Category Archives: Life beyond parenting

There are some things that have nothing to do with the kids, right

It’s Game Day in Portland

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Today is the day. The first home game for the MLS version of the Portland Timbers and Jesse and I have our tickets to go stand in the rain and sing along as the boys take on Chivas USA for the right to play in the US Open Cup. It’s not an MLS game and it doesn’t count in the standings but we don’t care. It’s a chance to get out there and support our club and this day can’t move fast enough. Following the RCTID (Rose City Till I Die) hashtag on twitter shows me that I am not the only one overcome with jittery excitement. Season tickets have been arriving yesterday and today and I have seen every picture folks have taken of their season ticket package. They are rarely any different visually but they are individually imbued with such importance and power that each needs to be gawked at and appreciated. Our tickets have arrived at Jesse’s house and I peppered his wife with questions about them when she came to pick up The Charge. She has not opened them, which is a good decision since that would be robbing Jesse of a wonderful right of passage, so she cant tell me who is on the cover or how many cards are in the packets. It’s hard for me to sit here at home knowing the tickets are waiting there, but they are Jesse’s to open.

So I wait. I clean the house and take care of the kids and will the minutes away. I fight urge to grab that early beer, and I smile over each new Timbers tweet. I have never been more excited to go stand in the rain and sing.

We are green and we are white, Portland Timbers are here tonight!!

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I have joined the army, the Timbers Army

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photo by lisajeannes

It’s still another month off, the first home game of the season, but I can’t help but get excited each time I pass one of the many billboards around the city. The litany of Paul Bunyans on white back grounds trumpeting Major League soccer in Portland. On the way downtown from the freeway there is girl with an ax over her shoulder, over on Burnside there is a dad and two daughters that is particularly striking due to the youngest girl in a tutu wielding a hatchet while dad holds a chain saw. The images are striking and the ad campaign is powerful. Everyday fans wearing their green scarfs or jerseys, with scowls or smiles, and the tools of the logging trade. We are the Timbers Army and we are ready for the MLS in the Rose City.

A friend and I went in on two season tickets, and by went in I mean he payed for both and my ticket is on layaway. We will go to most games together, but set aside a couple of games to have both tickets to do with what we like. Some one asked if I was excited to bring my son to a game and while I am I more looking forward to the games with my friend. Much like the basketball game I went to with my dad last month, going to a game with some just as geeked as I am about the sport, the team, and the atmosphere is bigger than the experience of sharing it with my young son. There may come a time when he picks up on the sport and gets just excited if not more, but until that time the draw so seeing a game with a knowledgable fan wins out.

So I look forward to Marh 19 and the start of the season against Colorado and wait patiently for that April 14th game at the updated PGE park against the Chicago Fire. The MLS is here in Portland and I am ready to join in the chorus of the Timbers Army. #RCTID

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Hunt for Houston Sweepstakes from Supercuts

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Last year I wrote about getting the kids ready for the Final Four by teaching them the fine art of filling out a bracket. Primo ended up winning with his picking the funniest name strategy. We will be getting our brakets in this year and I can’t wait to see what method the boys use this time. Losing to a four year old is not going to fly for me so I have been catching more games this year than last year and I think I’m prepared to go far. The Final Four this year is in Houston and Supercuts is running a Hunt for Houston Sweepstakes to give two people a spring break to remember.The package includes airfare, 4 nights’ hotel accommodations and $500 of spending money to help enjoy the on-court action. You can go to facebook.com/supercuts to find out more and learn how to enter to win. I have been to the Indy 500, Kentucky Derby, Playoff NBA Basketball, Playoff NFL Football, and some great playoff baseball games but I have never been to NCAA tournament games. I would love to be part of the madness so if you don’t want to win for your self enter for me.

Along with the chance to win the trip to Houston we are also giving away a Hunt for Houston pack to a lucky reader. This pack includes:

  • $20 Supercuts Gift Card
  • $20 Sports Authority Gift Card
  • Desk/Office Basketball Game Set – Hoop/Ball
  • Foam Finger

    • How can you win this pack you ask? There are two ways to enter:

    1. Leave a comment telling me the strategy you use to fill out you March Madness bracket. If you don’t fill one out go ahead and leave a comment anyway, make something up.
    2. Tweet the following “Enter the #HuntForHouston @Supercuts $20 Supercuts/$20 Sports Authority Gift Card Giveaway  from @portlanddad http://wp.me/pRGzp-oQ ” and leave a comment letting me know you tweeted.

