Today is the day my Notary supplies came in the mail. I’m ready to make your signature legit!
Category: To Occupy my Time
PKO Graduates!
You might recall reading about PKO here. Or my photo-filled walk to her Senior Dessert. But today she graduates!
Small school graduations. So very different from big school graduations.
Here are the members of the Class of ’16. They each got to pick the color of their graduation gown. (Which was very hard for me; the uniformity of graduation gowns and mortarboards is the only reason to wear them. This just looks messy.)
PKO listening to her teacher’s speech about her. It was a great speech, filled with all sorts of fun PKO facts.
The degrees have been conferred and the tassels have been switched. She has two tassels because she was the recipient of an achievement award.
After the teachers made speeches about the students and the students said their thank yous, the staff sang a song to the students. In keeping with the theme of the teachers’ speeches, the song’s main sentiment was, “Yep, you’re done. Time to leave now. Door’s that way.” This theme was initially off-putting, and then quickly became tremendously fun. It was like a gentle student roast by teachers who knew the students very, very well.
PKO and the moms, TO & LK
PKO and more of the fam.
PKO with her friends.
Congratulations PKO!
Sure does look like a bunch of unfinished projects…
I got a lot done this weekend–nearly finished all my to-do list–and still I see a lot of projects. The netting needs to be put up for the bush beans. The jars need to be transferred to Leo’s garden. The bag of dryer lint needs to be transferred to the yard debris bin. The cardboard needs to be stripped of its tape and spread around the yard(s). The straw needs to be spread over the cardboard. The two pots of zucchini need to be planted. The raspberries need to be picked. The apple tree bed needs to be turned over. Those boards need to go elsewhere. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to sweep the porch.
Requiem: Purple Bowl
Oh purple bowl! You came to me in an Easter care package my mother mailed me when I was living in Somerville, Massachusetts. I don’t recall the other things in that package, but I took to you immediately. You were a big bowl, but not very heavy and you got a lot of use. I planned to keep you with me for many more years. But no. You were in the oven, doing your job of proofing bread, and I forgot about you and preheated the oven to 400 degrees. 
No bread for me. And worse, no more purple bowl. I’m sorry you didn’t get a longer life. And I’m also sorry I didn’t get to complete the last thing on my to-do list this weekend. 
Dead Relatives Tour 2016
For some reason it’s taken me a long time to notice this carved piece of art. It’s kind of 60’s cool, in keeping with the decor. That’s a far-out Jesus.
Uncle Tom is still resting in peace. I missed taking a picture of the Great-great grandparents grave.
At the next cemetery, I apparently had my camera set to “poster” again. This is Aunt Pat getting started.
And the finished product.
Then we ate Chinese food.
Requiem: Yellow Job Notebook
Once upon a time, a teacher told me to keep a notebook with all the information I would need to apply for a job. I believe this was my ninth grade reading teacher, and her name has fallen out of my memory, though I can picture her classroom, where it was located (in a school that has now been torn down) and the fact that Ryan Fitzgerald was in that class with me.
I thought this was good advice and I wanted a job, so I found a notebook and started my list. [And now I see that it can’t be my ninth grade reading teacher who told me, because the first entries were all put at the same time and I didn’t start working until tenth grade. So I’m not sure what happened there. Maybe I had a different notebook as a starter notebook?]
At any rate, I’ve kept it all these years, adding to it every time I started a job search again. In tidying last year, I set it in my inbox to transition to a Word document, because job hunting has changed and no longer do I need to fill out paper applications (thank god). I’ve finally made a word document called “Yellow Job Notebook”, but thought I would capture it one last time before I sent it on its way. Notice the addition of my typing speed and the type of printer I once owned.
Here’s the first page. Ah memories. Wild Waters doesn’t even exist anymore. Though someone has made a helpful Facebook page of Where Wild Waters Used to Be and some photos. And look at my rates of pay!
Earliest reserve times for Oregon State Parks
Back when I had the boring job (thankfully many, many years ago) I put together a table of when to reserve campsites (cabins/yurts/teepees/etc.) through the Oregon State Parks. The rules in Oregon are that you can reserve nine months and two weeks before your visit.
