well, i spent another several days hanging out in portland and wishing that i lived there. i had a great time. osiris would probably argue that i was a bump on a log because i was feeling sick for the first 3 of my 5 days there, but i had a good time hanging around the house, falling asleep early and giving up after 2 drinks each day. it wasn’t really a party trip. there is always time for party trips.
i spent a lot of time hanging out with luci, who could not or refused to remember my name. i don’t know if she was confused because she knows more than one alison, if she was just being coy or if she honestly just couldn’t remember it, but usually when pressed she would give it up. anyway, i forgive her, because she assigned us both species of spiders to be and they were both awesome. i can’t remember either spider’s name, but hers could run on water and mine could spit poison at a bug from a foot away. that is right on the money.
there was much more to the trip than just that, but i will wait until i upload all of my photos. until then, here is a photo of a strange animal (?) that was in a storefront near sam/carrie/rob/jessica/luci’s house. it is also near pepino’s, where i ate fish tacos.
superglue gumshoe 
i think it’s a weird bear from china (hat), and apparently (s)he is very cold?? ??? maybe?
OH GIRL! that pic coulda been taken at at least 2 places in my neighborhood 🙂 it’s like you were in Japan and not in Portland. it’s a tanuki, like one of the suits that mario wears in super mario 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki
definitely read the part about the schoolyard tanuki song, too, haha
oh, dude, i love that creature. i walked by it many times, and i always had to stop and pay my respects.
portland is special. i’m glad you had a good, low-key visit.
from the wikipedia entry that mika linked, the best possible paragraph reads:
Statues of tanuki can be found outside many Japanese temples and restaurants, especially noodle shops. These statues often wear big, cone-shaped hats and carry bottles of sake in one hand, and a promissory note or empty purse in the other hand. Tanuki statues always have large bellies. The statues also usually show humorously large testicles, typically hanging down to the floor or ground, although this feature is sometimes omitted in contemporary sculpture.[citation needed]
oh wait, also:
The actual wild tanuki has unusually large testicles, a feature that has inspired humorous exaggeration in artistic depictions of the creature. Tanuki may be shown with their testicles flung over their backs like travellers’ packs, or using them as drums.
and, as mika also pointed out:
A common schoolyard song in Japan … makes explicit reference to the tanuki’s anatomy:
Tan Tan Tanuki no kintama wa,
Kaze mo nai no ni,
Bura bura
Roughly translated, this means “Tan-tan-tanuki’s testicles, there isn’t even any wind but still go swing-swing-swing.”[1] It then proceeds to continue for several verses, with many regional variations.
Next time you’re at my parents’ place, you’ll see one of those statues. I got my dad one as his present from Japan.
And to add to the stories, there’s a great anime about tanuki who use they ginormous sacs to beat people up and shit. It’s called “Pom Poko.” They even use them as parachutes! (http://www.xopl.com/blog/embedded/pompokoballs2.jpg)
The parachuting Tanuki remind me of Julio.