As we were leaving our old apartment. Olive said "We had memories of a lifetime here." 
Then she looked at me and started laughing "Actually YOU had memories of a lifetime here,. I agree. 

We cleaned the pad so much that we didn't recognize it. Then we went from room to room with two containers of ice cream each.
 We sat in each room remembering events that happened in them, eating Ice cream, giggling and crying, then we would go to the next room and repeat. 
Most of my fond recollections were on the sexy, steamy side then she would make me feel like a chump by bringing up memories pertaining to family and kids. 
Olive said "OK now the house is telling us to go into the world and be great clowns. 
You two entered the place single and are leaving together as a team, go be clowns!" 
I filled a bottle with the last clown cave tap water and we left never to return (till the next day to check mail and hug more neighbors goodbye).
We just found out a violent altercation happened shortly after we left the previous night. Had we not left when we did we would have been caught up in it. It's why we moved in the first place. We got very lucky. bye dreadful apartment (or whatever name you go by now)

huzzah

Mole looks like a dirty diaper but boy is it scrumptious. We just went to the Mercado in FoPo after our show for dinner. 
I had the $8 mole bowl and Olive had the $5 mole tamale plate. It is so filling! 

We weren't planning on eating originally. 
This is our leanest month. It's OK not complaining, we are really good at simple living and we have other things to stay satisfied by. We own a very sexy form of "poor and famous. "

The plan was to just drink morning dew water from leaves and suck on old shoes for nutrition until the busy season arrives just like we do every year. 
Then a funny thing happened.
 Y'know how sometimes you are out in the rain and just when you think lightning is about to strike $1300 bucks falls out of the sky? Yeah that happened to us. 

We were cleaning our old crib and rediscovered an old hiding place. It had hundreds of bucks in it. 
We were cracking up (literally r.o.t.f.l.m.a.o.). 

Hard to believe it was there many times when we really needed it. 
The hiding place did it's job like a charm. 
One of the advantages of living in a high crime zone is we got good at hiding valuables...like good as squirrels. Glad we found all those nuts. 
Now we can go eat, buy more paint and have some more cash to put down on our damage deposit for the new place. 
Huzzah!

We gotta go Tensions in our neighborhood were growing to a head.

We didn't have the neighborhood watch anymore so the parking lot had became a nightmare of drugdealing and violence.
Every time we came and went they all watched us come and go like hyenas.
Every time we opened our front door they were right there ion a big truck looking right at us. We were happy to get out of there.
To our delight, we learned that the house was an authentic 1922 bungalow.
It was adorable. So colorful, I could see us fitting right in.
Kate is pretty hip and fit for someone who has been around awhile.
Like us, she has a touch of the radical and is very interested in preserving the Portland buildings and people.
We hit it off.
The biggest perk of this situation has yet to be mentioned.
This house rent out rooms. The house runs like a resort. We would have to get used to living with a constant stream of strangers. Kate lives in the basement we will live in the attic/bungalow.
This room

in a wonderful house.

It's that exciting moment. The moment where we knew we were leaving the place we had lived for 10 years.

Refugees of gentrification? Maybe.
Most of our neighbors had long been classed out.
With them went the neighborhood watch and a lovely little community I will miss.
Now it's all classed up, sterile, impersonal.
I'm a clown. Now the scary kind. I'm afraid of those too.
My wife and I are cute clowns.
 Poor and famous clowns.
We gotta live out of a tip jar but it's really not bad. Portland treats us very well.
Our calling brings a lot of freebees, we don't wait in a lot of lines and people cheer for us as we go down the road. Wouldn't trade this life for anything.
Our life is a lot of clowning the gigs to be had in Portland, The Portland of Oregon.
After 10 years the most fun, sexy place I ever lived had become really sad and dangerous. Lots of homeless wars just outside our door. Bikes were getting stolen, people beat up, cops were there all the time. I even had to square up with a few dummies to make my point for them to back off.
It had become untenable.

We got our chance to escape the felony flats when someone saw an ad I floated on the internet looking for new digs.

"You should let Olive and Dingo live with you Mom."
This Mom and Daughter new what we were about.
We had all been aware of each other from the internet.
Funny how you can share some laughs or political rants with someone and the next day you make a meeting to see about living with them.