This table of dates has been posted on a bulliten board that was tidied away and then the table moved to the inbox, where I was going to make a blog post. And then another year passed. But here it is!
There seem to be no tables in WordPress, and I’m too lazy to make an illustration so here’s the stripped down format:
Holiday or “Holiday” (approximate date of holiday) when to reserve
New Years (1st week in January) reserve by April 1
MLK (3rd week in January) reserve by Mid-April
President’s Day (3rd week in February) reserve by Mid-May
Halfway between MLK & Memorial Day (Mid-march to end of March) June 15-30
Memorial Day (last weekend in May) August 30
Mid-July (Mid-July) October 15
First of August (First of August) November 1
Labor Day (First Monday in September) December 1
Veterans Day (11th of November) February 11
Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November) End of February
Christmas (25th of December) March 25
Due to calendar variations, you may have to adjust the reserve dates slightly. But you get the picture.
Dance recital 2016
This year we performed a fetching number to “Steam Heat” from the 2006 revival of the Pajama Game. There were hats. We tossed them up and caught them. It was incredibly fun. 
We were tasked with all wearing vests, but the closest I could find at my local Goodwill was a sweater vest. Which I washed to get rid of the Goodwill smell and it shrunk. Oh well! I still wore it.
Afterward, Matt presented me with flowers. They were beautiful and I loved that the florist wrapped them in pattern paper.
First raspberries
Aside from the fact the raspberries are producing already, I also found a few volunteer potatoes in the compost pile. They were all delicious!
My walk to work
Since January 25, my first day at work, I’ve been pretty darn good about getting off at the Rose Quarter and walking over the Steel Bridge. I think I’ve not done it fewer than five times. One challenge I have with taking the same walk over and over is that things can feel stale. So I try to look for small changes as I walk.
Here is my approach to the bridge. I have a picture of this from 2007 covered in wildflowers. Alas, it’s reverted to grass. She’s a persistent one, that grass. For a two-week period earlier in the year this was covered in Canada geese chomping away. But they moved to another part of their life cycle after some point and the rain eventually washed all their poop off the sidewalk.
I believe this random post used to have more than a No Parking sign on it. But who knows what it was? Regardless, the end of the horizontal post is open and for a period of time (I assume it was nesting time) I would usually see a sparrow perching at the edge of the opening and chirping away.
My first view of downtown
A way to measure peak moss. We have moved through Peak Moss Month (this year: March) and the moss has started to recede. 
My next view of downtown.
This grain silo operation is continually fascinating to me. Sometimes the ships are *poof* suddenly there. And then they sit for a week or more. Why do they sit so long? And why do I mostly never see any sailors on the ships? I once came across the ship being filled, which was quite fun to watch. 
Today we have a barge. I always like barges, probably because I learned the song “Barges” at Girl Scout camp. 
Work is being done on the Steel Bridge. Can you spot the workers?
Another game I’ve been playing is to see when all the slips are filled with boats. At first there were just two, but they’ve been slowly arriving as we have so much nice weather. Also, I really like that condominium complex. Though it’s more geometric than I would choose to build, I think it’s aged well and looks great against the river and the city.
It took several weeks for me to notice that the black sign lights up with the words “stopped vehicles ahead”. And then several more weeks to figure out what triggers it. The train is the trigger. When the Green and Yellow lines make the hard turn to the right at the base of the bridge all traffic must stop, so the sign illuminates.
The beach where a lot of dogs play. I don’t think that beach was there earlier in the year, so I will watch the water level change.
Over the tracks. I often think of Jan when I walk this part, as she lived in for some time in an apartment that is just out of view.
These three semi trucks are parked behind the abandoned fire station house I would like to renovate.
As you can see, homeless people have taken to living in them.
It is easy to get around this fence.
I am quite pleased with the renovation of this building. It sat empty for many of my years living in Portland. There seems to be a gym in the basement. I enjoy wondering if today will be the day I look up to see what gym it is.
The red brick building is the old Blanchet House. When the new Blanchet House was built on the opposite corner of the block, the billboard space became less desirable. So this billboard is slowly being peeled away by the elements. It’s also exposing its signage precursor.
At this point, my camera battery died, so you will have to wait to see other highlights from my walk to work.