Chasing rainbows

A heavenly amalgam of sun, clouds and rain creates halos of beauty

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Small fantasy

Walking into fairy-wood
Trilliums and owlets
Shaking off the rain.

The ides of February

In the Roman calendar, the middle day of each month was known as the ides of that month. The ides of March is familiar to all who’ve encountered Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”

The ides of February was yesterday, Feb. 13. This mid-month marker falls on the 15th only in 31-day months, such as March, when Caesar was assassinated on that day.

We might not celebrate the ides, but we all notice another mid-February day. Many of us are now coming down from the sugar high of Valentine’s treats. Even on the day we celebrate love, some of us are wondering if there’s any love left in the world.

I assure you there is. But you will have to discover that for yourselves.

Rainbows

I was wheeling home from a successful shopping session at the local H Mart (organic tamari and a nice round kohlrabi) when the light outside suddenly changed. It had been raining lightly, but at this point the sun popped through the clouds. To the east, the sky was an indigo palette with foreground trees highlighted by the sun. I couldn’t get a good photo of that, because I was driving west. But then . . .

I saw a rainbow.

I took a photo.

Rainbow over Southeast Salmon Street. Fran Gardner photo

And then, as I turned a corner, I saw the rainbow again.

Southeast 28th between Salmon and Main. Fran Gardner photo

I stopped a few passersby—a woman with ear buds, a man concentrating on his peeing dog—and pointed out the rainbow to them. They were surprised and amazed.

I even captured the fading rainbow over the roof of the Toothpaste Apartment building next door.

Bright light from the west makes this usually blue-green building glow yellow. Note the reflections in the windows. The shingles on the wall at the left are actually a muted green. Fran Gardner photo.

Meanwhile, eight blocks away at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church on Southeast Harrison, the parish administrator, Brian Fairbanks, captured the self-same rainbow.

God sets his bow in the clouds. Photo by Brian Fairbanks

Dieting

Now that January’s behind us, with everyone’s diet resolutions already in tatters, I have some notes about my own diet journey.

Starting out vegan

I was a vegan for many months, back in 2010. I might still be one today had I not gotten really sick while on the diet.

My reason for exploring the vegan diet was my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

In 2010, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University were studying the McDougall diet, a low-fat vegan regimen promoted by Dr. John McDougall, to see whether this diet could alleviate MS symptoms. The results was inconclusive. Those on the vegan diet enjoyed it and reported more energy, but there appeared to be no change in disease outcome.

I wasn’t part of the study, but I was interested, so I tried the diet myself.

Loving vegan

The big surprise to me about eating vegan—that is, consuming no animal products at all—was that the food tasted so good! Without meat and dairy protein, tastes were somehow brighter, more intense.

And I found it intriguing to figure ways to cut down on fat. In one of his cookbooks, Dr. McDougall describes how to sauté with water instead of oil. That sort of thing.

For Mother’s Day in May 2010, I traveled to Chicago, where I joined my daughters for a late celebration of my 60th birthday, which had been January 1. Finding vegan fare was a challenge, but I was up for it. We visited an upscale vegetarian restaurant, where the staff was happy to accommodate me. Being vegan meant I didn’t have to try the cauliflower ice cream.

Maggie Gardner and Lyza Gardner at The Bean in Chicago, Mother’s Day, 2010. I’m in the photo, too, in my mobility scooter. Fran Gardner photo

A sorry end

Not too long after that trip I developed sudden, scary symptoms. My insides hurt. These were new sensations I couldn’t place. I had never felt this way before.

At the hospital, they told me I had pancreatitis. I had never even heard of it. I remember being asked about drinking, as pancreatitis is common in alcoholics.

I spent a few days in the hospital recovering from this attack. I was told that I had developed gallstones and that some of them had migrated to my pancreas.

The pancreatitis scared me. My vegan days were over. I remember my husband, Robert, enticing me back to sanity with a poached egg.

Diet downside

I later read that women who lose weight rapidly, as I did on this low-fat regimen, often develop gallstones. I wish the McDougall folks had been able to apprise me of this. John McDougall (who died in Portland on June 22, 2024, at age 77) was a doctor, after all.

I don’t think of myself as a dieter. Veganism was more of a lifestyle. I’m not a person who obsesses about my weight, but the fact is I was nearly 30 pounds over my ideal weight after I entered assisted living in 2019. That and a diagnosis of pre-diabetes led to my beginning the ketogenic, or keto, diet about three years ago. The keto diet is high in fat, medium in protein (which can be vegetarian) and very low in carbohydrates.

