I’ll be happily celebrating American Independence Day on Monday but today I’m grateful , not just for my independence, but for all the ways I am interdependent with so many great people in Portland.

Our newest Roost sponsor, Brion Oliver, in his own quiet [...]]]> Happy Interdependence Day. Yep, that’s right . . . interdependence day.

I’ll be happily celebrating American Independence Day on Monday but today I’m grateful , not just for my independence, but for all the ways I am interdependent with so many great people in Portland.

Our newest Roost sponsor, Brion Oliver, in his own quiet way, has reminded me of why I wanted to start this thing called a swap shop in the first place . . . with two kids to raise up well in a changing world, I set out to create a place where life is easier and less expensive, healthier and more fun. Day to day, as I look at the re-circulated clothes we are wearing and the simple, easy ways we are amusing ourselves and connecting with friends, it seems to be going pretty well. Less bling and more belonging.

Just a little bit after the Swap Shop started, Brion Oliver, with a whole long list of interesting experiences in the Portland food scene, set out to create a resource for families wanting to eat healthy on a reasonable budget. He ended up, with the help of some great friends, starting Our Community Pantry in the fall of 2009.

It started simple and, lucky for all of us, has stayed that way.

Brion does the work most of us could only dream of having the time to do. He figures out who has the best tasting, most nutritional staple foods – as nearby as possible but also all around the planet – and then turns his front porch and a few other locations into monthly pick up spots for pantry items that can sustain us for weeks on end.

His front porch just happens to be a little ways from the Swap Shop at 25th and Salmon. His main pantry items:

Nuts, seeds, dried berries, sea weed, cacao, coconut, gluten free oats, maca powder, a really cool tri-color quinoa and some local artisan products like handmade chocolate bars (my kind of pantry!).

His prices for organic pantry items: less than non organic quinoa, brazil nuts and pistachios at Fred Meyer. He makes sure all the pantry’s prices are less than what you would pay for organic, well sourced food from any storefront in Portland with more of the profit going to the growers and producers even though less is coming out of your pocketbook since he has less overhead to cover.

The way nuts are most commonly shipped, stored and displayed leaves most of the nuts we have access to in a sub ideal condition for taste and nutrition. His passion for how nuts and seeds are harvested, transported and stored gets some really great food into our hands.

It’s going to be a delight to write about the pantry throughout the seasons and share some of his stories about wild crafted foods and his support of long time growers and new farmers of great nuts and seeds.

For now, I’m just going to share my delight at tasting wild crafted and well kept brazil nuts (they don’t even seem related to the chalky nuts I usually avoid) and confess to the new fetish I now have for dried cherries.

Conveniently, Brion’s next order cycle is underway with on line orders needing to be placed by Friday, July 15th for pick up the following week . . . plenty of time to peruse his lists of items and decide what your pantry needs.

If you pick up your first order from his front porch (which can be as simple as one little bag of nuts or dried cherries), you can meet him and start a great relationship. He has several other drop off spots already going on downtown and in the SW and NE. You can pay him to deliver to your house or, once you have five families willing to go in on a drop off location, he will deliver right to your front porch for free.

What I’m most excited about, aside from how much better my own little pantry is going to be, is the fact that Brion’s delivery system is a catalyst for some of our own co-op families efforts to get really good food out to more people. Brion actively looks for people interested in making a great product just once a month that he can help get out to appreciative families without the risk and hassle of hustling for shelf space every week at local stores or running a cart or farmers market table on your own.

I’m thinking of co-op member Danielle Cogan’s homemade granola and Hailey Cohn’s truffles. Brion misses the connection he had with a really great sauerkraut maker who has moved out of town and now he’s now hoping to find another kraut maker.

Generally, I’m thinking we are all going to be glad we know each other.

You can email Brion to be on his mailing list, propose an artisan food product or find out how he got licensed by the Oregon Department of Agriculture as a domestic kitchen food processor and go on line to check out his pantry items.

Welcome to our community Brion! Thanks for becoming a Roost sponsor.

If you have read all the way through this email, you have my gratitude for taking the time to get to know Brion better and find out about Our Community Pantry.

