An Oregon weekend

Last weekend, friends of ours from Oregon happened to be in town for work-related reasons, so we spent a fair amount of time with them. Melissa and I met at a Northwestern Alumni Association picnic in Portland soon after I left the Oregonian, and became fast friends -- she was head of the board of the Oregon Ballet Theater and got me into a lot of backstage events when I bought tickets. She has a daughter, Natalie, now 14, and a son, Jeremy, 16 (who was not with them on this trip), and a husband, Steve, a financial planner.

We all met at the Phillips Collection and had a lovely time exploring the country's "first modern art museum." I discovered two artists who had been born in Portland, and there was a lot of photography and a beautiful wood-paneled library on the ground floor, which had been part of the house that was now a museum. Rachel's attention flagged after two hours or so, and after we said our goodbyes, Drew, Rachel and I played a game Rachel invented with Scrabble pieces called "Make Words." We each got 10 letters and had to connect them to each other as fast as we could. It turned out to be pretty fun, and we played it in the cafe until it closed at 5.

Then we wandered around Dupont Circle for a while until it was time to head to the baseball game, where we met Melissa and her family for a Nationals/Brewers game at 7:30. We were in the cheap seats, but the view was terrific and it was a great game -- the Nats won! -- and I enjoyed talking to Melissa. We said our final farewells outside the ballpark, and I raced into the team store to buy a Nats shirt (Rachel already has one), and then we took the Metro back to East Falls Church, where we'd parked our car that morning when we headed to the museum. That's what I love about this city, that you can get on the Metro in the morning and come back late at night, doing everything by subway. Such a change from my life in Oregon.

On Sunday, we went to the annual summer Northwestern Alumni Association picnic in a park in Arlington. I met someone who graduated from Medill in 1989, and we talked up a storm after discovering we have a friend in common who lives in Minnesota. We also gave some advice to an incoming Medill student. Drew took Rachel to her swim lesson and I went in to work. All in all, it was a very busy weekend!