From Pasadena to Portland to Infinity and Beyond

Posted by Laura McCulloch on January 18th, 2011 at 10:47 AM | | Tweet

I hung my hat in Portland throughout the 90s and 00s. I miss it. Sometimes. Not so much when I'm throwing open the French Doors in the morning to welcome another 80 degree January day. But I do miss it.

My last post was about the variety of hats I wear as a working mother. And where do I hang them? Why, home, of course, which is currently in Pasadena. I love this town. Just finished reading Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan, a Satellite Sister (remember them?) Dolan’s debut novel is a bit of a romp through the fictional upper crust of The Crown City. (Yes, it’s The Crown City, not The City of Roses. That’s Portland. And I’ll get to it in a minute.) You can read the first chapter of Helen of Pasadena here on the Hometown Pasadena blog. Or check out the Chaos Chronicles, Ms. Dolan’s own blog. I really enjoyed Helen of Pasadena. It had everything a Pasadena girl could want: Disgraced Rose Queens,Neutron Moms, Sexy Archaeologists, A- List Lesbians, C- List Gossip Columnists, Old Money and New Money. It was a nice, lite diversion from the other book that I checked out of the library that day.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. Hoo boy. I maybe understood 1% of it. Maybe. So tonight I’m heading down to CalTech to see Professor Hawking in person. Another reason I love this town. I’m hoping I can bump up my understanding of The Grand Design by another .03% or something. Hawking’s latest tome only got 3.5 stars on Amazon? Huh? Don’t they have a symbol for infinity?

So let’s talk about The City of Roses. I hung my hat in Portland throughout the 90s and 00s. I miss it. Sometimes. Not so much when I’m throwing open the French Doors in the morning to welcome another 80 degree January day. But I do miss it. And methinks I’ll be missing it even more this week when Portlandia premieres on IFC. This six episode series is produced by Lorne Michaels and stars SNL’s Fred Armisen and features some of his SNL cronies. I watched the sneak preview first episode on IFC.com and you can too! They so nailed it. I especially love the parsing of the organic menu. Portland is a foodie’s town if there ever was one. And a reader’s paradise. As you will see in this this clip from Portlandia. Love this. Fortunately Portlanders have an excellent sense of humor, so they won’t be offended. They’ll just Put a Bird on It.