August 8, Astoria: Living Space

Astoria, Oregon ~ August 8, 2001

Funky, but it's nice to remember these things. I thought I was in heaven. A living space begins to emerge from the clutter of packed and unpacked boxes. There's my futon on the right and a foam pad on the left, which may have been more comfortable sleeping than the futon. I bought a salmon colored piece of thick fabric intending to make a covering with it, and some white furry fabric intending to make a pillow. Neither got done, but it was fun having the colors around. The music box was not chosen for its design. It was in the price range, it sounded pretty good, and having music was glorious. Even though the apartment was small, the layout with the staggered doorways and the wide hall made an effective sound baffle. It's the first place I'd lived where I needed two sound systems. When it's not dark, those two windows look out over the river. It was incredible. Kate bought me the Scandinavian circular thing when we stayed our first night on the Coast at the Crest Motel.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

August 4, Astoria: Make-up and cameras

As I'm posting this about 9 years later, I don't remember exactly what I was doing with the camera. Some days you just want to see what you look like, or see what you look like different than usual (I usually don't wear make-up, but probably should, now that I'm getting older). The first shot, of course, is horribly burned out, but it shows the rug on the wall from Salasaca, Ecuador.

Ah. Not burned out.

Here's my first digital camera - the one I got before leaving Colorado.

Me again. Writing from 2010, I've been trying to grow my hair that long again. I wasn't having to color it yet in this photo, but between then and now it started coming in gray (and not in a nice way), so it's been through coloring and styling, and I kinda prefer the old hippie look. I'm on my way back there. Oh, hmm. I remember now. I was placing a personal ad and I needed a current photo. That's one of the scariest parts, especially when I'm feeling overweight. Well, actually, the whole thing is scary.

The back yard outside my Bond Street apartment.

I took this from the deck of the apartment balcony (slash fire escape). What a wonderful place!

Sunset from my apartment.

Sunset, part 2. Who ever said the Bond Street address was a slum? I'll take this slum any day.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Aug 1, Astoria: Bond Street apartment and orange ship

I took this pic on a dark day from the concrete pad where the dumpster is near the front porch of my apartment. My apartment is the row of windows you see at the bottom of the building on the right. I love these bright orange ships, but it's so hard to get the color right. It's not right here, either. That's Marine Drive at the bottom of the hill. Unfortunately, you can't go directly down on a whim, but you have to walk around a block or more to get to Marine Drive.

June 28: The view from my apartment

Here's a ship passing on the river in late afternoon light. The hills on the other side of the river are Washington. This was taken from my back deck (the fire escape, but spacious enough for several chairs, potted plants, etc.). I still can't believe I have this. There are a few steps up from my back door to this landing, and then a few more steps from the landing to the apartment above me. There are four landings for five apartments, so somebody technically doesn't get one. The people in my apartment before me seem to have used the bottom landing, so I've taken it over. This works for me, and I rationalize because (unbelievably to me) the guy in one of the apartments said he'd never been onto the landing in the several years he's been here! It's hard to believe, but at least those who want a deck (landing) will get a private one.

You can also walk down the stairs into the yard. It's not a yard that gets used much, but I like it, and I like the large bushes that grow here. One of the first days in my apartment, I saw a raccoon outside my window. How cool is that? The welcoming committee had made me feel very welcome, indeed. It would be kinda nice if you could just walk down to the water, but you have to go around a block or so to get there.

This is also taken from my deck looking northeast (approximately) toward town. The spit of land you can see is Tongue Point. The hills across the river are Washington.

Yikes! This is looking down from my landing. I'm still reveling in the lush green after living in the desert for so long. The blue building is the back of one of the two motels just below me on the hill.

June 23: Venturing further - to Hammond, Gearhart, and Cannon Beach

This is the entrance hallway in my new apartment. I really can't believe the space I have in this one-bedroom place. The hall is practically another room, and certainly serves as one as far as having somewhere to put my things. The apartment is as big as some two-bedroom places I've seen. The pic is taken just after entering the front door. The passageway on the left goes to the living room. The first folding door on the right goes to a walk-in closet, big by any standards I've lived with before, and beyond that with red bags and scarves hanging from it is another folding door going to the bedroom. However, I'm doing something that's worked for me in the past. I'm turning the living room into a bedroom. In this case, it's the bedroom/art studio, and the supposed bedroom is my office and the online gift shop. It feels spacious and calming. (Posting this from the future, it's good to look back and see this. I got busy, my place collected things, and I'm looking for the serenity I had when things appeared to be simpler. It's a good reminder.) Just before moving here, I'd read that it's bad feng shui to have the front door and the back door exactly opposite, so I'm buying something on eBay to remedy that. I see some feng shui as superstition, but if you view it as energy movement in space, it makes tons of sense. The remedies I've tried always feel right. I can thank Kate for this, too. She introduced me to Feng Shui for the West.

I've driven over the bridge toward the beach, but rather than going to the beach, I took the road north to Hammond. This is the Columbia River from Hammond, and the low, dark hill in the center of the photo is Astoria. It's kind of a gloomy day, but I'm enjoying seeing what's around me.

I took this from Hammond also, looking west toward the mouth of the river. The hills you see in this photo are in Washington.

I guess this area would be called Gearhart. It's almost exactly between Gearhart and Seaside. I've driven south now on Highway 30 (also called 26 and 101) and come to a picturesque slough. Beyond the second body of water is the beach and the ocean. It's still surprising to me to find forest settings and vegetation near the beach.

