This is an interview that I conducted with Miss Ruby Bradford while she was waiting for her mother to finish fabric shopping. Ruby started expressing her views on wildlife conservation, specifically her desire to safeguard the welfare of the spider monkeys and the pumas.

Unfortunately the genesis was not preserved, but the subsequent conversation paints a fairly complete picture of Miss Bradford’s current leanings on this topic.

Tonight was the Rose Parade in Portland. This is a huge parade (which is currently going on outside my window (at 10:10pm). We grabbed dinner at the Deschuetes Pub, and then headed over to S.W Park to catch the warm up of the parade. As the even got underway, we realized that we were about a block too far West, and decided to migrate East a bit so that we wouldn’t miss all the marching bands. The marching bands were especially important because just yesterday Ruby was telling us that she wanted one… at her birthday party. Staying up until 10pm and watching them out on the street seemed to be an acceptable consolation for her (thank goodness). Unfortunately, Miles doesn’t deal well with over stimulation and sleep deprivation, so its looking like another long bedtime for him and Vick.

Our first night here, and already I’m in love. We had to go to Whole Foods to get some diapers (see my last post for details). On the way back we decided to meander through the Pearl district. We ran into what looked like a street fair, except for that there was a man on a stage giving a pretty elaborate toast.

We asked some nearby standers-by what was up, and they gave us the full lowdown. It seems that this was a dedication for the smallest park in history. To the casual eye, this park looked like a sidewalk, but it did have a neat water feature.

In any case this momentous event was enough of an excuse for Portlandites to celebrate. And celebrate they did, in grand style. Free beer style. After our new friends got done explaining the why, and the what, I headed over to the free beer table to order up what turned out to be a very tasty local beer (name forthcoming).

I enjoyed that, while Ruby enjoyed holding her complementary Izzy (I didn’t want her getting all sugared up), and then we darted back to the car to move it.