Flipping the mattress: Not a euphemism for anything

I don't think this is what they mean by Sleep Number Mattress (tm), but it's the key to an important ritual in our household. Longer ago than I can remember, the engineer in the family numbered the 4 short edges of our mattress -- head and foot, top and bottom -- consecutively. Every quarter, on the solstice or equinox, we turn and/or flip the mattress so the next number is at the head. When 4's up, we return to 1, and so on ad infinitum. The object of this exercise: even wear, longer life. For the mattress, anyway. Thrilling, I know, but it's one of the quirky little dances we do. I'm sure you have yours. Happy summer.

Thinking Outside the (Vegetable) Bed

Thanks to the towering Port Orford cedar in the southeast corner of our lot, and the mature pink chestnut that dominates the west side, our back yard has grown noticeably shadier in the five years we've lived here. Any given spot in the narrow herb and veggie bed along the south side of the house receives no more than a couple of hours of direct sunlight a day. The yellow climbing rose in the middle of that space is flourishing; it's as tall as the eaves this season, and casts its own shadow on the garden below.

The herbs, most of which are perennials, do fine here. We have more sage and oregano, especially, than we can use. This year I direct-sowed cool weather crops -- lettuces, spinach, beets and snap peas -- from seed in mid-March, and again in early May. I got poor germination from everything but the peas and, so far, very slow growth. It's been a cold, late spring. I'll go back to starts (a.k.a. plantlets) next year, or bite the bullet and find the room/rig up the lighting to start my seeds indoors. I've done it before; I've just gotten lazy (and space has gotten tighter) in recent years.

Given its iffy exposure, it's amazing that I even attempted to grow tomatoes in our backyard. The first year, I had beginner's luck with Brandywines and a couple of other heirlooms. Since then, I've had lackluster results, except from the cherry-type varieties. In retrospect, I realized that my veggie patch has grown progressively more shady over the years; do you think there might be a correlation?

Meanwhile, out front, the sweet gums on our parking strip dropped a few large limbs in various winter storms. Apart from the hassle of having to Deal With It, these losses were not unwelcome. They meant not only less raking, but more sun on the front garden. Last winter also vanquished several large ornamentals, opening up plantable real estate here and there. In early spring I watched the progress of light and shade across the garden, and realized: the tomatoes go in front this year. That's where the sun is; duh. Sometimes I'm a slow learner.

So here's what I'm trying for Tomato Season 2010: The huge black pot in the driveway contains three cherry-types: Sweet Million, Oregon Cherry, and Sun Gold. At this point the tomato cages look delusionally optimistic. The pot itself once housed a camellia that graced the back patio when we bought the house in 2005. I think it was placed there by the sellers to hide a crack in the cement. After we moved in, I transplanted the camellia to the west end of the yard, where it seems happy next to my Marathon Conifer, and stashed the empty pot next to the compost bin. (Sometimes it pays to hang onto stuff.) The pot should be adequate, I'm thinking, for three healthy, mature tomato plants. I set it on a wheeled stand (guaranteed to hold up to 500 pounds) so I can move it around, if necessary, to maximize solar exposure. At this point in the season, the driveway is sunny all day.

On impulse, I bought an EarthBox (tm) on my most recent nursery shopping frenzy. I'm sort of embarrassed about this. It's an expensive piece of plastic, albeit sturdy and well-made. It comes with bags of soil amendments, a watering and drainage system, and an elastic-edged rectangle of black plastic mulch that stretches over the top of the bin like a fitted bedsheet. Just add dirt, seedlings and water, and stand back for explosive growth. We'll see. It's on wheelies, too, in case I need to move it. On the far end, above, is a Siletz tomato, on the near side, a Stupice. Both are reputed to do well in the Willamette Valley. The latter looks a little peaked, though it is already bearing (a) fruit and might just be stressed by the rigors of early pregnancy.

I bought all five plants I've mentioned as seedlings from Territorial Seed Company, which has a fine reputation for breeding and selling varieties that do well in the Northwest. They were spendy ($5 and change each, once you factor in shipping); for the price, I was hoping they'd be larger. If they do well I'll hunt around at local nurseries and buy them in person next year.

I plunked a second Sun Gold, purchased at a neighborhood plant sale ($2 for a seedling already almost a foot tall), directly into the garden. We'll see how it does relative to the one in the big black container. A few feet to the east of that, I found room for another, smaller pot. This one (above) is a Black Krim, Russian in heritage and reputed to do well in our relatively short growing season.

A couple of weeks ago I started zucchini and yellow summer squash seeds (also from Territorial) inside, in the dressing-room garden window. They look vigorous and eager to get growin'. My plan is to colonize some of the bare spots in the front garden left vacant by my deceased euphorbia, kniphofia, ornamental grasses and the few not-hardy-enough phormiums that survived the snows of '08-'09 but succumbed to this past December's dry, windy arctic chill. Maybe I'll plant some squash among the irises on the west side of the house, which gets some afternoon sun. I'll have enough seedlings left, I'm sure, to plunk a few in the so-called veggie bed in my ever-more-challenging backyard.