To place orders or inquire for more info:

Brion Oliver
Our Community Pantry
Real Food Purchased Together


Our Community Pantry

brion©outcommunitypantry•com  (brion©ourcommunitypantry•com)  

If any of these brands are on your wish [...]]]> Crank – one of the newest bike shops in Portland . . . almost to Burnside a block off SE 28th on Ash. Run by two great young guys, Chris and Justin, this place is, as the word on Yelp says, unpretentious, super helpful and affordable.

If any of these brands are on your wish list:

Bicycles and Frames: Fuji, Redline, Breezer, Dolan, Leader, Ciocc, Casati, De Bernardi, Pake, Soma
Parts :Shimano, Sram, Campagnolo, Velocity, White Industries, Velo Orange, Phil Wood, DT Swiss.
Clothing: Pearl Izumi, Shiela Moon, Showers Pass, Swrve, Spiuk
Accessories: Ortlieb, PDW, Kryptonite, Planet Bike, Fuji
Tools and Supplies: Park Tool, Pedros, Hozan, Shimano, Sram Pitstop, Dumonde Tech

Crank is your new go-to source.

Maybe you are a consignment regular and are opening this email already very familiar with Piccolina because you go there all the time – except not today.  They are, understandably, as a family run business, closed for Mother’s Day.

Piccolina’s owner, Sara, has chatted with a whole lot of Swap Shop members over the past 3 [...]]]>  

If through it all you find some valuable resources for your family and an angle on shopping you hadn’t quite thought about in a while. . . then this tale [...]]]> This is the story of over wrapped shoes and under wrapped finances . . . the story of estate sales and lawyers, whimsy and wonder.

If through it all you find some valuable resources for your family and an angle on shopping you hadn’t quite thought about in a while. . . then this tale will have worked it’s magic.

This particular peek into the cycle of life starts out with the “shoes of last resort.”

I’m a thrifty gal and my daughters are resourceful acquirers. They dove into the big Sunnyside Swap and Spring Clean Up a few weekends ago eager and willing to try it on and take it home.

But the summer sandals my youngest daughter Claire was hoping for weren’t there. They weren’t in our shoe bins at the Swap Shop. They weren’t at Piccolina on Clinton (our favorite resale shop that recently opened a second store on Woodstock) or the Goodwill.

So we made that trek out into the suburbs to a box store and found a suitable pair just fine but this is the place in the story where I start to whine.

Not about the price or the style or the non-existence salesperson but about the Dr. Seuss style packaging. I could just see the Lorax with his big need to speak for the trees (and a few other natural resources) as we opened the box to find the usual tissue paper and two sandals . . . each incased in their own plastic bag, their toes stuffed with paper and the heels full of styrofoam (to retain a good shape) and, to my bemusement, a stiff piece of cardboard between these super wrapped beauties – you know, just in case they wanted to bump around in the box on that long trip from China and the plastic wasn’t enough to keep them from rubbing up against each other.

The price was decent and, from my experience, the shoe quality quite questionable. If they both make it through the summer without falling apart, I’ll put them in our size 1 kids shoe bin or out with the other shoes at our annual Back-to-School Clothing Exchange . At least the next parent won’t have to witness a whole flotilla of paper and oil based products accompanying their purchase.

I choose to bring up this over-the-top bit of packaging because . . . it’s Mother’s Day next weekend and you might be buying someone a gift or someone might be wondering what’s a great thing to do for you.

While we can’t all take the time to research the original source of our purchases or give our lives over to the ban-the-bag campaign, we can make our purchases in ways that bring us delight and re-infuse our local economy.

If you stroll over to Noun or White Rabbit Vintage on and off Belmont in the high 20′s and low 30′s, the one of a kind items that you could take home for mom (or yourself) are 5 parts beauty, 3 parts kitsch and 2 parts nostalgia. There’s jewelry remade from vintage pieces, refurbished furniture, funky old kitchenware and even sweaters `refurbished’ into wall art.

Stephanie, owner of Noun, gets in her high mileage car once a week and visits the local estate sales so that everything old can be new again. The upcharge from what she pays for grandma’s vintage glassware to what she charges you when you take it home for a mother’s day brunch makes her a modest living instead of helping corporate executives make 250 times the salary of their hired workers.

You don’t have to become a socialist or an anarchist or even a do-it-all-yourself isolationist to step away from some of the insanity. All you have to do is step into Grandma’s Attic in the back of Margaret Kellerman’s White Rabbit Vintage and pick out furniture that came (at least this time around) from inside someone’s Victorian or old Craftsman, not out of a cardboard box with a tiny metal hand crank hex tool.