This is the same slough looking south on Highway 30/26/101. I feel anchored by mountains and large bodies of water, and here we have both. The closest mountains aren't that high, but they do have forest and that makes a difference. The mountains behind Santa Barbara never felt very real to me when I lived there.

I've gone all the way south to Cannon Beach. The picture is taken looking north from the beach in front of one of the large hotels rather than south to the famous Haystack Rock. Cannon Beach is one of the places I'd thought of living, but costs are high and the town seemed to be more of a tourist destination than a complete in-depth town. It's pretty here, and it makes me lonely to go to nice places and want to share it with someone. I'll be taking an art class at the college in September, and I have my work and all my Internet connections. I'm forcing myself to be more outgoing and talk to people. That's probably a good thing. The beach at this location is wide and flat and I really prefer the beach closer to home where the forest and grass come closer to the water.

In all, I've chosen a remarkable place to live. No regrets!

June 19: Tapirs and candles, settling in

I'm getting some of the important things arranged in the apartment - my tapir collection and plants, and some other comfort pieces like candles. I've never been very good and deciding where to put things and how to arrange rooms, but some areas are coming out nicely. Remember the big stack of boxes I packed my stuff in for moving? They were efficient, but little did I know they would also make good furniture after the move! It looks like I've used some of them under this fabric. Later I moved those boxes elsewhere and put plastic bins in their places by this window to store my collage and other art materials and supplies. I hate blocking the access to windows, but it was basically a good compromise. I had stacks of fabric-draped box furniture in various places. They made a great headboard for the bed, too. On the left you can just see the corner of the wooden racks I used to store cassette tapes. I love music!

These tapirs are part of my personal collection and have come from many sources. Some were made for my online tapir gift shop, and others from tapir contacts who wanted to send something nice. I brought my work with me: The Tapir Preservation Fund and its Tapir and Friends gift shop. I had to make the adjustment to a new town and state, but I didn't have to look for a job.

Jun 17: The view from my apartment

I took these two photos to show friends and family what the actual view was from my windows. I'm still in awe of this place. It would be nice not to have the clutter down by the highway, but really, are you kidding? This is amazing. People would pay thousands of dollars a month for a situation like this in some big cities and I'm paying $400 a month, which includes some of the utilities! This is looking west toward the mouth of the river, which can't be seen from here. The bridge is the Astoria-Megler Bridge which crosses the Columbia, 4-point-something-miles to Washington on the other side.

This is looking out from a north-facing living room window onto the river and some abandoned docks. There's a small house trailer out there, and the dock itself is fenced off. I can see the huge tides rise and fall in the area between the shore and the first set pier. The hills on the other side of the river are in Washington. At the top right of the photo is the railing of my fire escape/deck. It's sooooooo nice to stand or sit out there and get the real panoramic view. Oddly enough, you can't get directly to the river from here, you have to walk a few blocks to a street that goes down the hill, then cross the busy Marine Drive, which is an extension of Highway 30, so it gets all the traffic coming up the coast to Portland. Then you can find your way past the warehouses to the River Walk, which goes clear through town and up to the cannery area on the east.

Jun 15: The view from Bond Street

I talked so much in recent posts about looking for an apartment and finally finding my wonderful apartment on Bond Street. Well, here it is! I'm standing at street level, and you can see the steep slope of the hill. The front door of the building is (of course) at the level of the street, then you go down two floors (4 flights) to my apartment, which is the only one on the bottom floor. The three windows at the bottom of the building are mine - two in the kitchen, and one in the living room. Others on the river side look out onto that view. I can see the bridge and the river. It's amazing. Above the ground floor are two more levels, so there are 5 floors in all. The apartments at the back of the building have the good view and the fire escape is so big, we use the landings for decks. They were probably built to do double-duty. I'll have pix of them another time.

An almost perfect place to live

These are the first photos I took from my new apartment. This is the place I had phoned about that wouldn't be available to see until Monday. From the first moment I saw it, I knew it was right. Especially after what I'd seen over the weekend, there was really no question. The manager was nice, the place was clean. It had space, the price was right, the views were incredible, it had a stove and refrigerator. It seemed like a miracle. If I could have changed something, I would have opted for hardwood floors and acceptance of pets. But that seemed like a small sacrifice at the moment. I could live with the blue shag. This was home. Kate and I had moved into the Lamplighter Motel for our third night in Astoria to save some money. It was simple and basic and there was soup served in the lobby. We'd tried a motel up the street, but when the proprietor handed us a can of Raid saying the roach infestation (or was it ants?) wasn't that bad, we moved along. Again, I'm telling you this is not the slums. It's just - I hate to say it, but it's just Astoria. Erby had wanted to delay my move for another day so the just-cleaned carpets could dry, but I prevailed and pushed up moving day. Erby's son Alex and a friend helped Kate move the whole truck-load of stuff down four flights of stairs and did it all with a smile for the small sum I could pay them. It was quite a welcome. I was exhausted and stressed, and did what I could, which was mainly tell them where to put things and sort out what came in the door. The apartment was on Bond Street hill, and I felt I had the best of all worlds. Shielded by the hillside, my apartment would stay cool in summer, and yet, even on the bottom floor I had a treetop view over the Columbia River. It felt like heaven.

This is the view out my living room window - the Astoria-Megler bridge and its four mile span over to Washington.