Morning, my friends! Together let’s breathe deep…then exhale our collective mantra…..Friday! It’s July 26, 2019, one more day in 90-land, then 80ish for the weekend and thereafter. Wouldn’t mind a gentle cool shower, and we might get one tomorrow. An NWS forecaster in Portland dished up a bunch of weatherese and then typed, “The main message for the long term is abnormally hot conditions are not expected through the period.” One thing we can depend on is sunrise at 5:47 AM, and sunset at 8:46 PM.
It’s one in the afternoon in Paris, as I write this, and the temperature is only 83 degrees. Yesterday le mercurie touched 108 at mid-afternoon, torching the all-time record for the City of Lights but Not Much Air Conditioning of 104, recorded two years after the end of WWII.
Those who dwell in the southern Willamette Valley, sweating through their first Red Flag Warning of the year, were smelling smoke and having bad memories as a fire in Linn County burned about 75 acres and the northerly breeze blew the smoke right into Eugene. Another fire south of Canyonville got very close to I-5. I read on a geeky weather website that “The average Energy Release Component (ERC) for the Willamette Valley is around the 80th percentile indicating that the larger fuels are cured or close to being cured.” In other words, we’re almost kindling-dry.
During the heat of the afternoon, Portland Fire crews were on the run in Forest Park–not for a fire, thankfully, but for a cyclist who had fallen down a hill. It took a 45-minute search before paramedics reached the patient.
If you take your sweltering self paddling or puttering around any of our area’s waterways, safety folks say lower water levels are a danger, especially for the inexperienced who don’t yet have the hang of maneuvering their tub around low-water obstructions brambles or campsites near the banks or jagged rocks just below the water’s shiny surface.
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Oregon’s senior member of Congress, Democrat Peter Defazio, is now on board the impeachment train, saying in a statement that Donald Trump’s presidency “is a danger to our national security and a threat to our democracy” and that “the time has come for the Judiciary Committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry and collect the evidence necessary to build a strong case against President Trump.”
In spite of the growing consciousness how vulnerable our elections are to foreign intrusion–and how gullible some of our electorate and leaders are to social media monkey-business–Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to block a vote on election security legislation.
Someone put up a fake presidential seal on a screen the other day, just when Donald Trump walked on the stage. Nobody noticed right away. The incident is described as “just a terrible Google search mistake,” but heads rolled in the AV department of the conservative student group where Trump appeared. It showed a two-headed eagle–just like the Coat of Arms of Russia–clutching a set of golf clubs in its talons.
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Mick Jagger is 76 years old today. He and the boys are playing Houston tomorrow night. He spends his days running, cycling, kickboxing, and lately, learning ballet.
Hey, is this not a sensible idea? A petition proposing to move Halloween to the last Saturday of October, so the kids aren’t all candied up and the adults don’t have humming headaches when the next day is, like, Tuesday, has gained thousands of signatures. What do you think?
Here are a few items on the weekend calendar, and I appreciate it when you share events in your town that Dripsters should know about!
Wicked’s three-week run closes Sunday at the Keller.
The Sunlight Supply Amphitheater will be Southern-rocking tonight with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Farewell Tour. Free Bird! Of course they play it! That’s always their encore. Their lead singer now is, and for years has been, Johnny Van Zant, co-founder Ronnie’s younger bro; guitarist Gary Rossington is the only remaining member of the band’s original lineup and he’ll be there in Ridgefield tonight. He survived the 1977 plane crash that took Ronnie and others. Gary played the slide guitar on Free Bird, and you hear him multitracking rhythm guitar in the right channel and acoustic guitar over on the left on Sweet Home Alabama. Turn it up!
Last week it was Chicago; Sunday night it’s Michael McDonald and Chaka Khan at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheater.
Tomorrow is Oregon Corgi Beach Day, on Cannon Beach north of Haystack Rock.
The 2019 NW Natural Street of Dreams opens tomorrow at Stafford Meadows in Wilsonville. Six homes are on display, all examples of virtuoso design and craftsmanship that are beyond the means, but not the dreams, of practically everybody. The website rhapsodies bear witness; here’s a sampling from each home: “Waterfalling quartz and floor-to-ceiling tile echo through the great room, adding drama to the floating fireplace”…”Ergonomically designed garden beds and the floating “She Shed” & “He Shed” outbuildings create opportunities to connect, harbor, or celebrate”…” Look closely as you admire yourself in the decorative full-length closet mirror — there is more here than meets the eye”…”A sustainable home network platform supports the latest technology integration allowing for room-to-room communication and remote control over your thermostat, lights, music, and more”…”On your way to the second garage, you’ll find a full sized freezer, more cabinetry and a very functional laundry room, with a built-in sink, three lazy Susan bins for sorting clothes”…”you will notice beautify handcrafted medallions in Duchateau flooring, an elegant yet modern handrail and to top it all off a massive skybridge spans the upper floor”…
Hmm…what’s the Powerball jackpot? 75 million.
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Back to reality. And reality is sometimes pretty fine! These stories are found in the good ol’ Daily Drip Coffee Cup.
–“Woman jogger chases and pins down flasher, makes him scream”
–“Rescue crews follow giggles to find toddler missing in Canada”
–“The Last All-Male Board in the S&P 500 Finally Added a Woman to the board”
–“Cold Cash: ALS group shows what it’s done with all that Ice Bucket Challenge money”
–“Human plays gentle piano for ancient elephant”
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Have a wonderful weekend. We’ll keep in touch. Oh nice…there’s a typo in the Coffee Cup headline. Can’t fix that now!
Portland's Daily Drip 