from my hometown, who was a cheerleader at the same high school I went to, was brutally murdered in her apartment in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2008. Today her killer, who was raised by an abusive crack addict, was sentenced to life in prison. The jury had the option to choose the death sentence.

I thought the victim’s stepfather’s reaction was powerful:

“Tonight, they have come back with a sentence, a sentence that they believe, and we share with them, is the harshest possible sentence for this gentleman going forward, where he will now spend the rest of his natural life in a 6-by-9 cell with nothing to think about but what he has done,” said Guy Cannady.

“It’s not until he’s carried out of Tucker Max in a pine box will he really meet his true judgment,” Cannady added, referring to Arkansas’ Tucker Maximum Security Prison.

Oh mercy, look what I did today.

Via Second Chance Companions, a no-kill, foster-based shelter program in Vancouver, WA. (And no, I am not going to become a cat blogger.)

My most constant, reliable, non-judgmental, furry companion since my arrival in Oregon in 1992 passed away on July 28. I am speaking, of course, of Lance the cat, who first darkened my door (more accurately my couch) in Portland in December 1992. I was at a keg party at a friend’s house and at the end of a long night of too much beer, this friendly young cat climbed in my sleeping bag and stayed there all night, purring vigorously.

Lance & Bella in New Orleans

When I learned the next day from my friend Katy that he was a stray who had been hanging around her house and she was trying to find him a home, I snatched him up and hauled ass back to Salem, where I was a first year at law school.

Unfortunately, pets were not allowed in the crappy apartment I was renting, so I asked my friends John, Chris and Paul if Lance could stay at their crowded house with a rural back yard. Lance stayed there for a couple of months until I could find a better place to live so I could take him home.

When I spent almost two years in New Orleans in 1998/1999, I added Bella to the mix. She was an amazing little cat who feared everyone but adored me. She was born in a St. Bernard Parish home that was later destroyed by Katrina along with almost every other home and business in Chalmette, Louisiana. She died suddenly a few years ago, which was much more difficult because she was so young and vital.

Lance in Window

Seventeen years later, in the middle of a terrible heat wave, Lance entered his next life after a long battle against kidney failure. It was really incredibly hard to witness his last couple of days while I tried to determine whether he would expire naturally or need some veterinarian assistance. It soon became obvious he needed to go to the vet. I buried him in the back yard.

When I adopted him, I could neither have guessed he would live with me from the time I was 25 until I was 42, nor the great number of changes I would experience in those years.

Bella Sleeping

I haven’t found time to write about this until now. The only thing I could do at the time was post a poem that a friend sent me while I was in the deepest part of the mourning process.

In September, I am going to dive back in and adopt a couple of kittens from the same litter.

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read–and I fear often grieving for me–
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,

I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

Robinson Jeffers, 1941

I passed a sign displaying the time and temperature on the way home from dinner tonight. It was 95 degrees in Portland after 10pm. The high temperature today was 105. This is ice cold shower and sit around (as) naked (as possible) weather.

While I was passing through Washington Park, a squirrel jumped from the brush along the road into the beam of my headlights. Before I could worry whether it would get out of the way, a coyote bounded out of the woods and captured the squirrel in its jaws before crossing the road and disappearing.

At home in my scorching cottage, all of the windows are open. A few minutes ago I began to hear a barely perceptible vibration coming from an indeterminate source. It started and stopped every few seconds. As soon as I noticed it, the sound began to grow even more faint.

When I investigated further, I found it was a housefly caught in a small web a spider has built in the corner of one of my living room windows. The fly was flapping its wings in a vain attempt to escape the trap while the spider patiently wrapped it in a web cocoon. As the cinching became more complete, the sound died out altogether and the fly was transformed from living creature to meal-in-waiting..

In an effort to beat the heatwave starting this weekend, I got up early Saturday morning and walked an 8-mile loop hike from Willamette Park in John’s Landing (elevation about 20 feet) to Council Crest (the highest point in the city limits of Portland at about 1100 feet). Here are some photos.

I started at 7am and was surprised at how early it started to get warm in the direct sunlight. Weather forecasters predict it will be 95 to 102 degrees in Portland for at least a week. The average high temperature this time of year is 80. (I strongly prefer the lower figure.)

This hike starts along the river at Willamette Park, a popular spot with boaters and paddlers, where I saw a flock of Canadian geese grazing in the dew-covered grass. The route soon exits the park and crosses Macadam Avenue, quickly reaching the first of several long, steep staircases that cut through terraced backyards going up the hill.

The route changes back and forth from street to trail several times. It crosses under Terwilliger Boulevard and Interstate 5 before climbing up to Wilson High School in the beautiful Hillsdale neighborhood.