    The Hunt For Houston Sweepstakes is open until March 12, 2011 so get your entry in soon. To win the prize pack here get your comment and tweets in by Wednesday March 9, 2011 and I will choose a comment at random at 12 PM Pacific on Wednesday March 9, 2011 and let the winner know.

    Disclosure: Supercuts provided me with a $25 Supercuts Gift Card and a Hunt for Houston pack to give away so I could finally get a haircut and look a little less homeless sheik.

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    unsolicited Valentine’s Advice by someone wholly unqualified

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    While Valentine’s day is not a big thing in our house it is still nice to take some time and be intentional with the one you love, the one you have chosen to do life with. This past weekend Beautiful and I made a progressive meal after the boys went to bed and talked to each other while we enjoyed crab cakes and sauteed mushrooms. We sat in the kitchen taking turns cooking the next dish and making our way through a bottle of wine and we had a great time.

    As with any made up holiday people observe in different ways but even if you don’t buy into the Valentine’s day story at least take the opportunity to really be present with your partner. The flowers and chocolates and jewelry are nice and all but the real gift is in the time spent together with no other distractions. Being intentional about listening and engaging means a whole lot more to the structure of your relationship than that perfect bouquet.

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    Basketball with my dad

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    My first basketball game was here in Portland when I was twelve years old. My dad and I watched the Washington Bullets and their three point shooting center Manute Bol get rolled by Clyde Drexler and the rest of the Blazers. We moved to Southern California shortly after that and I watched Magic, Kareem, Worthy, and Scott of the Lakers at the Great Western Forum and much to my dad’s disappointment became a Lakers fan. While in California my dad and I went to a couple more games together, mostly Clippers games because we weren’t crazy rich, and it has always been fun.

    My dad and I could go to any NBA game and have a great time because we are two of the last twenty NBA fans left. I learned the game from watching basketball with my dad. Not just following the ball but seeing how guys got open, where the rotation came from on double teams or help defense, and who used smart playing to overcome athletic deficiencies. Almost all of the guys in our Fantasy Basketball league grew up playing basketball on our driveway court and getting schooled by my dad’s old school tricks.

    Last night I got the chance to see a game again with my dad and this was the best of them all. The game was great but we had great seats behind the visitors bench, wrist bands that got us free food and beverages from the Club level buffet, and a parking pass for the good lot. We arrived an hour early, loaded our plates with rosemary mash potatoes and pot roast, and sat in our seats watching the guys that weren’t going to play get their workout in. Seeing what the Blazers want Luke Babbitt to work on is as interesting to us as seeing who will be guarding who. We watched the early games on the jumbotron, checked out the slowly arriving crowd, and talked about life. It was a really great time with my dad and scene I hope to recreated with my boys when they are older. I don’t know if they will love the game like my dad and I do but I hope so.

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    I am affected by both words and Beautiful

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    While reading Neatherlands by Joesph O’Neil last night I got choked up and had to fight back tears. I get like that when the theme of broken relationships, particularly marital, comes up. After a separation where one character lived in New York and the other lived in London, the main character finds out his wife has found someone else. Any hope that this was just temporary is lost and the weight of it hits me hard in the chest. I don’t know why I am more likely to react to this scenario than I am to a child being hurt or dying but, while sad, those scenes don’t effect me as deeply as the dissolution of a marriage does.

    I think part of the reason comes down to the numbers. 50% of marriages end in divorce but 50% of kids don’t die. Maybe it’s a statistical response to a much more likely scenario or maybe it is just a poke to a subconscious fear. While I know I am great for Beautiful and that she loves me I often feel like I’m the one in the relationship that pulled above my weight class. There is a CD I once made for her all about how I tricked her into loving me with songs like Wooden Teeth by Seabear (“We got married while you were still asleep“) or The Jayhawks I’m Gonna Make You Love Me (that’s right, it’s a Dawson’s Creek Fan video there, that’s how I roll). It is a running joke, that like all comedy has some basis in truth.

    While I am not insecure about our marriage I do like being moved and effected by books. I like that reading something can touch a nerve inside and illicit an emotional response. I know that Beautiful is in love with me but I also don’t take that for granted. Love is not really the driving constant in a marriage I don’t think. But making sure that she knows that I appreciate her, that I see her, that I love her, and that she is the one I continually choose to live life with will go a long way in keeping her from waking up.