Hail, keto

It’s easy for me to eat keto. The food tastes great. I don’t miss pasta and bread. Those carbs never agreed with me anyway. Most weeks, I allow myself a day or two to eat more carbs, mostly beans and corn. I love tostadas.

Being on the keto diet has lowered my blood glucose readings, so I’m keeping diabetes at bay. My lipids did not spike: my cholesterol is a sunny 148. I generally have more energy, and symptoms of acid reflux and dyspepsia that once dogged me have vanished.

I quickly lost the extra pounds and now weigh what I did in my early 30s, after having two children.

For me, there doesn’t seem to be a downside to keto. My energy level is good, important for someone with MS. I usually sleep well and seldom nap during the day.

I was skeptical about a diet that so radically changes the way the body operates. Instead of burning carbs, including sugar, for energy, the body burns fat. I knew going in that the ketogenic diet was originally developed to end seizures in children with epilepsy, and it seemed crazy to consider it as a daily way of life.

But it is working for me.

Listening to the furnace

Another little poem building on one of life’s mundane moments.

Again and against

The heat is coming on again
I am growing up again. 
The season turns toward spring again.

The seasons align, it is ever so;
The mountains process, the ice cap shrinks.
Earth is a furnace, the heat higher now.

Turn out the light when you exit the planet.

A train adventure

The more I ride public transit, the more I encounter weird situations. Like the time a driver accidentally turned too early and headed the wrong way on a one-way street in downtown Portland. Fortunately, there was little oncoming traffic at that moment.

Then this week, I was riding the MAX yellow line train home from North Portland when the train got stuck.

Coming off the Steel Bridge into downtown, the train tried to make its usual right turn to snake past Union Station. Something happened and the train stopped dead. It couldn’t complete the turn.

It was a bad place to get stuck. The half-turned train blocked both lanes of traffic coming down off the bridge. There was a bus in the right lane, and traffic backed up behind it.

What happens now?

For at least five minutes the train driver tried to figure out what to do. The bus driver came over and gave his opinion. I could hear none of this from inside the train. Then the train driver announced via the intercom that he was going to have to “loop back up.” He walked to the back of the train and got into the cab there, and started the train back up the Steel Bridge incline. I knew the train couldn’t go far in that direction, because another Yellow Line train would be coming. Sure enough, after we got about a third of the way up the bridge ramp, the driver switched back to the other end of the train and started driving us back toward downtown.

This time the train was able to negotiate the curve, and it proceeded downtown as it normally would. I have no idea what caused the train to get stuck the first time. Perhaps one of the wheels got knocked off its track.

During the entire experience, I was treated to the unceasing ranting of one unhinged passenger with a limited but salty vocabulary. Most passengers were engaging with their cell phones while he was loudly excoriating the driver and fuming that he was going to be late for dinner. It was a great public display of frustration.

He got off the train at the next stop.

Off the tracks

My wagon is missing a wheel
And I don’t know how to compensate
A table leg you can replace
But wheels are out of stock.

Making do, making done, making nothing.
Get out and walk; feel the pebbles
That stick between toes. Grass brushes your ankles.
Watch out for cow pies. Keep walking.

Check out

Hat day

A year ago this week, I wrote a story about trying to decide which of my two hats to give away. This story has a new life! Hat People, the family business based in Talent, Ore., who made one of my hats, has just reposted it on their blog. Need a hat? Check them out first.

The Hat People blog directs you to a Becoming post called “It’s Still Winter,” from Feb. 15, 2025, which features a soothing shot of the Toothpaste Apartments in the snow. I just love that building.

A year ago, on Valentine’s Day 2025, snow lay on the ground outside the Toothpaste Building apartments. The building was painted a more delicate minty green in June. Fran Gardner photo

You can listen to Becoming

Dear reader Kelly Turner commented a few weeks ago about listening to my post. I think about recording it, but keep putting off. I like her solution—let your browser’s built-in voice read the story for you:

Fran, you might appreciate that I listened to this post on the bus. Delightful narration and “the voice’s” pronunciation of cortado brought me a smile.

To my concerns about recording my own voice, she later posted:

Honestly the computer voice does a pretty nice job! I say save your energy for your cool urban exploring.

Yay! I can save my energy for exploring and writing. Thanks, Kelly!

The guff

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Has something in this posting touched you? Please add a comment. I read them all and respond to most.

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Till next week, when it will be that much closer to spring.

Love,
Fran