Continuing up the hill you can see nice vistas of downtown office buildings and Ross Island. (It was very hazy and humid today, so clear photos were difficult to get.) There is an amazing home called the Keller House that has a stellar view of the city and a cliff-side swimming pool. The home was built by a Portland philanthropist named Ira Keller.

This route visits the second peak known as Council Crest, which is not the same as the peak about a mile away with the famous park and the great views. I had considered going all the way around Fairmount Boulevard to that side of the neighborhood, but once I reached the top of the hill I decided to save that 2-mile extension for another day when the sky is clear.

Highlights of the trip back down the hill include gravity, more dramatic staircases and a trail through George Himes Park, traveling back under I-5 and returning to the river. Fulton Pub is a nice place to recharge with a burger and a fine handcrafted ale, if one is so inclined.

Here’s another link to the photos.

If you live in Portland or plan to visit, be sure to check out this online book (scroll down for free maps of 50 hikes) and this indispensable volume for hill walks and urban trails in every part of the city.

Vikingsholm Trail is a popular hiking trail along the shores and hills of Emerald Bay in south Lake Tahoe. I hiked it on a beautiful afternoon in June with my sister, brother-in-law and their two children.

Hiking Companions

The trail we were on starts at a state park campsite about two miles from the destination and meanders down to the water along a well-marked grade. The dusty trail ventures through full sun and manzanita.

Around every corner is another view of the cold crystal water of the lake.

Lake Tahoe is fed by sixty-three high mountain streams that keep the water a stunning blue. Only one river, the Truckee, flows out of the lake.

Occasionally, the trail meanders from full sun into the refreshing shade of several species of evergreen.

We encountered a gigantic tree that had fallen across the trail. Maintenance crews had sawn the trunk apart to clear the trail, exposing rings that show the tree to be at least several hundred years old when it fell.

Examining Rings on Fallen Tree

Here is one of those sixty-three streams that feed into Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe Stream

At the end of this trail is Vikingsholm, a summer home built in 1929 by a wealthy landowner who wanted to replicate the architecture of the fjords of Scandinavia. I neglected to get any decent photos of the house because as soon as we arrived and sat down at a picnic table for a snack, our party was set upon by a large number of thieving chipmunks, ducks, geese and bluejays that mugged us for our food.

Our favorite was given the highly original nickname of Chippy. Someone gave up a large piece of PB&J, which he quickly dragged off into the bushes to devour.

Chippy the Well-Fed Chipmunk

Working with all the photos I took during a recent amazing road trip from Portland to Lake Tahoe, California to visit family has proven a challenge. Finding time to transfer them from the camera card to the computer and share some around has been a bigger obstacle than I expected. In an effort to break the inertia, I hope to split them up in small chunks by subject and get them up over the next few days. A second 93-degree day in a row played a supporting role by keeping me close to home.

As a first installment, here are some photos taken quickly during the drive south, which I accomplished in a 12-hour push on June 21, traveling south from Portland on I-5 and taking a left at Mt. Shasta, then heading through Lassen National Forest and Susanville. Summer solstice is a good day to cover a lot of geography since it’s the longest day of the year. Apart from a few brief stops for gas/food/restroom/photos (and to pick sage on the side of the highway), it was all gas.

I was unable to get a decent photo of 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta from the car at 70 miles per hour, but I got this one of Mount Lassen. You can make out the distant peak through the trees.

Mount Lassen from Car

I found a viewpoint of Lassen a few miles later and stopped to snap a pic and stretch the legs.

Mount Lassen

The highway from I-5 to Susanville has many different moods. I was in such a hurry to keep moving toward my destination that I snapped a few photos from the car.

There was a storm off in the distance for many miles. Storm clouds on an otherwise sunny afternoon did wild things with the light.

Coming next: A hike around Lake Tahoe and an attack by ferocious chipmunks.

Looks like President Barrack Obama will get to keep his BlackBerry, I mean his African-AmericanBerry, after all.

In a short passage in his 1945 novel Cannery Row, John Steinbeck describes the Monterey, California laboratory of a central character of the book:

“There is a stairway up the front of the building and a door that opens into an office where there is a desk piled high with unopened mail, filing cabinets, and a safe with the door propped open. Once the safe got locked by mistake and no one knew the combination. And in the safe was an open can of sardines and a piece of Roquefort cheese. Before the combination could be sent by the maker of the lock, there was trouble in the safe. It was then that Doc devised a method for getting revenge on a bank if anyone should ever want to. “Rent a safety deposit box,” he said, “then deposit in it one whole fresh salmon and go away for six months.”