Friday, January 18, 2019

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”–Mary Oliver

And….it’s Friday, January 18, 2019! Welcome to the Daily Drip to wrap up the week. We’ll need to suit up for a juicy and vigorous storm that will haul ashore and cross the area later, then stall to the south of us, and come right back on Saturday night. Highs in the 50 zone, according to the NWS meteorologists who are currently paid less than Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit. There’ll be abundant snow for skiers this weekend (although snowpack for the year is looking meager). Sunrise 7:45 AM, sunset 4:57 PM. Sunday is the first 5 PM sunset of the year!

The weather forecast is comme-ci-comme-ça, but we could have a shot at witnessing the total eclipse of the Super Moon as it mounts the sky Sunday evening. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, so with no school, the kids can stay up late and watch! How rare is it for an eclipse to fall on the night before a holiday? Last time was 1975. As Mary Oliver wrote, “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

It’s Day 28 of our leadership eclipse, and while airliners are being vectored through the crowded skies and other critical government services are performed by unwilling volunteers who are eating from food banks, the parties we need to solve their own mess are acting like toddlers needing a time-out. I wish we could resurrect Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan to take over this shipwreck; they’d settle it in a day. Both sides would come away with something but would give up something, Trump would get some fence, as if that would do anything to slow the flow of drugs and humanity through the main border portals, and Dreamers would get to be Americans. Their partisans would grumble, but Tip and Ronnie would go have some drinks, and say to one another as Mary Oliver wrote, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”

A report in Buzzfeed says longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told the Mueller probe that the president personally instructed him to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower talks. But that hasn’t been confirmed by other major media on the case. Cohen is going to testify before Congress soon, so we’ll hear directly from him.

Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable,” yes, Mary Oliver, RIP.

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Once thought eradicated, the measles has now infected 16 mostly unvaccinated children in Vancouver, with five more suspected. Clark County has just a 77% vaccination rate.

The Salem Women’s March is tomorrow, and I’ll just repost what Dripster Pat Donenfeld wrote yesterday: “I know Portland’s Women’s March has been delayed until spring, but Salem has their rally & March this Saturday. Great list of speakers! Music, food trucks & booths start at 11am at the Capitol. Speakers begin at 12. Then the march starts about 1:15-1:30. Salem’s events have all been violence-free & positive. Come join Salem if you’re interested!” Thanks, Pat! While Portland’s event will be held on an undetermined date in March, there are a couple of rallies tomorrow, a “#MeToo Speak Out and Women’s March” starting at 10 AM at Schrunk Plaza, and a “Counter Rally for Reproductive Justice” at 1 in Pioneer Courthouse Square, just an hour before a Right to Life rally at the same location.

A sweet-faced Barn Owl found its way up to an 18th-floor condominium balcony on SW 10th, downtown…and couldn’t figure out how to fly out. There’s a translucent barrier between the balcony and the great beyond, and the poor bird kept flapping into it. Days went by, and the small owl with a heart-shaped face was clearly dehydrated and not doing well. So the condo owner threw a towel over it and brought it into the Audubon Society’s Wildlife Care Center, and after fluid transfusions and some yummy dinners of fresh mouse, the young bird is just about ready to Alis volat propriis.

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This was the date in 1854 when Oregon Territorial Legislature adopted as the Oregon Territory motto “Alis volat propriis,” which translates to She Flies with Her Own Wings. That’s our state motto today.

Forty years ago today, world headlines were made when travel writer Peter Jenkins walked into Florence, Oregon to finish, at last, a “Walk Across America,” which began in New York six years before. He wrote two NY Times bestsellers about his travels that inspired many to hit the highway, like Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley” and Kerouac’s “On the Road.” Along the way he tragically lost his malamute Cooper to a tractor accident…but gained another travel companion, who soon became his wife. He’s 67 and still on the road….in a ’57 Chevy wagon. As Mary Oliver wrote, “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz, whose Onion-like satires entertain many people (others like me find him predictable) is at the Schnitz tonight.

Tomorrow night, Decemberists leader Colin Meloy plays a solo benefit at The Old Church for Victory Academy, which serves kids with autism.

The Rose City Classic Dog Show continues today and all weekend at the Expo Center.

Kevin Costner is 64 today. How, you might ask, could I include Kevin Costner’s birthday on the Daily Drip…and miss Michelle Obama, Betty White, and Edith Green yesterday? Because I accidentally dumped that day’s prep material, which I did during the football games last weekend, in a 3 AM fit of clumsiness that also left out the 25th anniversary of LA’s Northridge earthquake and goodness knows what else. I’m still upset with myself. I’m suspending myself for one day, which I’ll serve on Monday.

Tomorrow is 19/19! There’s a Steely Dan song I need to hear.

Say, I read in the fine Columbian that more and more Clark County women are delaying becoming Moms. Late thirties? Not unusual. Makes economic sense at that end, but Junior’ll be hitting college right around the time you’re eyeing retirement…

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So what else is good in our world today? Here’s what I’ve found, and posted links in the Coffee Cup, first item in the comment section below.

–“First-year medical student on way home from anatomy lecture delivers baby in a subway”

–“Let it go….Buddhist poker player donates $600,000 win to charity”

–“1-lb. ‘Miracle Puppy’ Survives Being Picked Up and Dropped by Hawk Without Breaking a Bone”

–“Young Man Invents “Water You Can Eat” to Help Dementia Patients Like His Grandma Stay Hydrated”

–“Barack Obama wishes Michelle Obama a happy birthday with sweet throwback tribute”

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The weekend awaits! As Mary Oliver wrote, Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?