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    Leave it to Twitter to brighten the holiday

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    A week or two ago I sent out a semi-frustrated tweet after returning from the bike shop where I was unable to exchange the ill-fitting rain jacket for another because the extra $20 was just too much at the time. I typed: “Nothing like the holidays to make you feel even more poor than you already are.” It was the equivalent of screaming into the grand canyon to release a little frustration but the response back was encouraging as people resonated with feeling poor but one person went a step further and asked if she could do something about it. Michelle Ward at Addaboy Clothing asked what size my boys were and if she could send out a couple of her awesome shirts. Now these aren’t just some random t-shirts but custom made clothes inspired by their love of music. Modern Clothing for Little Rockers, as their tagline says and I excitedly sent our address back.

    Her response was emblematic of community I have found on twitter. Dads talking about being dads, bloggers sharing their posts, soccer fans talking world cup trash, dirty boston fans even. I have found shared frustrations, advice on discipline, and even political discussion relatively free or rancor. As a stay at home parent in rainy Portland the community that I have found online has helped me feel less isolated and more connected and valued in the market place of ideas and diapers. There are folks I will never meet that have had a profound impact on me as a parent and a person and for that I am thankful.

    The night before christmas the mail man came with last of the cards and packages before the big day and in that batch were the shirts from addaboy clothing. They are awesome! One of their signature shirts that Primo is sporting in the picture above called Tattoo Girls Ink Shirt and a black and white button down short sleeve shirt for Segundo that I can’t find on their site. He did not want to take part in picture time you will have to wait to see that picture, but trust me, it’s awesome too. Thank you Michelle for brightening up our Christmas time with such one of kind shirts. You have blessed us with your kindness and helped two little rocker boys shine.

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    So much to love about the NorthWest

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    I wrote about the lovely Sunday drive on Highway 30 from Portland to Clatskanie but at the time of the post I didn’t have a picture of the amazing sign for Lindberg Grocery. Well on my way to get the boys last weekend I pulled over and snapped the above picture of the fantastic sign. This sign captures the entrepreneurial mish mosh of hybrid businesses in the Northwest.  It’s not enough to have one idea, like a grocery store, anymore. Instead you need to pair that one great idea with three or four other ones and capitalize and a wider audience. The whole Long Tail idea seems to be offline and in the mom and pop businesses and I love it. I like to know that there is a place to bring my saw blade to get sharpened while I tan, and then pick up some cheese too.

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    Guest Post: Winter Gardening

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    By: Ben Lindwall

    Here in Minnesota, during the winter, there is only one way for a stay-at-home-dad to keep his sanity: grow something.

    I’ve been gardening for a little over 5 years but have just recently come to realize the offseason benefits of growing food in the winter. As we speak, I’ve got some young spinach, arugula, lettuce, and chard sprouting up underneath my plastic row covers in the backyard (and today’s high in Minneapolis is sixteen degrees Fahrenheit)!

    I planted at the end of October, so come the end of March I will have bagfuls of greens to feed my family. If you tend to eat one 12 oz bag of greens in a week, this will save you between $15-$20 a month– even more if you like cooking with greens, in which case you can double or triple your savings at the market.

    More importantly, many of us are completely disconnected from knowing who is growing, harvesting, and transporting our food. As a result, many of us eat food that is grown from depleted and over-fertilized soil, lathered in pesticides, picked by exploited workers, and then driven across the country, if not further. This is absolutely unacceptable.

    I grow and harvest my greens and my daughter carries them into the house (in return, I let her eat for free). And speaking of kids, have you ever heard a toddler ask for spinach? Well try growing it yourself. While I water the garden, my daughter will ask for leaf after gorgeous green leaf!

    Do I really think that gardening is going to make any difference? Totally. As I till my soil, pull weeds, and taste my own produce, I become much more conscious and connected to the process of growing food. It doesn’t just magically appear. There is actual work involved. I try to take this new consciousness with me to the market. It affects which products I buy and makes me think twice before supporting massive agribusinesses with my grocery budget. I love how Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen put it in their book The Urban Homestead: “Growing your own food is an act of resistance. We can all join [] in dismantling the corporations that are feeding us shit.”

    Start with spinach. It’s easy to grow and is packed with nutrition. Plant the seed ¼ of an inch below the soil and keep it moist until it sprouts. Pay attention to what else might begin to sprout. Let your curiosity lead you. Its amazing how one new beginning can lead to another, as well as lots of learning along the way.

    I planted my first seed before I had kids and for purely selfish reasons. Today I garden for peace of mind, family nutrition, and even justice. For me, this is especially important in the middle of Minnesota, in the middle of December.

    Ben lives in Minneapolis MN, with his wife and two kids and is a stay at home dad and life long Twins fans. That means he has to suffer through great seasons only to lose to the Yankees in the playoffs every year. Along with gardening Ben brews beer, listens to great music, and has an advanced degree in whittling.

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