I’m staying with Pat, Suzette, Avtar, Savage, and Dimn, the latter two being cats. It is a good life. Today I finished The Poor Mouth, subtitled A Bad Story About The Hard Life. It’s by the author of At Swim-Two-Birds and was checked out by Pat at my recommendation when we were at the library, this library’s copy of the second book not being shelf available. It is translated from traditional Gaelic, though worth reading just the same on account of the consistency of the narrator’s tone and the abundance of fine humor. To quote John Updike “Patrick C. Power has performed sorcery in translating a work so specific in its allusions and exotic in its language. Again and again, so consistently that we come to take it for granted, Mr. Power re-creates Gaelic music in English.”

I could move to Portland in an instant. The public transit system here gets praise, though downtown and most things of interest are a pleasant distance walk from the apartment. I access that area via Portland State University campus, thick with the walking of like-aged liberal youth. I spent some hours at Powell’s, the nation’s largest independent book retailer. I bought two books recommended to me by people I think highly of, and two books by my favorite author up till then lacking in my collection.

Last night three of us went out to dinner with Suzette’s real father, a kind man good for conversation who picked up the tab also. Later that evening, back home at the apt., we were visited by three raccoons, whose wishes for cans of cat food were enthusiastically granted by Pat. They’re admirable creatures in both appearance and manner. I’ve not seen the use of paws approaching as closely the likeness of hands in any other wild animal.

The music scene is very healthy here. Concerts spill into the weekdays because the weekends afford too little time. Tomorrow night I’ll check out a “compelling computer composition competition” at a place across the river in southeast.