Sweet gifts for under $20 and great lifetime purchases for under $200 don’t always come with a Swedish meatball lunch. Margaret and Stephanie, each in their own way, have great taste and sweet, comforting stores that are wonderful to shop in.

This first part of our know-your-neighbor weekly post is really just one more reminder that there are plenty of ways to honor mom and our corner of the planet at the same time.

But I promised you lawyers and wonder and we haven’t gotten to that part yet so I best move on, if you don’t mind, from the shopping to the end game.

Mother’s Day isn’t a one way path for any of us as parents. We get to look in both directions as we cross the street from child to parent to the possible caretaker for our own parents.

All the mothers that have passed through this world have tales to tell both of wonder and caution and, once a quarter, I check in on some of those stories with Don Snow, director of Lawrence Convalescent.

Many of the stories Don has to tell from his life long career in assisting the elderly are great reminders that, if an apple a day keeps the doctor a way, then a well timed lawyer visit each decade keeps the crisis at bay.

As an assisted living facility that takes Medicaid, Lawrence Convalescent might seem, at first glance, like the rest home of last resort. Thankfully that isn’t the case. From everything I’ve seen, it’s a place you’d be glad to have your parents at . . . a small facility where everyone is well known and the staff enjoys their jobs.

Don looks forward to working with families that have planned ahead for the golden years and can tell you all sorts of challenging stories about families who have not. If our parents don’t have medical directives or a durable power of attorney in place as their competencies slip then everything from finances to hospice care can get tangled up in complex emotions and greed.

Maybe this is the Mother’s Day that you ask mom more than just how she’s doing but also how well she is set up for ongoing care.

Touchy subjects I know, even in our own lives.

I have been hearing great things from families that are working with our Roost sponsor, Bea Wise-Krull who specializes in family estate planning. From all the times Don’s helped patients work through issues over the years, he also has good connections with several attorneys that specialize in elder law and with protective services. A quick phone call to him and his staff will get you some helpful recommendations.

I’d rather go shopping for a present than shopping for a lawyer or a social worker any day but I sleep better at night when I’ve put some protections in place and let someone more knowledgeable and experienced than me walk me through my options.

So it’s no wonder that when I walked into Lawrence Convalescent yesterday, Don and a few staff members were gathered around a large salt water fish tank. I have some friends who make a hobby out of keeping a salt water environment in their living room. They will talk your ear off about how much easier it is these days with improvements in equipment and technology. The woman taking care of the lobby fish tank at the corner of Belmont and agreed. “Don’t skimp on the set up,” she said (referring to the purchases you make in advance on pumps and what not to get a large fish tank started). “A lot of people try to do that and they just end up struggling because of it.”

I’d like to think we’ve gotten a large fish tank started, a nice little set up, a thriving co-op and a great community that we can all swim around in. If it’s improved your life I am ever so glad. It’s certainly improved mine and I can only hope that the shops and the legal resources in this cycle of life story add something special to the mix for you.

I picked up a book at the Sunnyside Swap and Spring Clean Up called “The Inside Scoop” – all about the rise of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream as one of the inspiring examples of socially responsible business. There’s a whole chapter in the book dedicated to linked prosperity.

You’ve probably guessed by now, I’m a big fan of linked prosperity. Hope you are too.

White Rabbit Vintage 916 SE 29th AV, Portland OR 97214 between SE Belmont and Yamhill. Look for the red door. Open Wed – Sat 11-6 503 577-3355

Noun: A Person’s Place for Things 3330 SE Belmont Corner of 33rd and Belmont across from Zupans Tues – Sat 10-7, Sunday 10-5 503 235-0078

Lawrence Convalescent Center 812 SE 48th Ave. Portland, Oregon 97215 503 236-2624

I had a friend who worked in management for Sears who would entertain us with stories about executive directives to do things like [...]]]> The more I get to know our local businesses in SE Portland, the more reasons I have to brag with complete assurance about what a treasure they all are to our community.

