[Claire]

Weird. I live in Portland: The City That Drinks Coffee.

I gotta say, I love it here....even in some of the skazziest neighborhoods (where I tend to substitute), there isn't a ton of litter. Our area is immaculate. When the garbage trucks come, they make sure that the garbage cans are picked up, lids replaced, any junk that fell out of the cans is retrieved and thrown into the truck. I've NEVER seen a company so dedicated to making sure that every single little teeny tiny thing gets picked up. It's great! I spent ten years chasing down our cans, picking up grody corrody crap off the ground, watching the garbage truck RUN OVER our lid, etc. Ugh. Portland is great.

As much as people whine about Portland, the schools, whatever.....it's SO MUCH WORSE in the rest of Oregon. School funding, city services (what extremely FEW there are), parks (most towns don't have parks and rec programs anymore, period), etc. Portland is really the only place to live in the state of Oregon. Well, except maybe Eugene.