Category: All (-ish)

I and my camera are one.

I keep a five year diary which is helpful when I start to wonder, “how did I celebrate Memorial Day last year?” but also fun to see what went on in previous years on that very day. My friend was amazed earlier this year because I could tell her that three years and two days ago on that date we had her un–bachlorette party. She broke up with her finance and we celebrated by painting pottery.

April 17 marked one year with my camera. Ideally I would post a one year post with a picture taken by my camera, but we will just have to have a text post. It’s one of those nights.

I love my camera. I’ve always liked photography, but felt self conscious lugging around a camera. My Canon Powershot fits in the palm of my hand and goes everywhere with me. I can take a picture at a moments notice. My pictures aren’t as composed as when I took film pictures, and I still really miss going to get the packet of pictures, but I wouldn’t trade my digital camera for anything.

On that note, my camera is full of pictures you won’t probably see for awhile. I’ve begun taking a class which means that blog time has been cut down. Things are still going on, I’m just having trouble finding time to write about them. Books are being read, movie has been seen, letters are being written (though not tonight). Squeak is even visiting and Matt is making somewhat hopeful sounding comments that begin “But when we get a cat…..” I’ll write about it someday, just not in the near future.

Unless someone wants to pay me to stay home from work and blog? Maybe?

The Abstinence Teacher. Tom Perrotta

Ruth is the high school health teacher forced to adapt an abstinence-based curriculum. Tim is a recovering alcohol and drug user trying to hold on to the sobriety he found when he started attending a local evangelical church. The book throws these two characters together at a point of adversity and then examines how their interactions affect their lives.

This book was readable enough, with the well developed characters I am used to from Tom Perrotta. However, I felt that the point at which the book ended was the ideal starting point for the story. All that came before it seemed like a very long set up without a payout.

A walk through Northwest Portland

On my way to my acupuncture appointment, I captured these images.

The lovely doors of St Mary’s.

I love finding signs with outdated language and/or customs. “You tradesmen, you enter over here. Not through the front door.”
This looks like a pretty typical multi-family residence in Northwest. But wait! What is that sign in the lower left? (I actually crossed the street to find out.)
Ah! My place for orthodox church on Sundays.
Who needs sleep when there is coffee? Who needs a recycle bin, when there is a truck bed?
I mean really, who?

Their uniform

Walking back to the house, I snapped a picture of these two girls.
They are clearly wearing their unofficial high school uniform of the moment: Uggs, skinny jeans, plain white long sleeved t-shirts, long hair, worn down.

When I was in high school my unofficial uniform was: converse high tops–laced up to the second grommet from the top–baggy jeans, baggy t-shirt with funny sayings and hair either worn down or up in a scrunchie.

What was your unofficial uniform?

The Running Mate. Joe Klein

There’s a certain genre of movies I refer to as the “white men in suits” movies. They are the kind of movies where many of the main characters look alike and not much is done to differentiate them. I’m always slightly confused during these films, because the characters are so interchangeable. So in the third reel when it is revealed that Mr. So-and-so was really a double agent/mafia don/retired baseball player I always think, “Wait, who was Mr. So-and-so?”

This book was much like that. The story of a long time Midwestern Senator had a lot of characters who were sparingly introduced and then referred to later not only by either their first or last names, but also a nickname now and then. “Who is this person?” I kept thinking as I read.

But I kept reading and aside from having little idea who was talking 60% of the time, I enjoyed this book. Charlie, the main character was wonderful to follow through his trials and tribulations. He really wanted to do the right thing, which was difficult in the changing political landscape of the early 90s. His father was a fun character who would wander in and out and I enjoyed a few of the staffers too.

I enjoy politics (though not so much these past years) and it was fun to have a fictional window to a Senate campaign. There were story threads that could have been more developed and story threads that wandered on forever, but overall this was a pretty okay book.

Bruunch!

It started during a teacher team meeting in January. We, the adult leaders of First Unitarian Church’s YRUU, were having all sorts of ideas. “We should have brunch.” someone said.

“No, we should have ‘brUUnch‘” someone else countered. (UU for Unitarian Universalist)

“What would we eat?”

“Well, fruuit. And muustard.”

And we were off. Umlauts were suggested, food was planned and on April 6, the advisors descended on our kitchen to cook our bruunch.

Jimmy made fabulous pancakes and waffles. His secret? A dash of cinnamon.
Deborah (in lovely apron) made fruuit salad and Marcia (in red hoodie) made a lovely spinach egg dish.
I was in charge of bacons: regular, turkey and soy.
Here is why the youth constantly refer to me as “Marcia” and vice versa. This is actually Marcia, not me, removing something from the oven.
Deborah cleans. Ron, the other member of our team, served the important role of heeding the call, “Ron, can you help me with this?” He also took these pictures.
We wave and cook!
The finished spread. Jimmy, me, Marcia, Deborah and Ron pose in front of the food.
And the youth descend.



It was later remarked that we could think of our bruunch as “the first annual bruunch.”

The Rope Walk. Carrie Brown.

Alice turns 10 at the beginning of this book. She leans out the window at her birthday party and as she leans, we are introduced to her five older brothers, her professor father and the house keeper Elizabeth who came to work when Alice’s mother died one month after her birth. We also meet other sundry characters including Theo, the grandchild of Alice’s neighbors Helen and O’Brien, who is staying with them for the summer. Theo and Alice become friends and together they befriend Kenneth, an older neighbor.

The book is best when describing Alice’s feelings and emotions. There are so many great examples of being 10 years old. I especially loved the friendship that developed between Theo and Alice and this was another book I didn’t want to finish. The closer I got to the ending, the more I set it down.

On an unrelated side note, the author’s picture fascinated me. It may have been because her hair was pinned up, but her steely expression to me seemed to be straight out of a frontier photograph from the 1850s. And I mean that as a compliment.