Disquieted

Berry Botanic Garden is on the endangered list. I’d been wanting to go, and when a visiting friend asked about it, seized the opportunity. We went this morning and saw dozens of new-to-me plants, including the exquisite Agapetes serpens from the Himalayas (above) and a kiwi relative (below) called Actinidia kolomikta, which appeared to be suffering from a beguilingly lovely fungal blight, but is actually healthy and normal.

I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough to qualify as a plant geek. You think I knew these names? Any civilized garden -- and Berry is certainly that -- like any civilized social gathering, offers name tags to its guests.

My friend and her husband are staying downtown, in the Park Blocks, and I asked her to drop me off there so I could check out the current exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. The show is called Disquieted, and it lives up to its name: skewed, often creepy, images involving the human body. This highly detailed and realistic sculpture of a boy, for instance, by Ron Mueck. For scale, the mirror behind him, which is part of the piece, is about 18” tall. It’s like some freakish taxidermy, and yet so realistic that you half expect him to turn his head and start talking. Deeply disturbing, yet I couldn’t turn away. It reminded me of that plastinated cadaver exhibit that toured a couple of years ago, only without the flaying.

The show was interesting, though off-balancing and ultimately kind of depressing. I knew I’d find a welcome counterpoint downstairs, in the permanent Asian collection. I spent a few minutes with Quanyin, strolled through the hall of Buddhas, and headed for the bus, quieted.

Reinhabiting

The glass shower door was installed on Tuesday. Take a good look; it’ll never be this clean again.

The double towel rack we ordered arrived yesterday and Jerry mounted that. He also did a neat job of encasing the cord for our electric toothbrush -- another small, why-didn’t-we-do-this-years-ago? adjustment.

Our towels are hanging, there’s a new rug on the floor. The skinny cabinet is loaded with our toiletries and sundries (there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore).

On the one hand it’s slightly depressing to clutter this pristine space with our funky old stuff; on the other, it’s fun to organize, shake things up, view objects in a different light.

Moving into a re-built environment involves a process of adjustment: Oops, the door opens that way now. Oh right, the mirror’s over here. Band-Aids are on the middle shelf of the upper cabinet. One must now place one’s front paws in the sink to get a drink of water.

When we completed our big Berkeley remodel, Stewart Brand came to the addition-warming party and asked us a lot of questions. He was writing a book called How Buildings Learn, and was interested in the adaptations that structures make, over time, to meet the needs of their inhabitants. At that point all I could tell him was that we’d most likely never close the pocket door on the walk-in closet and probably shouldn’t have spec’d it. What we didn’t know at the time was that the new flight of stairs would become magnificent loge seating at singthings, the magical musical gatherings that we would eventually host.

I don’t expect any profound social opportunities to unfold from this simple bathroom remodel. But we’re already starting to think about the next project. That’ll involve knocking down walls and dramatically altering spaces. Who knows what might happen then?

Fairy Condos, Hobbit Houses and Troll Sheds

We’re not the only ones involved in a construction project this spring. A developer named Emily just put up a condo complex for fairies on SE 36th Ave. It appears to be loaded with amenities. If you lived here, you’d be home by now.

Elsewhere in the ‘hood, a treehouse for hobbits appeared and, on the same lot, a funky troll shed sported a new coat of paint(s). This is infill housing I can live with.

The Hammered Glass Cannot Be Tempered

We’re just about done with this project. The tile backsplash is set. We thought at first we’d go with a single color but I’m glad we decided to mix it up, loosely echoing the tilework in the shower. Steve did a good job of transitioning from the slight curve required to fit flush with the ledge at the back of the sink to a straight line along the top. He also cut the end tiles so they’d line up with the edges of the sink; extra work, but it looks much better that way.

The upper door of the skinny cabinet now has its patterned glass panel. I love the ripply effect, even empty. The pattern is called “Hammered.” We’d considered another called “Rain,” as well as the vertical ribbed type I associate with cabinets in old-fashioned drugstores and medical offices. Originally we wanted glass in the lower door as well, but code dictates that glass installed close to the floor must be tempered so it doesn’t shatter into a million lethal shards if you accidentally kick it or something. Steve checked to see whether the pattern we wanted was available in a tempered version. The answer appeared as an email subject line: "The hammered glass cannot be tempered.” That sentence seems to resonate like a poem or proverb.

