Busy days best end with relaxing evenings. Monday, Amy called us up to invite us to the Chinese Gardens on Member’s Night — bring as many guests as you want! Apparently one woman last week brought her entire church group, but fortunately for us there were only a few low conversations and the song-bird tunes of a Chinese string instrument coming over the water. We fell in love with a $2000 painting of an operatic version of Mulan, all energy emanating from the three dimensional brush strokes and grounded on her flat, perfect face. Our slow tour ended with (gaiwan) cups of tea, seated in the still-warm air of an Indian Summer night.

Two nights later, we gathered up the troops (this time including Tom, Kellyn, and Alex) to see OMSI at Night. With free beer and a bit more freedom to roam around, this was definitely for adults only. Adults in name, kids at heart. I spent most of the time in the Paleontology Lab with my nose two inches from what was once a living, breathing Triceratops, in awe and full of questions about the animals in front of us and the surprisingly zen-like job of cleaning and reconstructing them. There was also the skull of an early whale, its blow-hole only halfway migrated to the top of its head, and a sauropod neck vertebrae full of air sacs — apparently not (just) an adaptation for flying, many dinosaurs had hollow bones to support their large statures. Compared to these fossils, the giant vandagraph generator was down-right sleep-inducing.

However, between this and my recent conversations with Molly, a Reedie at OCAC, and Brian, from the Seattle Mind Camp (remember way back when), I’m all ready to take a class on geology and find some higher level math books to study. Focus, Sarah, focus…!

Then yesterday, after starting to clean out Suz’s basement (for monies), Thomas, Gavin, and Gavin’s linguist friend Alexis picked me up to go to Rancho Relaxo, a house in the wooded hills just outside of Portland. After meeting the men of the house — JP and Tad (as in Tadpole) and the big friendly rottweiler Brick — we sat by the koi pond to chat and then paddled around the crawdad- and toxic newt-infested lake. Soon Henry and his girlfriend Amy showed up, overrunning the place with linguists, and most everyone played pool and darts while I finished my book. Thomas played with the grey dust ball of a kitten until they were both tuckered out, and soon I followed their lead. (Kittens, incidentally, make the most excellent pillows.) A bunch more people showed up, and right before we started gnawing on each others limbs, dinner was ready — perfectly roasted eggplant, plus the peanut butter and jam sandwich I brought with me. Lots of fun, but man did I fall asleep fast afterwards!