Random Portland

I love Portland for its subtle--and not so subtle--quirkiness. Like in today's paper about a group of people setting up a "non-profit, family-friendly, multigenerational coffee house." How specific is THAT? Evidently this group of parents were tired of going to Starbucks where students and telecommuters were quietly working over the Wi-Fi network and who gave dirty looks to the noisy kids and their parents. (I can ignore noisy kids normally, but every once in a while--most recently it was at Target--there is a parent that completely ignores their kid's tantrum and just continues shopping despite the fact that the sound blast being emmitted from their offspring could bring down the walls of Jericho. Don't they know that some of us are trying to SHOP here?)

Anyway, reading that article, then seeing some homeless guy walking down the street with a cat perched on his backpack--it just comfirmed that the state slogan IS true: things ARE different here. Here's a picture I took with my camera phone--it's a tad blurry--hey, I was running to catch up to him, but still be clandestine in my illegal surveillance--if you squint, you can see the black cat balanced on the guy's backpack. You have to wonder what kind of life that cat leads. I'm sure it's not like that white fluffy cat on the Fancy Feast commercials that eats her canned cat food out of a Waterford crystal goblet with a sprig of parsley and served to her by a butler with white gloves. (The only time I every got anything close to that treatment was one time when my mom brought the mac and cheese to the table holding it in a white oven mitt.)

Here's a close-up I took of the cat tied to the backpack. I'm hoping to see some homeless guy with his pet iguana tomorrow. Unfortunately I'll probably only see one with his own private flea circus.