Juliacentralicious

Portland and Roscoe

For my last day in Portland, Kayce and I indulged in a little thievery. Dad's prized rhinoceros, Roscoe, the 150 pound, five foot long and three foot high, Aluminum statue, had been begging to be let loose all summer. So we obliged.
We ended up dragging him down McLoughlin (the Statue of Liberty, the Bomber Restaurant, and that Totem Pole) in her truck, and then headed to the zoo. There, he made the day of a handful of children whose parents jumped on the learning opportunity ("What's that, honey? A rhinoceros! Do you remember seeing his family inside?") and was generally petted and loved all around (though we never even made it past the admissions). Sadly, the zoo has no sense of humor, and we were informed by an entirely too serious security guard that we would have to leave and take Roscoe with us.
To cheer ourselves up after such a downer, we headed downtown. Parking was a challenge, so we ended up having to carry him two blocks to get to the front of Powell's, which drew our fair share of amused looks and the admiration of the Greenpeace canvassers. From there, we got him down to the waterfront (by now, lifting him in and out of the truck was becoming more of a challenge, though thanks to the grace of Darrin we weren't entirely sapped), where he stopped by the Smallest Park in the World, and then frolicked in the fountain.
Before heading home, we made a last stop at Voodoo Doughnuts, where the girl working the counter was not only kind enough to let us take him into their very small quarters, but also fished through the doughnuts to find those with the largest holes, that would most easily fit onto his horn.
Roscoe was then returned to the garage—just in time, since Dad was getting suspicious (when my mom finally told him that he wasn't allowed to go in, his first response was to ask, "Did somebody hit Roscoe?"). Let me just say that it is very hard to keep a straight face when you're standing by a metal rhino with doughnuts on its horn and waiting for someone to notice.
When he finally did, he flipped through the Polaroids slowly, until finally commenting, "These look like Polaroids." "That would be because they are," I replied. "Well then how did you do it?"
Finally we convinced him that it was real, and now we are the heroes of our neighborhood.

There was a Sharis run, cut short by overzealous mom-ing that led to a curfew, and then the next morning, bright and early, I loaded up the car and headed out.

posted by Julia @ 2:13 PM