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NE Village Annual Meeting and Elections Are Coming Up
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NE Village PDX will hold its first Annual Meeting on Wednesday, September 13, at 6:00 pm with a potluck dinner at the Rose City Park United Methodist Church, 5830 NE Alameda. Please use the west side door across from the parking lot. Bring a dish to share; coffee, tea, plates, cups, and utensils will be provided.
Elections will be held at the September 13 meeting, and the Governing Council (GovCo) is preparing a slate of nominees to present to you. Three new positions on the Council will be added to the slate this year; all are for 2-year terms and will be voting members of GovCo. If you are interested in becoming a member of GovCo, please email a short statement to Margaret Baldwin (
[email protected]
) telling why you would like to serve on the Council.
You may also nominate someone other than yourself by sending a brief statement about why you think this individual would be a good addition to the Council. Membership in NE Village PDX is not required to serve on GovCo (although our bylaws require that at least two-thirds of those serving are also village members).
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August Programs Highlights
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Members and Volunteers Only
PICNIC AND PORTLAND FESTIVAL SYMPHONY
Join us for this Portland summer tradition, an "al fresco" concert in Grant Park. Bring your own picnic and stay for the concert, or come just for the music. Look for the NEV sign in the park - we'll gather there. Bring a blanket or chairs to sit on.
Sunday August 6. Come at 5:00 pm if you want to picnic - the concert starts at 6:00 pm
Place: Grant Park, NE 33rd Avenue and US Grant Place. Concert is in the "bowl" area, near the basketball court. For a park map, see:
RSVP Required
. Please contact the NEV office at 503-895-2750 to let us know if you will attend.
Members and Volunteers Only
FOREST PARK HIKE
Join us on the Wildwood Trail - Leif Erikson Loop in Forest Park. Our hike is at the northern end of Forest Park, an easy 4.1 mile round trip. There are no picnic tables on the trail, but bring a lunch and we will find a spot to eat after the hike.
Tuesday August 29. 10:00 am - 1:00 pm (approx.)
Place: Meet at the trailhead information sign and map.
Directions: Take US 30/NW St. Helens Rd west - this can be reached by exiting I-405 at Exit 3 to St. Helens. Go 5.8 miles, passing the ramp to the St. Johns bridge, then turn left at the light onto NW Bridge Avenue. Then turn sharply right onto NW Germantown Road. Go about 1.5 miles, passing the parking area for Leif Erikson Drive on the left. Park at the pull-out parking area - there is room for about 8 cars. The trailhead is at the end of the lot, to the right of the trail.
Reservation required:
Please contact the NEV Office at 503-895-2750, and leave your phone number so we can contact you if inclement weather forces us to cancel.
Members and Volunteers Only
GARDEN PARTY
The Village is trying something new - a social gathering at the home of one of our members. The hope is that many of us can get together in a quiet, relaxed atmosphere to socialize and build community. Bring snack food and drinks (of any kind) to share, and join us in the garden!
Wednesday August 30. 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Place: Janet and Kehrnan's home
RSVP Required
. Please contact the NEV office at 503-895-2750 to let us know if you plan to attend. Leave us your email address so we can send you the address, parking, and access details. (Questions? You may contact Janet at 503-528-0213 after August 19.)
SAVE the DATE: Monday, Sept. 25
At 3:00 pm Sept. 25, Atul Gawande, MD, will give a video presentation via live streaming to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Village to Village network that links villages nationwide. Gawande is author of the book Being Mortal, which deals with planning for end-of-life care. His book is reviewed in the June issue of the NE Village newsletter.
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As of July 15, the membership team reports, 116 members are enrolled in NE Village PDX. NE Village is strong with active coordination of committees, programs and activities. The village office is very busy assigning services for yard clean up, transportation, and household chores. There have been groups meeting for coffee, several walks, evenings in the parks, and tours.
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Men's Cooking Group Takes It Outside
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On July 7, the men's cooking group held a picnic at Fernhill Park and invited their wives to join them. It was a delightful summer evening, with a live performance of Tony Starlight as dinner music. Village chefs Bob Granger, Peter Anderson, John Braunger, and Joe Condon presented a gourmet menu of four salads - curried chicken, seafood fettuccine, pasta nicoise, and raw kale with grated vegetables. A delectable time was had by all.
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What's Cooking? A Feast of Online Resources
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If you're looking for ways to expand your culinary repertoire, these websites will serve up a generous helping of recipes, with a side of cooking and baking advice.
www.nytimes.com/newsletters/cooking
- Posts new recipes five days a week, with cooking instructions and advice. Free to New York Times subscribers; nonsubscribers pay $5.00 a month for access to the daily recipe newsletter.
www.kingarthurflour.com
- Offers recipes and toll free chats with King Arthur Flour expert bakers at 1-855-371-2253. Also has a blog and videos.
Have you found any intriguing websites you'd like to share with NE Villagers? If so, send the URL to
[email protected] and we'll publish the links in an upcoming newsletter.
