Three sentence movie reviews: The Fits

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An excellent coming of age allegory with the incredible and aptly named Royalty Hightower as Toni, a girl who has put in her time training as a boxer.  But the dance/drill team calls to her, even after some of the older girls start having unexplained fits.  There’s not a lot of dialogue and not a lot of action, but there is a lot of of coming-of-age stuff I don’t usually see on film, and I could not get enough of this movie, or Hightower’s performance.

Cost: $5.00
Where watched:  Living Room Theater with Matt

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/fits_ver3.html

Three sentence movie review: Neighbors 2 Sorority Rising

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I found the original movie hilarious and this one was funny too. It had the added bonus of quasi-female empowerment (quasi- because it was written by five guys–nary a woman in sight).  It was ridiculous in its ridiculousness and I had a very good time watching it.

Cost: $5.00
Where watched: Jubitz Cinema.  All alone in the theater, laughing like a crazy person.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/neighbors_two_sorority_rising_ver3.html

Heidi & Kevin’s Post-Sunday Parkways BBQ

It’s another year and another Sunday and another Sunday of Sunday Parkways. As this is the North Portland Sunday Parkways, Heidi and Kevin hosted their annual post-ride party.

Kevin grills!  Bella hides from the sun!IMG_5614

New to the party this year was Cornhole.  Matt turned out to be a ringer, winning all of his games.IMG_5615 IMG_5616

Bella!IMG_5618

Figs and umbrellaIMG_5619

This was the party at which Matt’s birthday cake was consumed, today being Matt’s birthday.  Happy birthday!IMG_5622

Thanks Heidi & Kevin for yet another good party!

Making a Baskin Robbins-style Ice Cream Cake

I make cakes.  From scratch.  With homemade frosting.  It’s what I do.  I’ve been changing people’s mind about cake for years now.  (I think most people think they don’t like cake because they’ve only experienced grocery store cakes.  A real cake from scratch is an entirely different thing.)

But the boyfriend likes ice cream cakes.  And it was his birthday.  And so I did some research (thank you internet) and made him a Baskin-Robbins-style ice cream cake.  Here’s how I did it.

I found a recipe for cake in my America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.  The recipe I used was for Pantry Chocolate Cake and was designed to be baked in an 8×8 pan.  I baked it in a cheesecake pan (I think that’s a 10-inch pan?  It might be 12-inch.) and watched it carefully so it didn’t burn.  Then I froze it.  I happened to freeze it for a week, but a few hours would probably be fine.  If I do this again, I will cut the cake down a bit.  Maybe to an inch in height?  I feel like a smaller layer of cake would not be so solid.

When I was ready for the ice cream layer, I set out the ice cream to soften for about 30 minutes.  While it softened, I prepped my tray, which was some cardboard with aluminum foil taped to it.

I removed the cake from the cheesecake pan bottom and set it directly on top of the tray. Then I replaced the cheesecake ring around the cake as if the bottom was still there.IMG_5612

In went the ice cream.  I smooshed it out so it was even, and even got out my dough scraper to level the top.  That was an unnecessary thing as there will be icing to even things out, but I wanted a totally flat surface.  At this point everything went back in the freezer for several hours.  Like maybe eight.IMG_5613

What the internet research turned up was that the “icing” on Baskin-Robbins cakes is just softened vanilla ice cream.  A-ha!  So I set out vanilla to soften for about 20 minutes and then removed the cake from the freezer and the cheesecake ring from the ice cream.  (A hot knife helped with this.)

The frosting part was difficult.  I found that I had to work very quickly and a thicker layer was better than a thinner one.  Like normal icing, I did the sides first and then the top. It was not as smooth as I wanted it to be, but it was also getting melt-y, so I put everything back in the freezer where it stayed overnight.

Once the icing was rock-solid, I made a ganche (I use multi-purpose chocolate truffle sauce which was from the early-to-mid 2000s Oregonian Food Day section and which does not seem to be in their recipe archive.  Boo!) and put it in the refrigerator until it was solid.  Then I got out my decorating tools and did my best to decorate. (I’m more of a baker than a decorator.) I found myself wishing I could work IN a freezer, so the icing wouldn’t melt as I was attempting to garnish.  It ended up messier than I wanted, but I knew no one would really care.IMG_5621

The finished product was happily consumed by many.  This is not a cake you can whip up in an afternoon, but if you plan out the time, it’s several short steps over several days and isn’t too taxing.

