Most of the month of September, and into October, the Vaux swift migration has a bunch of birds going into the chimney at the school across the street. The birds aren’t a big pain, but the huge crowds they attract are a big pain. It’s hard to park on the street in the neighborhood in the evenings, so if you leave you can’t come back until after dark. In addition, today was the Northwest Portland Portland Parkways and I thought they were going to block off the street all week. What a pain.

But I thought I’d make the best of it since there were businesses coming to pass out swag, and vendors coming to sell food. I’m not sure Dixon’s Barbecue Pit made any money, because here’s the size of the pulled pork sandwich they gave me.

That’s a large plate and the meat is spilling out because it’s piled as high as they could get it. And it was tasty. I also had some ice cream from Scoop Organic Ice Cream (the salted caramel and brown sugar & oatmeal were excellent). Even better, I got swag from my bank (the nice one), Kaiser Permanente, complained to the urban forestry people about the awful trees in the parking strip I’d like to get rid of, and got a free shoulder massage.

Portland has several massage schools, and I think every student needs to do some number of hours of massage before they get licensed, and you often see free chair massages at “wellness” events. I’ve finally realized that I should just get as many free massages as I can because it benefits everyone involved.

Anyway, I also saw a lot of neighbors and I think I’m getting rounded up by the precinct chairpersons to deliver voting materials to the people of the neighborhood. That’s what I get for being a supporter of the democratic system.