Babies make everything complicated

Despite my desperate pleas before leaving, only one person called me to get a detailed explanation of what Portland is like. As it was, I was half asleep when that person called and accidentally hit the “decline” button on my phone. As it turns out, they didn’t miss much.

Portland is just like Seattle, but smaller. The weather and landscapes are more or less identical – same evergreen trees, substitute the Colombia for the Sound. Their downtown is ridiculously quaint, kind of like it was built by Disney as an add-on to Frontier Land. Driving to downtown to go drinking on Saturday night, I had to be clued in that we’d already arrived. Somehow, when I look up and can see over the top of every building, I don’t feel like I’m standing in a major urban center.

I’ve already had this conversation with my two older siblings and their significant others (“Seattle is better!” “No, Portland is better!” “Eat a dick!”) enough times that it’s effectively moot to me. It amounts to taste. If you enjoy living in a beautiful city, live in Seattle. If development and tall things scare you, or you fantasize about some sort of proto-lumberjack lifestyle and you can’t handle the commute from Port Angeles, live in Portland. It’s that simple.

The number one highlight of the little town is my delightful 15-month old niece Allison. She’s as cute as, like, five buttons. But much like Portland itself, as much as I enjoy visiting, I’m glad that she’s not a permanent installment of my life. Administering to the needs of a baby is hard work, apparently. It’s kind of like being a vet, in that you have this feisty little patient with whom you can’t really communicate. She’ll grunt or squeal or wail, and my brother and his wife will try to interpret what she wants. “Are you hungry? Do you have an earache? Do you need to be changed?” I’m glad they’re on top of things. I was certainly no help.