Postcards from Hood River, Oregon & Portland, Oregon

This marvelous ad card arrived from Hood River, where Laurie (you might know her from the Cosmic Tripster post) and the Valaries were doing a training.  It’s an ad card full of stickers!  I’ve never seen such a thing.IMG_5610

This came from my mother, who was sending me some paperwork for me to mail.  I suspect she must have found this while visiting stores when he friend Linda was in town.  I’m familiar with this artist and have sent her postcards to Postcrossers, so it was fun to see it arrive in my mailbox.IMG_5611

Three sentence movie reviews: Love & Friendship

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Walt Stillman’s Damsels in Distress left me cold, so I was a little wary of this film.  But it turns out that he just needed the proper setting for the stodgy manners on display in Damsels.  This was a complex narrative carefully told and Lady Susan was delightful in her unabashed selfish villainy.

Cost: $10.85 (I know!  I just really wanted to see a movie, so I paid full price at Regal.  And bought popcorn.  And was reminded I don’t really like movie theater popcorn. Again.)
Where watched: Regal City Center Stadium 12.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/love_and_friendship.html

Did you know it was World Skate Day?

Me neither.  But the street in front of work was blocked off and a ramp started to be assembled.  Suddenly, there was a gaggle of skaters hanging out.IMG_5604 IMG_5605 IMG_5606 IMG_5607 IMG_5608 IMG_5609There was a bit of a confrontation over this camera, but the two parted smiling, so that worked out okay.

I left work as the ramp was still being assembled, but my co-worker said when she left it had been fully assembled and it was fun to watch them skate on it.

The end of Anton Yelchin

My first point of contact was during the Star Trek reboot. That movie was humming along quite nicely when suddenly here was this young guy doing the Chekov thing. His attempts at entering his authorization code (9-5-wictor-wictor-2) were so delightful I made a mental note to see just who this kid was.STAR TREK

I don’t think I ever checked.  But he had a long resume already.

It wasn’t until last summer, when he started popping up in the movies I happened to be watching, that I was reminded of his existence.  His acting revealed an intelligence that brought more than the usual to his parts.  He was versatile, and could both carry a leading role and do the supporting thing while also stealing scenes. He was good looking (those curls!) but talent oozed out of him in a way that pointed to a long career, even after those curls thinned out and disappeared, as they were already beginning to do.

The great tragedy of an actor dead long before his time is that we won’t have an opportunity to see what he does next. We can check through his back catalog and see what we’ve missed, but after the things in post-production are released, that’s it.  Someone else will be Chekov in the future, someone else will take those parts he would have been great in and he will be forgotten sooner than he should be.

Yelchin didn’t die because he was troubled, or accidentally overdosed, or had been drinking too much, or was driving too fast.  His death was a dumb random happenstance and too bad.  Because we will never see where he was going to go.  We can only imagine.

Here are the three movies from last summer that turned my head.  They show his versatility: a conflicted lover, an enthusiastic musician, a young guy really into a hot girl. All are good in their own way and all were made better by his presence.

Like Crazy1-like-crazy

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Only Lovers Left Alivep1050419070-3

photo credits:
http://www.trekcore.com/specials/albums/rare/yelchin/chekov_pb02.jpg
http://blog.sfgate.com/mlasalle/wp-content/blogs.dir/2272/files/the-faces-of-love-in-the-movies/1-like-crazy.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CIZ-tfESfUw/maxresdefault.jpg
http://photos.gordonphoto.org/img/s5/v133/p1050419070-3.jpg

Soon to be gone.

The block which houses my bank is soon to be redeveloped.  I saw the sign a few weeks ago.  The new building will be the same old same old: mixed use with retail on the bottom, five floors of offices, five floors of apartments.  We know the drill.  You can see a photo here and also read about the building being the first high-rise in North America to be made of cross-laminated timber.  More photos here.  The second set of photos bug me because I can’t orient myself in space.

I was surprised to see how quickly they were starting.  This is not where my bank is, but is the structure on the other end of the block.  It was an antique store for several years, and of late it has been empty.  It was one story, painted an unattractive color I suddenly can’t recall, and no one will miss this building.  IMG_5597

Here’s my bank.  I asked the teller and she said they would be relocated during construction and then the plan is to come back to the same location.IMG_5598

From the corner.IMG_5599

I also can’t tell from the photo just how much of the block they are taking.  So here’s the rest of the block face.  I’m guessing the colorful building housing LexiDog will go.IMG_5600 IMG_5601

I’m not sure if this building will survive or not.  I’m hoping so.  It’s got good lines.IMG_5602 IMG_5603

It seems that corner will be very dark, what with the new 12-story building, the condo across the street with the red parts and the condo building across the other street that is yellow brick. That’s three tall building on one corner. We shall see, though.