June 20, 2009

"Saturday Market"

We rode bikes from Bob and Stacy's house down to the what we thought was the center of town. We ate dim sum at the "House of Louie" for lunch and it was surprisingly cheap. We rode a little further and found the Saturday Market. Lots of little arts and craft kiosks (and a hand full of arts and craps) food vendors, and musicians. It was also crawling with young able-bodied but perhaps drug-addicted homeless. Most of which were my age or younger. Portland is a haven (as is apparently much of the northwest) for young runaways and homeless youth, due not in small part to its mild climate. It was depressing enough to Shelby to not make her want to live there. I found myself resenting them.
This made me feel old and conservative and compassionless. But these were not psychiatric patients left untreated by an inaccessible health care system. They seemed to me to be kids who didn't want to work. Not all of them were as industrious as the musicians pictured. Some of them probably would have a hard time getting jobs if they chose to, but for whatever reason I got the impression that finding work and a place to live wasn't their greatest priority. I could be totally off-base, but if that's the case then Portland's weather is enabling these jerks.


We bought fun hats and a painting that Shelby really liked and rode back to Bob and Stacey's place.



We played another fun show with a slightly different cast which included another good friend, Craig McCarty. Our friends Lisa and Michiel, that we met at the hostel in Bozeman, came to the show. We hung out after and talked about the juju experience. They had to leave aroung 10:30 so we went back to the theater.

We had drinks at various bars with the cast and got to bed around 1am.