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When the Retirement Honeymoon Ends...What's Next?
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Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of articles on retiring well, written by retired professor of psychology Tracy McDonald, who is also a member of NE Village PDX.
After the honeymoon period of early retirement, some of us experience a cruel surprise when we notice that one day seems to be melting into the next, as if we were living on cruise control. We may be bored or sense a certain joy is missing. This second article in a series on life enrichment explores how intentionally using a variety of skills and abilities and engaging in novel experiences can be an antidote to these distressing feelings.
If you think back to times you felt the most inspired and motivated, chances are you weren't engaged in repetitive activity. People generally enjoy opportunities to use a variety of skills and abilities. Some of us are even fed by learning new things after we retire.
So how do we get off the hamster wheel of sameness? Begin with the realization that using the variety of skills that gave us joy in our work will also help us find joy in retirement. What skill sets did you enjoy using in your pre-retirement work that you no longer use?
Can you think of activities you might engage in now that would allow you to use those skills?
If you enjoyed teaching, maybe you could volunteer teaching underprivileged children how to create a vegetable garden. If you enjoyed talking shop with your former network of colleagues, you might consider joining a group of retired professionals who work together to advance the profession. Problem solvers might be surprised at how intentionally looking for problems that need solutions can increase happiness. Double points for helping friends solve problems.
In addition, simply changing things up in your life can increase variety and richness. Let the dishes go and watch that fascinating documentary instead. Take a weekend trip to somewhere you have never been. Immerse yourself in a new culture whether through volunteering or traveling abroad. There's an additional benefit to stepping outside routine activities. Research shows that we perceive time to pass more slowly when we regularly engage in activities outside the realm of what we typically do.
So think of one activity that inspired you in your working life. Then think of three different activates that would allow you to use that same skill set in your current life. Let your personal values (your homework if you read the first article in this series in the July newsletter) be your guide.
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Member Profile: Ann and Peter Anderson
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In May 2016, Ann and Peter moved to Sullivan's Gulch from their long-time home in Boston, where Ann had worked to launch a village in her neighborhood. She describes organizing the nuts and bolts of a village as a complex and gratifying experience. Ann and Peter are both retired and have always been community activists, so when they arrived in Portland, they went looking for a village right away - and were glad to find one near their new home.
Their family in Portland includes small twin granddaughters, who provide lots of quality "grand nanny" time.
As a Village volunteer and co-chair of the Program Committee, Ann works to plan and facilitate events covering a wide range of interests. Peter hosts the men's cooking group (see article in this issue), and both enjoy neighborhood walks and group hikes.
Ann encourages members to submit ideas for programs. (Hint: There's a form for submitting suggestions on the Village website.) Office volunteers will gladly pass ideas to the Program Committee. Peter enjoys meeting new people. As a newcomer to Portland, he finds Northeast Village programs and activities a great way to do just that.
Ann and Peter remind us to check the calendar of events frequently, as new entries are always being added. The calendar is available in the newsletters, in the digests that come to our inboxes or mailboxes, and on the Village website at
http://nevillagepdx.org/calendar-of-events.
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On the Nightstand:
The American Sickness: How Health Care Became Big Business by Elisabeth Rosenthal (Penguin Press, 2017)
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Hold a bake sale to pay a child's medical bills? Argue with your insurer, who refuses to pay for a necessary treatment? Such stressors are the experiences of the women and men we meet in Elisabeth Rosenthal's book.
Rosenthal, a physician turned journalist, looks at the forces behind such experiences and explains how hospitals, (including our own Providence Medical Center), pharmaceutical corporations, physicians, and medical equipment manufacturers have used the health insurance industry to morph into conglomerates that make huge profits on our health problems.
The Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) did away with some stressors, such as denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Caps on lifetime insurance reimbursements were eliminated. Women got access to maternity and pre-natal care. The disabled got access to expanded Medicaid enrollment. But to ensure the powerful industry associations did not block the bill, the Affordable Care Act was turned into their piggy bank, with no price caps on procedures, and no evidence required for the effectiveness of prescribed tests, treatments, medical equipment, and so on.
The cure for this sickness? Rosenthal urges us to become good shoppers, using the internet to search for quality physicians and hospitals, good medical tests and drugs, just as we shop for dishwashers or cars.
The book spotlights the health care systems of wealthy countries that have universal coverage, with national pricing (Japan, Germany) and single payer insurance (Australia, Taiwan, Canada). All offer their citizens lower medical costs, better health, and longer life expectancy at birth than Americans get. "Press the levers of power," Rosenthal advises. We could start by asking our members of Congress why we should pay for their high quality health insurance when they deny it to us. Years ago, when I voiced this complaint, I was advised to get elected to Congress!
-- Nona Glazer
CALL FOR REVIEWS
Have you read a book - or seen a movie - you'd like to share with fellow villagers? Visited a restaurant with a menu that's to die for? Write up your thoughts (it needn't be long; 150-350 words is plenty) and send them to
[email protected]
Reviews of all types are encouraged.
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