I had a friend who worked in management for Sears who would entertain us with stories about executive directives to do things like carry riding mowers in every store – he didn’t live in inner SE Portland at the time but he did live in a part of the country where no one’s lawn was even remotely big enough to justify the purchase. To keep the great big mowing machines from just taking up display space and collected dust, they took to using them as counter tops for other products.

Nothing takes up display space and collects dust at Veloce Bicycles or Clever Cycles – two great Portland bike stores on Hawthorne.

To say Portland is unique among American cities is probably a generous understatement. Our businesses get to reflect and foster wonderful niches of commerce that feed our need for real products, well made and well supported.

My check in at Veloce took a back seat yesterday to the woman who rolled in with her two-year-old bike cracked through the frame. She wasn’t nervous or agitated. She knew why she spent her money at a local shop with a good reputation so that, if or when this kind of thing happened, she’d have an easy time getting it replaced. She left the bike in good hands and picked out the new handle bar grip tape she was going to add on in process.

In the process of searching out the best products, sometimes Todd and Dean at Clever Cycles decide to take matters in their own hands. The electric assist device that makes commuter bikes manageable was developed by Todd so he could ride the hills of San Francisco (about the equivalent experience to riding our smaller hills with several kids piled on and a bunch of groceries).

Some of the Portlanders I admire most ride so much that switching gear between the road, home and the office begins to seem pretty pointless. Dean and Todd saw a need that wasn’t yet being filled with the clothes on the market and set out to find the ultimate wear-everywhere pants. After a bit of trial and error, they ended up co-creating a product that is just starting to go national.

To me their inspired creation looks like a very basic pair of black pants (and that’s the point so they blend in with everything.) The Hawthorne Stealth Pantaloon is made of wool thin enough to be worn in warm weather and, because they are made of wool, warm in cold weather even when soaking wet. And, best of all, those magic qualities of the chemistry of wool make it so that the odors that would get into and linger in other clothes don’t take hold in the cloth. Work out (or just get a work out going to work) and walk into the office, or your co-op preschool stint, like you just came from the dry cleaners.

The owners of Clever Cycles did the honorable thing and kept the design and manufacture of the pants in the states which means we get to do the honorable thing and pay a living wage for our clothes: $157 a pair. Good thing you can wear them for days on end and they’ll really last so you can get your money’s worth. This is just round two of offering the pants through their store. The first 100 pants sold out last season and another 100 pairs of men’s size 26-38 and women’s size 2-18 are waiting for the next converts to the ways of wool. Some of the best rain gear in Portland for toddlers to adults is waiting for you too.

Veloce has a new convert or an old, long time fan depending on how you want to look at it. Demetri, long time owner of Veloce and one of the back bones of the Portland biking movement is retiring (actually graduating to running a fitting studio – no bike sales just working with really serious riders fitting them to the best bikes for their ride). In that role, he’ll be keeping close ties with Veloce’s new owner Brent Engstrom.

Brent’s Italian mom and Demetri are getting along great. Brent, at 38 with a 9 year old son – who may find his way to The Roost before long – is in his element keeping the strong relationships going between rider and bike and store and community. He’s been a road and mountain biker since high school and could never quite abide by the high volume sales model of the Performance Bicycle in Beaverton where he did his early years in the business.

He’s been working at Veloce for over a month and the official owner for just 3 weeks. He’s as happy as the rest of us that he’s inherited a shop with an all night mechanic. Bring your bike in by 7pm and Tom will work through the night to have it fixed when the shop opens the next day. Demetri will be in and out for the next month so you can say hellos and goodbyes with one visit before Christmas.

And while you are there, or at Clever Cycles, you can make your all-weather ride a whole lot more pleasant and safe with bike lights, back wheel fenders, water proof bags and all weather tires.

If they don’t have what you need, describe it to them. Next thing you know, they will have found it or found some way to have it made.

Clever Cycles 908 SE Hawthorne Boulevard M-Th: 11-6; Fr: 11-8; Sa-Su: 11-5 503.334.1560

Veloce Bicycles 3202 SE Hawthorne Boulevard M, W, Th & F 11-7, Sat 10-5 Tu& Sun: gone cycling. 503-234-8400

No doubt you’ve been promised deep discounts, free shipping and whole number of other things.

Ironic, I suppose, that the season that celebrates our dearest connections with family and [...]]]> If your email account works anything like mine, you’re probably inundated this time of year with “gift giving ideas” from every source that has your address.

