GOODBYE PDX, CONTINUED

it's us this time, but only temporarily -- and only possibly for keeps. a portland delegation will be traveling to vancouver, british columbia this weekend for the convening of a planning commission on the future of the republic of cascadia. several of the canadian commissars are shortly to be incapacitated by an important property sale, and our meeting, originally slated for the summer, needed to be quickly rescheduled for before may. in addition, none of cameron's, daedalus or st. john's booksellers have come through on a used copy of mercè rodoreda's death in spring (nor did a certain friend follow through on passing along his library copy), and our only option now for finding the book on a shelf seems to be to look outside the stops on our regular bookstore tour. (powells.com now lists a new copy available at w burnside, but knowing it's going to be there ruins the thrill of coming across it after just showing up at the store -- and that's what we've been at for these past two weeks.) in any case, the commission has business at solder and sons, and that's not too far from the used book mecca at w pender and richard sts, which is itself only a block from finch's. the edibles there are almost as appealing as the staff. maybe we'll even venture into the bangtown hair salon. the staff might even be waiting for rides back home from portland. from looking at them through the street front windows last time, we'd guess they've all been on a wait list for some serious work at atlas tattoo on albina. and that's not far from the apartment. if you're willing to squeeze, kids, we can fit three more.