We used to live in a house that rents out rooms.

We used to live in a house that rents out rooms.
Well that boat sailed so now the rooms are being used as drying racks for mask material.
We have to do laundry in the tub these days and the rooms are perfectly positioned. We got some great donations of fabric and elastic yesterday.
All that had to be scrubbed really well before and after we touched it. Olive is getting better and better at making masks. She is even getting better at making them with strings instead of elastic. I suck at sewing. Odd since I took 5 years of Home ec in school (to avoid jocks).
I just can't see very well and I'm not a very neat worker anyway.
Also I keep stabbing myself and complaining constantly. I do the laundry, clean her workspace, cut out fabric and most importantly my job is to lightly pet her hair while saying encouraging things.
The goal is to innovate so the masks take less than 30 min. each to build.
It would go much faster if we had microfiber to sew right in. Till then we are stuck having to make pockets for the masks to hold filters.
Olive includes a template to cut out the filter with. We suggest vacuum cleaner bag material but that is hard to get.
Right now Olive is rocking a coffee filter in her mask.
Every day people are showing up to pick up masks, also every day I hear someone telling Olive it isn't unethical for her to accept money for her work. They have a point, we did just get our income wiped out but still we approached this thing with the mindset of filling sandbags for the village to survive, not making money selling people something they need to avoid sickness and death. Good on ya Olive.

Young couple from the middle of Oregon.

They came for a weekend in a city that doesn't roll up the streets at dark. They were just as wide eyed as the folks visiting from other countries and middle America. The other night I was out front chomping on a doobie when the guy walked up an embraced me.
"I'm so glad to see you!"
I told him I was glad to see him too. I'm kind of a loner but I'm always happy to engage in some diplomacy. Then I found out why he was glad to see me.
"My wife is ashleep and I was logged out of the house." He was locked out and apparently just walked around to all the local bars pounding drinks. He was tore up!
So he vanishes into the house and I hear nothing from him again until late night.
"BBbbbbrrrrrrrraaaap!" He was going there. hurling his guts out in the bathroom.
Right across the hall is another room with a different couple. I hadn't met them so I had no clue what kind of night they were having. I can't imagine they could be sleeping through that calamitous noise. The drunk man's partner found me and asked for a garbage bag for the barf.
She didn't know I had seen him earlier so she said "My husband seems to have caught the bug I had last week" He puked on as I sat at the table researching boring stuff.
Then Olive came downstairs mostly asleep to go to the bathroom. She found a naked man she never met before clutching the commode for dear life and singing the dry heaving song.
"Ooops, sorry, didn't know anyone was in here , would you like the light back off?" "He said "yeah that would be great, thank you." He couldn't have picked a better bathroom to do that in. The bathroom and the two rooms get cleaned and pro-scrubbed every few days.
On top of that, my housemate chore is cleaning the toilette so I know it'a properly buffed and scrubbed surface for worshiping the porcelain god.
That was pretty entertaining. The next day I met the couple from across the hall. They were a (30 somethings) Chicano couple from L.A. I asked if they were kept up.
They said "Um yeah."
They hadn't been as amused as me. Then I gave them the details and that made them both crack up. The husband said "I'm not gonna say that ever happened to me, but I do know where that kid was coming from.
Hope he feels better."
Yeah!I loved that Tude.

Single serving friends to remember.

Our life is like mice constantly negotiating a maze only we are creating a maze behind us as well. 
That means we change directions so frequently that regular friend relationships are problematic. Living in a house with constant random traffic affords us "single serving friends" that we can relate to but have no obligation to run into again. 
Don't get me wrong. We love our locals too but running into them on the random or to serve a goal works for us while sitting around does not. It wears out our social batteries. 
Single serving friends it is.
Many times we hit it off with our S.S.F.s and are very sad when they go.
They would make great neighbors.
We just had a pair of women from opposite sides of the country come through. One was here for work and the other flew cross country just to enjoy her friend. 
They were only here a short time but still it felt like we were long term roomies. They felt like old friends and moved around the house confidently.
I love when you find out someone was poly-amourous or vegan in the first conversation, this duo gave us one of each. We thought it was charming that they really enjoyed playing cards with each other. Lots of folks would be staring at phones. When they left, we were busy doing a kid exchange with co-parent. It was too fast and busy a goodbye to tell them how profoundly enjoyable it was being co-habitants. Lots of folks meet in Ptown from other places. 
It's a joy to be all up in that.
The other room was occupied by a lovely woman from No-Cal.
We didn't know anything about her until her last night.
She was sad and a bit tipsy.
That is how we learned she was here for a funeral.
An elder in her family had passed away, she paid her respects and now she was going home with heavy heart. It was our dinner time but Olive got up and started trying to make her comfortable. 
We don't own or work for the room renter but we are handy to have around because we are compassionate and very nosy.
The lady had questions of her own.
"Really, you two are clowns? Do ya juggle?"
We told her that juggling wasn't in our toolbox.
Portland has some of the best jugglers I have ever seen. I never saw a point in competing with those big fish.
"Too bad, I got these tennis balls from the funeral."
She pulled out some tballs and threw them at Olive. 
They hit it off by not juggling and talking about life. 
My son and I were cracking up because Olive sounded as tipsy as our guest but she hadn't touched a drop. She is just fun.
They were all laughing until Olive asked
"Why were there Tennis balls at the funeral?"
The lady got sad again.
"There was a little dog who belonged to the deceased. The elderly doggy also passed away after losing will to live."
What a double downer. They soon shook it off and retired to the kitchen to talk about pleasant things.
Early flight so we didn't get to say goodbye...we still have the tennis balls though.

