The view when I get out of elevator at work looks something like this:
Minus the orange leaves, of course. Also minus the skyscrapers—my view actually includes the Willamette River and Ross Island. But whatever. The point is for you to see Mt. Hood.
When it’s time to leave work, I often take a longcut to the bus. I do this because if I miss it when it stops at my hospital, I can walk across this nifty little sky bridge to the hospital next door and catch it when it arrives there.
Normally, I speed across this bridge. So focused on beating the bus, I rarely look out the windows. Which is why I was shocked the other day when I looked up and saw something that looked like this (minus the Fremont Bridge and plus some snow):
Something seemed off. I even stopped in my tracks and gasped. HOLY SHIT, HOOD BLEW ITS WAD! I thought to myself. WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
But no—I am just a moron. It’s actually Mount St. Helens, which blew its wad over 25 years ago. So much for me thinking I inherited my father’s sense of direction.
The arrow is Portland. The white dot to the SE is Hood. To the NE is Helens. To the right of Helens is Mount Adams (which I’ve never been able to see from Portland, but maybe it’s possible). The point: the elevator bank faces one direction, and the sky bridge view is about 90 degrees counterclockwise.
The view from my office looks like this:
HAHA! Not. That’s actually just a picture of a window that a friend sent me to remedy the fact that my office has no windows at all. To picture the view from my office, imagine yourself staring at a fluorescently-lit greyish wall (that was once white) with a small printout of the above window tacked to it. And that’s my view. Here’s a Photoshopped visual:
Ah… Oregon.
PS: In searching for a photo of Mt. Hood, I came across this Wikipedia entry for the dog that saved the lives of three hikers in February. One of those hikers, the guy who belongs to the dog, was on one of my frisbee teams last year. His dog watched many of our games. Now, this story made national news, and he and his dog were on TV programs seen all over this country (including Oprah, I think), but that seemed normal to me, given the James Kim tragedy and the other various backcountry incidents that happened this winter. But an entire Wikipedia entry devoted to your dog?! Granted, it’s a stub, but whatever! HOW COOL IS THAT??? I wish Chelsea had one of those—that is, one that I didn’t have to make myself. She does have this blog, after all.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Laura // May 31, 2007 at 11:18 pm
That’s gorgeous - no wonder so many people attempt Mt Hood, it’s staring at you all the time all day! I have intermittent dreams of moving to Oregon, but it seems so unlikely compared to Seattle. I think you have to want to move to Portland.
I also have a cubicle “window. ” Before we left our old building in which some lucky people had windwos (secretaries and executives), we took photos of the view from the window, then blew up the images to poster size and printed them for our new 2nd floor windowless warehouse. It’s really sad when it’s a five minute walk to the closest outlet. If nuclear winter hit Los Angeles, we’d find out first on the internet.
2 TimsHead // Jun 1, 2007 at 2:42 am
The guy owned by the dog doesn’t have his own Wiki entry. I wonder if the dog ever holds that over him if he needs to go walkies.
One thing I love about the Pacific Northwest is that those views (the ones not imported from Google) are everywhere. I think that superabundant nature impacts those who live there constantly … how can you not be more concerned about the environment than the rest of the country when you’re constantly shown natural beauty.
ryc: No, I just sort of made Reed. Ick. You. Less. Lee. up because that’s how I found myself saying and emphasizing it. As a writer, I do work on original material.
3 thinlizzy17 // Jun 1, 2007 at 4:26 am
I have 2 windows in my office. One overlooks a parking lot to a senior citizens’ housing complex. The other overlooks someone’s front yard. Right now I’m watching an older gentleman scoop up his Lhasa Apso’s a.m. deposit.
4 corbow // Jun 1, 2007 at 10:22 am
My current office view includes my cluttered porch to the north and the elderberry that ate Cleveland to the east.
A view of Hood or St. Helens would be lovely, although the view most of the year would just be a gray cloudiness.
5 Boo // Jun 1, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Do you know what it takes to get a wiki entry? I wonder. I’ll agree if Velvet gets one then Chelsea ia a good candidate.
I did no realize that you get to see mountains every day. That is beautiful.
6 Lynn // Jun 1, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Someone told me that I should do a Word Press blog like you have with a link to Xanga to keep all my Xanga friends. I’m seriously thinking about it. Do you like it?
Oh, yeah, my Virtual Book Tour started, so stop by.
Lynn
7 Truly // Jun 2, 2007 at 4:29 am
Laura! I’ve been like a creepy stalker and reading your old age blogs and mouth lump blogs and not leaving comments becuase my life was eating me alive. But now I can comment and tell you that I too am an old haggis at age 25; me hates the whipper snappers at dem there rock and roll concerts. Ha! No really, though, I pass out at the drop of the hat, especially if standing up for a long time. This makes concert-going interesting, as concert going has less to do with how much I like the band and more to do with if the venue has seating. Me old bones need a rest.
Anyhow, this post was great and rambling. My window view from the office is of a grafitti-ed ally frequented by pissing drunks and a special breed of Scottish people referred to by other Scottish people as NEDs: Non-Educated Delinquents. They are a lot like England’s CHAV’s, if you’ve heard of them, but with less jewelry, more heroin/hard cider and wearing track suits instead of Burberry. Weird, huh?
8 Uncle Joe // Jun 2, 2007 at 9:35 am
Beautiful way to start and end the day…Time for me to visit …Hugs,Un Joe