My mother-in-law came to visit this weekend, bringing along a gigantic bag of candy...
... and an even more gigantic reservoir of "Where's your house/car/child?" comments. As no house/car/child magically appeared, we were forced to show her other things, mainly things that (to her disappointment) we do not personally own.
We took her up the hill to OHSU-
Walked across the new bridge together-
Found a rainbow that had everyone downtown frantically instagramming and tweeting until it faded away-
Visited a cat cafe-
Kept D company while he went on his usual hunt for chestnuts (which made both mother and son reminisce about fall in Crimea)-
Continued walking, eating, and window shopping-
And ended the weekend in a gloriously-gritty and deserted part of town. Out of all the Portland pictures on this blog, these last few pictures are pretty much my mental image of the city: concrete, car-friendly, slightly apocalyptic. It's true that hipster trends and Whole Foods are on every street corner now, but this is still how Portland when I close my eyes and imagine it.
So perhaps it wasn't exactly the weekend my mother-in-law was dreaming of for us- using public transportation and coming home to an apartment + cranky cat instead of driving up to a big house with a baby in the back seat- but it's reality at the moment. I feel like we have a lot already, like a safe place to live and steady paychecks and a good relationship and (of course) Netflix, and don't really care about the house or car especially in Portland. Actually, her and I will probably always disagree on those things but I will concede on the issue of children. As much as I've tried to get this guy accepted as "grandcat", not a single potential grandparent has gotten on board with the idea ;) Imagine that.
Plus I suspect that from an early age our children will then become the recipients of the house+car mentality from their babushka and we'll perhaps be off the hook.... while undoubtedly being scolded for not dressing them in seventy-five layers and feeding them enough bread!
... and an even more gigantic reservoir of "Where's your house/car/child?" comments. As no house/car/child magically appeared, we were forced to show her other things, mainly things that (to her disappointment) we do not personally own.
We took her up the hill to OHSU-
Walked across the new bridge together-
Found a rainbow that had everyone downtown frantically instagramming and tweeting until it faded away-
Visited a cat cafe-
Kept D company while he went on his usual hunt for chestnuts (which made both mother and son reminisce about fall in Crimea)-
 |
| Easy pickings! |
Continued walking, eating, and window shopping-
And ended the weekend in a gloriously-gritty and deserted part of town. Out of all the Portland pictures on this blog, these last few pictures are pretty much my mental image of the city: concrete, car-friendly, slightly apocalyptic. It's true that hipster trends and Whole Foods are on every street corner now, but this is still how Portland when I close my eyes and imagine it.
So perhaps it wasn't exactly the weekend my mother-in-law was dreaming of for us- using public transportation and coming home to an apartment + cranky cat instead of driving up to a big house with a baby in the back seat- but it's reality at the moment. I feel like we have a lot already, like a safe place to live and steady paychecks and a good relationship and (of course) Netflix, and don't really care about the house or car especially in Portland. Actually, her and I will probably always disagree on those things but I will concede on the issue of children. As much as I've tried to get this guy accepted as "grandcat", not a single potential grandparent has gotten on board with the idea ;) Imagine that.
Plus I suspect that from an early age our children will then become the recipients of the house+car mentality from their babushka and we'll perhaps be off the hook.... while undoubtedly being scolded for not dressing them in seventy-five layers and feeding them enough bread!
The whole baby thing always leads to me strangely losing all my Russian abilities haha Thankfully my own parents have long come to accept if it ever happens, it's through no prodding of their own!
ReplyDeleteI hear you, there's nothing like talking baby with your свекровь to make you really sound like a bumbling dimwit in Russian! ;)
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