During holidays we get a lot of folks from Othercountrystan.

 This weekend the rooms have two pair of 20somethings from I'm guessing Asian countries like Japan or maybe the Seattle. There is a language barrier but that didn't stop lots of convos. 
One was water coloring last night as we sat around. Found this on the fridge this morning. 
I'm delighted that she drew lips on me. Last I checked I have no lips, just an awkward opening. Maybe she drew us open mouthed. 
One of the other women wasn't at all intrigued by clowns, a huge jar of pot on the dining table or the "no Perfume" rule. She was intrigued that our place houses multi generational people who aren't blood family. "You mean you aren't related to the home owner in any way?" 
I hadn't thought of it so strongly because that's always whats up. "I'm on her Friends list...does that count?" 
I don't think the two pair of guests ever actually met each other. They are doing different shifts of vaykay it would seem. 
The way we are all related is that somehow almost everyone in the house is menstruating. It's a super clean house but I can tell because the trash bins are overflowing with packaging and entering the bathroom I'm overwhelmed with the scent of iron. #goodtimes

Meanwhile...we are patrolling our turf

We don't work here but we still get gifts from guests

We don't work here but we still get gifts from guests. Our latest "single serving" friends left us some goodies before they left. The came from an exotic country called "Dallas Texas". 

Single serving friends work great for us because longterm friendships tend to break our stride.

We must look like such snobs for always turning down dinner parties and social gatherings. Sorry. 

We can still be hermits around single serving friends because we know there is a finish line. 

This time there was a prize at the end. 

I understand why the Texans left the pot food behind but why didn't they bring those fantastic beers and the mug from the Drag club? 

Thanks Texans! Maybe someday I will visit your country and leave a bunch or pot and beer behind. I better learn the language first.

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

on the Vacay by her damn self.

I just had coffee with an adorable Korean woman that I found in our livingroom this morning. 

Her and her Husband couldn't match up their off time so she is on the Vacay by her damn self.
She is very sweet.

Right now her and Olive are making her some goodies out of essential oils.

I really dig the look on Korean's faces when I greet them in their own language.

It's a look of relief mixed with pure amusement.

Korean is an intimidating language for us "Romanized" language speakers but I'm finding it a very beautiful language that I enjoy wrapping my head around.
Also as a trickster it's clutch to know what everyone is saying.

I been crunching Chinese, Korean and Spanish for the last few months.
Our new friend said she chose Portland because she read in articles that people are weird here and have freedoms to express themselves.
That is a pretty good review in my book.

She bought two boxes of tea from us and is going to bike with us to our gig at Pie Spot Pie shop today at 4. I love doing dignitary duty.

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog

Like what we do?

We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.

http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

mexican food

We have been "single serving" friends to a couple of cool cats from China. 
There is a bit of a language barrier but that's my fault. 
They were nice enough to show up knowing a lot of my language. 
They are a riot. One of them was brave enough to ask for a ride on my tallbike.
 It was super funny. 
They got really animated. 
They said they never tried Mexican food.
We decided to take them to the Mercado.

They still haven't tried Mexican food. They don't know English or Spanish so they were just going by the photos outside the foodcart. They got lunch from a Cuban food vender. :)

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

Meanwhile...we still enjoy riding in rain

We got home today soaked and face melted after rocking a party appearance.

We got home today soaked and face melted after rocking a party appearance. 
We could have worn raincoats but we purposely don't. When folks in traffic see us drenched in bad weather they lose their minds. 
People honk, yell and encourage us the entire commute. Normally they only do that for most of our commute. 
It's a profound delight to make those folks so happy. 
We do pick our moments and do this sparingly. 
The gear and threads can only take so many torrents. 
Also this is how George Washington died. 
He got sick after a long horse ride in the rain. We ain't going down like that. 
All warm and dry now. 
Hope you are too.

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

We like taking romantic walks

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

Meanwhile...we did late night radio comedy on KBOO WOOHOO!

Meanwhile...we took lots of brakes during our clowny day so stop and eat the roses.

Hope ya got some laughs from this blog
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/

Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.

Covering over the old place.

It was very sad.
That is how it goes.
Like what we do?
We live out of a tip jar (sometimes chicken sometimes feathers) if you are in a place to keep our sunny side up and rubber side down then feel free to drop off a donation at our website.
http://oliveanddingo.com/donate/
Thanks! It's a great town to be a clown.