No doubt you’ve been promised deep discounts, free shipping and whole number of other things.

Ironic, I suppose, that the season that celebrates our dearest connections with family and friends gets so disconnected in the heated push for commerce.

The best cure I know, for the feeling that all sense of humanity has been sucked out of the holiday season, is to grab an umbrella and wander down Belmont to a few warm spots on the block.

First stop: Stephanie’s little bit of the universe known as Noun: A Person’s Place for Things . She’s usually the one waiting for you to walk on in at the corner of Belmont and 33rd across from Zupans. You’ll have to make it past the St. Cupcakes in the lobby and then you are in one of the most peaceful places to shop for a gift that I can think of this time of year.

A “long” line will be two or three people at the cash register and you’ll feel silly forming a line because it’s easier to just gather around and enjoy each other’s company while she rings you up.

When I give a gift to a friend or a family member, I’m really just trying to say, “I thought of you. Here’s something special that I thought you would like.”

Noun is filled with special things: vintage glassware (very sweet and unique), local jewelry, art and other conversation pieces that Stephanie has picked up at local estate sales throughout the year so you can discover them anew.

She changes her selection by the season but not by the holiday so, while you’ll find little arctic animals or other things that look great on a tree or make a sweet holiday gift for a playful child, everything she’s offering can stay out all year long in your house so you won’t have to pack what you buy away at the end of December.

You only have the rest of December to enjoy our newest Roost Sponsor, Polliwog , in their original location on the corner of Belmont and 29th. Come January, all the cute and well made kid’s clothing, eco-friendly toys and fun hippity hops are moving to a spot right next to Staccato Gelato up 28th just past Burnside.

If you are a swap shop family that appreciates good, local toy stores, let them know you heard about the move through us. Like all of our sponsors Pheobe and Chris do feel good about helping out Roost youth but they are also trying to spend their small marketing budget wisely. Your shout out as you come in to shop helps them know they are making a difference in all the ways that matter.

One great reason to rush over to Polliwog (other than the miniature selection of Japanese erasers that my own daughters can’t get enough of), would be the really amazing soft “playscapes” that are on display right now. A local artist takes bits of old sweaters and crafts them into surprisingly sturdy toy play houses, nature huts and more . . . ideal for the little animals and little people you already have to explore through the imagination of a child (and quiet on the hardwood floor!). Priced between $20 and $40, these unique little treasures are worth the trip just to check them out.

Walking back to my car from Polliwog, I fell right into another South East Portland treasure. Just last August, local singer and songwriter Margaret Smith, opened up White Rabbit Vintage, her own little store full of vintage furniture and house wares with great hand crafted items too .

She has a real love for the things she collects and her prices are very reasonable for old fashioned wagons, funky furniture and all sorts of items of beauty and amusement.

She has a sweet spot for the needs of the homeless and has found a simple way to help out The Roost this holiday season. She gifts 10% of her proceeds every month to a different non-profit cause. I couldn’t be more proud of the times our member families have taken in foster kids and how our Roost sponsor money gives them a warm, dry, friendly place to be at The Roost every week after school.

Margaret isn’t sure how much her small store tucked around the corner from Polliwog on 29th will generate this holiday season. What ever she earns, some of it will be coming back to help our community as we help the kids who need our love most.

Love is what gift giving is all about. We may think about gift giving more during the holidays but I think about these local stores when ever I want to pass some love along all year long and I hope you do too.

I’m delighted that inner SE Portland is full of the kind of stores we can feel proud to patronize. May we all have an abundant enough new year to continue the support we are giving to each other through the swap shop and living and shopping local.

Noun: A Person’s Place for Things
3300 SE Belmont
Corner of 33rd and Belmont across from Zupans
Tues – Sat 10-7, Sunday 10 – 5, open Mondays too 10-5 for the holiday season
(503) 235-0078

Polliwog
Through December – 2900 Southeast Belmont Street
In January – 234 NE 28th near Everett
10-6 Mon- Sat 11-5 Sun
Open Christmas Eve at least until 6 – later if people are still shopping
(503) 236-3903

White Rabbit Vintage
916 SE 29th AV, Portland OR 97214
between SE Belmont and Yamhill. Look for the red door.
Open Wed – Sat 11-6
503 577-3355