Hello from L-O

Top 12 Oregon observations I have been meaning to mention, but which never seemed to fit anywhere in particular:

1) Lake Oswego has a great library and these great drive-through return bins all over town into which you can deposit your books. This is excellent for me, as I believe I may have outstanding Vallejo warrants issued for my arrest in connection with various library fines left unpaid when we skipped town.  (Luckily, the Vallejo library police have limited resources, so no one up here said a word when we applied for library cards.)

Much simpler to return books on time if you don’t have to actually take them to the library.

Anyway, there is one such library return book bin in the parking lot of the local dog park, and if you are walking by holding a small plastic bag of dog poo, it is easy to mistake the book return bin for the dog-waste bin.  Assuming that the Lake Oswego library police are better funded than their counterparts in Vallejo, I would just like to say that no matter what the DNA analysis shows, there is no way that poo belonged to my dog.

2) There is a town called Beaverton here. It’s one of the more suburban areas surrounding Portland, and it is filled with housing developments and big-box stores. It’s a very nice place to live, I’m sure, but I could never live there. Seriously? Beaverton?

All I can think of when people talk about Beaverton is Hustler Magazine.  Enough said.

3) There are real live animal beavers here (and I’m pretty sure it’s to these animals that Beaverton’s name actually refers). They just hang out on the side of the road like small fat sassy dogs with ridiculous tails.

4) There is also a minor-league baseball team called the Portland Beavers, whose mascot came to visit the girls’ school for a pep rally of some sort. There was a beaver song and a beaver chant and a beaver dance. The mascot’s name? Lucky the Beaver. I am not making this stuff up.

5) There are banana slugs just hanging out in the shadier wetter parks like it’s no big deal. If you’ve ever been surprised by a banana slug, you’ll know that they are indeed a very big deal.

6) There is a restaurant chain up here called Burgerville that serves decent-enough hamburgers, but with the kids’ meals, they give a set of three transfer tattoos, including one of a huge lifelike banana slug. That is excellent!

7) Oregon charges no sales tax. You don’t realize how accustomed you are to doing that little bit of extra money math in your head until you no longer need to do it. Things cost exactly what they say they cost . . . which is just craziness. Maj and Kallan love this new way of paying for things, and they are forever feeling like they are getting a bargain.

8 — Washington (which is just to the north of us, for those of you who are as geographically challenged as I am) charges no state income tax. Which means there is a lot of cranky conversation about who should be paying what taxes for what goods and services. It also means that there are some very happy people who live and work in Washington, but are close enough to the border that they come to Oregon to do their shopping. They tend to keep this happy situation to themselves, as it annoys everybody else.

9) Oregon does not charge you to drive across ANY of its bridges. No fistfuls of change, no toll booths, no Fastrak, no carpool lanes with special hours. It is FABULOUS!

10) There is a bridge up here called the Sellwood Bridge that no fewer than 4 people have warned me against driving across, because they fear that it is going to fall into the Willamette River at any moment. So of course, it’s our favorite bridge — old and decrepit and charming. See #7 and #9 above for possible explanation of inadequate funds for bridge repair.

11) Oregon has a special traffic sign that is posted at many stop-sign intersections that says, “Right Turn Permitted Without Stopping.” It’s like they know you weren’t going to stop anyway, so they are just giving you permission to break the law a little. I love that they had a sign made up granting permission!

12) And finally, Lake Oswego calls itself “L-O,” which is just goofy. As in:

“Where do you live?”
“L-O”
“Hello to you too, but where do you live?”

It’s like a bad Abbot and Costello routine, but if you think it’s stupid, you are obviously not from here, and so Mark and I have been going with the “L-O” flow.