Category: To Occupy my Time

What I Learned in Paris at the Portland Playhouse

I attended a Thursday night showing and by the time I got there I was a bit grumbly because (1) Thursday is a school night and I don’t love being out on school nights any more than I am due to square dancing and (2) I rode my bike and it was cold and kind of drizzly.

But, but, but! This play was so funny and so well acted I was extremely happy I attended. It takes place in 1973 after a successful campaign for J.P. Madison, who will be Atlanta’s first Black Mayor. Things become complicated when his ex-wife Eve (the hilarious Cycerli Ash) comes back to town.

Like all plays that have ended their run, this production isn’t available to you, but I encourage you to attend if it is produced in your area. You can read about it here or watch a production video on You Tube here.

Zentangle No. 6

Here we have Poke Root (upper left corner); Flux (leaf thing in the middle that sprouts out of the frame; Echoism (loopy thing in upper right corner); Festune (tire thing in lower corner); Shattuck (my favorite new thing: the ribbed thing in the middle; Printemps (swirlies on the left); and the very dramatic Purk (beaded looking thing in upper left below Poke Root)

I really enjoyed shading this one.

Antares Likes Things Just So

Poor Antares. Sentinel has been vomiting more often than usual and, given how much time Sentinel spends hanging out on my bed, that means I need to watch the comforter regularly. This is not okay with Antares, who likes to have the comforter on the bed so he can crawl under it and sleep. No other comforter or blanket will do. Believe me, I’ve tried.

He’s not shy about vocalizing his displeasure.

Zentangle No. 6 and Project Pact No. 1 Bijou

My sixth Zentangle turned out well, I think. It has Vega (snake looking tube), Festune (blood-cell looking things) Purk (bejeweled grenade in the middle), Amaze (scribbly lines), the still-elusive Mooka (on the right) surrounded by Tipple (tiny circles), plus a tiny little Flux popping out on the left.

I ordered the first Zentangle project pack so I could start to experiment with black tiles and white pens and was very pleased by the first exercise. It started with a spiral and then circles tracing that spiral, and then aura-ing the circles. It was very simple and looks great. (It looks better at its real size and held at arm’s length.)

This size tile is called a Bijou tile. It’s quite small, maybe 1.5 inches square.

February 22, 2023 SNOW

Surprise snow too, which is my favorite kind. I find the various permutations of “Will it snow” exhausting. (Though there are many fewer permutations now that I mostly work from home.)

I enjoyed how the snow coated the catio.

And you can see that there was a lot of it!

Matt and I made ice cream snow to celebrate. Matt says he’s not had ice cream snow before. I’m not sure if that’s true. But we both enjoyed it.

Elk Rock Garden at the Bishop’s Close

Back in the day, Peter Kerr built this house on his estate and spent a lot of time creating an amazing garden. When he died in 1957, his daughters gave it to the Episcopal Diocese with the stipulation that the public could visit the grounds.

The Diocese has decided to sell the property, which means that if I wanted to see Elk Rock Garden (I’d been meaning to visit for 20 years) I’d better get going. The problem? It’s open Monday through Friday during the same hours I work.

My first plan was to visit on Martin Luther King Day in January, but that weekend became to busy. So President’s Day was my best bet.

The fancy house:

We haven’t had any February fake-out this year, so the garden is just beginning to wake up. There were a lot of budding things.

Here is the view from the upper edge of the property. I think the original parcel went all the way to the river.

An area for services.

The caretaker’s cottage. I spied a cat tree inside.

February isn’t quite peak moss month, but it’s close.

The seal on the gate.

Looking back at the house from the gardens.

I’m glad I got the opportunity to visit this garden. Hopefully the next owner will take delight in the gardens, or even keep them public.

Young Americans at Portland Center Stage

Matt and I really enjoyed the world premiere of Young Americans by Lauren Yee and directed by Desdemona Chiang.

The then-and-now road trips were engaging. The first was with Joe (Danny Bernardo) and Jenny (Marielle Young). Jenny has flown to Washington D.C. to meet with Joe as part of an arranged marriage. When she finds out how far away their home in Portland, Oregon, is from Washington D.C., she’s annoyed that Joe had her fly to the other side of the country. Joe wanted her to see as much of her new home as he could show here in a cross country trip.

The second trip took place a few decades later with Joe surprising his daughter Lucy in Washington D.C. as she returned from visiting the country where she was born.

As these two trips alternated, it was interesting to see the conversations the young (as in new) Americans and young (as in not-old) Americans had.

I also really enjoyed the car that the cast drove as they made there way across the landscape. It swiveled and turned so the audience had differing views.

This play was enjoyable and left me with a lot to think about.

Zentangle ATC 02 15 2023

This lesson was about combining tangles.

From the top: Flux (plant leaf) with Fescue (stalk with seed); Knight’s Bridge (checkerboard) with Tipple (circles); the still elusive Mooka (wormy looking thing in the center) with Nekton (hashmarks); Isochor (curved lines) with Tipple (circles); Hollibaugh (pickup sticks) with Printemps (oval spirals); Shattuck (triangles) with Amaze (squiggles).

Overall, I think these things shared this space very well.