The shower has been user-tested and found delightful. We’re using our old shower rod and curtain until the glass door arrives next week. We spec’ed this fixture largely on the basis of its sleek design and apparent functionality. One of the plumbing showrooms had a spray booth set up, with a dozen or so shower heads and an external control for each one, so you could observe the jets in action and get a general sense of how they worked. But that’s not the same as taking off your clothes and getting in. This one is adjustable in four different directions, not just the spray but the height and angle of the shower head. Everything works smoothly and the spray options are optimal. The shower head is Grohe, by the way, and the control is Delta. We wanted independent temperature and volume settings integrated in the same control; Delta seems to be one of the few companies that still makes them.

I love the look and feel of the faucet, also by Grohe. It goes beautifully with the sink. As with the shower, we went by appearance and manufacturer reputation but with no guarantee that it would actually function the way we wanted. China Rose finds the arrangement satisfactory, too. That, of course, was the goal of this entire project.

Since I took these photos, we’ve begun settling in. Jerry remounted the medicine cabinet, now painted to match the trim, and the small glass shelves on both sides. We sacrificed one of the six shelves to make room for a hand towel holder. He fixed the funky electrical outlet and replaced the decorative switchplate, the colors of which go perfectly with the tile. My job was to load and organize the new storage cabinet. Other incidentals, like the bath towel bar and a wall-mounted swiveling mirror, normal on one side and merciless 8x magnifier on the other, will go up shortly. None of this is very exciting, but I’ll put up a few more pix later.

Steve came by this morning to install the grab bar and hooks in the shower. We wrote him an even larger check than the last one, reserving just enough to cover the cost of the door. Funny; that was the first item we spec’d, and it’s the last to be installed.

Flushed with Success

Saturday was our 28th wedding anniversary. We spent most of the day hanging out while the tile guy/floor guy installed the subfloor and then the Marmoleum flooring. It’s covered with protective paper at the moment, but I think the color will be fine. That evening we celebrated (marriage, not Marmoleum) with a lovely dinner at Iorio. Still adore you, Jer, after all these years. (Oh yeah; that’s a closeup of the recessed shampoo/soap shelf, above.)

Sunday was the warmest day of the year so far, with temps in the 70s. I’d committed to volunteering at the Hardy Plant Society spring sale, a huge event at the Expo Center. I spent three hours processing credit card payments: Swipe card, enter last four digits, enter amount, wait for approval, present merchant copy for signature, print customer copy, stamp register receipt “paid.” Lather, rinse, repeat. I got into the rhythm pretty quickly -- a good thing, since at times the traffic was non-stop. I hadn’t felt an adrenaline rush like that since my restaurant line-cooking days. Afterwards I connected with my friends Deb and Maureen, and got to relax with them for a while, snacking and schmoozing in the warm sun.

Early in my shift, I watched a customer proceeding toward the cash register in the midst of his forest of perennial picks; it looked like Birnam Wood creeping toward Dunsinane. His purchases added up to a mind-boggling $663.00. I will never again feel guilty about dropping a few dozen bucks at a nursery.

Some time later, I spotted a guy wearing a brown t-shirt that read “I take mine with cream, sugar, and the 2nd Amendment,” an obvious, if eye-rolling, reference to the recent Starbucks-gun rights controversy. I hadn’t been taking particular notice of the names on people’s credit cards, but I did on this one. It was Lars Larson, Portland’s home-grown equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Ick.

We’re taking the prudent path and not talking politics with any of the tradesmen who’ve been swarming around our bathroom-to-be. This morning at 8 a crew of three arrived to install the custom cabinet next to the shower. We’re still waiting on the glass-fronted upper door, but the main structure is in (facing the toilet, above) and lookin’ good. Notice the magazine storage shelf midway; that was Jerry’s idea, which I fought at first but now concede is brilliant.

Steve had scheduled the plumber for noon. The cabinet guys were finished, cleaned up, and out the door at 11:57. The plumber is here as I type (a little after 2). We just heard the first flush from the new toilet. This is at least as exciting as the first robin of spring. (6:30 PM update: Followup user test flush: Successful)

So here’s the gorgeous designer (Philippe Starck via Duravit) sink. We did run into a glitch with the installation. Most pedestals, we learned today, are open in back so you can just slide them in around the fittings. This one? A hollow column, sealed most of the way up, with an opening too high to line up with the existing fittings. Solution? Either open the bathroom wall (argh) and re-plumb the piping by a few inches. Or, if you have nerves of steel, take your diamond-blade sword... I mean saw, and enlarge the opening on the back of the pedestal -- without, of course, shattering the custom-ordered item into a million pieces. Steve chose option #2, and succeeded. Whew.

Steve had hoped to set the tile for the backsplash this afternoon, but because of the sink issues, and the fact that the p-trap is still not tightly sealed, will hold off til tomorrow. Hopefully that and a few other incidentals will wrap up the active phase of this project.

It was a difficult day in some ways, especially for the plumber, who is experienced but new to this company, and wants to demonstrate his competence and unflappability. Sophie has great confidence in the outcome, and so do we.