Category: To Occupy my Time

The last Breakfast

For five years, our friends Laurie and Burt have been hosting Breakfast once per month in their home.  They live less than a mile away, so Matt and I have attended regularly.  Free food!  We’re good at that.

Today is, alas, the last Breakfast.  I brought a Gingerbread Man friend along, so you will see him in these photos.

This is Burt and Laurie’s house, which I love.  Partially because Burt and Laurie live there, but partially because it’s a very old house (for Portland), has a really awesome fireplace that came around the Horn, and also because you can see how the house grew as time went on.

IMG_4878

Laurie and Burt always have a variety of beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate, orange juice and water.  Because this was the last Breakfast, there was also champagne to make mimosas.

IMG_4879

Laurie poses with the food.  There are always scrambled eggs, feta cheese, potatoes, vegetarian sausage, bacon and fruit.  Plus either pancakes or waffles and some small sugary bready thing like mini cinnamon rolls.  It’s a great spread. Laurie’s nephew and his mother also are enjoying breakfast.

IMG_4880

Burt is the pancake/waffle man.  His pancake/waffle job keeps him in the kitchen, but he pops in and out while things are cooking.

IMG_4881It’s been fun to have five years of breakfasts.  I will miss the second Saturday food and conversation.  Thanks Burt and Laurie!

What I spent my Christmas money on

I bought a tablet!

20151227_102339

And because I’ve learned that buying an electronic device is just the beginning of your expenses, aside from the tablet I bought a memory card, a heavy-duty case and also a new bluetooth speaker.  For unknown reasons the bluetooth speaker that worked perfectly fine with my phone was all crackly when used with the tablet.  I also bought a new case for my phone, as my old one was on its last legs.

One thing I like about Samsung products (and perhaps other products do this, it’s just that I’ve only had Samsung phones) is that when you get a new device and log in, everything is automatically downloaded.  It’s pretty cool.

IMG_4851

One thing I’m looking forward to is having a bigger platform to read the digital editions of the newspaper.  You can see the difference here:IMG_4852

And look how much bigger the pictures are on the tablet!IMG_4853

I had a $25.00 credit for apps from Amazon and bought Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Cataan.  Ticket to Ride is by far the prettiest of those apps, and my inability to win, dammit, has had me playing many games.  I anticipate that not as many games will be played once I start back to work, but it’s an amusing diversion.
 IMG_4855

My old phone case served me well.  And was cheery.IMG_4845

It’s a new year! Stuff got done.

I purposely didn’t plan very many projects to work on over the break.  In fact, the only plan was fix cat tree, so Antares would stop scratching the furniture. Julie came over and we used sisal rope to replace the fraying sisal.  Good job us!

IMG_4848

As a reward, we prepped for my t-quilt, yet another massive undertaking.  My last quilt was made out of 3″x3″ squares of denim and other old pants.  It took more than five years and when it was done, I found it to be ugly.  But it’s super warm and keeps me warm every winter.  I just put a comforter on top so I can’t see my design.  So I have low expectations for this project.  But at this point I need to get started as I have been saving t-shirts from high school. (Borah High Class of 1993.)

I bought sheets at Fred Meyer (one black, one white) and we created a 15″x15″ template and cut out squares of backing for the t-shirts.  Then, we created  a frame (seen behind the square template made out of brown paper bags) so I could center my t-shirts before I cut them to size.  And then we cut two t-shirts so I could get started.

IMG_4847My plan is to affix the t-shirts to the sheet/backing using Sashiko embroidery.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, it was nice to have Julie’s big self-healing mat and rotary cutter, as well as her company.  Thanks Julie!

Top 10 photos of 2015

Each year in December I go through the photos taken and pick out 10 to display on my wall for the next year.  Here are this year’s choices:

The bassist for Jilt and some mood lightingIMG_2550

Patton Oswalt at the Newmark TheaterIMG_2694

Fans of Gail Forman at her reading.IMG_2724

A shadow of a stop signIMG_2823

Daisies breaking free of chain link fence.IMG_3213

Bird and Mt. Hood.IMG_3483

Sara, an appropriate shirt for the setting, and the couple we were spying on.IMG_3724

Macbeth at the Lone Fir CemeteryIMG_4273

My toes at the beachIMG_4513

Various McLains working together to get the perfect shot.IMG_4640

New Year’s Eve Plans

New Year’s Eve is my least favorite day of the year and so, with Matt out of town, I made some plans.  Double feature!

IMG_4837

The beautiful Hollywood Theater has the Roadshow production of Quentin Tarintino’s The Hateful Eight.  To hear more about what makes the Roadshow different, watch this feature.  Samuel Jackson says you should go.  And when Samuel Jackson says stuff, you know it’s true.  So I went!

And look at the bendy screen!  It’s so big, it didn’t even fit within my camera lens.

IMG_4838

After the Hateful Eight, I had some dinner at a trolley sushi place, and then went back to see Joy.  It was a good way to spend the holiday.

My new volunteer job.

I now volunteer with the Hollywood Library Teen Book Council.  The Hollywood Library has such robust programming that there is a regular Teen Council, as well as a Teen Book Council, as well as some other ways for teenagers to meet and talk about books.  I love Portland, the Multnomah County Library, and Danielle, the Teen Librarian so much!

Anyway, I go to the meetings where we choose a theme, and then recommend books on that theme.  After the meeting, I take the list of recommended books and write annotations of the books.  Then I ship my annotations back to Danielle and she puts them together in a post for the library’s website.  It’s pretty cool.

In November, we watched The Great British Bake-Off and recommended books for the hosts as well as the contestants.  Here’s the link to the final product:
https://multcolib.org/blog/20151229/great-british-baking-show-book-gift-edition

My favorite part of my white elephant gift.

Every year, friends have a White Elephant Christmas Party.  It’s always very fun, and fun to see what burbles to the surface as White Elephant gifts.  This year, Jeff opened a present that included two DVDs (Darby O’Gill and the Little People, Lost in Translation) and also a mix CD titled “My favorite songs of 2015, by Jane, age 7.”

I asked what the titles were, and Jeff read them, to a lot of jeering from other (male) party goers.

I got to choose after Jeff, and so I stole from him. I gave the two DVDs away, but kept the CD.

IMG_4846

Matt and I listened to it in the car and I can say that Jane, age 7, and I don’t have the same taste in music.  And both Matt and I were surprised at how many of the songs were about sex.  I think Jane, age 16, will listen to this CD and be aghast at how much went over her head.  But I love that Jane, age 7 has an opinion about what kind of music she likes.  And that’s why I was happy to take home this CD.

Jane, age 7, by the way is the daughter of one of the other party guest.  Her mother said the mix CD was a party favor for her birthday and also that there are favorite songs Mix CDs for Jane age 6, 5, and 4.  Which is also pretty cool.