Somewhat recently, Emperor Georgiou’s Tea Room, set up (tea) shop in Kenton. Matt decided to celebrate his birthday there so we could experience the tea.
Some pretty cups.
One of our platters of food. While no service job is easy, being a wait staff at a tea shop does have its advantages: a very limited menu; a set timeframe; the inability for people to become inebriated by consuming the product.
I grabbed a picture of Matt and his mom, Linda. I neglected to catch the rest of the table.
I’ve long been a fan of Elephants Delicatessen’s Chop Chop Salad, and today I decided to screenshot the ingredients so I could recreate this salad, should I have need.
Yum!
When we redid the side yard to feature native plants, I planted two bushes, one to the left of the door and one in the front bed. This is the first year they have really popped.
To the right of the door is Oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor) which has done a great job of growing in the shade of the flowering plum tree. It has also behaved by growing up more than out, giving us a bit of a screen in front of the porch. I have done a bit of pruning to keep it from shooting out to the sidewalk, but not very much. It’s a very vertical plant.
I was excited to plant Syringa or Lewis’s Mock Orange (Philadelphus lewisii) because it’s the Idaho state flower, and I’ve always like to say the word “Syringa.” It has also done a great job growing mostly upward, though it needs a little more pruning than the Oceanspray. And it tends to fall over, if not anchored to a stake. But it’s very pretty in general and I love the white flowers. The USDA fact sheet says Native Americans used it for arrow shafts, combs, bowls, cradles, and other things.
Here’s to success in landscaping, especially landscaping carried out by a person with few landscaping skills.
Big traveler Sara says that on June 3, 2023, NOLA was gorgeous. She especially enjoyed all the details on the buildings.
In somewhat of a postal service miracle, the four postcards that Sara sent commemorating her visit to the Trees of Mystery arrived on the same day.
I visited the Trees of Mystery in 2019, but Sara, living a few hours south, finally made her way north to this wonderful site. (To be fair, there was a pandemic in the middle that jumbled things up.)
In this card, Sara points out the vintage cars in the lot and hazards a guess that this photo is from 1978 or 1982.
Sara said that her family enjoyed brunch at the Forest Café, and that it was a “unique dining experience” as the postcard promises.
Sara was traveling with her niblings, who she calls niblets.
Sara reports that Dr. Summer Sara is balancing some work and play and that she was glad the Trees of Mystery was part of that play.
Friend Gail and I attended this Piano-Bar like event at the Armory. Our hosts were full of fun and we got to sing along to a ton of showtunes. One memorable performance was “Some Enchanted Evening,” which came with a story of how the singer originally learned it, and judging by the applause, really moved everyone in the room.
The roof to 105 NW Park Avenue (once upon a time the home of The Emerson School) is gone, as are the windows. But the façade is still there. I really hope they reused those old-growth timbers in the ceiling.
The mural is still there for now. But not for long.
On the other end of the block, the very tall unreinforced masonry building is completely gone. That was the one I figured would slump onto our building, burying us, if there was an earthquake.
We need not worry about building slump during an earthquake now.
Before he launces into details about his trip to Europe, readers get background information about his family’s travel style.
I’ve had this recipe waiting in the wings for several years. It’s so old, it’s from when the Oregonian was still being delivered to me. Today was the day I made it.
I had both strawberries and raspberries and together they were delicious.
I tend to not do well with pie crust, but folding these gallettes is in my limited skillset.
They were delicious.
And, having made the recipe, I concluded that I would probably never make it again, and I recycled that recipe.
My desk is inundated with computer things. There isn’t a flat surface I can write on. I’ve been looking around for a folding desk that can appear when I need a non-computer desk surface, and I found a fun one.
This folding desk came from the Ukraine. It joined the working wall with my clothes dryers. In its folded state, it looks like this:
And then when I need it, it becomes this adjustable desk.
This allows me to roll back and forth between the computer desk and the folding desk. I could also make it a standing desk, if I so chose.
